No Paul, don’t try to twist my words because you will come off second best.

I have no problems with stereo-types or referring to different classes within our society.

It never ceases to amaze me that people seem to have a problem if someone refers to a certain demographic of the population in a negative way, despite it being true.

Do you ever wonder how a stereo-type or cliche comes about in the first place?

Statisically people out west are less educated, if you don’t believe me, look it up. People who come from greater wealth will most likely have more opportunity to succeed in life than the less wealthy. Don’t blame me for that, blame capitalism!

It also never ceases to amaze me that the same people who don’t like people generalising find it acceptable to talk about stuck up wealthy pacific islanders playing union.

I don’t do double standards, there are plenty here who can carry that flag. What I don’t have a problem with is stating the obvious whether people like to here it or not.

Paul

Thank you for highlighting my point about poorly educated people out west. You have done a stirling job representing them with your grammar.

As far as being a teacher. Have you ever heard of the saying, “assumption is the mother of all fu..x ups”. Don’t assume I am a teacher, far from it.

The North Sydney Bears, never heard of them. But using my infinite wisdom and the use of the internet, I am guessing they are one of many teams to go ar..se up in the Super League fiasco. You have also so kindly reinforced my point about upper class people in Sydney not giving at rats about league but more so union and AFL.

Cattery

I agree and disgree with what you have said. Lets not get a holy war started here, it’s bad enough at times talking about footy, but I think the Romans are a classic example of a society which destroyed themselves through both political and religious means.

As far as AFL not ever being the dominant code in NSW or QLD. I will definately disgree with you on QLD, NSW I think will take a little longer. The AFL have given us a glimps of what POWER is all about in the sporting landscape by deliberately poaching two of the NRL’s biggest stars.

Don’t be fooled into believing a word Andrew Demetriou said in a recent interview about the AFL not going to war with the NRL. Andrew is a ruthless CEO and he would step on the NRL like they are a bug if he could and wipe them out, all good business men do the same thing. You don’t think Bill Gates got to the position he is in without being the most anti-competitive person in the world. I love his business model, it’s brilliant but most despise it.

Take a look at Dick Smith. His business moto was simple. Find a product which is good and place your business next to it and do it better. If you have the resources you can eventually put your competitor out of business. Does this sound familiar at all Cattery???

It’s economics 101 and Andrew knows this better than most. The NRL have a good product, but it has limited appeal and is vastly out gunned in the resources department. They are holding all hope on a TV rights deal which at best will reach 1 billion, but in all likely hood about 800-900 million. This again will put them further behind and thats not including the huge investments AFL has into infrastructure around the country.

The AFL cares about two things. Re-taking juniors who are playing soccer and taking market share from the NRL at the highest level. Union they are not at all worried about for all the reasons I have stated. Both the NRL and AFL can not co-exist, it is impossibe. Sooner or later the two big boys get it on, David Gallop knows it, the NRL clubs know it and the AFL big boys know it.

This is the start of domination which is why people like Phil Gould are so worried and worried they should be. Penrith is a pathetic little club out west which is right in the crosshairs of GWS. You may think that I am being disrespectful to this code by saying things like this, but sometimes the truth hurts.

The NRL are not in the position the AFL is where it can spend vast amounts of it’s resources helping useless clubs. If I was in charge of the AFL I would have got rid of North Melbourne 5 years ago, along with the Bulldogs. These two clubs are a joke, but I wont go into this here, more than likely I will do a seperate article outlining my thoughts on this.

Cronula, well if they are not gone in 5 years time also then I will be surprised. Penrith, 10 years tops if they are lucky.

I see my comments about the A-league being pathetic have been removed. I can only imagine this is to stop inflammatory remarks from all the A-league fans. I will reiterate it here then.

The A-league is a pathetic competition which is not only poorly run, but is an embarrassment to the Australian sporting landscape. It’s business model will not work long term here in Australia and the only reason it does work is because a billionaire business man who is very well connected runs it. So what, sooner or later that is not enough, just look at Gold Coast United!

Matt S

The report you are referring to is not MBF or medicare. It is medibank, one of the private health insurers.

http://fulltext.ausport.gov.au/fulltext/2003/medibank/Sports_injuries_report.pdf

I’m not going to disgree with you at all. AFL has by far and away the highest injury rate, I have access to all this data and can see it clearly. What this report does not take into consideration is the junior partipation rates. Of course AFL is going to be a lot higher than league and union because there are a truck load more people playing it.

That said, I am not disputing it is not an injury intensive game, I am simply stating the perception is it’s a less violent game and the types of injuries mothers hate occur in greater numbers in the aforementioned codes.

Kasey

I totally agree with a lot of what you said. I am a firm believer that sooner or later the top dog will get knocked off. History tells us this, but what I don’t agree with is that it will be any of the current codes that will inflict this upon the AFL.

Perhaps you were alluding to this, I’m not sure, but AFL will eventually will get knocked off. What knocks it off, I can’t tell you; it may well be AFL itself, just like what happened to the Romans.

There is an old adage in sport that says, “it is one thing getting to the top, it’s another thing staying at the top”. Well England are the masters of the first part, sh..t at the second part. All the AFL can do is become the number one sport to begin with and I think we can all agree it has done this. All it can do now is maintain it’s top dog status, how it does this I will leave the good people on this forum to debate.

Peeko

Good point and I was hoping someone would make this relation.

NFL to some extend is actually more violent than all our four codes combined. The death rate in college ball is rather disturbing and some equate this to the use of padding and helmets allowing players to go in harder and stronger.

Now this is a seperate debate, but what you are basically saying is this. If the author believes one of the major strengths is that AFL is less violent than union and league, then how on earth can a violent game like NFL become the largest sport in the USA?

This is a very valid point and it would appear that I have contradicted myself. True this may seem, but their is a reason I left a few things out of my article, apart from the fact it was getting too long. I can now explain this in more detail here.

Firstly, lets not kid ourselves, AFL is a violent game also, however, the perception is that it is not as violent as league or union. The realitity is however, AFL has more injuries at the highest level than both these codes, they are just not concussion and contusion injuries which always look worse.

In fact when it comes to injuries the AFL and NFL are so similar in that they both have the highest incidence of ACL injuries in the world. If you know anything about sports injuries you will know this is the one players hate the most since it will most likely end the season for them.

If you look at the junior participation rates around Australia you can see this. I am fortunate enough to gain access to this data because I work in the sporting field with young adults a lot. Currently I treat a lot of young men from St Joseph’s college in Hunters Hill Sydney where I live. This is very much union territory and I can tell you now the GPS schools do not play league what so ever.

However, St Joseph’s arch rivals, Riverview are the first GPS school to offer an AFL scholarship programme. 5 students each year are given full scholarships funded directly by the AFL. Now considering it costs $45000 a yearo to this school, that is impressive. You never would have seen a GPS school here in Sydney collaborating with the AFL 10 years ago, it would have appeared silly.

I speak with mothers and fathers on a regular basis in this area of Sydney which is seeing a huge influx of kids playing AFL. One of the reasons for this is they don’t want their kids having cauliflower ears and AFL provides a viable alternative to union as does soccer.

You also have to look at the socio-economic status of regions in Sydney. People in the eastern and northen suburbs are far more tolerant of AFL than people out west. This is one of the reasons the AFL has spent a fortune out west educating people, simply because they are not that educated. You can take this however you want, but I will ask this of you.

What does the mini and AFL have in common?

They are both classless entities. You see rich people driving mini’s along with middle class, it has no class the mini, one of but a few vehicles that has this.

The AFL is very similar in that it is classless. In Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, AFL is played in both public and private schools with no real class distinction between them. This is not the same for union and league. Union is played predominatly in private schools and league in public. This is a fact and if anyone wants to challenge this then I am more than willing to argue this further.

Lastly I will make this point. Why do you think the AFL removed the shirtfront? Why do you think the AFL is so hard on Buddy Franklin when he comes crashing into a player with his shoulder knocking them out, when 10 years ago this was legal? Why do you think the umpires are protecting players so much more now who have their heads over the ball?

Many ex-greats are saying the game has become soft, it’s a game for pansies and girls. Well there is an argument for this also, but the AFL has a longer term plan and that is to attract more juniors to the game. Grassroots football is where all codes need to win to be successful long term. Both league and union have not learnt this yet and the sooner they evolve their game, the sooner they will reap the benefits.

As a physiotherapist I have taken a lot of interest in Hunt due to his unusual body type. He has definately improved but I expected more of this guy to be honest.

I still think he is too bottom heavy and needs to lose further weight off his legs. Once he does and improves his cardio capacity further it opens the door for potential mid field duty.

I watched him greatly whilst playing union in France for Biarritz. Magnificent player indeed, more so than league if you ask me. He is very calculated and can think quickly, along with being very creative. These are all the qualities of a good midfielder, but he needs better cardio, he is dead in the water if he has not improved this over the summer. We won’t know until the premiership starts as to whether he has got it this year though.

Cattery

Didn’t Stewart Lowe for Saint Kilda have a similar name due to the size of his hands, I can’t quite remember…

Izzy certainly has the ability to become a great forward. When I say great, I don’t take that comment lightly because to become a really great power forward you have to have a certain build type.

Izzy has that in spades, his body type is very rare indeed. To weigh close to 100 kg, have enough cardio capacity, be able to jump high, take a mark, turn on a dime and kick accurately is something special in AFL. Now not for one second am I saying he can do any of this, but he has accomplished the hardest thing in AFL to begin with and that’s to get a game. I don’t care how he accomplished this, the second hardest thing will be whether he can keep his spot.

Buddy Franklin and Travis Cloke are the current reigning champs for best power forwards in the game in my opinion with Nick Riewoldt a close third. Izzy has the talent, we all know what he can do, especially people who follow league.

What I would like Izzy to learn first is his position relative to his small forwards. Just look at how Franklin maneuvers himself in the forward line in contested situations. He as a general rule always brings the ball to ground for his small forwards to contest it, quite often in superior numbers due to the double teaming of Franklin himself. Izzy only needs to kick a goal or two a game, so long as he provides a contest at ground level for the crumbers.