This line made me laugh:
"Why there should be any need in coverage of rugby league to refer to Australian rules at all is perplexing, to say the least"
That is a bit rich coming from Fagan. He always seems to be referring to AFL. Maybe he should have a look back through his articles and posts so he can realise what a hypocrite he is.I guess his point is that you are allowed to talk about AFL as long as it is criticism. Fagan's paranoid rantings about AFL always seem to remind me of talk of communism in the US in the 50's and reds under beds.
I would say that 90% of commentators wouldn't even know "best on ground" is an AFL phrase.
"Best On Ground" doesn't bother me at all. Although I admit to being slightly disturbed by people referring to premierships as 'flags', i have NEVER heard anyone say it. Only in the examples shown in the post, so i doubt it is anything to worry about.
What i find more concerning and annoying is commentators CONSTANTLY referring to tackles as 'plays' . Which i assume started when Big Jack Gibson was commentating origin matches in the 80's?? With Jack having a fascinantion with Gridiron and it's training techniques.
Why does that not seem to bother Fagan? The answer of course is that Gridiron is not AFL so he can live with it.
I've never written or said people shouldn't talk about AFL or praise it. There are plenty of forums availalble for that to happen in. The Australian rules community and anyone else is free to talk up whatever it wants, and I'm free to make comment on that or add my own observations.
Sorry you can't discern the difference between calling a sporting contest and writing an article about a particular issue - both serve different purposes and occur in different settings.
And if NRL coaches started calling half-backs by the name "quarter-backs", or if a trend emerged in the media where some called the Clive Churchill Medal "the MVP award", then they too would be criticised.
I'm not sure "plays" is a misnomer and/or imported - between each tackle is a play-the-ball, and the game could do with people thinking of each available tackle as a one-off "play", instead of working "sets" (which, incidentially, didn't come from tennis).