Publicity the chief motivator for AFL's expansion signings

pay that. The chinese only heard 'ping pong' and said "were in" :-)

MC, No it was a new Powerade Ad. MyGen, Over 50 metres. Redb

Sean Fagan referenced quotes about Messenger: Born in Sydney, he learned his kicking skills growing up in South Melbourne watching some of the greats who played Australian Rules. Dally spent a part of his teenage years in South Melbourne, where he learnt to play Australian Rules. He attended the Albert Park Public School - the same school that produced Roy Cazaly barely a decade later. Messenger was involved in negotiations between the VFL and NSWRL to merge Australian Rules with rugby league in 1908 - the hybrid game was to be called "Australeague". Both of Dally's younger brothers chose to play Australian rules instead of rugby. Rumours persist that Dally played for the East Sydney club in 1903 (where Victor Trumper was the secretary) before deciding to seriously take up rugby two seasons later. Dally Messenger, the greatest footballer to ever grace the rugby codes, had played Australian football for two seasons while living at Albert Park (South Melbourne) - he had idolised Essendon's Albert Thurgood and Melbourne's Pat O'Dea, two of the greatest kickers in Australian Football history. "It would be the most wonderful thing in the world of sport if a game could be evolved containing the best features of rugby league and Australian rules," said Messenger. ANd Firestarter - you need to understand that RL founder Victor Trumper had 5 years earlier worked together with politician Edward O'Sullivan to establish an 11 team Aust Football league in Sydney (inspired by federation and a desire to be more 'Australian'). It was predominantly the financial success of the NZ based 'All Golds' tour that fully swayed Trumpber, Giltinan and included and effectively secured Messenger.

first game they play it will be a sell out and rate pretty well, after that its still AFL lol

he played union first then went to league... so really rah rah stole him :O

Yep Messenger played aussie rules in Sydney as did his 2 brothers, was pretty good as the story goes, stolen by money from league.

Messenger spent some time in South Melbourne as a kid and played the local game. Doubt he was too concerned about code wars at the time. The games were probably a lot closer together in nature in those days as well.

So Messenger played AFL? I doubt it.

Are you for real FB, next you will be telling us that the AFL signed Hunt as retaliation for rugby league signing Dally Messenger in 1908. ( who played a couple of seasons with Easts AFL club in Sydney) Perhaps you should have a closer look at the crawford report. And what do you mean about cotton wool parents and female teachers, unless you have had your head in the sand this has been going on for about 20 years. A lot of one child families around and this is what tends to happen as a result of this.

That's the problem right there - all state governments are broke.

There's still this soccer myth of being 'safer', in a particular US example re 'children' playing/training the injury rate per 100 kids: baseball, 1.7; softball, 1.0; soccer, 2.1; and (US)football, 1.5. However, of those, for soccer, 1% were 'serious' and in US Football 14% were serious. So, ironically, more likely to get injured from soccer, but, more likely to be seriously injured from US Football. but, back 10 years ago, The epidemiology of sports and active recreation injury in the Latrobe Valley Monash University Accident Research Centre – Report #151 - 1999 rates of population participation per 10,000 persons over 4 years of age were: walking 2,315/10,000; swimming 746; bicycling 710; basketball 712; Australian football 477. The rank order of medically treated injury frequency by sport, however, was Australian football, basketball, bicycling, netball, cricket and soccer. the highest rates of injury per 1,000 participants were: cricket (242/1,000), horse riding (122/1,000), soccer (107/1,000), netball (51/1,000) and Australian football (37/1,000). Almost one-half (47%) of self-reported injuries in the community survey were inconsequential Soccer actually came up worse in this survey. around that time, Monash Uni Accident research centre document titled "Preventing Soccer Injuries", back then, with in 1997, 270,000 registered soccer players, soccer represented 8.1% of adult and 6% of child sports related injuries presenting to hospital emergency dept's. Soccer ranking then, 3rd for adults and 5th for children in such terms. Main types - general sprains, strains etc that all the codes will suffer, Lower limb injuries esp ankles/knees due being kicked/collisions/tackles Head injury - associated with headers, either high impact ball 'strike', head to head or head to boot others inc. falls, overuse, over-exertion and general being struck by the ball anyone claiming soccer is 'safe' is stretching the friendship.

I thought they did versions of it for different channels/markets, inserting the appropriate player via CGI, which makes me a little sceptical of the HS story in the first place, although I heard something about a new one being done at the SCG last week, so maybe that's what redb refers to.

if it was the Powerade ad, wasn't that Adam Goodes?

In the article you mention, Nathan Gibbs (ex-Rabbitohs captain, now long-time Swans team doctor) also named Inglis a likely candidate. The Broncos' doc named RL halves and outside backs in general as having the right sort of physique. Gibbs also said players like Tony Lockett would struggle with the increased running in AFL now. Does this mean that only a few years ago there would have been less impediments to conversion? And if a few rules were re-tweaked so that AFL went back to less of a running game, would those impediments disappear again? Just a thought. BTW, did Folau say Judd ran him off his feet over 40m, 400m or 1500m?

Now thats what I call thinking outside the centre square ! It's amazing how often that comes up in AFL thinking.

The AFL aren't stupid - they are promoting the China AFL exhibition game in as Arial Ping Pong and have signed up China's top Ping Pong player - Wai Yu Jo Kin - to line up for the Demons. They are also using a smooth round white ball and setting up a net across the centre square which players have to kick the ball over . . . Goal umpires will have white ping pong bats instead of white flags to wave . . .

capt This is one of the more "unique" recruiting stories of the year, not too far removed from the Mike Pyke story (the Canadian rugby player). This bloke is about 22 years of age, had played college basketball, soccer and was also a high jumper, didn't play NBA, but played two years professionally in Germany (basketball). He sent a DVD of himself around to the clubs, and Collingwood happened to have someone in the States already, and asked him to pay him a visit, and then they brought him back for a 2 week trial, extended to three then signed him up as an international rookie (which effectively by-passes the draft). Now judging by the DVD, this bloke can't kick to save himself - but - like Pyke, he's about 6ft 7 in and extremely athletic - so clubs are always going to be attracted to a bloke like that (because they can teach him to ruck in the AFL sense). As for the salary - I can't imagine it being too much more than $60,000 per annum for two years. What's his motivation? Got no idea.

being a big issue you would think they might like to canvass the issue from all perspectives.

Hmmm... might mean the AFL and NRL seasons are over. ;-)

At the time, he did appear to be 'the perfect fit' for the Gold Coast - is that deja vue I feel coming on ?