NRL aims straight as AFL takes the bullets
* Patrick Smith
* From: The Australian
* May 29, 2010 12:00AM
NO biffo. Not a sniff of it. Bad for the AFL, good for the NRL. Worse, though, for the AFL was the standard of the State of Origin opener. Slushy field, constant rain and fierce opposition could not blunt the intuitive skills of the Queensland side. There was some fumbled ball but that there was so little of it meant masters were at work.
How NSW can reverse the trend of the past four years is impossible to identify. Sound coaching, grim looks and passion is not enough against a combination that sees that and raises you audacious skill and vision. Craig Bellamy will address his side's weaknesses, sew and patch them up, but he has no needle and thread for the Maroons' mastery of everything elite.
The match was symbolic of the challenge the AFL faces in trying to dilute the hold of rugby league. If you grew up with rugby league or even if you know it only as it surrounds you, the sporting heartbeat of Sydney and the Gold Coast, then any alternative code will appear tame.
Such was the build-up after last year's third State of Origin late-match riot there was every chance Wednesday's match could have deteriorated into a bar-room brawl. While some of the players could not quite hold their tongue before the match, everybody held their nerve on the field.
So a bullet for the NRL was dodged. Just what will happen in Brisbane cannot be predicted, but no one wins if the Blues go down fighting.
The opener at ANZ Stadium was an example of a change in the way our football codes are now judged. It is not about kicking goals but dodging those well-aimed bullets.
The AFL got to last night's match between Essendon and the Bulldogs ducking and weaving, not always successfully. There had been a blunderbuss aimed squarely at its heart when a complaint to the state government set off an investigation on Wednesday.
A high school principal reported that a student was pregnant after St Kilda players visited the school earlier in the year. The inference was that contact had been made between the players and the student during the clinic and that she became pregnant at a series of rendezvous later on.
If initial contact was made at the clinic then the breach of trust was indefensible and the AFL deeply wounded. There is no more irksome image than footballers, brought to the school as role models, using their position to procure teenagers for sex.
An investigation that ran all day and which involved police found that the players had not made contact with the girl at the school. They offered their phone records for inspection and they proved that there had been no interaction until much later after St Kilda played the Swans in Sydney in the opening round. Swift but thorough, the investigation saw the bullet fly aimlessly by, though everyone involved was aware that two lives had forever changed course in a sigh.
Unfortunately for the AFL this was ambush week. Having previously escaped with just a flesh wound after Docker Michael Johnson was found by police in possession of cocaine, it was then discovered Johnson had a Derringer in his football sock.
Initially the AFL made sure the Dockers punished Johnson with some venom, banned for five matches, and tried to settle the matter with officials stunned that it could happen to such a decent man. For his part Johnson said he would learn from the experience and return a better person, father, teammate, footballer, dog owner and gardener.
On the ever-sensitive issue of its three-strikes illicit drug policy that ensures players who breach the policy remain anonymous seemingly no matter how many times they strike out, the league was wounded. Johnson out for five games, players on two strikes hidden away by the AFL policy. Incongruous at best, a cover-up at worst. Within days it got murkier still. It was discovered Johnson had been caught by police in possession of ecstasy in 2005, his first year with the club. For the AFL 2005 was a critical year because that's when its three-strikes policy was introduced. It didn't pick up Ben Cousins at West Coast and it did not find out Johnson at the Dockers.
That prompted renewed scrutiny of the policy and that did not help the AFL either. Football manager Adrian Anderson said that when a player tested positive twice he could be placed under medical treatment. And no matter how many times he tested positive under treatment none would be considered a third strike. And then he added while they were under treatment they could not be selected for their side.
The policy was tripping out. If the player could not play for his side how could his identity not be known. Supporters tend to fuss when their centre half-forward suddenly is unavailable for weeks without explanation. Not to mention the coach, the football department and match committee who are told that they cannot select the player in question. But not told why. Fancy the committee would want to know as well. The media would be salivating. This made no sense; the three-strikes policy never has.
The gun was loaded again when Barry Hall, the Bulldog with attitude and form, put his opponent Scott Thompson in a head lock. The hold was fierce and prolonged and he was reported for rough conduct. It would not have come to this had the umpires been more vigilant early in the game when Thompson was physically provoking Hall and had an umpire been looking when Thompson knocked over Hall as he crouched to tend his bootlaces.
The system had let Hall down, he was provoked and taunted, picked on and surrounded. Nonetheless he should not have reacted in the fierce manner that he did. With his record Hall should have been suspended but he wasn't. Merely fined. The official release said: "The match review panel took into account the medical report on player Thompson and the relevant footage in determining a charge of rough conduct was not appropriate in the circumstances of this case."
Mmmmm. On Wednesday Thompson told the media this: "I thought I was all right, but it soon became a pretty tight grip and I got a little scared, but he knew to let go. He had me across the neck and I was struggling to breathe, but I think Barry felt that as well and that's why he let go."
Surely this is at odds with the medical report offered by North Melbourne. Thompson describes something that can only be deemed rough conduct. Sadly, the AFL match review panel was informed more fully after it made its decision than before it. Simply an unacceptable situation.
Like the week before when the match review panel cleared Hawthorn's Campbell Brown of high contact, the true situation was revealed the day after the panel deliberated. Brown had bumped Jackson but Richmond, not wanting to be deemed dobbers, naively denied contact had been high when contacted by the panel.
However, the next day as Jackson sought to clear himself of a charge of head-butting Brown, the club doctor not spoken to before the Jackson hearing said the Richmond player was fuzzy after being struck in the head. Jackson lost his case. How inept. Saving an opponent, Brown, cost them Jackson, their own player.
One week, one bullet dodged, two bullets found their mark. The illicit drugs policy and the tribunal system are bleeding to death. Slowly but inexorably.
