The controversy of the first day of the Boxing Day Test at the MCG is only a controversy because Channel Nein insisted on deploying its technology despite it not being available to either teams or umpires.

 

Test cricket has survived for more than 100 years without high technology assistance. Sure, there were dodgy decisions from time to time, but that was part and parcel of the process. Umpires are (allegedly) human and are expected to make decisions based on what they are sure that they see.

 

AussieRulesBlog will never impugn the integrity of the officials, but, despite there being very specific written processes for umpiring games, individuals will always have distinct idiosyncratic interpretations of those processes.

 

We raise this “controversy” generated by Channel Nein since it demonstrates why there have been controversies in AFL in relation to scoring decisions. Those controversies would have little of the widespread impact they have had were it not for the broadcasters’ highlighting of the ‘error’.

 

We weren’t watching Channel Nein yesterday, but, on past form, we assume they played and replayed and replayed the controversial footage ad nauseum, as is their wont. That was certainly the way the AFL scoring issues played out.

 

It’s also worth noting here that broadcasters’ technology rarely, if ever, shows the incident from the perspective of the umpire. The image of the ‘hot spot’ on Hussey’s shirt is from side on (below). Let’s see the same incident from the umpire’s perspective at the bowling end stumps and see how clear cut the technology makes it from there!

 

 

The issues, for both cricket umpires and Aussie Rules umpires are really rooted in human frailty. For the cricket umpire, judging the bowler’s front foot placement in relation to the popping crease and then judging nicks and LBWs at the other end a fraction of a second later is a big ask. For Aussie Rules goal umpires, judging the position of the ball in relation to a goal or behind post whilst in the jumble of a 360º game is also a big ask.

 

But, and here’s the rub in these controversies, the technology can’t give a 100% guarantee of being right either. And it probably never will — unless the games are completely virtual and a computer can assess against its own data.

 

These cricket incidents demonstrate the dangers of allowing broadcasters to deploy technology that is not available to officials. Umpires would be well within their rights to refuse to stand in these tests while Channel Nein deploys these technologies that are not available to them. Whether it is the Indian Board or any other reason that the technology is not employed, its use in these circumstances is absolutely and entirely inappropriate.

AussieRulesBlog was quite surprised to see a small additional item at the end of an unrelated story mentioning that Richmond had awarded life membership to 24-year-old, 150-game player, Brett Deledio.

 

We have nothing against Deledio. In fact, we’re sure he’s a most estimable chap. But life membership? At twenty-four? One wonders what the Tigers’ board are smoking.

 

We could countenance offering life membership to a player toward the end of a storied and sparkling career. Even a workmanlike career perhaps, as long as there were at least 250 games clocked up. We’d also want to be pretty sure the player wasn’t going to hive off to a hated enemy once free agency raises its ugly head, and it’s hard to be sure that there couldn’t be some free agency involved in Deledio’s future.

 

It all seems a bit grasping and (a lot) premature.

 

Ed.: We note that Richmond awards life membership automatically on achievement of 150 games. Other clubs require ten years’ continuous service.

Each year at this time, the AFL makes its announcement of changes for the following season. The changes for the Tribunal and Match Review Panel for 2012 are remarkable not so much for the “changes” as for the language used.

 

For example:

any striking action with a raised forearm or elbow will be classified as intentional, unless there is clear evidence the strike was not intentional;

 

This is nothing more than an attempt to look to be hard on transgressions without actually changing anything. Black will be considered yellow unless there is clear evidence that it is not yellow! What nonsense!

 

There is further pain for the MRP with the addition of “excessive exaggeration of contact in an unsportsmanlike manner” to the existing staging definition of “feigning contact”. Really, how does the MRP decide what’s excessive exaggeration? And, is excessive exaggeration OK as long as it’s done in a sportsmanlike manner?

 

This change smacks of an attempt to cover the Angus Monfries revelation that he “took a dive” when hit by Jordan Lewis. That the MRP thought Lewis’ action sufficiently serious to deal out a three-week suspension suggests they’d find it difficult to also hand out a suspension to Monfries for the same incident.

 

Other critics of the staging sanctions focus on exaggerated contact in marking contests. If you’re one of these, don’t hang by your thumbs waiting to see a forward who exaggerates a push in the back get reported for “staging”. It’s not going to happen.

 

The cops could surround these changes with chequered tape and have a constable advising browsers to “move along, there’s nothing to see here.”

Can we just quietly mention that we’re mightily pissed off at the Cats?

 

Having given Chris Scott and Ron Cook a congratulatory mention for ignoring the herd-like stampede to high-altitude training camps, we discover the Cats have been in Falls Creek.

 

Thanks for nothing, guys.

Despite everything, AussieRulesBlog can’t help but feel sorry for Brendan Fevola. The lyrics of Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi are, we think, appropriate to Fevola’s situation.

 

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone

 

Through season after season, his on-field talent had got him out of tight off-field scrapes. Kicking goals was a cure for all ills — until . . .

 

We can feel the cogs turning in Michael Voss’ mind: “Surely he’s seen that he’s almost had this extraordinary opportunity taken away. We throw him a lifeline and he’ll be so grateful he’ll become a Pentecostal preacher!” Ok, there’s a bit of licence at the end, but you know what we mean.

 

Without a trade deal, it’s looking increasingly likely that Fev will not be playing AFL again. And, despite the NFL rehabilitating players who’ve transgressed, such as Michael Vick, Fev is not going to be a potential game changer, as Vick is. Fev’s NFL cards might also be marked, no matter how good a punter he could eventually turn out to be. Punting is just not that crucial to NFL teams to take a chance on a loose cannon.

 

Both Andrew Lovett and Leon Davis look to have also finished their elite level careers, for quite different reasons. ‘Neon’ Leon has, quite simply, miscalculated. Lovett missed his best chance by turning the Bombers against himself.

 

All three will have a quite powerful feeling when they hear Joni’s clear voice ringing out.

 

You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

The announcement of experimental rules for the 2012 pre-season games carries no surprises. We were alerted to these changes weeks ago, but it’s interesting to see the final implementation.

 

AussieRulesBlog has made no secret of our enthusiasm for any change that removes ugly wrestling from ruck contests. The explanatory notes make for some intriguing consideration.

 

Ruckmen will not be permitted to make contact with their opponent prior to bounces and throw-ins, with umpires ensuring the players do not make contact with each other until the ball leaves the umpire’s hand. The trial is designed to encourage ruckmen to contest the ball, rather than focus on nullifying their opponent, as well as making ruck contests easier to adjudicate.

 

We’re not entirely sure that the last point has been achieved by adding another rule for umpires to adjudicate! It will be fascinating to see how ruckmen manage this new process.

 

Centre bounces have generally been genuine contests since the dividing line between ruckmen was introduced. Athletic ruckmen have had the opportunity to leap high above the more lumbering types and the umpires have, in our judgement, generally done a good job in restricting the lumberers from taking the leapers’ run away from them. The second centre circle has reduced the advantage that more athletic ruckmen might otherwise have had.

 

So, for this trial, at ball ups around the ground, ruckmen will not be able to touch each other until the ball has left the umpire’s hands. Frankly, we’re not sure that there’ll be much difference discernable. The ruckmen will stand quite close to each other and, as soon as the ball hits the turf, will come together in a wrestle for the five or six seconds it takes for the ball to fall back down to them. What change have we made? Not bloody much!

 

And we can’t wait to see how precise and precious the umpires are going to be about what constitutes a touch.

 

For boundary throw ins, the situation is much the same. As the ball is arcing through the air for five or six seconds, the ruckmen will be wrestling for position and advantage as they move to the fall of the ball. Again, not much bloody difference!

 

We can’t fault the intent of these experiments, but they don’t go nearly far enough.

It’s heartening to see that the Giants have secured a major sponsor with the new advertisements plastered all over the AFL website this afternoon.


Only one question guys: who decided your logo was going to work on an AFL guernsey? I guess the association with the Giants, and especially The Promised Land, will carry the bulk of the load along with advertising like this above, but it’s pretty hard to see that the Giants’ TV exposure is going to deliver much when the sponsor logo disappears into the background. Presumably it looks better, and stands out more, on the charcoal guernsey.

Oh well, it’s their money.

Update: The picture of #1 draft pick Jonathan Patton in his brand new Giants polo shirt illustrates the issue for the “co-major partner”. Every name except theirs is perfectly readable in this pic.

As usual, Aussie rules’ biggest club will want to have its cake, and eat it too!

 

Barcodes President Eddie McGuire’s threats over the Giants’ potential interest in Scott Pendlebury need to be balanced with the thought of, arguably, Australia’s most powerful sporting club being itself let loose in the free agency china shop from 2013.

 

And in a curiously serendipitous coincidence, the Barcodes’ Travis Cloke’s manager-father David is already talking up his youngest son’s free-agency value post his current contract.

 

Which non-Barcodes footy fan wouldn’t revel in the delicious irony of Eddie Everywhere bouncing off the walls of a rubber room over Pendlebury while his club’s star forward seeks the best dollars he can get elsewhere in the competition?

 

Eddie’s bluster is all very well, but the AFL’s salary cap system severely restricts the ability of successful clubs to counter attractive financial packages mounted by less successful clubs. Similarly, it also restricts the Barcodes’ ability to be a spoiler in any meaningful way.

 

Eddy wishes he was George Harris or Big Jack Elliott and he could buy a team of champions, but the landscape has changed.

 

It will be players and individual player priorities that will decide who smiles and who cries. Irrevocably, for players the only loyalty will be to the playing group they are part of. There will be some who will play their entire careers at one club, but they will become fewer. Fans and administrations need to brace themselves. This is not going to be pretty.

It’s not often that AussieRulesBlog strays from the path of Aussie rules, but we find ourselves deeply affected by the sudden and untimely death of Peter Roebuck.

 

We won’t attempt to eulogise the man. Others far more gifted with the language have already done so and there’s nothing we could legitimately add.

 

That said, there are few in the media scrum that these days pervades every professional sporting endeavour who could give us pause to reconsider firmly held views. Roebuck was one such.

 

Our summer will not be the same without him. Vale Peter.

For both AFL clubs and the AFL-focussed media, pre-Christmas is a very, very positive time of year. Ageing stars are having “their best pre-season for years”, last year’s draftees and rookies are shaping up as potential superstars and everyone is aiming for “finals footy”.

 

While the Barcodes continue to talk up their Arizona training camps and the Kangaroos, Tigers and Suns follow their lead — hardly surprising incidentally when you remember that Brad Scott and Guy McKenna are graduates of the Barcodes’ coaching academy — Chris Scott’s Cats are sticking close to sea level at Kardinia Park.

 

AussieRulesBlog has questioned the long-term physical effect of altitude training before. We feel like we’re in pretty good company with Chris Scott, Ron Cook and Bomber Thompson all figuring it’s not worth the effort or, more importantly, the expense.

 

As we’ve previously noted, that’s not to deny the possibility of mental advantages. The placebo effect is powerful and the old adage that a change is as good as a holiday holds true in 2011 as much as at any other time in the last fifty years.

 

But we do like the noises out of Cat land on this issue, so much so that we’re moved to borrow a nice turn of phrase from a commenter on the story in the Hun and use it as the inspiration for our headline. *Thanks Ish Mehta!

 

With three Premierships in five years versus one in twenty-one years, you’d have to think that attitude is well in front of altitude at the moment!

News today that the Saints have delisted Ryan Gamble after just one season — yielding eleven games — along with teammates Zac Dawson, Brett Peake, Farren Ray and Dean Polo remaining out of contract as the deadline for final list lodgement looms.

 

What’s remarkable about this story is that all five arrived at the Saints from other clubs.

 

Crucial in this story is the departure of coach Ross Lyon, who must have had some sort of input into recruiting these recycled players for a team he and the club believed were on the cusp of Premiership success.

 

What’s pretty clear at this point is that new coach Scott Watters has a different goal.

 

Recycled players have had a chequered history as a breed. Some, Greg Williams (Carlton and ex-Sydney and Geelong), his nemesis Sean Denham (Essendon and ex-Geelong), Sean Wellman (Essendon and ex-Adelaide) and Leigh Brown (Barcodes and ex-North Melbourne and Fremantle) to name a few, tasted Premiership success.

 

For a great many others, and the five Saints named above are probably going to fall into this category, their new club eventually discovered why they’d been on the trade table.

 

It’s worth noting that other recent Saints “recycled” toward the end of their career include Steven King, Michael Gardiner and Charlie Gardiner. No wonder that the pundits have criticised the Saints for their failure to play many kids — there wasn’t any room on the list for kids!

Rohan Connolly’s analysis of the 2012 fixture, in The Age today, is a thing of beauty!

 

Covering all of the important elements that, all other things being equal, make games more or less likely to be advantageous, Connolly shows that the Barcodes have one of the hardest assignments next year. And why not? Two Grand Finals in two years (well, three, strictly speaking, but you know what we mean) should mean that they are best positioned to meet the challenges — unlike the immature Essendon team of a couple of years ago that was saddled with a similarly challenging task.

 

Forget about any bleating by those success-starved, long-suffering Barcodes supporters looking for ‘fair’ treatment in the fixture. In ANY other aspect of football, these people aggressively celebrate their club’s strength.

 

Based on Connolly’s analysis, it’s Melbourne and North Melbourne fans who can feel most pleased with their situation, and Port and Brisbane fans who might feel most aggrieved.

 

All in all, given the necessities for so-called blockbuster games and complexities of venue availability and broadcast requirements, this fixture has a lot more of the silk purse feel than might be expected.

AFL Operations Manager Adrian Anderson is reported in The Age to have spoken about proposals for experimental rules for the 2012 pre-season competition.

 

Among the possibilities are 12 points for a torpedo goal from outside the fifty-metre arc, which we regard as populist nonsense, despite the obvious difficulties in defining whether a torpedo that’s not quite right is a torpedo or not.

 

Other possibilities are:

■ Boundary and goal umpires allowed to pay obvious free kicks for holding and high contact. [Let’s define obvious, shall we?]

■ Ruckmen not permitted to make contact for boundary throw-ins and around-the-ground bounces.

■ Free kicks not paid for last touch over the boundary but for last kick, handball or when a player walked the ball over the line. [Still a turkey of an idea.]

 

AussieRulesBlog is glad to see a mention of ruck contests in the range of issues to be addressed. The description provided can only be regarded as a quick shorthand because a literal implementation of “no contact” for boundary and around-the-ground ruck contests is simply not practical.

 

For what it’s worth, AussieRulesBlog would like to see anything that looks like a hold or a shepherd with the arms in a ruck contest penalised. We’re really over the ruck wrestling. Fair enough if players want to engage in a test of strength, but holding or shepherding is just plain ugly. We recognise that limiting contact to the body advantages athletic, high-leaping players such as Nic Naitanui and Paddy Ryder quite strongly, however they are similarly disadvantaged in the current wrestling matches that pass for ruck contests.

 

Let’s have an end to umpires shouting, “Both holding!”

 

In the same story, there are more hints that some sort of video decision assist will be implemented, sooner rather than later. We’ve already indicated our disquiet. The story notes that only seven scoring decision errors were recorded by the AFL in 2011. Seven! How many goals, behinds, out-of-bounds and goal-line marks and scrambles were adjudicated through the season, and there were seven errors. We’re pretty sure most fans would prefer to see fewer errors of interpretation of rules in the field of play, or, at the very least, consistent interpretations across the season, rather than this manic determination to find a solution to a non-problem.

Pardon us for breaking through the wall of publicity encouraging all sports fans to get in early to get their fill of Gaelic-Australian football. [Do we hear the sound of yawning?]

 

Mike Sheahan makes a couple of quite valid points in his column yesterday. Who knows which AFL players are in the squad for the Irish series? Or where the “Tests” will be played and when? And we’ll add our own question: Who the hell knows what the “rules” are?

 

We’ll give the AFL points for persistence, but the concept of blending two vaguely similar national games to create a series where national pride is supposedly on the line has surely run its race and should be mercifully put down as soon as possible.

 

There’s an old management consulting adage that suggests a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Well, the AFL-GAA International Rules series is an ugly camel.

 

The differences between AFL and Gaelic are simply too large to credibly blend the two games together. It comes down to the issue of tackling — a staple skill of the Aussie game and approached with greater intensity every year. It is laughable that the AFL expect players who are trained to tackle fiercely to back off. It’s even more laughable for the GAA to expect their blokes, who play a light-contact sport, to suddenly approach every contest with red-blooded vigour.

 

There’s no doubting the courage of the Irish players, but the task confronting them is insurmountable. A round ball and a crossbar don’t make up for tackling, albeit that it’s toned down. Lest there be any doubting the scope of the task, consider how many Irish players have carved out a steady career in AFL even when they were living and breathing it every day. Four. Jim Stynes, Sean Wight, Tadgh Kennelly and Marty Clark. That’s it! Setanta O’hAilpin was, in the end, despite playing eighty games, a curiosity rather than a genuine AFL player, and no-one else has come within a bull’s roar.

 

Time for the canvas curtain to be erected and the lead aspro to be administered to this hotch-potch.

 

Ed: Let’s ask another question: How is it that any contest against a foreign team seems to be tagged with the moniker “Test” these days? Test cricket is called that because that’s what it is — a test. We think it’s an affront for sports like the rugbies and netball, as much as others less lofty, to award themselves the accolade. For hybrid events like AFL-GAA International Rules to call themselves “Tests” is a travesty.

It is reported today that Carlton have delisted Setanta O’hAilpin. The decision was forced on the Blues by the AFL’s rules requiring all clubs to free up places on their lists each year leading up to the national draft. Carlton had apparently indicated they were happy to keep O’hAilpin on their list, and could, were O’hAilpin to nominate, draft him again.

 

There are two issues: Forced turnover of club lists; and the Irish experiment. We want to focus on the second in this post.

 

There have been a steady flow of recruits to AFL from the emerald isle. Of course, the similarities between Gaelic Football and Australian rules mean that there’s a slightly shallower learning curve than for rugby (league or union), soccer or gridiron players.

 

Clearly the most successful of those recruits has been the Demons President, Brownlow medallist Jim Stynes. Despite looking like a fish out of water on-field, Stynes carved out a unique career in AFL and prompted a number of lateral thinkers in the game to plunder the ranks of up and coming Gaelic footballers looking for the next Jim Stynes.

 

The results have been mixed. The Barcodes’ Marty Clark, set to resume his AFL career in 2012, looked the most natural of the Irish imports to make the big time in our view. AussieRulesBlog saw ex-Saint, new Swan, Tommy Walsh, during the pre-season competition and thought he looked quite at home — although he failed to win selection for the Saints during 2011. Recently retired Tadgh Kennelly, a Premiership player with the Swans, is probably the most successful after Stynes. For the rest, at least in football terms, AFL has proved to be a quite tough task. The Bombers’ Michael Quinn, with whom we’re a little more familiar due to our Bombers allegiance, played a couple of senior games in 2009 and looked, frankly, a little like a rabbit in the headlights.

 

Setanta O’hAilpin has played 80 games for the Blues and kicked 67 goals.

 

In the wake of the surprise recent emergence of James Podsiadly at Geelong, Michael Barlow at the Dockers and Stuart Crameri at the Bombers, to name just a couple of mature-age recruits, we wonder whether AFL recruiters will remain interested in immigrants without the instinctive feel for Aussie Rules that kids who’ve grown up with the game possess.

 

Ed (19 Oct 2011): And the answer is “Yes, they can!” (as long as it’s a special deal that doesn’t impinge on their ‘normal’ list).

In the 80s, it seemed like Tom Hafey’s players dominated the ranks of senior coaches. In the 90s, there were a crop of Allan Jeans’ acolytes followed by a gaggle of Sheedy disciples. Leigh Matthews, Mark Thompson and Mick Malthouse have recently had their mark stamped on the game with a rash of former players taking the reins at AFL clubs.

 

Spot the common thread?

 

Winning culture. Time will tell who can best pass on the magic to their crew.

James Hird and Mark Thompson. Mark Neeld and Neil Craig. Brenton Sanderson and Dean Bailey. Nathan Buckley and Rodney Eade. And now it seems the Saints are chasing Dean Laidley to assist the newly-appointed Scott Watters. Thus far, only Brendan McCartney is soloing in his debutante year.

 

For what it’s worth, AussieRulesBlog thinks the Saints’ strategy is the right one, and Laidley ticks a lot of boxes despite his involvement with Port Adelaide recently.

 

Of recent debutante appointments going solo, Chris Scott is the standout, but the bootstudder could probably have coached that Geelong team to the Grand Final. John Longmire gained credit for a competitive season from his Swans. Brad Scott has impressed, especially in his gig on Foxtel’s AFL Insider. Damien Hardwick hasn’t set the world on fire, but he is coming from a looooong way back. The recently-sacked Mark Harvey seemed to take a while to come to grips with the top job, and that may have cost him the gig in the end as expectation crashed into practicality — that and a black cat breaking a mirror under a ladder’s worth of injuries.

 

It’s worth revisiting the ‘winning’ experience of the senior coaches for 2012.

Club	Senior Coach	Premierships as player	Premierships as coach or assistant
Adelaide	Brenton Sanderson	0	2 as assistant to Mark Thompson
Brisbane	Michael Voss	3	0
Carlton	Brett Ratten	1	0
Collingwood	Nathan Buckley	0	1 as assistant to Mick Malthouse
Essendon	James Hird	2	0
Fremantle	Ross Lyon	0	0
Geelong	Chris Scott	2	0
Gold Coast	Guy McKenna	2	0
GWS	Kevin Sheedy	3	4 as coach, 1 as assistant to Tony Jewell
Hawthorn	Alastair Clarkson	0	1 as Hawthorn coach, 1 as assistant to Mark Williams
Melbourne	Mark Neeld	0	1 as assistant to Mick Malthouse
North Melbourne	Brad Scott	2	0
Port Adelaide	Matthew Primus	0 (In Port’s 2004 squad, but recovering from ACL)	0
Richmond	Damien Hardwick	1	1 as assistant to Alastair Clarkson
Sydney	John Longmire	0	1 as assistant to Paul Roos
St Kilda	Scott Watters	0 (On WCE list for 1992, but not selected for GF)	1 as assistant to Mick Malthouse
West Coast	John Worsfold	2	1
Western Bulldogs	Brendan McCartney	0	2 as assistant to Mark Thompson

Thanks to the kind folks at Blogger, AussieRulesBlog now has a layout for mobile devices that means you can easily keep up with our pontifications on your web-enabled mobile device.

 

To make things easier, here’s a QR barcode to scan.

Another Grand Final scoring blunder and the football community has to, yet again, endure the nonsense proposition that technology must be used to assist umpires in scoring decisions.

 

Let’s start by getting the situation straight on the Wellingham “goal”. This was not a goal umpiring error per se. It was an error of process in that the goal umpire was too influenced by a field umpire.

 

The goal umpire was in the correct position to make a decision. The field umpire was not. We see, week in and week out, goal umpires relying on boundary umpires to assist with set shot scoring decisions. The goal umpire looks to the boundary umpire who signals whether the ball passed inside or outside the behind post. This works because the boundary umpire is standing right at the behind post.

 

And yet, the AFL umpiring department has field umpires — not standing at the posts and not at the goal line — directing goal umpires. Incredible.

 

Two years ago, the Tom Hawkins “goal” was a different matter. Hawkins’ snapshot didn’t allow any time for boundary umpires to be in position at the behind posts. The goal umpire was attempting to make ground to get into position to see the ball and, understandably, did not see the deflection from the goal post. Had the broadcaster not had a camera trained at the incident from the angle they did, it’s quite possible that only a few fans at the game would have been aware that the ball had hit the post.

 

In both instances then, detecting an error relied very heavily on there being a camera with a view from an appropriate angle. So, what technology are we going to employ? Instant replay from the broadcaster. And with every angle covered? Of course not.

 

And if that replay is inconclusive? Current practice is that the lesser score option is awarded. Is that more right than the current decision-making process?

 

There are three simple points to a solution to this “problem”.

1. Goal umpire’s decisions are the prime scoring decision unless some other umpire is 100% certain that the decision is incorrect.
2. Employ four goal umpires per game.
3. Australian rules football has uncertainties built in — the shape of the ball not the least of them. There is no absolutely certain process for making these decisions, so let’s accept that the current error rate of something less than one tenth of one percent is a pretty damned good result.

There is some justification for goal line cameras, but even these offer less than conclusive evidence given the speed of the ball and the often slight touches players may get on the ball.

 

As we’ve noted on many occasions, the negatives of video decision-assist outweigh any positives to an extraordinary degree.

• In the event of a “behind” decision, the defending team loses the advantage of a quick kick out while a video review is conducted.
• The game’s rhythm is upset by the break for video review.
• Video review doesn’t guarantee certainty.

AFL football operations boss Adrian Anderson has announced only minor changes to the open sore that was player-initiated advantage.

 

Anderson said the slight modification was made after feedback from clubs, players and fans. Well, that may be strictly true, but AussieRulesBlog finds it difficult to imagine that any of the mentioned groups would have agreed to the rule remaining in any form.

 

Advantage will not apply in 2012 to free kicks paid by an “out-of-zone” umpire. Superficially, this seems like an improvement, but there are plenty of scenarios in games, especially at stoppages at either end of the ground, where two umpires operate in quite close proximity.

 

The umpires seem to have a fairly good handle on which of them is in control at any point, but for the rest of us it is a mystery.

 

Most puzzlingly, in 2012 the umpires will have “more time allowed … to consider the actual advantage.”

 

What? If there’s no advantage, they’ll call the ball back? Certainly, there were any number of incidents during 2011 where this seemed to happen, despite the provision for such action having been removed in the rewriting of the advantage law to allow player-initiated advantage.

 

The game now finds itself in a position where the lawmakers don’t rewrite a law that doesn’t work. Instead, changes to interpretations — for the most part not codified — are announced, and then the interpretation of the interpretation changes evolve over time as the laws committee and the umpiring administration realise that their initial interpretations are overzealous.

 

This continual tinkering, especially when it’s not spelled out clearly in a written law, is a crock.

 

Player-initiated advantage was, and is, a nonsense in Australian rules. It doesn’t work. Players are confused. Umpires are confused. Media are confused. Fans are confused. These changes don’t turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse. It’s still a sow’s ear, no matter how hard the AFL talks it up.

Toward the end of the 2011 home and away rounds, when there was the seemingly usual speculation about whether Richmond would finish ninth — again — we began thinking about looking at trends of teams’ home and away rounds finishing positions. The following charts covering the past quarter century are presented as much for information and casual glancing as for any hard-nosed analysis. We’ve refrained from making bleeding obvious comments, except for the afore-mentioned Tigers.

 

Comments and thoughtful analysis are encouraged.

Fitzroy

Having experienced a rampant Richmond in the late 60s and through the 70s, it’s quite difficult to feel anything resembling sympathy for those hordes of Tigers fans, yet AussieRulesBlog is moved to compassion by this chart of almost unremitting mediocrity. Interestingly, the Tiges have finished ninth on only six occasions in the last quarter century, somewhat destroying that fondly-held myth of their almost perpetual ninth-ness.

Have we seen the last of debutante coaches struggling to come to grips with the myriad tasks they need to manage? These days, finding an experienced mentor/assistant goes right along with appointing a debutante coach.

 

Some readers may be old enough to recall the not-so-slow-motion train wrecks that were the emergence — and disappearance — as coaches of Tim Watson, Peter Rohde and Bernie Quinlan. Fair enough that the Rohde and Quinlan appointments had as much to do about money as capacity to coach, but they did fail spectacularly.

 

Two years ago, the Barcodes led the way by announcing a deal to have Malthouse move to a Director of Coaching role when Buckley took over. Never mind the tension between them, Eddie Maguire and fellow Board members knew their star needed a sounding board. With the increasing tension, moving Malthouse out and Eade in provides the experience as a foundation, just in case Buckley falls in a heap.

 

Last year at about this time, the Bombers engaged in their own changeover, engineering Bomber Thompson and a star-studded panel of assistants to ease James Hird into the role.

 

Now, Brenton Sanderson has Dean Bailey watching his back at Adelaide, while Mark Neeld will be able to lean on Neil Craig’s experience.

 

Brendan McCartney appears, at the time of writing, to be going without a “senior assistant” at the Western Bulldogs, while St Kilda are yet to announce a senior coach for 2012. It’s also worth noting that neither Brad nor Chris Scott have former senior coaches on their panels.

 

The ranks of suitably-experienced former head coaches are being thinned out, with only Malthouse and Mark Harvey among the recently dethroned who haven’t been snapped up by other clubs. Gary Ayers remains active, but may have been away from the top level for a little too long, while Matthew Knights appears friendless.

 

What does the employment of a “senior assistant”, especially one just turfed out of his own club, say to a new coach. Is it a positive story about fast-tracked development in the lead role, or is it an insurance policy?

AFL Umpiring boss Jeff Gieschen has been rolled out after the Grand Final to perform his verbal pirouettes again, this time over the goal/behind to the Barcodes’ Sharrod Wellingham. Once more, the spectre of video referrals of goal umpiring decisions has been raised, even though the 2010 pre-season trial of the process was, in AussieRulesBlog’s view, an unmitigated waste of time.

 

But the big issue we should be focussing on is buried at the end of Gieschen’s statement on the matter. Discussing the process the on-field umpires went through in coming to the decision, he says:

 

"Our field umpire (Shaun Ryan) actually asked the two boundary umpires, who were both on the posts, what they thought [and] they couldn't add anything.
"He then asked the other field umpires.
"It would have been probably nice if we had gone back to the goal umpire as well."

 

So, was the decision made by the field umpire or the goal umpire? Why would it have been nice to go back to the goal umpire? Did the field umpire signal All Clear with two hands, suggesting a goal? Did the goal umpire change his decision on that basis?

 

Regardless, AussieRulesBlog thinks there’s far too much emphasis on mistakes by goal umpires. The error rate is minute. Both Chris Dawes and Tom Hawkins had gimme opportunities to score goals — and missed. Why aren’t we focussing on those incidents?

 

And if Gieschen is so damned worried about getting it as right as it can possibly be, what about looking at a consistent interpretation and application of the laws of the game from the first bounce of pre-season to the final siren of the Grand Final? Now THAT would be a step forward!

 

Release the Giesch!!!!!

From feeling quite nervous about the Barcodes winning at three-quarter time, AussieRulesBlog’s demeanour improved markedly as the final quarter unfolded. The Cats had, in our view, looked far more dangerous all day, while the Barcodes had made the most of their opportunities to keep themselves very much in the game right through to mid way through the final quarter.

 

When the game broke, it broke in a big way and the result didn’t truly reflect the intensity of the competition for the ball.

 

It was certainly far more pleasant walking away from the G after a Pussy Power triumph than it would have been with a Barcodes victory. We’ve suffered plenty of defeats at the hands of the Barcodes and their fans can be in your face and obnoxious in their gloating. It was a very civil end to the day yesterday.

 

The day was made far more interesting for AussieRulesBlog in anticipating, and then marvelling at, the pre-game.

 

Arriving at our seats, we couldn’t fail to notice a rather large facsimile Premiership Cup standing on the centre circle, standing perhaps eight metres tall.

 

As the time for football approached, ten or so black-clad ‘roadies’ appeared through a gate in the boundary fence. Each was carrying a white box. Ikea was our first thought, quickly followed by Lego.

 

The roadies installed these boxes in a line just inside the centre square and then retreated to the boundary again. Soon they reappeared and placed another five boxes, then proceeded to bring out yet more boxes and line these up on the other side of the centre square. A quick count suggested something to do with Premierships won.

 

What a good thing they hadn’t used this idea last year! Imagine the Barcodes fourteen boxes on one side and the Saints lonely single box on the other! But we digress.

 

Retiring players (and umpires) were paraded around the ground, followed by Rising Star, Dyson Heppell.

 

Craig Willis’ stentorian tones began announcing former Barcodes players and they began appearing from within the teeming mass that is the Barcodes cheer squad, carrying a Premiership Cup each. They walked in a rag-tag fashion, toward the line of boxes — now revealed to be plinths — and placed the cups atop the plinths.

 

Next the same happened with the Geelong Premierships from the Cats’ cheer squad end, except that the former Cats made the Barcodes greats look like a precision drill team, such was the disorganised nature of their progress toward their plinths. Organisation? Planning? Rehearsal? Telling participants what they’re expected to do and when? These are foreign concepts to those charged with AFL Grand Final ‘Spectaculars’.

 

In the end, one of the Geelong Cups appeared from the direction of the interchange benches and former Geelong captain, Stephen King — carrying the obligatory child: We’re coming around to Brian Taylor’s thinking on this — had to sprint from the parade of retirees to the parade of former champions carrying Premiership Cups. Organisation? Did no-one think to wonder how King would participate in these two ‘entertainments’?

 

Next, a roar of Harley Davidsons — have we just coined a new collective noun? — was heard and then seen on the big screen riding up a ramp and out onto the boundary verge. Not surprisingly, this signalled the beginning of Mr Loaf’s contribution to proceedings. Also not surprisingly, the Harleys fitted nicely with Mr Loaf’s rendition of Hot Patootie, famously sung in The Rocky Horror Picture Show by Mr Loaf astride a Harley!

 

We here at AussieRulesBlog Central are partial to a bit of Mr Loaf. He’s not on high rotation, but a bit of Bat Out of Hell or Paradise by the Dashboard Light can gladden our hearts occasionally, so we were quite looking forward to this performance.

 

It’s worth mentioning here that we attended five MCG finals this year, being lucky enough to have access to a series ticket and buying a ticket to see the Bombers in week one. For the previous finals, musical acts had provided pre-game and half-time entertainment. From where we were sitting, beneath the scoreboard in the Ponsford Stand, the bands were extremely loud but the sound quality was otherwise quite acceptable.

 

Having mentioned that, no-one will be surprised to learn that the sound for Mr Loaf, at least where AussieRulesBlog was sitting, would still have been abysmal if it had been improved by 400%. For some reason known only to the organisers, they had foresworn the perfectly good, albeit extraordinarily loud, MCG sound system and instead wheeled out speakers on little trolleys that were last used in the days before the redevelopment of the northern side of the stadium. What emerged from these toy speakers was undoubtedly a cacophony, but little of it was recognisable as Mr Loaf’s work.

 

Whilst Mr Loaf had been purveying his wares, one of the event staff came out onto the field and gave directions, individually, to the former Barcodes players still standing dutifully by their Premiership Cups. We were somewhat stunned to realise that said event person was repeating the same instructions to each former player — and some of them weren’t keen to buy! Organisation? Planning? Rehearsal?

 

Eventually, by the end of Mr Loaf’s set, the former players had retired to parts unknown and the Premiership Cups stood resplendent on their plinths, alone and unassisted (bar a sandbag each to keep them in place).

 

We had been curious that two drum kits on wheeled trolleys had been rolled out during the aforementioned Meat Loaf performance. They weren’t involved in the performance, but just sat there. Also during Meat Loaf’s gig, two groups of scarf-wearing people were escorted onto the arena, one to each end. Once Meat Loaf had finished, the wheeled drum kits were pushed to the top of the goal square at each end and sundry musicians appeared and plugged in their guitars. The two groups of people turned out to be two “choirs” whose task it was to belt out the respective club songs. They seemed not to be plugged into either the MCG sound system, nor Meat Loaf’s, because the Geelong choir’s rendition of the Toreador Song, at the other end of the ground, was very muted.

 

As the choirs sang, two helium balloons in the (rough) shape of a Sherrin football were elevated to about twenty metres and a banner for each club was unfurled as their song was performed. It was breathtakingly innovative and spectacular — NOT!

 

Now the former players of both clubs returned to their respective Cups, and retrieved them to two lines forming a ‘Guard of Honour’ before yet another plinth on which the actual Premiership Cup for 2011 would sit. We can’t say it was a total surprise, but we were nevertheless gobsmacked to see a door open in the base of the large Premiership Cup facsimile and a gent emerge carrying the real thing. The Cup was presented to Doug Wade and Murray Wiederman who would present the Cup in the event that either Geelong or Collingwood, respectively, won the game.

 

And then there were the Ross Oakley memorial fireworks, after which is was all but impossible to see the crowd on the other side of the ground.

 

Was the fun over? No on your life. The Premiership Cup facsimile which had stood at centre field was transported to the boundary where a team of construction workers disassembled it using tools including a scissor lift and a forklift — a process that seemed to occupy ten minutes of none-too-frantic activity.

 

Soon after, to everyone’s relief, a game of footy broke out and two hours was spent savouring a wonderful game.

 

At the conclusion of the game, the MCC, in it’s infinite wisdom, rolled out one of its officious besuited types leading half a dozen MCC staff along with two contraptions for dispensing rope. These people proceeded, Keystone Cops-like, to construct  a rope barrier in front of the dais where the Premiership Medal and Cup were to be presented. Clearly the requirements of the task had not been discussed previously (or the staff were all cloth-eared twits, which is not completely impossible!), because the ensuing action was worthy of a slapstick comedy award. Quite why these worthies were erecting a barrier when unauthorised entry to the playing arena carries a $7,000 fine quite escapes us. And the ‘barrier’ would stop who or what? It’s a rope for goodness sakes.

 

And so ended our big day. The game had lived up to the billing. The result was the one we preferred. The atmosphere was civil at the end of the game. The pre-game entertainment was an amateurish shambles. Our Grand Final  experience was complete.

Barcodes CEO Gary Pert is reported to be upset that high-priced Grand Final packages limit the opportunities for Barcodes’ members to attend the big dance. (Yawn)

 

But 9,000 of the Barcodes’ 12,500 seat allocation are reserved for “Legends” members who are guaranteed a Grand Final ticket. Pert is also happily flogging Grand Final packages that include a ticket for $1500. So much for concern for members!

 

The Cats and the Docklands stadium management are doing their bit too, selling packages that include a ticket for $1450, while the AFLPA is doling out packages for a princely $1800.

 

Let’s get real about all of this — apart from the AFLPA for the moment. Despite the windfall allocations to clubs next year from the new broadcast agreement, running any AFL club, let alone one competing at the pointy end, is a very expensive proposition. Money has to come from somewhere and part of that somewhere is flogging these Grand Final packages to those happy to fork out the bigger bucks.

 

We could go back to the 60s when tickets were considerably less expensive (even allowing for inflation) and less desirable for the ‘social’ attendees, but players wouldn’t be full-time professionals. there’d be no full-time coaches and the game would be a pale shadow of what we see today.

 

Let’s all just get over it. The ticketing for this Grand Final was never going to be any better than last year, or the year before that. So why are we having this debate yet again?

 

Now, back to the AFLPA. They’re selling Grand Final packages for $1800? Is this a ticket allocation from the AFL? Or are AFLPA members donating their club-supplied tickets to their association? One supposes that Matt Finnis and Ian Prendergast and co get paid some sort of salary or stipend, but perhaps the members could cover that?

That perennial discussion has erupted again, this time apparently because Sam Mitchell nearly ‘won’ the Brownlow Medal but would have been ineligible to take the prize having pled guilty to an MRP charge.

 

It seems to be forgotten — every year — but the Brownlow is awarded to the fairest and best player as judged by the field umpires. There’s a reason that the Brownlow is held in such high esteem.

 

Players who flagrantly transgress the laws of the game can win any one of almost countless media awards. There’s a reason that those media awards aren’t seen as equivalent to the Brownlow.

 

It’s one word — fairest. This award is about the game being played in the finest spirit of sportsmanship and what a fine ideal that is to emphasise.

 

The guys to whom we entrust the control of each game, and whom we trust to exercise that control disinterestedly, are the closest to the game and they see a lot more than media pundits do, and often a lot more than television, for all its technical wizardry, does.

 

The umpires don’t have access to statistics when casting their votes — a scandal according to some. Surely we have enough recognition of players based on their statistical output already? Media award voting seems to be, generally, stats-based assessment. Eight goals will get Lance Franklin three votes, but eight perfect kicks to teammates won’t get the centre half-back more than a pass mark.

 

The latest calls for change would have minor misdemeanors discounted to maintain Brownlow eligibility. Why? Did Sam Mitchell do something that contravened the laws of the game? Yes, he did. His guilty plea says he admits guilt. If he hadn’t dome anything wrong, he wouldn’t have been charged. And, if you asked him, he’d surely answer that team success means far more to him than individual honours.

 

Let’s say it again: the Brownlow recognises the player who plays the game according to the highest traditions of sportsmanship and is the best player according to that criterion.

 

Change? Why? What is it that is broken about the current system?

"The good thing for us as umpires is nothing changes. Free kicks are the same." says AFL umpire Shaun Ryan, one of the three umpires chosen to officiate at Saturday’s AFL Grand Final.

 

If only that were so, Shaun. If only it were so.

 

FWIW, AussieRulesBlog reckons Shaun is one of the best of the whistleblowers running around.

 

Release the Giesch!!!

Aussie Rules’ night of nights is done and dusted for another year, but AussieRulesBlog is well over it. Whether it be the walking, talking joke that is the Edelstens or the breathless pre-count discussion of favouritism and everybody’s tip, it’s all too much for us.

 

Just what connection does the ancient ram dressed and coiffed as a lamb, otherwise known as Geoffrey Edelsten, have with AFL in 2011? Forget the perennially over-exposed Brynne. Who picked out that suit for his nibs? And Geoff, mate, give away the Nugget shoe polish in the hair and stick to Grecian 2000! You’ll still look like a try-hard dick, but it just won’t stand out like an FCUK billboard.

 

And for all our bagging of the umpires and their weekly performance, they generally manage to confound the pundits come Brownlow night, and we think that is good for football, as they say. Listen to the media speculation and you’d have had ‘Goodesy’ and ‘Juddy’ booked for the Carbine Club lunch from about May Day. Thank goodness the umpires make their decisions without fear or favour. Were any proof required, Sam Mitchell’s guilty plea to an MRP charge in late April ruled him out of Brownlow contention yet the umpires continued to award votes as they saw the game. Well done umpires!

 

We didn’t watch the telecast of the count, just popping in every now and then from the Steelers v. Colts to check the leaders board. We still managed to hear the Boss mangle some fairly familiar names and we cringed at a mid-count interview of eventual winner Dane Swan — congratulations, by the way — with Bruce at his sycophantic apogee. We like Bruce, but sometimes it’s hard to keep your dinner down. . .

 

So, the season is drawing to a close. There’s all the hullaballoo of Grand Final week to survive, culminating in the Grand Final ‘entertainment’ — Meatloaf will at least lend some professionalism — and the big dance. Around 5pm Saturday it will all be done and dusted. We hope the Cats will remember that any day that the Barcodes lose is a good day. And we hope that the Saints remember to pack their cameras for their footy trip.

 

See you Sunday for a review of the ‘entertainment’ and whatever farcical concoction has been dredged up for the delivery of the Premiership Cup.

If any footy fan doubted the importance of conditioning in AFL success, an article today in The Age should remove those doubts. The article concerns Luke Ball and his journey since deciding to leave St Kilda.

 

Not to put too fine a point on it, Ball was a junior superstar. Taken at #2 in the 2001 National Draft, behind Luke Hodge and just ahead of Chris Judd, Ball showed his class immediately. After a couple of years, it was obvious that Ball was slowing down, his kicking lacked penetration and his effectiveness waned.

 

As Michael Gleeson’s article relates, the conditioning and sports science people at Collingwood have fixed Ball’s body in two short years — a task that seemed beyond St Kilda’s capacity for half a decade. There have been a number of comments in recent days lamenting St Kilda’s loss of conditioning coach Dave Misson on the heels of Ross Lyon’s departure. Without knowing about budgets and support staff and facilities, and so assuming them to be equal, the change in Ball’s capacity must put some sort of question mark over Misson.

 

Can there be a starker demonstration of the value of the very best off-field staff?

 

The simple facts are that the best teams in the competition can go just as hard as everyone else at the start of the game and keep up that pace for longer. Teams that drop off during a quarter are almost certainly demonstrating a lack of conditioning.

 

AussieRulesBlog is fond of telling anyone who’ll listen that AFL is played 95% between the ears and, despite the previous paragraph, we’re not going to run away from that statement. Better conditioning means that players’ bodies are less stressed and can devote more resources to brain activity. Making better decisions under pressure is usually the path to victory. Better conditioning leads to better decision making under pressure. It’s quite simple really. All that’s left is finding the conditioning coach who can lift the team’s capacity to the top of the elite level . . .

AFL umpiring administration

The Giesch has made one of his regular forays to Toyland (seen at right with two friends) with his rationalisation of the non-decision in the last stages of the West Coast–Carlton semi final.

“The two bodies came together and there was contact, but if you put his arm out straight and have your palm facing back, that was how his hand was. It wasn't a holding motion. Holding is when you clench your fist or wrap your arm around someone.”

OK, Jeff, so you clicked your shoes together and you’re not in Kansas any more (to mix fairy tales!). “… put his arm out straight . . . that’s how his hand was.”  Really? Have you seen the stills?

And we assume that your reference to clenching a fist means clenching a fist around something — like an arm or a handful of guernsey — but we have to tell you that there’s no definition of the holding action in the rules. The Laws simply refer to “holding”. So this palm facing back doesn’t equal holding stuff is your little conception of reality.

Of course we know that the AFL Umpiring Department regards the Laws of the Game more as a set of guidelines, but seriously, you have got a particularly firm grasp of yourself.

Now, AussieRulesBlog is as pleased to see Carlton lose as anyone, but that is a free kick either for holding (despite Gieschen’s spin) or for blocking Walker from being able to contest the ball.

It should also not escape notice that Gieschen spun a difference of twenty-four free kicks — yes, that’s 24, 39:15 — between the two halves of the game as the players making the ball their objective after half time.

“People say you throw your whistle away. But that's all about the players reading the play at half time and realising, if we want to win the game, we need to focus on the ball and cut out any little tactics.”

C’mon, Jeff. You expect us to believe that the Umpiring Department representative at the game didn’t have a word in the shell-pinks of the three field umpires and suggest they’d been a touch over-zealous? Oh, for crying out loud!

We also note the recent demise of one of the media world’s more outlandish reality shows — What’s your decision, on the AFL’s website. Jeff’s weekly spinning of his charges’ more egregious blunders hasn’t reappeared after round twenty-three. We wondered why we’d felt that disturbance in the force . . .

Release the Giesch!!!

The slow-motion train wreck that is the St Kilda Football Club delivered one of its biggest surprises last night, albeit not of its own hands.

 

After two oh-so-close brushes with a second Premiership Cup for the Saints, it is being suggested that coach Ross Lyon departed a dysfunctional club culture and copped a decent pay rise into the bargain. AussieRulesBlog knows of one super-keen Saints supporter who washed their hands of the club in the wake of the so-called St Kilda schoolgirl scandals. Lyon would have been front row centre for the spectacle and it’s not hard to imagine that he found the whole business distasteful.

 

The undercover nature of Lyon’s negotiations with Fremantle has more than a slight smell of fish around it. The contrast with Neil Craig’s departure from Adelaide, albeit in significantly-different circumstances, cannot be overlooked.

 

The truth is that AFL is now at least as much a business as it is a sport. Notions of loyalty and ‘team’ are going to be increasingly strained as the competition moves, inexorably it seems, to free agency. Ask Matthew Knights, Dean Bailey and now Mark Harvey, about loyalty. A coaching contract is now officially about as valuable, morally, as a square of Sorbent poo ticket. Knights and Harvey at least have the pleasure of accepting the balance of their contract money, but that can hardly be equivalent to the significant damage done to their brand and their careers in football.

The AFL’s latest offer to the AFLPA of 11%, 5%, 3%, 3% and 3% over five years in talks toward a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) seems inordinately weighted toward the short term — not unlike Tom Scully’s reported contract terms coincidentally for all those AFL conspiracy theorists out there.

 

For those of us who live in the day-to-day world, it’s hard to argue with the AFLPA’s position to leave open the option to reassess the financial state of the sport after three years and to even the increases out over time. The AFLPA’s claim is for 6%, 6% and 7% over three years.

 

The AFLPA is not, at least in an overt fashion, seeking more money, so Andrew Demetriou’s reaction that “there is no more money” seems somewhat out of line. The first three years of the AFL’s offer would, in simple terms, amount to 19% — a little over 20.05% compounded. The AFLPA’s counter-claim would also amount to 19% — 20.225% compounded. It’s not hard to imagine that the AFLPA could negotiate its claim down to match the 20.05% compounded increase.

 

Notwithstanding the merits of various claims and counter claims, AussieRulesBlog fears that the game has gone down a path where there is no room to reverse or to turn around. “Negotiations” on the CBA have taken on an adversarial quality that does not bode well for the future — lockouts in major US sports give an indication where we’re heading. There’s no show without Punch, as the old saying goes, but, equally, no theatre equals no income for Punch.

We don’t think we’re being pedantic expecting that a foundation rule of Aussie Rules football be adhered to in the game’s elite competition. Actually, there were any number of rules not adhered to in watching the four finals this weekend, but we’ve got one in particular on our mind.

We think we saw instances in all four games of players being pushed in the back by a pursuing player. Certainly, the one pictured was as obvious as the nose on our face. Swan Ryan O’Keefe is pursued by Saint Brendon Goddard. Goddard can’t get close enough to attempt to grab O’Keefe, so he pushes him in the back — firmly and in full view — in an effort to unbalance him. No free kick.

AussieRulesBlog knows we can be slow on the uptake at times, but we were firmly convinced that even placing a hand on an opponent’s back was a free kick — or does that one only apply in marking contests, Jeff?

Not for the first time, we’re beginning to see the emergence of a new set of rules for the final series, culminating in a Grand Final that everyone will agree was umpired beautifully because the umpires “let the game go”.

AussieRulesBlog doesn’t have anything against the notion of a less interventionist umpiring style. In fact we think it would be a positive benefit for the game.

What we do have something against is inconsistency! The umpiring in the first game of pre-season and the Grand Final should be all but indistinguishable. Sadly, under the Gieschen Directorate, you could be forgiven for thinking you were watching two different sports — related perhaps, but different.

Is it too much to ask that a push in the back, a blatant, undisguised push in the back be paid as a free kick?

Release the Giesch!!!

There’s no question in AussieRulesBlog’s mind that the fifty-metre penalty for interchange infringements is too harsh. Saturday night’s penalty against Saint Justin Koschitzke ignited spirited debate amongst the TV commentary team over the issue, yet we wonder what is so hard for the players.

 

The issue of the penalty aside, what is it about lines that some AFL footballers struggle with? There is a boundary line and they mostly manage to assimilate the concept that keeping the ball inside the line keeps the ball ‘live’. There is a fifty-metre square line for starting or restarting play (after goals). There is a fifty-metre line for super goals during the pre-season comp. All of these seem to offer no great difficulty, but show them a goal square or an interchange line and some of them come over all stupid.

 

There is no excuse for a player kicking out after a point stepping on the line of the goal square and thus giving up the ball to a bounce and a 50-50 contest at the goal mouth.

 

Similarly, there is no excuse for a player disregarding the yellow interchange lines when leaving or entering the field of play.

 

C-o-n-c-e-n-t-r-a-t-e. Allow a margin for error. These aspects of the game have as much impact as a kick for goal. Why would players not take the same care they would with a shot for goal?

With a disappointing season only minutes behind them, the Saints have made a spectacularly unpromising start to the off season with Ross Lyon’s announcement of four retirements.

 

Within hours, Steven Baker and Robert Eddy had revealed they had done no such thing.

 

After the disruptions of the photo scandal and the “seventeen-year-old schoolgirl” over last off-season, AussieRulesBlog would have thought that the club would be making every effort to present a quietly determined and united front to avoid distractions. Not so it seems, or the club’s communications advisers only paused to decide which of the club’s feet they would shoot next.

 

It will remain to be seen whether the exit of veteran Baker in obviously controversial circumstances will further tear the internal fabric of the playing group. Once rent, it is a (football) generational change exercise to repair.

 

Watching the final against the Swans, we took particular note of Malcolm Blight’s observations that Lyon had played one or two extra in defence during the first half, but structured up man on man after half time. The contrast between the Saints’ ineptitude in attack in the second quarter and threatening revival on the scoreboard in the third quarter was marked. Perhaps it’s not too big a call to suggest that the game was lost in the coaches’ box on game day.

Even in the midst of agonising disappointment, current AFL players should pause and give thanks to providence that modern medical technology is what it is.

 

Seeing Daniel Menzel and then Lance Franklin leaving the ground in the opening game of the 2011 final series with what appeared to be serious knee injuries left AussieRulesBlog feeling rather empty. These two young men had spent almost twelve months preparing and were almost in sight of their goal when fate struck.

 

There were many others, but the story of John Coleman should give both Menzel and Franklin some comfort. Coleman had played in just 98 VFL games for 537 goals and was aged only 25 when a knee injury ended his career. With today’s medical technology, we can only wonder what might have been.

 

Menzel and Franklin, and all those others who have suffered serious knee injuries in recent years, have the opportunity to return to the game they love. It’s a silver lining to what must seem like a very dark time.

 

Ed.: That Franklin’s injury is ‘only’ bone bruising doesn’t diminish the sentiment.

Quite how Essendon assistant coach Dean Wallis could claim to have been only “vaguely aware” of rules against players and officials betting on AFL matches beggars belief.

 

Having placed bets in June, July and August, according to the reports, and the Heath Shaw/Nick Maxwell issues having been dealt with by the AFL in mid-July, Wallis’ August bet, at the very least, must have been made with full knowledge of the potential consequences. It’s simply not credible that someone working in an AFL club through that time would not have been aware of the Shaw-Maxwell reporting.

 

To make matters worse, Wallis reportedly initially denied making the bets, then denied they were his bets, and one of the bets involved the club he is employed by. In AussieRulesBlog’s view, the bets being quadrella-type and thus not specific to the Bombers’ on-field performance other than, presumably, winning doesn’t diminish the stupidity involved. Wallis’ initial denials eloquently scotch his defence that he was only vaguely aware of the AFL’s betting rules.

 

So, in that context, Wallis can consider himself extremely fortunate thus far. We’re not at all sure that there’s any consistency between Shaw’s $20k, eight-week penalty and Wallis’ $7.5k, fourteen-week penalty, notwithstanding that one is a player and the other a minor assistant coach. Had AussieRulesBlog been deciding the penalty, we would have thrown the equivalent of the large-print edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica at Wallis.

 

It remains to be seen how his club will view the issue and whether he will continue to be considered appropriate for involvement in the development of young players on the Bombers’ list.

 

The AFL would be naive to believe that this is the totality of the problem amongst players and officials. If there were never another incident, there has already been sufficient cause for substantial action to reduce the amount of gambling on AFL matches, whether by legislation or by the AFL withdrawing its approval for any contact between the AFL and related organisations and people and betting agencies.

A second year with a brand new club set to debut and a second ‘marquee’ player seemingly keeping a deal under wraps until the current season is done and dusted. It’s not a good look, but is the alternative any more palatable?

 

AFL fans who are upset about the Gary Ablett Jnr/Callen Ward silences should cast an eye to AAMI Park or to Penrith. Melbourne Storm’s Adam Blair announced mid season that he would be playing with Wests Tigers next year. Penrith’s Petero Civinoceva likewise announced he would move to the Broncos while still turning out for the Panthers — but such is not the way of the AFL.

 

None of us can take the King Canute path and simply deny that money and salary caps and other reasons induce players to change clubs. And we’d do well to remember the old-fashioned concept of player loyalty when we blithely opine about some player or other being potential “trade bait”. Loyalty isn’t a one-way contract.

 

AussieRulesBlog is feeling quite fortunate. At least recently, the Bombers haven’t lost a required player to one of the competition’s new clubs, although they’ve done their bit in the past with Roger Merrett to the Brisbane Bears and Gavin Wanganeen to Port Adelaide.

 

Mention of the Bears raises the AFL’s previous strategy for creating a team in a greenfields environment. When the Bears were formed, each club was required to release at least a couple of players, from memory, to the newcomer with the balance then being recruited from the VFA, SANFL and WAFL. History suggests that attempt to give the fledgling club an immediate on-field presence wasn’t a lot more successful than the Gold Coast Suns with the Bears’ only finishing higher than 12th once in their first eight seasons.

 

Strategically, the Suns and GWS Giants give the AFL a team in all major population centres around the country — a prospect that NRL can only dream about. If it’s a given that these new clubs have to exist, and AussieRulesBlog would certainly argue that that is the case, then playing stocks have to come from somewhere.

 

The Bears’ early years show clearly that a group of seasoned elite-level players need time to build camaraderie, elan and club spirit. The Suns showed in 2011 that a small core of very good players (Ablett, Rischitelli, Bock), supported by some less-exalted experience (Fraser, Brennan, Harbrow, Harris) and fleshed out by some of the best young talent available will still take time to find its feet. It’s not hard to imagine that the early years for the Giants will be more difficult again, but players of the likes of Callen Ward will be key to building a team that can be genuinely competitive over time.

 

A long time ago, someone told AussieRulesBlog that there were three features about any transaction: price; quality; and delivery — choose the best in any two,  but you can never have all three. We think the issue of loyalty to and by clubs in this modern era is a similar sort of relationship. We can have most of the good things about the modern competition, but there’ll always be a price to pay somehow.

 

That said, most of the hand-wringing about Ablett and Ward has been a media construct and perhaps we just shouldn’t be taking much notice of that.

It wasn’t our intention for focus again on boundary-line ruck contests, but watching the Brisbane— West Coast game on TV certainly put it front and centre in our mind.

 

Nic Naitanui is a fearsomely talented player. His natural leap and athleticism must give him an automatic advantage over ninety per cent of the other players at AFL level. Why then, for most of the second half of the Brisbane game, would he resort to grabbing the back of his ruck opponent’s guernsey and holding it for all he was worth?

 

More to the point, where is the much-vaunted all-round coverage by the umpires? On a couple of occasions, Leuenberger’s guernsey had been pulled halfway up his torso and still there was no free kick!

 

The current umpiring cop-out in ruck contests that both are holding just doesn’t wash for AussieRulesBlog. There are rules. If they’re broken, apply penalties as appropriate. Currently, when ruck free kicks are awarded, neither the ruckmen nor fans have any idea of why. A genuine contest is all we ask for.

 

And while we’ve got the sights on the umpires, we wonder when Steve McBurney is taking delivery of a specially trained Labrador. In the closely fought last quarter of the Brisbane–West Coast game, a West Coast defender applied a genuine full nelson to a Brisbane forward in a marking “contest” in Brisbane’s attacking goal square, locking both his arms, about fifteen metres in front of McBurney. Not even the hint of a free kick. . .

If, as reported, Adrian Anderson and the AFL are keen to strengthen sanctions against “staging” for free kicks, they’re going to have to do a far, far better job of defining it and selling it to the football community.

 

One of the features of the introduction of sanctions against staging a couple of years ago was the paucity of media explaining to fans what was involved and how it would work. The result? Massive confusion and a lot of unrealistic expectation that simply was never going to be met. Most importantly, the fiasco — and that’s what it has become with only one player reportedly having been investigated for staging — further tarnished the already worn reputation of the AFL with fans who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, seek out the explanatory material provided.

 

What Anderson and his fellow Rules Committee members need to be extremely wary of is creating a scenario where umpires lose the ability to make a judgement. It’s all very well to suggest targeting players who exaggerate contact to emphasise it and gain a free kick, but that line glosses over the fact that there is illegal contact in the first place.

 

If Anderson and the rules committee want to get all hairy-chested, perhaps they could turn their attention to the real blight on the game — non-centre bounce ruck contests. The level of blatant holding and blocking that goes on within ruck contests is scandalous.

 

Let’s make a ruck contest a genuine contest between the two ruckmen. Allow body contact and body positioning, but use of the hands on any part of the opposing ruckman draws an immediate free kick.

With a weekend off due to an interstate game for the Bombers, AussieRulesBlog took the opportunity to  check out AAMI Park and the Melbourne Storm game against the Dragons.

 

The stadium is a delight. With the benefit of such a small playing arena — seemingly about the size of a man-sized tissue — there’s an intimacy about the place that AFL simply can’t match. Sitting in a slightly upmarket section of the stadium, we were also struck by the comparatively generous leg room. All very positive.

 

Some curious elements to the evening included the announcement of the Storm team, via the very nice screens at each end of the pitch, well before the players had even run out for their on-field warmup. Each Storm player’s name being announced and picture being displayed generated enthusiastic applause which seemed quite strange when the players remained firmly ensconced in their changerooms. The “cheerleaders” provided a splash of colour and movement in a dance routine out on the turf, but we are reminded how grateful we are that the Bluebirds and Swanettes have passed into history!

 

Fortuitously, it was Billy Slater’s 200th game. After the away team had run out to, pretty much, a non-reception, the Storm had their cheerleaders manically waving their pom-poms as they ran out before the man of the evening broke through an AFL-style crepe banner celebrating his 200 games. One can’t fault the enthusiasm of the crowd!

 

Then there was the game. Oh that we could have been at Skilled Park on the Gold Coast the previous week — weather considerations aside — for Storm’s 40–16 drubbing of the Titans. Instead we were treated to an 8–6 slogfest that was — yawn! — pretty boring. Actually, we don’t think even the 40–16 scoreline would create sufficient excitement for us to return.

 

More curiosities, included the Storm’s mascot belting a cowbell for all he was worth to keep the beat for the obligatory MEL-BOURNE! Dong Dong Dong chant and the decidedly pro-Storm crowd making an inordinate amount of noise as Cameron Smith lined up his two goals for the night. Actually, cowbells are almost a de rigeur accessory it seems, with three or four of them getting a significant seeing to for much of the game time.

 

Mixing with the crowd after the game left us with the firm impression that NRL people are generally from less affluent circumstances than we routinely experience at AFL games.

 

An interesting exercise, and we’ll continue to monitor the Storm from the comfort of our easy chair, but the resounding result of the experience is THANK GOODNESS FOR AUSSIE RULES!!!! For those who aren’t rusted-on rugby league fans, the GWS Giants will eventually provide a far superior entertainment.

In light of the renewed focus on footy crowd behaviour, it’s strangely coincidental that AFL Umpiring boss, Jeff Gieschen, has confirmed the fifty-metre penalty against Bulldog Ben Hudson last weekend.

 

Hudson’s ‘crime’ was to raise his arms and loudly ask “What?” a couple of times in response to a free kick awarded against him.

 

AussieRulesBlog wants to take a slightly left-field look at this incident, but first we should all remember that rule 18.1 — the rule defining when fifty-metre penalties can be imposed — clause (d) reads:

behaves in an abusive, insulting, threatening or obscene manner towards an umpire or disputes the decision of an umpire;

 

No-one could realistically suggest that Hudson did anything other than dispute the decision. His actions and his voice cannot seriously have been construed as abusive, threatening, insulting or obscene.

 

We can’t fault the logic of imposing sanctions on AFL players for abuse, insult or threat as a role model for lesser competitions, yet the penalty against Hudson does feel somewhat at odds with what’s happening in the game in general at AFL level. We don’t have any research to support our anecdotal recollection.

 

The left field element comes from the NRL. We’ve been watching a bit of ‘british bulldog for big boys’ recently having acquired a taste for a winning team — Melbourne Storm — during the Bombers’ mid-season run of losses*. One aspect of NRL that is in stark contrast with AFL is players’ reactions to penalties against them. It’s not that there’s no dissent — and there isn’t — but there’s a level of deference and respect shown to referees that Andrew Demetriou and Jeff Gieschen could only dream of.

 

To muddy these waters still further, there’s the example of ‘Association’ football, or soccer, where referees are routinely confronted by excited players, manhandled by players.

 

As noted, we don’t have an issue with the elite competition providing a behaviour template for players (and others) in lesser competitions. Our issue is consistency. The Hudson penalty seems out of kilter with other, similar incidents; more an exception than an example of the prevailing application of the rule.

 

As always, consistency is the gold standard and, as usual, the AFL’s umpiring department doesn’t seem capable of providing it.

 

* We attended every game (in person in Melbourne and on TV in Perth) and stayed to the final siren regardless of the score.