Despite annual assurances by the umpiring administrators that their charges do not target certain rules or interpretations at certain times, it seems there's been another blitz by AFL umpires in recent weeks. Fifty-metre penalties seem to be all the rage, with one being handed out this past weekend because the offending player pointed at the umpire! It may be reasonable to expect players to show respect to the officials and to penalise threatening words and gestures or accusations of bias, but pointing?

Some senior umpires also appear to be fundamentalists. That is, they adhere to the strict letter of the law. Thus we have players on their feet penalised when a player dives head first at their legs and others penalised when their arms brush, incidentally, against their opponent's in a marking contest.

Not for the first time this season, I have the AFL's umpiring department (and Rules Committee) in my sights.

Watching an unusual number of TV games this weekend, I was struck by the number of free kicks paid against players who were standing when their opponents cannoned, head first, into their legs. What, in heavens’ name, is the standing player supposed to do? Fine let's keep the head sacrosanct (but only give Kerr three weeks for a deliberate roundarm punch: consistency?), but surely we can apply a little practical understanding of the game? The standing player in this scenario has nowhere to go to avoid making contact. This interpretation of high contact is an unqualified nonsense.

A second instance of incidental contact occurs in marking contests where one player’s arm or hand brushes the other player’s arm INCIDENTALLY. Please Jeff, it doesn’t matter whether the player doesn't hold the mark after such incidental contact. Does the contact drag the player’s arm away? That must be the only criterion.

There is so much incidental contact in the game, so much of which appears to be in plain view of an umpire, yet it seems random events are chosen to be penalised. Umpires must be given the freedom to judge within the context of the game, rather than inconsistently and imperfectly applying a zero tolerance standard.

Lastly, the AFL tell us the Rules Committee are trying to improve the image, speed and continuity of our game (leave it alone!! — but let's leave that aside for a moment). On Saturday we had the 'spectacle' of a full back waiting to be called to play on before walking backward to 'rush' a point in order to waste time. This is the same AFL that awards a free kick against a player kicking or punching a ball after it has crossed the boundary line. This is the same AFL that had its umpires awarding 50m penalties for TOUCHING a player after an uncontested mark (where has that interpretation gone?). Those penalties are for WASTING TIME. What the hell was Bowden doing?

Andrew? Jeff? Oh, what a tangled web we weave...

Breathless speculation this week that Buddy had dropped Charlie (the Charles Brownlow Medal) was just too much to bear. The last key forward to "take Charlie home" was ....

That's right! Buddy's chances of getting the Brownlow are akin to mine of getting the six special numbers on Saturday night.

Can we please get over this Buddy mania? Sure, he's an exciting player, but let's give the boy a chance to establish himself before we begin the beatification rites.

In the wake of his nine-goal haul last weekend, The Age’s Rohan Connolly saw fit to draw favourable comparisons between Lance Franklin and Wayne Carey. The Age must have been short of words for the day, because the comparison served up was so much confected nonsense.

While Franklin’s statistical output compares with Carey's, his on-ground presence is a shadow of Carey's. Can anyone seriously imagine Franklin today being seriously touted as the Hawks’ captain? Does anyone seriously think that Franklin could impose himself on a game and turn its course purely through his own efforts?

To put Franklin's effort into context, we should consider the Matthew Lloyd of 1999 and 2000 versus the Lloyd of 2008. In ’99 and ’00, Lloyd was near unstoppable, as Franklin (still only occasionally) is today. Both served by dominant midfields, getting the better of defenders was/is not insurmountable. The Lloyd of ’08 gets fewer opportunities, less favourably, because the midfield is being trounced. In these circumstances, it is becoming obvious that Lloyd is a more one-dimensional player than many would have thought.

The lone adjective not applicable to Carey was one-dimensional. When Franklin has, almost single-handedly, carried a team to glory in September, not once, but twice, it may be appropriate to start drawing comparisons with Carey.

News this morning that Essendon Captain, Matthew Lloyd, may be fined after making a comment on the report of Western Bulldogs’ Robert Murphy is worrying.

This AFL administration is no stranger to the notion of on-the-fly changes. In recent weeks we have seen the clear overreaction to an interchange issue, and a subsequent backdown on a crucial part of the “solution”.

The umpiring department regularly targets particular rules — it’s no use the AFL denying this, the proof is on show every weekend!

Now we learn that players are forbidden to comment on ad hoc changes that may have profound effects on how they can ply their trade. No other workforce would accept such restrictions. The AFL, in its single-minded determination to silence criticism from within the AFL ‘family’, is simply being precious.

A mature organisation avoids knee-jerk policy shifts, and so can compete effectively in the contest of ideas through weight of rational argument.

Perhaps it has always been thus, but the selection of Brendan Fevola for the Allen Aylett Medal as best player in the Hall of Fame Tribute Match emphasises, yet again, media representatives' preoccupation with goals.

"Highlights" packages of games routinely feature goals only. It's as if the players who don't kick goals have done nothing worthwhile. Of course there are goals worthy of inclusion. Steve Johnson's first in the Tribute Match was as spectacular and freakish as anyone could want (and I called it before the ball had bounced; before Johnson even touched the ball!), but Fevola kicking from 50 or 55 is hardly remarkable these days.

Of course the forwards have to be good enough to beat their opponents to the ball in order to kick the goals, but the rebounding defenders and midfielders get the ball and deliver it with sufficient precision... While we're on the topic, midfielders racking up 30-odd possessions is little justification for BOG honours as well in these days of tempo football.

So, who was better than Fevola? Adam Goodes, Brent Harvey, Andrew McLeod, Sam Mitchell, ...

The 2008 Hall of Fame Tribute match between Victoria and The Rest (aka The Dream Team) is done and dusted. The media representations have been, by and large, gushingly enthusiastic and positive, the AFL's slightly less so in order to dampen any groundswell for a return of State of Origin football.

The Tribute Match was a disaster as a spectacle. Almost 70,000 people were bored to snores. The main interest in the second half were a couple of fights at the city end and an enthusiastically-embraced Mexican wave.

The football itself was pretty good, with regular (and surely to-be-expected?) flashes of brilliance. The missing element was passion in the crowd. With teams based on confected eligibility (when was Adam Goodes a Victorian?) and confected allegience (surely the the All-Australian team is the real Dream team?), there was nothing to get excited about.

State-of-Origin (Australian Rules) football meant something before the national AFL league, when the SANFL and WAFL were elite competitions. The VFL's long-standing penchant for robbing the SANFL and WAFL of their best players, and for selecting those imports into the Victorian team for interstate matches, meant that, for South Australians and West Australians especially, there was a real passion to beat the hated Vics. Since the National competition and the emergence of two teams each in Adelaide and Perth, there is considerably less passion. As evidenced by the Tribute Match, in Victoria there's almost zero passion.

Not even EJ could have got really excited about a Tribute Match that teased with promise, but delivered little.

I'm watching the Tiges go ’round tonight on TV. Even after he misses the ball, Richo's first thought is to look to the big screen to watch himself! Narcissism gone mad.