News today that the Saints have delisted Ryan Gamble after just one season — yielding eleven games — along with teammates Zac Dawson, Brett Peake, Farren Ray and Dean Polo remaining out of contract as the deadline for final list lodgement looms.

What’s remarkable about this story is that all five arrived at the Saints from other clubs.

Crucial in this story is the departure of coach Ross Lyon, who must have had some sort of input into recruiting these recycled players for a team he and the club believed were on the cusp of Premiership success.

What’s pretty clear at this point is that new coach Scott Watters has a different goal.

Recycled players have had a chequered history as a breed. Some, Greg Williams (Carlton and ex-Sydney and Geelong), his nemesis Sean Denham (Essendon and ex-Geelong), Sean Wellman (Essendon and ex-Adelaide) and Leigh Brown (Barcodes and ex-North Melbourne and Fremantle) to name a few, tasted Premiership success.

For a great many others, and the five Saints named above are probably going to fall into this category, their new club eventually discovered why they’d been on the trade table.

It’s worth noting that other recent Saints “recycled” toward the end of their career include Steven King, Michael Gardiner and Charlie Gardiner. No wonder that the pundits have criticised the Saints for their failure to play many kids — there wasn’t any room on the list for kids!

Rohan Connolly’s analysis of the 2012 fixture, in The Age today, is a thing of beauty!

Covering all of the important elements that, all other things being equal, make games more or less likely to be advantageous, Connolly shows that the Barcodes have one of the hardest assignments next year. And why not? Two Grand Finals in two years (well, three, strictly speaking, but you know what we mean) should mean that they are best positioned to meet the challenges — unlike the immature Essendon team of a couple of years ago that was saddled with a similarly challenging task.

Forget about any bleating by those success-starved, long-suffering Barcodes supporters looking for ‘fair’ treatment in the fixture. In ANY other aspect of football, these people aggressively celebrate their club’s strength.

Based on Connolly’s analysis, it’s Melbourne and North Melbourne fans who can feel most pleased with their situation, and Port and Brisbane fans who might feel most aggrieved.

All in all, given the necessities for so-called blockbuster games and complexities of venue availability and broadcast requirements, this fixture has a lot more of the silk purse feel than might be expected.

AFL Operations Manager Adrian Anderson is reported in The Age to have spoken about proposals for experimental rules for the 2012 pre-season competition.

Among the possibilities are 12 points for a torpedo goal from outside the fifty-metre arc, which we regard as populist nonsense, despite the obvious difficulties in defining whether a torpedo that’s not quite right is a torpedo or not.

Other possibilities are:

■ Boundary and goal umpires allowed to pay obvious free kicks for holding and high contact. [Let’s define obvious, shall we?]

■ Ruckmen not permitted to make contact for boundary throw-ins and around-the-ground bounces.

■ Free kicks not paid for last touch over the boundary but for last kick, handball or when a player walked the ball over the line. [Still a turkey of an idea.]

AussieRulesBlog is glad to see a mention of ruck contests in the range of issues to be addressed. The description provided can only be regarded as a quick shorthand because a literal implementation of “no contact” for boundary and around-the-ground ruck contests is simply not practical.

For what it’s worth, AussieRulesBlog would like to see anything that looks like a hold or a shepherd with the arms in a ruck contest penalised. We’re really over the ruck wrestling. Fair enough if players want to engage in a test of strength, but holding or shepherding is just plain ugly. We recognise that limiting contact to the body advantages athletic, high-leaping players such as Nic Naitanui and Paddy Ryder quite strongly, however they are similarly disadvantaged in the current wrestling matches that pass for ruck contests.

Let’s have an end to umpires shouting, “Both holding!”

In the same story, there are more hints that some sort of video decision assist will be implemented, sooner rather than later. We’ve already indicated our disquiet. The story notes that only seven scoring decision errors were recorded by the AFL in 2011. Seven! How many goals, behinds, out-of-bounds and goal-line marks and scrambles were adjudicated through the season, and there were seven errors. We’re pretty sure most fans would prefer to see fewer errors of interpretation of rules in the field of play, or, at the very least, consistent interpretations across the season, rather than this manic determination to find a solution to a non-problem.

Pardon us for breaking through the wall of publicity encouraging all sports fans to get in early to get their fill of Gaelic-Australian football. [Do we hear the sound of yawning?]

Mike Sheahan makes a couple of quite valid points in his column yesterday. Who knows which AFL players are in the squad for the Irish series? Or where the “Tests” will be played and when? And we’ll add our own question: Who the hell knows what the “rules” are?

We’ll give the AFL points for persistence, but the concept of blending two vaguely similar national games to create a series where national pride is supposedly on the line has surely run its race and should be mercifully put down as soon as possible.

There’s an old management consulting adage that suggests a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Well, the AFL-GAA International Rules series is an ugly camel.

The differences between AFL and Gaelic are simply too large to credibly blend the two games together. It comes down to the issue of tackling — a staple skill of the Aussie game and approached with greater intensity every year. It is laughable that the AFL expect players who are trained to tackle fiercely to back off. It’s even more laughable for the GAA to expect their blokes, who play a light-contact sport, to suddenly approach every contest with red-blooded vigour.

There’s no doubting the courage of the Irish players, but the task confronting them is insurmountable. A round ball and a crossbar don’t make up for tackling, albeit that it’s toned down. Lest there be any doubting the scope of the task, consider how many Irish players have carved out a steady career in AFL even when they were living and breathing it every day. Four. Jim Stynes, Sean Wight, Tadgh Kennelly and Marty Clark. That’s it! Setanta O’hAilpin was, in the end, despite playing eighty games, a curiosity rather than a genuine AFL player, and no-one else has come within a bull’s roar.

Time for the canvas curtain to be erected and the lead aspro to be administered to this hotch-potch.

Ed: Let’s ask another question: How is it that any contest against a foreign team seems to be tagged with the moniker “Test” these days? Test cricket is called that because that’s what it is — a test. We think it’s an affront for sports like the rugbies and netball, as much as others less lofty, to award themselves the accolade. For hybrid events like AFL-GAA International Rules to call themselves “Tests” is a travesty.

It is reported today that Carlton have delisted Setanta O’hAilpin. The decision was forced on the Blues by the AFL’s rules requiring all clubs to free up places on their lists each year leading up to the national draft. Carlton had apparently indicated they were happy to keep O’hAilpin on their list, and could, were O’hAilpin to nominate, draft him again.

There are two issues: Forced turnover of club lists; and the Irish experiment. We want to focus on the second in this post.

There have been a steady flow of recruits to AFL from the emerald isle. Of course, the similarities between Gaelic Football and Australian rules mean that there’s a slightly shallower learning curve than for rugby (league or union), soccer or gridiron players.

Clearly the most successful of those recruits has been the Demons President, Brownlow medallist Jim Stynes. Despite looking like a fish out of water on-field, Stynes carved out a unique career in AFL and prompted a number of lateral thinkers in the game to plunder the ranks of up and coming Gaelic footballers looking for the next Jim Stynes.

The results have been mixed. The Barcodes’ Marty Clark, set to resume his AFL career in 2012, looked the most natural of the Irish imports to make the big time in our view. AussieRulesBlog saw ex-Saint, new Swan, Tommy Walsh, during the pre-season competition and thought he looked quite at home — although he failed to win selection for the Saints during 2011. Recently retired Tadgh Kennelly, a Premiership player with the Swans, is probably the most successful after Stynes. For the rest, at least in football terms, AFL has proved to be a quite tough task. The Bombers’ Michael Quinn, with whom we’re a little more familiar due to our Bombers allegiance, played a couple of senior games in 2009 and looked, frankly, a little like a rabbit in the headlights.

Setanta O’hAilpin has played 80 games for the Blues and kicked 67 goals.

In the wake of the surprise recent emergence of James Podsiadly at Geelong, Michael Barlow at the Dockers and Stuart Crameri at the Bombers, to name just a couple of mature-age recruits, we wonder whether AFL recruiters will remain interested in immigrants without the instinctive feel for Aussie Rules that kids who’ve grown up with the game possess.

Ed (19 Oct 2011): And the answer is “Yes, they can!” (as long as it’s a special deal that doesn’t impinge on their ‘normal’ list).

In the 80s, it seemed like Tom Hafey’s players dominated the ranks of senior coaches. In the 90s, there were a crop of Allan Jeans’ acolytes followed by a gaggle of Sheedy disciples. Leigh Matthews, Mark Thompson and Mick Malthouse have recently had their mark stamped on the game with a rash of former players taking the reins at AFL clubs.

Spot the common thread?

Winning culture. Time will tell who can best pass on the magic to their crew.

James Hird and Mark Thompson. Mark Neeld and Neil Craig. Brenton Sanderson and Dean Bailey. Nathan Buckley and Rodney Eade. And now it seems the Saints are chasing Dean Laidley to assist the newly-appointed Scott Watters. Thus far, only Brendan McCartney is soloing in his debutante year.

For what it’s worth, AussieRulesBlog thinks the Saints’ strategy is the right one, and Laidley ticks a lot of boxes despite his involvement with Port Adelaide recently.

Of recent debutante appointments going solo, Chris Scott is the standout, but the bootstudder could probably have coached that Geelong team to the Grand Final. John Longmire gained credit for a competitive season from his Swans. Brad Scott has impressed, especially in his gig on Foxtel’s AFL Insider. Damien Hardwick hasn’t set the world on fire, but he is coming from a looooong way back. The recently-sacked Mark Harvey seemed to take a while to come to grips with the top job, and that may have cost him the gig in the end as expectation crashed into practicality — that and a black cat breaking a mirror under a ladder’s worth of injuries.

It’s worth revisiting the ‘winning’ experience of the senior coaches for 2012.

Thanks to the kind folks at Blogger, AussieRulesBlog now has a layout for mobile devices that means you can easily keep up with our pontifications on your web-enabled mobile device.

To make things easier, here’s a QR barcode to scan.

Another Grand Final scoring blunder and the football community has to, yet again, endure the nonsense proposition that technology must be used to assist umpires in scoring decisions.

Let’s start by getting the situation straight on the Wellingham “goal”. This was not a goal umpiring error per se. It was an error of process in that the goal umpire was too influenced by a field umpire.

The goal umpire was in the correct position to make a decision. The field umpire was not. We see, week in and week out, goal umpires relying on boundary umpires to assist with set shot scoring decisions. The goal umpire looks to the boundary umpire who signals whether the ball passed inside or outside the behind post. This works because the boundary umpire is standing right at the behind post.

And yet, the AFL umpiring department has field umpires — not standing at the posts and not at the goal line — directing goal umpires. Incredible.

Two years ago, the Tom Hawkins “goal” was a different matter. Hawkins’ snapshot didn’t allow any time for boundary umpires to be in position at the behind posts. The goal umpire was attempting to make ground to get into position to see the ball and, understandably, did not see the deflection from the goal post. Had the broadcaster not had a camera trained at the incident from the angle they did, it’s quite possible that only a few fans at the game would have been aware that the ball had hit the post.

In both instances then, detecting an error relied very heavily on there being a camera with a view from an appropriate angle. So, what technology are we going to employ? Instant replay from the broadcaster. And with every angle covered? Of course not.

And if that replay is inconclusive? Current practice is that the lesser score option is awarded. Is that more right than the current decision-making process?

There are three simple points to a solution to this “problem”.

1. Goal umpire’s decisions are the prime scoring decision unless some other umpire is 100% certain that the decision is incorrect.
2. Employ four goal umpires per game.
3. Australian rules football has uncertainties built in — the shape of the ball not the least of them. There is no absolutely certain process for making these decisions, so let’s accept that the current error rate of something less than one tenth of one percent is a pretty damned good result.

There is some justification for goal line cameras, but even these offer less than conclusive evidence given the speed of the ball and the often slight touches players may get on the ball.

As we’ve noted on many occasions, the negatives of video decision-assist outweigh any positives to an extraordinary degree.

• In the event of a “behind” decision, the defending team loses the advantage of a quick kick out while a video review is conducted.
• The game’s rhythm is upset by the break for video review.
• Video review doesn’t guarantee certainty.

AFL football operations boss Adrian Anderson has announced only minor changes to the open sore that was player-initiated advantage.

Anderson said the slight modification was made after feedback from clubs, players and fans. Well, that may be strictly true, but AussieRulesBlog finds it difficult to imagine that any of the mentioned groups would have agreed to the rule remaining in any form.

Advantage will not apply in 2012 to free kicks paid by an “out-of-zone” umpire. Superficially, this seems like an improvement, but there are plenty of scenarios in games, especially at stoppages at either end of the ground, where two umpires operate in quite close proximity.

The umpires seem to have a fairly good handle on which of them is in control at any point, but for the rest of us it is a mystery.

Most puzzlingly, in 2012 the umpires will have “more time allowed … to consider the actual advantage.”

What? If there’s no advantage, they’ll call the ball back? Certainly, there were any number of incidents during 2011 where this seemed to happen, despite the provision for such action having been removed in the rewriting of the advantage law to allow player-initiated advantage.

The game now finds itself in a position where the lawmakers don’t rewrite a law that doesn’t work. Instead, changes to interpretations — for the most part not codified — are announced, and then the interpretation of the interpretation changes evolve over time as the laws committee and the umpiring administration realise that their initial interpretations are overzealous.

This continual tinkering, especially when it’s not spelled out clearly in a written law, is a crock.

Player-initiated advantage was, and is, a nonsense in Australian rules. It doesn’t work. Players are confused. Umpires are confused. Media are confused. Fans are confused. These changes don’t turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse. It’s still a sow’s ear, no matter how hard the AFL talks it up.

Toward the end of the 2011 home and away rounds, when there was the seemingly usual speculation about whether Richmond would finish ninth — again — we began thinking about looking at trends of teams’ home and away rounds finishing positions. The following charts covering the past quarter century are presented as much for information and casual glancing as for any hard-nosed analysis. We’ve refrained from making bleeding obvious comments, except for the afore-mentioned Tigers.

Comments and thoughtful analysis are encouraged.

Fitzroy

Having experienced a rampant Richmond in the late 60s and through the 70s, it’s quite difficult to feel anything resembling sympathy for those hordes of Tigers fans, yet AussieRulesBlog is moved to compassion by this chart of almost unremitting mediocrity. Interestingly, the Tiges have finished ninth on only six occasions in the last quarter century, somewhat destroying that fondly-held myth of their almost perpetual ninth-ness.

Have we seen the last of debutante coaches struggling to come to grips with the myriad tasks they need to manage? These days, finding an experienced mentor/assistant goes right along with appointing a debutante coach.

Some readers may be old enough to recall the not-so-slow-motion train wrecks that were the emergence — and disappearance — as coaches of Tim Watson, Peter Rohde and Bernie Quinlan. Fair enough that the Rohde and Quinlan appointments had as much to do about money as capacity to coach, but they did fail spectacularly.

Two years ago, the Barcodes led the way by announcing a deal to have Malthouse move to a Director of Coaching role when Buckley took over. Never mind the tension between them, Eddie Maguire and fellow Board members knew their star needed a sounding board. With the increasing tension, moving Malthouse out and Eade in provides the experience as a foundation, just in case Buckley falls in a heap.

Last year at about this time, the Bombers engaged in their own changeover, engineering Bomber Thompson and a star-studded panel of assistants to ease James Hird into the role.

Now, Brenton Sanderson has Dean Bailey watching his back at Adelaide, while Mark Neeld will be able to lean on Neil Craig’s experience.

Brendan McCartney appears, at the time of writing, to be going without a “senior assistant” at the Western Bulldogs, while St Kilda are yet to announce a senior coach for 2012. It’s also worth noting that neither Brad nor Chris Scott have former senior coaches on their panels.

The ranks of suitably-experienced former head coaches are being thinned out, with only Malthouse and Mark Harvey among the recently dethroned who haven’t been snapped up by other clubs. Gary Ayers remains active, but may have been away from the top level for a little too long, while Matthew Knights appears friendless.

What does the employment of a “senior assistant”, especially one just turfed out of his own club, say to a new coach. Is it a positive story about fast-tracked development in the lead role, or is it an insurance policy?

AFL Umpiring boss Jeff Gieschen has been rolled out after the Grand Final to perform his verbal pirouettes again, this time over the goal/behind to the Barcodes’ Sharrod Wellingham. Once more, the spectre of video referrals of goal umpiring decisions has been raised, even though the 2010 pre-season trial of the process was, in AussieRulesBlog’s view, an unmitigated waste of time.

But the big issue we should be focussing on is buried at the end of Gieschen’s statement on the matter. Discussing the process the on-field umpires went through in coming to the decision, he says:

"Our field umpire (Shaun Ryan) actually asked the two boundary umpires, who were both on the posts, what they thought [and] they couldn't add anything.
"He then asked the other field umpires.
"It would have been probably nice if we had gone back to the goal umpire as well."

So, was the decision made by the field umpire or the goal umpire? Why would it have been nice to go back to the goal umpire? Did the field umpire signal All Clear with two hands, suggesting a goal? Did the goal umpire change his decision on that basis?

Regardless, AussieRulesBlog thinks there’s far too much emphasis on mistakes by goal umpires. The error rate is minute. Both Chris Dawes and Tom Hawkins had gimme opportunities to score goals — and missed. Why aren’t we focussing on those incidents?

And if Gieschen is so damned worried about getting it as right as it can possibly be, what about looking at a consistent interpretation and application of the laws of the game from the first bounce of pre-season to the final siren of the Grand Final? Now THAT would be a step forward!

Release the Giesch!!!!!

From feeling quite nervous about the Barcodes winning at three-quarter time, AussieRulesBlog’s demeanour improved markedly as the final quarter unfolded. The Cats had, in our view, looked far more dangerous all day, while the Barcodes had made the most of their opportunities to keep themselves very much in the game right through to mid way through the final quarter.

When the game broke, it broke in a big way and the result didn’t truly reflect the intensity of the competition for the ball.

It was certainly far more pleasant walking away from the G after a Pussy Power triumph than it would have been with a Barcodes victory. We’ve suffered plenty of defeats at the hands of the Barcodes and their fans can be in your face and obnoxious in their gloating. It was a very civil end to the day yesterday.

The day was made far more interesting for AussieRulesBlog in anticipating, and then marvelling at, the pre-game.

Arriving at our seats, we couldn’t fail to notice a rather large facsimile Premiership Cup standing on the centre circle, standing perhaps eight metres tall.

As the time for football approached, ten or so black-clad ‘roadies’ appeared through a gate in the boundary fence. Each was carrying a white box. Ikea was our first thought, quickly followed by Lego.

The roadies installed these boxes in a line just inside the centre square and then retreated to the boundary again. Soon they reappeared and placed another five boxes, then proceeded to bring out yet more boxes and line these up on the other side of the centre square. A quick count suggested something to do with Premierships won.

What a good thing they hadn’t used this idea last year! Imagine the Barcodes fourteen boxes on one side and the Saints lonely single box on the other! But we digress.

Retiring players (and umpires) were paraded around the ground, followed by Rising Star, Dyson Heppell.

Craig Willis’ stentorian tones began announcing former Barcodes players and they began appearing from within the teeming mass that is the Barcodes cheer squad, carrying a Premiership Cup each. They walked in a rag-tag fashion, toward the line of boxes — now revealed to be plinths — and placed the cups atop the plinths.

Next the same happened with the Geelong Premierships from the Cats’ cheer squad end, except that the former Cats made the Barcodes greats look like a precision drill team, such was the disorganised nature of their progress toward their plinths. Organisation? Planning? Rehearsal? Telling participants what they’re expected to do and when? These are foreign concepts to those charged with AFL Grand Final ‘Spectaculars’.

In the end, one of the Geelong Cups appeared from the direction of the interchange benches and former Geelong captain, Stephen King — carrying the obligatory child: We’re coming around to Brian Taylor’s thinking on this — had to sprint from the parade of retirees to the parade of former champions carrying Premiership Cups. Organisation? Did no-one think to wonder how King would participate in these two ‘entertainments’?

Next, a roar of Harley Davidsons — have we just coined a new collective noun? — was heard and then seen on the big screen riding up a ramp and out onto the boundary verge. Not surprisingly, this signalled the beginning of Mr Loaf’s contribution to proceedings. Also not surprisingly, the Harleys fitted nicely with Mr Loaf’s rendition of Hot Patootie, famously sung in The Rocky Horror Picture Show by Mr Loaf astride a Harley!

We here at AussieRulesBlog Central are partial to a bit of Mr Loaf. He’s not on high rotation, but a bit of Bat Out of Hell or Paradise by the Dashboard Light can gladden our hearts occasionally, so we were quite looking forward to this performance.

It’s worth mentioning here that we attended five MCG finals this year, being lucky enough to have access to a series ticket and buying a ticket to see the Bombers in week one. For the previous finals, musical acts had provided pre-game and half-time entertainment. From where we were sitting, beneath the scoreboard in the Ponsford Stand, the bands were extremely loud but the sound quality was otherwise quite acceptable.

Having mentioned that, no-one will be surprised to learn that the sound for Mr Loaf, at least where AussieRulesBlog was sitting, would still have been abysmal if it had been improved by 400%. For some reason known only to the organisers, they had foresworn the perfectly good, albeit extraordinarily loud, MCG sound system and instead wheeled out speakers on little trolleys that were last used in the days before the redevelopment of the northern side of the stadium. What emerged from these toy speakers was undoubtedly a cacophony, but little of it was recognisable as Mr Loaf’s work.

Whilst Mr Loaf had been purveying his wares, one of the event staff came out onto the field and gave directions, individually, to the former Barcodes players still standing dutifully by their Premiership Cups. We were somewhat stunned to realise that said event person was repeating the same instructions to each former player — and some of them weren’t keen to buy! Organisation? Planning? Rehearsal?

Eventually, by the end of Mr Loaf’s set, the former players had retired to parts unknown and the Premiership Cups stood resplendent on their plinths, alone and unassisted (bar a sandbag each to keep them in place).

We had been curious that two drum kits on wheeled trolleys had been rolled out during the aforementioned Meat Loaf performance. They weren’t involved in the performance, but just sat there. Also during Meat Loaf’s gig, two groups of scarf-wearing people were escorted onto the arena, one to each end. Once Meat Loaf had finished, the wheeled drum kits were pushed to the top of the goal square at each end and sundry musicians appeared and plugged in their guitars. The two groups of people turned out to be two “choirs” whose task it was to belt out the respective club songs. They seemed not to be plugged into either the MCG sound system, nor Meat Loaf’s, because the Geelong choir’s rendition of the Toreador Song, at the other end of the ground, was very muted.

As the choirs sang, two helium balloons in the (rough) shape of a Sherrin football were elevated to about twenty metres and a banner for each club was unfurled as their song was performed. It was breathtakingly innovative and spectacular — NOT!

Now the former players of both clubs returned to their respective Cups, and retrieved them to two lines forming a ‘Guard of Honour’ before yet another plinth on which the actual Premiership Cup for 2011 would sit. We can’t say it was a total surprise, but we were nevertheless gobsmacked to see a door open in the base of the large Premiership Cup facsimile and a gent emerge carrying the real thing. The Cup was presented to Doug Wade and Murray Wiederman who would present the Cup in the event that either Geelong or Collingwood, respectively, won the game.

And then there were the Ross Oakley memorial fireworks, after which is was all but impossible to see the crowd on the other side of the ground.

Was the fun over? No on your life. The Premiership Cup facsimile which had stood at centre field was transported to the boundary where a team of construction workers disassembled it using tools including a scissor lift and a forklift — a process that seemed to occupy ten minutes of none-too-frantic activity.

Soon after, to everyone’s relief, a game of footy broke out and two hours was spent savouring a wonderful game.

At the conclusion of the game, the MCC, in it’s infinite wisdom, rolled out one of its officious besuited types leading half a dozen MCC staff along with two contraptions for dispensing rope. These people proceeded, Keystone Cops-like, to construct  a rope barrier in front of the dais where the Premiership Medal and Cup were to be presented. Clearly the requirements of the task had not been discussed previously (or the staff were all cloth-eared twits, which is not completely impossible!), because the ensuing action was worthy of a slapstick comedy award. Quite why these worthies were erecting a barrier when unauthorised entry to the playing arena carries a $7,000 fine quite escapes us. And the ‘barrier’ would stop who or what? It’s a rope for goodness sakes.

And so ended our big day. The game had lived up to the billing. The result was the one we preferred. The atmosphere was civil at the end of the game. The pre-game entertainment was an amateurish shambles. Our Grand Final  experience was complete.