AFL has lost its purpose

[croydon Dog food]

My father grew oranges I grew opinions. I am not a AFL hater, my scrapbook respects all sports, there’s no doubting that. AFL is currently hovering below low lying clouds and heavy fog. The game has been kidnapped by over bearing coaches who value their white boards and their computer analysis over their players. These coaches are probably like Paul Langmack the astute South Sydney coach who claimed to be working on his game plane until 3am in the morning, the rumour was he used the Clip Art children’s program but that story is for another day.

Coaches who value “Taggers” belong to the lower echelons of the human development chain. These players are simply pawns in the process and they are forced to put away their bag of skills and bring game down to junk yard standards. If I wanted to I could replace the Tagging player with a stray dog who could be sent out there to annoy the hell out of one player and bark and fart on him and all the other little niggle that goes on. The stray dog or Tagger have a strikingly similar effect. Just like the stray dog it wouldnt surprise me to see these coaches ordering these players into the corner of the dressing room to tuck into a packet of dog biscuits or chew on a stick such is the mentality these players are forced to play with. From the Adelaide v Carlton game on the weekend I would have forced the ground announcer to play the Super League theme song at halftime “When two tribes go to war” such was the pathetic plight of the contest. In my scrapbook at halftime I had taken a number of stats from the game



· Scrums – Adelaide 6-4

· Rucks and Mauls – Carlton 11-2

· Skill level – Mediocre

· Flow – None

* Amount of times i had switched over to old re runs of a Country practice - 7



As far as I am concerned if Carlton had had John Eales out their they would of taken home the Arnett’s biscuits. Paul Roos and his bunch of brave ambassadors for the code should be wearing headgear to match their style of play. The fact that they have bought home the bacon 5 times this year should not disguise the fact this is rotten bacon, bacon that the likes of West Harbour take home and munch on after beating Penrith 18-12 in a tryless sydney club rugby game at Concord Oval in front of a gathering of family, friends, reject West Tigers players and Don Smallgoods associates.


I give credit to great crusaders such as Terry Wallace for the attractive football Richmond are playing, the fact is he and the rightly outspoken Sam Newman are upholding the morals of the game and both are fine role models for the code and people in which kids no doubt are inspired by. The fact is I am becoming disenchanted by the AFL at First Grade level, I enjoyed watching Western Suburbs play At Henson Park on Fox Footy as they played like they were a free spirit, not bogged down by over zealous assistant defensive coordinators, faith healers, special teams coaches and dexterity experts. Sometimes I just wish coaches would listen to Bob Marely before the game, smoke some good stuff, and come to the game in a relaxed mood, instructing their players to simply “Do your best mun” – AFL would be much better for it.

AFL needs to rediscover its roots, The Western Oval which was later re named Whitten Oval was a pert of the heart and soul of the game, it was the sort of game you could sit on the concrete hill, eat your hot dog in piece and not have to worry about the ground announcer advertising James Hird’s latest fashion range as the speakers were often not working. Yes, I was a Fitzroy fan, I am probably still bitter at their demise, but I realize they were flat on their feet as the curtain came down on them in 1996.



I repeat I don’t hate AFL, I just don’t enjoy the modern game’s tactical rubbish which limits players to become like robots. The next time I Adelaide play Carlton or Sydney I will be sipping rums in Jamaica, claimbing mountains in Nepal, watching old re runs of Fitzroys 119-118 triumph over the Kangaroos ar Princess Park in 1993 or I will be bringing Bob Marley down under for the pre game speech.



Cheers guys

 

[CyberKev]

I give credit to great crusaders such as Terry Wallace for the attractive football Richmond are playing, the fact is he and the rightly outspoken Sam Newman are upholding the morals of the game and both are fine role models for the code and people in which kids no doubt are inspired by.

Sorry, mate, but as soon as you referred to Sam Newman you lost all credibility. Besides the fact that using Newman and morals in the same sentence is the mother of all oxymorons, you've also casually overlooked what Newman is about when it comes to football. Newman is scarcely capable of doing anything other than bitching and moaning. He used to bitch and moan about Geelong non-stop in the nineties, hence their decision to ban him from setting foot inside the club. He used to bitch and moan non-stop about Channel 7's football coverage, but has remained suspiciously quiet about 9's total inability to improve matters. He bitches and moans non-stop about Hawthorn these days, but I guess it would be unfair of me to mention the possibility of residue bitterness from him being dumped by the club as a ruck coach in the 90s. He was bitching and moaning about how hard it was for him to have to grace the public's ears with his glorified radio presence years ago, but he's never had the honour to piss off and give the job to someone who would treat it (and the public) with the respect required. We are talking about a guy whose main contemporary claim to fame has been derived from harassing and humiliating battlers in the street for cheap laughs, after all.


The tone and tempo of the game has certainly changed, but Newman carries on as if every match played prior to the 1990s was a pristine viewing experience. At any time in history you have had good sides that have played quality football, poor sides that have played dismally, and sides that are positioned somewhere in-between. Let me tell you, I saw more footy than most across the 1980s, and I saw my fair share of crap contests.

I also think you've fallen into the same trap by focusing attention on the Carlton vs Adelaide game, which certainly left a lot to be desired from a quality spectacle viewpoint. The previous day, however, I watched a good deal of the Cats vs Dockers game and thought it was a great game to witness.

AFL, as per other sports, is in a constant state of flux and evolution. For mine, too many people fall for the trap of looking at the current mode of the game through coke bottle glasses, while reviewing past eras whimsically through rose-coloured ones.

The sport is as great as its ever been, and Newman is as mediocre as he's ever been.

That being said, I appreciated the effort that went into your post and its good to have you contributing in the forum.

 

[camsmith]

I disagree Cyberkev, Sam Newman may have said/bitched about stupid things in the past.. but i think he is right when he talks about how AFL has changed (not for the better)


He just hates that its turned into a possession style of a game rather than a bomb it long to a pack and the best team will come away with the ball, it's now just lead to the boundary and 99% mark without a contest.

In saying that, that sort of football doesnt happen all the time, and isnt always boring to watch. The crowd figgures up by 200,000 odd from last year, prove that AFL couldnt be anymore appealing to the public.

The sooner clubs like Sydney and Carlton realize that playing a defensive possession style of game doesnt get you anywhere, the sooner the quality of the game will be better.


Just look at the top four, West Coast, Geelong, Melbourne and Richmond. All these teams are great to watch (Richmond can be painful when losing ) and the way they are playing footy is obviously working for them.


To me AFL will (unless rules make it worse) never get boring. In every game there is loads of amount of skill and excitment being displayed and in my opinion it is and will always be the greatest game in the world.


(Go Tiges ;-) )

 

[Stormin Norman]

u've just gota remember that half the teams dont have the talent to play attcking footy non stop all day. haw are in the situation that they guniwinely only have 4 decent players all in the midfield and if the play fast running football the defenders will just nail it back down the wing or centre.
and let me just say one thing about eade. some ppl say he may have "started flooding but that is wrong it started wit dennis pagan playing everyone behiend the ball and running forward to kick to carey good game plan worked well won them 2 prems another gf aperance and a few other finals series eade how ever put ONE lose man back to help advantage wit the "switch" which is running the ball down one side and then switching it to the other side when running it out of deffence to to players to run onto the ball.
teams started "flooding" against essendon in '99, '00 and '01 in the hope that it would free up the midfield a little bit more to use the switch more effectively against the best side of those 3 yrs. lower teams started to do this because of their best midfielders missing and a way to hold up teams from free running.
Mark Williams 3 years ago decided to try something if the other team cant get the ball how can they kick goals by playing possesion footy and doing just that they choaked at the 2nd last hurdle 2wice and last yr won the prem. now haw are trying to play this way so how can n e one slam it if it has won a prem and nearly won 3 it may not be as atractive as ppl would like but when u sign an coach u i bet it doesnt say n e where in the contract that ur game plan must be an attrative brand of footy

 

[camsmith]

when u sign an coach u i bet it doesnt say n e where in the contract that ur game plan must be an attrative brand of footy

Well them im just happy we chose TW for our coach so i dont need worry about all this.

Some things you say are true, but also playing a certain game like sydney/carlton when having less skilled players doesnt always work, obvously Hawthorn beat Brisbane this way.. but 1/4 of the time it wont work.

 

[CyberKev]

Well them im just happy we chose TW for our coach so i dont need worry about all this.

Hmmm... Guess you didn't see much of the Bulldogs circa 2000-2001?

Some things you say are true, but also playing a certain game like sydney/carlton when having less skilled players doesnt always work, obvously Hawthorn beat Brisbane this way.. but 1/4 of the time it wont work.

Skill isn't the main issue here.

Richmond are not a greatly skilled side, they just happen to have found themselves in a situation where they have some tall forwards, one of whom is exceptionally good.

You can only play long and direct football effectively if you have the tall forwards to complement this style of play.

That being said, even sides with tall forwards will not play expressly direct football most of the time.

All this reverence for kicking long to tall forwards elides the reality that conditions (either weather ones, or player mentality on the day) often make this an unwise approach to overwork.

I watched a game against Richmond a few years back when the Tigers just kept going straight to Richardson and Ottens inside-50 and Hay & Rawlings just kept sitting off them and knocking it away to free running defenders. Needless to say Hawthorn won comfortably.

People talk a lot of nonsense about long and direct football, when the reality is that ALL sides do not play this way MOST of the time.

And given how predictable a gameplan it would be, nor should they.

 

[camsmith]

But long and direct means Richmond wouldnt have a crowded forward line, it would be open and easy for Richo/Staff to lead into, the only thing they need then is the ball into them to be either on there chest or atleast close to it.

As you know.. chipping around allows time for teams to get back, meaning more players spoiling the ball for richo or whoevers up forward.


------


i do remember watching the bulldogs when they were under TW. I remember a team that always had a dip, played rough and exciting. I dont know his game plan why coaching the Dogs, but that really means nothing. They are a totally different team and they probably need to play a different style.

Terry when he came to Richmond promised Richmond fans a number of things, like playing exiciting football. And i feel he has delivered that.

We shall see if Richmond of old comes back in the next few weeks, or if we stand up, continue playing good attacking footy and not forget the game plan which TW came up with at the start of the season.


-- any mistakes in here is because im typing at 10000 words a second lol off to get some dinner mmmmmmm --

 

[Stormin Norman]

carlton havent been playing n e thing like sydney they are playing more of the dennis pagan type game but wit 3 up forward. running wit the ball moving 1 of the fwd pockets and hf flankers wit the ball eddie betts hanging off fevola and haveing jarred waite or lance at chf but the ball is not coming in there enough at all and lance is not standing up as much as he should an waite is only young mind u thats not the only reason y carlton are losing thats another topic
as for richmond not being a "skilled midfield" thats rubbish kane johson is a briliant footballer who won 2 prems being a dead eye dick wit his kicking ad to that young mark coughlan and wayne campbell u have one skillful midfield. now look at carlton Stevens big hype still has done nothing at carlton doesnt use the ball at as much as everyone thinks he does, camporeale i'm not sure whether he is still inj or just lost everything he had he's ever reliable drop punts just not hitting the targets and kouta well he maybe old slower but still would walk into ne other club centre square.