North Melbourne Football Club has torn itself a new one this week. The last-minute announcement of no contract extensions for four of its veterans has to be the most-botched player management and public relations exercise in AFL/VFL history. What were they thinking?

It’s telling that none of the four were aware of their fate until the day before the axe fell. That means, despite the coach’s assurances to the media throng, there had not been honest and meaningful discussions with the four about their futures. Only the draft and trading period will show whether the prospect of a deal ‘forced’ the club’s hand.

There are few things about AFL clubs that are as meaningful to the members who pay their membership dues and the punters who buy their general admission tickets as the respect and love afforded to club champions and stalwarts. An appropriate exit builds club legacy and culture. Clubs disrespect club champions and stalwarts at their peril.

Last year, Geelong showed how the same objective could be accomplished with dignity and respect. The final game with the Cats for Steve Johnson, James Kelly and Matthew Stokes, with the three held aloft at the end of the game and receiving the thanks of thousands of supporters was a blueprint for how to manage the scenario. Clearly Johnson felt he had more to offer, but that didn't dampen the fans’ enthusiastic send-off.

It’s hard to imagine how there can be any unambiguous celebration of the storied careers of Brent Harvey, Drew Petrie, Michael Firrito and Nick Dal Santo.

The North Melbourne administration and coach Brad Scott have tarnished their reputations beyond repair. Whatever the logic of moving veterans on to give opportunity to up-and-comers, the club's leaders have disrespected three club stalwarts and the club’s fans, driving a dagger of mistrust through the Shinboner Spirit. It will be a football generation before the club recovers.

The furore this week over free kicks for tackles over the shoulders need not have happened. That it has is down to the AFL's long-standing tradition of using a wrecking ball to remove a mosquito.

Years ago, in response to increasing instances of head injuries, the game's lawmakers declared players' heads sacrosanct. No action that involved contact above the shoulders would be tolerated, not even accidental, unintentional contact. That, we were assured, would protect the players from themselves — except that it didn't.

Players, being competitive beasts, began to devise ways of 'drawing' free kicks for contact over the shoulder.

Famously, the Selwood brothers seemed to patent a muscular shrug that saw a tackler's arms pushed up so that contact above the particular Selwood's shoulder was all but inevitable. Some others devised a sagging of the knees at the critical moment that thwarted a tackler's aim and drew the free kick.

Others, and Selwood J. too for that matter, discovered they could bend down while picking the ball up and drive their heads into opponents and draw a free kick for high contact.

More recently, and demonstrated with extreme panache on Friday night against the Swans, Kangaroo Lindsay Thomas — a past master of the aforementioned strategies — showed that he could back into a trailing tackler and position himself such as to, almost inevitably, draw the free kick for high contact.

Let's start by agreeing that the AFL's intent in reducing the number of head injuries for players at all levels of the sport is a most laudable motive. It's just the way they've gone about it that is dumb.

And let's also agree that the umpires are the not the bad guys here. They're umpiring to the rules they've been given. And it will surprise many readers to read that the umpires are much, much closer than we are in the stands and they can see things that we in the stands can't. It's a shock, right? Most of the time, the slo-mo close-up replays show that the umpires have officiated the rule that they're charged with enforcing. We may not like the decisions they make, but they're doing what they're coached to do.

Remember the wrecking ball and the mosquito? The mosquito is the problem: head injuries to players. The wrecking ball? A zero tolerance approach.

Zero tolerance approaches, especially in Aussie Rules, generally don't work*. Well, they work for a short time, and then the inventive, innovative players and coaches devise strategies to eke an advantage out of the situation.

In contrast to zero tolerance, a nuanced approach gives an umpire, in the case of Aussie Rules, scope to make a decision that suits the context of the situation facing them. A ruck leaps into the air and a free arm accidentally brushes lightly across the opponent's shoulder. In a zero tolerance world, it's a free kick despite it not impeding the opponent. In a nuanced world, the umpire can make an informed, close-up judgement of the contact and whether it actually impeded the opponent.

A couple of years ago we had the same zealous, zero-tolerance approach to hands in the back — which has now, thankfully, downgraded to a more nuanced approach.

It is time for the AFL, its Rules Committee and the umpiring department to come up with an approach that protects players' heads to a reasonable degree, but doesn't provide a source of cheap free kicks for players to farm. A nuanced approach will give us that result, because umpires will be empowered to ignore the players who intentionally draw head-high tackles.

Whatever solution is decided upon, it will only be temporary. The game is in an arms race — teams versus the rules and officials. As one gains a temporary ascendancy, the other finds a way to fight back. Zero tolerance virtually hands players and coaches a manual on how to thwart the intent of a rule.


* We will admit that a zero tolerance approach to the non-wearing of seat belts in cars worked to save lives and change a social norm.

The now-infamous Mason Wood shot clock wait has forced the AFL to make a change to shot clock arrangements for the balance of the season. The shot clock will not be seen on the large screens at AFL grounds during the final two minutes of each quarter, according to AFL operations boss Mark Evans.

AussieRulesBlog has mixed feelings about these issues.

The Mason Wood scenario, with the player clearly wasting time to give his team a better chance to win is ugly. But, as many have noted, he didn't contravene the Laws of the Game.

Evans, citing Nick Riewoldt as an example, noted that some players were exhausted when they got the ball and deserved as much time as was available to compose themselves before kicking. Well, yes — and no.

Clearly goals are important, both for winning the game, and for providing a spectacle for fans. Pity the poor exhausted defender or midfielder who has a bare six seconds to compose himself and take his kick. A poor kick from defence is tantamount to giving a goal away.

Thirty seconds seems too long for a shot for goal. As an Essendon fan, I grew used to seeing Matthew Lloyd go through his routine — and it didn't seem anywhere near as long as Mason Wood waited! Can we split the difference and make it 15 seconds for all kicks?

It was an ugly way to finish an otherwise fantastic game of Aussie Rules tonight, with a Kangaroos player waiting for the countdown clock to expire at the end of the game.

AussieRulesBlog has never liked countdown clocks being available at the game to competing teams. Putting the goalkicking countdown clock on the screen for players to see removes much of the tension in a game, and could, possibly, have deprived the Saints of a chance to snatch a victory.

Revelations from Neil Balme late in the week that football “journalist” Mark Robinson had manufactured his story about Barcode players testing positive for illicit drugs in off-season didn't surprise AussieRulesBlog. But it’s good to see a move toward holding journalists to account for their stories.

Following Balme's statement, it emerged that the Barcodes’ playing group had decided to “ban” Robinson. On SEN radio’s Crunch Time preview show on Saturday morning, Robinson was required to not participate when the rest of the SEN panel interviewed Taylor Adams.

The evening before, again on SEN’s Crunch Time, Saints coach Alan Richardson emphatically denied a media report that recruit Jake Carlisle’s hip injury was much worse that the Saints had understood when recruiting him.

What has emerged from these two instances is that some “journalists” are deciding the stories they will write and then looking for ways to support their position. And it's about time this sort of grubby behaviour was exposed.

Last week’s story by Mark Robinson on out-of-season hair testing for illicit drug use is, unwittingly, shining the spotlight on the AFL’s confidentiality problem.

Under the agreement struck between the AFL and the AFLPA, the results of the testing are treated as confidential individual health information. As such, the results, and presumably names, are available to club doctors, and, presumably de-identified, to club CEOs. How these officers treat the information within their club is their decision.

Robinson’s story claims that “up to eleven” Collingwood players tested positive to illicit drug use in out-of-season testing.

How would that information have found its way to the Herald-Sun? It’s reasonable to assume that Collingwood didn't pass it on, notwithstanding that they are probably angry at “up to eleven” of their players. It’s also reasonable to assume that Collingwood’s results wouldn't have been passed on to other club CEOs who could then leak them for competitive advantage. So, there are only two possible sources remaining: the organisation doing the actual testing, and the AFL.

Robinson has been copping flak on social media and from clubs, and so he should. Having access to the information doesn’t mean a story has to be written. In yet another indication of mainstream media’s clickbait mentality, Robinson and his editors demonstrate their amoral approach to news. But that’s not where the real blame resides.

This leaking of confidential information from the AFL, or a closely-linked organisation, isn't an isolated case. Anyone who cast a disinterested eye over the Essendon supplements furore will recall consistent, sustained leaking of confidential information to journalists.

This is Gillon McLachlan’s problem.

We watched the Richmond-Port Adelaide pre-season practice game on Foxtel last night and couldn't believe our ears near the end.

It was a spirited affair throughout, with the Tigers’ abysmal skills — and, it must be said, a mounting in-game injury toll — contributing to their inability to compete with Port.

Halfway through the last quarter, with Port well ahead, Tigers coach Damien Hardwick began ushering his best players from the field. It wasn't immediately clear whether he feared injury or exhaustion, but at the end of the game the Tigers only had about 15 players on the field. Apparently, Richmond asked for the game to be called off during the last quarter.

There's plenty of grist for controversy in what’s been described, but that wasn't what stunned us.

As AFL football operations chief Mark Evans consulted with Richmond officials on the sidelines, Foxtel caller Eddie “Everywhere” Maguire remarked that Hardwick’s actions could have wider implications, including the betting markets.

There was also a question to Carlton coach Brendan Bolton after the Blues fielded an inexperienced line-up against the Bombers. The questioner implied that Bolton should have considered the betting markets in choosing his squad for the game.

We had been aware that online bookmakers were framing markets on the pre-season “challenge” games. Maguire’s comment  brought the issue to our attention again.

People are wagering money on practice games? That’s tragic on so many levels. Despite the hyper-inflated hyperbole of callers like Dwayne Russell, these are practice games. The football public has only the barest idea of what each club’s objectives for each practice game may be. In these circumstances, does the AFL condone betting markets being framed on these “contests”?

AussieRulesBlog can imagine a relatively-sane rationale for gambling on home and away matches, or finals. At the very least, on most occasions, both teams go onto the field with a scoreboard victory as a primary motivation. Particularly down-trodden teams might go into games against more-fancied opponents with the objective of limiting the scoreboard humiliation, but there’s a genuine contest.

As we’ve seen in recent weeks, practice games are quite another matter. West Coast, for instance, fielded a veritable ‘seconds’ team in their first pre-season hitout and were trounced by the Crows — on the scoreboard. In their second game, against the Suns, West Coast fielded a far more experienced lineup, running out three-point ‘winners’ over a similarly experienced Suns group. Even on these basic facts, it’s abundantly clear that West Coast’s objectives in these two games were, at the very least, dissimilar.

The tissue of respectability the gambling industry hides behind is the now-ubiquitous “gamble responsibly” message that accompanies gambling advertising. Do Mike Fitzpatrick, Gill McLachlan and Mark Evans know how many children will go without this week because a parent gambled on an AFL practice game? And to what extent would consideration of betting markets influence a decision to suspend a game?

The link between the AFL competition and gambling is troubling.

We're watching the Cats and Barcodes going around on the second weekend of preseason, and it just occurred to us that something is missing.

The concept of having every scoring decision correct  isn't a bad one, but when it means a minute or more of slow motion replay it becomes a needless distraction.

It has been noticeable (eventually) that the game is not being interrupted to check every close goal line decision. It took time to notice it was missing because it's rarely really necessary through the home and away season.

Let's just get rid of the distraction and let the goal umpires make their decision.

According to The Age's chief football writer, "The embarrassing oversight that has seen Alastair Clarkson not once named the AFL's coach of the year has led to a policy change by the games's coaching body."

Why is it embarrassing? Sure, his team has won three AFL Premierships on the trot — a not insignificant achievement — but should a premiership automatically qualify Clarkson to win the award? Should Clarkson get the gong if the Hawks finish ninth this year, as some sort of compensation?

We checked on the AFLCA website and here is the current basis for coaches voting on their peers for this award:

Allan Jeans Senior Coach of the Year AwardThis award is in recognition of the best performed Senior Coach throughout the home and away season, having regard for current season's performance, available resources, player talent and team management.

AussieRulesBlog has been lucky enough to see all but one of this first week's games via our pay-TV service. Our initial view that the game had changed has been vindicated.

These are practice games and most teams will be holding something in reserve. Nevertheless, the standard has been good mostly with all teams giving fans something to look forward to. For some it was a competitive quarter by a young group, for others a commanding win.

The key takeout is the change in tackling mentioned in a previous post. Interestingly, while catching the replay of the Brisbane–Gold Coast game tonight, Jonathan Brown and Cameron Mooney made the same point in commentary. In the past, they said, players were taught to try to hurt an opponent, by driving a shoulder into their ribs, or driving their opponent's shoulder into the turf. So far in 2016, we've noticed one fairly gentle 'sling'-type tackle. The tacklers' objectives seem to be simply to hold the ball carrier up and to try to win the holding the ball or incorrect disposal free kick. Old players are wistful for those 'harder' times, but we think this is an especially good development.

The other key thing we've taken note of is the attacking nature of the games, generally from both sides. There's nothing more than pride riding on the result, so there's no incentive for coaches to close these games up to stem scoreboard bleeding. It will be interesting to review the style of play in the first home and away round and see if the attacking style remains in vogue.

It's tough to look too closely at this week's games and extrapolate to a full season, but AussieRulesBlog thought the Tigers were the least impressive team. Their disposal was poor for a club that has aspirations to go deep into finals. They'll look better against teams less well-drilled than the Hawks, but our view of Richmond has long been that they reward mediocrity. This week's game did nothing to suggest they won't be afflicted with the same problem in 2016.

All in all, though, isn't it great to have some footy back?

Much bleating on social media and elsewhere about the week’s holiday being offered to Docker giant, Aaron Sandilands, but the MRP are following a well-established practice.

Sandilands can’t be blamed for being head and shoulders above the rest of the competition, at least in stature, but he erred on two counts. Firstly, Griffiths wasn’t his ruck opponent, and second, having chosen to bump, he (Sandilands) bears the responsibility for even coincidental high contact or injury.

It must be hard being that tall. There are probably less than a handful of opponents he can legitimately decide to bump without being in danger of high contact.

It goes without saying that there will be MRP decisions that will perplex and mystify, but this isn't one of them. Enjoy your week off, Aaron.

Watching the opening game of the 2016 pre-season tonight, one thing stood out — the change in tackling intention. It might be that the umpiring department have got onto something that will improve the game we watch every week.

In the lead-up to the game, it was made quite clear, though the media, that the umpires would strictly police slinging tackles. AussieRulesBlog sees that as a real plus, but we were prepared to be disappointed.

In recent years, the objective of tackling has seemed to be to force the opponent into the ground with as much force as could be mustered. Almost inevitably, we saw sling tackles and players, unable to protect or brace themselves, being slammed into the ground. A few concussions resulted in a so-called 'double movement' sling tackle becoming a reportable offence — but that didn't stop the intent to slam players into the turf.

Tonight's first pre-season game was played at a pretty good pace for a the first competitive practice game, with plenty of physical clashes. For all of that, the intention when tackling seemed to be to win a free kick for holding the ball or incorrect disposal, rather than to knock the opponent into next week. There were no sling-type tackles that we saw.

It was a refreshing change, and one that we hope to see repeated as we see more games.

There’s plenty for Blues fans to like from Brendan Bolton’s first outing as head coach, while Sam Mitchell looked not to have missed a beat from the Grand Final. It’s great to have footy back!

At first glance, Mick Malthouse’s reported $1 million price tag to manage the twelve suspended Bombers (and three at other Melbourne clubs?) for the 2016 season is a steep one. If Paul Little steps in and picks up the tab, it's a no-brainer. But even if the players funded it themselves, there's more upside than down.

Former ASADA chief Richard Ings’ condemnation of Essendon’s recruitment of former Docker Ryan Crowley says there can be no absolution for past sins.

For non-Twitterati, Ings’ tweet yesterday was :“Coming right out of a doping ban, Ryan Crowley signed by EFC as replacement for one of 12 banned for doping offenses. I do give up.” and a little later: “ IMO time served is of course the end of a ban. But my view relates to EFC distancing itself from all things ADRV related. The first signing.” (ADRV stands for anti-doping rule violation)

AussieRulesBlog accepts that EssendonFC will, for the foreseeable future, be known for the WADA bans, as will the thirty-four past and present Essendon players, and indeed Ryan Crowley.

But we wonder what length of time Ings has in mind for the Bombers to ‘distance [themselves]’ from such matters. Will they be pilloried if they accept the twelve banned players back into their ranks for the 2017 season? Crowley has served his time out of the game, as has Ahmed Saad. When would it be acceptable for the Bombers to consider them? How long is long enough? What about Justin Charles? Has enough time passed?

AussieRulesBlog didn’t break out the bubbly when Crowley’s signing was mooted, but he, Saad and Essendon have paid their penalties. Notwithstanding their inevitable long-term association with their particular doping issues, they're now fully entitled to get on with it.

AussieRulesBlog wonders how much disincentive the $5,000 suspended fine imposed on Dustin Martin by Richmond is to the young man. The fine was imposed after Victoria Police announced there would be no criminal prosecution out of Martin’s altercation with another restaurant patron. The suspended fine apparently relates to him drinking to excess, and thus contravening the [internal?] player code of conduct.

Let’s say Martin is on $500,000 per year — yes, it's probably more, but stay with us. After tax, $5,000 is around one week’s take-home pay.

For the person on around average male weekly earnings, a $5,000 fine is roughly five weeks’ take-home pay.

We leave readers to make up their own minds about the disincentive effects of the Tigers’ decision.

Whereas the AFL Drug Tribunal focused on whether Essendon players had been administered thymosin-beta 4 or not, the Court of Arbitration for Sport focused on what the players hadn't done. The difference between comission and omission — that pesky c — is the difference that saw the thirty-four past and present Essendon players banned today.

In the absence of positive drug testing results, the AFL Drug Tribunal’s hearing looked at what substances Steven Dank may have obtained, where he may have obtained them and who may have transmuted them into a useable form. It’s not too strong to say that Dank and his associates operated at the margins, so there were more holes in the chain of custody than a pair of fishnets.

WADA, on the other hand, had a telling precedent where no positive had been recorded — Lance Armstrong. They knew that circumstantial evidence could get them their desired result. And it wasn't hard to find.

The failure of the players to list the supplements that Dank was providing on their ASADA drug testing forms was the golden bullet. Anyone who is mystified or bemused about this decision need only read the CAS report to understand that.

Had the supplements been WADA-compliant, they could have been, and should have been, listed on the drug-tested players’ reports of supplements they'd used. It’s a red flag that no players filling out those forms listed the Dank-supplied supplements. And these players had all received the yearly AFL education about anti-doping testing and how to stay ‘clean’.

WADA and CAS inferred from the failure to list the Dank-supplied supplements that the substances weren’t WADA-compliant, and further, that the non-listing was an organised activity.

While the administration of non-compliant substances was very difficult to prove, proving the failure to list supplements was as easy as falling from a slippery log. Difficult-to-prove commission versus easy to prove omission.

There are further questions to be answered.

How complicit were club staff in the attempt to evade ASADA detection? That one might be answered in civil proceedings.

How were ASADA so woefully inept in their handling of this entire episode? That’s one for the politicians.

And will Andrew Demetriou’s fingerprints ever be erased from this whole saga? That one is for history.

The decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sport to suspend thirty-four past and present Essendon players over the 2012 supplements program is a decision with a world sport perspective. The anti-doping regime could not afford a no-fault defence to succeed.

Morally, the suspension of the players for an entire season is indefensible, but this decision has nothing to do with the rights or wrongs of the players’ position.

Had CAS found in favour of the players, very clever dopers all over the world would have quickly concocted means to deliver their chemical boosts to their targets under cover of the no-fault defence.

That is the essence of this decision. The players are collateral damage.