The Barcodes have been the poster boys for high-altitude training for quite a while now. AussieRulesBlog makes no secret of our scepticism, but just about every team bar the Nar Nar Goon thirds is taking off for mountain climes during the off-season these days.

So, we were more than usually interested to see that a scientific study of the Barcodes’ high-altitude efforts had been published.

Not being sufficiently flush to subscribe to the publishing journal (see previous post), we rely on the abstract (summary of the paper for those not familiar with academic terminology) for this discussion.

Apparently players who train at moderately high altitude for an extended period — 19 days in this study — make slight improvements in their time trials and red blood cell counts. Hardly surprising. Thinner air at higher altitude means more red blood cells are required to transport sufficient oxygen to the body’s muscles. Pretty much anyone spending an extended period at those altitudes will have an elevated red blood cell count.

The kicker in this study is that the high-altitude trainers were only measured against their sea-level ‘controls’ at the conclusion of the high-altitude training and again four weeks later.

Just to refresh your memory, this high altitude training — which generates an improvement of two (2) or three (3) per cent in time trials and red blood cell count — is normally conducted in November. And the benefits in terms of training capacity last for “at least four weeks”. Do the benefits last for eight weeks, or twelve? The home and away rounds are twenty-three (23) weeks, plus pre-season, plus finals.

Lets apply the blowtorch of logic to this result. If 19 days is sufficient for the body to acclimatise and produce more red blood cells, it’s likely that elevated count isn’t going to persist for too long when the body returns to sea level.

Red blood cells live for 100–120 days, so the extra cells generated in the high-altitude environment will die and not be replaced back at sea level — before the home and away rounds commence.

The Age’s story reports that the study acknowledged that the placebo effect could not be eliminated as a contributing factor to the alleged success of high-altitude training — this wasn’t included in the abstract. The placebo effect — change of scenery, excitement at being somewhere ‘special’, being told that high-altitude training would make them into super-men — is a far more likely cause for any longer-term benefits than the high-altitude training itself.

So, the Barcodes players might be (allegedly) human after all, and just gullible enough to believe in the high-altitude hype.

It’s a hardy perennial. No amount of ‘herbicide’ can kill it. When the calendar clicks around to September, you can be sure it’ll pop its old and wizened head up, just it like it did last year and the fifty or so years before that. It’s the yearly whinge of some President or other that their members are being diddled out of finals seats by the AFL’s seat allocation policies.

This year, getting an early start before the Grand Final is even a twinkle in anyone’s eye, it’s Barcode President Eddie “Everywhere” McGuire.

Give Eddie his due though. This year he’s come up with a rather novel stance. The AFL are trying to steal Barcode members apparently.

AussieRulesBlog will out ourselves as a paid up AFL Member. Silver in our case, and firmly an Essendon Club Support package. It’s a carryover from the Waverly days and came into its own for us when the Bombers relocated their home games from Windy Hill to the MCG. Now that the Dons play indoor footy at home, we’re seeing less value, but we keep it going anyway.

If you support one of the big clubs that call the G home and you’re not an AFL member, you’re a mug. More especially so if you occasionally like to pop along and watch teams other than your own go around.

According to McGuire, the AFL are trying to aggregate all club members into AFL membership. How? Well, the AFL allow AFL members to buy a limited number of Guest Passes — 1000 at $75 a pop, adult tickets elsewhere in the stadium range from $46 to $85 — for this Friday night’s game.

As is usual, many supporters find themselves unable to access tickets to the game. The AFL sells tickets to its members plus some guest passes, so therefore the AFL is the big, bad bogeyman.

This is getting boring in the extreme. A big club makes it to a final and some supporters who’d like to be able to go can’t get a ticket. Shock, Horror!Short of building a stadium with infinite capacity, there’s not a solution. The next obvious target is the MCC Members.

We’ll tell you what, Eddie. You could donate the tickets that you and your board and your sponsors are using and allow the poor downtrodden fans you pretend to be so concerned about to buy them . . .

If ever a proof were needed for the old adage about football being played 95% above the shoulders, the Blues provided it last night.

Clearly stung by the criticism of their coach, Brett Ratten, the Blues bounded out of the blocks.

The Barcodes, like the Bombers a few weeks ago against the then-winless Demons, seemed to play like they could turn it on when required. But when they hit the go pedal, the Blues responded.

So, the out-of-form Blues gave the Barcodes a lesson in mental preparation, if not football. There simply are no easy games at AFL level and the team that assumes it can win on its own terms is destined to fall short.

There’s a predictable storm in a teacup as our beloved Bombers reveal their new alternate guernsey, a mix of tradition and various enhancements designed to placate all but the most vociferous opponents.

The Bombers already feature grey in the logo and in various apparel items including training gear. Let’s be grateful they decided on grey and not the TrueValue Solar blue!

The real issue isn’t the Bombers. Essendon have fought a brave rearguard action to avoid the inevitable, but have bowed to it with (public) good grace. Not so the Barcodes.

AussieRulesBlog has visited this issue previously, but now is a good time to raise it again. This isn’t a matter of clashing colours. The AFL have made it abundantly clear that they want one team in dark or vibrant colours, and the other in light or muted tones. It’s not the end of the world — that comes in December according to the Mayans!

Manchester United and Liverpool, just to name two hugely popular EPL clubs, play in a seeming rainbow of strips through their season without problems. Even Newcastle United turn out in strips other than their famed black and white vertical stripes. But not our precious Barcodes. Here’s their ‘clash’ guernsey:

Oh, and here’s their ‘normal’ guernsey for comparison:

AussieRulesBlog can hardly believe that they represent the same club! It’s astonishing. Sharp-eyed readers will note that the clash guernsey is the inverse of the normal guernsey. How devilishly clever!

And if there’s a really obvious clash, such as with North Melbourne (?), who we remind you look like this:

then the Barcodes roll out their alternative clash guernsey which looks like this:

Perhaps Vlad and his mates at AFL House could puff out their chests and bludgeon Eddie into accepting that his Barcodes should look like this for their away games?

We’re not going to hang by our thumbs waiting for the announcement.

No-one should be surprised by Eddie McGuire’s outburst over Mick Malthouse’s frank assessment of the Barcodes circa round 3, 2012. Eddie is, and has always been, first and foremost a showman. It’s the sizzle that excites McGuire, not the sausage.

Here at AussieRulesBlog Central, we haven’t managed to get past the adverts for McGuire’s eponymously-titled new TV vehicle. It’s clear that EMT takes a lowest common denominator approach — not unlike The Footy Show, a former McGuire vehicle — and isn’t interested in anything much other than sizzle.

Nathan Buckley, on the other hand, has his feet firmly planted on the ground, regardless of his FIGJAM reputation. No wonder then that he backed his predecessor's right to comment as he felt was appropriate.

And, of course, the ‘controversy’ was turned up to ‘High’ by that soul of sober reflection, The Age’s Caroline Wilson.

Did anyone really expect that Malthouse wouldn’t be asked his opinion of the 2012 Barcodes? More especially since he’s employed to provide insightful comments on football?

McGuire isn’t quite the shrinking violet that Jeff Kennett is, but they both generate far more column centimetres than they’re entitled to.

Storm? Meet teacup.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here at AussieRulesBlog Central we haven’t made a habit of commenting on specific games. We’re testing the limits of that tradition today in drawing from last night’s Barcodes–Saints clash.

It’s not an original thought — we’ve heard a number of radio talkback callers making the point — but we think it has become crystal clear over recent weeks that the Barcodes’ dominance can be explained in one word: fitness.

It’s probably the clearest exposition of the barcodes’ fitness that we’ve had for some time; the most competitive hitout they’ve had to weather, although the statistics for last quarters show it as clearly as anyone could need. Watching the game last night, the power and speed, but most importantly the effortlessness, of the Barcodes’ running was simply irresistible.

Is it the much-vaunted high-altitude training that provides the extra capacity? Frankly, we wonder how long that effect can stay in the body. It’s not like our bodies are not constantly being replaced at a cellular level. There must be a period after arriving at high altitude where the body acclimatises. Once that plateau is reached — if you’ll pardon the pun — there are presumably some benefits in terms of aerobic capacity, but AFL games are not played at high altitude and no AFL team is based at a high altitude, unlike the Denver Broncos, for instance, in the NFL.

Just as there’s an acclimatisation process when arriving at high altitude, we imagine there’s a similar process when returning to near sea level. So, how long might the benefits of the high altitude training last?

AussieRulesBlog thinks the real benefit of the Arizona expeditions might be mental. The Barcodes players believe that they have a physical advantage. Their last quarter running performance contrasted sharply with the Saints last night. Saints players were regularly seen sucking in the big ones. Not so the Barcodes players. They believe they are supermen — and they play like it.

We think the skill and finesse of the Cats might be the only meaningful hurdle to the Barcodes this year. Just as a good big man will generally beat a good small man, we think skill and finesse will trump fitness. Only time will tell.

It’s a bit much for Ross Lyon to threaten the players of sixteen other clubs with vilification complaints if they “cross over community standards” and taunt his captain over the running sore that has been the naked pictures. All very nice to take a holier than thou approach and conveniently forget the presence on his list of serial standard crosser Steven Baker.

Were it another club’s captain that was embroiled, would Lyon instruct his players, especially Baker, not to venture into dark sledges about nude photographs? Not bloody likely.

AussieRulesBlog chastised Barcodes coaches Mick Malthouse and Paul Licuria last year, not so much for what they said to the Saints’ Steven Milne, but for the inappropriateness of their interaction with an opposition player and their economy with the truth — less charitable people might suggest they lied — when later questioned.

Lyon suggests the Malthouse-Milne incident as one where “community standards” were trashed and uses it as a justification for threatening players at other clubs should they sledge Riewoldt.

We wonder whether Lyon has created yet another millstone for his captain to wear. Not only were the pictures publicised, but Riewoldt now looks like a crybaby relying on his coach to keep the bad boys from saying nasty and hurtful things to him. Riewoldt does have some form in this respect after all (even though we supported him in those instances).

But what sticks in our craw most is Lyon’s failing memory. It’s only a year ago that the Saints crossed a community standard themselves — a person is innocent until found guilty in a court of law. By declaring a contracted player guilty of a crime before he’d had a chance to face a jury of his peers, the Saints were happy to act as judge, jury and executioner when it suited them.

We suspect the mental strength of the Saints’ prima donna will receive some searching tests in the coming season. Will he thank his coach and his teammate when the dust has settled?

In the wake of England’s rout of Australia in the just-concluded Ashes series, there are calls for changes in Australian cricket. We think the emphasis will fall on coaches and selectors (we’re influenced by this article by Test great Dean Jones). And this brings the question of coaches’ influence on elite sportspeople to the fore, yet again.

Coaches’ influence and background is a question AussieRulesBlog has looked at a number of times — here. In AFL ranks, it seems only those with playing experience at that level get a gig — Neil Craig and Wayne Brittain being the most recent of a tiny handful of exceptions, and Brittain had served a substantial apprenticeship under David Parkin.

In speculation over AFL coaching vacancies there are often VFL coaches mentioned, especially North Ballarat’s Gerald FitzGerald recently, but none have so far got to hold the reins at an AFL club. At one time Joyce Brown, former national netball coach and mother of Carlton firebrand Fraser Brown, was being seriously touted as a potential VFL/AFL coach, but AFL keeps very much to the tried and true formula.

In contrast, cricket, as Dean Jones points out, doesn’t currently have a coach at Sheffield Shield or national level with substantial Test-level experience.

It’s worth noting two things about the cricket situation: coaches, at least at the national level, traditionally play more of a supporting role to the Captain; and John Buchanan, with a mere 7 first-class matches and 160 runs for Queensland, was Australian coach through one of Australia’s most dominant periods.

Another crucial difference between cricket and AFL is the match day role. The big decisions on the cricket field are the captain’s — field placement, bowling changes, batting order — while AFL captains choose which end to kick to and then take up a largely symbolic role, albeit often inspirational.

We are particularly interested in the influence of coaches at the moment as we contemplate the year ahead for our beloved Bombers under debutant coach and all-time club great James Hird and 2012 for the Barcodes under their all-time club great Nathan Buckley.

The most immediate contrast to draw is the raft of reports from players of the first Hird-directed pre-season being significantly tougher than those under Matthew Knights and, largely by implication, Kevin Sheedy.

Dean Jones makes the point that the resurgence of Australian cricket in the mid-1980s began with the appointment of Test legend Bob Simpson as coach. Simpson “was as hard as nails and rode all of us players 24/7” and “Three-hour fielding sessions were the norm”, according to Jones. Simpson was a gritty and determined opener, but capable of brilliance. Clearly Australian cricket at the time was at such a low ebb that Simpson treading on toes to take charge as coach wasn’t an issue.

In AFL, there have been few prodigiously-talented players who’ve gone on to achieve coaching success. As we’ve noted previously, the ranks of Premiership coaches in the last fifty years are dominated by gritty and determined backmen who made their mark in spite of limited talent.

John Coleman, Paul Roos, Malcolm Blight, Alex Jesaulenko and, arguably, Leigh Matthews are the naturally-talented players who achieved the ultimate success accounting for only ten of the last fifty Premierships (and Matthews contributing four of those).

Can James Hird and Nathan Buckley add their names to the ranks of Roos, Blight and co? If determination counts for anything, yes they can.

Has Hird arrived at the right time to take advantage of Matthew Knights’ list building over the past three years?

Does the 2010 Premiership dull the hunger of the playing group as Buckley takes the reins for 2012?

Will either or both of them make Bernie Quinlan look like a master coach? Sure, that’s unlikely, but it will be an interesting couple of years.

A very tight election result in Victoria has overshadowed the announcement that Collingwood — from this point on to be known as the Barcodes here at AussieRulesBlog — will wear a clash strip against North Melbourne.

Although AussieRulesBlog cannot see the ‘clash’ with North Melbourne’s vertical royal blue stripes, the Kangaroos have recently been forced into impersonating Argentina’s Pumas when playing Collingwood — even for their own ‘home’ games!

We’re a bit dim here at AussieRulesBlog Central sometimes. We’d be most grateful if some knowledgeable reader could enlighten us on the benefit of high altitude training in the US (or anywhere else for that matter) in November for an AFL season between March and September played at sea level.

Our very basic understanding of physiology suggests that, by March, said high-altitude trainers will have reacclimatised to sea-level conditions again. If the “high-altitude” training were done at Mt Wycheproof (15m), there’d effectively be no wait for the reacclimatisation!

If the 2011 Grand Final were to be played at the top of Mt Kosciusko, perhaps there would be an argument for spending a couple of weeks there beforehand (assuming you’d actually made it!).

Perhaps the Eagles, Dockers, Lions and Suns could go down to Mawson for a couple of weeks to prepare themselves for the Melbourne winter?

Please! Someone explain to us how this is not a joke.

Here at AussieRulesBlog Central, we thought the status of the words role model had been brought just about as low as was possible, but we reckoned without the charm of Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse.

Frankly, what Malthouse or assistant coach Paul Licuria may or may not have said to Saint, Steven Milne — and whatever Milne may have said to them — are merely indications of relatively tiny cerebral cortexes. It’s called sledging and we Aussies are supposed to be world champions at it, although the reported exchanges are hardly championship material.

For many years, the principle that “what happens on the field stays on the field” has provided a curtain for sledging and all manner of less-savoury actions. Participants in AFL matches in 2010 can not credibly claim ignorance of a multitude of high-resolution cameras examining their every action. What happens on the field is now public property, for good or ill.

The simple fact is that Malthouse and Licuria have no place having contact of any sort with an opposition player. The principle is well-established and Malthouse has been around the game long enough to know it.

We have an old-school belief that the more senior people in an organisation provide a lead for the rest. The team captain sets a benchmark and we expect the playing group to aspire to meet that benchmark. Similarly, we expect coaches to provide a model for those they are teaching to aspire to, not to mention the thousands of club supporters who might legitimately look to them to provide a model for their behaviour.

Malthouse, it appears, has lied. After the game, when it must have been clear to him that he had been caught on camera interacting with Milne, he denied speaking to anyone other than his own players. Come Monday morning, he’s offering apologies.

If there was any wonder at the time why Heath Shaw and Alan Didak were economical with the truth after their traffic brouhaha, there can be little now.

Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse’s assertions that he was speaking to his own players at quarter time of the Saints-Collingwood clash last night aren’t supported by the video footage. Assistant coach Paul Licuria also pretty clearly had a crack.

It brings to mind Kevin Sheedy’s antics a few years ago at the same ground in a clash against the Weagles. Sheedy’s throat-cutting gesture to a Weagles player was obviously more over-the-top than Malthouse and Licuria exchanging pleasantries, yet the similarities remain.

In round 22, 2009, Alastair Clarkson crossed the line to hurl invective at Matthew Lloyd after Lloyd had put the one of the Hawks’ key midfielders out of the game.

We can hardly criticise coaches for being emotionally involved in the games they coach or for being emotionally-connected to their players, but there must be a firm line established by the AFL on this issue.

Watching the footage and taking note of body language, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that Malthouse and Licuria were inflaming the situation.

As we observed in our previous post, we watched the television transfixed as the Magpies appeared to target the Saints’ tagger Clint Jones before the opening bounce. It’s now a matter of record that the Saints not only withstood those unsavoury tactics, but went on to a famous victory after losing their captain to a severe hamstring injury and a key defender to a sickening collision. But what is the take out message?

The Saints are good enough to win without Riewoldt? For one game, yes. We’ll see how long the hamstring keeps him out and see how the team performs over a number of weeks before we pronounce them not a one-man team.

Bad kicking is bad football? Clearly the Magpies had many opportunities in front of goal that they squandered, but we felt, watching the television broadcast, that the Saints held an ascendency all game in general play. We think there’s something more than just ‘bad kicking’.

Going out with the right attitude translates to how the team plays? Collingwood began the game with an essentially negative mindset — they were going to nullify Jones’ tag right from the first moment on the ground. In the ensuing scuffles, Collingwood emerged with key free kick opportunities, but never appeared to have the composure to look like winners.

Even when the hapless Zac Dawson had done his best rabbit in the headlights stare for the third time early in the second quarter, the Saints looked more composed.

We are convinced that elite-level AFL is so even in standard that it is only miniscule differences that generate even 100-point-plus losses.

Whether pre-planned or not, and it certainly looked to be a planned action, Collingwood entered the arena with a negative mindset, focussing on a player rather than winning each and every contest for the ball.

The Saints are no angels. Baker, in particular, plays on the knife edge in his own negative, run-with roles. Nevertheless, the Saints seemed to win crucial contests for the ball and to make the most of their opportunities where Collingwood squandered theirs.

There’s a football truism — ninety per cent of the game is played above the shoulders. We think it might be even more important than that.