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Have you heard about high ticket prices, cost of food, rolling mauls, the lack of attacking play, defensive coaches and bad decisions?
In fact, not only have we heard about it, it seems that’s all we hear about from AFL fans.
The truth is, our game has been hijacked by the Joneses. If you haven’t heard about them, well the truth is they have nothing to do with AFL vocabulary.
Yet what they are is a theory and if you have ever been sold to, the theory may have been applied to you.
What our game has become is a convoluted mass coverage and we are all being sold on the negatives of our game. Simply, if they think it is true, then it must be true.
When you turn on the radio, TV or go online, we too often hear, see and read too much negativity.
The effect is people are being sold that the great game of AFL is bad, boring and unattractive when it isn’t. Sure it isn’t perfect, but is it all that bad?
Unfortunately, because we see every game – rather than just the game of the round like in the past – we see some worse games of footy.
Right now, we have 10 teams that can shape the top eight. Whether your team is one of those or not, that is a great thing to have at Round 15.
On the weekend, we saw Brisbane win against the odds, playing attractive football and beating a team everyone thought was going to win and win easy.
Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs are not going to make the eight, but if you weren’t excited about that game and the future both teams have, then you were watching something different to me.
In that game, we saw the emergence of a star in Marcus Bontempelli. His last quarter was everything a football fan wants to see in a young player making his mark on the competition. He is what makes you go to the footy as a Bulldogs supporter.
The Showdown was exhilarating and breathtaking. It had everything down to the last kick of the game and it was what football is all about.
However they were overshadowed by Eddie McGuire and his tears of compensation for Sunday night. A great weekend of football and some great games were hijacked by a man and his quest for money.
Sunday night football is dead and let’s leave it at that. But the fascination to talk about one negative of a great weekend of football overshadowed some individual and team brilliance.
The price of football has become a contentious topic. We seem to hear and read more about it than ever before. Yet if nothing was said, would we be complaining? Has the influence of the media and other people sold you that football is too expensive? If so, welcome to the Jone’s Theory.
Rolling mauls have become the ‘it’ word. The great game of AFL is becoming more like rugby.
Really. Who says it is? The people on the rules committee? Kevin Bartlett? Those in the media? Those that pen their names to articles that many people read and can be influenced by?
When I watch AFL I see 44 men contesting the ball as hard as ever. I see them do everything they can to win games and execute skills under enormous pressure. The last thing I count is how many rolling mauls a game has.
An article was published that average scoring was down across the AFL. As a result, we get sold that there is less attacking play and all we do is defend.
The truth is that the game has evolved and to win premierships, defence is just as crucial as attack.
When we analyse games of football, we highlight and put under the microscope the inability of a team to defend, but then we demand that the game is all about attack no matter what.
We all want perfection and what everyone else has. But the reality is, AFL is never going to be perfect and we can’t have nine games with no mistakes or ugly periods of play.
However we have the opportunity over the next 13 weeks to talk about the great things we do have and can be sold on. The more we do that, the more people will go to games to support their teams and before long, little issues will simply be overlooked.
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