Ashes Squad

Here goes, a crack at an Ashes Squad of 15 (add Graham Manou as a 2nd keeper if you wish).

Batsmen

R Ponting (c)
M Clarke (vc)
P Hughes
S Katich
M Hussey
C Ferguson
M North
S Watson

Wicketkeeper

B Haddin

Bowlers

M Johnson
P Siddle
B Hilfenhaus
S Clark
B McGain
B Lee

Update

Sorry I haven't been posting on to this site, but it seems silly to post my footy blogs onto two places, and my other interests haven't been that interesting lately.

Anyway, you can read me twice a week on Big Footy. I'm Big Footy's most read blogger!

Go to:

The New and Improved (and entirely footy related) Blog of The Punter

And when something interesting happens with something not related to footy, I'll post my idle thoughts on here.

Live Footy on TV - The Real Solution

The past 12 months haven't been great for capitalism and the free market. A lack of regulation and the unique idiosyncracies of the USA's politcal system have contributed to the fact that the world's economy has headed south quicker than Hawthorn for a home game.

No one is really out there advocating free market solutions to economic problems any more. Kevin Rudd, self proclaimed economic conservative in 2007, is now dancing on the grave of John Howard's neoliberalism and economic rationalism a short 16 months later. The worm has turned.

At the other end of the public spectrum, the footy season is nearly upon us. Two weeknight prime-time games greet us in Round 1, Cousins v Judd (or Richmond v Carlton) on Thursday night on Channel 10, and the Grand Final re-match (Hawthorn v Geelong) on Friday night on Channel 7.

These games will not be shown live into Melbourne. Ten is showing Thursday night's game on a half-hour delay, while Seven will show it's regular Friday night match on it's usual one-hour delay.

A lot of hard-core footy fans aren't happy about this. Channel 7 is targeted for particular vitriole, considering the hour delay is usually filled with Better Homes and Gardens, not exactly can't-miss television for the average footy fan.

Channel 7 have their reasons, and don't appear to be budging from this any time soon. It doesn't bother me much, because I can usually wait the hour. Having said that, I don't usually make it all the way through a Friday night match on the TV unless St Kilda are playing.

So how do we get the networks to change? Well, here is where a free market solution will work.

Don't watch.

A lot of the louder critics of footy-on-delay state that they listen to the game live on radio or watch updates on the league's website. I can usually manage to avoid doing this, but many other cannot.

My suggestion is you keep doing this, but once it comes on the TV, don't turn your TV on.

The only way the networks are going to get the hint that this is important is through ratings. If the ratings fall through the floor, then ad revenues will as well, and so will the amount the AFL can charge for the rights. This means that the AFL will eventually have to permit the networks to show the games live, even if they would prefer this not to be the case.

So, if you want live footy on TV, settle for nothing less. If it ain't live, don't watch it.

Memo to Victorian Libs - Don't Panic

There's an election in Queensland tomorrow. It's probably the only one we'll get in Australia this year at a State or Federal level, unless K-Rudd goes all trigger happy (eh!) over alcopops, or more ominously, on industrial relations and we have a Double Dissolution election, which would be this nation's first in 22 years. So for political junkies like me, there is this and nothing much else to latch on to this year.

And if the public opinion polls and leaked internal polling is to be believed, there is a very good chance that there will be a change of government in Queensland. The ALP, in power since the "One Nation" election of 1998, would be out after eleven years in power. The recently formed LNP, an effective merger of the Liberal Party and National Party in Queensland would be running the show.

Recent elections in Western Australia and the Northern Territory have provided rude awakenings for incumbent ALP governments who were sitting pretty on good opinion poll numbers. Up north the ALP hung on, but in WA the Liberal Party formed government with the resurgent National Party. The wall-to-wall ALP state government hegemony was broken.

For the greater party of John Howard's leadership of this country, he dealt with ALP-led governments in every state. Even the jewel in the Liberal crown, Victoria, handed the ALP a record-setting majority in victory.

Here in Victoria, the conservatives particularly are getting very restless. They see a popular premier (made more so after his statesmanship in response to the bushfire disaster) not being tested by an Opposition Leader who doesn't live up to their expectations. Ted Baillieu is quiet, softly spoken, from Old Money and tends socially liberal like his mentor, the Honourable President of the Hawthorn Football Club. Conservatives want someone more like Henry Bolte.

Well, while this may be a tough piece of advice to take on board, as we are just 20 months away from the next state election in Victoria, but the Victorian State Opposition just need to not panic. The electoral tendencies are in their favour. Working for them are:

• Howard has been replaced by Rudd, and people seem to enjoy Federal and State governments being from different political parties
• Queensland's government is the same age as the Victorian one will be at election time next year
• All three ALP state/territory governments were popular before getting an unwelcome wake-up call on polling day

Soon, Victorians will re-focus on issues of daily importance to them, such as transport, jobs, utilities, law and order, health and education. And when then happens, the Opposition needs to make sure they have the alternative policies ready for a long fight through to November 2010. But what goes around comes around.

Embrace the Humanity

I haven't got all touchy-feely on you - this is a blog post on footy. But as we enter the six month religious festival known as the home and away season, I just wanted to remind everyone of one thing. We're all human.

How does this relate to footy? Well, relating to those people we pay to watch play, another tactical revolution is underway in 2009 with the widespread adoption of a full-field zone defence, or "the cluster". Hawthorn used it to great effect last season.

Now, it is a system. That means that it is a way of given your blokes an advantage over and above whatever they have in the way of raw football skill. You can't teach someone to kick like Luke Hodge, but you can teach them to run to places on the ground like Luke Hodge.

It worked for Hawthorn: they're defending premiers. But the real reason it worked is because the Hawks knew they could implement the system, so they recruited players who had what no system could manufacture: skill. Birchall, Guerra, Young, Hodge, Bateman, etc.. the list of Hawks who are exquisite users of the ball is as long as your arm. In short, Hawthorn can beat a full-field zone defence with their skill.

And until someone else comes up with another system to beat this system, skill will have to do. Humanity over mechanical adherence to a system.

On the other side of the whistle, our umpires struggle, and understandably so. They're job is too bloody difficult, and I've umpired at a very low open age level, so I have some appreciation.

Take this year's most contentious rule change for example. The umpire must now make a judgement on whether a ball was forced deliberately through for a behind by a defensive player. In short, the umpire must make a judgement on the evidence available to him.

The other option was to stop the player who rushed the behind from being the player to kick it in. This would have stopped Brent Guerra rushing about 14 gazillion behinds in last year's Grand Final and hitting a target with the resulting kick-in every time. And it would have required no judgement on behalf of the umpire.

There's a reason it takes a long time to become a Magistrate or Justice - it's really hard, and we want someone really qualified to do it. Someone who has many years experience working with the law, and has demonstrated a long record of good judgement.

So, the answer to improving the quality of umpiring at the highest level is easy - reduce the number of judgement calls an umpire is required to make. Make the game easier to umpire.

Firstly, minimise the number of times an umpire has to judge intent. Deliberate out-of-bounds and rushed behinds fall into this category.

Secondly, train the umpires to only act on decisive visual evidence. This would eradicate the holding-the-ball decisions when a player's back is to the umpire, and he cannot even see the ball.

Thirdly, get them to do much more match simulation at training, with players of any level. Just get blokes doing match simulation, and send around umpires to all the clubs around the place to do 30 minutes of match simulation twice a week.

We only have humans to do the job, so make it easier. The players have a system, but the umpires just want to rest on their skill. The game will be the poorer for it.

2009 AFL Season Preview

It's that time of year again, so I'll offer a few choice thoughts on each team, and then put my neck on the line with a predicted ladder.

Adelaide

The Atlanta Braves of the AFL. In the 1990s, the Braves won their division every year, and despite only 8 teams making the playoffs every year, won only one World Series.The reason - their manager (head coach), Bobby Cox, micromanaged their regular season, leaving them no improvement once October came around.

The Crows are no different. Neil Craig has an unenviable finals record of 2-5, which compares unfavourable to Blight's 6-1, Cornes' 1-2 and Ayres' 2-4. There's every chance Adelaide will make finals again, but no chance they'll win the premiership.

Brisbane

I'm not in the Michael Voss as a Coach fan club. While he was one of my favourite two or three players when playing, I've heard nothing from him that makes me feel he'll make a good coach. Most of his effectiveness will come from the aura he carries, earnt from a stellar career.

The Lions have a clear deficiency in key defenders, have ruckmen and forwards who always seem to be injured, and an ageing midfield. While they were gifted Daniel Rich, I'm not expecting big things.

Carlton

I'm on the Carlton bandwagon, however. They have a deep midfield, a good collection of small defenders, and one of the best key forwards in the game.

A lot of this year will depend on how good Brett Ratten is. He seems to be getting a lot out of guys like Thornton and Cloke, who are GOPs. They're my pick for the "from out of the eight into the top four" team this year.

Collingwood

Today in the Hun there is an article which highlights the fact that it is hard to pick the Pies' best player. Well, it certainly is not their captain, who has taken the mantle of "football's biggest empty-head" from Michael Osborne.

Malthouse will always have them competitive, but they are still capable of losing to anyone on any given day. They have a great group of youngsters, but a very even group. They remind me a little of Geelong before Bartel and Ablett got really, really good.

Essendon

Name the Bombers' three best players. If you said Lloyd, Lucas & Fletcher, you wouldn't be alone. The massive hole that will be created when these guys retire will take a while to fill, even if guys like Hille and Stanton are taking up some of the slack already.

At least Matthew Knights has the Bombers playing a brand of football which means they are capable of winning any game if they are "on". They're fun to watch.

Fremantle

Going to be a long few years for the Dockers. While they'll probably finish ahead of Melbourne because of home ground advantage and their gun forward Pavlich, in all honesty, the Dockers are further away from their next premiership than Melbourne is.

I like the direction they went in last off-season, but they probably still need another clean out before they really start moving in the right direction.

Geelong

Be afraid. The Cats know this is probably their last chance before guys like Scarlett, Harley, Mooney, Corey & Ottens really start to decline. They're healthy, and they're probably going to win the NAB Cup.

And they have something to prove after last year's missed opportunity. By the half way mark, they should be three wins ahead of Hawthorn.

Hawthorn

Speaking of which, the Hawks will be good again, but certainly fallible in the first half of the year with so many injured and underdone players.

The exciting thing about the Hawks this year will be seeing the guys who didn't get much of a crack last year. Dowler, Muston, Tuck, Thorp, Morton & McGlynn will all get plenty of games before the Hawks are really up and running.

Melbourne

They have reached the bottom, and now are working up. It'll be interesting to see how the youngsters will go, and obviously not all will make it. Hopefully we'll get to see Jack Watts before the end of the year.

Next year is the year when weight of expectation and improvement will start to weigh on Dean Bailey and his club, but for this year 5 wins should suffice.

North Melbourne

It's hard to get enthusiastic about the Roos after seeing them wave the white flag in Round 22 last year in person. They then had the Swans on toast before handing their opponents that game on a silver platter.

Those scars must still remain. They were flogged in the NAB Cup, and Dean Laidley's style must be wearing. Not a "buy" stock for me.

Port Adelaide

They have an exciting bunch of youngsters, but it is clear that Choco Williams has outstayed his welcome. Another coach with an abrasive style, it works well when they are winning, but not when they are losing.

They also have ageing superstars in Chad Cornes, Brendan Lade and Warren Tredrea. Turns out 2007 may have just been a false dawn.

Richmond

They seem to have a even spread right across the field, and addition of Ben Cousins to what was a promising, if not particularly deep, midfield, should have the Glen Waverley line rocking many times this year.

What Richmond really need is some meaningful contributions from those players in their 3rd, 4th or 5th seasons at the club. But it should be finals this year for the Tigers.

St Kilda

Apparently now masters of the cluster, St Kilda has a tough ball-winning midfield, a top-ranked defence and a superstar forward.

Unfortunately, St Kilda has shown an inability to use outside footballers effectively in the past, which contributed to poor seasons from Nick Dal Santo and Aaron Fiora last year.

What St Kilda really needs is that ability to effectively use their more highly skilled players, and a third marking medium-sized forward. Evidence suggests that attention has been paid to these concerns.

Sydney

Their premiership ticket is in County Kerry, Ireland. Hall, Goodes, O'Loughlin, Barry & Kirk are all on the wrong side of the middle of their careers.

Paul Roos will keep them competitive, but they probably don't have the cattle any more, and no depth thanks to playing 26 players for three years.

West Coast

You can never have enough quality midfielders. The Eagles forgot that idea at the draft, and while it may not hurt them in the short term, the chances that Nick Natanui may be the biggest bust this side of Anthony Banik are too large to ignore.

Hard to see the Eagles improving significantly on last season, when too much was left to too few. They did, however, get some games into some youngsters and that'll will pay them dividends.

Western Bulldogs

Let's end a myth: In the first half of 2008, there were 3 clearly superior teams. In the second half of 2008, there were only two.

The Doggies should be kicking themselves after their Preliminary Final loss last year, a match they dominated, and for some poor skill execution on part of Western Bulldog player and umpire alike, they would have played (and lost) in a grand final.

Now they are dinged up and out of form, and without a working forward structure. It could be 2007 all over again for the Doggies.

Final ladder prediction

Geelong
Hawthorn
St Kilda
Carlton
Collingwood
Western Bulldogs
Adelaide
Richmond
Brisbane
Sydney
Port Adelaide
North Melbourne
Essendon
West Coast
Fremantle
Melbourne

Job Justification and the AFL

Blog note: I have been asked by BigFooty.com to post blog entries twice a week on AFL, and I'll reproduce them here. That is why there will be a lot of footy blog posts over the next seven months. I'll try to still post about other stuff when I can. Apologies to my non-footy constituency.

My previous job (other than football authority) was with a government statutory authority. This organisation shared a Human Resources department (known as "People and Culture") with another statutory authority which worked roughly in same area as mine did.

This HR department was well resourced (unlike some other "operational" areas of our organisation), and went around ensuring we upheld the organisations values, knew our rights and responsibilities regarding all manner of things that had little to do with our day-to-day work.

I envisaged them sitting in their office cubicles, or more likely in one of their 34 meetings for the day, trying to brainstorm things to do so they could feel and look important, and more importantly, indispensible. When all we needed was someone to make sure we got paid on time, made sure our leave balances were correct, and then left us alone to make the world a better place.

I get the same feeling when I think of Adrian Anderson. News from the AFL is that at the Telstra Dome/Etihad Stadium/Docklands/ for the remainder of the NAB Cup, the crowd will be able to see how long there is to go in a quarter by viewing a countdown clock located on the scoreboard.

Who thought of this, and more importantly, what identified problem does this solve? Most people I know love the uncertainty of the end of a quarter, especially at the end of a game when it is tight.

But this is only typical of the noise coming from Harbour Esplanade. Hawthorn, keen to utilise a glut of silky left footers in their back half, rush a few behinds in a Grand Final. The problem isn't that big, and the easy, quick solution (stopping those who rush the behind from kicking it in) is ignored, instead responsibility is placed upon umpires to make a judgement call about player intent, and now we have a deliberately rushed behind infringement.

Sydney have 19 men on the field for 30 seconds at the end of a game, and the extra player arguably has an effect on the result of the game, which is a draw. Instead of accepting a quick, effective solution (docking Sydney two points), the AFL throws out decades of precedent (and not for the first time - see StK v Freo 2006) and radically alters how players interchange on and off the field.

And so it goes. I sat next to Adrian Anderson on a train to the cricket on December 27, and he really struck me as a man full of his own importance (and he really looks like his brother, who was with him).

It is clear that he feels a need to justify his existence, at a time when interest in the game and attendances are at an all-time high. But someone in a role like his doing no tweaking to a game that doesn't need it is a man on borrowed time. So we keep changing rules, adding "innovations", and so on.

The rushed behind change is a classic example. Instead of trying to limit the number of judgement calls an umpire needs to make in a game, thus making the game easier to umpire and minimising mistakes, the AFL under Anderson's stewardship goes the other way. It's just ridiculous.

What we need now is what a lot of players have been saying for a while: time. Some time without changes, for the game to organically and holistically evolve, and for problems to sort themselves out. And if that makes Adrian Anderson superfluous, then so be it.