The whole Matt Rendell–Jason Mifsud scenario this last week is puzzling indeed. Rendell and Mifsud are reportedly friends. In a meeting in January, Rendell apparently made some remarks that Mifsud took exception to, but, puzzlingly, he didn’t confront Rendell at the time. Instead, he reported to AFL HQ and they wait until March to get involved (at least publicly).

Why the delay? If Mifsud was “deeply offended” as reported in The Age today, why didn’t he yell, curse, accuse, berate or simply punch Rendell in the moments following the comments?

One explanation for the delayed action might be that a couple of high-profile indigenous players have featured in “controversial” stories between January and mid-March. There’s also been the storm in a teacup over comments by James Hird and Paul Roos, which AussieRulesBlog has commented on a number of times.

Is this a confected controversy with Rendell as the fall guy? Well, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck . . .

It’s worth noting that AussieRulesBlog took both Mifsud and Caroline Wilson to task for their disingenuous interpretation of Hird and Roos recently. If Mifsud could take an extreme position on comments by two of the milder personalities in football, then there’s a prima facie case to call into question his later interpretation of Rendell’s remarks.

But let’s consider the reported remarks. AussieRulesBlog condemns in the strongest possible terms anyone disadvantaging any indigenous person simply because they are indigenous. If Rendell made the remarks as reported, that he and his club would only recruit an indigenous player if the player had one ‘white’ parent, he deserves condemnation.

This remark, the context of which is now hotly disputed, apparently followed on the departure of a number of young indigenous players who had difficulty adjusting to the city and to the AFL environment.

We should just remind ourselves here that there are a number of non-indigenous recruits each year, including some high-profile prestige draft picks, who fail to adjust to the AFL environment.

AFL clubs are testing environments. There’s a lot of money and millions of people’s heartfelt affections resting on teams’ performances each week. This is not place for the timid or the unmotivated.

Each year, kids from a wide variety of backgrounds are thrown into this meat grinder that is the AFL. Some emerge, like Daniel Rich or Dyson Heppell, and look like they were born to it. Others, like Jay Neagle, despite undoubted talent, can’t take the last step. The kids mentioned are from relatively privileged backgrounds. Despite that one of them didn’t make it.

For some of those kids drafted or rookied, we also need to factor in extreme cultural dislocation. The cultural chasm between an outback lifestyle and the footy played there on the one hand and the AFL environment and its football on the other hand could hardly be larger if the kids were sent to Mars to train. Is it any wonder some struggle to make the adjustment?

The point Rendell now says he was trying to make, that a couple of years of less-highly structured acclimatisation for indigenous players before entering the AFL environment would prove beneficial for players and AFL clubs alike, seems to make a lot of sense. It’s a great pity that it has been lost in the sensationalist accusations being flung around.

We suppose that Jason Mifsud, the AFL's national community engagement manager, might be excused in part by his job for launching into Paul Roos and James Hird in today’s Age. Mifsud follows the Caroline Wilson line which we’ve discussed previously. Lets get to the heart of the matter. He and Wilson are wrong.

Mifsud warms to his task, identifying one after another indigenous AFL player who exhibits endurance in some attempt to show that Roos and Hird have mis-spoken. The only problem is they didn’t say EVERY indigenous player was bereft of endurance.

Roos and Hird have been around the game a little bit and, unlike journalists and perhaps a national community engagement manager, have seen players away from the public’s gaze. It’s likely they’ve had the opportunity to observe quite a number of indigenous players in the stress of training as well as in games. They’ve formed the view, based on their experience, that a change to a two-and-two bench could make it harder for indigenous footballers to get drafted.

They are NOT saying that clubs should not draft indigenous players, although you’d hardly know that from the inflamed criticisms being thrown at them.

Mifsud’s most egregious error is to relate “the statistics on longevity of primary-listed [indigenous] players in the AFL over the last five years.” All very nice Jason, but we’ve had one year of a three-and-one bench, prior to which coaches have been interchanging at ever-increasing rates. Quite how these statistics relate to what Roos and Hird said might be an impact of the proposed two-and-two bench eludes us.

Sure, Adam Goodes is an astounding athlete as Mifsud reminds us, but he, Lance Franklin, Andrew McLeod, Nicky Winmar and Peter Matera are as exceptional amongst indigenous players as Gary Ablett (both of ‘em), Wayne Carey, Nathan Buckley and Chris Judd are amongst non-indigenous players. So what?

“The logical application of [Hird and Roos’] statement is that we should manage out Cyril Rioli, Liam Jurrah and Chris Yarran because they can't run 15 beep tests and revert back to the dark — and not so secretive — days of race-based draft selections. Of course, this is absurd.”

 

It certainly is absurd Jason, because it’s your ‘logical’ conclusion, not theirs.

Enough! Stop building straw men that you can knock down in virtuous dudgeon.

Having sat in the Great Southern Stand last night and endured the humiliating shellacing handed out by the Hawthorn ‘Reserves’ last night (the Hawks were without putative best-22 members Franklin, Roughhead, Renouf, Gilham, Stratton and Murphy), AussieRulesBlog wonders what Matthew Knights must be thinking now.

Under both Knights and replacement coach James Hird, the Bombers have provided plenty of examples of capability to play the game at an exquisitely high level. Sustained intensity, quarter on quarter, week on week, month on month, seems to be the missing ingredient.

There was no shortage of effort at the ball in the Bombers’ insipid performance last night, but there was little or no unrewarded, off-the-ball effort.

AussieRulesBlog has never engaged in round by round or game by game analysis, and we don’t intend to start now. Nevertheless, pre-season competition aside, the similarities between the team’s effort under Knights and Hird is remarkable, especially given the messy nature of the latter’s ascension to the role.

We would also be remiss did we not marvel at the exquisite disposal skills of Sam Mitchell. If he is not one of the five best players in the competition, then we know nothing about the game. It’s not til you see Mitchell live that you really appreciate the quality of the ball that he provides.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Who would have thought that Mr Dickens would have been so attuned to AFL football in the 21st century? The opening line of A Tale of Two Cities could easily refer to Essendon and St Kilda. What’s more, there’s a common thread.

Over the off-season there was an exodus of sorts from the Saints. The entire roster of assistant coaches moved on. Although not linked to the Saints’ situation, the sacking of Matthew Knights at Windy Hill also presaged an exodus of assistant coaches.

Ross Lyon gathered a new group of assistants, as did new coach James Hird at Essendon.

Eagle-eyed readers will note that the Bombers have 3½ wins from six games, while the Saints have managed just 1½ wins.

Now, of course AussieRulesBlog isn’t going to put this discrepancy down to just a coaching staff changeover — there was the little matter of a certain 17-year-old and the repercussions thereof which may have distracted the Saints.

But, thinking about assistant coaches and what they can bring to a club, let’s look at the ins and outs for both the Saints and the Bombers.

St Kilda

Essendon

It’s pretty clear, even from the outside, that the assistants at Essendon in 2011 have make a substantial contribution to the apparent turnaround in the Bombers’ on-field fortunes.

Simply by extrapolation, it would seem the change in the Saints’ on-field fortunes might have more than a little connection to the change in coaching staff. We commented on the scale of the Saints’ cleanout last November.

After writing about the Ashes disaster and the possibility that James Hird and Nathan Buckley might write further storied chapters in their lives yesterday, we happened upon an interesting story in a non-sports blog.

Seth Godin is an American marketing guru. His blog is a collection of thoughts on the general theme of small, independent business entrepreneurs. Not the place you expect to see sports-oriented wisdom, but we liked this one.

Zig Ziglar [a sales guru] used to tell a story about a baseball team on a losing streak. On the road for a doubleheader, the team visited a town that was home to a famous faith healer. While the guys were warming up, the manager disappeared. He came back an hour later with a big handful of bats. "Guys, these bats were blessed and healed by the guru. Our problems are over."

According to the story, the team snapped out of their streak and won a bunch of games. Some people wonder, "did the faith healer really touch the bats, or was the manager making it up?" Huh? Does it matter?

Are James Hird and Nathan Buckley faith healers (in the sense of Godin’s blog post)? Do their very records and stature in the game lift the morale and enthusiasm of their teams?

In the end, Godin is right. It doesn’t matter how the team is empowered, but it does give pause to think . . .