I’m a pretty positive person when it comes to footy. If you’ve read my stuff – you know it’s true.
I like to focus on the positives in our game and make them the foundation we build The Mongrel Punt on. We love the game and write about it as people who do. Hell, there are plenty of other sites and publications that will focus on the negative as they know it generates clicks and starts discussions. Really, it’s good marketing.
And you all fall for it!
Tsk tsk…
But once in a while, I like to vent as much as the next bloke who runs a footy site. I mean, we can focus all we like on the positive aspects of the game, but to ignore the negative completely would be neglectful of me.
So, as we inch closer to the 2023 season, here are a few of the things that drive me up the wall about our game.
CONSTANT RULE CHANGES
I see the WAFL is trialling the “last touch out of bounds” rule as part of their preseason games this season.
You know what that means, right?
As if the protected zone and “stand” 50-metre penalties haven’t detracted from the game enough, the league will undoubtedly employ a team of experts to study a few tweaks to the game to find the conclusion they want. This will justify further changes to a game that, really, will always come down to how it’s coached.
Over the past 15 or so years, we’ve seen the “hands in the back” rule instituted, much to the disgust of Matthew Richardson, and then suddenly rescinded for no apparent reason, muddying the waters around what constitutes a push in the back in marking contests.
We’ve seen multiple interpretations of the holding-the-ball rule and sometimes, we see it changed on a week-to-week basis. The AFL has their clampdowns on certain facets of the game that run their course within a month, and then we find them starting to ramp them back up again at the start of a new season, as if they forgot why it didn’t work last year and think a calendar ticking over to a new year will fix what wasn’t working.
In 2022, we saw the dissent rule introduced. By halfway through the season, the stance on it was softened as the players started to resemble robots, but rest assured, I am certain we will see a hard-line approach to players questioning umpires again to start the 2023 season.
THE VOICES OF THE UMPIRES RINGING IN MY EARS
This ties into one of the sections below where I lament the overall coverage of the game, but after watching several games from the 90s during the off-season, one thing I really enjoyed was the umpires not yelling “stand” or instructing players on how best to play the game.
You know – “don’t hold”…”don’t push”… “don’t get a fine”.
I didn’t hear any of it!
The broadcasters have the ability to shut the mics off, or at least turn them down. However, we’ve just come to expect high-pitched voices bleating at the players, and therefore us, every minute of every game. It doesn’t have to be this way.
The downside of the umpires being muted is that there may be some decisions that are a little iffy to the TV audience (let’s face it – most decisions are completely lost on the crowd, with many people looking bemused at what is unfolding half the time) but that is where the magic of replay comes into effect. And guess what – you can actually use the recorded voices of the umpires as part of the broadcast to detail why a free kick was paid as part of the replay.
Maybe some of you have gotten used to hearing it, but that doesn’t mean it’s pleasant. I am pretty sure when the league implemented the idea to mic up the umps, they didn’t envision them yelling ”stand” 200 times per game.
And yes, with games often exceeding 200 combined marks and free kicks, that’s how often you hear it. My guess is now you might hear it more. Sorry…
THE LACK OF OFFICIAL AWARDS
This is cutting my own throat, but the reason we started the Wingman of the Year and the Defensive Player of the Year is that the AFL is just so crap at honouring those who a) don’t play in the middle, and b) don’t kick a bunch of goals.
Seriously, what’s stopping them?
Name the awards in honour of some of the greats of the game – the Bruce Doull Award for the Best Defensive Player of the Year. The Keith Greig or Robbie Flower Award for the best pure wingman in the game. It shouldn’t be up to smaller sites like ours to recognise the unsung positions in the game. The AFL consider themselves the custodians of the game, but do they really look after it?
Or just themselves?
COVERAGE OF THE GAME STUCK 20 YEARS AGO
Stemming on from the mic’ed up umpire section, the AFL and their broadcast partners have used technology to implement… well, a score review system that works sporadically, and not much else. And even when it does work, it looks like it was shot on a Nokia 3210.
As consumers of the product, the inability to do things like choose commentary options, choose camera angles, access stats as part of the service you’re paying for (especially those who shell out for Foxtel) is indicative of how far we’re behind. There are no real improvements in the coverage except for analysis that seems to annoy the broadcasters between quarters, as they lose time for advertisements.
If you ever watch sports other than our game, you’d rarely hear a commentator list every player every time they touch the footy… but we do. And when I think about it, I have no idea why they do it and why someone hasn’t stepped in and attempted to offer something a little different. Perhaps it’s that most of the TV commentators cut their teeth in radio, where it is important to mention every possession as there is no other way to know what’s going on. On TV, we can bloody see it – we don’t need to know that Jeremy McGovern has it, has kicked 20 metres sideways to Tom Barrass, who looks upfield – it’s right there in front of our face!
There seems to be no clauses within the broadcast rights to improve the coverage, with the AFL seemingly content with what they did last year, five years ago, and twenty years ago being the standard by which the next deal will be assessed.
With all that they have at their disposal, and for the money it’s worth, what they deliver is pretty poor.
STAT HOARDING
Whoever thought the idea of hiring a private company (which the AFL own a percentage of) to provide all stats for the competition and sell them back to the clubs, and news publications, was a good one, needs a kick in the arse.
Looking at overseas competitions, regular statistics and advanced statistics are widely available to the general public to peruse and come to their own conclusions. Instead, we are drip fed numbers sporadically by those who are either able to crunch the numbers provided to reinforce a point they’re desperate to make, or by those who have people to do it for them and hand them a cheat sheet.
As a result, unless you are “in”, you have no real idea of the stats that coaches and teams are using to inform them as to the flow of the game and where the teams are winning and falling down.
Good luck to Champion Data – they have done extremely well to monopolise the stats industry when it comes to the AFL, but it is to the detriment of the game and the supporters, many of whom could do wonders with the info compared to what we receive from official sources.
Big shout out to the boys from Useless AFL Stats, who seem to be able to do more with less info than 95% of those with full access to all stats.
WATERING DOWN THE PHYSICALITY
Anyone over the age of 40 can probably remember a time when you were allowed to bump and tackle hard. Yes, there will be those who state you can still do it as long as you’re doing it safely, but by placing the duty of care on the tackler as opposed to the bloke with the ball, we’ve created a situation where it is better to be weaker in a tackle than stronger.
At least in the short term.
There have been many times where the player being tackled has elected to hold onto the footy, thereby opting not to use an arm to protect himself as he crashes into the turf, winning a free kick for a “dangerous” tackle, when the option to protect himself was there, but not taken.
I know a lot of people state that the ball carrier should be protected, and I understand that, but when tackles resulting in a holding the ball decision run at about 5% of all tackles laid (and I kept my own bloody stats to bring that one to you), then there is an imbalance in rewarding the tackler and rewarding the ball carrier. And a pretty significant one, as well.
It’s difficult to believe that the deterrent to tackle hard and effectively is not something the AFL have not manipulated, and in the long run, the game will be worse off for it.
Remember, there was a time when players and supporters would have scoffed at the suggestion that a good tackle would warrant weeks on the sidelines as a result of a suspension. I fear for where it is headed next.
Yes, I am a neanderthal. I know…
PLAYERS ARE HELD TO A HIGHER STANDARD THAN THOSE HOLDING THEM TO IT
The furore around Jordan de Goey’s Bali trip during the bye period last season was the prime example of all that is wrong with the coverage of the game.
Looking for a headline and damn the consequences, the journalists hung the bloke before trial for doing… very little.
Two adults were having fun at a bar and suddenly, it became everyone else’s problem. Even once the young lady in question blew off the concern of others, it didn’t stop them from lamenting de Goey’s behaviour and I would not blame any player who has felt the insatiable hunger of the media for a story – any story – if he refused to give them the time of day from now on.
I’d like to think the media may have learnt a lesson, but given there was no real backlash, other than from supporters who, like me, are a bit sick of the holier-than-thou stance taken, they’ll likely continue on reporting like irresponsible and excited school kids who managed to get a seat at the back of the bus and access to the cool kids, only to realise that they don’t really belong. So they run off to tell the principal the first chance they get.
When something is serious, sure – go to town, but when it’s not, for crying out loud, don’t try to make it something it’s not just to sell a few papers or generate a few clicks. Frankly, it’s pathetic.
Okay, that was cathartic. Feel free to add your own, as I go back to being positive.
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