Saturday, March 31, 2012

Cousins attacks scurrilous

No comments:

There are some sections of the media that simply don’t understand the bounds of decency. A Channel 7 ‘reporter’ in Perth, granted limited access to Ben Cousins following his arrest in Esperance, decided to flout that agreement in a pretty blatant quest to generate a reaction from Cousins. And she got one, good and proper.

 

Similarly, one of Rupert’s right-wing attack dogs decides to ascend to his lofty perch of moral high ground and pontificate that Cousins deserves no sympathy.

 

We wish everyone could have been listening to radio SEN just prior to the start of the Hawthorn-Barcodes game. Rohan Connolly gave a full broadside to both the 7 hack and the attack dog, holding nothing back and relating his own first-hand experiences of substance abuse and addiction. It was breathtaking stuff.

 

Dermott Brereton backed Connolly up to the hilt, relating his own close experiences with despair.

 

Long-time readers will be aware that AussieRulesBlog strongly supported Cousins’ rehabilitation through football. On the same SEN radio broadcast, former Richmond assistant coach David king spoke in almost reverential tones of Cousins’ effect on the struggling Richmond list.

 

It’s always easy to pillory those who struggle with substance addiction. An addictive personality isn’t an attractive trait, but it’s also often not something the afflicted can just turn on or off. AussieRulesBlog has experience of addiction. We were addicted to smoking for more than twenty years. We had times when we did really silly things just to satisfy our craving. We are lucky that it was a legal substance.

 

Everyone knew that post-football was going to be Cousins’ biggest trial, and so it has proved. The structures and support and involvement of football were always Cousins’ best bulwark against a return to substance abuse. For so-called ‘journalist's’ to take the easy, moralist and populist route of tearing him a new one is more than disappointing and it’s well past time these people got off their moral high horses and tried to understand.

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Friday, March 30, 2012

Tiggy-touchwood frees . . . sometimes

4 comments:

Is it good to have footy back? Too right it is. And the game seems to have changed while we weren’t watching. The first three quarters of the Hawks-Barcodes game was full-on pressure with pretty much no time to steady. In these conditions, it’s the quality of the bottom third of the team that becomes crucial — as both Richmond and the Barcodes have discovered.

 

But one thing has really stood out to us in watching the first two ‘real’ games of the season — sorry, Giants and Swans — and that’s the number of free kicks plucked out for incidental contact.

 

We understand that the rules are written so that incidental illegal contact is to be penalised. The problem we have is that the application of the rules to such fleeting, unintentional contacts is so wildly inconsistent. And it stands out so much more in such hotly-contested, closed-up football.

 

The game’s administrators declare their determination to get as many decisions right as possible and implement a half-baked video referral system, but the inconsistency of general umpiring continues unabated and, seemingly, unnoticed by the powers that be.

 

And it wouldn’t really be footy season if we didn’t have umpires guessing. Ah well, even footy with crap umpiring is better than no footy!

Read More

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Free agency effect?

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With a rash of five-year contract extensions in recent days — Michael Hurley, Brett Deledio and Joel Selwood — there’s been a significant change of heart from at least a few football managers.

 

It’s less than a decade since the Bombers found their salary cap hamstrung, in part due to a five-year deal with Mark Mercuri. AussieRulesBlog, for one, thought we’d never see five year deals again, but AFL has a way of reminding us of history quite regularly.

 

The looming threat of free agency and a cashed-up potential list raider in the Giants would all have factored into these new deals.

 

It’s interesting though, that in the wake of doing the deal, Deledio says he was never going to leave the Tigers. We wonder if he told them that before the contract negotiations? Having seen the Cats lose arguably the best player in the competition to a cashed-up Suns, clubs are understandably nervous of potential targets on their list.

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Saturday, March 24, 2012

Video review highlights ‘goalie’ errors

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There is unfortunate news that a sub-standard system of video review of goal line decisions will be implemented for the 2012 season.

 

"The trials through the NAB Cup have shown that broadcast vision can assist us reaching the correct decision in some cases, and we have elected to introduce the change if we can eliminate errors in some instances," Anderson said.

Anderson’s statement is correct, but omits to mention that the system does absolutely nothing to improve the accuracy of the most contentious of decisions. In fact, implementing video review actually highlights goal umpire errors by drawing even more attention to them.

 

AussieRulesBlog has railed long and loud about the inadequacies of Anderson’s ‘system’. This cheapskate system, piggy-backing on the broadcasters’ resources, is an orphan mongrel.

 

Those who’ve watched NRL on television in recent seasons will have seen a properly-resourced goal line decision assist system. Crucially, the NRL system has a camera right on the goal line and on each side line. The video referee can (in almost all cases) easily assess whether the scorer has grounded the ball over the line and has not broken the side lines.

 

Compare the NRL system with the AFL’s and it becomes immediately clear what a dog’s breakfast Anderson’s scheme is.

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Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Race row puzzle

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The whole Matt Rendell–Jason Mifsud scenario this last week is puzzling indeed. Rendell and Mifsud are reportedly friends. In a meeting in January, Rendell apparently made some remarks that Mifsud took exception to, but, puzzlingly, he didn’t confront Rendell at the time. Instead, he reported to AFL HQ and they wait until March to get involved (at least publicly).

 

Why the delay? If Mifsud was “deeply offended” as reported in The Age today, why didn’t he yell, curse, accuse, berate or simply punch Rendell in the moments following the comments?

 

One explanation for the delayed action might be that a couple of high-profile indigenous players have featured in “controversial” stories between January and mid-March. There’s also been the storm in a teacup over comments by James Hird and Paul Roos, which AussieRulesBlog has commented on a number of times.

 

Is this a confected controversy with Rendell as the fall guy? Well, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck . . .

 

It’s worth noting that AussieRulesBlog took both Mifsud and Caroline Wilson to task for their disingenuous interpretation of Hird and Roos recently. If Mifsud could take an extreme position on comments by two of the milder personalities in football, then there’s a prima facie case to call into question his later interpretation of Rendell’s remarks.

 

But let’s consider the reported remarks. AussieRulesBlog condemns in the strongest possible terms anyone disadvantaging any indigenous person simply because they are indigenous. If Rendell made the remarks as reported, that he and his club would only recruit an indigenous player if the player had one ‘white’ parent, he deserves condemnation.

 

This remark, the context of which is now hotly disputed, apparently followed on the departure of a number of young indigenous players who had difficulty adjusting to the city and to the AFL environment.

 

We should just remind ourselves here that there are a number of non-indigenous recruits each year, including some high-profile prestige draft picks, who fail to adjust to the AFL environment.

 

AFL clubs are testing environments. There’s a lot of money and millions of people’s heartfelt affections resting on teams’ performances each week. This is not place for the timid or the unmotivated.

 

Each year, kids from a wide variety of backgrounds are thrown into this meat grinder that is the AFL. Some emerge, like Daniel Rich or Dyson Heppell, and look like they were born to it. Others, like Jay Neagle, despite undoubted talent, can’t take the last step. The kids mentioned are from relatively privileged backgrounds. Despite that one of them didn’t make it.

 

For some of those kids drafted or rookied, we also need to factor in extreme cultural dislocation. The cultural chasm between an outback lifestyle and the footy played there on the one hand and the AFL environment and its football on the other hand could hardly be larger if the kids were sent to Mars to train. Is it any wonder some struggle to make the adjustment?

 

The point Rendell now says he was trying to make, that a couple of years of less-highly structured acclimatisation for indigenous players before entering the AFL environment would prove beneficial for players and AFL clubs alike, seems to make a lot of sense. It’s a great pity that it has been lost in the sensationalist accusations being flung around.

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Saturday, March 10, 2012

Video decision cock-ups multiply like rabbits

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It’s hard to avoid coming to the conclusion that AFL umpires don’t watch pre-season games back to assess their performance. How else to describe their touching but misplaced faith in a video referral ‘system’ that doesn’t include goal line cameras?

 

Once again tonight, during the WCE–Saints pre-season match, a goal umpire perfectly positioned on the goal line decided to refer the decision to video. Had the umpire, or the controlling field umpire, watched this year’s pre-season matches and seen the shemozzle that is Adrian Anderson’s video referral system, they would never waste everybody’s time by making the referral.

 

The powerful ego known as Dwayne Russell, calling the game for Foxtel, enthusiastically reminded his incredulous colleagues that it was important to ensure that the umpires got the decision right. The whiney, quavering voice of Mark Ricciuto blurted out that the referral had done nothing of the sort (before he was summarily silenced on the matter).

 

Is Russell doing the AFL’s bidding on this? Despite weekly evidence to the contrary, he is not stupid. And yet he runs Anderson’s line

 

Quite how anyone — Adrian Anderson, Jeff Gieschen, the AFL Umpiring Department, Dwayne Russell or anyone with even the slightest degree of interest in AFL — could believe that a camera at 45° to the goal line or an elevated camera directly behind the goal umpire could possibly shed light on a decision on whether the ball was touched before the line or not ranks as one of the great mysteries.

 

AussieRulesBlog is quite tempted to send an invoice to the afore-mentioned Mr Anderson asking for a refund of the comprehensively wasted forty seconds consumed by this particular video referral. “Inconclusive” just doesn’t do the process justice!

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A week ago it was race-based drafting

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It seems an age ago, but it has only been a few days. The Age’s Caroline Wilson and then the AFL’s Jason Mifsud were climbing into Paul Roos and James Hird, all but accusing them of racism.

 

Reporting and opinion in the wake of the events surrounding Liam Jurrah has made much the same point that Roos and Hird made. For example, the Herald-Sun’s Jon Anderson concludes his opinion piece on Jurrah with this statement:

 

“And while [indigenous players’] extraordinary athletic gifts will ensure numbers always remain healthy in the AFL, expect deeper scrutiny to be applied before clubs trade with a precious draft pick that may never reap the benefits.”

 

AussieRulesBlog waits with bated breath for Wilson and Mifsud to accuse Anderson of promoting race-based draft selections — or apologise to Roos and Hird!

 

We know we wait in vain.

Read More

Friday, March 09, 2012

Well, almost any. . .

No comments:

You’ve got to love Jeff Gieschen. Well, if you’re a blogger, you have to. He just gives us material pretty much every week of the year. And this week he has dribbled a doosy into his bib.

 

“ ‘What I do know is we are up for any initiative which can improve the level of accuracy of what we do or can improve the coaching of our umpires,’ Gieschen said.”

 

Now, it might surprise some readers to know that the goal umpires are trialling spectacle frames with TV cameras in them to help judge goal line scoring decisions in tonight’s pre-season game at Docklands. The sting in the tail? Foxtel are funding the fancy specs.

 

In recent weeks, The Giesch has been telling us that the AFL could “nail” goal line video referral, but this trial of tricky specs suggests they know their system is fatally flawed and are looking for an out.

 

So, in Giesch-speak, “up for any initiative which can improve accuracy” has a silent codicil — “as long as we don’t have to pay for it.”

 

Now to this latest whizzbangery, the spectacular specs. We saw some footage of them taken from a cricket broadcast and we can’t say we’re all that confident that they’ll be of much use at an AFL goal line. IF the umpire holds his head perfectly steady, there may be a usable image, but the resolution didn’t seem to be anything to write home about.

 

If, as is more likely, the umpire is moving, then the lack of a stable platform for the camera renders the image all but unwatchable. Certainly it’ll be of problematic effectiveness in assuring improved accuracy in scoring decisions.

 

There’s a reason TV cameras are positioned on big heavy tripods. There’s a reason that the TV cameras taken out on the field are mounted on large steady-cam frames. Why the AFL doesn’t just shell out the readies for goal post cameras isn’t clear. Perhaps it would eat into Vlad’s bonus?

 

More fiddling while Rome burns!

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Monday, March 05, 2012

Video beast out of control, again

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Back in February, we commented on the plans to trial video referral for “goal line decisions”.

 

Somewhat presciently, we wrote:

 

“Let’s hope that we don’t have a repeat of last year’s nonsense of video replays being used to try to determine whether a hand has touched a kicked ball fifteen metres out from goal. Goal line decisions only please, if we must go through this nonsense.”

 

Well, it only took two rounds for our worst fears to be realised. This weekend, a field umpire called for a video referral to determine if a ball had been touched off the boot.

 

Who is instructing these umpires and why are they making demands of this system that it cannot meet? Heavens, the ‘system’ can’t even meet the expectations of its primary prompter, AFL football operations manager Adrian Anderson. The system is rubbish and Gieschen can’t even get his mob to use it appropriately.

 

There are no good stories to come out of this trial. Despite a couple of legitimate corrections, the litany of failures must surely be a millstone that keeps it from surfacing for the season proper. Indeed, the only trial that should be occurring is that of Anderson’s competence and judgement to be presiding over decisions that so fundamentally affect the game.

 

Anyone who thinks there’s been a bit of controversy over a couple of poor decisions, or non-decisions, should wait until there’s four real Premiership points on the line. Then you’ll hear some complaining!

 

Time to administer the lead Aspro, Vlad — to the video referral trial and your footy operations manager.

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Friday, March 02, 2012

Race card played, again, and it’s wrong, again

2 comments:

We suppose that Jason Mifsud, the AFL's national community engagement manager, might be excused in part by his job for launching into Paul Roos and James Hird in today’s Age. Mifsud follows the Caroline Wilson line which we’ve discussed previously. Lets get to the heart of the matter. He and Wilson are wrong.

 

Mifsud warms to his task, identifying one after another indigenous AFL player who exhibits endurance in some attempt to show that Roos and Hird have mis-spoken. The only problem is they didn’t say EVERY indigenous player was bereft of endurance.

 

Roos and Hird have been around the game a little bit and, unlike journalists and perhaps a national community engagement manager, have seen players away from the public’s gaze. It’s likely they’ve had the opportunity to observe quite a number of indigenous players in the stress of training as well as in games. They’ve formed the view, based on their experience, that a change to a two-and-two bench could make it harder for indigenous footballers to get drafted.

 

They are NOT saying that clubs should not draft indigenous players, although you’d hardly know that from the inflamed criticisms being thrown at them.

 

Mifsud’s most egregious error is to relate “the statistics on longevity of primary-listed [indigenous] players in the AFL over the last five years.” All very nice Jason, but we’ve had one year of a three-and-one bench, prior to which coaches have been interchanging at ever-increasing rates. Quite how these statistics relate to what Roos and Hird said might be an impact of the proposed two-and-two bench eludes us.

 

Sure, Adam Goodes is an astounding athlete as Mifsud reminds us, but he, Lance Franklin, Andrew McLeod, Nicky Winmar and Peter Matera are as exceptional amongst indigenous players as Gary Ablett (both of ‘em), Wayne Carey, Nathan Buckley and Chris Judd are amongst non-indigenous players. So what?

 

“The logical application of [Hird and Roos’] statement is that we should manage out Cyril Rioli, Liam Jurrah and Chris Yarran because they can't run 15 beep tests and revert back to the dark — and not so secretive — days of race-based draft selections. Of course, this is absurd.”

 

It certainly is absurd Jason, because it’s your ‘logical’ conclusion, not theirs.

 

Enough! Stop building straw men that you can knock down in virtuous dudgeon.

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Thursday, March 01, 2012

Gieschen-coloured glasses

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The AFL have wheeled out Jeff Gieschen, head of the umpiring department, to spin the video referral system being ‘trialled’ during the pre-season. And spin it he did.

 

The AFL sees a positive in two incorrect decisions being overturned for the cost of six referrals. Add in the incidents where a referral wasn’t made — three by our count, two according to the AFL — and the picture starts looking a bit messier.

 

"We want to back the goal umpire as much as possible, but we have the ability to check and see and we should be doing just that." Gieschen is quoted in the story as saying.

The problem is that goal umpires can be certain of their decision — so certain they don’t entertain a video referral — and still be wrong. We’ve seen three such examples just in the first round of pre-season.

 

It’s great to back the umpires, but then the AFL ‘backs’ them by introducing video referral. Apart from the Hawkins and Wellingham ‘goals’, this is a non-issue.

 

All video referral is doing is highlighting exactly how many mistakes the ‘goalies’ do make — and it looks like it’s going to be a lot more than Gieschen and the AFL would have had us believe.

 

Video referral is a solution in search of a problem. We reckon they’ve picked the wrong problem!

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Cousins attacks scurrilous

There are some sections of the media that simply don’t understand the bounds of decency. A Channel 7 ‘reporter’ in Perth, granted limited access to Ben Cousins following his arrest in Esperance, decided to flout that agreement in a pretty blatant quest to generate a reaction from Cousins. And she got one, good and proper.

 

Similarly, one of Rupert’s right-wing attack dogs decides to ascend to his lofty perch of moral high ground and pontificate that Cousins deserves no sympathy.

 

We wish everyone could have been listening to radio SEN just prior to the start of the Hawthorn-Barcodes game. Rohan Connolly gave a full broadside to both the 7 hack and the attack dog, holding nothing back and relating his own first-hand experiences of substance abuse and addiction. It was breathtaking stuff.

 

Dermott Brereton backed Connolly up to the hilt, relating his own close experiences with despair.

 

Long-time readers will be aware that AussieRulesBlog strongly supported Cousins’ rehabilitation through football. On the same SEN radio broadcast, former Richmond assistant coach David king spoke in almost reverential tones of Cousins’ effect on the struggling Richmond list.

 

It’s always easy to pillory those who struggle with substance addiction. An addictive personality isn’t an attractive trait, but it’s also often not something the afflicted can just turn on or off. AussieRulesBlog has experience of addiction. We were addicted to smoking for more than twenty years. We had times when we did really silly things just to satisfy our craving. We are lucky that it was a legal substance.

 

Everyone knew that post-football was going to be Cousins’ biggest trial, and so it has proved. The structures and support and involvement of football were always Cousins’ best bulwark against a return to substance abuse. For so-called ‘journalist's’ to take the easy, moralist and populist route of tearing him a new one is more than disappointing and it’s well past time these people got off their moral high horses and tried to understand.

Tiggy-touchwood frees . . . sometimes

Is it good to have footy back? Too right it is. And the game seems to have changed while we weren’t watching. The first three quarters of the Hawks-Barcodes game was full-on pressure with pretty much no time to steady. In these conditions, it’s the quality of the bottom third of the team that becomes crucial — as both Richmond and the Barcodes have discovered.

 

But one thing has really stood out to us in watching the first two ‘real’ games of the season — sorry, Giants and Swans — and that’s the number of free kicks plucked out for incidental contact.

 

We understand that the rules are written so that incidental illegal contact is to be penalised. The problem we have is that the application of the rules to such fleeting, unintentional contacts is so wildly inconsistent. And it stands out so much more in such hotly-contested, closed-up football.

 

The game’s administrators declare their determination to get as many decisions right as possible and implement a half-baked video referral system, but the inconsistency of general umpiring continues unabated and, seemingly, unnoticed by the powers that be.

 

And it wouldn’t really be footy season if we didn’t have umpires guessing. Ah well, even footy with crap umpiring is better than no footy!

Free agency effect?

With a rash of five-year contract extensions in recent days — Michael Hurley, Brett Deledio and Joel Selwood — there’s been a significant change of heart from at least a few football managers.

 

It’s less than a decade since the Bombers found their salary cap hamstrung, in part due to a five-year deal with Mark Mercuri. AussieRulesBlog, for one, thought we’d never see five year deals again, but AFL has a way of reminding us of history quite regularly.

 

The looming threat of free agency and a cashed-up potential list raider in the Giants would all have factored into these new deals.

 

It’s interesting though, that in the wake of doing the deal, Deledio says he was never going to leave the Tigers. We wonder if he told them that before the contract negotiations? Having seen the Cats lose arguably the best player in the competition to a cashed-up Suns, clubs are understandably nervous of potential targets on their list.

Video review highlights ‘goalie’ errors

There is unfortunate news that a sub-standard system of video review of goal line decisions will be implemented for the 2012 season.

 

"The trials through the NAB Cup have shown that broadcast vision can assist us reaching the correct decision in some cases, and we have elected to introduce the change if we can eliminate errors in some instances," Anderson said.

Anderson’s statement is correct, but omits to mention that the system does absolutely nothing to improve the accuracy of the most contentious of decisions. In fact, implementing video review actually highlights goal umpire errors by drawing even more attention to them.

 

AussieRulesBlog has railed long and loud about the inadequacies of Anderson’s ‘system’. This cheapskate system, piggy-backing on the broadcasters’ resources, is an orphan mongrel.

 

Those who’ve watched NRL on television in recent seasons will have seen a properly-resourced goal line decision assist system. Crucially, the NRL system has a camera right on the goal line and on each side line. The video referee can (in almost all cases) easily assess whether the scorer has grounded the ball over the line and has not broken the side lines.

 

Compare the NRL system with the AFL’s and it becomes immediately clear what a dog’s breakfast Anderson’s scheme is.

Race row puzzle

The whole Matt Rendell–Jason Mifsud scenario this last week is puzzling indeed. Rendell and Mifsud are reportedly friends. In a meeting in January, Rendell apparently made some remarks that Mifsud took exception to, but, puzzlingly, he didn’t confront Rendell at the time. Instead, he reported to AFL HQ and they wait until March to get involved (at least publicly).

 

Why the delay? If Mifsud was “deeply offended” as reported in The Age today, why didn’t he yell, curse, accuse, berate or simply punch Rendell in the moments following the comments?

 

One explanation for the delayed action might be that a couple of high-profile indigenous players have featured in “controversial” stories between January and mid-March. There’s also been the storm in a teacup over comments by James Hird and Paul Roos, which AussieRulesBlog has commented on a number of times.

 

Is this a confected controversy with Rendell as the fall guy? Well, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck . . .

 

It’s worth noting that AussieRulesBlog took both Mifsud and Caroline Wilson to task for their disingenuous interpretation of Hird and Roos recently. If Mifsud could take an extreme position on comments by two of the milder personalities in football, then there’s a prima facie case to call into question his later interpretation of Rendell’s remarks.

 

But let’s consider the reported remarks. AussieRulesBlog condemns in the strongest possible terms anyone disadvantaging any indigenous person simply because they are indigenous. If Rendell made the remarks as reported, that he and his club would only recruit an indigenous player if the player had one ‘white’ parent, he deserves condemnation.

 

This remark, the context of which is now hotly disputed, apparently followed on the departure of a number of young indigenous players who had difficulty adjusting to the city and to the AFL environment.

 

We should just remind ourselves here that there are a number of non-indigenous recruits each year, including some high-profile prestige draft picks, who fail to adjust to the AFL environment.

 

AFL clubs are testing environments. There’s a lot of money and millions of people’s heartfelt affections resting on teams’ performances each week. This is not place for the timid or the unmotivated.

 

Each year, kids from a wide variety of backgrounds are thrown into this meat grinder that is the AFL. Some emerge, like Daniel Rich or Dyson Heppell, and look like they were born to it. Others, like Jay Neagle, despite undoubted talent, can’t take the last step. The kids mentioned are from relatively privileged backgrounds. Despite that one of them didn’t make it.

 

For some of those kids drafted or rookied, we also need to factor in extreme cultural dislocation. The cultural chasm between an outback lifestyle and the footy played there on the one hand and the AFL environment and its football on the other hand could hardly be larger if the kids were sent to Mars to train. Is it any wonder some struggle to make the adjustment?

 

The point Rendell now says he was trying to make, that a couple of years of less-highly structured acclimatisation for indigenous players before entering the AFL environment would prove beneficial for players and AFL clubs alike, seems to make a lot of sense. It’s a great pity that it has been lost in the sensationalist accusations being flung around.

Video decision cock-ups multiply like rabbits

It’s hard to avoid coming to the conclusion that AFL umpires don’t watch pre-season games back to assess their performance. How else to describe their touching but misplaced faith in a video referral ‘system’ that doesn’t include goal line cameras?

 

Once again tonight, during the WCE–Saints pre-season match, a goal umpire perfectly positioned on the goal line decided to refer the decision to video. Had the umpire, or the controlling field umpire, watched this year’s pre-season matches and seen the shemozzle that is Adrian Anderson’s video referral system, they would never waste everybody’s time by making the referral.

 

The powerful ego known as Dwayne Russell, calling the game for Foxtel, enthusiastically reminded his incredulous colleagues that it was important to ensure that the umpires got the decision right. The whiney, quavering voice of Mark Ricciuto blurted out that the referral had done nothing of the sort (before he was summarily silenced on the matter).

 

Is Russell doing the AFL’s bidding on this? Despite weekly evidence to the contrary, he is not stupid. And yet he runs Anderson’s line

 

Quite how anyone — Adrian Anderson, Jeff Gieschen, the AFL Umpiring Department, Dwayne Russell or anyone with even the slightest degree of interest in AFL — could believe that a camera at 45° to the goal line or an elevated camera directly behind the goal umpire could possibly shed light on a decision on whether the ball was touched before the line or not ranks as one of the great mysteries.

 

AussieRulesBlog is quite tempted to send an invoice to the afore-mentioned Mr Anderson asking for a refund of the comprehensively wasted forty seconds consumed by this particular video referral. “Inconclusive” just doesn’t do the process justice!

A week ago it was race-based drafting

It seems an age ago, but it has only been a few days. The Age’s Caroline Wilson and then the AFL’s Jason Mifsud were climbing into Paul Roos and James Hird, all but accusing them of racism.

 

Reporting and opinion in the wake of the events surrounding Liam Jurrah has made much the same point that Roos and Hird made. For example, the Herald-Sun’s Jon Anderson concludes his opinion piece on Jurrah with this statement:

 

“And while [indigenous players’] extraordinary athletic gifts will ensure numbers always remain healthy in the AFL, expect deeper scrutiny to be applied before clubs trade with a precious draft pick that may never reap the benefits.”

 

AussieRulesBlog waits with bated breath for Wilson and Mifsud to accuse Anderson of promoting race-based draft selections — or apologise to Roos and Hird!

 

We know we wait in vain.

Well, almost any. . .

You’ve got to love Jeff Gieschen. Well, if you’re a blogger, you have to. He just gives us material pretty much every week of the year. And this week he has dribbled a doosy into his bib.

 

“ ‘What I do know is we are up for any initiative which can improve the level of accuracy of what we do or can improve the coaching of our umpires,’ Gieschen said.”

 

Now, it might surprise some readers to know that the goal umpires are trialling spectacle frames with TV cameras in them to help judge goal line scoring decisions in tonight’s pre-season game at Docklands. The sting in the tail? Foxtel are funding the fancy specs.

 

In recent weeks, The Giesch has been telling us that the AFL could “nail” goal line video referral, but this trial of tricky specs suggests they know their system is fatally flawed and are looking for an out.

 

So, in Giesch-speak, “up for any initiative which can improve accuracy” has a silent codicil — “as long as we don’t have to pay for it.”

 

Now to this latest whizzbangery, the spectacular specs. We saw some footage of them taken from a cricket broadcast and we can’t say we’re all that confident that they’ll be of much use at an AFL goal line. IF the umpire holds his head perfectly steady, there may be a usable image, but the resolution didn’t seem to be anything to write home about.

 

If, as is more likely, the umpire is moving, then the lack of a stable platform for the camera renders the image all but unwatchable. Certainly it’ll be of problematic effectiveness in assuring improved accuracy in scoring decisions.

 

There’s a reason TV cameras are positioned on big heavy tripods. There’s a reason that the TV cameras taken out on the field are mounted on large steady-cam frames. Why the AFL doesn’t just shell out the readies for goal post cameras isn’t clear. Perhaps it would eat into Vlad’s bonus?

 

More fiddling while Rome burns!

Video beast out of control, again

Back in February, we commented on the plans to trial video referral for “goal line decisions”.

 

Somewhat presciently, we wrote:

 

“Let’s hope that we don’t have a repeat of last year’s nonsense of video replays being used to try to determine whether a hand has touched a kicked ball fifteen metres out from goal. Goal line decisions only please, if we must go through this nonsense.”

 

Well, it only took two rounds for our worst fears to be realised. This weekend, a field umpire called for a video referral to determine if a ball had been touched off the boot.

 

Who is instructing these umpires and why are they making demands of this system that it cannot meet? Heavens, the ‘system’ can’t even meet the expectations of its primary prompter, AFL football operations manager Adrian Anderson. The system is rubbish and Gieschen can’t even get his mob to use it appropriately.

 

There are no good stories to come out of this trial. Despite a couple of legitimate corrections, the litany of failures must surely be a millstone that keeps it from surfacing for the season proper. Indeed, the only trial that should be occurring is that of Anderson’s competence and judgement to be presiding over decisions that so fundamentally affect the game.

 

Anyone who thinks there’s been a bit of controversy over a couple of poor decisions, or non-decisions, should wait until there’s four real Premiership points on the line. Then you’ll hear some complaining!

 

Time to administer the lead Aspro, Vlad — to the video referral trial and your footy operations manager.

Race card played, again, and it’s wrong, again

We suppose that Jason Mifsud, the AFL's national community engagement manager, might be excused in part by his job for launching into Paul Roos and James Hird in today’s Age. Mifsud follows the Caroline Wilson line which we’ve discussed previously. Lets get to the heart of the matter. He and Wilson are wrong.

 

Mifsud warms to his task, identifying one after another indigenous AFL player who exhibits endurance in some attempt to show that Roos and Hird have mis-spoken. The only problem is they didn’t say EVERY indigenous player was bereft of endurance.

 

Roos and Hird have been around the game a little bit and, unlike journalists and perhaps a national community engagement manager, have seen players away from the public’s gaze. It’s likely they’ve had the opportunity to observe quite a number of indigenous players in the stress of training as well as in games. They’ve formed the view, based on their experience, that a change to a two-and-two bench could make it harder for indigenous footballers to get drafted.

 

They are NOT saying that clubs should not draft indigenous players, although you’d hardly know that from the inflamed criticisms being thrown at them.

 

Mifsud’s most egregious error is to relate “the statistics on longevity of primary-listed [indigenous] players in the AFL over the last five years.” All very nice Jason, but we’ve had one year of a three-and-one bench, prior to which coaches have been interchanging at ever-increasing rates. Quite how these statistics relate to what Roos and Hird said might be an impact of the proposed two-and-two bench eludes us.

 

Sure, Adam Goodes is an astounding athlete as Mifsud reminds us, but he, Lance Franklin, Andrew McLeod, Nicky Winmar and Peter Matera are as exceptional amongst indigenous players as Gary Ablett (both of ‘em), Wayne Carey, Nathan Buckley and Chris Judd are amongst non-indigenous players. So what?

 

“The logical application of [Hird and Roos’] statement is that we should manage out Cyril Rioli, Liam Jurrah and Chris Yarran because they can't run 15 beep tests and revert back to the dark — and not so secretive — days of race-based draft selections. Of course, this is absurd.”

 

It certainly is absurd Jason, because it’s your ‘logical’ conclusion, not theirs.

 

Enough! Stop building straw men that you can knock down in virtuous dudgeon.

Gieschen-coloured glasses

The AFL have wheeled out Jeff Gieschen, head of the umpiring department, to spin the video referral system being ‘trialled’ during the pre-season. And spin it he did.

 

The AFL sees a positive in two incorrect decisions being overturned for the cost of six referrals. Add in the incidents where a referral wasn’t made — three by our count, two according to the AFL — and the picture starts looking a bit messier.

 

"We want to back the goal umpire as much as possible, but we have the ability to check and see and we should be doing just that." Gieschen is quoted in the story as saying.

The problem is that goal umpires can be certain of their decision — so certain they don’t entertain a video referral — and still be wrong. We’ve seen three such examples just in the first round of pre-season.

 

It’s great to back the umpires, but then the AFL ‘backs’ them by introducing video referral. Apart from the Hawkins and Wellingham ‘goals’, this is a non-issue.

 

All video referral is doing is highlighting exactly how many mistakes the ‘goalies’ do make — and it looks like it’s going to be a lot more than Gieschen and the AFL would have had us believe.

 

Video referral is a solution in search of a problem. We reckon they’ve picked the wrong problem!