AussieRulesBlog isn’t sure how to react to news that former Richmond skipper and assistant coach Wayne Campbell is to replace Jeff Gieschen as head of the AFL’s umpiring department.

Regular readers will understand that we thought Gieschen was a disaster in the role, overseeing a culture where the AFL industry understood that a pronouncement from The Giesch on a topic meant a crackdown on that particular aspect of the game for the next few weeks.

We are cautiously optimistic that there are people within the AFL hierarchy working for a less zealous approach to gameday officiating. We hope this means a move toward consistent interpretations of rules from season’s start to season’s end — but we’re not quite prepared to hang by our thumbs waiting.

Campbell is an interesting choice for the role, and we’re not the first to point out that Gieschen too had a Richmond connection — discarded senior coach — before being appointed.

The Tiger faithful will howl, but Campbell never impressed us as a player. That doesn’t mean, of course, that he can’t be an eminently capable administrator.

We have reason to think that Campbell’s approach will differ from Gieschen’s and will embrace a more relaxed, less doctrinaire stance by umpires.

Among changes to the rules to be introduced in the 2014 season, Campbell will be overseeeing:

1. Free kicks against and reporting of players bumping and making contact with their opponent’s head;
2. Free kicks against players who duck into (nearly) stationary opponents if they are tackled and do not dispose of the ball legally — and a play-on call when a player ducks into a tackle (we might name this the Selwood Rule?);
3. Free kicks against players using their heads to make forceful contact below the knees of an opponent. We’re not sure if the much-maligned “diving” rule has been put down, but we’re hoping.
4. The hands-in-the-back rule has been softened by the addition of the word “unduly”; and
5. The interchange penalty has been returned to earth after a trip into the realms of fantasy.

We don’t think many fans will have too many problems with these changes. It will be interesting to see how Joel Selwood fares. We suspect he’ll still get more than his share of touches and will still inspire a whole team.

Disappointingly, it seems the holding the ball rule, at least as it’s written in the book, isn’t changing and there doesn’t appear to be any move to stamp out opponents holding a ball to an opponent to milk a free kick, despite a number of promises over a number of years. Perhaps that’s an area where we can look for the Campbell influence to shine?

It’s official! The AFL are frightened of James Hird and the threat of renewal of his action against his suspension. That’s the only conclusion from today’s humiliating backdown.

After telling the world that they’d enforced an agreement on Hird and Essendon that Hird not be paid while suspended, the Australian Limp Lettuce League have agreed that Essendon can pay Hird whatever they choose in calendar 2013, but he will receive no money from the Bombers in 2014.

Hird will receive a substantial sum — his 2014 salary — between now and New Year, and Sir Robin (Vlad) will spend the rest of his life running away (wiping the egg from his face).

when danger reared its ugly head, he bravely turned his tail and fled,

Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin

No-one should be surprised by Tania Hird’s ‘revelation’ that her husband remains on the Bombers’ payroll during his suspension.

The AFL have played their hand poorly right from the get-go. Despite the Bombers’ confidence when self-reporting their supplements program that they would be vindicated, AFL House proceeded to leak ‘evidence’ to paint the Bombers, and coach James Hird particularly, as amoral desperates who would stop at nothing in their quest for success.

AussieRulesBlog finds it impossible to understand how anyone could swallow the line that any AFL club, any AFL coach would wilfully and consciously disregard the health and safety of the players on their list. But that’s the bait that was dangled — and duly swallowed by most.

Notwithstanding players playing ‘jabbed’ with pain killers, uncaring of the future effects, it defies any sort of logic to believe the AFL’s line.

And the more recent revelation — an appropriate word in these circumstances — that eleven or twelve AFL clubs were conducting ill-monitored, ill-recorded and ill-supervised supplements programs run by ill-screened employees at the same time as the Bombers is a ticking time bomb that the AFL have, so far successfully, swept out of public consciousness.

The speed with which the AFL’s house of cards folded when challenged by Bombers’ doctor Bruce Reid shines a spotlight on the paucity of the AFL case.

It’s hard to imagine that Hird would have lost had he challenged. It’s similarly easy to imagine that such a result would have brought the AFL to its knees.

The fact is that the Bombers need the AFL and they need it in good shape. The club can’t generate a profit and grow if it is playing in the VFL because the AFL has disappeared.

Similarly, the AFL needs its powerhouse clubs to generate attendances and other revenues to keep struggling clubs afloat.

AussieRulesBlog imagines a scene where a Keatingesque Hird faces Vlad across a table and says, “I’m going to do you slowly, mate.” Vlad knows he’s toast and responds, “How much to not destroy the game you love?”

Ultimately, it’s clear that Hird took one — his suspension — for the club and for the game. His reputation will forever be tarnished in the eyes of many, but his club lives on and the game has a chance to take a breath and build again. Who among us, knowing we would win the legal stoush, wouldn’t extract some blood from the stone?

It wouldn’t surprise AussieRulesBlog one skerrick if it emerged that the AFL were partly funding Hird’s salary for the year. Not that they’d want it known, of course.

The news this week that favourite AussieRulesBlog whipping boy Jeff Gieschen will depart the AFL has cheered us enormously. Gieschen was something of a disaster as coach of Richmond and his tenure at the AFL as Umpiring Department chief has been no less calamitous. Gieschen’s tortured rhetorical convolutions to explain labyrinthine rules and touching faith in the power of DVDs have been a blight on the game.

Ding-dong-the-Giesch-is-gone, ding-dong-the-wicked-Giesch-is-gone . . . [huge grin]

AussieRulesBlog understands there are moves within the AFL for a less book-driven approach to officiating, and we certainly welcome an approach that pays attention to the pace and feel of the game.

Our good mood was spoiled with the news that the Warrior Priestess for Truth and the Australian Colander League way has been recognised by her peers with a Walkley Award for her “fearless and insightful reporting and opinion” on the Essendon supplements affair. They forgot to mention the blind prejudice and the torrent of leaks. [savage snarl]

If you’ve visited AussieRulesBlog before, you’ll probably have an inkling what’s to come. If not, strap yourself in!

January

A quiet month contemplating whether Brendon Goddard could make an impact.

February

The Federal Sports Minister and sundry hangers on make the biggest, most over-hyped announcement since God’s dog was a puppy — the “blackest day” in Australian sport.The Bombers make a shock announcement. They’ve been using supplements. They are pretty sure they’re on the side of the angels, but not 100%. They call in the AFL and ASADA. Instant media speculation has James Hird, David Evans and Ian Robson spotted supping with Satan and drinking the warm, fresh blood of new-borns.

March

Football media do a convincing impersonation of Salem witch trial-style frenzy

April

Fevered media speculation and demands from some “journalists” that the three key Bombers stand down apparently influences the AFL’s Chief Executive to muse about Essendon’s coach standing down. The Essendon players rally to win unexpectedly against the eventual Grand Finalist Dockers and proceed to show their utter disdain and hatred for their coach in the after-game celebrations.

Against the odds, the Bombers continue to win. The Australian Colander League — sorry, that possibly should have been Football — begin an attempt on the Guinness Book of Records title as the worst plumber in the world. Certain “journalists” sell what’s left of their souls.

May

Quite a lot like April.

June

Different day, same hyperbole and speculative nonsense.

July

Yep. More. Getting boring now. Bombers start playing shit football.

August

The Australian Colander League decide to impose draconian penalties based on an interim report. The Bombers are placed in the stocks in the public square and other clubs and their supporters invited to find anything rotten to throw at them. The Bomber players rally in a game against the second-most-hated enemy, mere days before being told they will not play finals, and win one of their most famous victories. In the after-game celebrations the players again show their utter hatred for their coach, who has allegedly used them as science experiments.

September

Hollow feeling. The Hawks, darlings of the syringe set only twelve months previously, take out the big dance.

October

Media report suggests a mass exodus of players from Windy Hill. Disturbing reports each week of more Bomber players signing new contracts.

Australian Colander League informs club medical officers that a dozen clubs had supplement programs, didn’t know enough about what the supplements were, didn’t properly record administration of the supplements and didn’t properly guard against employing shonky chemists BUT had NOT brought the game into disrepute.

Australian Colander League sets new record by pre-releasing the 2014 fixture on a one round per day basis.

Not quite as expected, mass exodus from Windy Hill occurs as Bombers more to new training and administration base at Tullamarine.

Yeah. Bonza year.

Footnote: Who would have thought that Caaaarlton would be the second most-hated enemy. Probably not the warrior priestess for truth and the Australian Colander League way. What? Us, bitter? Not half!!!!

We confess we’re surprised that the 2013 AFL Trade period has seemed, from our vantage point at least, a much more human and player-friendly space than prior years.

Players who wanted to move seem to have been able to engineer changes. Clubs who wanted to move on players seem to have been able to do so. Only the McEvoy–Savage trade seemed to be a surprise.

AussieRulesBlog wasn’t a fan of the free agency process initially, but we think we need to adjust our thinking.

The Chinese Water Torture that is the release of the 2014 AFL fixture continues at snail’s pace.

We’re all big kids now. We can take it, shocks and all . . .

It’s not the greatest look when details of the upcoming 2014 AFL fixture are leaked in dribs and drabs and appear under certain “journalist’s” by-lines.

Just release the damned thing. We don’t have to be softened up for every announcement.

So, twelve AFL clubs conducted supplement programs AND lacked appropriate governance procedures AND could not adequately define the supplements involved AND had flawed selection processes for support personnel.

We assume that this means the 2014 AFL Final Series will commence in March with six or seven teams competing, because surely at least eleven of these twelve clubs — we’re not told whether Essendon is one of the twelve — will be ruled out of the 2014 Final Series and the first two rounds of the 2015 National Draft.

And while we’re at it, where’s the self-appointed warrior priestess for truth, Caroline Wilson? Why isn’t her byline on this report? Why isn’t she calling for the heads of the twelve coaches, twelve Presidents and twelve CEOs?

The Chief Executive of the AFL and the Chairman of the AFL Commission must surely be considering standing down for their failure to foresee these problems and ensure proper governance procedures were in place.

Surely?

Really looking forward to the karma bus pulling up at AFL Headquarters.

Un-bleeping-believable.

As a season that has been traumatic for a Bombers fan draws to a close, AussieRulesBlog maintained our recent policy of tuning in to the Brownlow Medal count once around mid-way, and then again at the conclusion.

We joined midway through the round 23 count, just in time to see Dane Swan, and then Joel Selwood, relegated to the minor placings when the last best-on-ground vote of the season was awarded to Gary Ablett.

A quick glance at the results for round 23 shows that the Barcodes played the Kangaroos on Sunday afternoon in the second-last game of the home and away rounds. But this was the third-last game read out by Vlad and Dane Swan was eliminated as a winning chance.

Geelong played the Lions in the third game of the round, on Saturday afternoon, but Vlad read these votes out second-last. Selwood retained a two-vote lead over Ablett at this point.

The Suns played the Giants in the third-last game of the round, early Sunday afternoon, but these were the last votes read out. Ablett, with a best-on-ground, is awarded the Brownlow Medal by a margin of one vote.

There’s no doubt this was great theatre, but there are some troubling aspects.

Traditionally, Brownlow Medal votes were cast by the umpires and the sealed envelopes stored under security until the night of the count. The votes were read out in the order they were cast. Had this practice been followed, Ablett would have been the winner after the votes for the second last game — Barcodes v Kangaroos — were read out.

For the AFL to know to read out the votes in the order they did — and with Vlad’s pathetic impression of commercial television’s tension-building pause — one of two things had to happen.

The first, and most troubling, possibility is that all the votes had been tallied in full before the televised count. Call us conspiracy theorists — and we’ve got plenty of evidence from this year — but this scenario allows the possibility for the voting and the count to be altered to suit the AFL’s agenda.

The second possibility is that someone has done a very fast scan of the votes in the break between the last and second-last rounds and determined the order of games for maximum theatrical effect. Not as troubling, but too much theatre and not enough tradition and (relative) transparency.

It’s an important award. Too important to be sullied by a confected count.

AussieRulesBlog ventured to the MCG last night to take in the spectacular Preliminary Final clash between the Hawks and the Cats. It was a wonderful game, not even spoiled by the screaming banshees sitting behind us who maintained a manic cheering for the Hawks from first bounce to last. At least whoever has the misfortune to live with them won’t be listening to them today — there’s no way they’d be able to raise even a whisper after last night’s effort.

As a disinterested observer, we noticed two video review incidents that showed the potential for a properly-implemented system and a mis-use of the system as blatant as we can remember.

First to the good. The ball flew goalward and a defender leapt and tapped the ball at full stretch. It was a heroic effort, but the goal line camera clearly showed the ball had completely crossed the line before being touched. This is how the system works when it is properly resourced.

Now, unfortunately, to the bad. It will seem strange that we say this video review did enable the correct decision to be made. A ball popped off a boot in a contest near the boundary line and was signalled out of bounds on the full by the boundary umpire. Correct. But then we went to a video review! Incorrect!

When this half-baked system was introduced, the departed and unlamented Adrian Anderson told us it was a goal line video review system. Never mind that it was improperly resourced for the task. The Giesch’s mob have happily called for its use for all sorts of things since. Was a ball touched off the boot, was a ball correctly kicked by foot or did it roll off a knee or thigh, and so on.

Through the AFL, we in the football community pay umpires to be sharp-eyed and observant and to make decisions based on what they see. AussieRulesBlog can understand there will be times when the umpire is unsure, and where there’s a fixed and definite parameter — such as a the goal line — there are opportunities to use technology to assist.

But we remain of the opinion, reinforced by the experience of video review thus far in AFL, that reviews should only be called upon where the goal umpire is seriously unsighted or countermanded by another official. Let our umpires do the work for which they’re paid. We’re pretty sure they’re not keen on cherry-picking just the easy decisions, and the football community has to have faith that they are doing the job impartially and to the highest standard.

AussieRulesBlog was surprised this morning to see a teaser on The Age's online homepage for a report on Sean Wellman leaving Essendon .

Despite the report not mentioning supplements or syringes, it seems The Age has assigned the Bombers a new logo.

On face value, the processes announced for the structuring of the 2014 AFL fixture look to have considerable merit.

We don’t think there’s any doubt that players will benefit from an extra bye during a long season.

Similarly, we think the notion of weighting the fixture according to finishing position in the previous season makes sense.

Of course, the first game that will come up for discussion is the now-traditional Anzac Day game between Essendon and the Barcodes.

As the weighting proposal suggests, the days of fixturing predominantly for so-called “blockbuster” games is well past it’s use-by date. There’s certainly a case to be made for other teams to share in the Anzac Day experience, but there are few potential fixtures that would see a virtually guaranteed 80,000-plus crowd at the ‘G’, hushed through the minute’s silence.

AussieRulesBlog isn’t sad to see the end of the pre-season competition, which had become all-but meaningless. Simple practice matches will suffice nicely, thank you.

In a recent post about the tough year endured by Essendon and its supporters, we provided a link to an article by Mick Ellis on SEN’s Inside Football Extra. Is anyone cheering for the truth looked at the hysterical reactions of some sections of the media and introduced the psychological concept of conformational bias.

Ellis has been worrying his computer keyboard again and has penned a new piece, AFL’s mystery bus tour rolls through Essendon, where he shares some fascinating ideas about the drawn out saga that was the 2013 Essendon supplements affair.

[Spoiler alert] Ellis makes out a compelling case that the AFL’s game plan, including the charges against the four individuals, was designed to avoid infraction notices against Essendon players, an eventuality he describes as potentially catastrophic. [/end spoiler alert]

In other posts, AussieRulesBlog has asked why players being “jabbed up” with local anaesthetic to get through a game isn’t considered performance enhancing. Ellis asks another question about this practice following on from questions asked about the Bombers’ supplements program, namely: “How about multiple pain-killing or anti-inflammatory jabs to get players on the field for big games? Do we understand the long-term health effects of that practice?” We’re not consuming much footy media at present, but we suspect no-one else is considering these questions.

Perhaps we do something about the long-term effects, at least to the extent that former players report arthritic joints.

Ellis, as a Barcodes supporter, is no natural friend to Essendon, though he is prepared to park his prejudices at the door before beginning to write. Would that some of his mainstream media colleagues could try to emulate him.

AussieRulesBlog recommends these articles heartily to anyone prepared to consider the issue dispassionately.

The AFL has announced a cap on interchange rotations of 120 for the 2014 and 2015 seasons, with changes at quarter and half-time breaks not counted toward the cap. The interchange bench will remain as three interchange and one substitute.

While we applaud the introduction of a cap, setting the level at 120 is like tying up a frisky 2-year-old colt with a strand of overcooked spaghetti. The AFL’s own statement reports the average for games in 2012 and early 2013 at “approximately 130 per game.” So the reduction is about eight interchanges per game. Wow!

There was so much angst about interchange numbers back in 2009 when these limits were first mooted through a trial in the preseason competition, although the number then was a hefty 50 fewer interchanges with a cap of 80 and a per quarter limit of 20.

After suffering two years of indecision, we were foisted with the nonsense substitute system (with three uncapped interchanges) which apparently was fairer. Well, fairer as long as you don’t lose a player early. While you don’t lose the potential for interchange rotations, you do lose the impact of a fresh player entering the ground late in the game and we’ve seen many occasions where that influence has been crucial to a victory.

It won’t happen now — we’ve got the substitutes for a considerable time it seems — but a simple capped interchange offers a far fairer result in the event of early injury.

Under a capped interchange, coaches must carefully judge their use of interchange early, husbanding resources for a crucial time later in the game. Losing a player may marginally reduce the length of time some players spend off the field, but the number of interchanges for both teams remains constant, virtually eliminating the disadvantage of losing a player*. The team that is profligate with its interchanges early, will suffer late, regardless of having a one-player advantage

The substitute system fixed a problem that didn’t exist and introduced a needless complexity to our game — another victory of Adrian Anderson over commonsense.

* Of course, losing a star playmaker will hurt more than losing a journeyman, but this is an argument about quantitative rather than qualitative analysis.

It has been a while since our last post. As an Essendon member, it has been a tough year and, despite the team’s success in being second on the ladder after sixteen rounds, not an enjoyable one. We think a small positive that has emerged, at least for AussieRulesBlog, is a new way of looking at the game.

AussieRulesBlog hopes that Essendon people will think twice, three times, or more, before commenting on others clubs’ plights. That’s certainly our intention.

We also hope that Essendon people will refrain from baiting other clubs’ fans if those clubs find themselves the subject of controversy. If we had a dollar for every time some @#$&^%* had approached us over the past seven months seeking some comment on the supplements affair, there’d be no need to buy any more lottery tickets.

We’ve reached some sort of definitive end this week, apart from Doc Reid, and our thoughts are with him in his battle to clear his professional reputation.

The hysterical end of the media reporting has, it seems to AussieRulesBlog, rested on the starting (and startling!) presumption that Essendon coach James Hird had callously disregarded the welfare of his players in seeking an advantage.

Fortunately, there has been some writing taking a more rational middle ground and avoiding the bias that has characterised the writings of The Age’s Caroline Wilson and her clique. We commend the recent article by Mick Ellis of Inside Football to all football followers. Throughout the evolution of the crisis surrounding Essendon and its supplements program, Ellis has written from a dispassionate position.

In his recent article, Ellis writes about confirmation bias, and perhaps we’re a victim of this as much as Wilson is in her way. Ellis’ views very closely reflect our own (hence we regard him as a great writer and Wilson as appalling). The difference between us and Wilson is that we’re aware of our shortcomings.

In the end, although we consider the penalties exacted by the AFL in its characteristic sledgehammer diplomacy modus operandi are logically inconsistent with their acknowledgement that the club and the four officials didn't set out to establish a program to flout the rules, ongoing hysteria was damaging the club, the four officials charged, the players and the members and supporters.

Throughout, Essendon — through David Evans and Paul Little, and James Hird and Mark Thomson as the public faces — has conducted itself with admirable restraint in the face of a vicious media campaign. Hird in particular has been singled out for an unprecedented torrent of journalistic abuse.

In the past, AussieRulesBlog has tried, often unsuccessfully, to keep our love for our football club at arms length to our commentary on issues. At least to one extent, we’re abandoning that stance today. Our Countdown clock is today proudly renamed the Countdown to Hird Retirn and is proudly displayed in the famous red and black.

Go Bombers!

It’s no easier that it’s a Barcodes player being victimised by the media, but AussieRulesBlog certainly gained greater empathy for the ‘victims’ of the media through Essendon’s travails in recent months.

We looked in vain tonight for a flood of articles, from journalists far and wide, apologising for the misinformation, assumption, supposition and plain old fantasy that has descended on Harry O’Brien in recent days.

O’Brien announced yesterday that he is battling depression.

So much for all those informative articles about O’Brien’s “falling out” with coach Nathan Buckley.

Emma Quayle wrote in The Age that “the media … has grown, … is competitive, … wants to know more and more, and … an opinion that says ''just wait …'' is not really considered an opinion, or enough of one.”

While that’s undoubtedly true, the problem is the substitution of all manner of misinformation in the absence of any substantive information.

Much footy talk is largely flimsily-based opinion, but mass media have taken the flirtation with fiction to a new level. And apologies? Nary a one, we suspect.

There are suggestions, apparently, that should the Hawks fail to reach (and win!) the 2013 Grand Final, Alastair Clarkson should take a hike. Seriously!

In this Kennett-inspired parallel universe there is no room for anything less than ultimate success. Taken to its (il)logical conclusion, this view would see clubs changing coaches on an almost weekly basis. And woe betide any player that didn’t have an Ablett-equalling 40+ possession game.

The proposition that Clarkson walk from the Hawks is utterly nonsensical. Anyone even asking the question — yes, you, Anthony Hudson on SEN — is simply buying into the nonsense.

It shouldn’t be a surprise. It’s a well-trodden path. Someone in the public eye makes a comment and the media pundits rush to analyse every last syllable, despite not possessing any facts or surrounding information.

Jobe Watson is the latest victim. His “admission” on Foxtel’s On the couch that he’d been administered AOD96-whatever-it-is was accompanied by a strong and unequivocal statement that he believed he’d done nothing illegal.

Do the media pundits think that he wouldn’t already have told the AFL/ASADA enquiry the same thing? Do they think the Essendon Football Club hasn’t had substantial advice on this situation leading the Chairman and senior coach to predict a positive outcome? And yet we still see omniscient sages like Caroline Wilson pontificating on the basis of supposition, assumption and guesswork.

Subsequently, Jobe’s father, Essendon champion Tim Watson, has said he is completely satisfied that Jobe will be exonerated on the basis of his discussions. These are discussions that Wilson hasn’t been privy too, but that doesn’t stop her calling for the guillotine for everyone associated with red and black.

If the enquiry, on the basis of its long and exhaustive process of interviews and other investigations, determines that Essendon have broken the rules as they stood at the time, then let the Bombers be sanctioned appropriately — and we say that as a committed Bombers fan.

When Andrew Lovett was summarily sacked by the Saints less than a day after being charged with rape, not only was there no deputation of players approaching the Board in his support, it was reported at the time the playing group weren't all that displeased to see him gone.

Fast forward a few years and a deputation of players apparently pressures the Board into what looks like a commitment that Milne will wear the Saints guernsey again in 2013.

It's hard not to conclude that it's the players ruling the roost at Seaford.

We’re not the first to observe a stark difference between the treatment of Andrew Lovett and Stephen Milne by the St Kilda Football Club.

When Lovett was charged with rape some years ago, the Saints nearly fell over themselves, so quick were they to sack their errant new recruit.

The laying of charges against Stephen Milne results, at this early stage anyway, in his “suspension” as a matter of “duty of care”.

As we discussed at the time of the Lovett sacking, the person charged is innocent until proven guilty and without knowing the detail of the circumstances surrounding the incident(s?) in question, it’s impossible to make any further call.

It should be noted that charges such as these are not laid frivolously and it would appear that one party to the matter is seriously aggrieved. AussieRulesBlog isn’t suggesting that the Saints have done the right or wrong thing— merely observing that Milne’s 500+ goals for the club may have contributed to a different decision being made.

One thing is sure: we need only hark back to the infamous verbal altercation between then-Barcodes coach Malthouse and Milne to understand that Milne playing in these circumstances was never a realistic option.

He and his friends will see the decision as a tacit acceptance of guilt in the face of his denial, and they’ve got a compelling argument. But it’s equally untenable to expose Milne’s teammates to a situation where spectators would inevitably hurl worse invective at Milne than Adam Goodes has ever had to endure, which could spill into the playing field and opposition players and an emotional and uncontrolled brawl.

There are no winners in this situation, but Andrew Lovett was entitled to the same considerations being given to Milne now.

As soon as we heard what the words the young Barcodes supporter had yelled at Adam Goodes were, AussieRulesBlog was pretty sure there’d be a fair degree of misunderstanding. The grainy footage of another Barcodes supporter accusing the umpires of awarding free kicks on a racial basis further illustrates the issue.

The AFL, prompted by the likes of Nicky Winmar and Michael Long, has taken a very commendable lead in attempting to combat racism. Unfortunately though, it hasn’t been made crystal clear that racist comment is in the ear of the receiver.

We haven’t had to live our life as an indigenous person, but a tale we heard on radio on Friday night gives a little insight.

Speaking on SEN, former Blues coach Wayne Brittain related a conversation between himself, his daughter and a young Aboriginal woman staying with them. Both the young women were recently-licensed drivers.

Brittain asked his daughter how many times she had been pulled over by the police while driving. None, she replied, flabbergasted. Brittain asked the young Aboriginal woman the same question. “Four times”, was the answer.

When you’ve lived your life under that sort of scrutiny, it’s not surprising that words the rest of us don’t take offence at can wound deeply.

AussieRulesBlog felt honour-bound to apologise this week to two English women we work with. It’s easy to make casual ‘jokes’ at the expense of people who are different, and it’s no less racist than what was said to Adam Goodes.

And we noted a call in the midst of the Goodes affair from Saint Stephen Milne asking the AFL to take action over non-racist abuse. Many would know of incidents in Milne’s past that continue to be used as barbs against him, including by a current AFL coach. AussieRulesBlog has mentioned mindless abuse by fans many times.

Now-retired umpire Stefan Grun has penned a piece for the Sunday Age today and it’s a cracker.

“Why is it acceptable in our culture that you can abuse and deride someone just because you are watching a sporting contest?”

It’s a good question!

There’s a Bombers fan who sits near AussieRulesBlog at Bombers’ away games at Docklands and hurls abuse at the umpires almost from the first bounce. We’re sort of grateful that the abuse doesn’t descend into swearing, but the constant assertions that the umpires are “moron”s and “idiot”s are enough to label this person as a fool. We’re going to take a copy of Grun’s article and hand it to him at the next game.

The only people who retain any vestige of faith in the video score review system foisted on us by the unlamented Adrian Anderson are the umpires.

For everyone else, it is a mortally-wounded beast that should be put out of its misery with a lead Aspro.

Please, Mark Evans, put it down. End our suffering.

Context is everything, and we didn’t enjoy the Bombers’ game against the Brisbane Lions. One of the things we enjoyed least was the sensation of thinking “That’s a free kick!” as we watched the game and seeing no action from the umpires. And let’s be clear, the umpiring didn’t affect the result of the game!

Let’s also be clear that AussieRulesBlog is not one of those demented morons who wants every contest to result in a free kick to our team. There were just as many free kicks missed for the Lions as for the Bombers.

Contrast the afternoon game with watching the Barcodes–Geelong game on TV. It was hard to believe it was the same sport, being played in the same city, on the same weekend, with the same rule book.

And just to add some extra spice, Friday night’s game seemed to have some crucial changes of interpretation late in the game.

Players are confused! Fans are confused! Coaches are confused and bemused, and gagged.

This is not a rant about umpires. It’s about the system they’re operating within.

Despite there being twenty-seven individuals umpiring elite AFL games every weekend, we simply can’t have twenty-seven individual interpretations, or interpretations that fluctuate wildly during a match!

In this context, we don’t care if the rule or interpretation is a bad one, as long as it is the same every game, every week, for the length of the season.

Jeff Gieschen may think he can con us by just telling us that nothing changes from week to week, but our eyes tell us something quite different.

There are two problems as we see it. The rules, and the interpretations of them, have become over-complicated. Second, the interpretations or the application of the rules and interpretations keep changing. The umpiring in Round 8 is not the same as the umpiring in Round 2. This cannot be allowed to continue.

Release the Giesch and save the game!

We often don’t agree with the Match Review Panel, but we think they got it right on James Kelly’s “bump” that flattened Brendon Goddard.

And just so anyone who knows of our Bombers allegiance doesn’t think we’re miffed at our new star player copping a knock, we think the MRP’s decision on Paddy Ryder’s hit on Luke McPharlin was right too.

So, the Kelly decision was an opportunity for the Chicken Littles to come out and claim the end of civilisation. Kelly’s teammate and captain, Joel Selwood, tweeted “ 'Sad day: the bump is dead' ”. North Melbourne forward Drew Petrie joined the clamour: “It says to us all, as players, 'Don't bump' ”

No, fellas. What it says is don’t iron out a bloke off the ball with a shirtfront. Steve Johnson did a similar thing last year. At least when Kelly hit Goddard the ball is in shot — Johnson was in a different postcode.

Kelly, Johnson and Ryder didn’t execute a bump. They went into the contest with the objective of hurting their opponent. If Kelly wanted to keep Goddard away from the contest, he could have legally done so by extending his arms and shepherding.

Guys, you can bump as much as you like. Deliver a hip and shoulder bump to an opponent’s side and, as long as you keep your feet and don’t fly, there’s virtually no chance of being suspended.

The tweets could more properly have remarked on the end of the shirtfront. And good riddance.

The Giesch seems to think that all you need to understand the rules of the game is his precious DVD. We’re pretty sure he’s relying on the old adage that a picture is worth 1,000 words. He couldn’t be more wrong.

The proof, if any were needed, is the furore that has erupted these last two weeks over marking contests.

The rules around physical contact, as they’ve been stated in words since at least 2008, are very clear. In a marking contest — or any other physical contest on the field of play — it is legal to push an opponent in the side or in the chest with an open hand  as long as the ball is within 5 metres.

The umpire’s job is pretty simple under these conditions.

• Was the ball within 5 metres? Yes or no?
• Did player 1 push player 2 with an open hand? Yes or no?
• Did player 1 push player 2 in the side or chest? Yes or no?

In each case, if the answer is Yes, the contact is legal. If the answer is No, a free kick must be awarded.

But that was too easy for The Giesch. He has overlaid so many “interpretations” over this rule that it is all but unrecognisable.

Were there two actions? Were there hands in the back? It doesn’t matter! Was the ball within 5 metres and was the push with an open hand to the chest or side? Any No means a free kick must be awarded against the pushing player. It’s simple!

And the DVD? Well, sure it shows half a dozen examples of pushing in marking contests, but it’s far from definitive. There’re so many potential scenarios that a few pieces of video footage just can’t cut the mustard. The umpires, and the players, must have a firm foundation for understanding what is legal and what isn’t. That previously firm foundation, the written rules, has been eroded as each new interpretation obscures more of it.

Players, for the most part, probably don’t read the rules of the game. They absorb them as they play from a young age. Today’s players began playing in a much less complicated Aussie Rules environment, and they struggle to cope with the seemingly unremittent change.

Umpires are, even at the elite level, the teachers of the game. Their decisions tell the players what they can and can’t get away with. As a player tests the boundaries, he gets free-kicked and pulls back.

In 2013, we have umpires who are either trigger-happy or hesitant — and with three of them on the field, there’s sure to be an unhealthy mix of surety and hesitance.

Despite what the Giesch would have us believe, umpiring interpretations are changing on an almost weekly basis. Sitting in the stands, watching on TV, it’s as obvious as the nose on The Giesch’s face. It’s no wonder umpires are unsure. And the players just don’t have a hope.

Release The Giesch, reclaim the game!

On the AFL’s website tonight, The Giesch makes a not-very-astounding assertion:

Last week, Brisbane Lions midfielder Tom Rockliff labeled the pushing rule 'bizarre', claiming he was unaware he could not push any player in a marking contest.

Rockliff's remarks have surprised Gieschen, who says it is outlined on the Rules of the Game DVD.

The problem, Jeff, is that the 2013 Laws of Australian Football says you can push a player (in the side or the chest) in a marking contest — as long as the ball is within 5 metres.

Forget the DVD, Jeff. Get your mob to umpire to the rules that are written in the book. There’s a fair chance that we’ll get something that resembles football out of it.

Release the Giesch and reclaim the game.

Former Australian chief nuclear boffin Ziggy Switkowski’s report into the goings on at Bomberland in 2012 hasn’t claimed any immediate scalps, and AussieRulesBlog hopes and expects that it won’t in the longer term either.

The report is not a surprise as most of the background has been publicly aired through the media. No doubt Caroline Wilson will demand that the Governor-General be sacked.

Switkowski’s recommendations do raise some interesting areas for debate however, prime among them being the extent to which “non-football” administrators oversight and manage the football department.

None of Switkowski’s recommendations are revolutionary, especially in the aftermath of the supplements investigation, but it’s quite clear that the ground has shifted beneath the feet of AFL clubs. We probably knew that already, but this report puts it into black and white.

From the outside, it’s hard not to wonder at the extent to which the supplements were involved in the departure of former player Paul Hamilton from his role as football department manager last year.

It’s also hard to imagine, in the pre-supplements affair world, that CEO Ian Robson would feel himself ultimately responsible for the goings on in the football department.

Perhaps the most interesting of Switkowski’s recommendations is the first, where he mentions an “arms race” for on-field advantage. Leigh Matthews commented recently that, as a coach, he would have been intensely interested in anything that might give his team an edge. If anyone thought that any of the eighteen coaches would be any less keen than Matthews to find the key to unlock some advantage before the supplements affair became the biggest story in the news, then they’re dreaming.

Essendon may have been the club caught in the cross-hairs, but it would have been only a matter of months before every club at AFL level were looking closely at what they could do to compete with the Bombers’ perceived advantage (if they weren’t already, as suggested by the Carlton and Melbourne links already mentioned in the media).

It's a bit much for AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou to castigate other AFL clubs for "scurrilous innuendo" concerning Essendon's unbeaten start to the 2013 season.

It's only a few short weeks ago, Andrew, that you were supporting calls for coach James Hird to stand aside pending an outcome to the AFL/ASADA enquiries.

Caught a bit of AFL360 tonight on Foxtel where the discussion was about the Reid-Bellchambers free kick from Anzac Day. Discussion focussed on “two actions”.

Forget the umpires, guys, the ball was 13 to 15 metres away when Reid pushed Bellchambers out of the way.

Right decision. Wrong reason. There’s a real problem in our game when the umpires are not umpiring to the Laws of Australian Football.

As AussieRulesBlog sat comfortably at the MCG on Anzac Day, there was much consternation amongst Barcode supporters when free kicks were paid after Barcodes defenders pushed their opponents before taking a mark.

It was blithely assumed by those well-informed supporters that this was a scheme hatched in the AFL Umpiring Department to deprive the Barcodes of their rightful victory, some misapplication of the new interpretation of ‘hands in the back’. The Reid-Bellchambers decision, in particular, created some excitement among the black and white faithful, more especially because Reid clearly pushed Bellchambers in the side rather than the back.

AussieRulesBlog isn’t shy about taking on the The Giesch and his mob, but we generally like to have our facts straight before going for the Giesch’s throbbing jugular.

To take the new interpretation out of the equation, we consulted our archived copy of the Laws of Football, 2008 edition — yes, we know that’s sad.

15.4.3 Permitted Contact
Other than the prohibited contact identified under law 15.4.5, a player may make contact with another player:
(b) by pushing the other player with an open hand in the chest or side of the body provided that the football is no more than 5 metres away from the player;

Sharp-eyed readers will have spotted a key phrase: provided that the football is no more than 5 metres away from the player.

Just to put this into context, the goal ‘square’ is 10 metres long and the two players in this contest are around 2 metres tall. So if a kicked ball is descending toward a player and is further away than half the length of the goal square or two and a half times the player’s height, it is a free-kick offence to push an opponent.

And guess what? Law 15.4.3 (b) appears again, in exactly the same words, in the 2013 Laws of Australian Football.

So we went looking for the video footage to check out our theory.

Here’s the Reid-Bellchambers contest, in live footage, and the start of the pushing motion. Note that the ball is not in view:

and again in live footage, here’s the ball entering the frame about 3 to 4 metres from Reid’s arms:

We’ve been able to analyse this footage fairly closely (although we don’t have high-speed or high-def footage). From the time of the push, in the first frame above, to the ball finishing in Reid’s arms, about six tenths of a second elapse.

From the ball entering the frame, in the second screen dump, to the ball in Reid’s arms is about 0.16 seconds. If the distance between the ball and Reid in the second frame is conservatively 3.5 metres, the ball is travelling at around 22 metres per second.

Working backwards, in the six tenths of a second between the push and the mark, the ball travelled about 13 metres. The ball must have been 13 metres away, or more, when Reid pushed his opponent out of the contest: FREE KICK Law 15.4.3.

For television viewers, ire is not thwarted when the umpire gives the reason for the free kick as “two actions”. What does two actions have to do with it? Where is the rule on two actions? Another of the Giesch’s nonsense interpretations.

As some of the heat comes out of the goal line video review controversy, new AFL football operations boss Mark Evans thinks the only viable options open to him are to stick with an imperfect system or revert to goal umpires being the sole adjudicators.

Evans didn’t endorse the existing system, but saw nothing in the immediate future that would be an advance on it. The Age’s report quotes Evans as saying only one percent of scoring decisions were reviewed, with two decisions so far this year having been overturned by the review.

"At the moment, we have a system where we can correct the absolute errors and that's got to be better than not having it [at] all."

Well, AussieRulesBlog begs to differ, and here’s why.

The video review system as it stands is set up to fail. The only scenarios where it can deliver anything like certainty are those serendipitous occasions where the direction of the ball coincides with the direction of a camera and there is a sufficient deflection of the ball from an object to determine that the ball struck the object.

Anything else, save those occasions where the broadcaster has installed goalpost cameras, is a complete waste of time and energy.

Our prime reason for dissent is that the very fact of having, and utilising, a video review system implies that it will contribute meaningfully to the game. Just by using it, we create that expectation. It doesn’t matter how many times everybody says it is imperfect, the expectation will remain.

While the game remains hostage to the spurious logic that says we must employ any measure that we think might bring us closer to absolute accuracy, these controversies will continue, and will continue to be a blight on the game.

Thanks for nothing, Adrian.

Way back when this crock of a video referral system was being foreshadowed, AussieRulesBlog implored the powers that be to ensure that it remained about goal line decisions. Of course, as we now know, it has failed to deliver the promised certainty and accuracy on the goal line.

Unfortunately, there are umpires who continue to refer decisions about things other than scoring — an example being the decision in tonight’s Hawthorn–Kangaroos game to refer a decision about whether a Kangaroos player had touched a ball kicked for goal by a Hawthorn player.

As we have previously demonstrated, the physics of kicking clearly show that the cameras being used to cover AFL are incapable of clearly discerning whether a ball has been touched or not unless there is a significant movement of the touching hand.

It hasn’t been a good weekend for the Umpiring Department with multiple video clangers and a field umpire allowing Geelong to pinch a free kick awarded to the Bulldogs.

The goal umpiring furore erupting after Friday night’s Richmond-Fremantle game has shone yet another light on the AFL’s attempt to approach 100% correctness on scoring decisions — and what we see isn’t pretty.

For those who haven’t seen it, here’s the scenario:

The ball has been kicked toward goal from the left-hand pocket and has closely tracked the goal line as it travels toward the goal umpire. Richmond player #29, Ty Vickery, has just tried to nudge the ball through for a goal with his foot — but taken an air swing.

The ball proceeds on its way and strikes the goal umpire in the area close to his “family jewels”.

So, to the controversies.

Damien Hardwick claims the result should have been a goal to Richmond. Quite how this can be the case when the goal umpire is hit in the gonads as he stands against the post mystifies us. Yes, it was close. Yes, it would be preferable that the umpire wasn’t in such an immediate vicinity. But a goal? No.

Controversy number two has various commentators calling for the goal umpire to be standing back from the line, out of the way of the players. Once again, quite how the umpire would be in a position to make a judgement in this case were he standing a metre or two back from the line mystifies us.

Stand by for a shock! AussieRulesBlog thinks The Giesch’s bloke got this one spot on and was, in the circumstances and with the tools available, in EXACTLY the right position to make a judgement.

Let’s just revisit this whole goal umpiring area. When the video review notion was first raised, the departed and unlamented Adrian Anderson told us that goal umpiring errors were less than one-tenth of one percent of all goal umpiring decisions across a season. BUT, despite that laudable statistic, the AFL decided to make a kneejerk response to a couple of high-profile errors and introduce a remarkably-flawed goal line video decision assistance ‘system’.

In this system, the umpires would rely on broadcast TV camera footage to assist the decision-making process. The AFL decided they wouldn’t foot the bill for cameras in the goal posts to monitor the goal line, instead relying on the broadcasters’ cameras set at a significant angle to the goal line.

What has followed has been the longest series of cock-ups the game has ever seen. A small number of decisions have been shown to be wrong and been corrected, but at the cost of interminable furore and the regular intonation of “Inconclusive, goal umpire’s decision.”

This experiment in technology has been an unmitigated disaster. The logical decision, right at the start of the process, was to employ two goal umpires at either end of the ground. With responsibility for a roughly seven-metre stretch of goal-line plane each, there’s a much-reduced likelihood of error. It’s not eliminated completely, but, as we’ve seen in recent years, technology as it is currently employed doesn’t get us any nearer that goal.

The sticking point here is money. The AFL won’t open its wallet to fund goal-line cameras, and it won’t open its wallet to fund an extra two goal umpires per game.

It’s not that long ago that it was the AFL defending the antiquated notion that one boundary umpire could effectively cover 200 metres of boundary in a fast-moving game of football. Would anyone now countenance going back to a single boundary umpire?

Come on Andrew. Time to step up to the mark. Either fund the video review system properly, or spring for some extra umpires. It’s not like the AFL is poor.

Not so much a storm in a teacup as a hurricane in a thimble, the "’drugs in sport’ enquiry — or at least what we can glean from the hyperbolic media coverage — doesn’t seem to be delivering what was promised at the breathless media conference to announce it.

Richard Cooke writes in The Monthly:

More than two months have passed since the release of the ACC’s report into organised crime and drugs, the ‘darkest day in Australian sport’, a date that now seems to signify little more than the start of a fishing expedition.

and

…the ‘150 players’ from two codes to be interviewed? A number fabricated by an executive ‘under pressure’.

At least publicly, the whole exercise is beginning to look like an opportunity for Stephen Dank to serialise his text message library and the AFL, at least, is sticking closely to its ‘zero-tolerance’ policy of guilt by association rather than by evidence.

It may be that there are some substantive outcomes of the enquiry, but the echoes of the Salem witch trials are becoming louder and louder.

Once again AussieRulesBlog addresses the Essendon supplement affair, but the reason and the direction will surprise.

In normal circumstances, we try extremely hard to divorce other parts of our existence from AussieRulesBlog. This site is about Aussie rules football.

The circumstances are not normal. Essendon’s favourite son, third-best player of all time and current coach, James Hird, is under attack in a way we can’t recall having been used in football before. If anyone has suggestions for similarly virulent and sustained public shaming, we’d be glad to reconsider.

You’d think then, that vocal support from a well-connected public figure without any allegiance to the Essendon Football Club or James Hird would be welcome. You’d be wrong. Dead wrong!

The Herald-Sun’s attack-dog “opinion” columnist and blogger, Andrew Blot, allowed the semi-trained monkeys who pen his drivel to write in support of Hird on Wednesday. Superficially, that support is welcomed by AussieRulesBlog, but the devil is in the detail.

The very tactics of the “pack” [Blot’s term] pursuing Hird that Blot decries so vehemently are the self-same tactics used by the “pack” [our term this time] led by Blot and others in dogged pursuit of Prime Minister Gillard.

Whatever your political stripe, on any assessment based on respectful and considered human discourse,Gillard has been shamefully treated by Blot and his mates. The similarities to the treatment meted out to Hird stand out like beacons on a dark night.

Blot ferociously lashes the malicious framing and prejudgement of Hird without evidence — and yet that’s precisely how he and his mates have treated the Prime Minister.

Tell him, Hirdy. Tell him to take his sanctimonious hypocritical support and shove it where the sun don’t shine.

With so much breathless rumour-based hyperbole over the supplements affair at Essendon, it's easy to miss some real-world perspectives.

On Saturday morning, AussieRulesBlog found ourselves with some time to spare and Fox Footy screening the 2012 Grand Final Recall. What an interesting show!

The recall consists of team members and coach watching the replay back and answering questions from the Fox Footy representatives — in this case, Dwayne Russell and former Swans coach Paul Roos. The whole is filmed, with inserts of the players' and coach's faces on the screen as they watch the game.

The insights provided by the players and coach, albeit secure in the knowledge of their eventual victory, were very illuminating. But there were two little sequences that gave us pause for thought.

In the first sequence, early in the game, Ted Richards kicks the ball. The kick is extremely ordinary. Laughing, coach John Longmire explained, "Teddy couldn't feel his foot!"

For the fourth quarter, Longmire was joined by Richards among others.

During the course of the quarter, Richards related how the ankle he'd injured the previous week had kept him from training in the week leading up to the Grand Final. He told how his ankle was injected with local anaesthetic before the game — hence Longmire's earlier comment. The local deadened the pain for about twenty minutes and then the pain began to return.

So, at each break in the game, Richards once again had a local administered to his ankle.

It has become part of the circus surrounding the supplements affair that past players have decried current players being injected. Yet Richards' experience wasn't some sort if sci-fi brave new world of football medicine. If not common, it's at the very least unremarkable in the AFL industry that a player plays with the assistance of a local anaesthetic.

All injections, it seems, are not equal.

Regular readers will know that AussieRulesBlog supports Essendon, but we pride ourselves on our ability to comment on issues without our allegiance muddying our view.

That said, statements by Essendon coach James Hird at the press conference following the Bombers’ (magnificent) fighting victory over Fremantle last night are worthy of further comment.

We suspect few would raise an eyebrow in surprise if told that John Elliot or Graeme Richmond had crashed through the rules whilst seeking an advantage for their respective clubs.

James Hird, and Essendon Chairman David Evans and CEO Ian Robson for that matter, are cut from different cloth.

Hird’s calm and measured statement at his press conference:

"People say things, and you know they're untrue, and you know you've got truth on your side, you go hard, and when you get your opportunity you tell the whole truth.”
"When the truth comes out, I think I'll be in a very, very good position and so will this football club.”

doesn’t allow for misinterpretation. It’s absolutely unequivocal.

All of which makes the statements by AFL Chief Executive Andrew Demetriou on Hird in recent days seem rather strange.

It has been conventional wisdom that Demetriou has some reasonable knowledge of the issues being investigated by the Australian Crime Commission, and in Essendon’s case by the AFL itself and ASADA. That view can no longer be supported. Demetriou is, like the rest of us, merely a passenger on the journey.

It appears it may be August before there’s a resolution following the investigations. The only thing that’s certain is that certain “journalists” will maintain their habit of allowing rumour, innuendo, suspicion and hyperbole to be the basis for their poison pen letters.

Walking to the ’G on Saturday night down Clarendon Street, AussieRulesBlog and friend remarked on the exceedingly slow pace of the line of traffic waiting to enter the MCG carpark.

The reason became clear after we crossed Wellington Parade. There was a sign as the Yarra Park entrance announcing that the carpark was full. That’s all very helpful, but the sign couldn’t be seen without crossing over Wellington Parade.

Let’s say, right now, that those who decide to park at Yarra Park for the football take their chance anyway, since there’s no guarantee. AussieRulesBlog parks a couple of kilometers away and walks in — a much less stressful solution.

Notwithstanding the right or wrong of sitting in a line of traffic, using petrol, just so you only have to walk a hundred metres to the stadium, why hasn’t someone devised a system of signs in Clarendon Street to advise the poor sods driving down it that there is no carparking available at Yarra Park? Not hard to do and it would calm what we are sure are some quite angry people when they discover they’ve waiting so long for nothing (and probably missed the start of the game).

AussieRulesBlog likes Brad Scott. Not as much as brother Chris, but we think Brad is doing a first-rate job for the Kangaroos. But, just like he did when playing, he sometimes has brain fades. Such as the case today.

Today, with the Kangaroos taking on the Cats at Docklands, Brad was coaching against brother Chris. Hopefully all readers are familiar enough with the game to realise that the Docklands stadium has an opening (and closing) roof.

The stadium’s roof is often a cause for complaint. Most often, it’s the blinding contrast — for players, broadcast cameras and punters in the stands — between the sunny bits and the deep shade when the roof is open on a sunny day.

Today we got a new complaint. For some reason, despite a forecast of isolated showers, the powers that be decreed the game between the Kangaroos and the Cats would be played sans roof.

As is Melbourne’s reputation, the sun/shade issues was a factor early in the game, but by the third quarter the weather gods had decided a shower of rain was appropriate. So an oval that sees more sprinklers than it does rain, became slippery.

After the game, which the Kangaroos lost by four (4) points on virtually the last kick of the game, Brad Scott approached an AFL official, apparently to complain that the roof hadn’t been closed to keep out the rain.

What’s up, Brad? Had the game been played anywhere else, there’s no roof to worry about. If it rains, the players play in the rain. Do you think it was the rain that caused one of your players to give away the fifty-metre penalty that ensured you lost the game?

Brain fade!

It happens every year, so we shouldn’t be surprised. The Giesch’s mob have changed the rules again. If you’ve been watching games from the first two rounds of 2013, perhaps you’ve noticed players being thrown to the ground, or hoisted out of packs, after losing possession of the ball?

AussieRulesBlog is sure it was only last year that free kicks were paid against players who hung on for the merest fraction of a second after an opponent had disposed of the ball. What irked up most about that situation was the same ruling was used when the tackle knocked the ball free. On many, many occasions, the tackling player had no way of knowing that the tackled player no longer had the ball.

You’ll also have noticed that the interpretations of push in the back and forceful contact below the knees have softened after only one round!

It’s boring, we know, but why can’t we have the same interpretation applying from the very first bounce of pre-season to the last seconds of the Grand Final? What is so damned difficult about that?

Release the Giesch!

We admit to being a bit of a traditionalist. It was some five years ago that we leapt into the social media world, starting AussieRulesBlog. We haven’t exactly set the blogosphere afire, but we’re quietly happy to have Feedburner indicating 42 (at tonight) hapless souls are linked to our feed.

So, this being the 21st-century and all, we thought it might be time to branch out and dabble in a little Twitter. We often see things in and around the footy that excite or annoy us, but mostly they’re forgotten before we get a chance to blog about them. No longer! (and we’re not sure whether it’s a good or a bad thing!)

Starting tomorrow, if something moves us, we’re going to let the world know — or at least that tiny bit of it that watches our scribblings.

This post wouldn’t be complete without an abject and desperate plea for regular readers to follow us on Twitter. You’ll find us at @AussieRulesBlog. Innovative name, huh?  :-)

There’s a degree of furore over the Lindsay Thomas-Ben Reid incident in the Kangaroos–Barcodes game.

As the game footage makes pretty clear, Thomas makes contact with Reid roughly 10 metres off the ball as Reid chases a North player toward the boundary. In the image above, the ball is shown against the crowd, almost directly above Alan Toovey’s head. It is clearly more than 5 metres from Reid.

Had there not been a head clash, no-one would take a scrap of notice of this incident. Despite the Laws of the Game specifying that a player cannot be shepherded unless within 5 metres of the ball, shepherds and blocks similar to this are absolutely unremarkable.

It’s also unremarkable that the Match Review Panel seems to be working to a different set of standards to the rest of us.

It would be pretty easy to mount a case that we saw the best game for the season in round one on Easter Monday. The Hawks and Cats duked it out before a great crowd, with the Cats maintaining their dominance of the Hawks and getting the cream.

As good as Ablett was on Saturday night, how good was Joel Selwood today? What a player, what a captain!! And Sam Mitchell might not be the spiritual leader of the Hawks, but he is without peer as a pinpoint midfield disposal machine. Some of his foot passes had to be seen to be believed.

For all the great things about the game though, and there were many, there were some key negatives.

How does a player who loses his footing millimetres in front of a pursuing opponent get a free kick when his opponent stumbles over him? The new interpretation of a push in the back is fine if it is a guy laying on an opponent. This wasn’t. This was a rubbish decision, there’s just no other way to call it.

How does a player, already on the ground, roll over and brush an opponent’s shin and get free kicked for a forceful sliding tackle? Another rubbish decision.

Why is a ball dribble-kicked along the boundary for 40 metres penalised for deliberate out of bounds — nonsense decision, especially when the player had no other options available — while another kick down the line, but ten metres from the boundary, which takes a fickle bounce and goes out of bounds is not paid as deliberate out of bounds? Does the umpiring department know that AFL is played with an elliptical ball which has an unpredictable bounce?

Finally, it’s depressing that so many free kicks are for tiggy touchwood contact, but so many more purposeful illegal contacts which seem blindingly obvious are missed.

We expect that the umpiring interpretations will soften in a few weeks, but why do we have to go through this nonsense at the start of every season? Surely someone at Giesch Central can decide on an interpretation which takes into account real world circumstances? Why is it they begin the season umpiring to the letter of the law — and beyond — only to soften that attitude weeks later when there’s been a hue and cry about umpiring? It can’t be that difficult to come up with a middle-of-the-road starting point and follow it for the year!

And, for those who haven’t heard, Jeff Kennett apparently has called for Alistair Clarkson to be sacked at the end of the year after a more than honourable 8-point loss to one of the best teams in the country in round one of the season. If anyone harboured any delusions that Kennett is not a prize idiot, surely this will remove them.

With one game still to come of the opening round, there are plenty of talking points.

• Have the Suns come of age faster than many had given them credit for?
• The AFL seem hell-bent on changing some things, but slow to react to more obvious issues.
• Were the Demons really that bad?
• Are the Bulldogs really that good?
• Two teams playing in vertical stripes and the sky didn’t fall in!

Watching the Suns on Saturday night was an interesting experience. AussieRulesBlog likes to see an underdog succeed, so we were naturally predisposed to be pleased about their performance (and the Saints aren’t our favourite mob). Conditions certainly played a part — no amount of match practice is going to give a properly-hardened match fitness — but without a certain shaven-headed midfielder dragging teammates to the win, the Saints would have cruised to victory.

When the Suns got the sniff of victory, they found extra reserves of physical capacity. Likewise, as the Saints perceived the game slipping away, their lactate-bound muscles tied up even further.

Gazza is really something else. There’s no other player in the competition who could have dragged his team over the line the way he did. He is head-and-shoulders above any other player in the competition. There is daylight in second and third place!

Despite Ablett’s influence, the Suns look to have overcome those second-year blues — as we predicted might be the case — and the recruitment of a few extra hardened bodies has helped to spread the load a little more too.

. . .

The AFL is a curious beast. Hell-bent on changing some things faster than the speed of light, it has to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to recognise issues that are clear as day to the rest of us. This time it’s the fluoro orange uniforms of team runners. Against anyone but the Suns or the Swans (both with predominantly red strip), there’s no problem, but when either of these two are involved there’s a serious issue. This happens occasionally with the umpires’ colour strips too. It seems like someone at AFL house hasn’t put their thinking cap on.

But the AFL’s reaction is to deny there’s a problem. It actually reminds us of the Church of Rome’s doctrine of infallibility.

We highlighted last season the problem of goal umpires wearing navy blue jackets in cold weather. Why are their jackets not a green — or blue or yellow — similar to their shirts?

Let’s hope that Mark Evans can improve on the seemingly muddle-headed analysis of unlamented predecessor Adrian Anderson and take some action to get these issues sorted.

. . .

The Demons have provided the round’s major talking point with their unflattering display against Port. AussieRulesBlog watched a portion of the game on replay and the Dees weren’t totally disastrously bad. It seemed to us to be a matter of effort — they were working at 95% and Port were operating at 102%. In a two-horse race, that difference translates into a chasm.

What’s concerning is turning up to round one and giving 95%. The next few weeks will tell whether the problem is transient or terminal, and the bloke with the responsibility is Mark Neeld.

Port actually showed a bit, albeit against ordinary opposition, that highlights a potential problem for the Demons. What if Mark Neeld is actually a very good assistant coach, as it appears Matthew Primus might be, as it appears Mark Harvey might be? The Hinckley-coached Port looked a much better team than the Primus-coached Port, with not a great change in personnel. What if the Demons have chosen two good assistant coaches in a row to head their footy department?

. . .

As poor as the Demons appeared, the Bulldogs looked great in demolishing a clearly over-confident Brisbane. Who would have thought that losing an ageing star and gaining an ageing recruit could turn a list around? And yet it seems that Brendan McCartney might just have done it. If Brett Goodes down back allows Bob Murphy to play forward, the ‘Dogs could well fulfil the promise that AussieRulesBlog always felt they had.

. . .

Yesterday’s battle of the stripes — Kangaroos versus Barcodes — didn’t result in the end of the world. Just like the Mayan calendar fiasco, predictions of dire results proved fruitless. There was more colour confusion at Metricon Stadium than at Docklands. No need for Argentinean strip for the Roos. Hopefully that teacup can remain storm-free for a good many years now.

AussieRulesBlog has officially contributed to charity with our entries to footy tipping! With six games done and dusted for round one, we have picked just two winners — and one of those was (apparently) an upset.

Still, from a generalist football perspective, wins for the Bulldogs (most emphatically) and the Suns (in the battle of the last quarter cripples) were “good for football”. The Suns showed a resilience that many — not ARB, we hasten to add — had suspected would remain absent for years. We hope the players learn the song properly as some were still glancing to the walls for the words!

The Lions would be the biggest loser so far, their sparkling pre-season form having deserted them yesterday at Docklands to the tune of an eleven-goal loss. It’s not an insurmountable hurdle, but it would seem their minds weren’t switched on to the task. The Bulldogs will take enormous confidence and heart from a game that they owned from the first bounce.

For the rest of the Easter weekend, we’ve put the Kiss of Death on Port to overcome the Demons, the Barcodes to deal with a resurgent Kangaroos and the Cats to maintain their mental dominance over the Hawks.

Next weekend, things return to normal, with nine games across the weekend and we can settle down to too much footy! We can’t wait!

It’s a tight game. There can’t be long to go. The team we’re supporting is three points up and can’t get the ball out of the opposition forward line. Out of nowhere, an opposition player flukes a goal! Now we’re three points down. the ball goes back to the centre to restart the game. Can we get the ball into our forward line to get the vital goal to win the game? The tension is electric! There’s a clearance from the centre bounce, it goes to our star player who takes the ball inside 50 and is steadying for a kick for goal . . . .

The tension is obvious. Put in a countdown clock and it’s diminished by a huge degree. But that doesn’t stop the boosters pushing the idea.

AussieRulesBlog simply cannot understand why anyone would want to know ten or twenty seconds before the siren goes that their team’s chances of winning were zero. Watching broadcast games where there is a countdown clock, we know the game is done and dusted and we simply turn it off. There’s just no reason to continue to watch. It’s the unknown time remaining that creates and builds the tension. Once you know, there is no tension.

It almost feels like footy is back properly. Eighty thousand at the G last night to see the Tiges limp over the line in front of the fast-finishing Blues, and more games tomorrow! (No AFL on Good Friday, although NRL and others are quite happy to use the day. Not sure why AFL is skittish about the day, but then ARB is atheist!)

The off season seemed to last forever, although regular scandals and the seemingly interminable Draft and trading period did keep footy in the news. Since the start of the pre-season comp though, the “Phoney War” has dragged on even longer it seems that the off season did.

To borrow a line from Rampaging Roy Slaven and H G Nelson, we need to quickly get back to a situation “where too much [footy] is barely enough”. Bring it on!

Last night, neither the Tiges not the Blues were convincing. Both had periods of dominance. The Tiges tried hard early to kick themselves out of the match and the Blues looked like witches hats, such was their inability to influence the game. Then a switch was flicked and it was the Blues’ turn to dominate. Both sides will rue the missed opportunities, but it’s really hard, at this early stage at least, to imagine that either will play in September.

Lies, damned lies and statistics

And, finally, can we return to a theme from a little while ago? According to Champion Data, Shaun Grigg is an elite AFL player. We’ve never met Shaun and he is probably a perfectly affable chap, but an “elite” AFL player? If ever there were a modern demonstration of Benjamin Disraeli’s famous disdain for statistics, this is it.

Grigg’s decision-making is ordinary and his disposal is poor (although often quite long by foot). He seems to get a bit of the ball, but he doesn’t regularly — or intentionally it seems — put his teammates into advantage. He’s not alone, of course. To be fair, these have been pretty consistent traits of Richmond teams for decades. Even the Tiges’ up and coming stars aren’t immune to the disease with Cotchin and Martin both demonstrating their mortal skills too often last night.

It’s not often that AussieRulesBlog ventures to comment on sports other than AFL. Two reasons: we’re called AussieRulesBlog (duh!); and we’re really only peripherally interested in the other sports. But there’s a special reason today why we’re bending the rules.

Despite the variations in climate between, say, Hobart and Perth or Brisbane, and putting aside home crowds for a moment, travelling AFL teams compete on a more-or-less level playing field. That’s to say, teams can expect to play essentially much the same game in Hobart or Brisbane and have similar expectations of success.

Would that that were the case in international cricket. The Australian cricket team’s humbling in India over recent weeks might be perhaps the ultimate example of ‘home ground advantage’.

In less affluent and more relaxed days, Australian cricket teams would head off for an overseas tour with a schedule of matches against less-exalted local opponents to allow them some acclimatisation time. Not now. Every playing days is so sponsor-crucial that there’s no time for the Australian team to warm up for three or four days against the Maharajah of Dehli’s youth XI. It’s straight into a Test match against the best players the host country can field.

Little wonder then that the tour of India has been such a disaster. Add some questionable team culture and some egos seemingly out of control and you’ve got all the ingredients to become a laughing stock.

So, next time you hear someone having a whinge about a West Coast or Fremantle crowd in Perth baying for free kicks, remind them that it could be a lot worse. It could be Chennai, the oval could be more gravel than grass and the crowd could the three times as big and three times as loud!

One thing was crystal clear in last night’s season opener between the Bombers and the Crows. Only one team had understood and practised the changed rules, especially sliding into a contest.

Crows coach Brenton Sanderson’s contention that the Crows were ‘guinea pigs’ for the sliding rule is nonsense. Both teams were playing under the new rules for the first time (for Premiership points), but only the Bombers seemed to have practised new tackling techniques and understood how to play to the new rules and interpretations.

So, it’s all systems go for the 2013 season, with just three sleeps left. In some ways, it seems like footy never took a break. There was the extended Draft and trading period with the beginning of a new free-agency era, the defection of Brendon Goddard to the Bombers and the subsequent hoo-ha around Kurt Tippett, the Crows and the Swans.

Just when it seemed we could all settle down to be bored to snores with yachting and tennis, the Bombers got on their PR front foot and invited ASADA and the AFL in to examine some practices they thought were OK that were about to be mentioned in the ACC’s report.

And then the AFL decided Melbourne hadn’t ‘tanked’, but fined them $500k just the same and suspended two former club officials.

And just so the AFL didn’t completely hog the sporting highlights, Cronulla Sharks found they had maybe only half a team to field

The pre-season competition has given a taste of what’s to come. More experienced players than ever before have changed clubs — the summer migrations are almost at the levels of NRL. Will the change enhance careers, or sentence them to obscurity AND damnation.

As we noted in our previous post, a few new rules will test the public’s engagement for a few weeks. The coming weekend will give an indication whether The Giesch’s boys put the whistle away last week ‘because it was a Grand Final’. AussieRulesBlog won’t be in the least surprised to see the umpires taking a no-holds-barred approach to implementing the new rules. They’ll justify it by telling themselves they need to stamp their authority on the game, but really they’ll just be their normal overzealous early-season prat selves.

AussieRulesBlog has never been about predictions, at least as far as match results and final ladder positions are concerned, and we’re not about to change. There are, however, a few things we’re waiting to see with some eagerness.

• Will Special K continue his development and stamp a claim as an elite AFL player?
• Will the Giants experience second-year blues (as the Suns seemed to do last year)? And will people stop trying to get their tongues around GWS and just call them the Giants and be done with it?
• Will the Suns surprise the pundits and finish above the Giants?
• Which of the free agents will stamp themselves as the trade of the year?
  Moloney has looked good for the Lions (and the Demons must be wondering why the body snatchers left them with a dud while he was apparently playing for them).

All will soon be revealed, and we’re pretty excited that it’s all about to go again.

Go Bombers!

Having spent much of the pre-season competition period in northern climes, AussieRulesBlog has been catching up with some of the games from that period.

The two biggest things that struck us, apart from the non-apocalyptic effect of interchange caps, were the new interpretation of the push in the back rule and the new rule against forceful contact below the knees.

No doubt, like everyone else, The Giesch’s team will take a little while to come to grips with how these work. The pre-season final seemed to be far more sensibly umpired in these respects than some of the other pre-season games.

We’re most uncomfortable with interpretations that don’t allow the officiating umpire to take into account the context of what they see before them.

So a player who was bending over to take possession of the ball and bumped into an opponents lower legs was free-kicked in a game we viewed tonight. Bending over, not sliding in. Is it the rule that’s poorly written, the interpretation that’s poorly written, or the umpire getting it wrong?

And in the push in the back instance, we’ve seen numerous examples of tackled players being rolled in the tackle to avoid the tackler making contact to the back, but the umpire awarding a free kick, presumably because they thought there must have been miniscule contact to the back.

Neither of these rules are going to be popular with fans as the interpretations stand. Stadiums are going to erupt when these free kicks are awarded. We think players will also feel hard done by as they make strenuous efforts to avoid illegal contact.

Setting up rigid criteria for these rules follows the patterns set in previous years by The Giesch. As the season begins, umpires are calling every little incident that might be perceived to infringe these new interpretations. It results in over-fussy umpiring, frustrated players and a fanbase even more disenchanted with the whistleblowers.

It’s hard to understand how this is a positive for a part of the game struggling to attract recruits.

We estimate about round 4 as the time we’ll start noticing that zero-tolerance rules are being umpires with a little flexibility.

If the AFL, or the AFL Umpiring Department were under the benign dictatorship of AussieRulesBlog, our first instruction would be to give umpires the prerogative to apply the rules in the context of the game going on in front of them. We’d also conduct a vigourous and lengthy campaign to educate football followers to understand how umpires would interpret the rules.

Just waiting for Mike Fitzpatrick’s call . . .

The current ructions in the Australian cricket team appear to be all about commitment and adherence to team values.

AussieRulesBlog watched an interview of Adam Goodes last night (The New Back Page, Fox Sports) and, not for the first time, we were struck by the man's genuine commitment to his teammates.

We were completely gobsmacked by the recent revelations from the Australian swimming team's London campaign.

The common thread? The culture of the team and commitment to sporting excellence as a team. Another common thread? Teams with obviously poor culture tend not to perform to expectations. The Australian cricket team's current Indian tour and the Australian swimming team's much-hyped, but disappointing, London campaign would seem to offer examples.

Despite swimming being a largely individual sport, cultural dynamics in the team saw them deliver an uninspiring result. As taxpayers, we're entitled to expect taxpayer-funded athletes to prepare themselves in the most professional manner possible for the most important competition on their calendar.

The cricket tour of India must be one of the hardest asks of any sporting team, and while the goat track served up as a test cricket pitch in the second test didn't help, the commitment of some team members to overcome the inherent difficulties and make a competitive showing seems to have been well short of what we'd expect of the ccountry's elite cricketers.

In AFL terms, what damage did Travis Cloke's self-indulgent handling of contract negotiations do to his team's Premiership chances? Will Lance Franklin's similar stance cruel the Hawks' chances?

We reckon team success is a lot like rowing a boat. If one or two oarsmen are out of stroke, it's all but impossible to move effectively. If the other oarsmen aren't sure how hard the stroke oarsman is pulling, they're less likely to give the 110% required for success. Last year's AFL Grand Final might have been almost the ultimate expression of the old adage: a champion team will always beat a team of champions.