Thursday, March 31, 2011

Interchange games

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Well, AussieRulesBlog is wrong again!

 

Back in January, we predicted that interchange rates would increase with the reduction to three interchange seats for 2011. That is, we thought the total number of interchanges would be down, but the number of interchanges per interchange seat would be up.

 

How could we have got it so wrong?

 

In fact, Essendon and four other teams managed more interchange rotations in round one of 2011 than their 2010 interchange rotation average. In the Bombers’ case, their 134 interchanges eclipsed even their highest number of interchanges for any 2010 game: 122.

 

The AFL’s own announcement of the change to the composition of the bench cited a desire to curb the increasing interchange numbers. Well, it’s been an outstanding success at that, don’t you think, Adrian? No less than five teams beat their 2010 average with one fewer interchange player available in round one of 2011.

 

Kevin Bartlett’s Rules of the Game committee was offered three alternatives:

  • three interchange players and one subtitute
  • two interchange players and two substitutes
  • four interchange players, with a cap of 80 interchanges per game

 

Now we freely concede that a team losing a player to injury is less disadvantaged through the 3:1 rule than they would have been under an unrestricted 4-man interchange. But we can’t see how that disadvantage is not also countered by the cap option, which mandates a reduction in interchange rotations.

 

Clearly the Committee erred in its recommendation of option one by favouring the fairness criterion over the rest. The numbers from round one prove the error. Unless the Bombers suffer a sudden rash of injuries attributable to high interchange rates — such as multiple bum splinters from jumping on and off ‘the pine’ — it’s pretty obvious that the twelve coaches who didn’t maximise their rotations in round one are going to be following the Bombers’ and the Barcodes’ leads, and then the rule will be seen to be a total crock.

 

We heard Brad Scott on AFL Insider on FoxSports suggest that the AFL leave the game alone for two or three years and just see how it evolves to deal with this current set of rules before making changes with unforeseen consequences. Hear hear, Brad!

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Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Waite a second more . . .

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AussieRulesBlog has always thought that kicking another player was viewed, by players and fans alike, as the lowest act on a footy field.

 

No longer it seems. The MRP ruling that Jarrad Waite’s kick did not connect with sufficient force to warrant a penalty absolutely trashes whatever was left of football’s ‘moral’ code. (Keen-eyed readers will note that we predicted this outcome a few days ago.)

 

What of intent? What if, instead of nearly ruining his opponent’s ‘family jewels’, Waite’s kick had connected solidly with his opponents shin? Would THAT have been with sufficient force to warrant a penalty? Surely a backward kick is reckless in the extreme and deserving of a significant penalty?

 

There were certainly issues with the old report/Tribunal system and there’s much to like about the certainty and formulaic approach of the current review system, but there are just as many glaringly, embarrassingly wrong judgements made.

 

There’s something desperately wrong with a system that has Richmond’s Alex Rance offered a four-week penalty for bumping Waite, albeit with contact to the head, and Matthew Scarlett getting a week for thumping Nick Riewoldt to the ribs, albeit a mile off the ball, and Waite not having a case to answer.

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Saturday, March 26, 2011

Waite a second. . .

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Interesting vision on Channel Seven on Friday night appearing to show Carlton’s Jarrad Waite attempting to kick a Richmond opponent behind him. It can only have been good luck or Waite’s lack of flexibility that saved the opponent’s ‘man bits’.

 

AussieRulesBlog eagerly awaits the Match Review Panel’s announcement that Waite did nothing wrong.

 

In the meantime, Saint Farren Ray will be asked to answer a charge after Cat Joel Selwood all but ran into him as they both braced to contest the ball between them. We can’t help but admire Selwood’s courage, but it’s not by accident that he receives so many free kicks for high contact.

 

We think Selwood puts his head and shoulders down low on purpose to draw contact and free kicks. We have complained previously that a player who has chosen to put his head down low and then runs into an opponent should not be rewarded with a free kick. Often times the opponent has no practical option but to allow himself to be hit.

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Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Protect the bounce

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With less than two days before the real stuff begins, AussieRulesBlog wants to pre-empt the virtually inevitable call for AFL to do away with umpires bouncing our oval ball.

 

Over the last couple of weekends we’ve taken the opportunity of a lack of AFL to watch a couple of Melbourne Storm games. As Melburnians, we are certainly proud of the way Cameron Smith, Billy Slater, Cooper Cronk and the boys have been following Craig Bellamy’s instructions. We’re not to sure about the News Ltd ownership of the Storm since we have scant regard for Citizen Murdoch, but that’s another post!

 

The thing that we’ve noticed most about the NRL games we’ve seen is the brutality — in a good way, if that’s possible — of simply running at a line of opponents expecting to be hit. We cannot help but admire the courage of every player on the park.

 

But then there’s a scrum. Well, if a modern NRL scrum isn’t the most pathetic sight, we don’t know what is. The players in the scrum stand in a rather desultory fashion while the ball is fed into the scrum from very close to its back. There’s virtually no contest for the ball. It’s simply shovelled to the back of the scrum and then passed away.

 

Compare an NRL scrum and a Super Rugby scrum. Goodness, what a contrast. An NRL scrum looks the most useless and out-of-place exercise.

 

Why is AussieRulesBlog spending valuable time talking about the British Bulldog mob? It illustrates how the spectacle of the game can be destroyed by a seemingly insignificant element.

 

In AFL terms, we fear that the field umpire’s bounce could go the way of competitive NRL scrums and diminish the unique spectacle of our game. Let’s not bend to the cries of those who would replace the bounce with a basketball tip-off.

 

We think the AFL and the umpiring department — wait for it . . . — have got the bounce just about right, in the sense that a bounce going outside the large circle is recalled and thrown up. We retain the mystique of the umpire bouncing, we maintain a reasonable degree of fairness by allowing the space of the big circle for the bounce to come down, and we restart from obviously unfair bounces.

 

There are many uniquely wonderful aspects of our game that should be protected — physicality, high marking, running and bouncing, goal umpires with flags, and umpires bouncing the ball at stoppages.

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Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Substitution not a new idea

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As the 2011 season is almost upon us, the footy press is full of articles about the new bench arrangements with three interchange and one substitute player. It will be a big change for clubs to come to grips with, but it’s not all that new.

The concerns seem to be focused on coaches being forced to send injured players back onto the field. In truth, it’s not all that different to the current situation — get four injuries and you lose flexibility to rest players and the next injury means either playing a man short or playing an injured player.

The real learning curve is going to come in deciding which player to nominate as the substitute and, more importantly, when to make the substitution.

It wasn’t until 1930 that there were bench players of any description in the VFL. That year saw the first use of a “19th man”. This was a true substitution: one player off, and not able to return, one player on.

In 1946 a second ‘reserve’ player was introduced, the “20th man”. It was not uncommon for reserve players to sit out an entire game, although the two reserves generally got a run toward the end of the last quarter.

Interchanges weren’t permitted until 1978, so VFL coaches had plenty of experience in husbanding their resources up until that point. As we know, interchange developed to the point where there was virtually one change per minute in 2010.

So, is this new format for the interchange bench a disaster? Hardly. Will it tax coaches tactically? Yes. Was it the best option available for slowing the game and reducing interchange rates? In our opinion, not even close. A cap would have done the same job with much less complexity. Still, it wouldn’t be the AFL if they took the most logical option, would it?
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Monday, March 14, 2011

Staging all OK

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More proof today that the AFL, through the Match Review Panel, sold us a pup with their much-vaunted staging sanctions. Essendon’s Stewart Crameri has been cleared of any wrongdoing after making high contact with the Barcodes’ Dale Thomas during the pres-season Grand Final.

Clearly the Match Review Panel stopped the tape as soon as the contact was made, otherwise they would have seen Thomas execute one of the great examples of staging, throwing his body into the air like some demented gymnast.

Why announce staging sanctions if they’re never to be applied? Why do such a poor job of promoting what the staging sanctions purported to be about that there is widespread misunderstanding of them?

It’s clear there was never any intention to have these rules applied. What AussieRulesBlog can’t figure out is why they went to the trouble of creating the sanctions in the first place. It’s not like there was a general hue and cry to eliminate the sort of exaggerated response that the rules were supposed to deal with.

What was also clear is that fans want exaggeration of contact in marking contests to be outlawed, but we suspect the AFL doesn’t have any taste for tackling that issue. Frankly, we wouldn’t either in their position.
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Saturday, March 12, 2011

GF umpiring below par

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The 2010 pre-season was noteable for the general quality of umpiring. So too the 2011 pre-season — right up to the Grand Final.

Fans of both sides in the GF had ample reason to be, by turns, angry, confused, non-plussed, amazed, incredulous, bewildered and staggered.

Not the whistleblowers’ finest hour!

Jeff, we know that consistency from round to round is a big ask, but surely we can expect it from quarter to quarter? Or even pack to pack?

Release the Giesch!

Memo to those doing the reading for the two Barcodes-supporting buffoons sitting behind me: Yes, we know you won the Premiership in 1990, and yes, you flogged the Bombers. You don’t have to tell us every five minutes. Pulling on black and white garb doesn’t have to mean that you resign your membership of the human race as well.
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Advantage rule flawed

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Jeff Gieschen has a problem. Not one of his own making this time, but one delivered by the Rules of the Game Committee.

On a number of occasions during the pres-season competition Grand Final, players were penalised for attempting to tackle opponents behind the mark. In and of itself, AussieRulesBlog has no issue with that decision.

This scenario becomes difficult when we have player-initiated advantage.

As things stand at the moment, the player initiating advantage by playing on, regardless of the whistle, cannot be tackled until his opponents hear the “Play on” or “Advantage” call. The penalty, either a hefty 50 metres or a huge advantage to the other team, is too much of a penalty.

The problem may not be of Gieschen’s making, but his umpires, thus far at least, don’t seem to be umpiring this scenario with logic and consistency in mind.
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Friday, March 11, 2011

A final without my team?

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Our blogging colleague Jermayn Parker, from Kick-2-Kick blog, comments on our post regarding consideration of a 10-team final series, “Australians love their finals though, don’t we?”

We think he has a point, but these days that love is more often than not only expressed through the lens of supporting their own team.

When we were nipping round the knees of our sainted father, we were taken to the finals when there was a final 4 and only one game each weekend in September. Yes, back in the 60s.

Among our fondest memories of those experiences was turning up at the ‘G’ and seeing a kaleidoscope of colour as supporters of pretty much every team in the competition came to the game to watch a couple of the best teams for the year battle it out. Even the First Semi-Final, between the third- and fourth-placed teams, drew this sort of crowd.

Of course we also remember standing on empty steel beer cans in the outer so we could see and, one dark winter afternoon in the Ryder stand at Victoria Park, peeing into an empty drink can because the stairways were jammed with troglodyte Barcodes supporters! But we digress. . .

We know those halcyon days can’t be reclaimed, but we are sorry that the spirit of wanting to watch a good game of football, regardless of the teams involved, has been overtaken by such parochial support that watching one’s own favourite team is the only football many people see — even on television.
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Thursday, March 10, 2011

Roll up, roll up! Everyone’s a winner!

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Like some sideshow spruiker, the AFL is considering a 10-team final series in 2012 when the GWS Giants join the elite competition. Andrew, let’s just call the whole season a final series and then everyone can join in the fun!

As has been amply demonstrated in recent years, the teams finishing in the bottom half of the current 8-team final series are pretty much just making up the numbers. It’s difficult to imagine that a team could win a Premiership from position 5 or 6, let alone 7 or 8.

It would appear that one of the considerations is keeping as many fans as possible interested for as long as possible, thus, the more teams involved in post-home-and-away-season action the better.

AussieRulesBlog is firmly of the view that final series have been more ordinary, especially in the first two weeks, since the introduction of the final 8. We can only express our fear that a final 10 would produce even more meaningless wastes of time that fans would have to pay through the nose for.

Here’s an idea, Andrew! Let’s make the final series a showcase of the very best teams in the competition pitted against each other in winner-takes-all contests. You know, something like the old final 4!
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Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Priorities: AFL, VFL or individual?

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It’s hard not to sympathise with the attitude of Melbourne FC regarding Casey Scorpions’ signing of Brendan Fevola. And yet, as AussieRulesBlog has previously noted, football may very well be Fevola’s best route back from the brink.

The Demons’ public objections centre on development of their young forward prospects being jeopardised. No doubt they have other, less public, objections such as the potential for Fevola to influence their youngsters — and who could blame them, again.

There isn’t an easy answer here: the best interests of Melbourne FC and its youthful recruits versus the interests of Casey and of Fevola.

As we’ve also previously noted, despite their many differences, there are synergies between Fevola’s situation and that of Ben Cousins two years ago. It would be a hard judge who would deny that Cousins’ involvement with the Tigers, as both player and mentor, did not benefit both parties.

It would be more than churlish to deny such an opportunity to Fevola.

Whatever the merits of giving Fevola another chance, this disagreement brings into stark contrast the difficulties of VFL clubs, many the remnants of the old VFA, being tied to AFL clubs. In return for their dollars, the AFL clubs expect preferential treatment.

Already a number of AFL clubs have decided they are better served fielding their own, fully-integrated VFL teams. This must be making the administrators of current VFL clubs pretty nervous. Frankston appears to be almost a basket case. Port Melbourne, the most likely to continue to survive in the long term as a standalone, faces the rapid gentrification of the suburb that might be the death of a thousand cuts for the proud Burroughs.

The AFL, as custodians of the game, have some real difficulties here and we don’t envy them the task one little bit. The quality of the VFL as a feeder and development competition to the elite AFL level is, arguably, pretty poor. But the obvious alternatives are financially and logistically difficult and may leave the middle tiers of the game in a parlous state.

We await developments.
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Video turkey gobbles again

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Back in December of 2009, AussieRulesBlog railed against the proposal for video-assisted goal umpiring decisions. Once again, the practical application of the rule has demonstrated how flawed that proposal, now implemented, was.

Past applications of the rule have, mostly, involved deciding whether the ball has passed completely over the goal line or struck a goal post (although an incident early in the 2011 pre-season competition followed a similar trajectory to this one — Ed.). These are quite finite, immoveable objects and, at least relatively, easy to judge the position of a ball at relatively low velocity against.

Not content with that scenario, Gieschen’s mob decided to up the ante on Friday night and query a ball being touched just as it left a player’s boot. Let’s just assume that the ball is travelling at about 40m/s in that initial instant. If the TV cameras are capturing the action at, say, 25 frames per second, simple arithmetic shows that the ball will have moved about 1.6 metres between two adjacent frames — 0.04 of a second. And we’re supposed to accept that the video judge was able to discern the ball being touched in a grainy, jerky sequence of video frames?

Come on Jeff, Adrian, Andrew. This is nonsense.

Not only is the premise that a decision can be made in this instance nonsense, but the interminable wait for a decision that we presume, in this instance, was to award the lesser result because the video was inconclusive compounded the problem. For the last 130 years that has been a goal and nothing was seen to indicate that it wasn’t a goal in this instance.

And let us just mention again that a team awarded a point has much less opportunity for a video referral since the game is restarted these days almost before the goal umpire has signalled his decision. And the team kicking out if a behind is awarded have lost any advantage of a quick exit from their defensive zone as their opponents have a couple of minutes to perfect their defensive zone.

When are you people going to grasp that, despite Hawkins’ glancing goal in the 2010 Grand Final, single incidents don’t win or lose games and so this futile attempt to reduce an estimated current error rate of 0.1% across a whole season is a turkey.
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Monday, March 07, 2011

An (open) eye on the ball!

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Further to our previous post focussing on Nick Riewoldt’s new goalkicking routine, we had the chance to watch him at fairly close quarters on Friday night — great effort, Bombers!. He only had one (or perhaps two?) set shots during the game, but we were watching closely during the Saints’ warmup before the game.

We think he’s basically on the right track, but the follow through action of the leg is somewhat exaggerated — as it would be for someone who is embracing a ‘non-natural’ action.

The additional area that might still need focus is to ensure that his eyes are actually open at the point of impact. We noted that the set shot taken during the game missed the target by a considerable distance.

To return to the golf analogy we used in the previous post, we find that we have an instinctive reaction to blink right at the point of impact of the golf clubhead and ball.

When we blink, our success rate is way less than 50%, however, when we can convince our eyes to stay open right through the impact, our success rate (the ball flying straight and true in the intended direction) is approaching 100%. It goes without saying that even this incentive does not keep our eyes open!!

We also made the point about open eyes to Matthew Knights last year when the Bombers had the ‘yips’ in front of goal.

There’s some pretty interesting research just waiting to be done here.

We’ll take a hefty punt that current Bomber and ex-Hawk, Mark Williams, renowned for his sharpshooting, has his eyes firmly open and on the ball as he kicks for goal.
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Interchange games

Well, AussieRulesBlog is wrong again!

 

Back in January, we predicted that interchange rates would increase with the reduction to three interchange seats for 2011. That is, we thought the total number of interchanges would be down, but the number of interchanges per interchange seat would be up.

 

How could we have got it so wrong?

 

In fact, Essendon and four other teams managed more interchange rotations in round one of 2011 than their 2010 interchange rotation average. In the Bombers’ case, their 134 interchanges eclipsed even their highest number of interchanges for any 2010 game: 122.

 

The AFL’s own announcement of the change to the composition of the bench cited a desire to curb the increasing interchange numbers. Well, it’s been an outstanding success at that, don’t you think, Adrian? No less than five teams beat their 2010 average with one fewer interchange player available in round one of 2011.

 

Kevin Bartlett’s Rules of the Game committee was offered three alternatives:

  • three interchange players and one subtitute
  • two interchange players and two substitutes
  • four interchange players, with a cap of 80 interchanges per game

 

Now we freely concede that a team losing a player to injury is less disadvantaged through the 3:1 rule than they would have been under an unrestricted 4-man interchange. But we can’t see how that disadvantage is not also countered by the cap option, which mandates a reduction in interchange rotations.

 

Clearly the Committee erred in its recommendation of option one by favouring the fairness criterion over the rest. The numbers from round one prove the error. Unless the Bombers suffer a sudden rash of injuries attributable to high interchange rates — such as multiple bum splinters from jumping on and off ‘the pine’ — it’s pretty obvious that the twelve coaches who didn’t maximise their rotations in round one are going to be following the Bombers’ and the Barcodes’ leads, and then the rule will be seen to be a total crock.

 

We heard Brad Scott on AFL Insider on FoxSports suggest that the AFL leave the game alone for two or three years and just see how it evolves to deal with this current set of rules before making changes with unforeseen consequences. Hear hear, Brad!

Waite a second more . . .

AussieRulesBlog has always thought that kicking another player was viewed, by players and fans alike, as the lowest act on a footy field.

 

No longer it seems. The MRP ruling that Jarrad Waite’s kick did not connect with sufficient force to warrant a penalty absolutely trashes whatever was left of football’s ‘moral’ code. (Keen-eyed readers will note that we predicted this outcome a few days ago.)

 

What of intent? What if, instead of nearly ruining his opponent’s ‘family jewels’, Waite’s kick had connected solidly with his opponents shin? Would THAT have been with sufficient force to warrant a penalty? Surely a backward kick is reckless in the extreme and deserving of a significant penalty?

 

There were certainly issues with the old report/Tribunal system and there’s much to like about the certainty and formulaic approach of the current review system, but there are just as many glaringly, embarrassingly wrong judgements made.

 

There’s something desperately wrong with a system that has Richmond’s Alex Rance offered a four-week penalty for bumping Waite, albeit with contact to the head, and Matthew Scarlett getting a week for thumping Nick Riewoldt to the ribs, albeit a mile off the ball, and Waite not having a case to answer.

Waite a second. . .

Interesting vision on Channel Seven on Friday night appearing to show Carlton’s Jarrad Waite attempting to kick a Richmond opponent behind him. It can only have been good luck or Waite’s lack of flexibility that saved the opponent’s ‘man bits’.

 

AussieRulesBlog eagerly awaits the Match Review Panel’s announcement that Waite did nothing wrong.

 

In the meantime, Saint Farren Ray will be asked to answer a charge after Cat Joel Selwood all but ran into him as they both braced to contest the ball between them. We can’t help but admire Selwood’s courage, but it’s not by accident that he receives so many free kicks for high contact.

 

We think Selwood puts his head and shoulders down low on purpose to draw contact and free kicks. We have complained previously that a player who has chosen to put his head down low and then runs into an opponent should not be rewarded with a free kick. Often times the opponent has no practical option but to allow himself to be hit.

Protect the bounce

With less than two days before the real stuff begins, AussieRulesBlog wants to pre-empt the virtually inevitable call for AFL to do away with umpires bouncing our oval ball.

 

Over the last couple of weekends we’ve taken the opportunity of a lack of AFL to watch a couple of Melbourne Storm games. As Melburnians, we are certainly proud of the way Cameron Smith, Billy Slater, Cooper Cronk and the boys have been following Craig Bellamy’s instructions. We’re not to sure about the News Ltd ownership of the Storm since we have scant regard for Citizen Murdoch, but that’s another post!

 

The thing that we’ve noticed most about the NRL games we’ve seen is the brutality — in a good way, if that’s possible — of simply running at a line of opponents expecting to be hit. We cannot help but admire the courage of every player on the park.

 

But then there’s a scrum. Well, if a modern NRL scrum isn’t the most pathetic sight, we don’t know what is. The players in the scrum stand in a rather desultory fashion while the ball is fed into the scrum from very close to its back. There’s virtually no contest for the ball. It’s simply shovelled to the back of the scrum and then passed away.

 

Compare an NRL scrum and a Super Rugby scrum. Goodness, what a contrast. An NRL scrum looks the most useless and out-of-place exercise.

 

Why is AussieRulesBlog spending valuable time talking about the British Bulldog mob? It illustrates how the spectacle of the game can be destroyed by a seemingly insignificant element.

 

In AFL terms, we fear that the field umpire’s bounce could go the way of competitive NRL scrums and diminish the unique spectacle of our game. Let’s not bend to the cries of those who would replace the bounce with a basketball tip-off.

 

We think the AFL and the umpiring department — wait for it . . . — have got the bounce just about right, in the sense that a bounce going outside the large circle is recalled and thrown up. We retain the mystique of the umpire bouncing, we maintain a reasonable degree of fairness by allowing the space of the big circle for the bounce to come down, and we restart from obviously unfair bounces.

 

There are many uniquely wonderful aspects of our game that should be protected — physicality, high marking, running and bouncing, goal umpires with flags, and umpires bouncing the ball at stoppages.

Substitution not a new idea

As the 2011 season is almost upon us, the footy press is full of articles about the new bench arrangements with three interchange and one substitute player. It will be a big change for clubs to come to grips with, but it’s not all that new.

The concerns seem to be focused on coaches being forced to send injured players back onto the field. In truth, it’s not all that different to the current situation — get four injuries and you lose flexibility to rest players and the next injury means either playing a man short or playing an injured player.

The real learning curve is going to come in deciding which player to nominate as the substitute and, more importantly, when to make the substitution.

It wasn’t until 1930 that there were bench players of any description in the VFL. That year saw the first use of a “19th man”. This was a true substitution: one player off, and not able to return, one player on.

In 1946 a second ‘reserve’ player was introduced, the “20th man”. It was not uncommon for reserve players to sit out an entire game, although the two reserves generally got a run toward the end of the last quarter.

Interchanges weren’t permitted until 1978, so VFL coaches had plenty of experience in husbanding their resources up until that point. As we know, interchange developed to the point where there was virtually one change per minute in 2010.

So, is this new format for the interchange bench a disaster? Hardly. Will it tax coaches tactically? Yes. Was it the best option available for slowing the game and reducing interchange rates? In our opinion, not even close. A cap would have done the same job with much less complexity. Still, it wouldn’t be the AFL if they took the most logical option, would it?

Staging all OK

More proof today that the AFL, through the Match Review Panel, sold us a pup with their much-vaunted staging sanctions. Essendon’s Stewart Crameri has been cleared of any wrongdoing after making high contact with the Barcodes’ Dale Thomas during the pres-season Grand Final.

Clearly the Match Review Panel stopped the tape as soon as the contact was made, otherwise they would have seen Thomas execute one of the great examples of staging, throwing his body into the air like some demented gymnast.

Why announce staging sanctions if they’re never to be applied? Why do such a poor job of promoting what the staging sanctions purported to be about that there is widespread misunderstanding of them?

It’s clear there was never any intention to have these rules applied. What AussieRulesBlog can’t figure out is why they went to the trouble of creating the sanctions in the first place. It’s not like there was a general hue and cry to eliminate the sort of exaggerated response that the rules were supposed to deal with.

What was also clear is that fans want exaggeration of contact in marking contests to be outlawed, but we suspect the AFL doesn’t have any taste for tackling that issue. Frankly, we wouldn’t either in their position.

GF umpiring below par

The 2010 pre-season was noteable for the general quality of umpiring. So too the 2011 pre-season — right up to the Grand Final.

Fans of both sides in the GF had ample reason to be, by turns, angry, confused, non-plussed, amazed, incredulous, bewildered and staggered.

Not the whistleblowers’ finest hour!

Jeff, we know that consistency from round to round is a big ask, but surely we can expect it from quarter to quarter? Or even pack to pack?

Release the Giesch!

Memo to those doing the reading for the two Barcodes-supporting buffoons sitting behind me: Yes, we know you won the Premiership in 1990, and yes, you flogged the Bombers. You don’t have to tell us every five minutes. Pulling on black and white garb doesn’t have to mean that you resign your membership of the human race as well.

Advantage rule flawed

Jeff Gieschen has a problem. Not one of his own making this time, but one delivered by the Rules of the Game Committee.

On a number of occasions during the pres-season competition Grand Final, players were penalised for attempting to tackle opponents behind the mark. In and of itself, AussieRulesBlog has no issue with that decision.

This scenario becomes difficult when we have player-initiated advantage.

As things stand at the moment, the player initiating advantage by playing on, regardless of the whistle, cannot be tackled until his opponents hear the “Play on” or “Advantage” call. The penalty, either a hefty 50 metres or a huge advantage to the other team, is too much of a penalty.

The problem may not be of Gieschen’s making, but his umpires, thus far at least, don’t seem to be umpiring this scenario with logic and consistency in mind.

A final without my team?

Our blogging colleague Jermayn Parker, from Kick-2-Kick blog, comments on our post regarding consideration of a 10-team final series, “Australians love their finals though, don’t we?”

We think he has a point, but these days that love is more often than not only expressed through the lens of supporting their own team.

When we were nipping round the knees of our sainted father, we were taken to the finals when there was a final 4 and only one game each weekend in September. Yes, back in the 60s.

Among our fondest memories of those experiences was turning up at the ‘G’ and seeing a kaleidoscope of colour as supporters of pretty much every team in the competition came to the game to watch a couple of the best teams for the year battle it out. Even the First Semi-Final, between the third- and fourth-placed teams, drew this sort of crowd.

Of course we also remember standing on empty steel beer cans in the outer so we could see and, one dark winter afternoon in the Ryder stand at Victoria Park, peeing into an empty drink can because the stairways were jammed with troglodyte Barcodes supporters! But we digress. . .

We know those halcyon days can’t be reclaimed, but we are sorry that the spirit of wanting to watch a good game of football, regardless of the teams involved, has been overtaken by such parochial support that watching one’s own favourite team is the only football many people see — even on television.

Roll up, roll up! Everyone’s a winner!

Like some sideshow spruiker, the AFL is considering a 10-team final series in 2012 when the GWS Giants join the elite competition. Andrew, let’s just call the whole season a final series and then everyone can join in the fun!

As has been amply demonstrated in recent years, the teams finishing in the bottom half of the current 8-team final series are pretty much just making up the numbers. It’s difficult to imagine that a team could win a Premiership from position 5 or 6, let alone 7 or 8.

It would appear that one of the considerations is keeping as many fans as possible interested for as long as possible, thus, the more teams involved in post-home-and-away-season action the better.

AussieRulesBlog is firmly of the view that final series have been more ordinary, especially in the first two weeks, since the introduction of the final 8. We can only express our fear that a final 10 would produce even more meaningless wastes of time that fans would have to pay through the nose for.

Here’s an idea, Andrew! Let’s make the final series a showcase of the very best teams in the competition pitted against each other in winner-takes-all contests. You know, something like the old final 4!

Priorities: AFL, VFL or individual?

It’s hard not to sympathise with the attitude of Melbourne FC regarding Casey Scorpions’ signing of Brendan Fevola. And yet, as AussieRulesBlog has previously noted, football may very well be Fevola’s best route back from the brink.

The Demons’ public objections centre on development of their young forward prospects being jeopardised. No doubt they have other, less public, objections such as the potential for Fevola to influence their youngsters — and who could blame them, again.

There isn’t an easy answer here: the best interests of Melbourne FC and its youthful recruits versus the interests of Casey and of Fevola.

As we’ve also previously noted, despite their many differences, there are synergies between Fevola’s situation and that of Ben Cousins two years ago. It would be a hard judge who would deny that Cousins’ involvement with the Tigers, as both player and mentor, did not benefit both parties.

It would be more than churlish to deny such an opportunity to Fevola.

Whatever the merits of giving Fevola another chance, this disagreement brings into stark contrast the difficulties of VFL clubs, many the remnants of the old VFA, being tied to AFL clubs. In return for their dollars, the AFL clubs expect preferential treatment.

Already a number of AFL clubs have decided they are better served fielding their own, fully-integrated VFL teams. This must be making the administrators of current VFL clubs pretty nervous. Frankston appears to be almost a basket case. Port Melbourne, the most likely to continue to survive in the long term as a standalone, faces the rapid gentrification of the suburb that might be the death of a thousand cuts for the proud Burroughs.

The AFL, as custodians of the game, have some real difficulties here and we don’t envy them the task one little bit. The quality of the VFL as a feeder and development competition to the elite AFL level is, arguably, pretty poor. But the obvious alternatives are financially and logistically difficult and may leave the middle tiers of the game in a parlous state.

We await developments.

Video turkey gobbles again

Back in December of 2009, AussieRulesBlog railed against the proposal for video-assisted goal umpiring decisions. Once again, the practical application of the rule has demonstrated how flawed that proposal, now implemented, was.

Past applications of the rule have, mostly, involved deciding whether the ball has passed completely over the goal line or struck a goal post (although an incident early in the 2011 pre-season competition followed a similar trajectory to this one — Ed.). These are quite finite, immoveable objects and, at least relatively, easy to judge the position of a ball at relatively low velocity against.

Not content with that scenario, Gieschen’s mob decided to up the ante on Friday night and query a ball being touched just as it left a player’s boot. Let’s just assume that the ball is travelling at about 40m/s in that initial instant. If the TV cameras are capturing the action at, say, 25 frames per second, simple arithmetic shows that the ball will have moved about 1.6 metres between two adjacent frames — 0.04 of a second. And we’re supposed to accept that the video judge was able to discern the ball being touched in a grainy, jerky sequence of video frames?

Come on Jeff, Adrian, Andrew. This is nonsense.

Not only is the premise that a decision can be made in this instance nonsense, but the interminable wait for a decision that we presume, in this instance, was to award the lesser result because the video was inconclusive compounded the problem. For the last 130 years that has been a goal and nothing was seen to indicate that it wasn’t a goal in this instance.

And let us just mention again that a team awarded a point has much less opportunity for a video referral since the game is restarted these days almost before the goal umpire has signalled his decision. And the team kicking out if a behind is awarded have lost any advantage of a quick exit from their defensive zone as their opponents have a couple of minutes to perfect their defensive zone.

When are you people going to grasp that, despite Hawkins’ glancing goal in the 2010 Grand Final, single incidents don’t win or lose games and so this futile attempt to reduce an estimated current error rate of 0.1% across a whole season is a turkey.

An (open) eye on the ball!

Further to our previous post focussing on Nick Riewoldt’s new goalkicking routine, we had the chance to watch him at fairly close quarters on Friday night — great effort, Bombers!. He only had one (or perhaps two?) set shots during the game, but we were watching closely during the Saints’ warmup before the game.

We think he’s basically on the right track, but the follow through action of the leg is somewhat exaggerated — as it would be for someone who is embracing a ‘non-natural’ action.

The additional area that might still need focus is to ensure that his eyes are actually open at the point of impact. We noted that the set shot taken during the game missed the target by a considerable distance.

To return to the golf analogy we used in the previous post, we find that we have an instinctive reaction to blink right at the point of impact of the golf clubhead and ball.

When we blink, our success rate is way less than 50%, however, when we can convince our eyes to stay open right through the impact, our success rate (the ball flying straight and true in the intended direction) is approaching 100%. It goes without saying that even this incentive does not keep our eyes open!!

We also made the point about open eyes to Matthew Knights last year when the Bombers had the ‘yips’ in front of goal.

There’s some pretty interesting research just waiting to be done here.

We’ll take a hefty punt that current Bomber and ex-Hawk, Mark Williams, renowned for his sharpshooting, has his eyes firmly open and on the ball as he kicks for goal.