As long as there are days like last Saturday at the MCG, the indigenous game will continue to be high in the nation’s sporting consciousness.
Late in a season that’s been light-on for memorable matches, that’s reassuring for fans of the game formerly known as Aussie rules.
Once, things were so easy and secure. It was as though the major codes operated a mutually beneficial cartel. You could be flown blind-folded to another part of the nation and as soon as you saw a local playing-field you knew you were in either rules or league country. Back then, you embraced one code and one beer.
Things began to change in the 1980s, when the Swans went to Sydney. At about the same time, Fourex came south and Swan moved east. Remember those ads? We said they’d never make it. Well, we were wrong. The Swans slowly found a following, and before long we were even feeling a Fourex coming on.
Make no mistake, the change over 35 years has been seismic. What was once unthinkable has not only happened, but it’s become the accepted norm.
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The two long-time codes of the people have crossed the Murray: one from the north, the other from the south. Meanwhile, the great global code has risen.
Nowadays, Australian soccer fans are gutted not when we don’t quite qualify for the World Cup, but when we fail to advance beyond the opening round. One day, the disappointment will kick in when we don’t reach the quarter and semi-final rounds. Then what?
At least it means that great old debate as to ‘football’ naming rights is more earnestly fought than ever. My Russian barber put it to me during the World Cup that the round-ball game, and no other, is ‘football’. These days I have a reply at the ready.
It takes the form of a question: which is the only code that requires the ball to be kicked for a goal to be scored?
This brings me the pathetic smugness that goes with the scoring of a small debating point. Not that too many are on my side, as these days the majority share their passion across the codes. I’m one of the last of the dinosaurs (an ugly one at that, as lately I’ve been wandering around with a shocking haircut).
Anyway, back to last weekend, which was one of the AFL’s better ones this year. When a goal as freakish as that kicked by Jack Higgins is the most controversial event of the round, things are good. And what a great argument the goal created.
Having given the matter three days’ consideration, I can’t seriously fault the decision by umpire Brendan Hosking to allow play-on, and for the goal to stand. As some have pointed out, it’s not entirely unfamiliar these days for a player to manufacture a kick when lying on his back. This involves throwing the ball upwards to give the player a swing at it.
Also in Higgins’ favour is that he was seeking to keep the ball ‘alive’, which is very much in keeping with the spirit of the game and its laws.
This is not to say the umpires should interpret the rules simply to provide maximum crowd excitement. The laws of the game are there for a purpose, and when the game compromises itself in the name of entertainment, it’s on a slippery-slide to ruin. Yet some argue for this.
The entertainment comes when players find ways to do amazing things despite the laws making such execution difficult. The idea, for example, that a player should be allowed to use his hands on an opponent’s shoulders to launch for a big mark is a case in point. Allow that, and you’ll soon have every second-rater taking ‘hangers’.
The game must heed the exhortation of John Kennedy (the president, not the coach): “We do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
Jack Higgins of the Tigers (Photo by Daniel Carson/AFL Media/Getty Images)
The weekend’s other great controversy came from the match played at Ballarat.
Previously the province of one-day international cricket, day-night games extended to the AFL via what’s called the twilight fixture. This has become popular to the extent that it may even be employed for the grand final before long. But such matches are played in well-developed stadia with vast lighting towers.
With no offence to Ballarat and its footy ground, ‘vast’ and ‘towers’ aren’t words to be applied to the current lighting system there.
Not that games haven’t been staged under such basic lighting. The erstwhile VFL’s night premiership of the 1950s and ‘60s was played at South Melbourne.
This was a competition fought out during September by the eight teams that had missed the ‘four’. Old-timers say the lights of the Lakeside Oval left corners of the ground in shadow: convenient for the settling of scores over any nasty business from the season-proper.
Vive la difference. It’s all been part of the rich tapestry.
Philby
Guest
Only because Eddie McGuire was commentating at the time - that and the Collingwood Newsletter ...oops, The Herald Sun... banging on about it.
David C
Guest
It's a throw if someone else catches it. Any way you can get the ball onto your foot is fair imo. Which keeps getting pointed out when players are lying on the ground and throw the ball up to kick it. It is never called a throw unless they miss it, only has to touch a part of the foot and its play on. I can't believe it is even being debated.
Philby
Guest
lol
RT
Roar Rookie
I have asked Peter twice on another article what rule is contravenes but he can't answer.
Birdman
Roar Rookie
Philby - pot kettle black? It's a throw but don't let my opinion or PTS's ruin your day, m8.
Floyd Calhoun
Guest
Hehe. That boy ain’t ever letting go. Like a dog with a bone. I fear this is just the beginning.
Philby
Guest
Ho! Peter, you can't let it go mate, can you? Whatever you say about 'elevating the ball' is irrelevant, as the rules of the game simply don't mention that - at all! Even if that were to be considered, I think Tim has rightly pointed out other instances when players have done the same and legally kicked the ball. In a way, I admire your stubborn resolve not to go quietly into the good night, but mate, it's goal of the year, so as my daughter has been singing for the last several years, Let it go, Let it go, (you) can't hold it back any more!!
Peter the Scribe
Roar Guru
if you go through frame by frame there is a perfect snapshot of why it is a throw. He steps over the goal line with momentum, throws the ball in the air with his left hand so he can get around the goal post. A few frames show him quite clearly elevating the ball in a scoop or throwing action with his left hand. If you are legally allowed to do that then next time he can throw the ball over Darcy Moore's head and as long as his foot connects with it then play on. Was it clever? Oh yes, it was a clever throw and if Stephen Milne had have done that in the dying seconds of the first 2010 Grand Final what happens then? Do we have legal action to secure a flag? That's the trouble with this Tim. If you allow a rule to be stretched for theatre then you open your game up to loss of credibility and some team some time challenging a Grand Final in the courts. The worst thing the AFL have done is to subsequently endorse the umpiring mistake which they would have clearly done either way the decision was made.
ltchyba11s
Guest
The Richmond player pictured is Jayden Short, not Jack Higgins
Gavan Iacono
Roar Rookie
Jack Higgins looking much like a dashing defender these days!
Floreat Pica
Guest
Tim I'm afraid the basic premise of your argument with your Russian hairdresser is flawed- the true etymology of the term for these related sports does not come from the primary propulsion of the ball, but the positioning of the player (being not on horseback). Your better claim would be to argue which game was codified first and thus has historical precedent to naming rights.