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.