old mate's Roar Profile

1. Cap the interchange at 40.
Yes 10 per quarter. The interchange is being used as a tactic – what sport wants that? There was an average of 38 interchange movements in 2003 and there was nothing wrong with footy then, in fact it was pretty good. Get on to it AFL.

2. Get rid of away jumpers
Some teams have home jumpers and away jumpers, some teams have home jumpers, away jumpers and clash jumpers, some teams have home jumpers and clash jumpers. Get rid of the away jumper, they are almost all rubbish. Have teams in their traditional ‘home’ jumper as much as possible – this helps the casual fan who flicks on the telly to identify a team, not ‘who is this team in white?’ If there is a genuine clash – and a don’t hold much value in the AFL’s assessment of what is a clash – then the away team must wear something that doesn’t clash. But don’t start with the jumper look a the socks and the shorts first change them and then look at the jumper.

3. White shorts for away teams
Get rid of them, not relevant any more. Dress the teams in uniforms that avoid clashes, if this means one team wears white shorts – as either the home team or away then so be it, if it means both teams wear coloured shorts so be it. Away teams wore coloured shorts against the Gold Coast Suns last year – if you can do it against one team you can do it against others. And white shorts are not traditional because in 1897 all teams wore black shorts, white shorts for away teams wasn’t introduced until

4. Fix the MRP
Collect footage of every suspendable incident in the last 5 years. Categorise and assign a number of weeks penalty to each offence, ie striking to the body – 2 weeks, striking to the head – 4 weeks. Something happens on the weekend, watch the incident compare to the categories to work out where it fits and assign the set weeks. Done. No carry over points, no reductions for early guilty plea, no good behaviour – nothing. Simple.

And start suspending blokes for diving. Suspend 1 player for 1 week and the problem is eliminated.

5. Consistent start times
Game start times are all over the place. 7.50pm on a Friday night, but 7.20pm on a Saturday night. One that annoys me is Saturday afternoon games start at 1.45pm (or 2.10pm sometimes) but on Sunday start at 1.10pm. And this year it gets worse, Saturday twilight at 4.35pm, Sunday twilight at 4.40pm. Bah! how is anyone able to easily predict when a match starts. AFL pick your start time for each timeslot – afternoon, twilight and night and apply them consistently please!

Random ideas to improve the AFL (part I)

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That points system was used for many years in Shield cricket.

2 points for a first innings lead
6 points for an outright win

Yes you could ‘win’ the first innings points but then lose outright.

The beauty of this system was it’s simplicity – it was easy to calculate who had scored what points.

The new points system introduced this season is more difficult to calculate but may be an improvement. I will wait until the end of the season to judge the current system.

Ten of the best Adam Gilchrist innings

MIchael, all Hawthorn jumpers are terrible – remember the Kokoda one – so they are coming from a very low base. Their Indigenous jumper was at least presentable.