GWS v Swans matches that have the passion and intensity of Adelaide Showdowns and Perth Derbies?

Both teams with a genuine and visible dislike of each other….

I’d like to see that!

Surely it can’t be too long before we see a conversion specialist from Rugby Union or League have a crack at the field goal kicking position?

I’m sure Hazem El Mazri could do the job.

it’s hard to know what’s more painful at the moment…

Watching the Waratahs or watching St.Kilda?

They might have winning records but……

Why would FIFA even want to play a World Cup in Australia?

We’ve got a very small national population, we’re geopgraphically isolated, most of our major sports grounds are oval and, as Adrian has highlighted, we’re not really that excited about it.

If FIFA want to grow the game surely it makes more sense to go to a more populous nation (China for example) or one that is more easily accessed by other countries in the world.

Comparisons with the Olympics are a furphy. The Olympics go to a city not a country and the Olympics appeal to a much broader spectrum of sports fans.

FFA should save us the embarassment and pull out now.

I think you’re being a lttle hard on one D.Gallop here.

There’s only 3 or 4 appropriate punishments for this year and none of them are perfect.

The options for penlaties this year as far as I can see are

a) Kicking the Stom out of the competition for a year and re-admitting them next year once they have demonstrated salary cap compliance. Of course this would lead to byes, problems with the current broadcasting agreement and be most unfair for Storm supporters who have bought memberships.

b) Strip Storm of their points till now and enforce pay cuts on the players so they comply with the salary cap. Then allow them to compete for premiership points. Unfortunately this would allow an illegally assembled team to play in the competition and they could still win a premiership with this illegally assembled team if they win enough games to make the finals (and they’d be quite capble of winning the 12-13 games necessary to make the finals).

c) Strip them of their points to now then ask them to “shed talent” so they comply with the salary cap and then allow them to compete for premiership points. But where does the talent that is discarded play? Every other club would be too close to its salary cap limit to fit in any star players and so we would probably see one or two of the best players in the game lost overseas or to another code.

d) Apply the current pernalty. Which of course has all the problems discussed in the media (player motivation etc.)

Unfortunately there is no good answer. But I saw on the weekend the CEOs of the other 15 clubs have come out and supported the current penalty so at least the NRL and David Gallop a high level of support within the game for the decisions they’ve made.

Don’t be fooled by Phil Gould on his soap box using this as an opportunity to decry the salary cap. Storm cheated and they have to pay penalty for that. I’ll start listening when someone actualy comes up with a better penalty.

Brett I’d like to see all those questions answered to, but there’s another couple of questions I want to see answered as well.

Just who was placing money on the Storm to win the wooden spoon from late Wednesday night through to mid-morning on Thursday (when betting agencies stop taking bets) and where did they get their information from?

Insider trading is just as much cheating as salary cap rorting

4 inter-change players and a 23rd and 24th man (just like the old 19th and 20th) I say.

You know it makes sense!

Is anyone on the Roar really surprised that some nasty stuff gets said from time to time on the field of battle?

It’s not really that news worthy.

Having said that I think the Collingwood management should be concerned with Malthouse and Licuria’s actions because there is no way they could have been coaching the players to the best of their ability while they were so distracted.

Other than that let’s move on please.

I’m one of the more unusual AFL fans – because I also really enjoy League. Living in Sydney the television broadcast arrangements allow me to watch what ever I want from either code. When I’m at home on a Friday night I usually record the first NRL match and watch it mmediately the AFL Game finishes.

And how happy was I Iast Friday?…

Geelong were magnificent from half way through the third quater

and after that I had the Benji show.

He was fantastic – flick passes, deft steps & dummies, drop goals, pace to burn…. Elecrifying skills

Super player and great ambassador for his club and the game.

Mate just stay at home with your wife this winter.

No-one is going to miss you

Of course it’s only the pre-season so there are obvous limitations in any predictions based on what we’ve seen so far… a point I made early in my article.

And I’m sure if they have a good run with injuries the Saints are top 4 material, they have too many stars and a good game plan. From there they are as good a chance of making the GF as any of the other 3 sides that finish in the top 4 and they have plenty of winning finals experience now.

If I had to make a predicion now I’d say they’ll finish 3rd at the end of the hame and away season

Will they/can they be as dominant as last season? I doubt it. And if they have a bad run of injuries to their top 6 players….? I just think the bookies and general public have overestimated their chances this season for the reasons I’ve identified.

Yes well done Roosters.

But it’s a loonnngggg season…..

Scott Gumbleton and Dustin Martin put them in now!

I don’t think you’ve looked at the issue deeply enough. As has been pointed out in other replies NZ and SA cope much better with the overseas drain than does Australia.

It’s hard to fathom the reasons for adding another team from Melbourne to the S comp when our Perth team is so uncompetitive.

All we’re doing is diluting the talent further.

If we had access to all the current overseas players (excluding the likes of Gower, Gasnier and Sonny Bill) would we have enough quality players to filed another competitive teamright now?

One certainly has to ask the question about whether the talent pool in Australia is deep enough to support another team?

Please explain why Michael Klinger has a “line through him”. Two summers (not one!) of excellent performances should surely have him on the selectors radar and the team needs some more youthful faces and enthusiasm.

I’d like to see our selectors be a bit bolder and rotate some young players into the team when we have a dead rubber so we can find out if they can cut it at international level. A good record in the shield doesn’t necessarily translate to being a successful test batsmen and many very good test batsmen have only moderately good sheild averages. Why not find out which of our young up and comers has what it takes?

North and Hussey aren’t the future they’re the tail end of the now.

Having said that if Marcus North can contribute with the ball in his hand more meaningfully than he does now I’m happy to stick with him as first choice … for the time being.

Interesting figures indeed.

Of course when looking at the Swans membership figures it’s important to remember that the size of the SCG and the allocation of seats for SCG members means membership is restricted to somewhere between 25 and 30 thousand. Add in the Swan’s sensible policy of ensuring there are always some tickets available for sale to non members at each game (to attract new fans) and it’s very difficult for them to have more than 25,000 Sydney based members. So break down of where their membership comes (eg. Sydney vs Country/Interstate, and where abouts in Sydney are the Sydney members) from would be interesting to analyse.

I think when you analyse the Swans membership demographics you’d find relatively few members from the western suburbs of Sydney because even if they’re Swans fans its quite difficult for them to get to the SCG on a regular basis.

Hence the need for an AFL team based in Western Sydney – to provide regular easy asccess for those fans of the game and develop some cross city rivlary – akin that in Perth and Adelaide.

Couldn’t agree more with the sentiments addressed in this article and all the responses.

But how about those breeding conglomerates that charge upto $200 000 for a stallion service fee (50 times per year!) being made to contribute more to the industry so the owners get a better deal?

Maybe then there’d be less reliance on the punter’s money and we could get better returns (from whatever beeting agency we choose to use)?

Well a serious answer then!!

The “rush” for international rookies is a product of three factors.
1) the success of the likes of Tahg Kennelly
2) the improved capacity of the foortball system to identify potential talent (Ricky Nixon’s Irish Academy for example)
3) the compromised draft over the next 3-4 years is forcing the clubs to look outside the square

And a good thing I say.

Maybe the winner vs Australia in 10 years is a bit fanciful. What about a “World Team” vs Australian Team.
That’s a distinct possibility. How about every two years a State of Origin Challenge Series with Vic, WA, SA, Allies runs in the same year as the IC and then Australian and World Teams are picked to play each other post season?

The A-League is a second rate competition.

Pym Verbeek acknowledges this and the performance of the A-League representative team masquerading as the Socceroos earlier this year confirms it.

There is no such thing as an A-League Blockbuster no matter what name is used or how the spin masters want to promote a match.

A great day for both Adam Scott and Australian Golf.

But it will be even better day when he starts producing children with Ana – fantastic bloodlines those!

As a St.Kilda supporter and member I was extremely disappointed Luke wound up at Collingwood.

If Collingwood wanted to trade fairly for him and he went there during the trading period – fair enough.

If he wound up going to Melbourne, Essendon or Brisbane in the draft – that’s football.

But when Collingwood don’t offer fair value for him during trading and still get him in the draft – very disappointing.

I hope he goes on to have a successful carreer but the whole thing has left a bad taste in my mouth.

Anyone who follows tennis closely will tell you the players don’t have a lot of confidence in the accuracy of the technology. It’s another opinion on whether the ball is in or not but not necessarily a better opinion.

That’s the reason why, in cricket, the ball tracker has to hit middle stump, to allow for the error in the system and ensure the ball would actually hit the stumps.

Personally I don’t think the technology is fool proof enough to be used for LBW decisions. The umpire is in the best spot to judge LBWs so let him him judge.

I do think there is an argument for catches and edges where the technology can clearly show if the ball carries or if contact has been made with the bat.

The main reason tennis has stuck with a system that isn’t perfect is that it’s taken the heat out of player confrontations with linesmen. It’s very rare to see a McEnro like explosion these days – Serena Williams being the notable exception.

I’ve just finished the summary report and I couldn’t agree more with you Kurt.

Read it all… you know it makes sense…

To repeat sentiments I’ve expressed elswhere on The Roar – I’m in favour of doing what we can to encourage excellence, be that in the arts, music, drama, science or sport.

I’m also all for providing a better sporting infrastructure and programs that encourage us all to be active.

Getting the balance right is the trick and I think Crawford is on the right track.

The encouragement of exellence in sport is through “High Performance” funding and having worked in that industry I can tell you it is way too skewed towards Olympic Medals. Any sport not in the Olympics is considered unworthy of funding in the Australian High Performance system. In fact I’ve heard those in the industry suggest we should direct our funding away from “deep international talent” events to “soft” Olympic events to keep our medal tally up.

Is a high medal tally really that important?

As an Australian I find that while I’m proud of our Olympic achievements and medallists I’m equally proud of many other achievements by athletes and teams in non Olympic settings. Stephanie Gilmour, Mick Fanning, Geoff Ogilvy, the Australian Cricket Team, the Socceroos, the Australian Netball team…. just to name a few. It’s about time we provided these the non Olympic sports with comparable high performance support to that received by Olympic sports.

And what sense does it make to plough money into a program to find a girl to ride a sled frontways down a space age ice shute and not support the development of the next Layne Beachley?

If John Coates and his cronies could get their snouts out of the Olympic trough for long enough I’m sure even they wouldn’t disagree that school sport needs reinvigoration and better integration with community sport. Or that local facilities aren’t in dire need of development.

Also when David Crawford’s report argues directing money to sports we have an affinity with don’t think that because swimming and athletics aren’t named specifically that they’ll miss out. Both sports have the participation base, tradition of success and level of popular care that he argues are important aspects to consider when making funding decisions.

Well done David Crawford I say.