Each year at this time, the AFL makes its announcement of changes for the following season. The changes for the Tribunal and Match Review Panel for 2012 are remarkable not so much for the “changes” as for the language used.

 

For example:

any striking action with a raised forearm or elbow will be classified as intentional, unless there is clear evidence the strike was not intentional;

 

This is nothing more than an attempt to look to be hard on transgressions without actually changing anything. Black will be considered yellow unless there is clear evidence that it is not yellow! What nonsense!

 

There is further pain for the MRP with the addition of “excessive exaggeration of contact in an unsportsmanlike manner” to the existing staging definition of “feigning contact”. Really, how does the MRP decide what’s excessive exaggeration? And, is excessive exaggeration OK as long as it’s done in a sportsmanlike manner?

 

This change smacks of an attempt to cover the Angus Monfries revelation that he “took a dive” when hit by Jordan Lewis. That the MRP thought Lewis’ action sufficiently serious to deal out a three-week suspension suggests they’d find it difficult to also hand out a suspension to Monfries for the same incident.

 

Other critics of the staging sanctions focus on exaggerated contact in marking contests. If you’re one of these, don’t hang by your thumbs waiting to see a forward who exaggerates a push in the back get reported for “staging”. It’s not going to happen.

 

The cops could surround these changes with chequered tape and have a constable advising browsers to “move along, there’s nothing to see here.”

Can we just quietly mention that we’re mightily pissed off at the Cats?

 

Having given Chris Scott and Ron Cook a congratulatory mention for ignoring the herd-like stampede to high-altitude training camps, we discover the Cats have been in Falls Creek.

 

Thanks for nothing, guys.

Despite everything, AussieRulesBlog can’t help but feel sorry for Brendan Fevola. The lyrics of Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi are, we think, appropriate to Fevola’s situation.

 

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone

 

Through season after season, his on-field talent had got him out of tight off-field scrapes. Kicking goals was a cure for all ills — until . . .

 

We can feel the cogs turning in Michael Voss’ mind: “Surely he’s seen that he’s almost had this extraordinary opportunity taken away. We throw him a lifeline and he’ll be so grateful he’ll become a Pentecostal preacher!” Ok, there’s a bit of licence at the end, but you know what we mean.

 

Without a trade deal, it’s looking increasingly likely that Fev will not be playing AFL again. And, despite the NFL rehabilitating players who’ve transgressed, such as Michael Vick, Fev is not going to be a potential game changer, as Vick is. Fev’s NFL cards might also be marked, no matter how good a punter he could eventually turn out to be. Punting is just not that crucial to NFL teams to take a chance on a loose cannon.

 

Both Andrew Lovett and Leon Davis look to have also finished their elite level careers, for quite different reasons. ‘Neon’ Leon has, quite simply, miscalculated. Lovett missed his best chance by turning the Bombers against himself.

 

All three will have a quite powerful feeling when they hear Joni’s clear voice ringing out.

 

You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

The announcement of experimental rules for the 2012 pre-season games carries no surprises. We were alerted to these changes weeks ago, but it’s interesting to see the final implementation.

 

AussieRulesBlog has made no secret of our enthusiasm for any change that removes ugly wrestling from ruck contests. The explanatory notes make for some intriguing consideration.

 

Ruckmen will not be permitted to make contact with their opponent prior to bounces and throw-ins, with umpires ensuring the players do not make contact with each other until the ball leaves the umpire’s hand. The trial is designed to encourage ruckmen to contest the ball, rather than focus on nullifying their opponent, as well as making ruck contests easier to adjudicate.

 

We’re not entirely sure that the last point has been achieved by adding another rule for umpires to adjudicate! It will be fascinating to see how ruckmen manage this new process.

 

Centre bounces have generally been genuine contests since the dividing line between ruckmen was introduced. Athletic ruckmen have had the opportunity to leap high above the more lumbering types and the umpires have, in our judgement, generally done a good job in restricting the lumberers from taking the leapers’ run away from them. The second centre circle has reduced the advantage that more athletic ruckmen might otherwise have had.

 

So, for this trial, at ball ups around the ground, ruckmen will not be able to touch each other until the ball has left the umpire’s hands. Frankly, we’re not sure that there’ll be much difference discernable. The ruckmen will stand quite close to each other and, as soon as the ball hits the turf, will come together in a wrestle for the five or six seconds it takes for the ball to fall back down to them. What change have we made? Not bloody much!

 

And we can’t wait to see how precise and precious the umpires are going to be about what constitutes a touch.

 

For boundary throw ins, the situation is much the same. As the ball is arcing through the air for five or six seconds, the ruckmen will be wrestling for position and advantage as they move to the fall of the ball. Again, not much bloody difference!

 

We can’t fault the intent of these experiments, but they don’t go nearly far enough.

It’s heartening to see that the Giants have secured a major sponsor with the new advertisements plastered all over the AFL website this afternoon.


Only one question guys: who decided your logo was going to work on an AFL guernsey? I guess the association with the Giants, and especially The Promised Land, will carry the bulk of the load along with advertising like this above, but it’s pretty hard to see that the Giants’ TV exposure is going to deliver much when the sponsor logo disappears into the background. Presumably it looks better, and stands out more, on the charcoal guernsey.

Oh well, it’s their money.

Update: The picture of #1 draft pick Jonathan Patton in his brand new Giants polo shirt illustrates the issue for the “co-major partner”. Every name except theirs is perfectly readable in this pic.

As usual, Aussie rules’ biggest club will want to have its cake, and eat it too!

 

Barcodes President Eddie McGuire’s threats over the Giants’ potential interest in Scott Pendlebury need to be balanced with the thought of, arguably, Australia’s most powerful sporting club being itself let loose in the free agency china shop from 2013.

 

And in a curiously serendipitous coincidence, the Barcodes’ Travis Cloke’s manager-father David is already talking up his youngest son’s free-agency value post his current contract.

 

Which non-Barcodes footy fan wouldn’t revel in the delicious irony of Eddie Everywhere bouncing off the walls of a rubber room over Pendlebury while his club’s star forward seeks the best dollars he can get elsewhere in the competition?

 

Eddie’s bluster is all very well, but the AFL’s salary cap system severely restricts the ability of successful clubs to counter attractive financial packages mounted by less successful clubs. Similarly, it also restricts the Barcodes’ ability to be a spoiler in any meaningful way.

 

Eddy wishes he was George Harris or Big Jack Elliott and he could buy a team of champions, but the landscape has changed.

 

It will be players and individual player priorities that will decide who smiles and who cries. Irrevocably, for players the only loyalty will be to the playing group they are part of. There will be some who will play their entire careers at one club, but they will become fewer. Fans and administrations need to brace themselves. This is not going to be pretty.

It’s not often that AussieRulesBlog strays from the path of Aussie rules, but we find ourselves deeply affected by the sudden and untimely death of Peter Roebuck.

 

We won’t attempt to eulogise the man. Others far more gifted with the language have already done so and there’s nothing we could legitimately add.

 

That said, there are few in the media scrum that these days pervades every professional sporting endeavour who could give us pause to reconsider firmly held views. Roebuck was one such.

 

Our summer will not be the same without him. Vale Peter.

For both AFL clubs and the AFL-focussed media, pre-Christmas is a very, very positive time of year. Ageing stars are having “their best pre-season for years”, last year’s draftees and rookies are shaping up as potential superstars and everyone is aiming for “finals footy”.

 

While the Barcodes continue to talk up their Arizona training camps and the Kangaroos, Tigers and Suns follow their lead — hardly surprising incidentally when you remember that Brad Scott and Guy McKenna are graduates of the Barcodes’ coaching academy — Chris Scott’s Cats are sticking close to sea level at Kardinia Park.

 

AussieRulesBlog has questioned the long-term physical effect of altitude training before. We feel like we’re in pretty good company with Chris Scott, Ron Cook and Bomber Thompson all figuring it’s not worth the effort or, more importantly, the expense.

 

As we’ve previously noted, that’s not to deny the possibility of mental advantages. The placebo effect is powerful and the old adage that a change is as good as a holiday holds true in 2011 as much as at any other time in the last fifty years.

 

But we do like the noises out of Cat land on this issue, so much so that we’re moved to borrow a nice turn of phrase from a commenter on the story in the Hun and use it as the inspiration for our headline. *Thanks Ish Mehta!

 

With three Premierships in five years versus one in twenty-one years, you’d have to think that attitude is well in front of altitude at the moment!