The GFC —global financial crisis, NOT Geelong Football Club — is set to have a major effect on the last Saturday in September. As part of AFL budget cuts, 'entertainment' will be curtailed.

Given the paucity of real entertainment delivered at the 2008 Grand Final 'entertainment', one can only wonder if someone is checking Angry Anderson's diary for that weekend.

Memo, Andrew: We do not HAVE TO slavishly ape the NFL with its half-time 'spectacular'. Instead, what about, oh I don't know, a. . . . . . footy match? If not the TAC Cup Grand Final, then a match between two teams of All-Stars selected from teams not involved after week one of the finals.

Anyway, this news serves to illustrate that, within every dark cloud (GFC), a silver lining (reduced Grand Final 'entertainment) can be found!!

Wallace; Skills; Richo
I've always thought that Terry Wallace made a fair bit of sense and had some reasonable thoughts on the game. His tenure at Richmond, and indeed his entire coaching future, must now be under a cloud after the Tigers' insipid opening round performance.

After four seasons and five pre-seasons, the Tigers under Wallace continue to demonstrate deplorable disposal skills in most circumstances. The question, again, is whether Wallace is the reason, the solution, asleep at the wheel, or a passenger in a bus crash.

As a player, Wallace certainly wasn't considered skillful. His was a get-the-ball-forward-any-old-way style that very much suited the roles he played at Hawthorn and Richmond. It's not unreasonable to anticipate that teams will take on some of the instinctive style traits of their coach, and yet the Bulldogs, under Wallace, were not the skills trainwreck that the Tigers have become.

Regular Aussie Rules Blog readers will be aghast to read that I think Wallace is a passenger in a bus crash — and the bus is being driven by Richo!

Notwithstanding his seven hundred-odd goals, or his obvious dedication to the Tigers' cause, or his undoubted physical work ethic, Richo's status as hugely-favoured hero of the Tigers faithful in spite of his apalling disposal, goal-kicking and decision-making at crucial times simply means that there is no real pressure for the Tigers' lesser lights to aspire to anything better. Even those, like Andrew Raines, who arrive at the club with silky skills are, within a few short seasons, reduced to virtual turnover factories. Jordan McMahon looks a shadow of the precise deliverer who once played with the Bulldogs.

It will take a turnover of at least a generation of footballers after Richo retires before the Tigers can contemplate the return to a skills-based gameplan.

Cousins
Whoever gave the nod for Cousins to return to the field in the final quarter, be it club doctor, physio, right up to and including the senior coach if necessary, should be summarily sacked. This is not about Cousins himself, who I think had a fairly ordinary contribution (which is what I'd expected). This is about the reason for all the hype surrounding the Tigers, the figure who generated the interest, the memberships, the expectation, the Cuz buzz!

To sacrifice all of these positives, let alone on-field presence and regaining of match fitness, for an inconsequential run in the last quarter of a clearly lost cause right after a three-quarter-time break where the player's fitness was very obviously in question, is not simply a tragedy. It is incompetence of the highest order!

What's that sound?
In the background you'll hear a sound like a distant waterfall, or a rogue compressed air hose thrashing its jet of high-pressure air about wildly. Don't panic — it's merely the sound of people jumping back off the Richmond bandwagon!

The furore this week over the broadcast by Channel Ten of the Tigers-Blues game has been mystifying.

If you're only interested in listening to the TV commentary[ :-( ], what difference does 30 minutes' delay make?

If you're keen to avoid Hudson, Lane, Quartermain, et al and listen to the radio commentary, with umpires now kitted out with microphones, on 'live' TV there's a delay so that "F**k!" can be bleeped by the techos in the OB van, so the pictures and the radio commentary are disturbingly out of synch.

If someone at the game is going to ring you to sing the winning team's song (I haven't forgotten, CJP!!) or gloat, don't answer the phone or look at text messages.

All the bleating about LIVE coverage is a waste of effort.

Caroline Wilson figures in two incidents this week which have raised my ire. Unusually for Ms Wilson, she's not the provocateur in either.

The other night, somewhat at a loss for something to watch (having Foxtel Platinum doesn't guarantee watchable programming!), I tuned into Footy Confidential (sorry, should be Classified) for the second time — ever. Perhaps, with Craig Hutchison involved, it should be renamed Footy Confrontational. Hutchison launched into Caroline Wilson with a question concerning her sharing the panel with Grant Thomas who, according to Hutchison, Wilson had arranged to be sacked from The Age.

I carry no brief or any great affection for Wilson. She plays for keeps. Nevertheless, she was clearly very discomforted by Hutchison's question. The question was asked with, I thought, malice aforethought — a trademark of Hutchison. With only the barren intellect of Gary Lyon to distract from him, and with neither Wilson or Grant Thomas particularly floating my boat, I won't be tuning in to Footy Confrontational again.

The second incident is a report in The Age of an interview of Ben Cousins*. In the report, Caroline Wilson suggests Cousins was unhappy about the line of questioning from Luke Darcy during a TV interview. Darcy has seemed like a very personable chap with some interesting, if not revolutionary, perspectives on the game. There has been a change in him however, as he has moved into interviewing. One suspects he is either being advised by someone or having questions provided to him. The net effect has been the emergence of another confrontational interviewer.

There are places, times and issues requiring confrontational interviewing, in my view. In neither of these incidents was a confrontational style warranted. Call me old-fashioned, but I regard that as bad manners.

* I did say earlier that I wouldn't mention Ben again until he played. He's playing tonight, so I'm anticipating by about 7 hours! :-) Best of luck, Ben.

Update: The Cousins interview screened at half-time of the game was pretty timid — none of the agro bits made it past the edit suite, it seems — with plenty of opportunity for Cousins to show his positive attitude, and mixture of humility, confidence and reality. Pity his teammates have made such a dismal start to the season.

The 'Chicken Little's of the footy blogosphere ("It's the end of the bump!"; "Wait 'til a team loses a Grand Final on a deliberate rushed behind decision!") can safely look to Joel Bowden as the progenitor of their current hysteria.

In the 2008 Grand Final, Brent Guerra and others sought strategic advantage from the rushed behind — seeking to free up targets for a kickout. It was a measure of Geelong's defensive pressure that the tactic was employed. At no time did the Hawks' antics in their defensive goal square materially effect the game, save to make a part of it incredibly ugly.

Joel Bowden on the other hand, sought to avoid losing a close game by wasting time on the clock, using rushed behinds. As I have opined previously on AussieRulesBlog, time wasting elsewhere on the field attracts a 50-metre penalty, and it seems perfectly logical that timewasting in the goal square should be treated no differently. The effect of a 50-metre penalty from the goal line, even between the goal and point posts, would be to put the player taking the free kick on the goal line dead centre between the goal posts.

It is to the credit of the AFL that they have softened the effect of the rushed behind timewasting penalty — The Bowden Rule — by ruling that the free kick be taken from the spot where the infringement occurs. The one area that remains unclear is whether the attacking team could also be penalised for deliberately rushing a behind. Admittedly, with immediate kick-ins, it's more difficult to imagine a scenario where there would be purely tactical advantage for the attacking team taking this action, unless the countdown clock is publicly accessible.

The Bowden Rule does not unduly disadvantage defenders. Anyone wanting to champion the rights of defenders would do better to look to incidental contact with the forward's arms in a marking contest! The Bowden Rule has shown, in the pre-season competition, that defenders have an opportunity to demonstrate their creativity in moving the ball from deep in defence. In addition, the acid is put on all opposing forwards to apply genuine defensive pressure rather than rely on zoning.

There are so many positive aspects to the Bowden Rule. Well done AFL!

News is just through that The Bowden Rule is to remain in force for the 2009 season proper. The doomsayers will see huge difficulties, but the benefits to the game as a whole massively outweigh the vague possibility that a team loses a game as a result of a poor rushed behind decision. This is a good decision, because the flood of rushed behinds seen during the 2008 Grand Final would, otherwise, have become a veritable torrent.

I'm sure I was like many others seeing the headline that Kevin Sheedy had told the Tigers they could win the flag. To borrow that well-worn expression from Darryl Kerrigan, "Tell him he's dreamin'!", I thought.

Later, when I read a report of Sheedy's remarks at the Tigers' season launch and jumper presentation, I had to admit he was onto something. If the Tigers improve themselves by 5%, and the opposition are down 5% on any given day, the Tigers are at least an even money chance. The same can be said for almost any struggling or mid-ranked team. Even the Demons could take some comfort from this notion.

Is it likely that the Tigers will salute on the last Saturday in September? I wouldn't be putting the house on it. Nevertheless, the old master retains his ability to think outside the square and find a positive angle.

I've often wondered at players who, when taking a set shot, remove mouthguards from mouths or gloves from hands before lining the kick up. One wonders how anyone has ever kicked a snap goal in general play or a long bomb while running through half-forward.

Readers who've played Aussie Rules competitively will immediately be able to out me. I've never played in a serious footy match, and very, very few non-serious matches if it comes to that. I did play a reasonable standard of pennant squash for 17 years, but never wore a mouthguard. So, it may be that mouthguards are incredibly uncomfortable. I just don't know.

I would think, however, that players at AFL senior level would have sufficient time with their mouthguards that they would consider them virtually a part of their being, much as I do my spectacles.

Removal of gloves, a la Quentin Lynch, is a somewhat different matter. Are the gloves are so loaded up with resin that you can't drop the ball onto your foot? If so, how do players manage in general play? Does Lynch, for instance, only handball off his right hand? Not that I've noticed.

And just imagine a player wearing both a mouthguard AND a glove!!! The possibilities for wardrobe malfunction are almost endless.

For heaven's sake! If you can't concentrate hard enough to kick a goal with a mouthguard in your mouth, or a glove on your hand, it's time to give the game away.

Watching the pre-season competition final on TV, I'm astonished at Nick Maxwell's reaction to being free-kicked for high contact on Ablett. Notwithstanding whether the particular free kick was there — and the high contact free wasn't; it should have been for contact front on to the opponent while not watching the ball — Maxwell tried to convince the umpire that the high contact didn't count because he had his arms up attempting to mark — which he wasn't, but that's beside the point.

It has been a good number of years since the AFL declared the head sacrosanct and began instructing umpires to pay free kicks for high contact, even when the contact was incidental. For the record, I think incidental contact shouldn't be penalised, but that also is beside the point.

So, where has Nick Maxwell been hibernating?

Maxwell's attitude to decisions against him doesn't display great leadership, especially from the club's captain.

It's finally clear, from video explanation released via The Age website, that the deliberate behind rule is all but totally the Bowden Rule.

There are two fairly obvious observations: the notion of "the benefit of the doubt' has been stretched near to breaking point; and the McMahon decision was a complete and utter brain fade on the part of the umpire concerned.

The video makes it clear that the Bowden Manoeuvre is the intended target of the rule. Why did Adrian Anderson not say so directly, or release an appropriate package of video, at the time of the announcement? It cannot have taken ten weeks to iron out what the rule means. The footballing public have been treated like mushrooms!

Questions raised about a lawyer administering football must once again be raised. Neither the legal nor the footballing senses of the Operations chief's role have been fulfilled with distinction recently.

Comments in relation to umpires seeing a cause for a free kick before blowing the whistle are not negated by these announcements.

Jeff, on your way out, grab Adrian and take him with you. Thanks, mate.