binman

Sometimes offence is appropriately taken when it is unintentionally given because people are not culturally competent (you don’t know what you don’t know). And sometimes victims of a lack of cultural competence are asked not to take offence (when it is completely justifiable to do so), or worse are criticised when they do - or even accused of a having a 'victim mentality'.

I said it at the time - and i'll say it again now. It was of course wholly predictable that the media would focus on the alleged actions of Fagan and Clarkson because they are perfect click bait - but the focus on them from the get go was, and remains, a dangerous furphy. (to be crystal clear I’m not suggesting Clarkson and/or Fagan did not do the things they have been accused of in the report, or minimising those allegations in any way. But we don’t know the specifics – they are contested and presumably will be addressed in any investigation. However, WE DO KNOW from the report there was poor cultural practices at the HFC and examples of very questionable cultural competency). But not only is the hyper focus on Clarkson and Fagan unfair on them, it completely distracts from the critical questions that should be asked – was Hawthorn culturally unsafe, what quality and governance system were in place to make sure what has been alleged could not happen, what policies and procedures were in place, was there systemic racism at play etc. I have been involved in accreditation, audit and review processes for a long time. One of the fundamentals of quality reviewing and auditing is that unless an individual is actively disregarding policy (and the obligation is on the org to make sure employees are aware of all relevant policies and how to comply with them), the fault falls on the organisation – in short if there is some system break down or poor practice it is the org not the individual who is at fault. For the sake of argument, let’s say that broadly speaking some of the more salacious specifics are contested. But it is accepted that senior coaching staff met with young Aboriginal players IN THEIR HOMES to discuss sensitive family related issues (like living arrangements, relationships) WITHOUT them having their own support networks present or involving family (even at that point in time, involving family was accepted good cultural practice – at least it was in the community sector where I work. One only needs to listen to Kozzie talk about his contract negotiations to understand why). The first question should not be what specifically those coaches said or did in those meetings, but rather were they operating in accordance with the club policies and within HFC cultural practice frameworks – and did they even exist (and if so what ongoing training did staff receive to help them understand them and build cultural competencies and how are/were they reviewed to ensure staff are complying with them)? What were the supervision practices in place to provide a forum to explore exactly such practice issues and support fidelity and adherence with the relevant policies? Another question is did Hawthorn, as part of accepted good governance, regularly review their cultural policies and practices? A related question is why did these issues take so long to come to light (at the minimum suggesting players did not feel comfortable raising issues)? What were their complaints policies, were players aware of the complaint policies, were they encouraged and supported to make complaints, was the environment supportive of them doing so, what was the exit interview policy, what was the compliant management system, were these polices and systems adhered to etc etc. Very few, if any of these questions have been asked by the media. Almost all the focus and criticism has been on Fagan and Clarkson. It should be on HAWTHORN, who have copped very little blow back. And unhelpfully the focus has now drilled down on specifics that are always going to be grey, contestable and dependant on perception. For example Clarkson framed his discussion about partners as being an example of caring for his players. And that sounds reasonable. But from a cultural perspective, such a conversation is likely to be traumatic for an Aboriginal player (for example because family members were part of the stolen generation), particularly a young player trying to find his feet and a regular senior spot. And that is not even factoring in enormous power imbalance at play. Maybe Clarkson didn’t understand the cultural sensitivities? But if not, that’s on HAWTHORN, not Clarkson – unless of course Hawthorn can point to a strong cultural competence system and a rigorous process of ensuring compliance with that system. I may be wrong, but I’ll bet my bottom dollar they didn’t have one in place. And if they did, it failed because they clearly didn’t act at the time. The media has been playing the man, not the ball – and the Hawthorn Football Club (the ball in this hamfsited analogy) should have pushed back on this narrative and accepted their responsibility but instead allowed two former employees, one of whom their President is in open conflict with, to basically be the fall guys. I'm not trying to make Fagan and Clarkson the victims here (which by the by raises yet another reason why the focus on them is so damaging - the commentary has devolved into how unfair it has been on Fagan and Clarkson and debating their innocence or guilt). The actual victims are the Aboriginal players and their families. That is where the focus should be But they are victims not of Clarkson and Fagan’s, butr their employers – the Hawthorn Football Club. It is the Hawthorn Football Club who is responsible for ensuring a safe working environment for all it staff - players and coaches alike. And it is the Hawthorn board and senior management who should be bearing the brunt of all of this, not two of their ex employees.

I was thinkin exactly the same thing @Demonland

What he King didn't point out though is that, yes may often boots it long to a contest 80 odd metres - but nowhere as often as the ladt 2 seasons. For one thing, he's no longer taking almost all the kick outs. But may and others who take the kick out are going short to the both pockets more often to set up a transition play (ie not a short 20 metre kick and then a 50 metre kick to a contest)

Mentally and physically

Me too. And thought it might happen. But based on comments by goody in a presser (or 360?) it is unlikely. Asked who might come in for petty he mentioned bb, tmac and melk. No mention of Smith, or schache for that matter. Maybe he's foxing.

And a third (or perhaps part of maintaining their intensity) - can they remain as fit. We face the same question.

Just watched it. Brilliant. And was thinking exactly that about wheels. I loved him as player, but i think his off-field contribution will be hid real legacy at the club. Just one example is that it is highly likely wheels was major factor in Kozzie's decision to stay with the club. But the biggest impact is on the strengthening cultural awareness, cultural capability at cultural safety at the MFC. For some perspective on how far we've come, i went to the 2017 AGM and was amazed there was no acknowledgment of country, let alone welcome to country. I wrote to then President Bartlett, and to his and the club's credit they agreed it was an oversight and committed to ensuring the oversight was not repeated. And again, to their credit, it hasn't. That's just 6 years ago. We now have a Reconciliation Action Plan, the indigenous jumpers and the brilliant Narrm initiative (i amazed how impactful that has been). And most importantly of all, it would appear from comments from koz and maysie, an environment where Aboriginal and Tores Strait Island players feel safe, and their culture respected. Wheels has been at the heart of all of that.

There's heaps of really great posts by any number of posters across multiple threads of late, exploring stuff relevant to the Game plan thread. I've been meaning to go thru the threads and cut as paste relevant ones and pop in the Game plan thread so it is in the one spot and there as a reference - i'll do so when i get some time

An informed thought?

And with the ridiculously sky high rents acrross Australia, no chance of living rent free in opponents' heads.

I'm coming 'round.

It's funny you should say that. I said to a friend at the footy that in all the years i have watched footy, Spargs is the least enthusiastic celebrator of goals he kicks (but is joyous when other kick one!).

Yep, you understand correctly, However, unless you really, really love washing dishes you don't really get the dopamine flowing*. But win or lose, it flows when punting - for punters that is. Just makes non punters anxious! * washing dishes is actually likely to trigger dopamine release, because even though it is commonly thought to be related to pleasure, its purpose is to help people get stuff done. In the example of washing dishes, dopamine is released in anticipation (ie before you start the job) of the reward of a clean kitchen helping you forge ahead and get it done.

Hello goody

I'll give some free financial advice. Don't punt.

Again, it's not really like an investment. My bad using for that word. A more accurate word for the total amount wagered is turnover. Here's an analogy. I go to the pub tab with $100, with no access to any more cash, on a Thursday night. Punting options are predominately dogs and trots, with the occasional horse race from Japan. There is a race of some sort i can bet on every one to two minutes. And that's what i do - at say $5 a bet. I'm there for three hours. Let's say in that time i make 90 $5 bets. And manage to stay afloat. Let's say I leave, happy, if not a little dopamine sick, because i had almost lost my hundred 30 minutes in but fought back and i walk out with $105 in my wallet. At the risk of contradicting myself, let's call the initial $100 an investment. I have made 5% ROI (boring for me as a mug punter because i have dreams of somehow turning my 100 into a 1000 with my stupid rapid-fire, vibey betting strategy - but pros are not in it for the dopamine like me) So i have invested $100 BUT i have turned over $450 because i keep pouring any winnings straight back in. (if my wife is reading this - please note this is not a true story)

Sure. But ROI is a little misleading in this context. Annual turnover is not really an investment as such for full time professional punters as punting is their full-time job. So better to think of their returns as income. Income they can then choose to invest in blue chip shares should they wish to. Just as anyone else in the work force can choose to do with any money left over from their annual income after their bills, mortgages and outgoings are covered. Or if you are David Walsh, you could also purchase eye watering expensive art and open your own internationally recognized modern art gallery (by the by his punting model was based purely on mathematics, incredibly thin margins and insane annual turnover - ie in the hundreds of millions - spread across thousands of betting markets around the world and pretty much 24 hours a day 7 days a week).

Annually. And 3-5% is probably about right - and that's if they are good. Probably closer to 3% though. To make a full time living at 3% roi they would need to be turning over north of $10- $15 million a year. I texted my mate who I punt with and knows more about this stuff, and he said about this about the ROI: 'Generally I think the ROI for a pro is quite low. I remember reading somewhere that anybody who thinks they can pick 60% or more of even money bets is fooling themselves. At $1.9, you break even picking 52.5%. At 55% correct you make 4.5% ROI. At 57.5% correct you win 8.3%. Sounds easy? It's not.' In terms of your question about the proportion of the pool being pro's money, I just read deanox post. I've not heard the separate pool thing, so can't comment on that (But I 100% know they simply stop taking bets from anyone winning too much - its happened mutiple times to my mate I quote above.) But leaving that aside, how much pros have in any one pool depends on the market They would have nothing in all the silly markets like first goal and the draw (bets that the bookies clean up on and just love because their price is never a reflection of the 'true odds' of the event happening - eg the draw is commonly something like $51 ie 50 to 1. But you only have to do the math - the 'true odds' are something like 80-1 based on the number of all time games divided by the number of draws) And perhaps not that much in the win bets pools except for games that are relatively even (even money bets mean a consistent return) But at a guess maybe 40-50% of the line betting markets and over total match points ? My mate had this to say about pros and footy betting: 'Absolutely Pros would be betting on line, either the results, or totals. Maybe also straight out in an even betting game, as you point out. In fact, I think AFL is unusual where bets are predominately on the win (at least if Betfair is any indication). In the big betting overseas sports the handicap or over and under tmp are much more popular. This all has to do with bank management, as well as the psychology of punting. For example, if you back value $10 shots, say they win 13-14 times in 100 bets. You probably would expect a run of 15 losers in a row in that 100 bets, and 20 wouldn't be that unlikely. That's mentally taxing, even if you're still backing value. And you're right about a large volume, and that's why I doubt there are any purely AFL pros. It'd be part of a multi-sport portfolio and maybe racing. Someone betting on Baseball/Basketball/Soccer could easily turn over way more than $10 million/year I think. Sound a ridiculous amount, but the point is with even money bets you're turning over money back and forth all the time - you rarely have long winning or losing streaks. I'm not sure about the % of the pool. I certainly think it'd be a lot less than 60-70%. Part of the problem is you need enough people losing to cover those who are winning; otherwise the bookie would be losing. One thing to understand fully is that Pros are generally not taking on bookmakers, they are taking on other punters on that market. And that goes back to pros backing multiple sports. I don't think the liquidity in AFL markets is high enough to be putting large amounts on each game.'

Weird double up post

The bookies essentialy take a commission on each bet made - from mug punters and pros alike. Line bets are always even money. It's a pure 50 50 bet with binary potential outcomes - and bookies expect approximately the same amount placed on each outcome (meaning their 'losses' are covered) In punting an even money bet is expressed as $2.00. I put a dollar on, win the bet, I double my investment and get two dollars back. But lets say I back the dees to make their -6.5 line against port (the current line) - which means they have to win by more than 6 points. But that bet is not paying $2.00. It is paying $1.90. So I put a dollar on the dees. They win. I get $1.90 back. And the bookie essentially gets 10 cents for what is an even money bet. And of course they collect all the money on the peanuts who backed Port to make their line. Happy days. They take even more out on exotics. And the reason they push multis, is one boneheads dreaming of a big play them and two every single bet is similarly shaved. So I multi up and put a dollar on the dees to make their into say the roos to make their line. The dees win, so I have $1.90 at even money into the roos. The roos make their line and it is 1.90 x 1.90. So I collect $3.61. Money for jam. The house doesn't lose. But yes, mug punters represent gravy for the bookies.

There is no right or wrong as such with betting markets. They are simply a market driven expression of the probability of a particualr event occuring. And punting is about making your own assessment of the probability of a certain event occuring and if it dffiers from that of the market betting your assesmsnt is more accurate.

Too bloody right. I have made this point many times, so apologies for the repetition. I'm a punter, but I'm not trying to promote punting. Forget tipsters and so called experts, the line in football betting is by far the best representation of the relative strength of two opponents and the best most accurate predictor of the likely winning and losing margins. It the closest thing to an objective prediction there is. Thousands of individuals all making an assessment on a likely margin. But not pontificating - putting their money where their mouth is. Millions of it. And that includes professional punters, whose money makes up the majority of the betting pool and who only remain pros by being correct more often than not. The line in our game was 42 points. We almost had that covered by the end of the first quarter. Now, some might say we should have therefore won by 100 plus points and smashed past the line. But that is not how footy works. It is rarely so linear. Take last night's blues dogs game. I backed the dogs to win (it was even money, so the line was 0.5 points). I also backed them to win by 40 plus points. Halfway thru the third when the dogs went up by 5 goals and the blues having only scored 1 goal, it looked for all the world like I was going to win both bets - certainly the win. But I know from bitter experience that the more likely scenario is it would go back towards the line. Which it did. And so it was in our game. Having backed the dees at the 42 point line, the bet was seemingly in the bag by half time. But at the start of the last quarter it was well and truly back in play. In fact we had fallen behind it. We ended up beating the line by 2 goals - which is statistically significant. But more the point, leaving aside people's 'feel' for how the game should have played out after half time, it indicates that we surpassed the well informed market prediction of this game. In other words, people's feeling about the game notwithstanding, it was an impressive win - albeit not the greatest watch. It's worth lining up pre game predictions on this site with post game lamentations. Few would have been unhappy with a 54 point win. Some might have even worried we would take them too easily and have a shock loss or a scrappy win. But because we so thoroughly thrashed them up to half time some of the post match commentary suggests the second half was a failure because we didn't double our half time lead or run away with it. Poor in the second half, didn't keep going, exposed our issues, we get smashed in clearances, how could we let the hawks mids dominate yada yada yada. So a 54 point win suddenly becomes a disappointment. But all that happened was the score reverted to the line. As goody said in his presser, it is not possible to keep an AFL team scoreless - every team will have a period in a given match where they get the momentum. And interestingly, we actually only had two less scoring shots in the second half than we did in the first half. Honestly, some people need to get a grip. We have had a VERY tough fixture in terms of travel and breaks between games. And we have gone into two games losing a critical, senior defender right before the game - not to mention losing our most important player for three of our nine games. Seven wins from nine games, with a percentage of 143 - 22 points ahead of the media's darling the pies, all while still experimenting with roles, structures and systems and not looking for perfection. By any measure - well except those used by some dees fans - we are travelling very well. And whilst we travel on a six day break this week, after that we have three consecutive games at the MCG, the bye then play the cats down in Geelong. Meaning we stay in Victoria until round 16 at the beginning of July. So, six weeks without having to travel. The hardest part of the home and away season is behind us after the Port game.

Just started watching the replay. Seriously how the hell do people who get paid to commentate on footy get away with doing do little research or have so little knowledge about teams. About 9:20 left on the clock in the forst q the pressure gauge comes up showing us with a whopping 230. Dunstall says, paraphrasing, wow. Terrific for a club not known for the pressure this year. Seriously? That was 5 mins after Lyon could answer what sort of set shot is Petty? Has he not watched him? Sheesh

And I just listened to the presser and goody was pretty clear he's staying there for the foreseeable future. But I just think as well as he has been performing forward we will need a third elite tall down back come finals against rhe best teams.