“The incident was assessed as intentional conduct (three points), low impact (one point) and high contact (two points). This is a total of six activation points, resulting in a classification of a Level Three offence, drawing 225 demerit points and a two-match sanction.”

This description, from the AFL website, refers to the charge against Essendon’s Ryder.

I defy anyone to seriously suggest that Hodge’s actions immediately prior to Ryder’s do not fall within the same category. This incident was prior to the third quarter collision between Lloyd and Sewell.

Pathetic by the Match Review Panel — a travesty of justice.

Campbell Brown's curious outburst on radio immediately after the round 22 Hawthorn-Essendon game can almost be forgiven, since the two people he would regard as leaders of his club showed by their actions that a knee-jerk reaction was acceptable.

Jeff “Dial-a-quote” Kennett, intoxicated by the illusion of power and happy to feed those he once contemptuously threw sand at, has spoken at length about anything and everything recently, often without adequate consideration of his intentions beforehand.

Alistair Clarkson, leaving the ground after the game, unleashed a stream of invective at Essendon players as he left the arena, notably with Brown in close proximity.

Brown himself, no model of propriety on the field, had already mouthed off to the Essendon bench during the second half — which was about the total of his contribution to the game — and following the example set by his coach and his President, decided to start his tongue without first engaging his brain.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the Lloyd-Sewell collision, and there was clearly no animosity between the two after the game, the Hawthorn of the Noughties has not distinguished itself save for its grace in victory last September.

The Hawthorn of Kennedy, Parkin, Jeans, Matthews, Brereton, Dipierdomenico, et al played the game with brutal intensity, but when it came time to take their share, they did so without either a backward step or a whimper.

The current Hawthorn leadership would do well to look to those predecessors for a guide to how to conduct themselves. By all means play “unsociable” football, but when the time comes, take it like men!

The Franklin suspension this week reveals a weakness in the system devised by the AFL to dissuade head-high contact. A comparison of the Franklin-Cousins collision with the Mawell-McGinnity collision earlier in the year reveals at least one important distinction.

Franklin has the merest split second to decide what to do when confronted by Cousins. That he chose the relative gamble of a bump against the more team-oriented, smarter option of a tackle perhaps says more about Hawthorn's season than almost anything else through the home and away rounds.

Maxwell, on the other hand, had many seconds to decide what to do. So many in fact, he decided well in advanace to run directly at McGinnity, who at that stage was pursuing a Collingwood opponent, and give him an old-fashioned shirtfront.

In both cases, the contact to their opponent's head was incidental, but Maxwell's was a calculated and pre-meditated attack on an unwary victim. Franklin and Cousins both responded instinctively, and in fact had little or no time to do any more than that.

So, how does this concern the AFL? Simply, the decision to classify the head as “sacrosanct” leaves no room for the Tribunal or the Appeals Board to assess intent. Reliance on a zero-tolerance approach effectively means that the two incidents are considered equivalent, when virtually any sentient being can see they’re nothing of the sort.

North Melbourne's appointment of Brad Scott as senior coach for 2010–2 seems to tick plenty of boxes.

As a member of the three-peat Brisbane Lions of 2001–3, Scott has plenty of exposure to a Premiership-winning culture. More importantly in my view, he was a gritty, determined player of mediocre talent who achieved respect and a permanent place in a mega-successful team.

Harking back to an old theme of mine, it is Scott's playing credentials mixed with Premiership culture exposure that mark him as a potentially very successful coach. Remember that gritty players who got the most out of their (limited) talent are over-represented among Premiership coaches since 1960: Parkin (4 Premierships), Sheedy (4), Hafey (4), Jeans (4), Barassi (4), Kennedy (3), Malthouse (2), Pagan (2). Note also that Parkin, Sheedy, Barassi and Malthouse were all members of multiple Premiership teams as players before becoming coaches.

For North, Scott and Damien Hardwick ticked many of the same boxes, with Hardwick having a broader spread of experience with Premiership involvement at three different clubs, Scott having the three-peat and some years under Malthouse, while Crocker was a member of the ’Roos’ ’96 Premiership team.

Time will tell whether Scott has the other attributes that are required to lift a team, but the basics are there in spades! One also wonders whether Eugene Arocca’s former life at Collingwood gave him some added insights into Scott's potential. . .

It's not often in aussie rules that there's a stark and definitive example of umpiring guesswork. Watching the Sydney-Geelong game last night, at one stage Mooney chased the ball along the boundary line.

The camera angle was such that the audience could not determine whether the ball was out of bounds or not. Unfortunately for the boundary umpire, the camera angle also showed him making a decision he could not see definitively.

The only way an out-of-bounds decision can be made definitively, is for the adjudicator to be positioned on the tangent to the boundary at the point where the ball may have crossed the line.

Suffice to say, the boundary ump was a long, long way from standing on the tangent and can thus only have guessed at whether the ball was in or out.

This is a long, long way from being good enough at the elite AFL level. Dare I say, Release the Giesch.

In a recent post, I foreshadowed addressing the issue of painkilling injections.

Leigh Matthews reputedly commented, after the 2003 Grand Final, that there should be a shortage of painkilling injections, such were the injuries his team carried into the game. In fact, it is relatively common for players to either go into even home and away games with a jab or two, or to receive a jab during the course of the game.

Were a player to follow Warnie's lead and take a diuretic, he'd have a sanction applied if caught (even if only having a first strike recorded against his name). That diuretic could assist in losing some weight, or mask some other drug.

Were the player to use a steroid during training, he'd have a sanction applied. The steroid could assist in building muscle mass and strength, or in overcoming an injury.

The player getting a jab of local anaesthetic improves his performance because a specific pain is deadened to allow him to play as if the injury didn't exist.

I guess you'll see where I'm going here?

How is the anaesthetic any less performance-enhancing than the diuretic or the steroid?

Even before a new coach is anointed at Richmond, it appears Richo has a tick to go around again next year. Ordinarily, an 800-goal AFL player with fourteen or fifteen seasons under his belt would be a huge plus for a young list. Young players need role models, on AND off the field — it’s easy to mount an argument that Melbourne’s current woes are a direct result of a lack of leadership — but is Richo the guy you want your young players modelling themselves on?

I’ve acknowledged in previous posts that Richo bleeds yellow and black, but, sadly, that doesn’t outweigh the substantial negatives he brings to the table: unreliable goal kicking; unreliable decision-making; and protected status that means he doesn’t receive appropriate sanction for the other negatives.

Of these negatives, it’s the last that is most potentially damaging. A new coach will want to make changes to begin overcoming some of the poor habits accrued by the Tigers during the Frawley and Wallace (and Gieschen and Walls?) reigns. One of the prime sanctions to apply to players flouting team rules or not measuring up to team skill requirements is a trip to the VFL.

How many times has Richo suffered the indignity of being dropped? How many times have his clangers, or body language, torn the spirit out of his teammates? How many times should he have been dropped?

It appears as though the Tigers are going to have a cleanout. Bowden, it seems, is gone — how I will miss wondering why any player would fall for one of his appallingly theatrical baulks around an opponent. Johnson is gone, Simmonds and Brown look at least shaky. Admittedly, none have kicked 800 goals or, Bowden aside, been at Richmond for their whole career, yet none of them have the level of obvious downside that Richo carries with him

The only saving grace is that Cousins has been demonstrating, on the track and in games, exactly what standard the young Tigers need to attain to achieve success. Is it totally unrelated that a string of improved performances under Rawlings occurred with Richo in rehab?

I feel for the new coach. It must be hard starting an important new role with a millstone tied about your neck!

Rohan Connolly’s piece in The Age likening Geelong’s current woes to those of Essendon in late 2001 leads me to continue the dominance theme from my previous post.

Connolly points out that the Cats’ current form bodes ill for their finals campaign. While they had moments during the game against Carlton where they looked dangerous, and a little like the Geelong of 2007–8, more often they looked inept as the instinctive responses to pressure weren’t backed up by the same cohesive, superbly drilled and experienced group they are used to playing with.

The take-out message from all of this should be to marvel at the deeds of the 2001–3 Brisbane Lions, who, although never as dominant through the season, brought the right game to the stage when it counted in three successive finals campaigns.

Leigh Matthews reputedly commented that there was a shortage of painkilling injections in Australia after the 2003 Grand Final, such were the number of soft tissue injuries his team battled. That a team could win the biggest game of the season making such extensive use of performance-enhancing drugs — and there's no other way this situation can be described — is the subject of another debate (watch this space!).

In the context of Geelong’s apparently imminent fall from dominance with a single Premiership to show for two-and-a-bit extraordinary seasons, and Essendon’s result of one Premiership from 1999–2001, the Lions’ return of three consecutive Premierships stands as a truly Herculean achievement and one we should not expect to see repeated any time soon.

And let's put this into a little more perspective. Should the Saints succeed in winning the 2009 Premiership, and should they remain undefeated for the season, they would rightly claim recognition for a, to-date, unique achievement. Yet I can't help thinking such an achievement pales against that of the Lions.

With the Saints desperately clinging to hopes of a 100% winning record for 2009 and the Cats having already shot their bolt (and the 2009 Bombers disappearing down the gurgler!), I thought it might be interesting to look at how some recent seasons dominated by one or two clubs look statistically* by comparison.

2000 Bombers
25 wins, average margin 53.6pts; 1 loss, 11pts; Premiers

2007 Cats
21 wins, avg margin 54.9pts; 4 losses, avg margin 11.3pts; Premiers

2008 Hawks
20 wins, avg margin 42.4pts; 5 losses, avg margin 25.8pts; Premiers

2008 Cats
23 wins, avg margin 51.9pts; 2 losses, avg margin 56pts; runner-up

2009 Saints (to Rnd 18)
18 wins, avg margin 40.1pts; 0 losses; TBA

2009 Cats (to Rnd 18)
16 wins, avg margin 34.4pts; 2 losses, avg margin 24.5pts; TBA

Keeping in mind the famous declaration attributed to 19th-century British PM Benjamin Disraeli — There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics! — it would appear the 2009 Saints are some way short of the domination wrought by the 2000 Bombers and 2007–8 Cats.

Saints fans will, quite rightly, consider a Premiership — if it eventuates — to be sufficient reward in itself, and my purpose is not to denigrate those efforts or that result in any way.

Nevertheless, it's not unreasonable to claim the 2000 Bombers as the most dominant team in recent decades: 2 goals+ per game over the 2009 Saints (at round 18); and fewer losses/better losing margins than 2007–2008 Cats.

* Data from http://finalsiren.com