We were unexpectedly speaking personally with Essendon CEO, Ian Robson, today.
Despite the Machiavellian appearances of the later half of the 2010 season for the Dons, he convinced us that the Knights dismissal and the Hird ascendancy were not linked.
We remain sceptics for the Hird appointment rather than enthusiasts.
The apparently Machiavellian machinations that see James Hird appointed to coach Essendon from 2011 leave the club’s and Hird’s credibility in tatters.
It seems like almost everybody agrees that the 2010 Final Series has been umpired extremely well, Grand Final Mark I even more so.
Consistency is a concept we at AussieRulesBlog often associate with umpiring performance. For the umpteenth time, we make the point that the interpretations applied during the final series, and the Grand Final in particular, are seriously different from those employed at the start of the season.
It’s hardly the first time these observations have been made. Each year in recent times there are early-season laments about over-zealous umpiring, but by finals time a degree of sanity has prevailed.
Must we go through this again in 2011? Surely even that muppet, Jeff Gieschen, who masquerades as AFL Director of Umpiring, can see that people are very happy with the umpiring performance during the finals series and make the decision to keep those interpretations in place for the whole of season 2011?
We can’t let the 2010 season slip away (almost!) without another mention of chief zealot, Stephen McBurney, who spent more time on the ground, in the role of emergency umpire, than the three umpires charged with umpiring the 2010 Grand Final. Pundits gave Darren Goldspink a hard time for hogging the limelight, but McBurney puts him well and truly in the shade!
No, that lower case ‘f’ in the heading is intentional — note to non-pedants, it should be a capital if it refers to the Grand Final (see?).
What an amazing game. The Magpies looked unstoppable early in the first quarter, then the Saints steadied and all but squared the ledger. The Magpies dominated again, but failed to take full toll where it counts — on the scoreboard.
In the second half the Saints found a resolve and determination that had been lacking to draw themselves back into the contest and hit the lead in the final ten minutes — only to be headed again by the Magpies.
Had the ball bounced as it has ninety-nine percent of the season, Milne has a gift of a goal with barely a minute to play. The footy gods decreed otherwise and a point sealed an enthralling contest. It was, truly, a grand final in every sense of those words.
We here at AussieRulesBlog Central are traditionalists. We don’t find anything in the least wrong with a drawn Grand Final. On the contrary, it has everything that is best and proudest about Australian Rules embodied in it.
So, that was the good part. What about the rest of the day?
Let’s start with catering and call it what it was — a shambles. The Great Southern Stand still looks pretty sprightly, but if the mooted makeover does nothing more than make the catering outlets moderately efficient, footy fans of all persuasions should go down on their knees and offer up thanks.
And then there’s the ‘entertainment’. INXS did pretty well belting their three numbers out. The new-ish bloke out front does do a pretty fair job.
While the boys did their bit, a Sherrin-shaped hot air balloon (with the Sherrin stood on its point) sat uncomfortably at the centre circle, tied to — apparently — and surrounded by two brace of Toyota Hi-Lux crew cab 4x4. In the basket of said balloon, feverish hands continually activated the propane burner to maintain inflation — 90,000 cubic feet if our eyes didn’t deceive us. The wind desperately tried to bowl the balloon over, such that it appeared at times as though the balloon might self-imolate in some bizarre anti-Magpie protest.
A couple of over-eager tugs on the burner lever saw the basket bouncing once or twice in what turned out to be a rehearsal. Would they fly it out of the stadium? Now THAT would be entertainment (especially the bit dodging the cables for Channel 7’s mid-air camera!).
We wondered what would happen. After the ‘drama’ of the Tom Thumb cracker-powered cup descent of last year and the crazy dudes on top of vaulting poles the year before — not to mention the hallowed memory of Angry and the Batmobile — the waiting was . . . long!
At last, after braving the queue for the bar to rescue a plastic(!) cup of Draught from the mits and gut of some marauding Magpie supporter, we returned to our seat to see the balloon zooming upward to the full extent allowed by the tethers to the Hi-Lux armada.
Breathtaking stuff! Would the brakes on the Toyotas hold, or would there be a new worldwide recall on Monday? Would the balloon run out of gas, having already changed one gas cylinder over?
No, there was a very special treat in store. Tom Harley was announced walking onto the MGC’s sacred turf. Then, as the balloon pilot gave the burners an extra long spurt of gas, some dude in a red lycra jumpsuit appeared on the ledge of the balloon basket. Next thing we know, he hauls the Premiership Cup into view.
What will the dude do? Will he drop it to Tom? Will he lower it on a rope? Will he jump and hope the ’chute opens in 35 feet?
Having resumed terra firma, the dude handed the Cup to Tom, who walked about twenty-five meters to hand it to Peter McKenna and Cowboy Neale. Obviously any remaining members of the 1958 Collingwood Premiership team couldn’t be broken out of their retirement homes and nursing homes, so “Pretty Boy” was chosen to do the honours in the event of a Magpie victory.
What in the name of all that is footy did all of this mean? Search us!
As ‘entertainment’, it was right up there with having finger nails pulled or sticking pins in your own eyes.
And while we’re having a grumpy rant, how is it that Stephen McBurney managed to spend more time on the field than on the bench? He was the emergency umpire! The only emergency was wondering if he’d run out of puff when we couldn’t see him! People used to give Darren Goldspink a tough time, suggesting he hogged the limelight! Bollocks! He was a rank amateur. McBurney is the Master.
What the hell! We can’t wait until next year week!
Regular visitors to AussieRulesBlog will not be shocked to read that we take words pretty seriously. Often there are a number of words that might suffice, but generally there’s only one that’s just right.
Tonight, Brownlow Night, we want to take issue with the use of the word win in relation to the Brownlow Medal. Chris Judd has not won his second medal. Rather, it was awarded to him by the umpires who, it is assumed, are are the least biased judges close to the action.
So words like received, or conferred or awarded are far more appropriate than win.
Why is it important? It’s to do with how the award was gained and whether the recipient had the award in mind during the contest. And we stress here that we are not supported by dictionary definitions.
So, for instance, a player who takes a contested mark wins the contest. The winning of many such contests, or at least many more than are lost or halved, may result in media judges conferring an award on the player, as it may also result in the match committee conferring the honour of the best and fairest award. Just as in the Brownlow scenario, these awards are incidental to the actions and attitudes for which they are awarded, and therefore are not won.
Unfortunately, what tends to happen is that favoured players are artificially placed into symbolic combative and adversarial roles such that they contest the Brownlow Medal with their peers. The mainstream mass media think they need such adversarial drama to create tension, gain an audience and, therefore, sell more advertising. This effect has been exacerbated with the increasing number of betting markets that are framed about institutions like the Brownlow.
It’s not a big issue, but it did get the bee buzzing in our bonnet tonight. And, Yes!, we certainly are a card-carrying pedant!
One hopes the brains trust at the Brisbane Lions are pondering the possibility of having burned three fairly decent players for a sum result of smoke and mirrors.
Lachie Henderson looked increasingly like a ready-made replacement for an increasingly injury-prone Jonathan Brown as the season wore on, except that he now plays in the navy blue courtesy of the final Fevola deal.
As we noted at the time of Brisbane’s initial shopping of players to Carlton in a bid to secure the services of Fevola, Daniel Bradshaw had made clear his displeasure at this stunning display of disregard and it would only be a matter of time before Michael Rischitelli also moved on.
Importantly, the inevitable announcement was made before Brisbane’s best and fairest function this week, leaving Rischitelli smelling of roses, with his conscience clear, and Michael Voss reeking like an open sewer.
It’s worth noting that Geelong, a three-time Grand Finalist in three years, has managed to avoid off-loading players due to salary cap pressure. Brisbane, during its heyday between 2001 and 2003, similarly managed to keep an ultra-successful team together.
AussieRulesBlog has made no secret of our belief that the Bombers’ disposal of Hardwick, Caracella, Blumfield and Heffernan in the years immediately following that team’s best did more than anything else to drag the Bombers to their current lowly perch on the ladder.
Time will tell whether Brisbane can recover from their act of infamy, or whether, like the Bombers, they are destined for a long and slow decline.
Our beloved game has been brought to a low point through inconsistency. The mild controversy raging over the closing stages of the Second Qualifying Final between St Kilda and Geelong has brought even more inconsistency to the game.
Many pundits have queried why the free kick was paid when Mooney fell into Gwilt’s back, the rationale being something along the lines of,
“…technically it was there, but there were others just like it that were missed…”
or
“…technically it was there, but let the game flow in those last few minutes…”.
So, now we ask the umpires to adjust how they umpire the game and apply different rules to certain parts of the game?
We at AussieRulesBlog find these to be completely fatuous arguments. The rules must be applied in exactly the same way, at every point during the game, in every game from the first practice game to the Grand Final! Consistency of application and interpretation is the single biggest gripe with the game. Yet, when there’s a sentimental moment, many of us are prepared to dismiss consistency on a whim.
If the free kick is technically there, then it’s a free kick, end of story. Coaches, players and fans have to be consistent too! The clamour should be to ask why it is not being paid in the same way more often!
Today’s full report from the AFL’s Match Review Panel doesn’t include any mention of Jarrad Waite’s Academy Award-worthy performance at ANZ Stadium yesterday.
As jokes in sport go, the MRP now ranks right up there with Eddie the Eagle, Eric the Eel and scrums in the NRL.
The AFL’s much-vaunted sanctions against staging have been revealed, through the course of the season, to be an utter waste of time.
The Match Review Panel has an opportunity presented to it this week to shine. Carlton’s Jarrad Waite performed one of the more blatant examples of staging to be seen on an AFL field in 2010, dropping like a stone and holding his face after a Sydney opponent’s hand brushed him mid-chest.
If Waite is not cited, the AFL’s much-vaunted anti-staging sanctions will, once and for all, be seen to be nothing less than window dressing.
We wait with bated breath. . . .
It doesn’t take that mythical being, the rocket surgeon, to figure out that there are some problems with the AFL’s three-strikes drug policy in the wake of the Travis Tuck suspension.
The most alarming issue, at a club headed by the Chairman of the Beyond Blue initiative, is that Tuck did not feel sufficiently comfortable to discuss his depression with his coaches.
There’s no question that AFL is a brutal industry. In the last week alone, a senior coach was summarily dismissed and North Melbourne began delisting players. Whatever we might think about these events, or the awful commoditisation of human beings during trade week, it’s hard to see how these things can be less brutal to individuals within the wider context of the modern game.
For a fringe player, such as Tuck, it’s not hard to imagine the football club being a pretty lonely place. For any semi-established player not getting a regular senior game for that matter, the club must seem like a daunting and coldly-clinical place.
As fans, we often castigate players and coldly dismiss their efforts. On electronic boards, the fates of players are discussed as if they are pieces of furniture — and AussieRulesBlog is not without blame either.
It’s well past time everyone in the AFL industry remembered that we are dealing with human beings, not automatons. And Jeff Kennett, you should hang your head in shame that your club didn’t have the processes in place to identify Tuck’s depression before it got him to this point.
We were unexpectedly speaking personally with Essendon CEO, Ian Robson, today.
Despite the Machiavellian appearances of the later half of the 2010 season for the Dons, he convinced us that the Knights dismissal and the Hird ascendancy were not linked.
We remain sceptics for the Hird appointment rather than enthusiasts.
The apparently Machiavellian machinations that see James Hird appointed to coach Essendon from 2011 leave the club’s and Hird’s credibility in tatters.
It seems like almost everybody agrees that the 2010 Final Series has been umpired extremely well, Grand Final Mark I even more so.
Consistency is a concept we at AussieRulesBlog often associate with umpiring performance. For the umpteenth time, we make the point that the interpretations applied during the final series, and the Grand Final in particular, are seriously different from those employed at the start of the season.
It’s hardly the first time these observations have been made. Each year in recent times there are early-season laments about over-zealous umpiring, but by finals time a degree of sanity has prevailed.
Must we go through this again in 2011? Surely even that muppet, Jeff Gieschen, who masquerades as AFL Director of Umpiring, can see that people are very happy with the umpiring performance during the finals series and make the decision to keep those interpretations in place for the whole of season 2011?
We can’t let the 2010 season slip away (almost!) without another mention of chief zealot, Stephen McBurney, who spent more time on the ground, in the role of emergency umpire, than the three umpires charged with umpiring the 2010 Grand Final. Pundits gave Darren Goldspink a hard time for hogging the limelight, but McBurney puts him well and truly in the shade!
No, that lower case ‘f’ in the heading is intentional — note to non-pedants, it should be a capital if it refers to the Grand Final (see?).
What an amazing game. The Magpies looked unstoppable early in the first quarter, then the Saints steadied and all but squared the ledger. The Magpies dominated again, but failed to take full toll where it counts — on the scoreboard.
In the second half the Saints found a resolve and determination that had been lacking to draw themselves back into the contest and hit the lead in the final ten minutes — only to be headed again by the Magpies.
Had the ball bounced as it has ninety-nine percent of the season, Milne has a gift of a goal with barely a minute to play. The footy gods decreed otherwise and a point sealed an enthralling contest. It was, truly, a grand final in every sense of those words.
We here at AussieRulesBlog Central are traditionalists. We don’t find anything in the least wrong with a drawn Grand Final. On the contrary, it has everything that is best and proudest about Australian Rules embodied in it.
So, that was the good part. What about the rest of the day?
Let’s start with catering and call it what it was — a shambles. The Great Southern Stand still looks pretty sprightly, but if the mooted makeover does nothing more than make the catering outlets moderately efficient, footy fans of all persuasions should go down on their knees and offer up thanks.
And then there’s the ‘entertainment’. INXS did pretty well belting their three numbers out. The new-ish bloke out front does do a pretty fair job.
While the boys did their bit, a Sherrin-shaped hot air balloon (with the Sherrin stood on its point) sat uncomfortably at the centre circle, tied to — apparently — and surrounded by two brace of Toyota Hi-Lux crew cab 4x4. In the basket of said balloon, feverish hands continually activated the propane burner to maintain inflation — 90,000 cubic feet if our eyes didn’t deceive us. The wind desperately tried to bowl the balloon over, such that it appeared at times as though the balloon might self-imolate in some bizarre anti-Magpie protest.
A couple of over-eager tugs on the burner lever saw the basket bouncing once or twice in what turned out to be a rehearsal. Would they fly it out of the stadium? Now THAT would be entertainment (especially the bit dodging the cables for Channel 7’s mid-air camera!).
We wondered what would happen. After the ‘drama’ of the Tom Thumb cracker-powered cup descent of last year and the crazy dudes on top of vaulting poles the year before — not to mention the hallowed memory of Angry and the Batmobile — the waiting was . . . long!
At last, after braving the queue for the bar to rescue a plastic(!) cup of Draught from the mits and gut of some marauding Magpie supporter, we returned to our seat to see the balloon zooming upward to the full extent allowed by the tethers to the Hi-Lux armada.
Breathtaking stuff! Would the brakes on the Toyotas hold, or would there be a new worldwide recall on Monday? Would the balloon run out of gas, having already changed one gas cylinder over?
No, there was a very special treat in store. Tom Harley was announced walking onto the MGC’s sacred turf. Then, as the balloon pilot gave the burners an extra long spurt of gas, some dude in a red lycra jumpsuit appeared on the ledge of the balloon basket. Next thing we know, he hauls the Premiership Cup into view.
What will the dude do? Will he drop it to Tom? Will he lower it on a rope? Will he jump and hope the ’chute opens in 35 feet?
Having resumed terra firma, the dude handed the Cup to Tom, who walked about twenty-five meters to hand it to Peter McKenna and Cowboy Neale. Obviously any remaining members of the 1958 Collingwood Premiership team couldn’t be broken out of their retirement homes and nursing homes, so “Pretty Boy” was chosen to do the honours in the event of a Magpie victory.
What in the name of all that is footy did all of this mean? Search us!
As ‘entertainment’, it was right up there with having finger nails pulled or sticking pins in your own eyes.
And while we’re having a grumpy rant, how is it that Stephen McBurney managed to spend more time on the field than on the bench? He was the emergency umpire! The only emergency was wondering if he’d run out of puff when we couldn’t see him! People used to give Darren Goldspink a tough time, suggesting he hogged the limelight! Bollocks! He was a rank amateur. McBurney is the Master.
What the hell! We can’t wait until next year week!
Regular visitors to AussieRulesBlog will not be shocked to read that we take words pretty seriously. Often there are a number of words that might suffice, but generally there’s only one that’s just right.
Tonight, Brownlow Night, we want to take issue with the use of the word win in relation to the Brownlow Medal. Chris Judd has not won his second medal. Rather, it was awarded to him by the umpires who, it is assumed, are are the least biased judges close to the action.
So words like received, or conferred or awarded are far more appropriate than win.
Why is it important? It’s to do with how the award was gained and whether the recipient had the award in mind during the contest. And we stress here that we are not supported by dictionary definitions.
So, for instance, a player who takes a contested mark wins the contest. The winning of many such contests, or at least many more than are lost or halved, may result in media judges conferring an award on the player, as it may also result in the match committee conferring the honour of the best and fairest award. Just as in the Brownlow scenario, these awards are incidental to the actions and attitudes for which they are awarded, and therefore are not won.
Unfortunately, what tends to happen is that favoured players are artificially placed into symbolic combative and adversarial roles such that they contest the Brownlow Medal with their peers. The mainstream mass media think they need such adversarial drama to create tension, gain an audience and, therefore, sell more advertising. This effect has been exacerbated with the increasing number of betting markets that are framed about institutions like the Brownlow.
It’s not a big issue, but it did get the bee buzzing in our bonnet tonight. And, Yes!, we certainly are a card-carrying pedant!
One hopes the brains trust at the Brisbane Lions are pondering the possibility of having burned three fairly decent players for a sum result of smoke and mirrors.
Lachie Henderson looked increasingly like a ready-made replacement for an increasingly injury-prone Jonathan Brown as the season wore on, except that he now plays in the navy blue courtesy of the final Fevola deal.
As we noted at the time of Brisbane’s initial shopping of players to Carlton in a bid to secure the services of Fevola, Daniel Bradshaw had made clear his displeasure at this stunning display of disregard and it would only be a matter of time before Michael Rischitelli also moved on.
Importantly, the inevitable announcement was made before Brisbane’s best and fairest function this week, leaving Rischitelli smelling of roses, with his conscience clear, and Michael Voss reeking like an open sewer.
It’s worth noting that Geelong, a three-time Grand Finalist in three years, has managed to avoid off-loading players due to salary cap pressure. Brisbane, during its heyday between 2001 and 2003, similarly managed to keep an ultra-successful team together.
AussieRulesBlog has made no secret of our belief that the Bombers’ disposal of Hardwick, Caracella, Blumfield and Heffernan in the years immediately following that team’s best did more than anything else to drag the Bombers to their current lowly perch on the ladder.
Time will tell whether Brisbane can recover from their act of infamy, or whether, like the Bombers, they are destined for a long and slow decline.
Our beloved game has been brought to a low point through inconsistency. The mild controversy raging over the closing stages of the Second Qualifying Final between St Kilda and Geelong has brought even more inconsistency to the game.
Many pundits have queried why the free kick was paid when Mooney fell into Gwilt’s back, the rationale being something along the lines of,
“…technically it was there, but there were others just like it that were missed…”
or
“…technically it was there, but let the game flow in those last few minutes…”.
So, now we ask the umpires to adjust how they umpire the game and apply different rules to certain parts of the game?
We at AussieRulesBlog find these to be completely fatuous arguments. The rules must be applied in exactly the same way, at every point during the game, in every game from the first practice game to the Grand Final! Consistency of application and interpretation is the single biggest gripe with the game. Yet, when there’s a sentimental moment, many of us are prepared to dismiss consistency on a whim.
If the free kick is technically there, then it’s a free kick, end of story. Coaches, players and fans have to be consistent too! The clamour should be to ask why it is not being paid in the same way more often!
Today’s full report from the AFL’s Match Review Panel doesn’t include any mention of Jarrad Waite’s Academy Award-worthy performance at ANZ Stadium yesterday.
As jokes in sport go, the MRP now ranks right up there with Eddie the Eagle, Eric the Eel and scrums in the NRL.
The AFL’s much-vaunted sanctions against staging have been revealed, through the course of the season, to be an utter waste of time.
The Match Review Panel has an opportunity presented to it this week to shine. Carlton’s Jarrad Waite performed one of the more blatant examples of staging to be seen on an AFL field in 2010, dropping like a stone and holding his face after a Sydney opponent’s hand brushed him mid-chest.
If Waite is not cited, the AFL’s much-vaunted anti-staging sanctions will, once and for all, be seen to be nothing less than window dressing.
We wait with bated breath. . . .
It doesn’t take that mythical being, the rocket surgeon, to figure out that there are some problems with the AFL’s three-strikes drug policy in the wake of the Travis Tuck suspension.
The most alarming issue, at a club headed by the Chairman of the Beyond Blue initiative, is that Tuck did not feel sufficiently comfortable to discuss his depression with his coaches.
There’s no question that AFL is a brutal industry. In the last week alone, a senior coach was summarily dismissed and North Melbourne began delisting players. Whatever we might think about these events, or the awful commoditisation of human beings during trade week, it’s hard to see how these things can be less brutal to individuals within the wider context of the modern game.
For a fringe player, such as Tuck, it’s not hard to imagine the football club being a pretty lonely place. For any semi-established player not getting a regular senior game for that matter, the club must seem like a daunting and coldly-clinical place.
As fans, we often castigate players and coldly dismiss their efforts. On electronic boards, the fates of players are discussed as if they are pieces of furniture — and AussieRulesBlog is not without blame either.
It’s well past time everyone in the AFL industry remembered that we are dealing with human beings, not automatons. And Jeff Kennett, you should hang your head in shame that your club didn’t have the processes in place to identify Tuck’s depression before it got him to this point.
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