“THE AFL has introduced a raft of changes to its anti-doping code after a year of controversy, with a ban now in place on injections unless they are required to treat a medical condition.”

Interesting. So, is a broken foot a medical condition? Probably.

So a pain-killing injection administered by a qualified medical practitioner would be OK.

But wouldn’t that be performance-enhancing?

Some quite fine hairs being split.

Far be it for AussieRulesBlog to be critical before the first bounce, but what is AFL Football Operations boss Mark Evans smoking?

Apparently, having multiple pictures on one screen improves the rate of “conclusive” video review decisions.

Pull the other one, Mark.

Let’s get this straight. If an umpire makes a dumb call and asks for a video review for touched off the boot, a million SD pictures on the screen aren’t going to get to a conclusive review. Technology can’t compensate for stupidity.

The same report on the AFL website suggests they are well down the road toward installing goalpost cameras. ABOUT TIME, YOU DUNDERHEADS! We assume they’ll point them along the goal line . . .

The pre-season “challenge” will show whether Evans has used the off-season well or not.

Fingers crossed.

For AussieRulesBlog, the Australian (tennis) Open is sports valium — guaranteed to send us bye-byes in seconds flat. Nevertheless, we see bits and pieces here and there and Bernard Tomic is not unknown to us.

The boos that greeted Tomic’s retirement against Nadal set us to thinking about expectation and how precocious talents manage it.

Let’s start with a familiar refrain for this blog: precocious talents don’t, for the most part, ask for or desire the expectations that are heaped on them — no matter what the sport.

In tennis, the polar opposites have to be Tomic and Lleyton Hewitt. Both young and talented, both brashly confident, both burdened with the expectations of a public ready to forgive the mis-steps of a successful player.

Like him or not, Hewitt leaves it ALL on the court, every time. It seems the public may have made its mind up on Tomic.

Time to wake up! We’ve finished talking tennis.

AFL players are also burdened with expectations, and the footy public similarly aren’t forgiving of those they judge to have fallen short.

Tom Scully and Jack Watts come to mind as much-touted talents who, thus far, haven’t delivered on the bigger stage of the AFL. Expectation is a millstone for these players.

By contrast, the likes of Dyson Heppell, Daniel Rich and Jack Ziebell follow the Hewitt model and give their all — no millstones here; these guys welcome the expectations and deliver.

There’s another type too. These are hyped, but in an understated way, often burdened by expectations they’re in no position to control. It’s no secret that Jobe Watson’s career was teetering when he discovered something inside himself that has driven him to captain his club, win a Brownlow Medal and stamp himself as an elite midfielder.

From the same club, and also with a famous father, Jay Neagle didn’t find that inner drive that Watson found and failed to meet those expectations.

Will Scully and Watts find something to help them fulfil a substantial portion of the potential they showed at under-age? Will they be “Jobe Watson”s or “Jay Neagle”s?

And will Tomic discover within himself a way to meet the expectation he didn’t ask for (but hasn’t shied away from embracing)?

It’s one of the biggest questions in life. Why do some people find the drive to succeed, while others languish. If we could find and bottle that drive — we would have used it on ourselves long ago!!

We’re breathlessly awaiting the banner headlines that Cats coach Chris Scott is a racist. He must be, because The Age reports today that he thinks the new interchange cap will favour endurance athletes.

The last time this completely outrageous suggestion was made, its proponents were quickly labelled racist.

Those proponents, Paul Roos and James Hird, dared to voice the additional assessment that Aboriginal footballers generally might not have the endurance capacity of their non-Aboriginal counterparts.

It can’t be long before the headline appears . . .  We’re waiting . . . .

AussieRulesBlog isn’t sure how to react to news that former Richmond skipper and assistant coach Wayne Campbell is to replace Jeff Gieschen as head of the AFL’s umpiring department.

Regular readers will understand that we thought Gieschen was a disaster in the role, overseeing a culture where the AFL industry understood that a pronouncement from The Giesch on a topic meant a crackdown on that particular aspect of the game for the next few weeks.

We are cautiously optimistic that there are people within the AFL hierarchy working for a less zealous approach to gameday officiating. We hope this means a move toward consistent interpretations of rules from season’s start to season’s end — but we’re not quite prepared to hang by our thumbs waiting.

Campbell is an interesting choice for the role, and we’re not the first to point out that Gieschen too had a Richmond connection — discarded senior coach — before being appointed.

The Tiger faithful will howl, but Campbell never impressed us as a player. That doesn’t mean, of course, that he can’t be an eminently capable administrator.

We have reason to think that Campbell’s approach will differ from Gieschen’s and will embrace a more relaxed, less doctrinaire stance by umpires.

Among changes to the rules to be introduced in the 2014 season, Campbell will be overseeeing:

1. Free kicks against and reporting of players bumping and making contact with their opponent’s head;
2. Free kicks against players who duck into (nearly) stationary opponents if they are tackled and do not dispose of the ball legally — and a play-on call when a player ducks into a tackle (we might name this the Selwood Rule?);
3. Free kicks against players using their heads to make forceful contact below the knees of an opponent. We’re not sure if the much-maligned “diving” rule has been put down, but we’re hoping.
4. The hands-in-the-back rule has been softened by the addition of the word “unduly”; and
5. The interchange penalty has been returned to earth after a trip into the realms of fantasy.

We don’t think many fans will have too many problems with these changes. It will be interesting to see how Joel Selwood fares. We suspect he’ll still get more than his share of touches and will still inspire a whole team.

Disappointingly, it seems the holding the ball rule, at least as it’s written in the book, isn’t changing and there doesn’t appear to be any move to stamp out opponents holding a ball to an opponent to milk a free kick, despite a number of promises over a number of years. Perhaps that’s an area where we can look for the Campbell influence to shine?

It’s official! The AFL are frightened of James Hird and the threat of renewal of his action against his suspension. That’s the only conclusion from today’s humiliating backdown.

After telling the world that they’d enforced an agreement on Hird and Essendon that Hird not be paid while suspended, the Australian Limp Lettuce League have agreed that Essendon can pay Hird whatever they choose in calendar 2013, but he will receive no money from the Bombers in 2014.

Hird will receive a substantial sum — his 2014 salary — between now and New Year, and Sir Robin (Vlad) will spend the rest of his life running away (wiping the egg from his face).

when danger reared its ugly head, he bravely turned his tail and fled,

Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin

No-one should be surprised by Tania Hird’s ‘revelation’ that her husband remains on the Bombers’ payroll during his suspension.

The AFL have played their hand poorly right from the get-go. Despite the Bombers’ confidence when self-reporting their supplements program that they would be vindicated, AFL House proceeded to leak ‘evidence’ to paint the Bombers, and coach James Hird particularly, as amoral desperates who would stop at nothing in their quest for success.

AussieRulesBlog finds it impossible to understand how anyone could swallow the line that any AFL club, any AFL coach would wilfully and consciously disregard the health and safety of the players on their list. But that’s the bait that was dangled — and duly swallowed by most.

Notwithstanding players playing ‘jabbed’ with pain killers, uncaring of the future effects, it defies any sort of logic to believe the AFL’s line.

And the more recent revelation — an appropriate word in these circumstances — that eleven or twelve AFL clubs were conducting ill-monitored, ill-recorded and ill-supervised supplements programs run by ill-screened employees at the same time as the Bombers is a ticking time bomb that the AFL have, so far successfully, swept out of public consciousness.

The speed with which the AFL’s house of cards folded when challenged by Bombers’ doctor Bruce Reid shines a spotlight on the paucity of the AFL case.

It’s hard to imagine that Hird would have lost had he challenged. It’s similarly easy to imagine that such a result would have brought the AFL to its knees.

The fact is that the Bombers need the AFL and they need it in good shape. The club can’t generate a profit and grow if it is playing in the VFL because the AFL has disappeared.

Similarly, the AFL needs its powerhouse clubs to generate attendances and other revenues to keep struggling clubs afloat.

AussieRulesBlog imagines a scene where a Keatingesque Hird faces Vlad across a table and says, “I’m going to do you slowly, mate.” Vlad knows he’s toast and responds, “How much to not destroy the game you love?”

Ultimately, it’s clear that Hird took one — his suspension — for the club and for the game. His reputation will forever be tarnished in the eyes of many, but his club lives on and the game has a chance to take a breath and build again. Who among us, knowing we would win the legal stoush, wouldn’t extract some blood from the stone?

It wouldn’t surprise AussieRulesBlog one skerrick if it emerged that the AFL were partly funding Hird’s salary for the year. Not that they’d want it known, of course.

The news this week that favourite AussieRulesBlog whipping boy Jeff Gieschen will depart the AFL has cheered us enormously. Gieschen was something of a disaster as coach of Richmond and his tenure at the AFL as Umpiring Department chief has been no less calamitous. Gieschen’s tortured rhetorical convolutions to explain labyrinthine rules and touching faith in the power of DVDs have been a blight on the game.

Ding-dong-the-Giesch-is-gone, ding-dong-the-wicked-Giesch-is-gone . . . [huge grin]

AussieRulesBlog understands there are moves within the AFL for a less book-driven approach to officiating, and we certainly welcome an approach that pays attention to the pace and feel of the game.

Our good mood was spoiled with the news that the Warrior Priestess for Truth and the Australian Colander League way has been recognised by her peers with a Walkley Award for her “fearless and insightful reporting and opinion” on the Essendon supplements affair. They forgot to mention the blind prejudice and the torrent of leaks. [savage snarl]