Rumours are rife that Carlton will be severing their ties with current major sponsors and seeking a new relationship with the Advanced Medical Institute as it was revealed at the MCG that their 2009 "Tell them we're coming" promotion was a case of premature ejaculation.

And, yes, we Bombers ARE still waiting. . .

No, I haven't taken to channelling Pauline Hanson. But I think it's a bit rich for the AFL to issue a "please explain" over "A character in the multi-chapter Harry Potter franchise"-gate (doesn't almost anything sound so much more sinister with "-gate" suffixed to it? NOT!).

It may have escaped notice at AFL House, but aussie rules is a collision sport and blood does get spilled. The pictures of a character in the multi-chapter Harry Potter franchise — I mean Chris Judd — hawking up blood after having his nose obscured with a roll of elastoplast weren't pretty, but let's think about the alternative.

Perhaps the good old navy blues could take a leaf from the book of the Azzuri: the Italian national diving team. As any true-blue aussie rules fan knows, those fudball pansies do a swan dive and roll around for hours if a bloke even looks like he might clip them. Do we want Judd and Co. going down in fashionable feints every time an opponent bumps them? Oh, sorry — Fevola's already doing that! Well, you know what I mean!

The Selwood footage was gut-wrenching, but doesn't it just say something about the extraordinary courage and determination of these men? Shouldn't we be celebrating the courage?

Come on Mike, Andrew, Adrian. At the elite level, our teams are playing for high stakes — although you'd never know it looking at Port and Freo most weeks — and having your key playmaker and team inspirator (new word — I like it!) on the park during a tight final quarter could be the difference between a few places on the ladder and making it to the third week of the finals. If people are upset by this imagery, they should be watching another vigorous sport — like extreme lawn bowls. . .

As the calls for the addition of substitute players to the interchange bench become more and more frequent, it's worth reflecting on the scenarios that provoke such calls and some of the underlying principles of australian rules football.

It's now almost de rigeur for losing coaches to bemoan the lack of interchange players due to injury. The game has changed, but for many years reserves, known as 19th and 20th men, were available only as substitute players. Once a player was replaced by the 19th or 20th man, that was it for the day. If a coach was forced to use both reserves and a further injury occurred, that was bad luck.

Then we moved to an interchange system — which has had its own unfortunate implications with the speed of the game — and a new tactical battle emerged in the creative ways coaches used their interchange bench.

Let me stray slightly for a moment to mention the shape of the ball used in aussie rules. It's elliptical or oval and, except in highly-controlled circumstances, its behaviour is something of a lottery. Players are often left grasping at thin air as our ball makes an unexpected detour. When this happens, it's bad luck.

Back to the matter in hand. When a player is seriously injured, such as David Hille two minutes into the Anzac Day game, it's bad luck. If it rains and your team doesn't play well in wet weather, it's bad luck (unless you're at Docklands!). If the umpire bounces the ball and it doesn't go perfectly straight, thus favouring one team, it's — that's right, it used to be bad luck.

If your team has four serious injuries in the first half, that's real bad luck, because you've just lost any chance at rotations.

Let's wait and catch breath before rushing to add more players to the bench. When, years ago, the rules of centre bounce contests were changed to force ruckmen to run at each other to remove unsightly wrestling, no-one envisaged a spate of knee injuries — but that's exactly what we got. Then an outer circle was added to reduce the momentum on impact between ruckmen, and then we discovered they were disadvantaged when the bounce was less than straight. Then the ruckmen were told thay couldn't cross the centre line before leaping for the ball. . .

Gradually, each little change has had unfortunate implications and now we're seriously at risk of losing the umpires' bounce that, as with much else in aussie rules, has an element of luck attached to it. Not only that, but ruck contests have become a magical world where some rules of the game don't exist and free kicks seem to be plucked out almost at whim by the umpires.

Let's remember that luck is one of the imponderables that makes aussie rules a better game than boring, nil-all soccer, a better game than big-boys' British bulldog NRL, a better game than mobile wresting RU and a better than than the unltra-managed and controlled NFL.

Substitutes for injured players over and above the four-man interchange bench? No mate, that's bad luck!

They've kept it under wraps for half a season, but Carlton unveiled their latest recruit against the Saints at Docklands tonight. Disguised as an injured Chris Judd, the new recruit was revealed as none other than a character in the multi-chapter Harry Potter franchise! AFL enquiries will be made when it is realised the character was not even on the Blues' rookie list.

Left: A character in the multi-chapter Harry Potter franchise, cunningly disguised as Chris Judd. Right: A character in the multi-chapter Harry Potter franchise in a recent movie role.

  

I noted, with barely-concealed disgust, the apparent war of words being slugged out between TV chef Ramsay and ACA doberwoman Grimshaw in the online newspapers. As I marvelled at ACA's fantastic capacity to claim the high moral ground and label others as lowlife, it occurred to me that something similar has almost become the norm in footy circles.

It was, perhaps, not coincidental that it was Channel Ten who regaled us with the now-famous footage of Ben Cousins flipping the bird. This is the same broadcaster that brought us such cerebral delights as Big Brother, whose weekly prime time roster currently includes NCIS × 2, Law & Order: SVU × 2 and Law & Order: Criminal Intent × 2 — that's six grisly murders — and they're outraged by a footballer raising a finger in what he would assume is the privacy of the dressing room?

For everyone who hyperventilated over Cousins, get over it! The football media could show us many more shocking images, tell many more shocking stories about many other footballers; Cousins is simply an easy target.

So, at last, the slow-motion bus crash that was the Wallace years at Richmond has, like previous coach Frawley, entered its final moments.

As previously noted at AussieRulesBlog, it's too easy and simplistic to declare that Wallace is a poor coach, as his period at the helm of the Bulldogs attests eloquently. I am inclined, still, to the view that deep cultural factors underlay Wallace's inability to steer the Tigers to success. If any blame is to be sheeted home to him, perhaps it is his failure to ensure sufficient internal political backing to make hard and unpopular decisions. That the administration has been unstable has not helped Wallace's cause.

And so to the aftermath, and the choice of a replacement coach. High on the checklist should be recent significant involvement in Premiership-winning culture, a non-Richmond background and the force of personality to remove dead wood, no matter how unpopular the decision. Is there such a person potentially available? Do Alistair Clarkson or Mark Thompson have hidden twin siblings? Can the Tigers withstand the further pain of bottoming out completely on the way to fully rebuilding the list?

On the other side of the country, Mark Harvey finds himself trapped in a similar slow-motion accident. Despite a bench-ful of veritable cripples in the final quarter last Friday night, Fremantle should have been able to overcome the chronically-inept Tigers. Harvey had the look of a rabbit caught in the headlights, unable to move to save himself, wondering how his team could butcher such an opportunity. The signs of a similar cultural problem at Fremantle are compelling. Harvey's attempt to import a new culture along with a slew of ex-Essendon buddies appears doomed. It beggars belief that a team with a decent culture could become so expert at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.