AFL 2009

[trimster]

AFL 2009

Melbourne Arab wrote:

Port's status as the sick man of the AFL seems to have come about quite quickly – they've lost nearly a quarter of their support in the last couple of seasons. Wasn't there a rumour not that long ago about playing games at Adelaide Oval? Would that make any difference?

The 2010 draw doesn't come out until October 30 but it's been leaked that Port will be playing 2 games in Darwin and repeating that in 2011 and 2012. This is an attempt to make them the NT's team and capitalise on the large number of Indigenous players they have. Although Hawthorn's alliance with Tasmania has been an enormous success, most other attempts by clubs to align themselves with areas not represented in the AFL haven't had any long term benefits eg North Melbourne/Gold Coast, North Melbourne/Canberra, Western Bulldogs/Canberra, Western Bulldogs/Darwin, Melbourne/Canberra. St Kilda's "commitment" to Tasmania lasted as long as it took for the club's financial position to improve and then you didn't see them for dust.

Plenty of rumours and debates over the future of Adelaide Oval at the moment... I wouldn't be surprised if AFL matches are played there soon. Don't know what difference it would make to Port's fortunes, though...

There will be no A League game played there this season.

[Guest]

AFL 2009

The AFL have announced the draft and salary cap concessions for the 18th club, Greater Western Sydney (GWS). They are the most generous ever for a new team. GWS join the AFL in 2012 but will not operate under the same rules as everybody else until 2019 by which time they will just have played in a 5th successive grand final against arch rivals Gold Coast. AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou got a bit carried away in the excitement during his speech speculating that the AFL could move to 20 clubs with Tasmania and either a 3rd WA team or North Queensland the potential new clubs (no Canberra?).

The Entry Rules for Team GWS will be as follows:

1. National Rookie Access:

From the end of the 2010 season, Team GWS has the right to select up to a dozen 17 year olds born in the January - April window (Jan-April 1993), with the option to relocate to Sydney for the 2011 season. The club also will have the option to trade some of this group to secure experienced AFL players from other clubs, consistent with the rule that applies to the Gold Coast FC.

2. 2011 NAB AFL Draft:

Team GWS to have Pick No.1 in each round.
Team GWS to have Picks 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15 in round one. Please note that these selections have priority over any other special assistance/priority selections which may be available to other clubs, as per the rule that applies to the Gold Coast FC for the 2010 Draft.

3. 2010 NAB Rookie Draft:

Team GWS to have Selections 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.

4. 2011 NAB Rookie Draft:

Team GWS to alternate NSW priority selections with the Sydney Swans. Team GWS to have first selection.

5. Zoned Access:

Team GWS to have zoned access to up to 16 NSW players from southern NSW/ACT and all areas outside the current NSW scholarship region during the period covering the 2010 to 2013 national drafts.
Team GWS to be zoned players from the Northern Territory who will be draft eligible by the time of the 2011, 2012 and 2013 national drafts.

6. 2011 and 2012 Post Season, AFL-listed Player Access:

Team GWS to have capacity to pre-list 10 players who had previously nominated for the AFL Draft, or were previously listed with an AFL club. If the club does not sign 10 players after the 2011 season, it can sign the balance of up to 10 players at the end of the 2012 season.
Team GWS to have capacity to sign up to 16 uncontracted players. Maximum of one player from other AFL clubs, unless a club agrees to trade more than one player to Team GWS. If the club does not sign 16 uncontracted players after the 2011 season, it can sign the balance of up to 16 players at the end of the 2012 season.

7. Incentive to Other Clubs Trading with Team GWS in the 2011 and 2012 post-season:

Team GWS to be given access to four 17-year-olds born in the January to April 1994 window, with all players to be traded to other clubs. Selections will be allocated to Team GWS so the club can trade for established players, but the club will not have access to these 17-year-olds. If the four trades are not completed in the 2011 post-season, the balance of up to four trades may be used in the 2012 trading period.
Expanded list and increased salary cap:
Team GWS will also have an expanded list size and TPP allowance in the club’s initial time in the competition, through to 2019, as follows:
2012 - 44-50 senior list, nine rookies with $640,000 - $1m TPP extra allowance;
2013 - 44-50 senior list, nine rookies with $640,000 - $1m TPP extra allowance;
2014 - 44-50 senior list, nine rookies with $640,000 - $1m TPP extra allowance;
2015 - 44-48 senior list, nine rookies with $640k - $880k TPP extra allowance;
2016 - 42-46 senior list, nine rookies with $520k - $760k TPP extra allowance;
2017 - 40-44 senior list, nine rookies with $400k - $640k TPP extra allowance;
2018 - 38-42 senior list, nine rookies with $200k - $520k TPP extra allowance;
2019 - 38 senior list, nine rookies in line with other AFL clubs

[Guest]

AFL 2009

A 16 team league with a 22 fixture season will always have some element of unfairness but the 2010 draw released today has produced a more negative response than usual.

Some features of the draw:

St Kilda v Geelong – no grand final rematch in round 1. The AFL's explanation is that they want a big build up to the game as we had in round 14 last year. The chances of both teams being unbeaten until round 13 are surely pretty slim given that last year was the first time anything like that had ever happened before. The round 13 game will be at the MCG after Etihad Stadium burst at the seams last year.

Best teams not playing each other – the AFL is supposed to be "socialist" in nature with the salary cap and draft system giving a level playing field. Normally, that applies to the fixture list as well with the better teams playing each other twice per season in "blockbuster" fixtures. Last year's top 3 only play each other once. In fact, St Kilda, Geelong and the Western Bulldogs all play at least half their games against teams who missed the 8 last year.

Collingwood – this is the big annual whinge. Collingwood will play 18 games in Melbourne including the last 7 of the season at the MCG. 19 of their games are on free to air tv. The AFL are currently negotiating a new tv rights contract so this is obviously a cunning plan to produce record ratings in 2010 to push the price up.

Round 22 – for the first time, we have a floating round. The games and venues are fixed but the times will be set 1 month before the end of the season so that teams in the finals can play earlier. Last year, 3 of the top 4 played on the Sunday. Foxtel will be the big losers here because they have the Sunday twilight game which is now guaranteed to be meaningless whereas last year they had 3rd placed Western Bulldogs playing 4th placed Collingwood.

Monday night – as last year, only 1 Monday night game and, unfortunately, St Kilda have been landed with it again this time against Carlton. Given the AFL's love of creating new "traditions" I have a horrible feeling St Kilda are in danger of becoming Monday night regulars.

Darwin – gets 2 games for the first time both featuring Port Adelaide.

Themed rounds – only the Indigenous round remains with even rivalry round being abolished. "There is a broader agenda to maximise and grow our brand," was the AFL's explanation.

[Rory Bunk]

AFL 2009

MA, how's the heartache going? We were a bit worried about you after you went into the wilderness for a while.

Those draft concessions for West Sydney are frankly astonishing. Bordering on human trafficking, really.

And I noticed that the draft is sponsored these days. Have the AFL found a sponsor for the Tank yet?

[Guest]

AFL 2009

I’m touched by your concern, RB.

Between 1981 and 1991, I saw Dundee United lose 8 cup finals so, although I’m a bit out of practice in recent times, I was able to draw on my vast experience to deal with it. It’s very simple really – avoid the media for a few days and never watch any highlights of the game ever. I haven’t seen a single second of the grand final on tv. Thankfully, I don’t know any Geelong supporters so I didn’t have to deal with any gloating. Losing to any other Victorian team, apart from North Melbourne, would have meant emigrating (again).

I was always puzzled that a few of my fellow Arabs would make a point of watching the highlights of those cup final catastrophes and I’ve noted from St Kilda message boards that a lot of Saints fans watched a re-run of the grand final. Perhaps they feel they can draw comfort from the fact we were the better team (in my view, that makes the defeat harder to take) or inspiration that we can bounce back next year as both West Coast and Geelong have done recently.

I’ve gone from initially never wanting to see another game ever to wishing the new season started tomorrow and that I can enjoy watching Andrew Lovett sprint the entire length of the ground and kick a goal. In the meantime, I’ll have to make do with Melbourne Victory.

[Guest]

AFL 2009

Big news this morning – 61 year old Kevin Sheedy is to be the first coach of GWS (Greater Western Sydney). Sheedy, described by the Herald Sun, as a "walking, talking headline" is probably the best choice possible to try to sell the new club to an apathetic Sydney public but to appoint him as coach seems a big risk. Sheedy was enormously successful at Essendon but, towards the end, things didn't go too well. Many of his critics believed the game had passed him by as he struggled to keep pace with tactical innovations and there were claims that he had problems relating to younger players which, if true, would be a huge issue at GWS who will have a very young squad.

Sheedy's contribution to Australian rules football is enormous. In particular, he played a leading role in the promotion of Indigenous players and was also the driving force behind the Anzac Day game which has become one of the biggest events in Australian sport. He was hugely important in establishing Essendon as arguably the second biggest sporting club in Australia. It will be fascinating to see how Sydney reacts to him.

[Guest]

AFL 2009

You have to love that Eric Bana (from The Observer):

Is your passion for cars matched by that for Aussie Rules football?

That's my other big love. St Kilda is my team. We made it to the Grand Final in September, and lost. I'd taken myself off the table and decided not to do a film after August...

You scheduled your Hollywood work around football?

Absolutely. St Kilda haven't won the championship for 43 years, before I was born. I would trade being there when we won the flag for anything, except the health of my family. I would hate to put a dollar figure on it. We're talking amputation. I mean, I'd go a couple of digits.

[Guest]

AFL 2009

Kerry's All-Ireland team seem to be reuniting in Australia. David Moran is on a 2 week trial at St Kilda who have already signed Tommy Walsh and now Tadhg Kennelly is back at Sydney after a 1 year return to Ireland. Several other Irish players are arriving this week for trials with various clubs.

Meanwhile, Collingwood have confirmed a 2 year deal for Seamus McNamara who isn't Irish but is an American college basketball player

[Guest]

AFL 2009

The AFL draft always used to be televised but, for reasons I've never seen adequately explained, not since I've been in Australia. All that changes tonight although it's back on air for what could be the least interesting draft any one can remember. In contrast to last year when recruitment managers believed there was genuine talent to be had even in the 50s, this year the view is that beyond pick 25 there's little to get excited about and that only the top 10-12 are really good (Melbourne's recruitment manager says it's "solid" for the top 25). To make matters worse there's no excitement at the very top because there are 2 clear stand out players, Tom Scully from the Dandenong Stingrays and South Australian Jack Trengove, both of whom will go to Melbourne who have the top 2 picks.

Other features of this draft are:

1. A lack of height. Last year's draft was very tall including the top 2 picks. This year, only 1 tall player is expected to go in the top 10.

2. A record number of delisted players – 52 in total. The largest number of recycled players ever drafted is just 7 so a huge number of careers will be effectively ended tonight although a handful of players will get picked up in the pre-season draft. Most interest will be on former St Kilda captain Luke Ball who failed to get his desired move to Collingwood in trade week. Three clubs with picks before Collingwood have said they are interested (Melbourne, Essendon and Brisbane) but Ball has refused to meet any of them. He can't refuse to play for anybody who picks him, however, and Melbourne are saying they don't care if he won't speak to him they are still very keen. They could be bluffing though. The AFL website's phantom draft says it's "nailed on" Ball will end up at Collingwood.

3. Several clubs enter the draft late. After an unusually busy trade week, quite a few clubs traded away high draft picks knowing this was a weak draft. Brisbane's first pick is 27, Collingwood's 30, St Kilda's 32 and, remarkably, Hawthorn don't start until pick 39. Melbourne and Port Adelaide have 7 of the top 18 picks between them.

[Guest]

AFL 2009

Fox Sports’ coverage of tonight’s AFL draft was dreadful. The first 10 picks were done off screen and then AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou stood on stage and the top 10 players were handed club guernseys by their new coaches. Stupidly, the top 10 names were done in reverse order.

Picks 11 to 18 were done the way they should be – live, announced by the club recruitment managers and in the correct order. The plan was obviously just to do this for round 1 but pick 18 was the most hotly anticipated of the draft – would Melbourne pick a disinterested Luke Ball? There was a brief moment of excitement as they announced the selection: “Luke...Tapscott.” How did the AFL persuade them to pick a Luke? Ball got his wish and landed at Collingwood. St Kilda-Collingwood round 3 next year will be a cracker.

Picks 19 to 95 were then announced along the bottom of the screen in tiny letters with a barely visible club badge alongside while a group of ex players talked a load of shite mostly about their experiences of the draft.

There was, however, a welcome bit of romance. With pick 32, St Kilda selected Nicholas Winmar a second cousin of Nicky Winmar, one of the club’s greatest Indigenous players. Winmar, who tragically missed the 1997 grand final after the death of his father, is best known for featuring in one of the most iconic Australian sporting images – reacting to racist abuse from Collingwood fans by proudly baring his black torso:



Remarkably, with pick 33, Essendon did something similar selecting Anthony Long the nephew of Michael Long, another legendary Indigenous player who started the Long Walk from Melbourne to Canberra to raise awareness of Indigenous issues.

Both Nicky Winmar and Michael Long were named in the AFL’s Indigenous team of the century as well as being named in the best 22 of the century at St Kilda and Essendon.

Recruitment experts are saying that neither Winmar nor Long should really have been picked that high in the draft but both clubs seem to have shown a bit of a sentimental streak in a weak draft.

[trimster]

AFL 2009

Don't know why players get so excited about being drafted by Melbourne.... surely it's the kiss of death?

[trimster]

AFL 2009

Adelaide Oval is going to be redeveloped into a 50k seater stadium, and both the Crows and Port Power will play their home games there...

Don't know whether it will meet FIFA standards for World Cup games, though.

[Guest]

AFL 2009

"Football has kicked a goal for soccer" - apparently Adelaide Oval will form part of the World Cup bid. Newspaper reports are also suggesting that Port are expecting a big increase in their crowds after the move and that Adelaide United are in negotiations about playing there – I'm not sure if that means just some games or all of them.

[trimster]

AFL 2009

Many soccer fans here are not all that optimistic that this will be a good move for soccer.

Soccer didn't seem to have much say in the consulting process- it was bulldozed through by Demetriou in double-quick time. SACA and SANFL will be controlling Adelaide Oval, not any soccer body. And although there have been bland statements that it will "comply with FIFA regulations", there has been no specific details about this.

And there is always the problem of the cricket pitch there in summer.

[Rory Bunk]

AFL 2009

...and the trivial matter of it being oval-shaped and seating 50,000 - a totally inappropriate setting for a club playing on a rectangular pitch and whose typical attendance is around a quarter this ground's capacity.

This country's idiotic obsession with playing in huge venues continues unabated.

[Rory Bunk]

AFL 2009

This should probably go in the yet-to-be-created AFL 2022 thread, but it's all gone rather unconvivial in Lord Demetriou's domain over the past couple of days.

What a mess. The AFL are not keen on losing access to both the MCG and Etihad stadium for 10 weeks, so are refusing to release the latter for the WC (should Australia get it, obviously).

In a way this seems reasonable. AFL is the ground's bread and butter. Massive crowds pour into it to watch aussie rules more than once on most weeks. With only the MCG as an alternative venue in Melbourne and loads of locally based clubs (ten or close to it) there is a need for AFL to have a second ground. This is after most of these clubs were cajoled or hounded from their suburban homes. It's a fairly widespread thing in australian sport.

However, my dim memory tells me that Etihad was originally supposed to be a stadium dedicated to the non-AFL activities in Melbourne (fitba, and the Rugbys) but the AFL jumped aboard, and hijacked the process, turning the stadium into an oval one primarily for AFL use. They will end up owning the ground some time in the next couple of decades.

The icing on the cake appears to be the "future proofing" on the new rectangular stadium which is now belatedly being built for rugby and soccer use. This involved designing it and building it in such a way that it would be hugely expensive to upgrade it to a size much larger than its current 31,000. This to protect Etihad stadium, I believe.

It's easy to sit here in Sydney (with plenty of our own problems of course) and smugly tut 'only in Melbourne' as the world's greatest sporting city comes out looking either provincial, lacking in sensible facilities, or both.

My view is probably tainted by the large gap between my affections for proper football and AFL, so what's the word on the ground in Melbourne?

At the end of the day this is all way down the track, but it does affect the deadline for guarantees to be presented by the national federations bidding for WCs 2018 and 2022. I would at any rate guess that by 2022 Andrew Demetriou will have long gone, to take charge of the EPL.

For the record, I think we should have never bid for this alone, we should have done so with NZ. We're struggling so much to get the 12 required stadia of requisite size. Nine or 10 in Australia plus 2 or 3 in NZ would have been a good fit.

[Guest]

AFL 2009

Online polls are showing heavy supoort for the world cup but that could be fitba' fans hijacking them as usual. Nevertheless, in amongst the predictable, hysterical "it's a girl's game" stuff on the Herald Sun website lots of people seem to be capable of putting aside their lack of interest in the round ball game and seeing that the world cup in Australia would be a good thing.

Certainly, if Melbourne was missing from the bid, all hell would break loose. Premier Brumby might just have to crack a few heads together.

As for the problem of losing both venues for a few weeks, the season could be extended as a one off and more games played in Geelong, Canberra, Launceston, Darwin and even Ballarat which is being earmarked for a boutique stadium. Then there's Carlton's old ground which is still in good nick.

[Rory Bunk]

AFL 2009

Yeah I'd take those polls with the usual grain of salt. I voted and I shouldn't matter as I'm no Melburnian.

As a real plus for AFL, they could even get plenty of interest from OS visitors catching a game.

I believe that they would be able to get Etihad back a week early anyhow, as the 2 semis and final would be - in no particular order - at the MCG, Suncorp & Stade de Oz.
Keep Etihad out of the quarters too (use Stade Oz, MCG, Adelaide and Perth) and they could potentially have an AFL game in Melbourne the week before the WC final, maybe even one on the weekend of the final, which would be cheeky.

When I read the above, it makes perfect sense and I reckon it will all be sorted.

If there is no Melbourne there is no bid. End of.

[Guest]

AFL 2009

A record number of overseas born players were selected in yesterday's rookie draft reflecting the determination of clubs to find players from alternative sources as Gold Coast and GWS get all the best players in the next few years (Gold Coast had the top 5 picks in the rookie draft).

Five Irishmen were drafted – Tommy Walsh (St Kilda), Nial McKeever (Brisbane), Zach Tuohy (Carlton), Jamie O'Reilly (Richmond), Chris McKaigue (Sydney); Collingwood recruited Seamus McNamara a basketball player from Milwaukee; and Brisbane picked up Sean Yoshiura, who was born in Japan but moved to Queensland at the age of 7.

The most interesting development though was North Melbourne's selection of Majak Daw the first African born player to join an AFL club. Four AFL clubs are actively recruiting in South Africa but there may well be talent on our own doorsteps. Daw arrived in Melbourne from Sudan at the age of 12 and initially played with a round ball. However, his school reckoned his height and athleticism would suit Aussie Rules and persuaded him to switch codes:

''The first couple of years was pretty hard, just trying to get the kick right and also the positioning around the ground was pretty hard to learn.

''It's not like soccer. Soccer is one dimensional … football is 360 degrees, you can do whatever you want, mark, kick, carry the ball.''

[trimster]

AFL 2009

Interesting to see that the AFL is widening its recruiting net... won't be long before the Irish start getting seriously pissed off about their best young players being poached by a big rich league....

I think the last English born player to play AFL was Clive Waterhouse, formerly of Port Adelaide and Fremantle Dockers.

[Rory Bunk]

AFL 2009

I like the 'one-dimensional' game bit.
Particularly when skills seems an aside (must brush up on those) to being tall and athletic. That's two dimensions, I suppose.