Yes, BB comes from ‘just up the road’ — Smithton, Tas. (local pron. ‘Mifton’). Funnily enough, so does Saul Eslake! Not NMFC’s favourite person at the moment. A good example of how to lose your bank a cool 6m with a loose tongue! He must have a much more pernicious strain of Vidmaritis.

Redb – well, if Dave’s post under “HAL GF is a cause for celebration”, then I stand corrected. Looks like it could sell out, which is good given ver. 4 has been a less than inspiring season.

Roll on another MV championship and another Hawks premiership!!!

remember that both Ben Buckley and Andrew Demetriou are North Melbourne ‘old boys’. There’s so much in common!!

Keeper11 -

hear the sound of violins…..

I think the leadup to the HAL GF will be well attended and get good coverage. I was just refuting your conspiracy theory and

I guess adding some weight of significance to the Rich V Coll game to illustrate that it is a bigger deal than folks outside of Melbourne realise and I don’t barrack for either team. It was definitely still the right decision to move the NAB Cup game, just not as straight forward as some diehard futbol fans rant on about.

Redb

Optus or Princes Park would be way too small for the Rich v Coll game – that’s the point.

Keeper11,

Has anyone ever accused you of putting words in people’s mouths? Do you feel better? You know what happens when you assume……

Your barking up the wrong tree, I like Victory and have been to 3 games. I’m not obsessed however and will happily admit to bandwagoning behaviour when it comes to futbol.

Redb

Besides whether the NAB game was played before or after the HAL GF it would have attracted huge media interest in Melbourne.

people talk here as if ‘tha media’ is actually free, independant, fair and balanced in this country…

so if there was no ‘real footy’ ..yawn ..played before the HAL GF.. …

i assume you’re saying the Herald Hun…sorry ‘Sun’ would have a front page and 6 page coverage /buildup on the melbourne club side hosting a grand final. a national competiton ….

and MEL radio would supposedly get behind the club..if not the event as well..

you’re either deluded or joking but either way you can’t be serious…..

australian commercial media ..with news-limited at the forefront ..is nothing more than the marketing/ commercial/ promotional arm of the AFL/ NRL and whose sole aim is market protection of those two codes.

sockah is seen as a rival ..a ‘foreign threat’ and is to be treated as such….

very simple really…..

Footy forums around the country (eg. HS) have been littered with gloating HAL fans, and AFL fans and columnists complaining the AFL has been hard done by and at the same time has given into the FFA, etc. etc. They’ve all missed what has been a great victory to the AFL. And the FFA is to a point indebted to the AFL. AND EVERYBODY STILL HATES TELSTRA DOME (did not Etihad’s marketing team realise the degree of resentment toward TD before doing a deal?)

RedB — “the AFL could have rescheduled the Richmond V Collingwood game at the MCG” – purely hypothetical given the cricket pitch. Could they have gone for OO/PP or whatever it’s called now?

I agree a MV vs. QR GF would have been a more enticing proposition. There’s been a lot of talk about a sellout / 50k+ crowd for the HAL GF. I am yet to be convinced. With the Rich v. Coll. game on Thursday night and a MV vs. AU matchup, the HAL GDF will find it even harder to break into the headlines. It’ll be nothing like the leadup to the 2006/07 GF.

However, I tend to think the FFA is partly to blame for all of this. Because of FIFA dates it pushed back the GF by a couple of weekends. If it had had the creativity to move a couple of rounds to mid-week instead of weekends, this mess could have been avoided. Surely it must’ve seen the risk of competing with NRL and AFL pre-season comps.

you read too much into it.

Remember, the AFL has Docklands booked already on Friday night and Sunday night. The MCG is unavailable – and the whole context of the NAB cup is that if you keep winning then you get to play the big venues, and maximise your drawing power to get those people turning up to sign up their memberships before the season proper.

That only left either Thursday or Monday night -

and even a NAB match runs too late to play on a MOnday night – - people don’t like those late nights early in the week – - come Thursday though, and you’ve only got Friday to negotiate and then it’s the weekend.

Will AFL people be distracted??? Maaate. The footy’s about to start, get that soccer out of the way as soon as possible, heck, we all know that soccer folk are satisfied now that they know the 2 teams to take on the ACL. AU probably cared more about winning last week over Roar than they do this week.

Firstly, Richmond fans in particular with no interest in soccer would not care less abou the HAL GF any more than the NBL GF. They would see the NAB Cup game as far more important not just equal. It’s all relative isn’t it.

However, most sports fans can see the difference and none above have argued there was equality, the facts are TD double booked the date.

Another fact, there is considerable interest in this NAB Cup game, far more than usual. The crowd will be large, not as large as the HAL GF, but 40,000+. For a pre-season AFL game this is extraordinary.

IMO Thursday night is a tough night to go to a game for a family with kids, this will reduce the potential crowd and I’m sure AD would not have liked that.

Anyway, I think you should be grateful the game has clear air on Saturday night in Melbourne, if the MCG was available the AFL could have rescheduled the Richmond V Collingwood game at the MCG and got 60,000 and then you would have seen the HAL GF really starved of media oxygen.

Besides whether the NAB game was played before or after the HAL GF it would have attracted huge media interest in Melbourne.

I have to say i would have preferred QLD Roar to make the GF, a replay with Adelaide is not exactly raising my interest. An unknown quantity in the QLD Roar as a genuine threat (not saying AU wont win) would have been more media friendly in the first place.

Redb

1. Arguing that an NAB Cup fixture is of equal value to a Grand Final in any sport is absurd. Here’s one NAB shareholder who would rather the NAB disassociated itself with the cruddy pre-season cup and put it’s capital to better use! Any organisatyion running it’s GF would be crazy not to claim first rights.

2. The double-booking is symptomatic of a deeper problem that has been neglected as part of this debate: lack of venues. A new rectangular stadium will alleviate this congestion. Can’t argue against that.

3. EVERYBODY HAS UNDERESTIMATED ANDREW DEMETRIOU AND THE AFL!

WHY? He has quite smartly traded off a glorified practice match for two key outcomes:

3.1. Image. The AFL has come to a gentleman’s agreement and withdrawn it’s hand from bullying the FFA into a backdown.

3.2. HERE’S THE KILLER PUNCH: The practice match will be played BEFORE the HAL GF. Now, just what do you suppose the Melbourne media will be churning out all of Friday and into Saturday? Stories about not only Ben Cousins but also The Woods. Two of the biggest AFL stories that have done the rounds in recent times. Perhaps by design the AFL will definitely be depriving the HAL GF of much needed publicity – the oxygen of any sport. Andrew D, I salute you! The AFL isn’t the predominant sporting code in this country for no reason.

So what appears to be a victory to the FFA and HAL is in fact a hollow victory.

And the AFL has employed 2 football concepts your average AFL fan whinges and moans about incessantly::
1. The sucker punch
2. The strategic value of a draw.

Quite ironic.

” There are some, particularly News Ltd in Sydney who will readily seize on a negative AFL story and milk it dry, whilst the positive stories about football go un-noticed. eg: no reporting of the Bushfire appeal game – I was interstate leading up to the game and there no articles in the Daily Terror or Courier Mail about the Vic Bushfire appeal game!! ”

gee l hope you’re not complaining about lack of media…something about pot and kettle…

and the AFL couldn’t just jump without consultation with the stakeholders,

both clubs, and channel 10 – their broadcast partners.

It’s funny isn’t it. For some, they like to portray the AFL as a dictatorship. When the proof that they aren’t is obvious, i.e. that the AFL first had to sit down with it’s stakeholders and the other parties and come to an arrangement – - well, then people find some other reason to pot the AFL.

they must be card carrying members of the ‘opposition’.

And Sydney folk take a swipe at Victorians for being insular!!!

I never suggested it was a Melbourne only view. There are some, particularly News Ltd in Sydney who will readily seize on a negative AFL story and milk it dry, whilst the positive stories about football go un-noticed. eg: no reporting of the Bushfire appeal game – I was interstate leading up to the game and there no articles in the Daily Terror or Courier Mail about the Vic Bushfire appeal game!!

‘The Australian’ newspaper (news ltd) did not carry any pre or post reports of the Vic bushfire game, not one, and this from a supposedly national paper. We all know it is Sydney centric.

The AFL gets thing wrong , of course it does, but as I said further up – ” the only reason the AFL hesitated was the nature of NAB clash, two big Melbourne clubs (both won last week) and the Cousins comeback which has captured the imagination of Richmond fans. I think the AFL would have moved a lot quicker had the matchup not been seen as a pre-season game of unusually high interest. ”

Now perhaps interstate there is a lack of understanding of how big this game is, pre season or not. It has legs, a Thursday night will potentially rob it of a 45,000 plus crowd.

The real culprit is Telstra Dome.

Redb

has anyone ever mentioned you’ve got a great name for an award?……yep, at uni were gave out the annual ‘Bruce’ award!!!

actually, I’m a generation younger than your goodself, but, I knew someone who got the truth now and then, and I encountered the odd edition in the newspaper stack ready for the rubbish (no, not the incinerator, but, for others of that era perhaps).

I lived out of town and envied those able to buy the Sporting Globe, or the like by just walking down to the newsagency…..back before the internet and the like – back in the days of sports info on the telephone, back then, the Sporting Globe, the Truth etc were all sources of an ‘other’ viewpoint, or, an ‘other’ photograph.

agreed re Shield matches at MCG – - far more suited to a ground with a grassy embankment and a few shade trees.

the bigger issue is more about just how the BushFire concert booking is permitted given that the protection of the cricket booking.

I guess it’s incumbant upon Cricket Victoria to be gracious.

I get most of my news online except on weekend when its the Age or Fin Review, but we have HS copies in the office and I always check out the sports section.

Redb

What’s going on there!!!!!

did you ever buy the Truth?? That would’ve been for the coverage of the nags wouldn’t it?

Does the Age have a sudoku?? The Age cryptic is much harder (the clues are too long, as you all know, I love lucid brevity!!!)

Maybe you lot might see now that your protests about the Herald Sun being in the AFL’s pocket are rubbish. As has been spelt out many many times, News Ltd has no ownership in the AFL.

But before you claim some sort of victory through a Ch10 reporter or the HS, remember this is a pre-season game for the AFL against the HAL’s GF , that there was any suggestion of confusion/issue at all is a bit of a joke.

The facts are the AFL had booked that day back in October, so no matter how some of the media might spin it for controversy, the AFL had to make a decision and was left with little PR potential no matter which way it turned.

The Victory are well liked across the broad sporting spectrum in Melbourne. But and it’s a big but, only when they are winning. This is the nature of sports worship these days, the swing voters. Next year if Victory are out of the finals the support will be back to core in a flash and it’s media ‘win’ will be long forgotten.

Midfielder, just so you put your comments in perspective, there is not one story in the Herald Sun today about the Victory (in all of the back pages from a quick look).

Westy, the only reason the AFL hesitated was the nature of NAB clash, two big Melbourne clubs (both won last week) and the Cousins comeback which has captured the imagination of Richmond fans. I think the AFL would have moved a lot quicker had the matchup not been seen as a pre-season game of unusually high interest.

Redb

We agree again this is twice in one day (WOW), … your correct in saying the HS ( a card carrying member of the axis of evil – Melbourne media) … ran the story to sell papers … what I think they did not realise is that almost all of Melbourne on the facts presented …where saying another TD stuff up ..and the GF is more important than a preseason match … Maybe attacking football and trying to make something of it was important to sell papers but the story has not presented the AFL in a good light … nothing to serious or any long term damage done but a poor management decision by HS in that football has had the goal posts moved and whereas 6 years ago the story would not have been condemned whereas today it is … a slap to the sports editor he stuffed up we agree.

certainly – - I just wanted to point out in this situation where there really need not be an issue – - that the Herald Sun has been seeking to stir up a hornets nest – - rather similar to the DT in Sydney with NRLvsAFL ‘turf wars’.

And, enough of the code specific ‘heads’ seem only too willing to jump on board.

We AFL advocates would like to point out that the HS is serving it’s own ordinary purposes rather than being a mouth piece for the AFL!!!!