The laws of australian football, as they are being applied in round ten, bear only a passing resemblance to those being applied through the pre-season competition and the early rounds of the season.

Please put us out of our misery, Jeff, and release a mid-year DVD that provides the new interpretations.

Release the Giesch!!!

PS: We'll probably need yet another one just before the finals begin.

As the title of this post would suggest, I'm somewhat torn on the free agency idea.

Currently, players land at clubs positioned on the ladder in a sort of weird inverse proportionality to the player's perceived talents, that is, the best potential players (in each draft round) going to the worst-performed clubs.

Let's think about the ramifications. Had Joel Selwood been drafted by Richmond, would we be singing his praises in quite the same way? Had Colin Sylvia been drafted by Geelong, would he now rival someone like Jimmy Bartel in that group?

Players play the game, as we're reminded almost every week, to play in Premiership teams. Had Richard Tambling been drafted by Geelong, he might well have a Premiership Medal hung on his wall.

As things stand, other than delisting or trading, a player has to accept his lot. Scott West and Robert Harvey, for instance, will go into the history books as two wonderful players who never savoured Premiership glory at the elite level.

The other side of the argument concerns loyalty to your mates, the culture, the history and the hundreds of passionate, ne'er-say-die volunteers and helpers around every club. I'd suggest that the aforementioned Scott West and Robert Harvey had opportunities to move to potentially more successful clubs. I'd also suggest both are very proud to be known as one-club players.

I'm very inclined to Eddie Maguire's view: that free agency will result in the death of multiple clubs in Melbourne. Wealthy clubs will, again, be able to effectively "buy" a Premiership. Less affluent clubs will lose their better players for, probably, negligible compensation.

There's one other factor that almost tips the scales for me. The salary cap was introduced to even out the competition, to avoid the rich clubs buying high-performance teams designed to fill their trophy cabinets (I'm looking at you, Carlton!). Free agency works in direct opposition to the salary cap.

I'd be grateful for the collected wisdom of the AussieRulesBlog 'community' to help me make up my mind. . .

Regular AussieRulesBlog readers will have gleaned that I am a devoted Bomber. Without quibbling about the result, I'm left to wonder what the differences are between Nathan Lovett-Murray's three-week bump and Nick Maxwell's get-off-scott-free bump during the pre-season. I think Lovett-Murray was dumb and he is a serial offender, so three weeks is fair enough.

Let's think about the two scenarios. Both were clearly late. Tick. Both involved somewhat incidental(?) contact to the opponent's head. Tick. Lovett-Murray gave Pettifer a bloodied nose, Maxwell broke McGinnity's jaw. Huh?

[Edit, 27 May: When I wrote this, I was having a daydream (apparently) and avoided remembering that the Match Review Panel actually cited Maxwell and awarded a penalty of weeks. It was an expensive counsel and a legal technicality that saved Maxwell.]

I noticed a few comments from media people this week about the changes in umpiring interpretations since the season began a mere nine weeks ago. It is crystal clear that many of the zero-tolerance, tiggy-touch wood interpretations have been remaindered again this year.

I'm at a loss to understand why it is that umpires are instructed to be overly technical, intransigent and intolerant as the season begins, only to have the whistles pretty much packed away by finals time, as suggested by James Hird on Fox Sports' On the Couch.

As the season began, merely touching a player who had just marked was virtually an automatic 50-metre penalty. In Round Nine you could dance an evening two-step with the player and the umpire's whistle stays firmly at his side.

Surely a law of the game is a law of the game? It is frankly ludicrous that the operating interpretation of so many "laws of the game" should vary so greatly over a period of two months. It hardly helps the AFL's campaign for greater respect for umpires for the elite umpiring department in the country to not be able to make up its mind what does and does not constitute a free kick or a 50-metre penalty across the space of two months.

Who makes these decisions? Is it Jeff Gieschen, my favourite whipping boy? Or Rowan Sawers? Adrian Anderson? Andrew Demetriou? Guys, you have our sport in trust. Isn't it about time you stopped screwing around with it?

As the writing on the wall looms ever larger for Terry Wallace at Richmond — and with another six senior coaches potentially coming out of contract at the end of the year — attention will turn, inevitably, to the potential choices for seven AFL clubs.

In a series of previous posts, and this one follows on, I've looked at one relatively crude criterion that might be applied when clubs decide who to look at seriously. I'll be spending some effort in bringing a slightly more scholarly approach to the question as the season unfolds, but a superficial analysis right now serves to illustrate the minefield that club administrations are entering.

Following on from my previous arbitrary measurement (Premierships equal success), I decided to look at premiership years as players — playing in a grand final is not intrinsic as I'm focusing on cultural exposure rather than on-field experience of the last Saturday — of five current, and one recently-discarded, coaches. This is, of course, absolutely ad hoc and unscientific.

It's also interesting to note that a very low number of naturally-talented footballers have achieved the ultimate coaching success: Blight (2), Jesaulenko (1), Roos (1), Coleman (2), and, stretching the definition in my view, Matthews (4).

Gritty players who got the most out of their (limited) talent are over-represented: Parkin (4), Sheedy (4), Hafey (4), Jeans (4), Barassi (4), Kennedy (3), Malthouse (2), Pagan (2), Williams (1), Thompson (1 and counting) [and Clarkson (1)].

See Coaching credentials 2

Anyone over the age of 40 will recall that Lou Richards was the perhaps the biggest name in football through the 70s and 80s. If all you've ever seen of Lou is the banal tosh they've had him doing on Channel Nein for the last decade, then you'll have to take my word for it. Lou is, and will always be, a legend of the game, whether he has the tag or not.

The only footy 'personalities' who could give Lou a run for his money were Ted Whitten — Mr. Football — and Ron Barassi — affectionately dubbed Mrs. Football by Ted.

I think Lou and his family have made a mistake in waiving a Lifetime Achievement Award. Not only would it be the first, but it would also be richly deserved.

I think it only a matter of time before the Hall of Fame criteria are revised to include media. It may not happen before Lou leaves us, but I think you can bank on it.

After Lou is made a legend (eventually), the next media Legend should be Lou, Jack and Bob's League Teams.

Over recent weeks I've become increasingly more disenchanted with current adjudication of the holding the ball/incorrect disposal rule.

There appears to be a chasm between what we see during the games each weekend and the explanations provided by the AFL's Umpiring Department. And, might I just note in passing that having Dwayne Russell do the voiceovers for the video explanations highlights nicely the gap of understanding when he is calling games and clearly has no idea why players have been free kicked.

See the Holding the Ball video here.

In viewing the video, it seems to me that the problems lie in the failure to define prior opportunity. How much time is enough time? One player will be free-kicked when tackled less than a second after receiving the ball, another will be able to swing through almost 360º whilst being tackled, often over two or three seconds, without being free-kicked.

The average AFL spectator has no idea. Crowds routinely howl "BAAAALLLLLLLLLL!!!!!" the moment a player is touched. Unfortunately, some umpires seem to feed this frenzy with apparently hair-trigger decisions.

The one things that seems clear, watching games, is that the Umpiring Department haven't offered umpires a 'template' for judging prior opportunity.

Is it a measure of the failure of zero-tolerance approaches in interpreting other rules that a template hasn't been provided? Whatever the case, blatant inconsistency does nothing to further the cause of umpires. As I've noted previously, I'm sure we'd all prefer a consistent interpretation, even if we disagree with the practical effect of a rule.

How about it, Jeff? Do you want to let the footballing public into the secret? How long is long enough for prior opportunity?

A second factor, actual disposal after being tackled, also seems to suffer in the interpretation. Many times the ball appears to be dislodged by the tackle, but no free kick is paid despite this not being a legal disposal. Other times, a player with an arm pinned is spun around with the ball taken from his grasp by the force of the tackle, sometimes free kicked for illegal disposal, sometimes not. The seemingly capricious basis for these decisions is, frankly, mystifying and nothing provided by the AFL Umpiring Department sheds light on the practical application of these rules.

Having had the occasion to see Franklin first hand (thank-you to the footy gods for an unexpected victory!!!) and watching the telecast later, I'm inclined to think that Franklin has a lot of Richo in his makeup.

I've written in other forums that I expect Franklin to be able to do the ordinary as well, and as consistently, as he occasionally does the extraordinary (and over a decent period) before he warrants the tag "champion". Aussierulesblog readers would know that I'm no fan of Richo, and his inability to do the ordinary as well as he occasionally does the extraordinary is a key element of my criticism.

I noticed another Richo-like behaviour from Franklin while watching the video: preoccupation with the big screen at the ground after being involved in the play.

There's no doubt that Richo is well-regarded and popular and I'm sure that Franklin will also be well-regarded and popular over his career.

At this relatively early stage of his career, Franklin does have a Premiership medallion that Richo would crave, but the similarities are compelling.

Some nine and a bit years after the Docklands stadium burst onto the AFL scene, some clubs are discovering their deals to play at the stadium are toxic. North Melbourne CEO, Eugene Arocca claims the club will have to write out a cheque to stadium management after their upcoming home fixture against Port Adelaide. One assumes future fixtures at the venue against other non-Victorian teams are likely to generate the same result.

Someone from North Melbourne signed the deal with Docklands management. Did they have their eyes closed at the time? Did they read the small print, or was it treated like a credit card or mobile phone contract?

IF the deals for North, St Kilda and the Western Bulldogs are as toxic as reports suggest, it's surely not the stadium's fault. The question a sensible person could ask is whether club management at the time were incompetent.

Of course, the elephant in this room is the commercial basis for ownership of the Docklands stadium. Stadium owners' borrowings have to be managed, along with operational costs. Were the finance a public-sector arrangement, perhaps with State Government guarantee, the interest rate would be lower, logically leading to lower operating costs.

It should also be remarked at this point that the AFL did, relatively recently, possess a fully-owned stadium, in AFL Park, which could have been further developed to the original planned capacity IF various State Governments had honoured promises to provide public transport infrastructure to service the site.

Oh no! Another heresy, but this time against one of my own heartfelt tennets. Reading The Age's sport section today, I find myself in total agreement with Captain Obvious. It's actually a very good piece.

I must go and wash now. I feel unclean. . .

Postscript (Saturday 2 May): I knew it couldn't last. Watching the Hawthorn-Carlton game on TV was excruciating. Walls sounded even more awful than usual, but his comments were so soaked in navy blue. The contrast with the radio calls on MMM and ABC was stark.