The Hun reports today that an off-field umpire’s department official, with access to video replay, will be hooked into the umpire’s audio system to assist in adjudicating “goal line” decisions during the 2012 pre-season competition. A 40-second window will be available for any video assessment which would be prior to the goal umpire signalling a decision. This means, and we think the AFL have taken a PR view of this, no decisions will be overturned as a result of video referral. Whatever we think of the general concept, and AussieRulesBlog thinks it’s a mangy dog, the final part is a PR masterstroke.

Let’s hope that we don’t have a repeat of last year’s nonsense of video replays being used to try to determine whether a hand has touched a kicked ball fifteen metres out from goal. Goal line decisions only please, if we must go through this nonsense.

The story in the Hun drags up the 2011 Sharrod Wellingham Grand Final goal that apparently deflected off a goal post and the 2009 Tom Hawkins GF poster. Are these “goal line” decisions? Will the “goal line” cameras be sited such that they can be used to adjudicate decisions like the two mentioned? If the arrangement is similar to 2011, the cameras are attached to the goal post about 2.5 metres above ground level to assist in those “did he touch it before it went over the line” decisions. Pretty typical, in our view, of the journalist responsible for this report to bring in red herrings and create expectations that probably can’t be met, because it’s all about the “controversy”.

The truth is, the technology and this application of it has holes you could drive a B-double through. When we’re hardly being deluged with incorrect decisions in every game — remember that errors are running at something less than one tenth of one percent of all scoring decisions across an entire season — all of this additional cost and infrastructure will achieve . . . precisely bugger-all. It’s the standard response dictated by the AFL Management Handbook — use the biggest sledgehammer you can find to crack a tiny grain of sand.

Between September 1939 and May 1940 in north-western Europe a state of war existed between Great Britain and France on one hand and Hitler’s Germany on the other. Despite the declaration of war, nothing much happened in those eight months — what was labelled as “The Phoney War”. Of course, all that changed on May 10 when the Germans invaded the Low Countries.

The end of the Australian Open tennis tonight marks the start of southern Australia’s eight-month-long obsession with Aussie Rules for 2012.

There have been hints in the media as there have been fewer tennis matches to cover. Brendan Fevola, it seems, may line up for Yarrawonga Pigeons in the Ovens and Murray League — but only for home games, because, he says, he’s getting old. This is the same guy who wanted AFL clubs to use a valuable draft pick on him just a few short months ago!

It has been a long, long break, but in less than three weeks we’ll have footy back on television — well, those of us with pay TV will anyway. For the FreeView afficianados, it’ll be March 17. And pay TV’s dedicated AFL channel returns in a new guise, along with the pre-season comp.

It won’t be long before there are controversies aplenty to drive our interest. Stay tuned to AussieRulesBlog for our particular take on the important issues in Aussie Rules.

AFL Operations Manager Adrian Anderson is reported in The Age to have spoken about proposals for experimental rules for the 2012 pre-season competition.

Among the possibilities are 12 points for a torpedo goal from outside the fifty-metre arc, which we regard as populist nonsense, despite the obvious difficulties in defining whether a torpedo that’s not quite right is a torpedo or not.

Other possibilities are:

■ Boundary and goal umpires allowed to pay obvious free kicks for holding and high contact. [Let’s define obvious, shall we?]

■ Ruckmen not permitted to make contact for boundary throw-ins and around-the-ground bounces.

■ Free kicks not paid for last touch over the boundary but for last kick, handball or when a player walked the ball over the line. [Still a turkey of an idea.]

AussieRulesBlog is glad to see a mention of ruck contests in the range of issues to be addressed. The description provided can only be regarded as a quick shorthand because a literal implementation of “no contact” for boundary and around-the-ground ruck contests is simply not practical.

For what it’s worth, AussieRulesBlog would like to see anything that looks like a hold or a shepherd with the arms in a ruck contest penalised. We’re really over the ruck wrestling. Fair enough if players want to engage in a test of strength, but holding or shepherding is just plain ugly. We recognise that limiting contact to the body advantages athletic, high-leaping players such as Nic Naitanui and Paddy Ryder quite strongly, however they are similarly disadvantaged in the current wrestling matches that pass for ruck contests.

Let’s have an end to umpires shouting, “Both holding!”

In the same story, there are more hints that some sort of video decision assist will be implemented, sooner rather than later. We’ve already indicated our disquiet. The story notes that only seven scoring decision errors were recorded by the AFL in 2011. Seven! How many goals, behinds, out-of-bounds and goal-line marks and scrambles were adjudicated through the season, and there were seven errors. We’re pretty sure most fans would prefer to see fewer errors of interpretation of rules in the field of play, or, at the very least, consistent interpretations across the season, rather than this manic determination to find a solution to a non-problem.

Tonight those of us with Foxtel have been able to watch the first example of the AFL’s new round-robin format tonight.

It’s hard to get a decent form line when the squads are so ‘experimental’, but the AFL chose to experiment with one small piece of insanity in this first round of the pre-season competition — a free kick against the last player to touch the ball before it goes out of bounds. This rule is a turkey. End of story. May it never be seen again after this round of the competition.

The extra two quarters made the night on the couch seem interminable.

Overall, AussieRulesBlog isn’t sure about this new format, although we don’t have any alternative to propose.

We welcome comments from other fans who had the chance to watch the game.

We are officially stupid. There’s no doubt.

AussieRulesBlog was somewhat confused today to read a reference to the round one pres-season competition ‘games’ being two 20-minute halves. A Herald-Sun article on the Bombers’ plans discussed a 90-minute break between ‘games’. We figured the only way there could be a 90-minute break would be for each ‘game’ to be of only 20 minutes duration. We also thought that this arrangement evened out the risk of soft tissue injury. Confused? We obviously were, so we went searching.

It took a while — the AFL website is not a friendly place to be seeking information — but we did finally turn up an AFL web page that mentioned 40-minute games and an inconspicuous link to a PDF file (undated and marked confidential, so we feel just a little less stupid for not having seen it) explaining the round one arrangements. (We should have twigged that the average footy supporter couldn’t occupy their minds for 65 minutes without some assistance.)

Edit: It has come to our notice that we have got entirely the wrong process in mind in this post. Please see our more recent post, We're confused, for a full mea culpa.

Back in October when the broad details for the 2011 pre-season competition were released, AussieRulesBlog expressed concern for the team playing in the first and third games.

In the first round of the competition, Team A will play a 20-minute ‘half’ versus Team C, then a 20-minute ‘half’ against Team B, followed by Team B and Team C competing in a third 20-minute ‘half’.

The Hun reports today that teams playing the first and third games will be able to use as many players as they want and will have a 90-minute break between games.

We noted in October that the AFL were still involved in discussions with clubs and their fitness staffs about how these mini lightning premiership formats would be implemented.

We also commented that Team A and Team B would be advantaged by both continuity and coming up against a team that had not warmed up in match conditions.

As is now made clear in the fixturing, attempts have been made to mitigate some of these advantages.

The second game will commence 65 minutes after the start of the first game, and the third 65 minutes after the start of the second.

With 20-minute game duration, that’s a 40-minute break between games.

Team A and Team B will, apparently, be limited to a normal 18-man plus interchange squad. Team C, meanwhile, will be free to introduce as many replacement players as they like.

From a fitness and player management perspective the playing field has been considerably evened. But we’re left with an even more insidious problem.

With 40-minute breaks between games, will the AFL roll out Grand Final style ‘entertainment’ between games?

Or perhaps we should just pack a copy of War and Peace in with our normal footy gear?