News released a few days before the commencement of the pre-season competition that some new rules would be trialled has both positive and negative aspects.

It’s a big ask for players to play to one rule or interpretation during the pre-season, and then another when the home and away rounds commence. AussieRulesBlog doesn’t have a better suggestion for trialling changes, but we regard this as an unfortunate consequence of that process.

Empowering boundary umpires to pay free kicks is, in our view, an essentially poorly-conceived notion. There are already considerable problems for players with three interpretations of rules in each game. Why would we want to add a further four interpretations?

The number of off-the-ball free kicks being paid appears to have escalated over recent years. As we have previously noted, television and radio audiences are reasonably well served with either direct audio feed from the officials or a staff member monitoring the direct audio feed and relaying those details to the caller. The paying punter sitting at the ground is quite another matter however.

We have recently taken to simply watching the game rather than watching and listening to the radio calls with all their hyperbole and sensationalism. For those of us taking this option, it’s often quite mystifying why play is stopped, why a free kick was paid and what it was paid for. The AFL seems hell-bent on making changes, but providing better information to paying patrons doesn’t seem to feature on their list of priorities.

We do think the threat of a penalty for players dragging the ball underneath an opponent is a good move. We are heartily sick of players laying under a pack of opponents who are holding the ball to that player being free kicked for not having got rid of the ball. It’s clear to everybody except The Giesch that the player isn’t in possession.

With this new rule, the player in possession makes an attempt to get rid of the ball — no free kick. If the opponent drags the ball back to the player, free kick against the opponent. Good stuff!

Finally, the advantage rule has been a disaster area almost from its inception. We’ve all seen scenarios where almost everyone stops “on the whistle” as they’ve been trained to do and one lucky player has the ball serendipitously fall to them, in space, and there’s a collective groan as the umpire signals advantage.

This trial change seems to remove that gap between the whistle and the umpire’s realisation of advantage. Players will be aware that the ball remains live. What remains to be seen is how The Giesch instructs his blokes to interpret all these factors. When does impeding the player with the free kick finish and advantage begin? Yes, yet another grey area.

As we began, there are mixed blessings.

Usually, at AussieRulesBlog, we confine ourselves to footy and footy-related issues. However the unsavoury rush to report news of Matthew Stokes’ criminal charges has us thinking in more societal terms.

Let us start by recalling that the AFL has a three-strike drugs policy for players caught using recreational or illicit drugs. Briefly, players’ identities are protected until a third offence, giving them a rare chance, in the AFL world at least, of reform without the glare of publicity.

Recently the news media and blogosphere became frantic on reporting that Essendon’s Nathan Lovett-Murray had been picked up by the police for questioning on a drug-related matter. Had officialdom taken any notice of the blogosphere in particular, Lovett-Murray would have been hung, drawn and quartered that very day.

Of course, police later reported they were satisfied that an ecstasy tablet found in Lovett-Murray’s home belonged to someone else.

More recently, the blogosphere rushed to report charges of trafficking against Matthew Stokes. It emerged that Stokes had purchased a small quantity of drugs for a friend and had been caught in a police phone-tapping operation.

Had Stokes used the drug and been caught by the AFL’s testing program, we would be none the wiser.

It is dangerous to engage in applying our everyday notions out of context, but with that caveat in place we should do so.

In our view, ‘trafficking’ represents commercial resale of the substance with the aim of securing an advantage, whether that be in cash or kind. Stokes, it seems to us, did a questionable favour for someone he knew. He didn’t use the substance, nor did he benefit from the transaction (that we know of).

With enough time for sober reflection and fuller details, most of the blogosphere would have moderated their comments on these specific incidents.

AussieRulesBlog consciously does not try to be some sort of unofficial news feed, and doesn’t carry a news feed widget, simply because the sensationalist nature of twenty-first century news often obscures the real story in hyperbole.

Sadly, for those caught up in the news circus, the old adage that if enough mud is thrown some will stick seems to hold true. Blog posts and comments are, to all intents and purposes, permanent and continue to vent their hyperbolic blood lust long after they’ve been forgotten by the writers.

As we noted at the start of this post, these are not uniquely footy-related issues, but symptomatic of a harsher, less caring, more judgemental society, fed on fear by big media desperate for ever more threatening ‘news’ to spark their ratings.

Refreshingly, in February 2010 we are not going to be discussing new or changed rules of the game, but the AFL’s announcement of sanctions for staging for free kicks is mostly welcome.

The major issue, and it’s not of the AFL’s making (this time), will be misunderstanding of the definition of staging. Already, on the back page of Age Sport, Martin Blake has singled out a list of stagers.

What is abundantly clear from the AFL’s explanatory video is that these sanctions are directed at players who exaggerate the impact of a physical confrontation — falling like autumn leaves might be an apt description.

Since it is only with the particular perspective and clarity of TV cameras and slow-motion replays that many of these acts of staging become fully apparent, it would seem that it will be the match review panel, rather than the field umpires, doing most of the heavy lifting on this issue

Blake’s list of stagers features seven players who exaggerate(d) defensive contact infringements against them (Wanganeen, Lloyd, Brent Harvey, Fevola, Leon Davis, Milne, Monfries). This is a wholly inaccurate representation of the intent of the AFL’s anti-staging position.

Even worse, The Age is running an online vote for the worst stagers, having at least partly misrepresented the AFL’s position.

Lest there be confusion, let us make clear that the incidents in the AFL video do not involve exaggerating a push in the back or falling in the act of marking in an effort to bring the defender into infringing contact. Whilst we would agree that the game might be better without this type of action, it is not covered under the new system.

It is disingenuous of The Age and of Martin Blake to imply that the listed players are ‘stagers’ under the AFL’s definition.

Perhaps a distinction needs to be made between staging and diving, although colloquially they are all but interchangeable.

Less controversial will be the upgrading of so-called ‘spear tackles’ to reportable offence status. It will be interesting to see what the umpires, match review panel and the tribunal consider to be a spear tackle.

Aussierulesblog can forsee a further development of the spear tackle ban being the tackle where a player’s shoulder is intentionally ground into the playing surface in a tackle. Remember, you read it here first!

Oh, thank goodness the tennis has finally finished, yachting is done for the summer and cricket is left only to pore over the dregs with a quick and dirty T20 mini series.

Aussie rules was actually on page 2 of Age Sport today! And almost a full page too!

Wednesday the Bombers have their first semi-serious hitout with an intra-club effort in Shepparton, and the following Friday they’re in Perth for the first pre-season comp game.

Oh, it’s been such a looong summer! It’ll be so good to have you back, footy!!

“What the hell were your blokes doing on a booze cruise in the middle of pre-season?” One hopes the start of Adrian Anderson’s conversation with Greg Swann and Stephen Kernahan carried some of this tone.

It is reported that the AFL will not impose further sanction on the Blues over the events of and surrounding the booze cruise.

Indeed, it’s difficult to see what more the AFL could have done. Despite the stupidity of the cruise in the first place, despite the club captain’s participation raising questions about his leadership, despite a young rookie being cajoled into a drinking “game” and despite Carlton’s somewhat equivocal response, this has mostly been a PR issue for the League. Notwithstanding the negative aspects of the publicity, League HQ will be secretly quite pleased that the whole issue of alcohol abuse at the elite level has had such an extensive public hearing.

It’s all but inconceivable that anyone even remotely interested in elite Aussie rules will not have heard the furore and formed the opinion that the Carlton guys shouldn’t have been on the cruise, shouldn’t have drunk so much and shouldn’t have abused the trust Levi Casboult’s parents placed in the club. That’s a pretty powerful message that has now had a good couple of months’ airing, importantly, through the generally ‘boozy’ summer and festive seasons.

Only time will tell if the Blues are able to generate some significant change to their inner culture. About the only person who might be pleased would be one B. Fevola — grateful, for once, to be out of the spotlight!

Is it only here at Aussierulesblog-Central or is this off-season dragging interminably?

Each day we turn to the sports pages, hoping they’ll be filled with all of the panoply of footy, but we’re forced to wade through page after page of horse racing (yawn), yachting (falling asleep) and tennis (fast asleep), not to mention ‘fudball’ (comatose). Only occasionally is there a contribution to the footy landscape, and even more occasionally, it is meaningful. Such, however, is the case today.

Emma Quayle’s piece on the AFLPA draftee induction program provides a longer than usual glimpse into the week-long effort to appropriately equip the stars of tomorrow to meet expectations.

One can imagine there are many, many massively unmemorable moments through this induction program, and it’s asking a lot of young men chosen for athletic qualities rather than academic to have them all take it all in. Nevertheless, Quayle picks out some seminal moments to highlight.

Bachar Houli relates how teenaged teammates were unexpectedly considerate and interested when he asked for quiet for his prayers. Harry O’Brien counsels these young men to find out why they’re doing a clinic and who and how they’ll be helping. All good stuff.

We’re also told that AFL players drink far more alcohol than their general public equivalents — a surprise to the innocence of these brand new draftees. “When an AFL player gets into trouble, [Steve] Alessio [AFLPA general manager of player development] reminds them, alcohol is usually a factor.” It’s not mentioned whether Carlton rookie Levi Casboult was called upon to provide first-hand corroboration of Alessio’s claim.

Quayle ends her report with quotes from a couple of draftees:

''It shows that you can't be ignorant, that you have to think about every little thing that you do,'' said Adelaide ruckman James Craig, and Andrew Hooper, a Western Bulldogs rookie, agreed.
''It's not good enough to say, 'I didn't know', because now we do,'' he said. ''We've been told how it is and we're the ones who have to put it in place and make the most of the chance we have.''

It’s not news that the AFL Players’ Association (AFLPA) provide a primer for all recruits to AFL clubs each year.

In this report, AFLPA general manager of player development, former Bombers big man Steve Alessio, says,

“ ‘We want to make sure they're fully aware of their off-field responsibilities and obligations [and] don't jeopardise their career by making bad judgments when they're newcomers to the game.’ ''

“Up to 90 per cent of the players will join a year-long program over 22 sessions that deal with budgeting, finance, nutrition, public speaking, defensive driving and more.”

The Brad Scott Mantra