Monday, April 29, 2013

Great expectations

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As some of the heat comes out of the goal line video review controversy, new AFL football operations boss Mark Evans thinks the only viable options open to him are to stick with an imperfect system or revert to goal umpires being the sole adjudicators.

 

Evans didn’t endorse the existing system, but saw nothing in the immediate future that would be an advance on it. The Age’s report quotes Evans as saying only one percent of scoring decisions were reviewed, with two decisions so far this year having been overturned by the review.

 

"At the moment, we have a system where we can correct the absolute errors and that's got to be better than not having it [at] all."

 

Well, AussieRulesBlog begs to differ, and here’s why.

 

The video review system as it stands is set up to fail. The only scenarios where it can deliver anything like certainty are those serendipitous occasions where the direction of the ball coincides with the direction of a camera and there is a sufficient deflection of the ball from an object to determine that the ball struck the object.

 

Anything else, save those occasions where the broadcaster has installed goalpost cameras, is a complete waste of time and energy.

 

Our prime reason for dissent is that the very fact of having, and utilising, a video review system implies that it will contribute meaningfully to the game. Just by using it, we create that expectation. It doesn’t matter how many times everybody says it is imperfect, the expectation will remain.

 

While the game remains hostage to the spurious logic that says we must employ any measure that we think might bring us closer to absolute accuracy, these controversies will continue, and will continue to be a blight on the game.

 

Thanks for nothing, Adrian.

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Sunday, April 28, 2013

Give them an inch…

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Way back when this crock of a video referral system was being foreshadowed, AussieRulesBlog implored the powers that be to ensure that it remained about goal line decisions. Of course, as we now know, it has failed to deliver the promised certainty and accuracy on the goal line.

 

Unfortunately, there are umpires who continue to refer decisions about things other than scoring — an example being the decision in tonight’s Hawthorn–Kangaroos game to refer a decision about whether a Kangaroos player had touched a ball kicked for goal by a Hawthorn player.

 

As we have previously demonstrated, the physics of kicking clearly show that the cameras being used to cover AFL are incapable of clearly discerning whether a ball has been touched or not unless there is a significant movement of the touching hand.

 

It hasn’t been a good weekend for the Umpiring Department with multiple video clangers and a field umpire allowing Geelong to pinch a free kick awarded to the Bulldogs.

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100% goal a step too far

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The goal umpiring furore erupting after Friday night’s Richmond-Fremantle game has shone yet another light on the AFL’s attempt to approach 100% correctness on scoring decisions — and what we see isn’t pretty.

 

For those who haven’t seen it, here’s the scenario:

 

goaldecision

 

 

The ball has been kicked toward goal from the left-hand pocket and has closely tracked the goal line as it travels toward the goal umpire. Richmond player #29, Ty Vickery, has just tried to nudge the ball through for a goal with his foot — but taken an air swing.

 

The ball proceeds on its way and strikes the goal umpire in the area close to his “family jewels”.

 

So, to the controversies.

 

Damien Hardwick claims the result should have been a goal to Richmond. Quite how this can be the case when the goal umpire is hit in the gonads as he stands against the post mystifies us. Yes, it was close. Yes, it would be preferable that the umpire wasn’t in such an immediate vicinity. But a goal? No.

 

Controversy number two has various commentators calling for the goal umpire to be standing back from the line, out of the way of the players. Once again, quite how the umpire would be in a position to make a judgement in this case were he standing a metre or two back from the line mystifies us.

 

Stand by for a shock! AussieRulesBlog thinks The Giesch’s bloke got this one spot on and was, in the circumstances and with the tools available, in EXACTLY the right position to make a judgement.

 

Let’s just revisit this whole goal umpiring area. When the video review notion was first raised, the departed and unlamented Adrian Anderson told us that goal umpiring errors were less than one-tenth of one percent of all goal umpiring decisions across a season. BUT, despite that laudable statistic, the AFL decided to make a kneejerk response to a couple of high-profile errors and introduce a remarkably-flawed goal line video decision assistance ‘system’.

 

In this system, the umpires would rely on broadcast TV camera footage to assist the decision-making process. The AFL decided they wouldn’t foot the bill for cameras in the goal posts to monitor the goal line, instead relying on the broadcasters’ cameras set at a significant angle to the goal line.

 

What has followed has been the longest series of cock-ups the game has ever seen. A small number of decisions have been shown to be wrong and been corrected, but at the cost of interminable furore and the regular intonation of “Inconclusive, goal umpire’s decision.”

 

This experiment in technology has been an unmitigated disaster. The logical decision, right at the start of the process, was to employ two goal umpires at either end of the ground. With responsibility for a roughly seven-metre stretch of goal-line plane each, there’s a much-reduced likelihood of error. It’s not eliminated completely, but, as we’ve seen in recent years, technology as it is currently employed doesn’t get us any nearer that goal.

 

The sticking point here is money. The AFL won’t open its wallet to fund goal-line cameras, and it won’t open its wallet to fund an extra two goal umpires per game.

 

It’s not that long ago that it was the AFL defending the antiquated notion that one boundary umpire could effectively cover 200 metres of boundary in a fast-moving game of football. Would anyone now countenance going back to a single boundary umpire?

 

Come on Andrew. Time to step up to the mark. Either fund the video review system properly, or spring for some extra umpires. It’s not like the AFL is poor.

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Saturday, April 20, 2013

Drugs storm in a teacup

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Not so much a storm in a teacup as a hurricane in a thimble, the "’drugs in sport’ enquiry — or at least what we can glean from the hyperbolic media coverage — doesn’t seem to be delivering what was promised at the breathless media conference to announce it.

 

Richard Cooke writes in The Monthly:

 

More than two months have passed since the release of the ACC’s report into organised crime and drugs, the ‘darkest day in Australian sport’, a date that now seems to signify little more than the start of a fishing expedition.

 

and

 

…the ‘150 players’ from two codes to be interviewed? A number fabricated by an executive ‘under pressure’.

 

At least publicly, the whole exercise is beginning to look like an opportunity for Stephen Dank to serialise his text message library and the AFL, at least, is sticking closely to its ‘zero-tolerance’ policy of guilt by association rather than by evidence.

 

It may be that there are some substantive outcomes of the enquiry, but the echoes of the Salem witch trials are becoming louder and louder.

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Thursday, April 18, 2013

A Blot on the campaign

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Once again AussieRulesBlog addresses the Essendon supplement affair, but the reason and the direction will surprise.

In normal circumstances, we try extremely hard to divorce other parts of our existence from AussieRulesBlog. This site is about Aussie rules football.

The circumstances are not normal. Essendon’s favourite son, third-best player of all time and current coach, James Hird, is under attack in a way we can’t recall having been used in football before. If anyone has suggestions for similarly virulent and sustained public shaming, we’d be glad to reconsider.

You’d think then, that vocal support from a well-connected public figure without any allegiance to the Essendon Football Club or James Hird would be welcome. You’d be wrong. Dead wrong!

The Herald-Sun’s attack-dog “opinion” columnist and blogger, Andrew Blot, allowed the semi-trained monkeys who pen his drivel to write in support of Hird on Wednesday. Superficially, that support is welcomed by AussieRulesBlog, but the devil is in the detail.

The very tactics of the “pack” [Blot’s term] pursuing Hird that Blot decries so vehemently are the self-same tactics used by the “pack” [our term this time] led by Blot and others in dogged pursuit of Prime Minister Gillard.

Whatever your political stripe, on any assessment based on respectful and considered human discourse,Gillard has been shamefully treated by Blot and his mates. The similarities to the treatment meted out to Hird stand out like beacons on a dark night.

Blot ferociously lashes the malicious framing and prejudgement of Hird without evidence — and yet that’s precisely how he and his mates have treated the Prime Minister.

Tell him, Hirdy. Tell him to take his sanctimonious hypocritical support and shove it where the sun don’t shine.
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Monday, April 15, 2013

All injections are not equal

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With so much breathless rumour-based hyperbole over the supplements affair at Essendon, it's easy to miss some real-world perspectives.

On Saturday morning, AussieRulesBlog found ourselves with some time to spare and Fox Footy screening the 2012 Grand Final Recall. What an interesting show!

The recall consists of team members and coach watching the replay back and answering questions from the Fox Footy representatives — in this case, Dwayne Russell and former Swans coach Paul Roos. The whole is filmed, with inserts of the players' and coach's faces on the screen as they watch the game.

The insights provided by the players and coach, albeit secure in the knowledge of their eventual victory, were very illuminating. But there were two little sequences that gave us pause for thought.

In the first sequence, early in the game, Ted Richards kicks the ball. The kick is extremely ordinary. Laughing, coach John Longmire explained, "Teddy couldn't feel his foot!"

For the fourth quarter, Longmire was joined by Richards among others.

During the course of the quarter, Richards related how the ankle he'd injured the previous week had kept him from training in the week leading up to the Grand Final. He told how his ankle was injected with local anaesthetic before the game — hence Longmire's earlier comment. The local deadened the pain for about twenty minutes and then the pain began to return.

So, at each break in the game, Richards once again had a local administered to his ankle.

It has become part of the circus surrounding the supplements affair that past players have decried current players being injected. Yet Richards' experience wasn't some sort if sci-fi brave new world of football medicine. If not common, it's at the very least unremarkable in the AFL industry that a player plays with the assistance of a local anaesthetic.

All injections, it seems, are not equal.
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Saturday, April 13, 2013

The word from Hird

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Regular readers will know that AussieRulesBlog supports Essendon, but we pride ourselves on our ability to comment on issues without our allegiance muddying our view.

 

That said, statements by Essendon coach James Hird at the press conference following the Bombers’ (magnificent) fighting victory over Fremantle last night are worthy of further comment.

 

We suspect few would raise an eyebrow in surprise if told that John Elliot or Graeme Richmond had crashed through the rules whilst seeking an advantage for their respective clubs.

 

James Hird, and Essendon Chairman David Evans and CEO Ian Robson for that matter, are cut from different cloth.

 

Hird’s calm and measured statement at his press conference:

 

"People say things, and you know they're untrue, and you know you've got truth on your side, you go hard, and when you get your opportunity you tell the whole truth.”
"When the truth comes out, I think I'll be in a very, very good position and so will this football club.”

doesn’t allow for misinterpretation. It’s absolutely unequivocal.

 

All of which makes the statements by AFL Chief Executive Andrew Demetriou on Hird in recent days seem rather strange.

 

It has been conventional wisdom that Demetriou has some reasonable knowledge of the issues being investigated by the Australian Crime Commission, and in Essendon’s case by the AFL itself and ASADA. That view can no longer be supported. Demetriou is, like the rest of us, merely a passenger on the journey.

 

It appears it may be August before there’s a resolution following the investigations. The only thing that’s certain is that certain “journalists” will maintain their habit of allowing rumour, innuendo, suspicion and hyperbole to be the basis for their poison pen letters.

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Sunday, April 07, 2013

Carpark (non)communication

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Walking to the ’G on Saturday night down Clarendon Street, AussieRulesBlog and friend remarked on the exceedingly slow pace of the line of traffic waiting to enter the MCG carpark.

 

The reason became clear after we crossed Wellington Parade. There was a sign as the Yarra Park entrance announcing that the carpark was full. That’s all very helpful, but the sign couldn’t be seen without crossing over Wellington Parade.

 

Let’s say, right now, that those who decide to park at Yarra Park for the football take their chance anyway, since there’s no guarantee. AussieRulesBlog parks a couple of kilometers away and walks in — a much less stressful solution.

 

Notwithstanding the right or wrong of sitting in a line of traffic, using petrol, just so you only have to walk a hundred metres to the stadium, why hasn’t someone devised a system of signs in Clarendon Street to advise the poor sods driving down it that there is no carparking available at Yarra Park? Not hard to do and it would calm what we are sure are some quite angry people when they discover they’ve waiting so long for nothing (and probably missed the start of the game).

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To open, or not to open . . .

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AussieRulesBlog likes Brad Scott. Not as much as brother Chris, but we think Brad is doing a first-rate job for the Kangaroos. But, just like he did when playing, he sometimes has brain fades. Such as the case today.

 

Today, with the Kangaroos taking on the Cats at Docklands, Brad was coaching against brother Chris. Hopefully all readers are familiar enough with the game to realise that the Docklands stadium has an opening (and closing) roof.

 

The stadium’s roof is often a cause for complaint. Most often, it’s the blinding contrast — for players, broadcast cameras and punters in the stands — between the sunny bits and the deep shade when the roof is open on a sunny day.

 

Today we got a new complaint. For some reason, despite a forecast of isolated showers, the powers that be decreed the game between the Kangaroos and the Cats would be played sans roof.

 

As is Melbourne’s reputation, the sun/shade issues was a factor early in the game, but by the third quarter the weather gods had decided a shower of rain was appropriate. So an oval that sees more sprinklers than it does rain, became slippery.

 

After the game, which the Kangaroos lost by four (4) points on virtually the last kick of the game, Brad Scott approached an AFL official, apparently to complain that the roof hadn’t been closed to keep out the rain.

 

What’s up, Brad? Had the game been played anywhere else, there’s no roof to worry about. If it rains, the players play in the rain. Do you think it was the rain that caused one of your players to give away the fifty-metre penalty that ensured you lost the game?

 

Brain fade!

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Giesch changes the goalposts

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It happens every year, so we shouldn’t be surprised. The Giesch’s mob have changed the rules again. If you’ve been watching games from the first two rounds of 2013, perhaps you’ve noticed players being thrown to the ground, or hoisted out of packs, after losing possession of the ball?

 

AussieRulesBlog is sure it was only last year that free kicks were paid against players who hung on for the merest fraction of a second after an opponent had disposed of the ball. What irked up most about that situation was the same ruling was used when the tackle knocked the ball free. On many, many occasions, the tackling player had no way of knowing that the tackled player no longer had the ball.

 

You’ll also have noticed that the interpretations of push in the back and forceful contact below the knees have softened after only one round!

 

It’s boring, we know, but why can’t we have the same interpretation applying from the very first bounce of pre-season to the last seconds of the Grand Final? What is so damned difficult about that?

 

Release the Giesch!

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Thursday, April 04, 2013

AussieRulesBlog joins Twitter

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We admit to being a bit of a traditionalist. It was some five years ago that we leapt into the social media world, starting AussieRulesBlog. We haven’t exactly set the blogosphere afire, but we’re quietly happy to have Feedburner indicating 42 (at tonight) hapless souls are linked to our feed.

 

So, this being the 21st-century and all, we thought it might be time to branch out and dabble in a little Twitter. We often see things in and around the footy that excite or annoy us, but mostly they’re forgotten before we get a chance to blog about them. No longer! (and we’re not sure whether it’s a good or a bad thing!)

 

Starting tomorrow, if something moves us, we’re going to let the world know — or at least that tiny bit of it that watches our scribblings.

 

This post wouldn’t be complete without an abject and desperate plea for regular readers to follow us on Twitter. You’ll find us at @AussieRulesBlog. Innovative name, huh?  :-)

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Monday, April 01, 2013

Context is everything

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There’s a degree of furore over the Lindsay Thomas-Ben Reid incident in the Kangaroos–Barcodes game.

 

thomas-reid

 

As the game footage makes pretty clear, Thomas makes contact with Reid roughly 10 metres off the ball as Reid chases a North player toward the boundary. In the image above, the ball is shown against the crowd, almost directly above Alan Toovey’s head. It is clearly more than 5 metres from Reid.

 

Had there not been a head clash, no-one would take a scrap of notice of this incident. Despite the Laws of the Game specifying that a player cannot be shepherded unless within 5 metres of the ball, shepherds and blocks similar to this are absolutely unremarkable.

 

It’s also unremarkable that the Match Review Panel seems to be working to a different set of standards to the rest of us.

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Game of the year in round one?

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It would be pretty easy to mount a case that we saw the best game for the season in round one on Easter Monday. The Hawks and Cats duked it out before a great crowd, with the Cats maintaining their dominance of the Hawks and getting the cream.

 

As good as Ablett was on Saturday night, how good was Joel Selwood today? What a player, what a captain!! And Sam Mitchell might not be the spiritual leader of the Hawks, but he is without peer as a pinpoint midfield disposal machine. Some of his foot passes had to be seen to be believed.

 

For all the great things about the game though, and there were many, there were some key negatives.

 

How does a player who loses his footing millimetres in front of a pursuing opponent get a free kick when his opponent stumbles over him? The new interpretation of a push in the back is fine if it is a guy laying on an opponent. This wasn’t. This was a rubbish decision, there’s just no other way to call it.

 

How does a player, already on the ground, roll over and brush an opponent’s shin and get free kicked for a forceful sliding tackle? Another rubbish decision.

 

Why is a ball dribble-kicked along the boundary for 40 metres penalised for deliberate out of bounds — nonsense decision, especially when the player had no other options available — while another kick down the line, but ten metres from the boundary, which takes a fickle bounce and goes out of bounds is not paid as deliberate out of bounds? Does the umpiring department know that AFL is played with an elliptical ball which has an unpredictable bounce?

 

Finally, it’s depressing that so many free kicks are for tiggy touchwood contact, but so many more purposeful illegal contacts which seem blindingly obvious are missed.

 

We expect that the umpiring interpretations will soften in a few weeks, but why do we have to go through this nonsense at the start of every season? Surely someone at Giesch Central can decide on an interpretation which takes into account real world circumstances? Why is it they begin the season umpiring to the letter of the law — and beyond — only to soften that attitude weeks later when there’s been a hue and cry about umpiring? It can’t be that difficult to come up with a middle-of-the-road starting point and follow it for the year!

 

And, for those who haven’t heard, Jeff Kennett apparently has called for Alistair Clarkson to be sacked at the end of the year after a more than honourable 8-point loss to one of the best teams in the country in round one of the season. If anyone harboured any delusions that Kennett is not a prize idiot, surely this will remove them.

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Opening round issues

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With one game still to come of the opening round, there are plenty of talking points.

 

  • Have the Suns come of age faster than many had given them credit for?
  • The AFL seem hell-bent on changing some things, but slow to react to more obvious issues.
  • Were the Demons really that bad?
  • Are the Bulldogs really that good?
  • Two teams playing in vertical stripes and the sky didn’t fall in!

 

Watching the Suns on Saturday night was an interesting experience. AussieRulesBlog likes to see an underdog succeed, so we were naturally predisposed to be pleased about their performance (and the Saints aren’t our favourite mob). Conditions certainly played a part — no amount of match practice is going to give a properly-hardened match fitness — but without a certain shaven-headed midfielder dragging teammates to the win, the Saints would have cruised to victory.

 

When the Suns got the sniff of victory, they found extra reserves of physical capacity. Likewise, as the Saints perceived the game slipping away, their lactate-bound muscles tied up even further.

 

Gazza is really something else. There’s no other player in the competition who could have dragged his team over the line the way he did. He is head-and-shoulders above any other player in the competition. There is daylight in second and third place!

 

Despite Ablett’s influence, the Suns look to have overcome those second-year blues — as we predicted might be the case — and the recruitment of a few extra hardened bodies has helped to spread the load a little more too.

 

. . .

 

The AFL is a curious beast. Hell-bent on changing some things faster than the speed of light, it has to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to recognise issues that are clear as day to the rest of us. This time it’s the fluoro orange uniforms of team runners. Against anyone but the Suns or the Swans (both with predominantly red strip), there’s no problem, but when either of these two are involved there’s a serious issue. This happens occasionally with the umpires’ colour strips too. It seems like someone at AFL house hasn’t put their thinking cap on.

 

But the AFL’s reaction is to deny there’s a problem. It actually reminds us of the Church of Rome’s doctrine of infallibility.

 

We highlighted last season the problem of goal umpires wearing navy blue jackets in cold weather. Why are their jackets not a green — or blue or yellow — similar to their shirts?

 

Let’s hope that Mark Evans can improve on the seemingly muddle-headed analysis of unlamented predecessor Adrian Anderson and take some action to get these issues sorted.

 

. . .

 

The Demons have provided the round’s major talking point with their unflattering display against Port. AussieRulesBlog watched a portion of the game on replay and the Dees weren’t totally disastrously bad. It seemed to us to be a matter of effort — they were working at 95% and Port were operating at 102%. In a two-horse race, that difference translates into a chasm.

 

What’s concerning is turning up to round one and giving 95%. The next few weeks will tell whether the problem is transient or terminal, and the bloke with the responsibility is Mark Neeld.

 

Port actually showed a bit, albeit against ordinary opposition, that highlights a potential problem for the Demons. What if Mark Neeld is actually a very good assistant coach, as it appears Matthew Primus might be, as it appears Mark Harvey might be? The Hinckley-coached Port looked a much better team than the Primus-coached Port, with not a great change in personnel. What if the Demons have chosen two good assistant coaches in a row to head their footy department?

 

. . .

 

As poor as the Demons appeared, the Bulldogs looked great in demolishing a clearly over-confident Brisbane. Who would have thought that losing an ageing star and gaining an ageing recruit could turn a list around? And yet it seems that Brendan McCartney might just have done it. If Brett Goodes down back allows Bob Murphy to play forward, the ‘Dogs could well fulfil the promise that AussieRulesBlog always felt they had.

 

. . .

 

Yesterday’s battle of the stripes — Kangaroos versus Barcodes — didn’t result in the end of the world. Just like the Mayan calendar fiasco, predictions of dire results proved fruitless. There was more colour confusion at Metricon Stadium than at Docklands. No need for Argentinean strip for the Roos. Hopefully that teacup can remain storm-free for a good many years now.

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Great expectations

As some of the heat comes out of the goal line video review controversy, new AFL football operations boss Mark Evans thinks the only viable options open to him are to stick with an imperfect system or revert to goal umpires being the sole adjudicators.

 

Evans didn’t endorse the existing system, but saw nothing in the immediate future that would be an advance on it. The Age’s report quotes Evans as saying only one percent of scoring decisions were reviewed, with two decisions so far this year having been overturned by the review.

 

"At the moment, we have a system where we can correct the absolute errors and that's got to be better than not having it [at] all."

 

Well, AussieRulesBlog begs to differ, and here’s why.

 

The video review system as it stands is set up to fail. The only scenarios where it can deliver anything like certainty are those serendipitous occasions where the direction of the ball coincides with the direction of a camera and there is a sufficient deflection of the ball from an object to determine that the ball struck the object.

 

Anything else, save those occasions where the broadcaster has installed goalpost cameras, is a complete waste of time and energy.

 

Our prime reason for dissent is that the very fact of having, and utilising, a video review system implies that it will contribute meaningfully to the game. Just by using it, we create that expectation. It doesn’t matter how many times everybody says it is imperfect, the expectation will remain.

 

While the game remains hostage to the spurious logic that says we must employ any measure that we think might bring us closer to absolute accuracy, these controversies will continue, and will continue to be a blight on the game.

 

Thanks for nothing, Adrian.

Give them an inch…

Way back when this crock of a video referral system was being foreshadowed, AussieRulesBlog implored the powers that be to ensure that it remained about goal line decisions. Of course, as we now know, it has failed to deliver the promised certainty and accuracy on the goal line.

 

Unfortunately, there are umpires who continue to refer decisions about things other than scoring — an example being the decision in tonight’s Hawthorn–Kangaroos game to refer a decision about whether a Kangaroos player had touched a ball kicked for goal by a Hawthorn player.

 

As we have previously demonstrated, the physics of kicking clearly show that the cameras being used to cover AFL are incapable of clearly discerning whether a ball has been touched or not unless there is a significant movement of the touching hand.

 

It hasn’t been a good weekend for the Umpiring Department with multiple video clangers and a field umpire allowing Geelong to pinch a free kick awarded to the Bulldogs.

100% goal a step too far

The goal umpiring furore erupting after Friday night’s Richmond-Fremantle game has shone yet another light on the AFL’s attempt to approach 100% correctness on scoring decisions — and what we see isn’t pretty.

 

For those who haven’t seen it, here’s the scenario:

 

goaldecision

 

 

The ball has been kicked toward goal from the left-hand pocket and has closely tracked the goal line as it travels toward the goal umpire. Richmond player #29, Ty Vickery, has just tried to nudge the ball through for a goal with his foot — but taken an air swing.

 

The ball proceeds on its way and strikes the goal umpire in the area close to his “family jewels”.

 

So, to the controversies.

 

Damien Hardwick claims the result should have been a goal to Richmond. Quite how this can be the case when the goal umpire is hit in the gonads as he stands against the post mystifies us. Yes, it was close. Yes, it would be preferable that the umpire wasn’t in such an immediate vicinity. But a goal? No.

 

Controversy number two has various commentators calling for the goal umpire to be standing back from the line, out of the way of the players. Once again, quite how the umpire would be in a position to make a judgement in this case were he standing a metre or two back from the line mystifies us.

 

Stand by for a shock! AussieRulesBlog thinks The Giesch’s bloke got this one spot on and was, in the circumstances and with the tools available, in EXACTLY the right position to make a judgement.

 

Let’s just revisit this whole goal umpiring area. When the video review notion was first raised, the departed and unlamented Adrian Anderson told us that goal umpiring errors were less than one-tenth of one percent of all goal umpiring decisions across a season. BUT, despite that laudable statistic, the AFL decided to make a kneejerk response to a couple of high-profile errors and introduce a remarkably-flawed goal line video decision assistance ‘system’.

 

In this system, the umpires would rely on broadcast TV camera footage to assist the decision-making process. The AFL decided they wouldn’t foot the bill for cameras in the goal posts to monitor the goal line, instead relying on the broadcasters’ cameras set at a significant angle to the goal line.

 

What has followed has been the longest series of cock-ups the game has ever seen. A small number of decisions have been shown to be wrong and been corrected, but at the cost of interminable furore and the regular intonation of “Inconclusive, goal umpire’s decision.”

 

This experiment in technology has been an unmitigated disaster. The logical decision, right at the start of the process, was to employ two goal umpires at either end of the ground. With responsibility for a roughly seven-metre stretch of goal-line plane each, there’s a much-reduced likelihood of error. It’s not eliminated completely, but, as we’ve seen in recent years, technology as it is currently employed doesn’t get us any nearer that goal.

 

The sticking point here is money. The AFL won’t open its wallet to fund goal-line cameras, and it won’t open its wallet to fund an extra two goal umpires per game.

 

It’s not that long ago that it was the AFL defending the antiquated notion that one boundary umpire could effectively cover 200 metres of boundary in a fast-moving game of football. Would anyone now countenance going back to a single boundary umpire?

 

Come on Andrew. Time to step up to the mark. Either fund the video review system properly, or spring for some extra umpires. It’s not like the AFL is poor.

Drugs storm in a teacup

Not so much a storm in a teacup as a hurricane in a thimble, the "’drugs in sport’ enquiry — or at least what we can glean from the hyperbolic media coverage — doesn’t seem to be delivering what was promised at the breathless media conference to announce it.

 

Richard Cooke writes in The Monthly:

 

More than two months have passed since the release of the ACC’s report into organised crime and drugs, the ‘darkest day in Australian sport’, a date that now seems to signify little more than the start of a fishing expedition.

 

and

 

…the ‘150 players’ from two codes to be interviewed? A number fabricated by an executive ‘under pressure’.

 

At least publicly, the whole exercise is beginning to look like an opportunity for Stephen Dank to serialise his text message library and the AFL, at least, is sticking closely to its ‘zero-tolerance’ policy of guilt by association rather than by evidence.

 

It may be that there are some substantive outcomes of the enquiry, but the echoes of the Salem witch trials are becoming louder and louder.

A Blot on the campaign

Once again AussieRulesBlog addresses the Essendon supplement affair, but the reason and the direction will surprise.

In normal circumstances, we try extremely hard to divorce other parts of our existence from AussieRulesBlog. This site is about Aussie rules football.

The circumstances are not normal. Essendon’s favourite son, third-best player of all time and current coach, James Hird, is under attack in a way we can’t recall having been used in football before. If anyone has suggestions for similarly virulent and sustained public shaming, we’d be glad to reconsider.

You’d think then, that vocal support from a well-connected public figure without any allegiance to the Essendon Football Club or James Hird would be welcome. You’d be wrong. Dead wrong!

The Herald-Sun’s attack-dog “opinion” columnist and blogger, Andrew Blot, allowed the semi-trained monkeys who pen his drivel to write in support of Hird on Wednesday. Superficially, that support is welcomed by AussieRulesBlog, but the devil is in the detail.

The very tactics of the “pack” [Blot’s term] pursuing Hird that Blot decries so vehemently are the self-same tactics used by the “pack” [our term this time] led by Blot and others in dogged pursuit of Prime Minister Gillard.

Whatever your political stripe, on any assessment based on respectful and considered human discourse,Gillard has been shamefully treated by Blot and his mates. The similarities to the treatment meted out to Hird stand out like beacons on a dark night.

Blot ferociously lashes the malicious framing and prejudgement of Hird without evidence — and yet that’s precisely how he and his mates have treated the Prime Minister.

Tell him, Hirdy. Tell him to take his sanctimonious hypocritical support and shove it where the sun don’t shine.

All injections are not equal

With so much breathless rumour-based hyperbole over the supplements affair at Essendon, it's easy to miss some real-world perspectives.

On Saturday morning, AussieRulesBlog found ourselves with some time to spare and Fox Footy screening the 2012 Grand Final Recall. What an interesting show!

The recall consists of team members and coach watching the replay back and answering questions from the Fox Footy representatives — in this case, Dwayne Russell and former Swans coach Paul Roos. The whole is filmed, with inserts of the players' and coach's faces on the screen as they watch the game.

The insights provided by the players and coach, albeit secure in the knowledge of their eventual victory, were very illuminating. But there were two little sequences that gave us pause for thought.

In the first sequence, early in the game, Ted Richards kicks the ball. The kick is extremely ordinary. Laughing, coach John Longmire explained, "Teddy couldn't feel his foot!"

For the fourth quarter, Longmire was joined by Richards among others.

During the course of the quarter, Richards related how the ankle he'd injured the previous week had kept him from training in the week leading up to the Grand Final. He told how his ankle was injected with local anaesthetic before the game — hence Longmire's earlier comment. The local deadened the pain for about twenty minutes and then the pain began to return.

So, at each break in the game, Richards once again had a local administered to his ankle.

It has become part of the circus surrounding the supplements affair that past players have decried current players being injected. Yet Richards' experience wasn't some sort if sci-fi brave new world of football medicine. If not common, it's at the very least unremarkable in the AFL industry that a player plays with the assistance of a local anaesthetic.

All injections, it seems, are not equal.

The word from Hird

Regular readers will know that AussieRulesBlog supports Essendon, but we pride ourselves on our ability to comment on issues without our allegiance muddying our view.

 

That said, statements by Essendon coach James Hird at the press conference following the Bombers’ (magnificent) fighting victory over Fremantle last night are worthy of further comment.

 

We suspect few would raise an eyebrow in surprise if told that John Elliot or Graeme Richmond had crashed through the rules whilst seeking an advantage for their respective clubs.

 

James Hird, and Essendon Chairman David Evans and CEO Ian Robson for that matter, are cut from different cloth.

 

Hird’s calm and measured statement at his press conference:

 

"People say things, and you know they're untrue, and you know you've got truth on your side, you go hard, and when you get your opportunity you tell the whole truth.”
"When the truth comes out, I think I'll be in a very, very good position and so will this football club.”

doesn’t allow for misinterpretation. It’s absolutely unequivocal.

 

All of which makes the statements by AFL Chief Executive Andrew Demetriou on Hird in recent days seem rather strange.

 

It has been conventional wisdom that Demetriou has some reasonable knowledge of the issues being investigated by the Australian Crime Commission, and in Essendon’s case by the AFL itself and ASADA. That view can no longer be supported. Demetriou is, like the rest of us, merely a passenger on the journey.

 

It appears it may be August before there’s a resolution following the investigations. The only thing that’s certain is that certain “journalists” will maintain their habit of allowing rumour, innuendo, suspicion and hyperbole to be the basis for their poison pen letters.

Carpark (non)communication

Walking to the ’G on Saturday night down Clarendon Street, AussieRulesBlog and friend remarked on the exceedingly slow pace of the line of traffic waiting to enter the MCG carpark.

 

The reason became clear after we crossed Wellington Parade. There was a sign as the Yarra Park entrance announcing that the carpark was full. That’s all very helpful, but the sign couldn’t be seen without crossing over Wellington Parade.

 

Let’s say, right now, that those who decide to park at Yarra Park for the football take their chance anyway, since there’s no guarantee. AussieRulesBlog parks a couple of kilometers away and walks in — a much less stressful solution.

 

Notwithstanding the right or wrong of sitting in a line of traffic, using petrol, just so you only have to walk a hundred metres to the stadium, why hasn’t someone devised a system of signs in Clarendon Street to advise the poor sods driving down it that there is no carparking available at Yarra Park? Not hard to do and it would calm what we are sure are some quite angry people when they discover they’ve waiting so long for nothing (and probably missed the start of the game).

To open, or not to open . . .

AussieRulesBlog likes Brad Scott. Not as much as brother Chris, but we think Brad is doing a first-rate job for the Kangaroos. But, just like he did when playing, he sometimes has brain fades. Such as the case today.

 

Today, with the Kangaroos taking on the Cats at Docklands, Brad was coaching against brother Chris. Hopefully all readers are familiar enough with the game to realise that the Docklands stadium has an opening (and closing) roof.

 

The stadium’s roof is often a cause for complaint. Most often, it’s the blinding contrast — for players, broadcast cameras and punters in the stands — between the sunny bits and the deep shade when the roof is open on a sunny day.

 

Today we got a new complaint. For some reason, despite a forecast of isolated showers, the powers that be decreed the game between the Kangaroos and the Cats would be played sans roof.

 

As is Melbourne’s reputation, the sun/shade issues was a factor early in the game, but by the third quarter the weather gods had decided a shower of rain was appropriate. So an oval that sees more sprinklers than it does rain, became slippery.

 

After the game, which the Kangaroos lost by four (4) points on virtually the last kick of the game, Brad Scott approached an AFL official, apparently to complain that the roof hadn’t been closed to keep out the rain.

 

What’s up, Brad? Had the game been played anywhere else, there’s no roof to worry about. If it rains, the players play in the rain. Do you think it was the rain that caused one of your players to give away the fifty-metre penalty that ensured you lost the game?

 

Brain fade!

Giesch changes the goalposts

It happens every year, so we shouldn’t be surprised. The Giesch’s mob have changed the rules again. If you’ve been watching games from the first two rounds of 2013, perhaps you’ve noticed players being thrown to the ground, or hoisted out of packs, after losing possession of the ball?

 

AussieRulesBlog is sure it was only last year that free kicks were paid against players who hung on for the merest fraction of a second after an opponent had disposed of the ball. What irked up most about that situation was the same ruling was used when the tackle knocked the ball free. On many, many occasions, the tackling player had no way of knowing that the tackled player no longer had the ball.

 

You’ll also have noticed that the interpretations of push in the back and forceful contact below the knees have softened after only one round!

 

It’s boring, we know, but why can’t we have the same interpretation applying from the very first bounce of pre-season to the last seconds of the Grand Final? What is so damned difficult about that?

 

Release the Giesch!

AussieRulesBlog joins Twitter

We admit to being a bit of a traditionalist. It was some five years ago that we leapt into the social media world, starting AussieRulesBlog. We haven’t exactly set the blogosphere afire, but we’re quietly happy to have Feedburner indicating 42 (at tonight) hapless souls are linked to our feed.

 

So, this being the 21st-century and all, we thought it might be time to branch out and dabble in a little Twitter. We often see things in and around the footy that excite or annoy us, but mostly they’re forgotten before we get a chance to blog about them. No longer! (and we’re not sure whether it’s a good or a bad thing!)

 

Starting tomorrow, if something moves us, we’re going to let the world know — or at least that tiny bit of it that watches our scribblings.

 

This post wouldn’t be complete without an abject and desperate plea for regular readers to follow us on Twitter. You’ll find us at @AussieRulesBlog. Innovative name, huh?  :-)

Context is everything

There’s a degree of furore over the Lindsay Thomas-Ben Reid incident in the Kangaroos–Barcodes game.

 

thomas-reid

 

As the game footage makes pretty clear, Thomas makes contact with Reid roughly 10 metres off the ball as Reid chases a North player toward the boundary. In the image above, the ball is shown against the crowd, almost directly above Alan Toovey’s head. It is clearly more than 5 metres from Reid.

 

Had there not been a head clash, no-one would take a scrap of notice of this incident. Despite the Laws of the Game specifying that a player cannot be shepherded unless within 5 metres of the ball, shepherds and blocks similar to this are absolutely unremarkable.

 

It’s also unremarkable that the Match Review Panel seems to be working to a different set of standards to the rest of us.

Game of the year in round one?

It would be pretty easy to mount a case that we saw the best game for the season in round one on Easter Monday. The Hawks and Cats duked it out before a great crowd, with the Cats maintaining their dominance of the Hawks and getting the cream.

 

As good as Ablett was on Saturday night, how good was Joel Selwood today? What a player, what a captain!! And Sam Mitchell might not be the spiritual leader of the Hawks, but he is without peer as a pinpoint midfield disposal machine. Some of his foot passes had to be seen to be believed.

 

For all the great things about the game though, and there were many, there were some key negatives.

 

How does a player who loses his footing millimetres in front of a pursuing opponent get a free kick when his opponent stumbles over him? The new interpretation of a push in the back is fine if it is a guy laying on an opponent. This wasn’t. This was a rubbish decision, there’s just no other way to call it.

 

How does a player, already on the ground, roll over and brush an opponent’s shin and get free kicked for a forceful sliding tackle? Another rubbish decision.

 

Why is a ball dribble-kicked along the boundary for 40 metres penalised for deliberate out of bounds — nonsense decision, especially when the player had no other options available — while another kick down the line, but ten metres from the boundary, which takes a fickle bounce and goes out of bounds is not paid as deliberate out of bounds? Does the umpiring department know that AFL is played with an elliptical ball which has an unpredictable bounce?

 

Finally, it’s depressing that so many free kicks are for tiggy touchwood contact, but so many more purposeful illegal contacts which seem blindingly obvious are missed.

 

We expect that the umpiring interpretations will soften in a few weeks, but why do we have to go through this nonsense at the start of every season? Surely someone at Giesch Central can decide on an interpretation which takes into account real world circumstances? Why is it they begin the season umpiring to the letter of the law — and beyond — only to soften that attitude weeks later when there’s been a hue and cry about umpiring? It can’t be that difficult to come up with a middle-of-the-road starting point and follow it for the year!

 

And, for those who haven’t heard, Jeff Kennett apparently has called for Alistair Clarkson to be sacked at the end of the year after a more than honourable 8-point loss to one of the best teams in the country in round one of the season. If anyone harboured any delusions that Kennett is not a prize idiot, surely this will remove them.

Opening round issues

With one game still to come of the opening round, there are plenty of talking points.

 

  • Have the Suns come of age faster than many had given them credit for?
  • The AFL seem hell-bent on changing some things, but slow to react to more obvious issues.
  • Were the Demons really that bad?
  • Are the Bulldogs really that good?
  • Two teams playing in vertical stripes and the sky didn’t fall in!

 

Watching the Suns on Saturday night was an interesting experience. AussieRulesBlog likes to see an underdog succeed, so we were naturally predisposed to be pleased about their performance (and the Saints aren’t our favourite mob). Conditions certainly played a part — no amount of match practice is going to give a properly-hardened match fitness — but without a certain shaven-headed midfielder dragging teammates to the win, the Saints would have cruised to victory.

 

When the Suns got the sniff of victory, they found extra reserves of physical capacity. Likewise, as the Saints perceived the game slipping away, their lactate-bound muscles tied up even further.

 

Gazza is really something else. There’s no other player in the competition who could have dragged his team over the line the way he did. He is head-and-shoulders above any other player in the competition. There is daylight in second and third place!

 

Despite Ablett’s influence, the Suns look to have overcome those second-year blues — as we predicted might be the case — and the recruitment of a few extra hardened bodies has helped to spread the load a little more too.

 

. . .

 

The AFL is a curious beast. Hell-bent on changing some things faster than the speed of light, it has to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to recognise issues that are clear as day to the rest of us. This time it’s the fluoro orange uniforms of team runners. Against anyone but the Suns or the Swans (both with predominantly red strip), there’s no problem, but when either of these two are involved there’s a serious issue. This happens occasionally with the umpires’ colour strips too. It seems like someone at AFL house hasn’t put their thinking cap on.

 

But the AFL’s reaction is to deny there’s a problem. It actually reminds us of the Church of Rome’s doctrine of infallibility.

 

We highlighted last season the problem of goal umpires wearing navy blue jackets in cold weather. Why are their jackets not a green — or blue or yellow — similar to their shirts?

 

Let’s hope that Mark Evans can improve on the seemingly muddle-headed analysis of unlamented predecessor Adrian Anderson and take some action to get these issues sorted.

 

. . .

 

The Demons have provided the round’s major talking point with their unflattering display against Port. AussieRulesBlog watched a portion of the game on replay and the Dees weren’t totally disastrously bad. It seemed to us to be a matter of effort — they were working at 95% and Port were operating at 102%. In a two-horse race, that difference translates into a chasm.

 

What’s concerning is turning up to round one and giving 95%. The next few weeks will tell whether the problem is transient or terminal, and the bloke with the responsibility is Mark Neeld.

 

Port actually showed a bit, albeit against ordinary opposition, that highlights a potential problem for the Demons. What if Mark Neeld is actually a very good assistant coach, as it appears Matthew Primus might be, as it appears Mark Harvey might be? The Hinckley-coached Port looked a much better team than the Primus-coached Port, with not a great change in personnel. What if the Demons have chosen two good assistant coaches in a row to head their footy department?

 

. . .

 

As poor as the Demons appeared, the Bulldogs looked great in demolishing a clearly over-confident Brisbane. Who would have thought that losing an ageing star and gaining an ageing recruit could turn a list around? And yet it seems that Brendan McCartney might just have done it. If Brett Goodes down back allows Bob Murphy to play forward, the ‘Dogs could well fulfil the promise that AussieRulesBlog always felt they had.

 

. . .

 

Yesterday’s battle of the stripes — Kangaroos versus Barcodes — didn’t result in the end of the world. Just like the Mayan calendar fiasco, predictions of dire results proved fruitless. There was more colour confusion at Metricon Stadium than at Docklands. No need for Argentinean strip for the Roos. Hopefully that teacup can remain storm-free for a good many years now.