It wasn’t our intention for focus again on boundary-line ruck contests, but watching the Brisbane— West Coast game on TV certainly put it front and centre in our mind.

Nic Naitanui is a fearsomely talented player. His natural leap and athleticism must give him an automatic advantage over ninety per cent of the other players at AFL level. Why then, for most of the second half of the Brisbane game, would he resort to grabbing the back of his ruck opponent’s guernsey and holding it for all he was worth?

More to the point, where is the much-vaunted all-round coverage by the umpires? On a couple of occasions, Leuenberger’s guernsey had been pulled halfway up his torso and still there was no free kick!

The current umpiring cop-out in ruck contests that both are holding just doesn’t wash for AussieRulesBlog. There are rules. If they’re broken, apply penalties as appropriate. Currently, when ruck free kicks are awarded, neither the ruckmen nor fans have any idea of why. A genuine contest is all we ask for.

And while we’ve got the sights on the umpires, we wonder when Steve McBurney is taking delivery of a specially trained Labrador. In the closely fought last quarter of the Brisbane–West Coast game, a West Coast defender applied a genuine full nelson to a Brisbane forward in a marking “contest” in Brisbane’s attacking goal square, locking both his arms, about fifteen metres in front of McBurney. Not even the hint of a free kick. . .

If, as reported, Adrian Anderson and the AFL are keen to strengthen sanctions against “staging” for free kicks, they’re going to have to do a far, far better job of defining it and selling it to the football community.

One of the features of the introduction of sanctions against staging a couple of years ago was the paucity of media explaining to fans what was involved and how it would work. The result? Massive confusion and a lot of unrealistic expectation that simply was never going to be met. Most importantly, the fiasco — and that’s what it has become with only one player reportedly having been investigated for staging — further tarnished the already worn reputation of the AFL with fans who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, seek out the explanatory material provided.

What Anderson and his fellow Rules Committee members need to be extremely wary of is creating a scenario where umpires lose the ability to make a judgement. It’s all very well to suggest targeting players who exaggerate contact to emphasise it and gain a free kick, but that line glosses over the fact that there is illegal contact in the first place.

If Anderson and the rules committee want to get all hairy-chested, perhaps they could turn their attention to the real blight on the game — non-centre bounce ruck contests. The level of blatant holding and blocking that goes on within ruck contests is scandalous.

Let’s make a ruck contest a genuine contest between the two ruckmen. Allow body contact and body positioning, but use of the hands on any part of the opposing ruckman draws an immediate free kick.

With a weekend off due to an interstate game for the Bombers, AussieRulesBlog took the opportunity to  check out AAMI Park and the Melbourne Storm game against the Dragons.

The stadium is a delight. With the benefit of such a small playing arena — seemingly about the size of a man-sized tissue — there’s an intimacy about the place that AFL simply can’t match. Sitting in a slightly upmarket section of the stadium, we were also struck by the comparatively generous leg room. All very positive.

Some curious elements to the evening included the announcement of the Storm team, via the very nice screens at each end of the pitch, well before the players had even run out for their on-field warmup. Each Storm player’s name being announced and picture being displayed generated enthusiastic applause which seemed quite strange when the players remained firmly ensconced in their changerooms. The “cheerleaders” provided a splash of colour and movement in a dance routine out on the turf, but we are reminded how grateful we are that the Bluebirds and Swanettes have passed into history!

Fortuitously, it was Billy Slater’s 200th game. After the away team had run out to, pretty much, a non-reception, the Storm had their cheerleaders manically waving their pom-poms as they ran out before the man of the evening broke through an AFL-style crepe banner celebrating his 200 games. One can’t fault the enthusiasm of the crowd!

Then there was the game. Oh that we could have been at Skilled Park on the Gold Coast the previous week — weather considerations aside — for Storm’s 40–16 drubbing of the Titans. Instead we were treated to an 8–6 slogfest that was — yawn! — pretty boring. Actually, we don’t think even the 40–16 scoreline would create sufficient excitement for us to return.

More curiosities, included the Storm’s mascot belting a cowbell for all he was worth to keep the beat for the obligatory MEL-BOURNE! Dong Dong Dong chant and the decidedly pro-Storm crowd making an inordinate amount of noise as Cameron Smith lined up his two goals for the night. Actually, cowbells are almost a de rigeur accessory it seems, with three or four of them getting a significant seeing to for much of the game time.

Mixing with the crowd after the game left us with the firm impression that NRL people are generally from less affluent circumstances than we routinely experience at AFL games.

An interesting exercise, and we’ll continue to monitor the Storm from the comfort of our easy chair, but the resounding result of the experience is THANK GOODNESS FOR AUSSIE RULES!!!! For those who aren’t rusted-on rugby league fans, the GWS Giants will eventually provide a far superior entertainment.

In light of the renewed focus on footy crowd behaviour, it’s strangely coincidental that AFL Umpiring boss, Jeff Gieschen, has confirmed the fifty-metre penalty against Bulldog Ben Hudson last weekend.

Hudson’s ‘crime’ was to raise his arms and loudly ask “What?” a couple of times in response to a free kick awarded against him.

AussieRulesBlog wants to take a slightly left-field look at this incident, but first we should all remember that rule 18.1 — the rule defining when fifty-metre penalties can be imposed — clause (d) reads:

behaves in an abusive, insulting, threatening or obscene manner towards an umpire or disputes the decision of an umpire;

No-one could realistically suggest that Hudson did anything other than dispute the decision. His actions and his voice cannot seriously have been construed as abusive, threatening, insulting or obscene.

We can’t fault the logic of imposing sanctions on AFL players for abuse, insult or threat as a role model for lesser competitions, yet the penalty against Hudson does feel somewhat at odds with what’s happening in the game in general at AFL level. We don’t have any research to support our anecdotal recollection.

The left field element comes from the NRL. We’ve been watching a bit of ‘british bulldog for big boys’ recently having acquired a taste for a winning team — Melbourne Storm — during the Bombers’ mid-season run of losses*. One aspect of NRL that is in stark contrast with AFL is players’ reactions to penalties against them. It’s not that there’s no dissent — and there isn’t — but there’s a level of deference and respect shown to referees that Andrew Demetriou and Jeff Gieschen could only dream of.

To muddy these waters still further, there’s the example of ‘Association’ football, or soccer, where referees are routinely confronted by excited players, manhandled by players.

As noted, we don’t have an issue with the elite competition providing a behaviour template for players (and others) in lesser competitions. Our issue is consistency. The Hudson penalty seems out of kilter with other, similar incidents; more an exception than an example of the prevailing application of the rule.

As always, consistency is the gold standard and, as usual, the AFL’s umpiring department doesn’t seem capable of providing it.

* We attended every game (in person in Melbourne and on TV in Perth) and stayed to the final siren regardless of the score.

Rejoinders that most Barcodes’ supporters are beetle-browed Neanderthals (see the comments on the linked article) do little to advance progress to a more respectful and courteous atmosphere at Aussie Rules games. Credit where credit is due — Eddie Everywhere is putting the Magpie shoulder to the wheel in the quest for better behaved crowds.

AussieRulesBlog has a rule of thumb which proposes that the value of a fan’s opinions is in inverse proportion to the volume at which they are broadcast. We can’t remember having to revise our rule and its application certainly isn’t restricted to the monocular black and white army. Sadly there are a good number of fellow Bombers fans who demonstrate the paucity of their understanding and wit on a too-regular basis.

The sad truth is that there are knuckle-draggers in every club’s supporter base who make a trip to the footy an uncomfortable experience. For most of the rest of us, the prospect of chipping a (possibly drunken) lout carries more physical risk than we’re willing to undertake, and that is, in itself, part of the problem. We generally avoid confrontation, and so loudmouths get a free ride. No-one pulls them up and tells them to pull their heads in and so their behaviour is validated (at least in what passes for their minds).

Will Nathan Buckley on a video screen exhorting these pea brains to exercise common courtesy make a difference? Highly unlikely. Perhaps the only way to weed them out is for the AFL to employ well-disguised brawlers as ‘mystery patrons’ — akin to mystery shoppers who anonymously check out customer service in stores — to identify and sanction boorish loudmouths.

First target is the Bomber fan on level three at Essendon away games at Docklands who monotonously refers to the umpires as “scumbags” in the loudest voice he can muster. “Boorish”, “loudmouth” and “pea brain” are his good qualities.

The likelihood that Chris Tarrant’s “bump” to shepherd Justin Koschitzke on Friday night will be reviewed by the Match Review Panel has provoked considerable controversy. There’s no question for AussieRulesBlog that Tarrant’s actions were legal. Koschitzke’s head wasn’t hit in the collision and did not make contact with the ground. Koschitzke was not injured in the clash.

Notwithstanding the legality of Tarrant’s actions, AussieRulesBlog questions whether Tarrant’s action was appropriate in the circumstances. Tarrant’s objective in the incident was to delay Koschitzke in his pursuit of Tyson Goldsack. Tarrant’s action was to run, at pace, to intercept Koschitzke at an angle apparently greater than 90º and to aim his shoulder at Koschitzke’s shoulder. The impact to Koschitzke was substantial.

Tarrant could have achieved the same objective by applying a more traditional shepherding movement with his arms spread wide, turning in to run up to five metres behind Goldsack. This action, properly applied, would have prevented Koschitzke from catching or pressuring Goldsack.

It will be an unfashionable view, but AussieRulesBlog thinks that rampant testosterone sanctions inflicting pain and hurt as a more legitimate expression of “a man’s game” than a more gentle, but equally effective, shepherd. Reducing or removing high-impact, head-on type collisions from the game would not be the end of the bump as is regularly asserted in this on-going controversy. Instead, it would signal the end of a culture that legitimises the intent to inflict pain through high-impact collision. The AFL has taken steps to protect players on the mark from high-impact collisions designed to free up the player with the free kick.

By way of illustration of the alternative, in the Essendon–Swans game the previous weekend, Adam Goodes confronted Angus Monfries head on. While it would have been legitimate to apply a hip and shoulder down Monfries’ centre line, Goodes absorbed much of the force of the collision with his arms. Monfries was still put to ground — and thus out of the contest — but was not otherwise inconvenienced.

We think the laws of the game could usefully be altered to define a roughly 45º angle as the maximum for applying a bump in a shepherding scenario. The shepherding player could still be legitimately put to ground and out of the contest, but by a glancing blow rather than an almost head-on collision.

Here at AussieRulesBlog Central we haven’t made a habit of commenting on specific games. We’re testing the limits of that tradition today in drawing from last night’s Barcodes–Saints clash.

It’s not an original thought — we’ve heard a number of radio talkback callers making the point — but we think it has become crystal clear over recent weeks that the Barcodes’ dominance can be explained in one word: fitness.

It’s probably the clearest exposition of the barcodes’ fitness that we’ve had for some time; the most competitive hitout they’ve had to weather, although the statistics for last quarters show it as clearly as anyone could need. Watching the game last night, the power and speed, but most importantly the effortlessness, of the Barcodes’ running was simply irresistible.

Is it the much-vaunted high-altitude training that provides the extra capacity? Frankly, we wonder how long that effect can stay in the body. It’s not like our bodies are not constantly being replaced at a cellular level. There must be a period after arriving at high altitude where the body acclimatises. Once that plateau is reached — if you’ll pardon the pun — there are presumably some benefits in terms of aerobic capacity, but AFL games are not played at high altitude and no AFL team is based at a high altitude, unlike the Denver Broncos, for instance, in the NFL.

Just as there’s an acclimatisation process when arriving at high altitude, we imagine there’s a similar process when returning to near sea level. So, how long might the benefits of the high altitude training last?

AussieRulesBlog thinks the real benefit of the Arizona expeditions might be mental. The Barcodes players believe that they have a physical advantage. Their last quarter running performance contrasted sharply with the Saints last night. Saints players were regularly seen sucking in the big ones. Not so the Barcodes players. They believe they are supermen — and they play like it.

We think the skill and finesse of the Cats might be the only meaningful hurdle to the Barcodes this year. Just as a good big man will generally beat a good small man, we think skill and finesse will trump fitness. Only time will tell.

Regular readers will know that AussieRulesBlog has something of a penchant for scrutinising Match Review Panel assessments. This week we discovered that, for the MRP at least, nothing can indeed be more than something. (This post follows our investigative process.)

We found ourselves bemused that the Barcodes’ Ben Johnson “has no existing good or bad record”. This is a crucial statement because a bad record effectively adds points in the MRP’s assessment system, whilst a good record allows a discount of points before a penalty is calculated.

A bad record is defined as having been “found guilty of a reportable offence or reportable offences or taken an early plea resulting in suspension” within the preceding three years.

A good record is defined as not having been suspended or reprimanded for any reportable offence in the AFL competition or a State League competition associated with the AFL in the previous five years. A good record attracts a 25% discount on base points.

If Johnson, according to the MRP’s own report, “has no existing good or bad record”, we’re quite curious as to how one might gain a good record. Has he been suspended or reprimanded in the previous five years? It’s a fairly black and white question (if you’ll pardon the Barcodes pun). Was he suspended or reprimanded?

We’ve seen this statement before, in connection with newer players if we recall correctly. We’d assumed that a player has to have played for five years to get the benefit of a discount. According to the Barcodes’ own website, Johnson debuted in round one, 2000. AussieRulesBlog isn’t a world-class mathematician, but we make that an eleven-year career, so he certainly has five years’ service up.

In August 2007, Johnson received a six-game suspension (after an early plea). The savants among our audience will have quickly calculated that this incident was a hair under four years ago. The bad record consideration is within the preceding three years. The good record consideration relates to the receding five years. Johnson falls somewhere in the middle. Now we come to the point of decoding the MRP’s semantics.

Johnson hasn’t been naughty in the past three years, so we can’t slap an extra penalty on him, but he also hasn’t kept his nose clean for at least five years, so he can’t claim a discount for good behaviour. Why the euphemisms? Why “no existing good or bad record”?Why can’t they just say he ironed a bloke out four years ago and got six weeks with an early plea?

There will be those who will suggest that the previous offense shouldn’t be raised in the same way that prior convictions can’t be raised during a courtroom trial. That’s all well and good, except that suspensions within the preceding three years are counted and a clean record for the preceding five years earns a discount. So there’s no parallel with the civil legal system.

So, we ask again. Why can’t the MRP just say that he ironed a bloke out four years ago and got six weeks after an early plea and be done with it? To paraphrase British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, there are three kinds of lies: lies; damned lies; and semantics!

AussieRulesBlog is fascinated by the logical inconsistencies thrown up in the discussions on tanking and blowouts. On the one hand, it seems football community opinion is strongly against not doing everything possible to win every game, and on the other there’s a notion that the fixture has to be even further compromised to lessen the number of blowout games.

As we’ve made clear in recent posts, AussieRulesBlog isn’t perturbed by teams maximising their draft opportunities through selection and/or in-game match up decisions. If an opportunity exists, and it’s within the existing rules, clubs would be negligent not to seek to exploit it. We have a generally pragmatic idealistic view of the world, but we think those wringing their hands over so-called tanking are extraordinarily naive.

On the blowouts issue, who would have predicted last year — or even earlier this year — that Melbourne could have crashed to such a low ebb. AussieRulesBlog nominated the Demons, Tigers, Kangaroos and Bombers as the next ‘big four’ based on our assessment of the prospects with their developing lists. How could fixturing have accounted for the veritable white flag performances of Port and the Demons? Simple. It can’t. No-one outside of any club’s inner sanctum knows the true state of the playing list, both physically and mentally, or the capacity of the coaching panel or the patience of the Board or the overall cohesion of the club. Any of these factors can profoundly influence the on-field output of the club.

Clubs will always seek to gain maximum advantage from opportunities presented to them. Some teams will have days when they can do no wrong when playing a team that can do little right. No matter how assiduous the AFL might be in its efforts at equalisation, there are simply too many factors involved for there to be a perpetually ‘even’ on-field competition.

A few words from a departing coach and we’re all off on the chase again — led by that paragon of virtue and honesty, The Rt Hon Jeffrey Gibb Kennett — desperate to label someone as a cheat because they ‘tanked’.

Well, what IS tanking? Here’s a couple of pertinent excerpts from a definition on dictionary.reference.com:

7. Slang . to do poorly or decline rapidly; fail: The movie tanked at the box office.

9. go in the tank, Boxing Slang. to go through the motions of a match but deliberately lose because of an illicit prearrangement or fix; throw a fight.

…

tank "to lose or fail," 1976, originally in tennis jargon, but said there to be from boxing, from tank (n.) in some sense. Tanked "drunk" is from 1893.

…

tv. & in. to lose a game deliberately. : The manager got wind of a plan to tank Friday's game.

From the Oxford dictionaries online:

2 [no object] US informal fail completely, especially at great financial cost.
[with object] North American informal (in sport) deliberately lose or fail to finish (a match).

 

And the Merriam Webster dictionaries online:

2: to make no effort to win : lose intentionally <tanked the match>

1: to lose intentionally : give up in competition

I hope we can agree, readers, that the preponderance of learned opinion is that tanking means deliberately or intentionally losing.

Since much of the tanking debate has focussed on Dean Bailey’s Melbourne, let’s consider some scenarios.

Does anyone seriously contend that Bailey told his players to go out and give less than 100%? Does anyone seriously believe that Bailey would have pulled key players from the ground to turn around a winning position in a game? Does anyone expect any sane person to believe that Dean Bailey instructed his players not to win?

The answer to all is, of course, No. Did the Demons tank? No.

Is it possible to enter a sporting contest with long-term objectives over and above simply winning or losing? Of course it is.

Does anyone seriously suggest that the likes of Jack Watts did not get valuable experience for the future in playing against bigger and stronger opponents? Were those the best possible match-ups on the day? Possibly not. Did they make the difference between winning and losing? Probably not. Will Watts be a better player sooner for having the experience? Probably.

AussieRulesBlog felt for Neil Craig last weekend. It really was the cruellest goodbye.

The team ran out for its first game under former assistant and now temporary head coach Mark Bickley and produced the sort of football that would have saved Craig’s job for him. Admittedly they were only up against the doormats of the competition in Port Adelaide, but it was still a Showdown.

If you fancy a bet — and AussieRulesBlog doesn’t — you could do a lot worse than covering the Demons to either beat the Blues or come within a whisker of it. But, you say, the Cats licked the Dees to the tune of 180-odd points just a few days ago. How can they possibly get up to compete against the Blues.

Well, of course, the answer is simple — the coach was sacked. And apparently the players think the world of him.

We haven’t worried about looking for statistics. It’s happened often enough. Coach sacked mid-season after players give nothing, players play out of their skins the next week.

Yeah, well thanks for that guys. Just a bit @^%$*#~ late!

In the previous post we looked at Melbourne Football Club’s coaches since the famous sacking of the legendary Norm Smith, the Demons’ last Premiership coach.

We were surprised. A radio commentary that Melbourne’s coaches had all been inexperienced, with the exception of Ron Barassi, seems to be quite a way off the mark. It seems there are other reasons for the Demons’ least successful period in their history*.

One year that stands out starkly is 1964, the year of the Demons’ last Premiership. Over the ensuing forty-six years, the club has competed in the Grand Final just twice. With seven first or second placings in seven consecutive years during the fifties (1954–60), expectations — and some might say a misplaced sense of entitlement that has persisted amongst Demon fans — have always been high.

The key event in the wake of the 1964 Premiership was the arrangement to share the MCG with Richmond from 1965. This was a controversial arrangement at the time. As an outsider, we can only speculate on the impact inside the club, but within two years Norm Smith was gone, Ron Barassi was gone and the Demons, it seems, were also gone.

Is it possible that this loss of entitlement to their spiritual home, could so take the wind out of a club’s sails? The MGC has always had an iconic status in the city and, especially through the super-successful fifties, it must have seemed that the club was foredestined, by virtue of its ‘home’ ground in the VFL competition, to almost perpetual success. Seemingly small events may have consequences out of all proportion. Many have argued, for instance, that the Demons lack of on-field fortitude in 2011 stemmed from the forced retirement of popular and respected captain James McDonald.

____________
*
Foundation VFL club, 1897
VFL/AFL Premiers 12 times: 1900, 1926, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1948, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1959, 1960, 1964
VFL/AFL Runners Up 5 times: 1946, 1954, 1958, 1988, 2000

AussieRulesBlog was surprised to hear on the radio yesterday that Melbourne have only had one experienced coach since they sacked Norm Smith back in the mists of pre-history (1967) — Ronald Dale Barassi. That lead us to think again about our views on coaching selections.

Let’s start by looking at Melbourne’s coaches since 1967, especially their prior experience and elite-level Premiership exposure.

• John Beckwith (1968–70) — five years coaching in the country, one year assistant coach at Melbourne
  176 games (Melbourne) (1951–60), five-time Premiership player
• Ian Ridley (1971–3) — no prior experience
  130 games (Melbourne) (1954–61), five-time Premiership player
• Bob Skilton (1974–7) — two years captain-coach South Melbourne
  238 games (South Melbourne) (1956–71), triple Brownlow medallist
• Dennis Jones (1978) — coaching in SANFL and WAFL
  59 games (Melbourne) (1956–60, 1962)
• Carl Ditterich (1979–80), captain-coach — no prior experience
  285 games (203 St Kilda, 82 Melbourne), suspended for St Kilda’s 1966 Premiership
• Ron Barassi (1981–5) — captain-coach and coach at Carlton, coach at North Melbourne
  254 games (204 Melbourne, 50 Carlton), six-time Premiership player, four-time Premiership coach (all previous to being appointed as Melbourne coach)
• John Northey (1986–92) — fourteen years in VFL assistant roles, one year as coach at Sydney.
  118 games (Richmond), two-time Premiership player
• Neil Balme (1993–7) — twelve years coaching in SANFL for two Premierships
  159 games (Richmond), two-time Premiership player
• Neale Daniher (1998–2007) — assistant coach at Fremantle (AFL)
  82 games (Essendon), on Essendon’s list in 1985 (Premiership year) and 1990 (Grand Final year)
• Dean Bailey (2008–11) — development coach (Essendon) 2000, assistant coach Port Adelaide (incl 2004 Premiership)
  53 games (Essendon),

What emerges here is that there’s been no shortage of exposure to elite Premiership culture — admittedly more tenuous recently.

Melbourne’s sacking of Dean Bailey and Neil Craig’s resignation put the end-of-season focus back onto the crucial question of selecting a coach for an elite team.

Over coming weeks, AussieRulesBlog will start to look at some of the factors to be considered

It seems it happens once a month or so. A team cops a couple of early injuries, is forced to deploy their substitute earlier than anticipated and loses a rotation. Yesterday at the ’G, it was the Bombers’ turn.

What’s really the most depressing aspect of this is the media machinations around it.

Coaches will be asked, quite legitimately in our view, how the injuries affected the team’s performance. The coaches, of course denying that injuries made the difference, go on to wistfully dream about a larger interchange bench and highlight injured players remaining on the field for lack of a rotation. James Hird, quite tongue-in-cheek, yesterday drew a contrast with basketball where the bench is a full one-for-one ratio. [Ed: Yeah, an eighteen-man bench! That’s really gonna fly, Jim.] That comment then becomes a headline claiming the coach has slammed the 2011 interchange arrangements.

Come on, people! This handwringing about reduced rotations is more about fairness than it’s about player welfare. AussieRulesBlog has a newsflash! The game isn’t fair! We have an oval ball with unpredictable bounce and flight. Ask Stephen Milne how fair the game is — one bounce away from a Premiership.

We haven’t done any research, but injuries and a reduced interchange manifestly influencing results in about one game a month doesn’t sound too out of the ordinary. That’s a rate of less than 4%.

Hird’s Bombers would still have been disadvantaged with a four-man interchange. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, a team collects more than its share of injuries. Sometimes they’re at training, sometimes they’re during a game.

Let’s all just get over it. Teams have been finishing games with injured players forced to remain on the ground since God’s dog was a pup.

Yesterday at the ’G, AussieRulesBlog sat down next to a guy wearing a Barcodes scarf.

As the game began and the other Barcodes fans around us began their routine abuse of any free kick against the Barcodes, any perceived free kick for the Barcodes that wasn’t paid and any other perceived injustice against the Barcodes, the chap beside us began his own quietly-spoken response to each new round of invective.

“Idiots! That’s not a free kick!” “Learn the rules! That’s not holding the ball!” and so on.

At quarter time. we turned to him and noted that he was destroying many of our fondest prejudices. Behind his wraparound Raybans he had two working eyes. Quite remarkable! While obviously passionate about his team, not only did he perceive the faults of his own tribe, but he willingly praised the best efforts of the Bombers — and there were plenty in that first half.

At the end of the game, after the expected — but, pleasingly, delayed — opening of the Barcodes’ floodgates, we thanked him for the chat and shook his hand, wishing him good luck for the finals.

The overwhelming majority of fans watching a game can’t see anything other than through the lens of their team’s success. It’s such a surprise to come up against a discriminating, intelligent and knowledgeable fan.

Thank you, sir, wherever you are, for one of the most enjoyable afternoons of AFL we have experienced in a very long time.