How are we all feeling about the game in 2023

[FitenFitenWin]

I used to care that I cared more about the game. Now….well I only care about the Tiges and I’m content with that. I look at everything through the prism of how the Tiges are travelling. A bit of a regression really – like being a little kid again. But it sure does simplify things. I don’t even know the names of most of the players in other teams – there was a time when I could tell you who anyone was on the field from any side. Now I’m lucky if I know half a dozen from any side.

All the other noise has gone away – except, perhaps, for the music they play before the game starts (that still gives me the absolute tummy gripes – bit they have turned the volume down a bit, for which I am grateful).

But changes to the game – like the stand rule – do come into vision, of course. But I don’t worry about them anymore. They affect everyone and it just means that you need to be clever and adapt.

In fact, I really enjoy watching the things coaches come up with to respond to rule changes. Or, more especially, when they look at old rules and sort out a new system of play that finds a loop-hole or an approach which creates an advantage for their team. That is why I have especially enjoyed our style of play over the last 6 years – it has forever changed the way footy is played. It required a fresh look at everything about the game from obtaining the ball, moving the ball and scoring. And, more importantly, it looked afresh at how players approach the game. With more enjoyment, engagement in the moment and shorter memories (Lasso goldfish anyone?).

I have no interest in the media – I don’t look at any footy shows (even the Front Bar, which, for the most part, carries on about footy in a way that I can no longer engage with). Footy analysis in the media is truly non-existent. But there never really has been.

I don’t care about AFL House and any conspiracy nonsense relating to them. I would say that they have been slow to deal with the issues of drugs, racism and concussion. But it is a profit driven entity and what other profit driven entity has dealt with similar enormous issues more successfully? Change is coming – slowly but surely. It will come from the Player’s Association and the Clubs themselves looking after their own interests and assets. Not from the political and reactionary governing body.

But I have PRE. The commentary and opinions here are enough to inform and entertain me. The love of the game and of the club expressed here, the humour and genius of the input of just about everyone that contributes feeds my waxing and waning love of footy. Without PRE, I seriously think that I would struggle to maintain any real interest in the footy.

 

[Tigaman]

They have stuffed up the game & do reckon next rule changes will be Captains Call & Sin Bin rule as in NRL Protective head gear will not get the nod because those with nobs ,mullets etc etc will go on strike if they do.

 

[FitenFitenWin]

Oh, and one more thing. The adjudication of the game means nothing to us or our performance. According to most on here the umps have hated us forever and our free differential is proof of that. It's irrelevant. Our premierships prove it. I never pay attention to the umpires - why would you do that to yourselves?

 

[tommystigers]

I sat as a young kid and watched the game because I loved it. My great Uncle took me all over Melbourne and down to Geelong on public transport to watch the Tigers. Rain, hail, or shine, we were always there watching the reserves and then the big boys and I loved every minute of it. Needed nothing but a record and the football, a barbequed chicken usually got from Myer in Bourke Street, or some food and drink in a thermos brought from his home.

Those were the days. Days of football commentary that just called the game. Journalists that covered football. Conversations at quarter and half time breaks. Days of sitting wherever you wanted to. A real home and away season.

No Demetriou and McLachlan and everything fake, plastic, and corrupted. No flashing lights, no blaring country roads, no shopping channel spruiker yelling at you to make some artificial noise while you wave sponsor x's product. No mind altering gambling ads, no central umpire holding the ball for an eternity after every goal waiting for the TV ad light to blink so he can bounce the ball.

What we have in place is a fixture that is so fixed there can be no true premier. A game that is so manipulated in all facets that most people who watch it need to have a secondary purpose or motivation to continue to do so. They might go to games but they are not there for the game. Distraction, smoke, and mirrors, that is what modern AFL is. It is a weekend at Bernie's. I hate it.

 

[rat bastad]

Some great comments in here.

To entertain in discourse about the game is one thing, to me the Tigers and how we are going is a seperate issue.

For the former, most of the salient points have already been well made as to what is wrong with the game. In the late 80s I was working with one of the most prominent names in football on a daily basis. When the AFL came into being, he turned to me and said (and I'll never forget this) "It will be the beginning of the end of football as we know it".

He knew.

Fast forward all these years and essentially it comes down to this.

The AFL is a profit driven entity. So many decisions that have been made by the AFL over this time period are a reflection of their long term planning as in most businesses. They made a decision that the game was to be expanded and was also being threatened by other sports in this marketplace. Once plans are in place, every decision made must follow through on their planning. Fitzroy FC and what they did to them was the first of many "decisions", and so it has continued over the decades.

Looking at it differently, currently their product offering is reflecting the societal "landscape" that exists and the social engineering that has been taking place for decades, especially in Victoria. The majority of their revenue is generated from TV/advertising/sponsors in a tightly contested sporting marketplace in Aus. It is essentially the American model of sport albeit in a smaller market with a smaller supporter base and smaller corporate base. Call it the 51st state if you like. Their 2 biggest sponsors are global entities with massive influence and are not even Aust companies, THAT's how much it has changed.

The AFL is headquartered in Victoria.....which is the reddest, wokest, most socialist state in the country. You can bet that this ideology and MO has found its way into the AFLs Snr Management/Board, just as it has in just about every major organisation in the State. You can also bet that the State Govt is deeply involved in what we are seeing.

I was at the Bulldogs game and watched closely as I do most weeks. It's apparent to anyone with a modicum of gray matter that the game is in trouble for many of the reasons already mentioned. Don't blame the umpires - they're just doing what they're told and are probably just as confused. In an example of how the AFL is being run, they just allocated 20+M on "concussion research bs" but they can't "afford" to have professional umpires officiating the game. This is a farce in a in industry generating billions of dollars.

Bringing in franchises like GC and GWS are decisions based on heavy market research spending and "data" acquisition; unfortunately most agencies conducting market research are little more than expensive sounding boards that do not understand the game or what drives its supporters and members. Meanwhile, Tassie still does'nt have a Team in the comp.

Now for the Tigers. I'm 56, and have been following Richmond since I was a child. Born in a Tiger recruiting zone and born in a Tiger Premiership year and turned 50 in another. I'll follow them till I expire . I get to most games every year, - but the game I watched on Saturday night has been systematically destroyed over the last 30 years and I will lay good money that it will continue to deteriorate and reflect the society we are in.

I think if one looked at how things have evolved it would be very easy to draw parallels within other sports, in politics and in life in general. Motorsport, Soccer, Basketball, Business, Politics you name it - distraction, political correctness, woke rubbish, corruption have pretty much become a way of life now here regardless of what lies the talking heads parrot in media, business or politics. Why should Sport be any different? The true answer is it can't - if you lie down with pigs, you'll get up dirty all over.

A little left field perhaps but I feel Albert Camus had it nailed :

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted....to a sick society "

IMHO, that statement could be adapted to a myriad of situations, including what we are seeing within the game.

 

[123cups]

To me, this sport is a frustrating chore that I need to tolerate for 2 hours while I'm trying to watch Richmond.

My #1 issue is the lack of deeper thought behind the rules. If we start with a blank piece of paper and think about each rule starting fresh, I think we'd end up with a clearer extension of the basic principles of the sport than the inherited web of bandaids we have now. It could be better.

We could ask... why do we have a boundary line? Conceptually, what is the function of a boundary line?

Of course, it's to keep the ball in play, which is fundamentally necessary because there would otherwise be nothing to prevent someone from running off to New Zealand with the ball after their team hits the lead. On a blank piece of paper, starting fresh, there's a clear logic to justify a boundary line. As a result, we'll need more rules to provide structure for the game whenever the ball goes OOB. If someone accidentally causes the ball to leave the field of play... what happens next? A neutral contest would be logical, right?

This is where the AFL loses its way. The next logical step is to account for tactics that abuse the fundamental rule, such as players deliberately trying to force the ball out of play. Why do we want a rule to counter tactics? Because we don't want winners determined by decisions to avoid playing the actual game. People feel this...fundamentally, we want to see who is better at playing the game, not who is better at avoiding to play the game because they can take advantage of the rules better than their opposition. This shouldn't be allowed. Therefore, we want to penalise deliberate OOB tactics so it's less frequent - hence, they created the deliberate OOB rule (now called insufficient intent). The logic behind this rule is simple. We want to disincentivise players from abusing a rule created to uphold a fair contest for winners and losers to be determined on the merits of those contests, and not by who can weasel around the rules better than their opposition.

Play the game. Keep the ball in. Try to win. Don't take the easy way out.

This satisfies the fundamental goal of a competition that decides worthy winners. This perspective should underpin all rules. However... that's not the logic that we see in today's interpretations. The logic has been warped by years of interpretation changes, new rules, and old rules that have shifted over time due to fitness / trends / professionalism.

This brings us to today. We allow players to deliberately take the ball OOB all the time, and then we'll penalise clanger kicks out of packs that bounce the wrong way instead. Huh? How did we get here? That doesn't make sense. Yeah, we can twist it around and call it a rule, but it doesn't logically follow the fundamentals. In theory, if a player has the ball and he clearly elects to step over the boundary line instead of trying to make a play with the ball, then that should not be allowed. Instead, the AFL world has convinced themselves it should be allowed because they're under pressure, or it should be allowed because they're being tackled, etc. which is overly reductive... these are shortcut cues that sometimes do mean it wasn't deliberate, but not always, and these cues are not the original rule, and more importantly have lost perspective of the original spirit of the rule as conceived when you go back and think about the game logically with a blank piece of paper in front of you.

Sigh!

This is just a microcosm of a broader problem that's now accelerating in response to physicality-related rule changes. If the AFL isn't more thoughtful about how they make these changes, I sense a downturn in popularity.

IMO the rules need to better satisfy the fundamental goal of a competition to provide a structure that determines worthy winners. Instead, everyone feels frustrated at the rules, and the game feels less inspiring because there's too much weaselling around inefficient rules in matches.

 

[DavidSSS]

Rat Bastard, I agree with a lot of what you say but for the life of me I cannot understand how you somehow link progressive politics with the money grubbing, profit at all costs, private schoolboy run AFL.

Quite the opposite I would have thought.

Used to be a far more working class game, and players didn't all come from private school football nurseries.

DS

 

[gold1]

Rat Bastard, I agree with a lot of what you say but for the life of me I cannot understand how you somehow link progressive politics with the money grubbing, profit at all costs, private schoolboy run AFL.

Quite the opposite I would have thought.

Used to be a far more working class game, and players didn't all come from private school football nurseries.

DS

Not the case in Geelong.The breeding grounds are clear down here.If you are at a private school you get a legs up.Working class forget it. I remember when a local working class team (North Shore) dominated the local league for 9 flags in a row and they had what was then the VFL class players but could not even get a look in at Geelong.One of the reasons some had tattoos.

 

[rat bastad]

Rat Bastard, I agree with a lot of what you say but for the life of me I cannot understand how you somehow link progressive politics with the money grubbing, profit at all costs, private schoolboy run AFL.

Quite the opposite I would have thought.

Used to be a far more working class game, and players didn't all come from private school football nurseries.

DS

Hi DS,

Not to get too political and perhaps OT but necessary to respond to your post. ( I don't follow any side of politics and never have), but it's pretty simple....there is no "left" or "right". Those who control the money call the shots regardless of "politics".

Essentially, both the "Left" and "Right" are constructs that are engineered to socially divide, conquer, divert scrutiny and to continue to cater to the big corporates and financiers. Or in other words, business as usual at the top end of town, regardless of who is in "charge".

Like the AFL, among many others.

 

[DavidSSS]

Hi DS,

Not to get too political and perhaps OT but necessary to respond to your post. ( I don't follow any side of politics and never have), but it's pretty simple....there is no "left" or "right". Those who control the money call the shots regardless of "politics".

Essentially, both the "Left" and "Right" are constructs that are engineered to socially divide, conquer, divert scrutiny and to continue to cater to the big corporates and financiers. Or in other words, business as usual at the top end of town, regardless of who is in "charge".

Like the AFL, among many others.

All a construct from the French National Assembly following the 1789 revolution actually. Radicals on the left, the further left sat higher up the seats to the left (Le Montagne), conservatives on the right.

DS