Mazer Rackham

Umpires being miked up is an "innovation", invented by TV, and if you're a TV exec, all "innovations" are "good things". Like the "countdown clock", it doesn't actually add anything (arguably, the countdown detracts from the tension of a close match). But it's an "innovation" so therefore "good". The AFL take such little care over their product that they don't bother much about its portrayal on TV. If it's rating well, all is well.

Drownings: GWS 0 Port 0 WCE 0 Geel 0 C'wood 0 Adel 0 Haw 0 MFC 1 Straight kicking elite sports science pushing players to the limit will be the difference that wins a flag

Survivor AFL Eighteen teams of warriors battle it out in weekly challenges to find out who will reign supreme. Each week the teams battle for the coveted Premiership Points. Individuals fight for Brownlow Votes and Rising Star Awards. Or take the Mark of the Week and earn extra Glory for their team! It's no place for the faint hearted, as the Green Maggots will randomly place hazards in the way of the warriors. And can they avoid the Match Review Officer, who will randomly penalise contestants, and even send some to the Tribunal Of Unprecedent? After the September Battles, only one team will be left standing. October is coming.

That we should be even more ferocious in our attack on the ball? Got it. Biased, incompetent numpties who don't know what they're doing tend to attract each other

Scene: council offices. A football club CEO is paying obeisance. FC CEO: Please. You can't do this to us. All we want is a large oval to train on, a gym, a pool, change rooms, offices, space for functions, a social club, a shop, a museum .... not much really! And only a few trees have to come down. Council CEO: A football club. The epitome of competition and aggression. Ugh. You probably drive cars, too. FC CEO: No! Please! We don't have anywhere to go! We'll ride bikes. Promise! Council CEO: Get out of my site, you loathsome insect. (pulls lever, a trapdoor opens and FC CEO's chair falls into an underground compost pit) FC CEO: *aaaaaaaargh!* Council CEO: ... tree hater. And now scene 2: FC CEO: ... and so, for community purposes, and nothing to do with us, we want to upgrade our fac--- I mean, the public's facility. Council CEO: A football club. The epitome of comp-- FC CEO: imagine the number of people who will ride bikes to work when they can use our expanded gym, pool, bar, retail outlets, and club museum. Council CEO: our? FC CEO: No, yours. I mean ... yes, ours. The community's. We're part of the community. (When we want free money.) Look, WE couldn't care less about the upgrades! We will force ourselves with great reluctance to use them. We only care about the indigenous youth and single mums without anywhere to exercise! Council CEO: hmmm ... just how many extra people do you think will ride bikes as a result of this? FC CEO: we'll do a welcome to country ceremony every day and make it compulsory to give the middle finger to all motorists. Oh, hundreds of cyclists. Council CEO: only hundreds? FC CEO: did I say hundreds? I meant the entire population of every suburb in the district. Council CEO: this calls for soy lattes all round! We are nomads. We need a toehold to leverage into upgrades. Without toehold, we have nothing. It's an uphill battle (to say the least) to get any toehold in the inner suburbs. The only toehold we have anywhere is Casey. If our management can pull off this miracle, I will convert to Zoroastrianism.

NEWSFLASH In sensational news today, new MFC recruit Kyle Dunkley has retired, citing mental health concerns.

With winter coming and the heavy rains, the drowning practice will put us at an advantage over the clubs who waste their time on kicking, marking, and scoring!

If they take 41 shots they have to run laps, except they've already run that week's allowed number of metres. So they have to do 20 pushups, except they've already done that week's allowed number of bicep contractions. So they have to stand in the naughty corner, but that's being used by Melbourne Storm for their training. So they get an earful from a coach, but their ears have already absorbed that week's quota of decibels. It's a real dilemma. The tail wags the dog.

It's just that the commute from Sydney is a real bugger until he gets his licence.

Scott would have to accept that his senior coaching days are over before he came to us or any other club as an assistant. I don't think he's there yet. (And in truth, it's too early to tell either way.) Do we know he'd be any better as a director of football? Would prefer someone who has runs on the board from coaching, or managing, at a successful club.

Why's the president of one football club stirring up trouble at another one?

"ALL TOGETHER NOW: ♪ the river Jordan is deep and wide, hallelujah ♫ COME ON, CLAP YOUR HANDS!"

This week on Survivor: AFL, the Intruders form an alliance and issue Gary Ablett with a Penalty Challenge. Will he play his last Immunity Pin?

Aw, gee, do we really want to see the best players on the sidelines just because they deliberately break the rules of the game? This could cost someone a Brownlow! Do we really want to see a star player miss out on a Brownlow just because they repeatedly show they can't conform to the rules? What's the game coming to?

It has seemed inevitable for about 3 years that North will end up in Tassie. When that happens is the question but if North don't move up the ladder with their next coach, then the AFL may step in with some "suggestions". I don't care about that so much as ... what happens to Arden St? Some enterprising club could make approaches to the relevant council to make sure that facility doesn't sit idle ... I read it that North went to him and gently suggested that they weren't going to see out his contract but they didn't want the circus of a mid-season sacking and would he mind coaching out the season while they lined up their next coach ... and Scott suggested that they go forth and multiply. Sacked coaches without a flag in their resume tend to have trouble finding new head jobs. (Don't start.) For some reason Voss is being talked about a lot right now. But surely clubs are thinking, he didn't do it at his last club. How sure are we that he's good for another stab at it? Maybe he isn't? Who will risk 3 years of their club's future on a flunked coach? Carlton will be spewing. I think they had the scheme to let Bolton coach out the season while they sorted out their next coach in peace and quiet and now North have upset the applecart. Bull market for assistant would-be-senior coaches.

Notre Dame burnt down. No wonder he's not himself. He needs some time away from the game to see if Esmeralda is okay.

It's all perfectly innocent. It's sweat -- those players are panicking that they're going to be drug tested after the game.

You never know, maybe West Coast told the AFL that he's blacklisted from their games from now on.

It runs off the power of the radio signal itself. How loud it is in your ear depends on how much signal you can "collect" with the antenna. Using a big chunk of metal (like your bedhead) collects more signal, so, the radio works better. If you're driving in a multi-storey car park, you will find that your car AM radio works best if you are under some big water pipes. They act as giant antennas. If you could clip your crystal radio to one, you would get awesome reception.

I've seen that table quite a few times but only today noticed the Dogs in 16. Off the charts!

Twain was a Fremantle supporter. What would he know?

If you think you're running a sporting competition, then umpire conflicts of interest, an MRP that favours star players, badly written rules, and woeful application of the rules are things that are key to your interests and you would be burning to get on top of them. But if you think you're running a sport-based theme park, or a sport-themed reality TV show where ratings and $$$$ are how you keep score, then all of the above are small potatoes and simply part of the drama. "Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them" -- Mark Twain, probably, or Benjamin Disraeli. (Or Wilde.)

Daisy Thomas ... if he had made the comments publicly, then throw the book. But he didn't. The ump wasn't even mic'ed up. He shouldn't be abusing the umpire, so penalise him. But let the punishment fit the crime. Making it public only increases the problem for the AFL. Speaking of crimes ... the whole affair is a crystallisation of the way the AFL have lost control of the refereeing of their comp. From the AFL web site: In pleading guilty, Thomas admitted to calling Barlow a "f***ing cheat" after misunderstanding the umpire's instructions to Giants players as the officiator attempted to sort starting positions before a restart of play. The Giants had seven men in their forward 50 after a goal, before Barlow attempted to assist them in avoiding receiving a warning due to the AFL's newly imposed 6-6-6 rules. Thomas, who didn't believe umpires were allowed to do this, called to Barlow and repeatedly said: "You can't tell them that d***head … you're a f***ing cheat." It has since been confirmed by the AFL that boundary and field umpires have been instructed to assist teams in ensuring they uphold the starting position rules, and that teams were informed of this prior to the commencement of the 2019 season. WTF? "the umpire's instructions to Giants players" ... "Barlow attempted to assist them" ... "umpires have been instructed to assist team in ensuring they uphold the starting position rules " ... WHY are the umps coaching the players? They are supposed to know the rules. I can understand some leniency or a moratorium for the first 2 or 3 rounds ... but we're getting to the halfway point of the season. All they need to do is give ONE free kick ... especially if that results in a goal. Coaches will go ape and the teams will sort out 666 in no time flat. This helicopter parenting by the AFL is what is causing the problem.

Sometimes the answer is staring us in the face. WHY? Because they don't think it's a problem! If it was affecting TV audiences, sponsorships, or crowds, it would be fixed up pretty quick smart. As it is, it's obviously not a concern for Gil and his merry crew. TL;DR: the AFL don't care

So because we can never get perfection, we should give up trying to improve. Try applying that to other fields of human endeavour. We'd still be living in caves. No one has said they want "every decision to be correct." Not even you. People want fairness and consistency. People can cop a wrong decision here and there ... what they can't cop is when a decision is made (say push in the back), the ball goes down the other end, same thing happens in reverse, no free. We understand that umpires are human. (That's the rumour anyway.) We're not asking for robotic perfection. Just fairness and consistency. To answer your question, a great start would be to ... 1. remove the notion of "interpretation". The paradigm of "interpretation" of rules is all wrong. That the AFL at all levels has bought into this bogus notion is the root of all evil. There is no other sport I can think of where there is "interpretation" of the rules. Nearest I can think of is golf. But even that is not "interpretation." It is more like "clarification" or "explanation". When you read the rules of golf, you encounter the rule as it is writ, then a bunch of scenarios explaining how to apply it. So that when it's 5PM on a Satdee arvo and a foursome stranded way out on the 15th green has a dispute, they can drag out the rule book and see how to apply the rule in question. And every golfer on every course around the world should be able to make the same determination. Squash is another one that comes to mind ... the contentious "let" rule causes the most grief. But the rules take great pains to elaborate and explain when and when not to apply the "let" rule. There's no "interpretation" involved. The rule is a bit tricky, but the application of the rule does not change from week to week, season to season. 2. Have all AFL officials from Gil down read the rules and do an umpires' test. OK, not the typing pool. Not the janitor. But most of them, especially the media/public facing ones, should have a sound knowledge of the rules. This particularly applies to people like the tribunal members, the MRP, and directors of umpiring (in particular I am sure Peter "attacking third of the ground" Schwab and Jeff "natural arc" Gieschen had never picked up the rules book at all). 3. Go over the rules and remove all the glaring chasm-like gaps. One example: we all know that you can't take too long when taking a free kick. Seven seconds, I think? Otherwise the ump will call "play on". Well ... yes, and no! It's not in the rules at all. Nowhere. Nor is the "30 second countdown clock" when taking a shot. The commentator's nightmare, "this could affect the outcome of a grand final!!!" is right there hidden in plain view. Not grand finals, but other matches HAVE been decided by this "rule" in the dying seconds. It's not even an "interpretation". It's an invention of someone at the AFL and the umps have jumped on board, willingly or not. The rule book is full of inconsistencies like that. The umps have an uphill job, trying to apply rules that are poorly written. No, pathetically written. Grappling with the bogus travesty of "interpretation", administered by people who don't know the rules as they are written ... no wonder all umps have to retire at 40 because they have been driven insane. It's a wonder they last that long. There is plenty that can be done to improve the umpiring, and none of it requires attaining perfection.