"The good thing for us as umpires is nothing changes. Free kicks are the same." says AFL umpire Shaun Ryan, one of the three umpires chosen to officiate at Saturday’s AFL Grand Final.
If only that were so, Shaun. If only it were so.
FWIW, AussieRulesBlog reckons Shaun is one of the best of the whistleblowers running around.
Release the Giesch!!!
Aussie Rules’ night of nights is done and dusted for another year, but AussieRulesBlog is well over it. Whether it be the walking, talking joke that is the Edelstens or the breathless pre-count discussion of favouritism and everybody’s tip, it’s all too much for us.
Just what connection does the ancient ram dressed and coiffed as a lamb, otherwise known as Geoffrey Edelsten, have with AFL in 2011? Forget the perennially over-exposed Brynne. Who picked out that suit for his nibs? And Geoff, mate, give away the Nugget shoe polish in the hair and stick to Grecian 2000! You’ll still look like a try-hard dick, but it just won’t stand out like an FCUK billboard.
And for all our bagging of the umpires and their weekly performance, they generally manage to confound the pundits come Brownlow night, and we think that is good for football, as they say. Listen to the media speculation and you’d have had ‘Goodesy’ and ‘Juddy’ booked for the Carbine Club lunch from about May Day. Thank goodness the umpires make their decisions without fear or favour. Were any proof required, Sam Mitchell’s guilty plea to an MRP charge in late April ruled him out of Brownlow contention yet the umpires continued to award votes as they saw the game. Well done umpires!
We didn’t watch the telecast of the count, just popping in every now and then from the Steelers v. Colts to check the leaders board. We still managed to hear the Boss mangle some fairly familiar names and we cringed at a mid-count interview of eventual winner Dane Swan — congratulations, by the way — with Bruce at his sycophantic apogee. We like Bruce, but sometimes it’s hard to keep your dinner down. . .
So, the season is drawing to a close. There’s all the hullaballoo of Grand Final week to survive, culminating in the Grand Final ‘entertainment’ — Meatloaf will at least lend some professionalism — and the big dance. Around 5pm Saturday it will all be done and dusted. We hope the Cats will remember that any day that the Barcodes lose is a good day. And we hope that the Saints remember to pack their cameras for their footy trip.
See you Sunday for a review of the ‘entertainment’ and whatever farcical concoction has been dredged up for the delivery of the Premiership Cup.
If any footy fan doubted the importance of conditioning in AFL success, an article today in The Age should remove those doubts. The article concerns Luke Ball and his journey since deciding to leave St Kilda.
Not to put too fine a point on it, Ball was a junior superstar. Taken at #2 in the 2001 National Draft, behind Luke Hodge and just ahead of Chris Judd, Ball showed his class immediately. After a couple of years, it was obvious that Ball was slowing down, his kicking lacked penetration and his effectiveness waned.
As Michael Gleeson’s article relates, the conditioning and sports science people at Collingwood have fixed Ball’s body in two short years — a task that seemed beyond St Kilda’s capacity for half a decade. There have been a number of comments in recent days lamenting St Kilda’s loss of conditioning coach Dave Misson on the heels of Ross Lyon’s departure. Without knowing about budgets and support staff and facilities, and so assuming them to be equal, the change in Ball’s capacity must put some sort of question mark over Misson.
Can there be a starker demonstration of the value of the very best off-field staff?
The simple facts are that the best teams in the competition can go just as hard as everyone else at the start of the game and keep up that pace for longer. Teams that drop off during a quarter are almost certainly demonstrating a lack of conditioning.
AussieRulesBlog is fond of telling anyone who’ll listen that AFL is played 95% between the ears and, despite the previous paragraph, we’re not going to run away from that statement. Better conditioning means that players’ bodies are less stressed and can devote more resources to brain activity. Making better decisions under pressure is usually the path to victory. Better conditioning leads to better decision making under pressure. It’s quite simple really. All that’s left is finding the conditioning coach who can lift the team’s capacity to the top of the elite level . . .
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| AFL umpiring administration |
“The two bodies came together and there was contact, but if you put his arm out straight and have your palm facing back, that was how his hand was. It wasn't a holding motion. Holding is when you clench your fist or wrap your arm around someone.”
“People say you throw your whistle away. But that's all about the players reading the play at half time and realising, if we want to win the game, we need to focus on the ball and cut out any little tactics.”
The slow-motion train wreck that is the St Kilda Football Club delivered one of its biggest surprises last night, albeit not of its own hands.
After two oh-so-close brushes with a second Premiership Cup for the Saints, it is being suggested that coach Ross Lyon departed a dysfunctional club culture and copped a decent pay rise into the bargain. AussieRulesBlog knows of one super-keen Saints supporter who washed their hands of the club in the wake of the so-called St Kilda schoolgirl scandals. Lyon would have been front row centre for the spectacle and it’s not hard to imagine that he found the whole business distasteful.
The undercover nature of Lyon’s negotiations with Fremantle has more than a slight smell of fish around it. The contrast with Neil Craig’s departure from Adelaide, albeit in significantly-different circumstances, cannot be overlooked.
The truth is that AFL is now at least as much a business as it is a sport. Notions of loyalty and ‘team’ are going to be increasingly strained as the competition moves, inexorably it seems, to free agency. Ask Matthew Knights, Dean Bailey and now Mark Harvey, about loyalty. A coaching contract is now officially about as valuable, morally, as a square of Sorbent poo ticket. Knights and Harvey at least have the pleasure of accepting the balance of their contract money, but that can hardly be equivalent to the significant damage done to their brand and their careers in football.
The AFL’s latest offer to the AFLPA of 11%, 5%, 3%, 3% and 3% over five years in talks toward a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) seems inordinately weighted toward the short term — not unlike Tom Scully’s reported contract terms coincidentally for all those AFL conspiracy theorists out there.
For those of us who live in the day-to-day world, it’s hard to argue with the AFLPA’s position to leave open the option to reassess the financial state of the sport after three years and to even the increases out over time. The AFLPA’s claim is for 6%, 6% and 7% over three years.
The AFLPA is not, at least in an overt fashion, seeking more money, so Andrew Demetriou’s reaction that “there is no more money” seems somewhat out of line. The first three years of the AFL’s offer would, in simple terms, amount to 19% — a little over 20.05% compounded. The AFLPA’s counter-claim would also amount to 19% — 20.225% compounded. It’s not hard to imagine that the AFLPA could negotiate its claim down to match the 20.05% compounded increase.
Notwithstanding the merits of various claims and counter claims, AussieRulesBlog fears that the game has gone down a path where there is no room to reverse or to turn around. “Negotiations” on the CBA have taken on an adversarial quality that does not bode well for the future — lockouts in major US sports give an indication where we’re heading. There’s no show without Punch, as the old saying goes, but, equally, no theatre equals no income for Punch.
The issue of the penalty aside, what is it about lines that some AFL footballers struggle with? There is a boundary line and they mostly manage to assimilate the concept that keeping the ball inside the line keeps the ball ‘live’. There is a fifty-metre square line for starting or restarting play (after goals). There is a fifty-metre line for super goals during the pre-season comp. All of these seem to offer no great difficulty, but show them a goal square or an interchange line and some of them come over all stupid.
There is no excuse for a player kicking out after a point stepping on the line of the goal square and thus giving up the ball to a bounce and a 50-50 contest at the goal mouth.
Similarly, there is no excuse for a player disregarding the yellow interchange lines when leaving or entering the field of play.
C-o-n-c-e-n-t-r-a-t-e. Allow a margin for error. These aspects of the game have as much impact as a kick for goal. Why would players not take the same care they would with a shot for goal?
"The good thing for us as umpires is nothing changes. Free kicks are the same." says AFL umpire Shaun Ryan, one of the three umpires chosen to officiate at Saturday’s AFL Grand Final.
If only that were so, Shaun. If only it were so.
FWIW, AussieRulesBlog reckons Shaun is one of the best of the whistleblowers running around.
Release the Giesch!!!
Aussie Rules’ night of nights is done and dusted for another year, but AussieRulesBlog is well over it. Whether it be the walking, talking joke that is the Edelstens or the breathless pre-count discussion of favouritism and everybody’s tip, it’s all too much for us.
Just what connection does the ancient ram dressed and coiffed as a lamb, otherwise known as Geoffrey Edelsten, have with AFL in 2011? Forget the perennially over-exposed Brynne. Who picked out that suit for his nibs? And Geoff, mate, give away the Nugget shoe polish in the hair and stick to Grecian 2000! You’ll still look like a try-hard dick, but it just won’t stand out like an FCUK billboard.
And for all our bagging of the umpires and their weekly performance, they generally manage to confound the pundits come Brownlow night, and we think that is good for football, as they say. Listen to the media speculation and you’d have had ‘Goodesy’ and ‘Juddy’ booked for the Carbine Club lunch from about May Day. Thank goodness the umpires make their decisions without fear or favour. Were any proof required, Sam Mitchell’s guilty plea to an MRP charge in late April ruled him out of Brownlow contention yet the umpires continued to award votes as they saw the game. Well done umpires!
We didn’t watch the telecast of the count, just popping in every now and then from the Steelers v. Colts to check the leaders board. We still managed to hear the Boss mangle some fairly familiar names and we cringed at a mid-count interview of eventual winner Dane Swan — congratulations, by the way — with Bruce at his sycophantic apogee. We like Bruce, but sometimes it’s hard to keep your dinner down. . .
So, the season is drawing to a close. There’s all the hullaballoo of Grand Final week to survive, culminating in the Grand Final ‘entertainment’ — Meatloaf will at least lend some professionalism — and the big dance. Around 5pm Saturday it will all be done and dusted. We hope the Cats will remember that any day that the Barcodes lose is a good day. And we hope that the Saints remember to pack their cameras for their footy trip.
See you Sunday for a review of the ‘entertainment’ and whatever farcical concoction has been dredged up for the delivery of the Premiership Cup.
If any footy fan doubted the importance of conditioning in AFL success, an article today in The Age should remove those doubts. The article concerns Luke Ball and his journey since deciding to leave St Kilda.
Not to put too fine a point on it, Ball was a junior superstar. Taken at #2 in the 2001 National Draft, behind Luke Hodge and just ahead of Chris Judd, Ball showed his class immediately. After a couple of years, it was obvious that Ball was slowing down, his kicking lacked penetration and his effectiveness waned.
As Michael Gleeson’s article relates, the conditioning and sports science people at Collingwood have fixed Ball’s body in two short years — a task that seemed beyond St Kilda’s capacity for half a decade. There have been a number of comments in recent days lamenting St Kilda’s loss of conditioning coach Dave Misson on the heels of Ross Lyon’s departure. Without knowing about budgets and support staff and facilities, and so assuming them to be equal, the change in Ball’s capacity must put some sort of question mark over Misson.
Can there be a starker demonstration of the value of the very best off-field staff?
The simple facts are that the best teams in the competition can go just as hard as everyone else at the start of the game and keep up that pace for longer. Teams that drop off during a quarter are almost certainly demonstrating a lack of conditioning.
AussieRulesBlog is fond of telling anyone who’ll listen that AFL is played 95% between the ears and, despite the previous paragraph, we’re not going to run away from that statement. Better conditioning means that players’ bodies are less stressed and can devote more resources to brain activity. Making better decisions under pressure is usually the path to victory. Better conditioning leads to better decision making under pressure. It’s quite simple really. All that’s left is finding the conditioning coach who can lift the team’s capacity to the top of the elite level . . .
|
| AFL umpiring administration |
“The two bodies came together and there was contact, but if you put his arm out straight and have your palm facing back, that was how his hand was. It wasn't a holding motion. Holding is when you clench your fist or wrap your arm around someone.”
“People say you throw your whistle away. But that's all about the players reading the play at half time and realising, if we want to win the game, we need to focus on the ball and cut out any little tactics.”
The slow-motion train wreck that is the St Kilda Football Club delivered one of its biggest surprises last night, albeit not of its own hands.
After two oh-so-close brushes with a second Premiership Cup for the Saints, it is being suggested that coach Ross Lyon departed a dysfunctional club culture and copped a decent pay rise into the bargain. AussieRulesBlog knows of one super-keen Saints supporter who washed their hands of the club in the wake of the so-called St Kilda schoolgirl scandals. Lyon would have been front row centre for the spectacle and it’s not hard to imagine that he found the whole business distasteful.
The undercover nature of Lyon’s negotiations with Fremantle has more than a slight smell of fish around it. The contrast with Neil Craig’s departure from Adelaide, albeit in significantly-different circumstances, cannot be overlooked.
The truth is that AFL is now at least as much a business as it is a sport. Notions of loyalty and ‘team’ are going to be increasingly strained as the competition moves, inexorably it seems, to free agency. Ask Matthew Knights, Dean Bailey and now Mark Harvey, about loyalty. A coaching contract is now officially about as valuable, morally, as a square of Sorbent poo ticket. Knights and Harvey at least have the pleasure of accepting the balance of their contract money, but that can hardly be equivalent to the significant damage done to their brand and their careers in football.
The AFL’s latest offer to the AFLPA of 11%, 5%, 3%, 3% and 3% over five years in talks toward a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) seems inordinately weighted toward the short term — not unlike Tom Scully’s reported contract terms coincidentally for all those AFL conspiracy theorists out there.
For those of us who live in the day-to-day world, it’s hard to argue with the AFLPA’s position to leave open the option to reassess the financial state of the sport after three years and to even the increases out over time. The AFLPA’s claim is for 6%, 6% and 7% over three years.
The AFLPA is not, at least in an overt fashion, seeking more money, so Andrew Demetriou’s reaction that “there is no more money” seems somewhat out of line. The first three years of the AFL’s offer would, in simple terms, amount to 19% — a little over 20.05% compounded. The AFLPA’s counter-claim would also amount to 19% — 20.225% compounded. It’s not hard to imagine that the AFLPA could negotiate its claim down to match the 20.05% compounded increase.
Notwithstanding the merits of various claims and counter claims, AussieRulesBlog fears that the game has gone down a path where there is no room to reverse or to turn around. “Negotiations” on the CBA have taken on an adversarial quality that does not bode well for the future — lockouts in major US sports give an indication where we’re heading. There’s no show without Punch, as the old saying goes, but, equally, no theatre equals no income for Punch.
We don’t think we’re being pedantic expecting that a foundation rule of Aussie Rules football be adhered to in the game’s elite competition. Actually, there were any number of rules not adhered to in watching the four finals this weekend, but we’ve got one in particular on our mind.
The issue of the penalty aside, what is it about lines that some AFL footballers struggle with? There is a boundary line and they mostly manage to assimilate the concept that keeping the ball inside the line keeps the ball ‘live’. There is a fifty-metre square line for starting or restarting play (after goals). There is a fifty-metre line for super goals during the pre-season comp. All of these seem to offer no great difficulty, but show them a goal square or an interchange line and some of them come over all stupid.
There is no excuse for a player kicking out after a point stepping on the line of the goal square and thus giving up the ball to a bounce and a 50-50 contest at the goal mouth.
Similarly, there is no excuse for a player disregarding the yellow interchange lines when leaving or entering the field of play.
C-o-n-c-e-n-t-r-a-t-e. Allow a margin for error. These aspects of the game have as much impact as a kick for goal. Why would players not take the same care they would with a shot for goal?
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