Amongst all the draft-related news and seemingly endless — and pointless — draft prognostications over recent weeks, there was one truly startling piece of information.

In a story likening Richmond’s current plight to Geelong’s at the turn of the century, Jake Niall noted that Richmond did not have a full-time recruiter on staff in 2005. You don't need to be a ‘rocket surgeon’ to be aware that the Tigers have burned almost countless recruiting opportunities in the past couple of decades, not to mention letting go a player like David Rodan. It beggars belief that a club in the AFL competition could have its head so far into the sand that recruitment was not a number one priority. And it’s not like they were travelling well at the time.

Of course, recruiting is a subjective process at the best of times. With the benefit of hindsight, one can wonder how the Tigers selected Deledio and Tambling ahead of Franklin and Roughhead — faith in Richo was probably a big factor. Recruiters spend time watching games to evaluate a wide selection of potential recruits — unlike the ubiquitous draft previews that litter the blogosphere — but, ultimately, make subjective judgements based largely on perceptions of their list’s future weaknesses. In short, none of this is an exact science. Nevertheless, Richmond’s situation in 2005 is extraordinary.

Matthew Ricardson's retirement should be seen as a filip by Richmond fans, though I am sure most will see it as an extremely sad day. For AussieRulesBlog it’s a very sad day — one of my favourite whipping boys is no more!

Let me say, yet again, that Richo’s love for and dedication to the Tigers has never, ever been in question, and he should be applauded for this. The sad truth, however, is that Richo has, for most of his career, been a disastrous on-field role model for less exalted teammates.

I feel for Damien Hardwick today. He will have to maintain a solemn outward demeanor appropriate to the ending of such a famous career, but his heart must be bounding with joy at losing a significant millstone in his quest to return the Tigers to consistently competitive football.

No longer will messages about clinical skill execution be thwarted by a favourite son dropping clangers as if he were re-enacting Hansel and Gretel’s stroll into the magic forest. Forwards can now be expected, nay required, to kick goals like professionals without the most famous current forward squandering chances like a gambling addict at the tables at Crown Casino.

Today also marks the passing of the last of the triumvirate of mediocrity that anchored the Tigers to the middle or lower reaches of the competition for most of the last two decades — Wayne Campbell, Matthew Knights and, now, Matthew Richardson.

As an interesting postscript, just as the Tigers will, I believe, be able to make a new start with Richo removed from the playing group, Collingwood may find a similar benefit in the retirement of that endurance athlete, Anthony Rocca. Both have, I think, for quite different reasons, held their teams back.

With media speculation over the future of two members of the Bombers’ leadership group, I’ve been thinking a bit more deeply than usual over player contracts, changing clubs, and so on.

From the supporters’ perspective, we’d love every player on the club’s list to love the club as much as we do. Only the callow supporter changes clubs. For the rest of us, we are there through thick and thin.

For the players, however, things are more complex.

• We’re talking about their job — and a job that can set them up for the rest of their lives, if they’re a bit canny. 
• There’s clearly some considerable caché among ex-players for one-club players. We hear ambitions to be a one-club player too often, especially from players who have clearly forsaken potentially greater success at other clubs, for it to be a furphy.
• Coaches and clubs do their best to indoctrinate players with the notion of loyalty to their mates.
• Many players are connected to supporters and feel a sense of obligation to them.
• Players put their bodies in harm’s way while wearing a club’s guernsey.
  
• To have reached AFL level, players are pretty driven individuals with a keen sense of ambition for success.

I had the chance last week to hear Leigh Matthews speaking at a function. Four-time premiership player, four-time premiership coach — probably knows a little bit about the game. . .

The comment that interested me most concerned the modern, that is the “noughties”, coach. In 1986, when Matthews was appointed to the Collingwood coaching job, he was full-time, but most of his players and any assistant coaches were not. He was, effectively, the only conduit to the players.

Step forward to 2008 and Matthews’ final year as coach at Brisbane. Not only are the playing group full-time employees of the club, so too are the assistant coaches. Matthews’ role was no longer to coach, but to manage a group of men who did the coaching on his behalf.

This notion has stuck in my mind pretty firmly and is leading me to question my own pet theory about AFL coaches (see Coaching credentials, Coaching credentials, part 2 and Coaching credentials, part 3).

It is now the assistant coaches who have more direct influence over the average player’s preparation and mindset. The head coach manages and motivates the team of assistant coaches to manage and motivate the playing group.

Now, of course, this is a simplistic scenario and can only go part way to explaining how a football team at the elite level functions. Nevertheless, it does serve to illustrate that the need for a head coach to have those qualities that influence the bottom 15–20% of the playing group to excel is much reduced. The modern head coach is a senior manager/executive. I think this has been a subtle change, in process for perhaps a decade or more.

One thing that doesn't change, until there's some convincing evidence to the contrary — like a spate of Buckley-coached Magpie flags, is that really gifted players aren't your go-to guy to win the club premierships from the coaches' box.

The AFL appears determined to embrace video-assisted decision-making technology in some way, shape or form. The ‘goal’ awarded to Geelong’s Tom Hawkins during the Grand Final — an exceptionally close Grand Final, it’s worth noting — has provided a context.

In the widespread discussion of the issue across many fora, there appear to be two ‘camps’: the We must use all available resources to ensure we have the correct result EVERY time camp; and the It doesn’t happen often enough to worry about it camp.

Let me say at the outset that I think video-assisted decision-making, even if only for balls in close proximity to the goal posts, is applying a sledgehammer to kill a mosquito.

Who will decide when a video decision is required, and on what basis? Would Darren Milburn's claim in the grand Final that he'd touched the ball be prima facie context for a video decision, for instance?

Will the game cease while a video decision is sought? For NFL, NRL and cricket, there are natural pauses in the game that lend themselves to extension for examination of crucial on-field decisions. But who has not endured the countless indeterminate replays required for such a decision to be made and bayed at the officials (even via the TV screen) to “Get on with it!”

In the NFL, head coaches have two opportunities per game to query on-field decisions and a sanction — loss of a time-out — attaches to an unsuccessful challenge. There's no applicability of these concepts to Aussie rules.

In NRL, the referee chooses when to refer a touchdown decision to the video official. Which official on the AFL field will decide to refer to the video official? The goal umpire is hardly going to query his own decision, but might be pressured by circumstance into making a non-decision, i.e. I don't know, so refer it. For the field umpires, it will depend on positioning whether they have an appropriate context to decide whether a decision be referred or not. Or will the video official or (gasp!) media people alert the field umpire that a decision is questionable? If the latter, who will judge their independance and impartiality?

Cricket, even with it natural breaks in play and general slow pace anyway, is transformed into a funereal spectacle by the slow-mo replay. The looming opportunity for teams to query 2 decisions in a Test innings, a la the NFL challenge situation, only adds to the problem. There's little synergy here with AFL either.

Finally, and the clincher in my view, a video-assisted goal umpiring decision presumably will stop the game. In today's game, the loss of the chance to bring the ball back in from a point as quickly as possible disadvantages the defending team to an astonishing degree. We've seen, in 2009 at least, the spectacle of opposition cheer squads hurling a ‘lost’ ball back onto the field of play, disrupting a kick-in, allowing the defending forwards to set up or adjust their defensive zone.

The AFL have gone to astonishing lengths in recent seasons to speed the game up and remove unnatural breaks — immediate kick-ins from points without waiting for the flags to be waved, 50-metre penalties for time wasting — yet are now considering a process that will bring the free-flowing game to a screeching, shuddering halt.

It just doesn’t make sense!

Reports that the AFL will impose a significant ban on Brendan Fevola "if he is found to have sexually assaulted a woman on Brownlow Medal night" raise some interesting questions.

What standard of proof will be required? Will it be enough for the journalist in question to simply make a statement, or will a police complaint be required? And who will judge whether the offence was committed?

These are very murky waters the AFL is peering into. Where will their moral stance end? Will a driving offence bring an AFL sanction as well? What about bankruptcy or fraud? Will a conviction in a court of law be required?

It’s easy to understand that the AFL is attempting to protect its brand in signalling this action against Fevola. But they would do well to think through the implications before proceeding — their precedents in the laws of the game changes suggest they’ll shoot first and ask questions later!

Over at Big Footy, on the Essendon board, there’s been much handwringing over comments by Alastair Clarkson in relation to the rumour of trade talks on Campbell Brown.

"I know the Essendon footy club did that back in 2002 with Damian Hardwick, Blake Caracella and Justin Blumfield and also Chris Heffernan, and I don't think it did the Essendon footy club any good, sending out players of that quality, it affects the culture of your club too much." [Clarkson is quoted as saying.]

“...[Bradsahw was] stunned that his club of 14 years would try to shunt him into a trade.”

News that Carlton and Brisbane are working toward a trade of Fevola for Bradshaw and Rischitelli, apparently if the Lions players can be “convinced” to move, reveals once more the truly ugly end of the AFL system.

No more need be written on the subject of Fevola’s manifold indiscretions.Whether the Blues are well served by moving him on is a moot point. There’s plenty of precedent to suggest a move into a non-AFL-saturated community would benefit Fevola — think Lockett and Hall in Sydney — and a move to a new team environment where there is no history of putting up with his ‘high jinks’ might also work for him.

No, the ugly end of this scenario is Bradshaw and Rischitelli being dragged into the deal somewhat peripherally. Rischitelli has certainly been mentioned in trade discussions previously and there’s a sense that he’d welcome a move back to Melbourne for non-football reasons.

Bradshaw, originally from Victoria, has been a long-term servant of the Lions and provides a very effective foil for Jonathan Brown. Apparently he has made no secret of his intention to move back to Victoria at the end of his playing career. That is, however, a very long way from being an unwitting pawn in some Machiavellian trade deal.

Greg Baum has written an excellent piece on this scenario in The Age. He contrasts the various “loyalties” around AFL, from the fans’ unwavering commitment to clubs’ demands of players. The most telling remark, for me, concerns Hawks legend Don Scott, who, Baum reports, felt more loyalty to the player group than to the club per se. Even this has to been in context, as many will recall Scott standing before an angry Hawthorn crowd and ripping a Melbourne Demons guernsey during the contretemps over those two clubs’ merger plans.

I make no secret of my affection for the Bombers. It’s my firmly-held belief that the Bombers’ great team of the late 90s and early 00s was irrevocably torn asunder by the departure, under somewhat strained and unwilling circumstances, of Damien Hardwick, Blake Caracella, Chris Heffernan and Justin Blumfield within the space of two years. None of the four would probably have been considered a top-flight player in their own right. As a group, the four would hardly have been considered by outsiders as the heart and soul of the Bombers, yet, in the wake of these departures and without the loss of stars, the Bombers went into an almost uninterrupted slide.

I wonder if Brisbane's team fabric could survive the forced departure of Bradshaw and Rischitelli and the importing of the self-centred Fevola, or will it implode as the Bombers’ did a little less than a decade ago.