Thanks Tim for the article. Very interesting. I agree the Swans were not THAT good, the Witches Hat Eagles were abysmal (or whatever is worse than abysmal!). But there is a bigger picture issue that is lost in the Swans win and the Simmo speculation. Each year we get a basket case team or close enough to it which has bottomed out whether due to self inflicted wounds or equalisation. And it does beg questions about the integrity of a comp where some teams play the Eagles twice this year. Or how the comp looks with a 19th team in Tassie (and this is not about Tassie who deserve a team) when the AFL struggles to have 15 or 16 good teams and one absolutely awful team. Not sure what the answer is but at what point does something have to give and the questions move from individual teams to the AFL and the comp it runs?

The Doggies have been worked out by the better teams. Hard to stop at centre bounces where they can free up Bont to hit up a leading forward, but beyond that the good teams clog up the stoppages to stop any chain of handballs (such as Wines charging in as Tim noted) and too often the ball goes out the back for a high dump kick and a turnover ensues. Then stop English around the ground, put pressure on in the corridor on poor kicks (Smith and many others guilty of that), force high long bombs into the forwards negating the leading of Naughton and Ugle Hagen and half the job is done. The real mystery is why the Doggies don’t then adapt their tactics. Or why they don’t try to stop opposition players through tagging as Tim again pointed out in his excellent analysis. Actually I’m starting to think someone at the Doggies should be calling Tim! At the end of the day the constant changes to the team and it’s structures, the repurposing of players (remember how Josh Bruce was heading to a Coleman medal playing at full forward before he did his knee, and how many games the Doggies won playing with him at FF and now he is a back) the lack of a plan b and the need for Bont and Libba to lift the team is very wearying. And before we know it those two and a few others may have watched their best years slip away. Sad and tiring!

Supposed to be a laughing face emoji, not question marks. Bit like the doggies last night, having a shocker tonight.

Effort compensates for a lot of deficiencies. Deficiencies and lack of effort, that’s a very long season if something doesn’t turn around. Love the struggle to hit a five year old a wiggles concert. ????

Should read Bruce went down round 21 of 2021.

Hi Berrlins, couldn’t agree more. It was terribly disappointing as a Dogs fan to watch. Just insipid, no cohesion, no game plan and no adjustment when things went from bad to worse. At their best under Bevo they almost to a man played a level above, lifting as a team. Not at the moment. The moving of players annoys, though since Bruce went down with an ACL in round 21 of 2020 it seems to have accelerated. At that stage the doggies were top of the table and as settled as a Bevo coached team gets. Since then they have lost more than won. One thing that really annoys me is the kicking efficiency, just about the worst in the comp. Fear that the Bont’s best years may be lost to this. Really need a response from all that looks sustainable long-term or Bevo’s tenure may end in the ugliest way and that would be a shame given his successes at the club.

Agree, it’s a really poor look seeing players so clearly hurt by illegal hits. Accidents are one thing but high shots taking out players quite another. Wonder what constitutes a send off, and how far it goes before the inevitable correction. Basically right now a great deal depends on the judiciary. If a few of the offenders on report get sat out for a few weeks, the violence might stop, otherwise it could be open season. And then where does that leave the image of the game?

Thanks for this Danielle. Don’t just think it’s league that does this though. Put simply the better the player/athlete/sportsman the more love from commentators (and the marketing people) so therefore the better a bloke he must be. Would be hard for commentators to say he’s a great player but a total dickhead without looking stupid themselves. And the commentators show that in calls about greater leniency when somehow a great bloke makes a mistake. And there’s lots of mistakes, both on and off the field to forgive. Look at Wayne (top player so must be great bloke) Carey in AFL, glassed his girlfriend, assaulted a female cop, etc, Grant Hackett in swimming, Nick Kyrgios ( what he made a Wimbledon final, I take it back all is forgiven!). It’s a long list and a forgiving culture for those good enough.

And a couple of proper half backs, and another defender who can play tall or small. Okay let’s just say rebuild the back line around Keith!

Clean up the end of tackles. Three defenders hanging on to the ball carrier who is still standing and the ref calls held and then, like the old kids rhyme, they all fall over. If the ball carrier is still standing at the call of held the defenders need to release immediately and not drop to the ground. Similar bugbear, the third defender in places his hand or half falls on his teammate once the ball carrier is one the ground and then takes half a second to clear the scene. And also, because you asked and if I’m Vlandys for a day I am not stopping at one rule, bombs and kicks. Stop impeding the kicker from running downfield and defensive teams stop impeding kick chasers, particularly under bombs, from competing by running subtle angles or standing in front of the contest blocking the attacking chasers. If a defensive player does that to a support player during a break it can be a penalty but not at a bomb. Now while still in Vlandys mode I’m off to the races!

Last night was hard to watch. The lack of effort at times, the hot knife through butter of the Swans ball movement against the Dogs “defence”. Awful as you said in the article; the worst this year. At a North Melbourne level of shocking. Re Bevo’s selections, he is a systems coach. His defensive system in 2016 was what ultimately got the Dogs to the finals (conceding just below 80 points a game). The set ups at stoppages and the rapid hand balling all worked on top of that to break the lines and set up forward entries where the ball could then be locked in. And I think it’s this systems approach that drives the odd selections, plugging a player into a system and thinking that player will be enhanced by the system, until of course they are one on one deep in defence. Put simply teams have worked out the systems and the players look like they know it. Will be interesting to see how they respond.

Another question: Will Australia get some DRS referrals right now that Paine is not making the calls?

Official Carlton coaching announcement press conference transcript: “The Carlton Football Club is proud to announce Alastair Cl… (official races to podium and whispers in ear of spokesperson) sorry is proud to announce Ross Lyon (officials at back of room frantically waving hands), apologies, Brad Scott, no um, Nathan Buckley? So who is left? It’s Vossy okay, so you can all go home now. What do you mean questions? Oh for God’s sake alright.” Roll on the Voss vanguard!!

I tend to watch with the sound down these days, I find it rarely detracts from the commentary. In all seriousness though it seems a lot like the old Channel 9 cricket commentary approach; select the commentators to reflect the character types in the game. So you get the thinkers (Gould, Sterling, Flanagan), the good blokes as the game sees them (Blocker, JT), the comedians, again as the game sees them (Fatty, Freddy etc) and the blokes that can take a joke (Matty Johns, Freddy etc). Of course the problem is how the game sees an Andrew Johns, Greg Alexander, Mick Ennis etc is not always how the public sees them, so the whole thing is a little like a giant in-joke, for the in-crowd. And that includes whingeing about the refs and the bunker and the rules and the like. In other words a bit like sitting on the hill or the outer but with a group of former players, rather than clinical insight and analysis that could be on offer. So yes it could be much better, but it could be worse, it could be six hours of cricket commentary!!

Hi Sheek, thanks for the feedback. Some interesting ideas, I confess I like the chosen cities idea. It would at the very least stop the bidding wars for the rights to the Games and to further enrich the IOC. And totally agree with your thoughts re tennis, golf, surfing. Mexico City was a bit before my time. I went there a little over two decades ago for work, lovely place and people. Glad that you have caught a bit of the Olympic mojo and hopefully it remains.

Hi Monorchid, yeah a few Roarers commented for which I am grateful, and thanks too for your comment. I agree that this is provocative territory, but I think it worth discussing the bread and circuses or the something lasting angle, as too often the games are the former and not the latter. And as you say if countries froze the IOC out, what would happen? If the roles were reversed and the IOC had to go looking for host cities things could be different. As to your final point there seems to be more heat on here about Rasie’s rant, Clarko’s departure and football in general than the current Games.

That is what I hope too, that Brisbane get it right. Thanks again for the feedback. And jealous of the baseball game, still on my list of to do’s.

Chris, thanks for the feedback. Re the paying for a house bit, guess it depends on the size of the house as to the size of the mortgage and what you are left living in and repaying afterwards. Hope they got the sums right!

PS. Rob, forgot to says thanks for reading the article and the feedback. Much appreciated.

Thanks and like you I am hoping the powers that be get it right.

Hi Rob, I followed the Brisbane bid, in part because I knew a couple of people central to Brisbane’s first bid back in the 80s for the 1992 Games. While you are correct that there was a long drawn out process before getting to a preferred city with Brisbane and others expressed interest none put in a formal bid. This is what I was referring to. Re Atlanta’s stadium, large parts were demolished to significantly reconfigure it. That is not made clear and for that I apologise, but the stadium was partly demolished before rebuilding half of it. One of the clever things Atlanta did was design it so it could be repurposed for baseball (reducing capacity from 80,000 seats during the Games to 50,000 seats), but even that now has partly been demolished as a University precinct with the stadium now in use at around 33,000 seats, so a significant difference. My other question re Brisbane and I confess I do not know the answer is how much was spent hosting the Commonwealth Games in SE Qld a few years back and how does that align with the 2032 infrastructure build. And I guess after watching an AFL game start late due to teams being stuck in traffic around Brisbane it is hard to argue the transport infrastructure angle for Brisbane. Overall I am hoping that Brisbane get it right and stadiums are not partly (or wholly) demolished within decades of a Games. One of my concerns re the Gabba is that Olympic stadiums for track and field usually don’t accomodate cricket well (the MCG notwithstanding). Hope that Brisbane get that right. At the end of the day I really hope Brisbane deliver benefits to Qld, but as the article (hopefully) points out, that is not often the case post-Olympics in Olympic host cities and countries.

Great work Noel. This actually makes more sense than the decision making of some Dragons players. Seems they haven’t found that since the last round of hide n seek.

I grew up on league, and what I remember are tough, close games that reflected the DNA of the game, the idea of league having a chip on its shoulder and being the hardest, most combative sport this side of boxing. A game out to prove its hardness as its defining quality. Of defences that wanted to hurt the opposition and skilled players accepting that challenge. Watching today it seems that DNA has been lost in the speed, the score line blowouts, the 6 again and metres gained too easily. That loss started in some ways with the constant wrestling and slowing down the play the ball, and in the game reacting to that. Now we seem to have lurched too far away from the wrestling days into touch football “dump and run” territory. Of course the game is still hard and requires a level of toughness few possess, but the appearance of a couple of dominant teams, not enough depth and blowouts has created a feeling that something is lost. Of the game being unwell. Not sure how that changes other than time and teams changing rosters and styles for more mobile players, at least until the next rule correction. Which may be the real issue, reactionary conservatism changing a few rules without a full understanding of the consequences, rather than a more complete look at the game as a whole.

I thought this was going to be a bit of a gee up, and instead it is well thought out and argued. Good article. The best solution I can come up with, I don’t listen to the commentary. And even with the volume muted I swear I can still hear Brian Taylor from two states away!

Back in the under 15s the fast bowlers used to make very clear what side of the ball was being kept shiny and which side was not. The whole team was expected to know that and if you got it wrong you were told as much. It’s probably self-explanatory that as you progress up the ranks that continues. What is interesting is the trend at test level for only certain players in many teams to be allowed to “handle” the ball. Wonder what that could mean?