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Morrissey Breen
2022-02-12 10:30:33 UTC
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'Gaelic football can be the saviour of the AFL. Simply, we stop our tackle.'

Concussion campaigner and AFL player manager Peter Jess talks about his ongoing campaign in Australia.

https://www.the42.ie/peter-jess-5670352-Feb2022/

Saturday 12 Feb. 2022 2 hours ago 14,015 Views 3 Comments Share1 Tweet Email

MARADONA, ROY KEANE, Pele Ronaldo and the Australian 2006 World Cup squad are together in one room. Peter Jess strolls around his office building and pauses in front of their signed jerseys and photographs. A personal sports museum and memorabilia haven, dedicated to his lengthy list of past clients and partnerships. Sonia O’Sullivan’s bib from her 1999 world record at Loughrea hangs alongside Usain Bolt’s kit in another room. The iconic Nicky Winwar photo takes centre stage in the hallway: “To Peter, black and proud, Nicky.”

Aussie Rules is a sport that has dominated his social and working life. Step inside the front door and you are greeted by a framed jersey with a touching note from Chris Judd, widely regarded as one of the best players in the history of the modern game.

His portfolio of players within the league has diminished in recent years but his involvement continues unabated. Jess is a man on a mission. He has become the public face for former players and a leading advocate for concussion prevention. The agitator in chief for the top brass. “I am their worst enemy,” he declares.

It is a name that should ring familiar on Irish shores. After Ron Barassi started the ‘Irish experiment’ by bringing Gaelic footballers to Australia, Peter Jess tried to revive it. The process had all but lapsed in the mid-90s. Around the same time, Jess approached Ireland-based financial services company Fexco with a business proposition around Australian prize bonds and body corporate services.

During a visit to Ireland, he encountered some high-profile folk from Kerry GAA. They extended an invitation to visit Killorglin for a training session. On the field he saw possibilities. Opportunities.
He was convinced various young prospects had what it takes to make it Down Under. Gaelic football could help AFL. Now, he thinks it could save it.

“GAA to me was the perfect example of how football can remain community-based,” he explains.
“So, the debate at the time was around Australia moving to the American module, club franchises. That disengaged the local community. I loved the Irish model. I also wanted to recruit Irish players to experience the AFL way of life. Making them full-time professional rather than part-time.”

His involvement in the industry started when his cousin, Jim Jess, joined Richmond in 1980. Agents were a foreign concept at the time. Nevertheless, when the offer of $10,000 plus match fees came, something felt unfair.

Jim discussed it with his cousin. Peter took it upon himself to negotiate. They wanted $100,000 with no strings. Plus, $10,000 for use of image fees. The paradigm was tilted on its head.
From that moment on, the player was his priority. They should be rewarded. Protected. The only way to do it was with a thorough, transparent process. That wasn’t a welcomed strain of thinking when he looked abroad.

“Shamatuerism was rife in Ireland. You pretend you weren’t receiving anything, but you had jobs arranged. Sponsors sorted. It was like Irish dancing with the half doors. The bottom half of the door is shut, and nobody can see you dancing, but you were. I was interested in giving people a pathway to explore their full potential in an indigenous game. When you cross-pollinate you bring back ideas. It improves both games. The Irish gave us a great lesson in running football. We gave them a lesson in fitness and the tackle. The marrying of two codes was a match made in heaven for me.”

By the noughties, Jess had developed a proposal to formalise the arrangement. At this stage, scouts were attending Gaelic football games regularly. It was covert; discussions and offers conducted in the shadows. The idea was an academy that included a player exchange programme. In doing so, both bodies could create a pathway, give rookies the best chance at success while capping the numbers. Clubs like Richmond and West Coast Eagles were on board and even began identifying players who could be sent to Ireland.

Meanwhile, Jess met with UCD’s Brian Mullins to build a base on the other side. Then the games began. He went directly to the GAA and sat down with president Nickey Brennan. That day, the dream died. Ball burst, go home.

“It went to shite quickly. I tried with Brian Mullins to set up a joint academy with GAA and AFL. We could give them basic skillsets, proficient in punting, handball, the drills that would be replicated in training in Australia. I found the GAA territorial and parochial. They could not take the next step to globalisation and thought they would be consumed as a subsidiary of AFL clubs and lose their local identity.”

Soon after he sold the Fexco shareholding. There was no longer a need to travel for board meetings. Be that as it may, the success of his initial contenders opened the eyes of other AFL agents. It became a gold rush.

Jess still has all his correspondence from this era. His office hosts meticulous records. When detractors inevitably take aim at his boisterous approach, he returns fire with a barrage of facts and figures.

The proposal’s failure meant the secretive scouting system continued. Former Irish AFL players were employed to identify talent. Scouts and list managers flew in and out routinely. Many teenagers were approached, several went.

His initial venture to the Kingdom was particularly fruitful. Jess’s network held discussions with a promising teenager by the name of Tadhg Kennelly. That move proved successful. The other one didn’t. It is not a regret, however, there is a lingering sense of what might have been.
When Jess showed clubs footage of Mike Frank Russell, their eyes lit up.

“He would have been a star in Australia. But he had a fear of the unknown, he really was a Kerry boy through and through. He had to have a quantum leap in faith. He came over and I took him around and showed him the stadiums. He just said: ‘At the end of the day I am from Kerry.’ He wanted to play in an All-Ireland, be part of the Kingdom’s worshipped players.”

His relationship with this isle started lifetimes ago. Family lineage that can be traced back to Limerick. Jess’ five times removed great grandfather, Jeffrey, was born there. Jeffrey’s son, Tom, left for Liverpool during the famine. With 13 kids in tow, he sailed from there to Australia, docking in Portland on the south coast.

That has always formed part of who he is and what he does. Unashamedly. After the Good Friday agreement, the ban on Sinn Féin personnel visiting Australia was lifted. Jess was amongst the first to greet Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness at the Celtic Club as part of the Casement Group when they arrived for a speaking tour.

This is a theme. Passionate about what he believes in. Ever willing to challenge authority when necessary. Unyielding.

In the lobby, high-profile former AFL players wait to go over financial matters.

Concussion awareness is at the forefront of his mind, at the front of a long queue.

On the desk lies a thick folder. He opens it to reveal a comprehensive analysis of Wallaby out-half Bernard Foley and winger Reece Hodge. The amount of exposure they generate for their commercial sponsors is graphed to decimal point precision. Each revenue stream mapped out to form an irrefutable reference point during negotiations. It is his long-held view that players’ image rights are misunderstood and undervalued.
In the past, he did something similar for Irish players, including Brian O’Driscoll. In doing so he got to know the Irish rugby star’s father, Frank, and uncle, Barry. Both of them were doctors. Jess had a concern he wanted advice on.

The relationship between agent and players is paternal. It is a road that starts with teenagers, fit and healthy, ready to take on a professional journey. Ideally, it will include many highs. Usually, they encounter several lows. Rewards and reckonings.

This merely highlights the weight of responsibility for the agent. Someone who has the power to do a whole lot of good. Or bad.

At the turn of the century, Jess started to notice something amongst his older clients. Before his eyes, he saw them go from healthy to distressed. Retired players who suddenly appeared “clattered”. Walking wounded.

Their symptoms struck a note with his own personal experiences after two serious motor accidents. Four pillars form the basis of this concern: changes in mood, behaviour, cognition and motor skills. Research led him to America and further afield. The realisation that it was related to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) hit him like icy wind.

Then he went directly to the AFL. “First, they said it is unique to America. I said no, it is not. We need to look at the science. The brain does not know where it is, it just knows it has been clattered. Your brain is in a fixed encasement, your skull. It gets sloshed around with a sling tackle. The first thing I got them to do was change the rules around returning players who had been concussed but could play on the same day. They stopped that. Then, I got them to change return to play from six days to 12. But it is not enough. I am still at them.”

Jess helped former AFL player Shaun Smith secure a landmark decision for concussion in sport in 2020. The former Melbourne and North Melbourne player was awarded a AU$1.8m insurance pay out after he suffered “total and permanent disablement” due to head knocks during his career.
In the aftermath, the AFL were adamant the health and safety of all players was paramount. They highlighted changes to match day protocols, laws around high contact and return to play protocol as steps toward resolving the issue.

For Jess, it is not nearly enough. “I think they do not appropriately care about players. They are a commodity. They are simply a commodity. If they took it upon themselves to act like good corporate citizens, I would not have to fight in the courts to get guys justice. For me, it is simple. They were specifically excluded from workers compensation by a private members bill. So, they have no workers compensation. We are the only first-world country in the world with a professional sport where you do not have workers compensation. I have been fighting for that for 30 years. I have been able to get some change, but it is just bits and pieces. Not the spectrum needed. That is why I am arguing that we need to set up a separate fund to take care of all the guys who have long-term neurological damage, long-term orthopaedic damage and long-term dental damage from playing the sport.

“They are in a workplace. Imagine an incident like that in a workplace and thinking it is safe. It is not. It is nuts. This is what I am saying, a football ground is an industrial worksite. You get an industrial disease from playing it. If you get an industrial disease, it comes down to when did the employers know and what have they done about it. The AFL have performed Irish dancing for the last 25 years. They shut the bottom door and jumped up and down, pretending they were not dancing when in fact they are.

“What I am saying to you is the AFL sits there with its eyes wide shut. I am not going to let them think they can get away with it. They have to change the rules. I am perpetually writing to them. I have 12 spring back binders to the AFL since I first started my campaign on concussion. I think I have gotten a response three or four times.”

Over the past two decades, he has systematically researched this topic. Consulting the likes of the Boston Medical Centre, Dr. Chris Nowinski of the Concussion Legacy Foundation and Dr Willie Stewart, the world’s foremost expert on the link between football and brain injury-related deaths.
His campaign has several strands, strategies he wants adopted to respond to players who have been damaged and protect the future. For example, Jess has proposed a betting levy. Gambling advertising is extremely prominent within the code and currently a billion-dollar industry. This occurs with “no significant contribution to the players who are damaged creating the betting medium”.

Jess has also pushed hard for clubs to scan every player for concussion on a prospective basis. Last October, Carlton confirmed they were working through the idea to become the first club to do so.

His recent research has taken him back to Irish shores. His current aspiration is to see both codes become even more similar.

“Gaelic football can be the saviour of the AFL. Simply, we stop our tackle. We bring in their block.”
Ever since 2008 when they outlawed the sling tackle, the AFL commission has routinely tweaked their tackle guidelines in an attempt to protect players’ heads.

“Look, the game originally manifested as an outlet for violence amongst men. What happens was someone decided to throw a ball in and call it a game. But they used to meet at parks and clatter each other. Someone decided to call it a sport and went round saying this is an oval, we play here, and you can do all these antisocial activities like punch each other and not go to prison.

“’This is sport.’ No, it’s not. When you get the suitcase kicked out of you on a field, that is not sport. It’s violence. That is violence in a very basic form. We need an education. If you want to have pure sport, let’s have pure sport.”

Inevitably, such drastic change has already proven divisive. His consistent response is that the sport will gain far more than it currently risks losing. “There is plenty of physicality in Gaelic football. However, it is controlled and modified. We don’t have a modified version in AFL. There is a 360 tackle. Swung, clobbered, tackled from every angle. The biggest issue we have in football is the diffuse brain trauma. That is from sling tackles. Unless you go to the molecule level you will not find the true extent of the damage. That is why I say we are not doing enough testing. We are not doing enough testing in the right modalities.

“I am doing a comparative analysis of the concussions per playing hour in GAA men’s and women’s, versus the concussion in Aussie Rules. That gives me the science and the template to go to the AFL and say, ‘we need to fundamentally change our game to make it safe.’ Based on the evidence I present; we can see by GAA what a safer game looks like if we modify the AFL.”

Right now, his research scientists are trawling through published statistics from the GAA and medical conferences. Then he will bring it all to the AFL and go toe-to-toe once again.

“What we find is on average in the two-hour period players play, they have 80 collisions. Some of which are at 8gs force or more. That is a car crash at 45ks an hour. Doesn’t kill you but it hurts you. If we don’t change, we won’t have a game. Medicine and science tell us there is no good knock to the head. There is no good knock to the head of men, women and children. This can not continue.”
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Maurice Brosnan
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COMMENTS (3)

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James Fox
7y
1hour ago
To hell with the AFL let’s try and save Gaelic Football first before Basketball completes its takeover bid.
24

Joe Kennedy
5y
13mins ago
@James Fox: so you want the AFL player manager to try and save Gaelic Football first?!
1

James Fox
7y
4mins ago
@Joe Kennedy: you obviously have a problem with the English vocabulary if that’s what you perceive
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Morrissey Breen
2022-02-12 10:37:28 UTC
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https://www.the42.ie/best-front-row-in-the-world-5680165-Feb2022/

'If you don't think our boys are the best in the world then tell me who’s better?’

Ireland’s newish front row has the potential to lead the team to greatness. The rugby world is about to discover their magic.
Saturday 12 Feb. 2022
30 minutes ago 3,383 Views 6 Comments Share Tweet Email
Porter Kelleher Furlong-5
IT WAS ON a tour to New Zealand 30 years ago. Ireland were playing the All Blacks, the scoreboard racing towards the 50-points mark.
The first test may have been a dream but this? Well, this was grim. As New Zealand piled on score after score, Nick Popplewell could hear the sneers from the Wellington crowd and see the mocking words forming in the mouths of their fans.
That was when the membership of the Irish front row, Popplewell, Stevie Smith and Paul McCarthy, briefly gathered for a party conference. First item on the agenda: Sean Fitzpatrick.
The All Blacks hooker, captain and chief tormentor had pissed them all off.
“What’s the plan?” Popplewell asked.
“We’ll drop the next scrum,” Smith and McCarthy suggested.
Down it went.
“And that was when Stevie thumped Fitzpatrick.”
Inevitably a melee followed and by the end of it, Fitzpatrick was on the ground, rooting around the grass. It was a strange time to take up gardening.
When he looked up to tell Smith and Popplewell he had lost ‘his f**king teeth,’ he received some surprising dental advice. “You won’t find them down there,” Smith said before raising his hand for the big reveal. “Two of Fitzpatrick’s teeth,” Popplewell tells us, “were stuck in that fist of his.”
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That was how it was in the dying years of the amateur era. Nobody but nobody went near the front row without a health warning – a place where props and hookers all looked the same: moustached and mean.
If someone said they didn’t want to meet an opposing prop down a dark alley, well that was the ultimate compliment. As for handling skills, mobility, footwork, well those words were peppered into other players’ conversations. No one ever asked if a front-rower could fit those qualities into their job spec because no one cared.
THE GAME-CHANGERS

When you watch old videos of Keith Wood, it’s hard not to feel a sense of history changing. Wood grew up in Clare with nothing but a dream and managed to become the best hooker in the world. He broke the mould, sidestepping backrowers and centres, balancing the old-school requirements of a hooker with a new box of tricks. He could pass, carry, jackal and tackle with the best of them.
The trouble was he didn’t play with the best of them. Ireland in the ‘90s were bloody awful, perennial losers in the old Five Nations and in everything else. It was only when Wood got on the Lions tours in 1997 and 2001 that he was able to show the world what he could do.
keith-wood-and-paul-wallace-1997 Wood thrived on the 1997 Lions tour.
Source: INPHO
It didn’t go unnoticed closer to home. His successor with Ireland and the Lions, Shane Byrne, was a superb player, quick, tough and vastly underrated. Across the scrum, Popplewell – Ireland’s only Test starter on the ’93 Lions tour – had a world class label deservedly stuck around his neck. Then you had The Claw. Even family members called Peter Clohessy, Claw. He was a hard man; but also an undervalued ball-player.
Bull Hayes came later and Ireland became so reliant on him in the noughties that prayers were offered up every time he went down with an injury. A decent tighthead, he was an exceptional lifter in the lineout, a human forklift for Paul O’Connell. Maul time was Bull’s time. Once, after a game in Murrayfield in 2005, he was credited with a try after Ireland rumbled the Scots over the line. “That your first time scoring for Ireland?” a journalist texted him after the game.
“Yeah,” he messaged back. “And it wasn’t even my try; Keith Gleeson got it.”
The position was evolving; the ability to scrummage remained constant but coaches started adding other chores to their daily list. One of those was the ability to be invisible in the defensive line, so that faster, more nimble opposition backs didn’t notice you. Hayes was good at that but even he got found out, Vincent Clerc stepping inside him in the dying minutes of the 2007 Six Nations encounter. That try cost Ireland a grand slam.
Now all these years later, three hombres with a bit of Bull, a bit of Claw and a bit of Wood have emerged. There’s Ronan Kelleher, 24, born six months after Wood’s iconic performances for the Lions in South Africa – a fast, elusive, tough hooker who has an eye for the line, scoring six tries in 16 internationals. “He is a hard man alright,” says Byrne. “Think of the weight per square inch bearing down on you when you are in the middle of a front row. Now look again at Ireland’s recent scrums and check out the shoulder movements (of Kelleher).
ronan-kelleher-and-andrew-porter Kelleher and Porter prepare for a scrum session.
Source: Billy Stickland/INPHO
“You always notice Kelleher’s shoulders shifting (in the scrum). That’s a sign of a hard worker; he’s class.”
He isn’t alone. Andrew Porter is next to him. Porter started his career as a loosehead, moved to tighthead, and is now back at loosehead. That’s a little like Freddie Mercury reinventing himself as Brian May at the start of his career and then becoming a frontman again midway through it.
Porter can scrummage effectively, although former front-row tradesmen, Popplewell and Des Fitzgerald, are slightly critical of his performance last weekend. “For me, his feet were too far back (in the scrums),” reckons Fitzgerald, who won 34 caps as a prop for Ireland and played in two World Cups. “He was not using the power in his legs to assist his upper body; therefore he was bent a little. If he brings up his legs he will generate more power.”
Still, he likes what he sees, not just in Porter but also in Kelleher and ‘the best tighthead in the world’ – Tadhg Furlong. “They’re phenomenal rugby players,” Fitzgerald says. “Scrummaging is important in the modern game, but it’s only important if you are bad at it.
“Those boys, they’re more than competent as scrummagers. That means the other things they do, tackling, carrying, mauling, become more important. The three of them, they’re unbelievably good at everything. Everything.”
The evidence has been there for a while. Click Furlong’s name into YouTube and you’ll see videos of him sidestepping a trio of venerable All Blacks in 2016; offloading in the tackle to set up CJ Stander for a try in the grand slam winning game in 2018, popping passes as a first receiver, bulldozing his way across the gainline.
“He has magnificent balance when he runs,” says Fitzgerald, “and the importance of that is seen whenever he is running at a defender whose feet are in the wrong position. When you have his strength, coupled with his balance, and you attack a guy at speed, your hand-off is almost like hitting a guy with a crutch. Furlong’s ability to transfer his weight is just incredible.”
“The best in the world,” agrees Popplewell. “In fact I’ll go further. We’ve the best front row in international rugby. Name me a better one.”
“France’s?” asks Romain Magellan, a former France A and Saracens prop, now the voice of rugby on Canal Plus.
“Mmmm,” says Popplewell, pausing for a second. “I don’t think so. Our boys are the best. Put it this way, we’re about to find out.”
**
tadhg-furlong-with-wyn-jones-and-tomos-williams Two Welsh players try to stop Furlong.
Source: Dan Sheridan/INPHO
LE CRUNCH

If you are wondering why these things matter then consider the following figures. Five of the 20 most watched programmes on Irish television last year were rugby matches. In 2018, it was six out of 20, with the wins over England and New Zealand ranked second and third on the listings behind The Late, Late Toy Show.
Never has the game reached as wide an audience here, 841,000 people tuning in at 4.07pm for last Saturday’s game, an additional 96,000 people downloading a stream on the RTÉ Player. Oh, and there were 51,000 fans inside the stadium. All in, that’s a fifth of the population.
So we’re not exactly giving away state secrets when we say sport has relevance in people’s lives. They want the team to do well and if that’s going to happen then they’ll need a functioning scrum. “Yes, but never before did we associate Ireland with the set-piece,” says Canal Plus’s Magellan. “Your back-row, yes, was always very good. Your front row, now it is a great one. Before, we maybe would have viewed it as a weakness.”
It’s a funny choice of word: weakness. Porter, Kelleher and Furlong’s predecessors would all have been big men, 18-stone fellas.
But they were never considered a dominant trio the way these chaps are. Right now they are on the cusp of real stardom because in so many ways the traits we associate with Furlong, Kelleher and Porter are traits commonly ascribed to the perfect Irish sporting hero. They make humility and brilliance rhyme.
Furlong ‘the best in the world’ had to do a stint as a replacement last year after coming back from injury. Porter, too, had to serve a long apprenticeship as Furlong’s understudy before his latest positional switch; Kelleher similarly served as back-up to Rob Herring. None of them complained.
By now, after years of evolution in the job spec, they’re known for what they do around the park more than they are for their effectiveness in the set-piece. Last year, Furlong stepped inside two Scottish defenders like a latter-day Phil Bennett. Last week he popped a no-look pass to Sexton after giving the impression he was going to charge at a couple of Welsh defenders. He also lifts, mauls, carries, tackles and cleans out rucks. The only thing the man doesn’t do is present the Six One News.
“Tadhg Furlong is an academic tighthead,” says Byrne. “He is not just a big beef; he has a repertoire of tricks. You can see if he is under pressure in one scrum that the next won’t be the same. You can see him physically working his way into the position he wants to get to; once you see that, you know his opponent is in trouble.”

Porter is equally impressive. Until September he and Furlong were rivals for the one position. Now they are colleagues across the scrum, reliant on one another. Add in Kelleher’s rapid maturity, his progression from bench to starter and you have a world class combo.
“No scrum, no win, that is the cliché in French rugby,” says Magellan. “Scrum is our speciality. You Irish, you play f***ing well at the moment and while I don’t know if the average person on a Parisian street knows the name of Ireland’s props, me, I know them. They are very, very good.
“That’s why we, in France, don’t just view Ireland as a team with a fighting spirit, a team with a good back row and some nice back moves. There is much more to them than that. They are dangerous.”
THE CHARACTERS

Enda McNulty recalls watching the boys scrummage. They moved so intently, eyes fixed on their opposite number. Greg Feek, Ireland’s then scrum coach, studied their movements, the sinew of their muscle, the subtle shifts in their stance. Situated in a corner of Carton House – ‘so far removed from the entrance that only someone with binoculars would have been able to see what was going on’ McNulty felt like a guy with a ringside seat at a world heavyweight boxing fight.
“For the rest of my life I will never forget that session,” says McNulty, the former Ireland team psychologist who worked closely with Furlong and Porter. “It reminded me of being a child watching thoroughbred pedigree cattle fighting in the pen, the aggression, the unbelievable sense of fight and battle that these guys possessed. Those scrum sessions lasted for 12 to 15 minutes. They were incredibly intense.”
enda-mcnulty Enda McNulty watches Ireland train. See www.mcnultyperformance.com
Source: Billy Stickland/INPHO
Each time Ireland do a scrum session, there are three video cameras there to record it – one from an aerial slot, one from the right, one from the left. Later, they’ll all revisit those moments, Furlong, Kelleher and Porter, with Feek’s successor, current scrum coach, John Fogarty. Errors are quietly addressed, opportunities mapped out.
“If you are asking me to reflect on why these guys are so good, it is because they have been doing thousands of hours of practice across their careers, getting that quality of preparation,” says McNulty. “They have learned from greats who have been before, like Rory Best or greats who are still around, like Cian Healy. When you are surrounded by that environment and you add to that their character, their in-built resilience, you get what you see now. Quality of coaching shapes their tactical awareness; quality of environment shapes their standards.”
That’s not all. All three have overcome hardship in their lives. Furlong, from a Wexford farming background, has admitted it took him time to adjust to city life when he first moved to Dublin, purposely living with non-athletes to get some distance from the rugby bubble.
Noel McNamara worked with Kelleher and Porter in both the Ireland Under 20 and the underage Leinster set-ups, noticing a fierce competitiveness in each player. “At everything,” he says, “for every second of every training session. They were relentless. Gym, pitch, they wanted to know what their targets were.
“These were the boys sitting at the front of team meetings with their notebooks out, scribbling down things they needed to learn. They didn’t just train to go through the motions. For Ports, every scrum, carry, lift, his mindset shone through. Ronan was the same; I watched Tadhg train and he was also cut from that cloth. They were so demanding of themselves.”
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Life has proved even more demanding, injuries hindering Kelleher and Porter’s development as teenagers – but by then Porter had something even more traumatic to endure, the tragic loss of his mother, Wendy, to cancer. He has spoken openly about how he dealt with that grief, his mother forever in his thoughts.
“They’re remarkable people,” says McNamara of Porter and Kelleher. “Unfazed, that’s how I’d describe them. Nothing panics them. You see it with Andrew, like how he got injured before the British and Irish Lions tour and then how he responded. He changed position and instantly established himself as a world class loosehead.
“Talent is obvious but once you reach a certain amount in your career, your character becomes more important. People underestimate a player’s spirit (as a reason why they make it to the top). They shouldn’t. It matters. It is visible in Andrew, Ronan and Tadhg now and because they are still so young, it could be visible for another 10 years.”
Character is needed at the highest level because every quality you possess, your opponent has too. Every mistake is magnified. Every game, in a sport as brutal as this, has the potential to be your last. That’s something for a player to think about. Don’t pretend they don’t.
“I’ve watched 15 years of scrum sessions with Leinster and Ireland,” says McNulty. “And at no stage did I ever feel comfortable. I’ve almost bitten my tongue observing the intensity of those battles. They’re brave men.”
Popplewell knows it, Fitzgerald and Byrne too. It was kind of surreal listening to all three former players talk about Kelleher, Porter and Furlong. It was almost as though they knew them on a personal basis. They don’t. What they do know, though, is something the rest of us have no idea about – the suffering that goes on after a referee says crouch, bind, set.
the-irish-front-row-1921994 Popplewell (right) with Kingston and Claw.
Source: INPHO
“There were times in there when you were in serious trouble,” says Popplewell, “when you really felt under pressure. Now I am not saying you felt like you were going to break your neck or anything but you knew you were reliant on the fellas next to you.”
He tells a funny story about The Claw. They had an understanding. When under the cosh, they had a call. Scaoil, the Irish word for drop it. Once all three went down simultaneously, the referee couldn’t pin the blame on an individual. One year, against Australia, Claw was frantically screaming As Gaeilge. The scrum eventually broke up.
“Claw came over to myself and Terry Kingston and said ‘lads did you not hear my f**king call?’
“Yes,” replied Popplewell, “but why the f**k were you asking for siúcra (sugar)?”
THE DARK ARTS

Shane Byrne will never forget the pain. Now and then he’d scrummage against bigger men. Steve Thompson was one. That was when Byrne angled his shoulder to scrummage like a loosehead, hoping to upset Thompson that way.
That’s fine in theory. But there were times when he didn’t get into the right position and Thompson’s body weight bore down on Byrne’s neck. We can only imagine the pressure, each second feeling like a minute. “As a hooker, as a tighthead, sometimes you just have to grin and bear it, grit it out,” says Byrne. “Many a time you are in a scrum at that level and you know it is going to hurt. But you also know you can’t go back. If a tighthead gets it wrong and a loosehead has slipped underneath his shoulder and starts to drive up through your chest, it is horrible. If a tighthead is strong enough to still hold his opponent then you just have to take it.”
reggie-corrigan-and-shane-byrne Shane Byrne prepares for scrum time.
Source: INPHO
That’s why he admires Furlong so much, but also Kelleher and Porter. “They’re excellent,” says Byrne. “Ireland’s scrum is rarely under pressure. Tadhg Furlong is what I’d call a learning tighthead.
“What I mean by that is that I have seen him come up against some very, very powerful men and he always ends up coming out on top. It might take a few scrums, one or two may go awry. A good tighthead will take out his little black book and try something else in the next scrum. That’s Tadhg. I have never seen him end up getting done, certainly not in recent times.”
Nor has Kelleher ever come unstuck. Byrne admires the latest occupant of the No2 shirt’s ability to dictate the height he wants to scrummage at, his flexibility to adjust to a bigger opponent, his ability to dominate smaller but technically smart rivals.
“The hooker’s technique is the hardest one to judge because 90 per cent of him is covered,” says Byrne. “There are always tell-tale signs, though, the effort that goes in with the shoulders, how he forces himself to get into the position he wants to be in to strike the ball. So, he is working his way through the scrum and to do that, you have to have a lot of strength. He knows what he is doing.”
Then there is Porter. “He is a different machine altogether. To go from a loosehead to a tighthead is the hardest thing to do in rugby; so for him to survive at international level makes him a superb scrummager.”
That is before we mention everything else he does on the park. Against New Zealand last November, Porter was scrambling across his defensive line in the 74th minute to help Keith Earls make a decisive tackle. Think about that level of fitness. Seventy-four minutes and still able to sprint at full pelt. “In the old days, you were trying to hide your front row guys in defence,” says McNamara. “Now their speed makes them an asset. And that’s before we mention what they offer in attack. Andrew, Ronan and Tadhg have made our attack better with their carries, their tip on passes, their ability to mix things up, their tries.”
The long-term implication is obvious. At 29, 26 and 24, they have a future together, a future where Ireland has an explosive scrum, a trio of fine maulers and exceptional ball-playing forwards. With a good front row, every team has a chance.
Ireland’s, however, is better than good, it’s immense.
“I don’t know these boys but I am proud of them,” says Fitzgerald. “The set of forwards we currently have, they are so comfortable on the ball. It’s a pleasure to watch them.”
As he said those very words, Ireland landed in Paris. Once they travelled here with all the confidence of men about to face the firing squad. Now it’s different. Porter, Kelleher and Furlong are a newish combination, so much so that some in the rugby world aren’t fully aware of how good they are.
They are about to find out.
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COMMENTS (6)

This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic. Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy here before taking part.
WRITE A COMMENT

James Fox
7y
28mins ago
It’s not a World Cup year so let’s sit on how good we are till next year
25

Shaun Gallagher
7y
18mins ago
@James Fox: same stuff every year. Thank god there are more level headed people out there than most journalists
15

Dec Breen
8y
15mins ago
@James Fox: Il take all wins thanks James
6
SEE 1 MORE REPLY ▾

Con Cussed
4y
9mins ago
Come out of the clouds Garry! Let’s see how we do today, not next year!
Too much had people believing we’re the best, it’s never the case until you hold the trophy in your hands!
So please keep to reality and by all means dream, just don’t bet on it turning out like Disney…
4

O Lusaigh Sean
7y
1min ago
Great article well done.
1
Morrissey Breen
2022-02-15 08:46:46 UTC
Permalink
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/feb/07/tony-trabert-obituary

Tony Trabert obituary
US tennis player who won five Grand Slam titles and went on to become a successful Davis Cup captain
Tony Trabert making a backhand return against Kurt Nielsen in the men’s singles final at Wimbledon, 1955.
Tony Trabert making a backhand return against Kurt Nielsen in the men’s singles final at Wimbledon, 1955. Photograph: AP
Richard Evans
Sun 7 Feb 2021 18.12 GMT
1
Tony Trabert, who has died aged 90, was an all-American athlete in every sense of the term, projecting a personality as powerful as his physique. He reaped the rewards of both during a long and highly successful career.

Although he went on to become a winning Davis Cup captain and long-time commentator for CBS television, Trabert will go into the record books as having enjoyed, in 1955, one of the most successful years in the history of tennis.

Before he turned professional and was banned from the world’s great championships under the stringent rules of the day, Trabert won the French championships, Wimbledon and the US championships to become one of a rare breed to have won three Grand Slam titles in a single year. Virtually unbeatable during that run, Trabert added the US indoor clay court title to his list of 35 all told, which covered 104 match victories and only five defeats.

In fact Trabert won at Roland Garros and Forest Hills twice each, and it was not until Michael Chang claimed the French title in 1989 that another American was able to conquer the world’s premier clay court tournament. But, inevitably in the days when the Championships stood head and shoulders above all others, it was winning Wimbledon that cemented Trabert’s position in the game.

In his widely acclaimed memoir A Handful of Summers, the South African player Gordon Forbes describes Trabert that year. “He was unbelievably all-American. Open faced, smiling wide, freckles and a brush-cut. And massive ground strokes that came at you like hurled medicine balls. He’d beaten Kurt Nielsen in the Wimbledon final that year. ‘It was like a tank moving infantry, Forbesey,’ said Abe Segal [Forbes’s doubles partner]. Trabert was driving the tank. Nielsen machine-gunned him but the bullets just bounced off!”

Trabert after winning the US Open, 1955.
Trabert after winning the US Open, 1955. Photograph: Anthony Camerano/AP
Davis Cup provided the other major highlights of Trabert’s career, both as a player and captain. In 1953, he played one of the greatest matches the competition has ever seen at Kooyong in Melbourne against Australia’s new teenage star Lew Hoad, and lost.

The following year, in front of 28,000 people at Sydney’s White City Stadium, Trabert gained his revenge against Hoad in the opening rubber and the United States reclaimed the cup. “Strangely, I think I played better than Lew in the first match and Lew played better in the second,” Trabert recalled. “But the results didn’t reflect that.”

From 1976 to 1980 Trabert led his country to two Davis Cup triumphs as captain – one against Britain in the final at Mission Hills, California – before he started to find the generation gap between a very young John McEnroe and himself a little too wide for his liking.

Born in Cincinatti, he was the son of Arch, a sales executive for General Electric, and his wife, Bea; Tony was middle America through and through. While at Walnut Hills high school and the University of Cincinnati he played both tennis and basketball. He believed in old-fashioned American values and joined the US navy (1951-53), serving aboard an aircraft carrier at the time of the Korean war.

He owed his start in tennis to Cincinnati’s other great player, Bill Talbert, who took the strapping youngster under his wing and travelled the world with him, creating a doubles partnership that hit its peak in 1950 when Talbert and Trabert beat Jaroslav Drobný and Eric Sturgess in the final of the French Championships. “Billy taught me almost everything I know about tennis and a lot more besides,” Trabert said of a man who went on to be a popular tournament director at the US Open.

In 1953 Trabert married Shauna Wood, and they had a son, Mike, and a daughter, Brooke. Towards the end of Jack Kramer’s reign as the tsar of professional tennis, in 1960 he appointed Trabert as his European director, based in Paris, where Shauna continued working as a model.

A friendship quickly developed between the Traberts and Philippe Chatrier, the future president of the International Tennis Federation, and his English wife, the British player Suzanne Partridge.

The quartet were often out on the town, frequenting discotheques such as Castel’s, where the manager, Jacques Renavand, a French Davis Cup player, was a close friend.

In later years, Trabert occupied himself with tennis camps in California, latterly run by his son Mike; after-dinner speaking; and as a well-respected voice on CBS television at the US Open. His first marriage ended in divorce and in the 1980s he met and married Vicki Valenti.

They settled in Ponte Vedra, Florida, where Brooke worked as manager of the pro shop at the nearby ATP headquarters. Trabert was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1970 and eventually became chairman of the select committee that meets every year at Wimbledon to recommend players for induction.

He is survived by Vicki, Mike, Brooke, three stepchildren, Valerie, James and Robbie, 14 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

Tony (Marion Anthony) Trabert, tennis player, born 16 August 1930; died 3 February 2021
Topics
Morrissey Breen
2022-02-15 08:56:06 UTC
Permalink
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/feb/13/nfl-denies-it-tried-to-stop-eminem-from-taking-knee-at-super-bowl-halftime-show

NFL denies it tried to stop Eminem from taking knee at Super Bowl halftime show
Rapper made gesture in apparent tribute to Colin Kaepernick
League has admitted in past failing to listen to its own players
Eminem kneels during his Super Bowl halftime show performance
Eminem kneels during his Super Bowl halftime show performance. Photograph: Kevin C Cox/Getty Images
Guardian sport and agencies
Mon 14 Feb 2022 06.18 GMT
The NFL has denied reports that it attempted to stop Eminem from kneeling during his performance at the Super Bowl halftime show.

The game took place at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium and the halftime show was headlined by Dr Dre, who hails from nearby Compton. He was joined by fellow Californian stars Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar as well as Mary J Blige, Eminem and 50 Cent in an electrifying set.

Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar and Mary J Blige’s half-time show – an all-timer
Read more
As his rendition of Lose Yourself ended, Eminem took a knee and held his head in his hand in apparent tribute to former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who took a knee during the national anthem to protest police brutality during the 2016 season. Other players followed suit after the quarterback’s gesture, and the move created widespread cultural controversy, with the league receiving criticism of its handling of the matter. Kaepernick has not played in the NFL since the end of the 2016 season and it is widely believed he was blackballed by the league’s teams and owners over his stance.


After Sunday’s game the NFL denied reports that it had attempted to stop Eminem from making the gesture.

“We watched all elements of the show during multiple rehearsals this week and were aware that Eminem was going to do that,” league spokesman Brian McCarthy said.

In the wake of the protests following the police murder of George Floyd in 2020, the NFL admitted it had failed to listen to its players’ concerns over racism in the United States.

“We, the National Football League, admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest,” said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell in June 2020, without explicitly mentioning Kaepernick. “We, the National Football League, believe black lives matter.”

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2022-02-15 08:58:36 UTC
Permalink
NFL denies it tried to stop Eminem from taking knee at Super Bowl halftime show
Rapper made gesture in apparent tribute to Colin Kaepernick
League has admitted in past failing to listen to its own players
Eminem kneels during his Super Bowl halftime show performance
Eminem kneels during his Super Bowl halftime show performance. Photograph: Kevin C Cox/Getty Images
Guardian sport and agencies
Mon 14 Feb 2022 06.18 GMT
The NFL has denied reports that it attempted to stop Eminem from kneeling during his performance at the Super Bowl halftime show.

The game took place at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium and the halftime show was headlined by Dr Dre, who hails from nearby Compton. He was joined by fellow Californian stars Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar as well as Mary J Blige, Eminem and 50 Cent in an electrifying set.

Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar and Mary J Blige’s half-time show – an all-timer
Read more
As his rendition of Lose Yourself ended, Eminem took a knee and held his head in his hand in apparent tribute to former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who took a knee during the national anthem to protest police brutality during the 2016 season. Other players followed suit after the quarterback’s gesture, and the move created widespread cultural controversy, with the league receiving criticism of its handling of the matter. Kaepernick has not played in the NFL since the end of the 2016 season and it is widely believed he was blackballed by the league’s teams and owners over his stance.


After Sunday’s game the NFL denied reports that it had attempted to stop Eminem from making the gesture.

“We watched all elements of the show during multiple rehearsals this week and were aware that Eminem was going to do that,” league spokesman Brian McCarthy said.

In the wake of the protests following the police murder of George Floyd in 2020, the NFL admitted it had failed to listen to its players’ concerns over racism in the United States.

“We, the National Football League, admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest,” said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell in June 2020, without explicitly mentioning Kaepernick. “We, the National Football League, believe black lives matter.”

Topics
Super Bowl LVI
Super Bowl
Eminem
NFL
US sports
news
Reuse this content
Related content

LiveWinter Olympics day 11: ice hockey, speed skating and more – live!
14m ago

‘Mentally tired’ Eileen Gu claims silver as Mathilde Gremaud roars back for gold
3h ago

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16h ago

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Post by Morrissey Breen
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/feb/07/tony-trabert-obituary
Tony Trabert obituary
US tennis player who won five Grand Slam titles and went on to become a successful Davis Cup captain
Tony Trabert making a backhand return against Kurt Nielsen in the men’s singles final at Wimbledon, 1955.
Tony Trabert making a backhand return against Kurt Nielsen in the men’s singles final at Wimbledon, 1955. Photograph: AP
Richard Evans
Sun 7 Feb 2021 18.12 GMT
1
Tony Trabert, who has died aged 90, was an all-American athlete in every sense of the term, projecting a personality as powerful as his physique. He reaped the rewards of both during a long and highly successful career.
Although he went on to become a winning Davis Cup captain and long-time commentator for CBS television, Trabert will go into the record books as having enjoyed, in 1955, one of the most successful years in the history of tennis.
Before he turned professional and was banned from the world’s great championships under the stringent rules of the day, Trabert won the French championships, Wimbledon and the US championships to become one of a rare breed to have won three Grand Slam titles in a single year. Virtually unbeatable during that run, Trabert added the US indoor clay court title to his list of 35 all told, which covered 104 match victories and only five defeats.
In fact Trabert won at Roland Garros and Forest Hills twice each, and it was not until Michael Chang claimed the French title in 1989 that another American was able to conquer the world’s premier clay court tournament. But, inevitably in the days when the Championships stood head and shoulders above all others, it was winning Wimbledon that cemented Trabert’s position in the game.
In his widely acclaimed memoir A Handful of Summers, the South African player Gordon Forbes describes Trabert that year. “He was unbelievably all-American. Open faced, smiling wide, freckles and a brush-cut. And massive ground strokes that came at you like hurled medicine balls. He’d beaten Kurt Nielsen in the Wimbledon final that year. ‘It was like a tank moving infantry, Forbesey,’ said Abe Segal [Forbes’s doubles partner]. Trabert was driving the tank. Nielsen machine-gunned him but the bullets just bounced off!”
Trabert after winning the US Open, 1955.
Trabert after winning the US Open, 1955. Photograph: Anthony Camerano/AP
Davis Cup provided the other major highlights of Trabert’s career, both as a player and captain. In 1953, he played one of the greatest matches the competition has ever seen at Kooyong in Melbourne against Australia’s new teenage star Lew Hoad, and lost.
The following year, in front of 28,000 people at Sydney’s White City Stadium, Trabert gained his revenge against Hoad in the opening rubber and the United States reclaimed the cup. “Strangely, I think I played better than Lew in the first match and Lew played better in the second,” Trabert recalled. “But the results didn’t reflect that.”
From 1976 to 1980 Trabert led his country to two Davis Cup triumphs as captain – one against Britain in the final at Mission Hills, California – before he started to find the generation gap between a very young John McEnroe and himself a little too wide for his liking.
Born in Cincinatti, he was the son of Arch, a sales executive for General Electric, and his wife, Bea; Tony was middle America through and through. While at Walnut Hills high school and the University of Cincinnati he played both tennis and basketball. He believed in old-fashioned American values and joined the US navy (1951-53), serving aboard an aircraft carrier at the time of the Korean war.
He owed his start in tennis to Cincinnati’s other great player, Bill Talbert, who took the strapping youngster under his wing and travelled the world with him, creating a doubles partnership that hit its peak in 1950 when Talbert and Trabert beat Jaroslav Drobný and Eric Sturgess in the final of the French Championships. “Billy taught me almost everything I know about tennis and a lot more besides,” Trabert said of a man who went on to be a popular tournament director at the US Open.
In 1953 Trabert married Shauna Wood, and they had a son, Mike, and a daughter, Brooke. Towards the end of Jack Kramer’s reign as the tsar of professional tennis, in 1960 he appointed Trabert as his European director, based in Paris, where Shauna continued working as a model.
A friendship quickly developed between the Traberts and Philippe Chatrier, the future president of the International Tennis Federation, and his English wife, the British player Suzanne Partridge.
The quartet were often out on the town, frequenting discotheques such as Castel’s, where the manager, Jacques Renavand, a French Davis Cup player, was a close friend.
In later years, Trabert occupied himself with tennis camps in California, latterly run by his son Mike; after-dinner speaking; and as a well-respected voice on CBS television at the US Open. His first marriage ended in divorce and in the 1980s he met and married Vicki Valenti.
They settled in Ponte Vedra, Florida, where Brooke worked as manager of the pro shop at the nearby ATP headquarters. Trabert was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1970 and eventually became chairman of the select committee that meets every year at Wimbledon to recommend players for induction.
He is survived by Vicki, Mike, Brooke, three stepchildren, Valerie, James and Robbie, 14 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
Tony (Marion Anthony) Trabert, tennis player, born 16 August 1930; died 3 February 2021
Topics
Morrissey Breen
2022-02-20 08:14:49 UTC
Permalink
1947 "High Mark" VFL Documentary

Rcgokou88
Rcgokou88
2 years ago
The only thing i wish from afl.. is no rule changes.. thats ruined our greatest sport in Australia.. 🤔

6

REPLY

Team9Trivia
Team9Trivia
6 years ago
Fascinating. Knowing what was going on at the time with throwing the ball being legal in the VFA, it's pretty clear that the ANFC has filled this piece with kicking and marking and dodging highlights to try to sway people back to the traditional code. I think I only heard one passing reference to a handpass in the whole thing.

1

REPLY

Hide reply
Dave Cannabis
Dave Cannabis
6 months ago
yeah he called it a "punch pass"


REPLY

Tony Johnson Joncevski
Tony Johnson Joncevski
9 days ago
Thank you for sharing. I enjoyed watching that. We have never got over our inferiority complex. The jingoism is too much in this. I watch all ball games and his claims about Australian Rules are ridiculous.


REPLY

4D bullshit Patroll
4D bullshit Patroll
6 years ago
It's always 1 point against Essendon. Love it. 1999 semi final was a good un too.


REPLY

View reply
TBoneTony
TBoneTony
2 years ago
This was just a few years before John Coleman was playing for Essendon.

Imagine what his high mark would have looked like in this film.


REPLY

Geoff Aldwinckle
Geoff Aldwinckle
2 years ago
Freddie Stafford you legend !! !!!


REPLY

Tony Walsh
Tony Walsh
11 years ago
Go blues, the commentary is another feature of the game.

2

REPLY

Russell Tangey
Russell Tangey
3 years ago
I love the fact that a couple of Essendon players have their sashes on the wrong side of the jumper,

1

REPLY
Post by Morrissey Breen
NFL denies it tried to stop Eminem from taking knee at Super Bowl halftime show
Rapper made gesture in apparent tribute to Colin Kaepernick
League has admitted in past failing to listen to its own players
Eminem kneels during his Super Bowl halftime show performance
Eminem kneels during his Super Bowl halftime show performance. Photograph: Kevin C Cox/Getty Images
Guardian sport and agencies
Mon 14 Feb 2022 06.18 GMT
The NFL has denied reports that it attempted to stop Eminem from kneeling during his performance at the Super Bowl halftime show.
The game took place at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium and the halftime show was headlined by Dr Dre, who hails from nearby Compton. He was joined by fellow Californian stars Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar as well as Mary J Blige, Eminem and 50 Cent in an electrifying set.
Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar and Mary J Blige’s half-time show – an all-timer
Read more
As his rendition of Lose Yourself ended, Eminem took a knee and held his head in his hand in apparent tribute to former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who took a knee during the national anthem to protest police brutality during the 2016 season. Other players followed suit after the quarterback’s gesture, and the move created widespread cultural controversy, with the league receiving criticism of its handling of the matter. Kaepernick has not played in the NFL since the end of the 2016 season and it is widely believed he was blackballed by the league’s teams and owners over his stance.
After Sunday’s game the NFL denied reports that it had attempted to stop Eminem from making the gesture.
“We watched all elements of the show during multiple rehearsals this week and were aware that Eminem was going to do that,” league spokesman Brian McCarthy said.
In the wake of the protests following the police murder of George Floyd in 2020, the NFL admitted it had failed to listen to its players’ concerns over racism in the United States.
“We, the National Football League, admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest,” said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell in June 2020, without explicitly mentioning Kaepernick. “We, the National Football League, believe black lives matter.”
Topics
Super Bowl LVI
Super Bowl
Eminem
NFL
US sports
news
Reuse this content
Related content
LiveWinter Olympics day 11: ice hockey, speed skating and more – live!
14m ago
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Super Bowl crypto ads are as predatory as celebs hawking cigarettes
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Post by Morrissey Breen
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/feb/07/tony-trabert-obituary
Tony Trabert obituary
US tennis player who won five Grand Slam titles and went on to become a successful Davis Cup captain
Tony Trabert making a backhand return against Kurt Nielsen in the men’s singles final at Wimbledon, 1955.
Tony Trabert making a backhand return against Kurt Nielsen in the men’s singles final at Wimbledon, 1955. Photograph: AP
Richard Evans
Sun 7 Feb 2021 18.12 GMT
1
Tony Trabert, who has died aged 90, was an all-American athlete in every sense of the term, projecting a personality as powerful as his physique. He reaped the rewards of both during a long and highly successful career.
Although he went on to become a winning Davis Cup captain and long-time commentator for CBS television, Trabert will go into the record books as having enjoyed, in 1955, one of the most successful years in the history of tennis.
Before he turned professional and was banned from the world’s great championships under the stringent rules of the day, Trabert won the French championships, Wimbledon and the US championships to become one of a rare breed to have won three Grand Slam titles in a single year. Virtually unbeatable during that run, Trabert added the US indoor clay court title to his list of 35 all told, which covered 104 match victories and only five defeats.
In fact Trabert won at Roland Garros and Forest Hills twice each, and it was not until Michael Chang claimed the French title in 1989 that another American was able to conquer the world’s premier clay court tournament. But, inevitably in the days when the Championships stood head and shoulders above all others, it was winning Wimbledon that cemented Trabert’s position in the game.
In his widely acclaimed memoir A Handful of Summers, the South African player Gordon Forbes describes Trabert that year. “He was unbelievably all-American. Open faced, smiling wide, freckles and a brush-cut. And massive ground strokes that came at you like hurled medicine balls. He’d beaten Kurt Nielsen in the Wimbledon final that year. ‘It was like a tank moving infantry, Forbesey,’ said Abe Segal [Forbes’s doubles partner]. Trabert was driving the tank. Nielsen machine-gunned him but the bullets just bounced off!”
Trabert after winning the US Open, 1955.
Trabert after winning the US Open, 1955. Photograph: Anthony Camerano/AP
Davis Cup provided the other major highlights of Trabert’s career, both as a player and captain. In 1953, he played one of the greatest matches the competition has ever seen at Kooyong in Melbourne against Australia’s new teenage star Lew Hoad, and lost.
The following year, in front of 28,000 people at Sydney’s White City Stadium, Trabert gained his revenge against Hoad in the opening rubber and the United States reclaimed the cup. “Strangely, I think I played better than Lew in the first match and Lew played better in the second,” Trabert recalled. “But the results didn’t reflect that.”
From 1976 to 1980 Trabert led his country to two Davis Cup triumphs as captain – one against Britain in the final at Mission Hills, California – before he started to find the generation gap between a very young John McEnroe and himself a little too wide for his liking.
Born in Cincinatti, he was the son of Arch, a sales executive for General Electric, and his wife, Bea; Tony was middle America through and through. While at Walnut Hills high school and the University of Cincinnati he played both tennis and basketball. He believed in old-fashioned American values and joined the US navy (1951-53), serving aboard an aircraft carrier at the time of the Korean war.
He owed his start in tennis to Cincinnati’s other great player, Bill Talbert, who took the strapping youngster under his wing and travelled the world with him, creating a doubles partnership that hit its peak in 1950 when Talbert and Trabert beat Jaroslav Drobný and Eric Sturgess in the final of the French Championships. “Billy taught me almost everything I know about tennis and a lot more besides,” Trabert said of a man who went on to be a popular tournament director at the US Open.
In 1953 Trabert married Shauna Wood, and they had a son, Mike, and a daughter, Brooke. Towards the end of Jack Kramer’s reign as the tsar of professional tennis, in 1960 he appointed Trabert as his European director, based in Paris, where Shauna continued working as a model.
A friendship quickly developed between the Traberts and Philippe Chatrier, the future president of the International Tennis Federation, and his English wife, the British player Suzanne Partridge.
The quartet were often out on the town, frequenting discotheques such as Castel’s, where the manager, Jacques Renavand, a French Davis Cup player, was a close friend.
In later years, Trabert occupied himself with tennis camps in California, latterly run by his son Mike; after-dinner speaking; and as a well-respected voice on CBS television at the US Open. His first marriage ended in divorce and in the 1980s he met and married Vicki Valenti.
They settled in Ponte Vedra, Florida, where Brooke worked as manager of the pro shop at the nearby ATP headquarters. Trabert was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1970 and eventually became chairman of the select committee that meets every year at Wimbledon to recommend players for induction.
He is survived by Vicki, Mike, Brooke, three stepchildren, Valerie, James and Robbie, 14 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
Tony (Marion Anthony) Trabert, tennis player, born 16 August 1930; died 3 February 2021
Topics
Morrissey Breen
2022-02-20 08:28:08 UTC
Permalink
Leo Barry you star!' | Swans v Eagles, 2005 GF | AAMI Classic Last Two Mins | AFL

Post by Morrissey Breen
1947 "High Mark" VFL Documentary
http://youtu.be/19Swb7GK038
Rcgokou88
Rcgokou88
2 years ago
The only thing i wish from afl.. is no rule changes.. thats ruined our greatest sport in Australia.. 🤔
6
REPLY
Team9Trivia
Team9Trivia
6 years ago
Fascinating. Knowing what was going on at the time with throwing the ball being legal in the VFA, it's pretty clear that the ANFC has filled this piece with kicking and marking and dodging highlights to try to sway people back to the traditional code. I think I only heard one passing reference to a handpass in the whole thing.
1
REPLY
Hide reply
Dave Cannabis
Dave Cannabis
6 months ago
yeah he called it a "punch pass"
REPLY
Tony Johnson Joncevski
Tony Johnson Joncevski
9 days ago
Thank you for sharing. I enjoyed watching that. We have never got over our inferiority complex. The jingoism is too much in this. I watch all ball games and his claims about Australian Rules are ridiculous.
REPLY
4D bullshit Patroll
4D bullshit Patroll
6 years ago
It's always 1 point against Essendon. Love it. 1999 semi final was a good un too.
REPLY
View reply
TBoneTony
TBoneTony
2 years ago
This was just a few years before John Coleman was playing for Essendon.
Imagine what his high mark would have looked like in this film.
REPLY
Geoff Aldwinckle
Geoff Aldwinckle
2 years ago
Freddie Stafford you legend !! !!!
REPLY
Tony Walsh
Tony Walsh
11 years ago
Go blues, the commentary is another feature of the game.
2
REPLY
Russell Tangey
Russell Tangey
3 years ago
I love the fact that a couple of Essendon players have their sashes on the wrong side of the jumper,
1
REPLY
Post by Morrissey Breen
NFL denies it tried to stop Eminem from taking knee at Super Bowl halftime show
Rapper made gesture in apparent tribute to Colin Kaepernick
League has admitted in past failing to listen to its own players
Eminem kneels during his Super Bowl halftime show performance
Eminem kneels during his Super Bowl halftime show performance. Photograph: Kevin C Cox/Getty Images
Guardian sport and agencies
Mon 14 Feb 2022 06.18 GMT
The NFL has denied reports that it attempted to stop Eminem from kneeling during his performance at the Super Bowl halftime show.
The game took place at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium and the halftime show was headlined by Dr Dre, who hails from nearby Compton. He was joined by fellow Californian stars Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar as well as Mary J Blige, Eminem and 50 Cent in an electrifying set.
Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar and Mary J Blige’s half-time show – an all-timer
Read more
As his rendition of Lose Yourself ended, Eminem took a knee and held his head in his hand in apparent tribute to former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who took a knee during the national anthem to protest police brutality during the 2016 season. Other players followed suit after the quarterback’s gesture, and the move created widespread cultural controversy, with the league receiving criticism of its handling of the matter. Kaepernick has not played in the NFL since the end of the 2016 season and it is widely believed he was blackballed by the league’s teams and owners over his stance.
After Sunday’s game the NFL denied reports that it had attempted to stop Eminem from making the gesture.
“We watched all elements of the show during multiple rehearsals this week and were aware that Eminem was going to do that,” league spokesman Brian McCarthy said.
In the wake of the protests following the police murder of George Floyd in 2020, the NFL admitted it had failed to listen to its players’ concerns over racism in the United States.
“We, the National Football League, admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest,” said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell in June 2020, without explicitly mentioning Kaepernick. “We, the National Football League, believe black lives matter.”
Topics
Super Bowl LVI
Super Bowl
Eminem
NFL
US sports
news
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Post by Morrissey Breen
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/feb/07/tony-trabert-obituary
Tony Trabert obituary
US tennis player who won five Grand Slam titles and went on to become a successful Davis Cup captain
Tony Trabert making a backhand return against Kurt Nielsen in the men’s singles final at Wimbledon, 1955.
Tony Trabert making a backhand return against Kurt Nielsen in the men’s singles final at Wimbledon, 1955. Photograph: AP
Richard Evans
Sun 7 Feb 2021 18.12 GMT
1
Tony Trabert, who has died aged 90, was an all-American athlete in every sense of the term, projecting a personality as powerful as his physique. He reaped the rewards of both during a long and highly successful career.
Although he went on to become a winning Davis Cup captain and long-time commentator for CBS television, Trabert will go into the record books as having enjoyed, in 1955, one of the most successful years in the history of tennis.
Before he turned professional and was banned from the world’s great championships under the stringent rules of the day, Trabert won the French championships, Wimbledon and the US championships to become one of a rare breed to have won three Grand Slam titles in a single year. Virtually unbeatable during that run, Trabert added the US indoor clay court title to his list of 35 all told, which covered 104 match victories and only five defeats.
In fact Trabert won at Roland Garros and Forest Hills twice each, and it was not until Michael Chang claimed the French title in 1989 that another American was able to conquer the world’s premier clay court tournament. But, inevitably in the days when the Championships stood head and shoulders above all others, it was winning Wimbledon that cemented Trabert’s position in the game.
In his widely acclaimed memoir A Handful of Summers, the South African player Gordon Forbes describes Trabert that year. “He was unbelievably all-American. Open faced, smiling wide, freckles and a brush-cut. And massive ground strokes that came at you like hurled medicine balls. He’d beaten Kurt Nielsen in the Wimbledon final that year. ‘It was like a tank moving infantry, Forbesey,’ said Abe Segal [Forbes’s doubles partner]. Trabert was driving the tank. Nielsen machine-gunned him but the bullets just bounced off!”
Trabert after winning the US Open, 1955.
Trabert after winning the US Open, 1955. Photograph: Anthony Camerano/AP
Davis Cup provided the other major highlights of Trabert’s career, both as a player and captain. In 1953, he played one of the greatest matches the competition has ever seen at Kooyong in Melbourne against Australia’s new teenage star Lew Hoad, and lost.
The following year, in front of 28,000 people at Sydney’s White City Stadium, Trabert gained his revenge against Hoad in the opening rubber and the United States reclaimed the cup. “Strangely, I think I played better than Lew in the first match and Lew played better in the second,” Trabert recalled. “But the results didn’t reflect that.”
From 1976 to 1980 Trabert led his country to two Davis Cup triumphs as captain – one against Britain in the final at Mission Hills, California – before he started to find the generation gap between a very young John McEnroe and himself a little too wide for his liking.
Born in Cincinatti, he was the son of Arch, a sales executive for General Electric, and his wife, Bea; Tony was middle America through and through. While at Walnut Hills high school and the University of Cincinnati he played both tennis and basketball. He believed in old-fashioned American values and joined the US navy (1951-53), serving aboard an aircraft carrier at the time of the Korean war.
He owed his start in tennis to Cincinnati’s other great player, Bill Talbert, who took the strapping youngster under his wing and travelled the world with him, creating a doubles partnership that hit its peak in 1950 when Talbert and Trabert beat Jaroslav Drobný and Eric Sturgess in the final of the French Championships. “Billy taught me almost everything I know about tennis and a lot more besides,” Trabert said of a man who went on to be a popular tournament director at the US Open.
In 1953 Trabert married Shauna Wood, and they had a son, Mike, and a daughter, Brooke. Towards the end of Jack Kramer’s reign as the tsar of professional tennis, in 1960 he appointed Trabert as his European director, based in Paris, where Shauna continued working as a model.
A friendship quickly developed between the Traberts and Philippe Chatrier, the future president of the International Tennis Federation, and his English wife, the British player Suzanne Partridge.
The quartet were often out on the town, frequenting discotheques such as Castel’s, where the manager, Jacques Renavand, a French Davis Cup player, was a close friend.
In later years, Trabert occupied himself with tennis camps in California, latterly run by his son Mike; after-dinner speaking; and as a well-respected voice on CBS television at the US Open. His first marriage ended in divorce and in the 1980s he met and married Vicki Valenti.
They settled in Ponte Vedra, Florida, where Brooke worked as manager of the pro shop at the nearby ATP headquarters. Trabert was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1970 and eventually became chairman of the select committee that meets every year at Wimbledon to recommend players for induction.
He is survived by Vicki, Mike, Brooke, three stepchildren, Valerie, James and Robbie, 14 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
Tony (Marion Anthony) Trabert, tennis player, born 16 August 1930; died 3 February 2021
Topics
Morrissey Breen
2022-02-20 17:41:56 UTC
Permalink
‘Ruining the sport’: What readers want the AFL to change
February 20, 2022 — 1.50pm
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/ruining-the-sport-what-readers-want-the-afl-to-change-20220220-p59y01.html

In late 2021, the AFL Fans Association undertook a survey of more than 800 people to find out what they felt the burning issues were for supporters. The results? More than a third were worried about the proliferation of gambling advertising; some called for the stand rule to be abolished; others were tired of rule changes and wanted clearer umpiring interpretations.

Those topics were far and away the most common response when The Age opened the floor for readers to have their say on the issue they most wanted the league to address. An overwhelming majority wanted an end to gambling advertising and sponsorships. Some responses have been edited for brevity.

Gambling advertising was a key concern for many readers.
Gambling advertising was a key concern for many readers.CREDIT:AFL PHOTOS
‘Cruel and greedy’
“Remove the gambling ads. How disgraceful that the one of the biggest financial generators for the AFL is this insidious gambling industry. You cannot watch the game or any sport without the gambling ads and promoters peddling the wares. Gambling is a personal choice, but unfortunately there are consequences, and when so much money is involved, the only ones to profit are the vested interest. Horses, dogs are also victims.” - Paula

“Gambling ads need to be dropped. It is at such a high level that it will be encouraging many of our young and people in general to gamble.” - Derek

“No more advertising of gambling ‘opportunities’. If people want to gamble, they will, but it is cruel and greedy to advertise it in the high emotion atmosphere that surrounds live games or televised games. Please get rid of it. It targets problem gamblers and young people with anonymity.” - Victoria

“Gambling advertising – it endorses an activity that causes great social harm in Australia. One of the attractive aspects of attending an AFL match or watching/listening to an AFL broadcast is to see that for many fans it is still a family activity. Gambling ads normalise ‘having a punt’ as part of following AFL and there will be a section of the audience who are introduced to gambling in this way. Although I think that the prospect of match fixing in AFL is low, being able to bet on who will kick the first goal etc could lead to the corruption of some players.” - Jay

“Stop gambling promotion about odds being part of commentators’ information to public. It just normalises gambling.” - Deborah

“Ban betting advertising on television, print, radio and at stadiums, it is not having a positive impact on young children and young adults. I no longer enjoy watching it; as a parent it is irresponsible to allow my child to see consistent advertising/commentary on betting. They are normalising gambling and encouraging it as if it is necessary to enjoy the game. I don’t understand how this is allowed. ” - Teresa

“Remove gambling adds – it is exactly the same as tobacco advertising in sports in the past when that was banned in 1976 due to the enormous societal impact. Even my teenage children notice them and think they are harmful and there are too many.” - J

RELATED ARTICLE
Fan survey
AFL 2022
‘Stop promoting gambling:’ Betting ads a burning issue in AFL fan survey
Some readers thought the problem with advertising gambling extended to other areas, including alcohol and junk food.

“Gambling advertising in media and hoardings around grounds to cease immediately. AFL to cease advertising junk food and junk drinks. The same goes for gambling sponsorship. Also, all of the above should apply to alcohol sponsorship.” - Warwick

And the sentiment was that sponsorship as well as advertising should be addressed.

“Cease all association with gambling, including sponsorship deals and advertising. Eradicate it from the sport, please. It is ruining the sport.” - Richard

“Advertising on gambling in any form should be banned. The AFL should mandate this in its commercial arrangements.” - Ron

“I appreciate the AFL needs sponsors, but facilitating gambling agencies to hammer kids with these adds, simply in order to line their pockets, is abhorrent. The consequences of this will last generations.” - Mark

‘Rules change every year’
Rule changes and officiating were also hot topics among readers, but the sentiment was mixed. Some people wanted rules changed, while others have had enough of modifications.

RELATED ARTICLE
Umpiring and rule changes formed a key concern in the AFL Fans Association survey.
AFL 2022
Fans take a stand on rule changes, commentary and curtain raisers
“[The AFL should change] the stand rule and nominating for ruck contests, it slows the game down and goes back to Auskick rules.” - Ian

“Remove the stand and ruck nomination rules, remove ‘six-six-six’ ... Scoring has reduced since these rules came in.” - Brendan

But not everyone was opposed to the stand rule.

“The stand rule is to me probably the best rule for opening the game up that has been tried and works – game flow is decluttered and better to watch.” - Patrick

Some wanted a change to 50-metre penalties.

“Fifty-metre penalty is excessive and punishes what are often very minor infringements to a ridiculous degree often resulting in a certain goal. Spoils the spectacle for me. Twenty-metre penalty would be more appropriate.” - Carlos

Others had different solutions for similar problems. Sam wanted the league to get “more flow or movement into the game, opening up play so talented players can display skills”. But John called for more free kicks to be paid. “Push in the back, holding the ball. Too many instances where these result in ball-ups.”

And how to relieve the pressure on umpires? Stop making so many changes and remove the need for interpretation.

“It’s no wonder the umpires are criticised so frequently, when rules change every year. They are forced to adjudicate new or changed rules every year. No more rule changes unless it is absolutely necessary.” - Masher

“Scrap prior opportunity, just give ball possessor three seconds to legally dispose of the ball when legally tackled. No interpretation needed.” - Dave

“... Confine ‘prior opportunity’ to only a bad memory.” - Bill

“... There have [been] more changes to rules in the last 20 years than the previous 50 years. Now we have rules made to undo the consequences of previous rule changes.” - David

“Overall, if a rule can’t be applied ‘by the book’ and not subject to a myriad of interpretations it would be better off being scrapped. Often former player commentators talk about a play being “technically” a free kick, but suggesting the umpire could have let it go. If it doesn’t matter, scrap the rule. The closer we can get to a simpler decision the better off we will be.” - Rod

And some readers had other suggestions.

“The running through the protected area rule should only be applied if it clearly has impeded the ball carrier. Even if a player was impacted the 50-metre penalty is too great and should be reduced to 25 metres.” - Marshall

“Give the player who attacks the ball a chance to make the play. This reward the tackler approach is rubbish! If I want to watch a game of no stop tackling being ‘rewarded’ I will become a rugby league fan.” - Ian

Readers had an issue with interpretation of rules as well as rule changes.
Readers had an issue with interpretation of rules as well as rule changes.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
“Scraping the post or touching the ball as it goes through the goals. The camera work and quality is not good enough for the purpose and it makes little sense to agonise through the process. If it goes through the big sticks it’s a goal. If it goes through the small sticks it’s a point. If it bounces back into play it is play on. Simple.” - Ron

‘Reduce the volume’
Lots of readers were unhappy with how quarter- and half-time breaks are filled with noise. Nick‘s No.1 concern was “incessant, high-volume ‘entertainment’“. Matt’s was “loud music and ads between quarters”. Most just wanted to be able to chat to family and friends.

“Reduce the volume of the ‘entertainment’. Time was we used to like talking before the game and half-time. We can also get rid of the constant changes in fluro advertising, plus we don’t need three tiers of illuminated banners to tell us a goal has been kicked.” - David

“Noisy entertainment which interferes with ability to socialise with family and friends because we can’t hear each other. Revolving advertising is disturbing for people with migraines and other sensory disabilities.” - Bernadette

“Stop the loud, LOUD ‘entertainment’ at the end of each quarter. Just let us interact and chat and be social with people in the crowd around us. We can’t, because there’s non-stop music and announcements at high decibel levels ruining our time at the footy. It’s a total turn off. I know many people who don’t go any more because of it. God help people with tinnitus, hearing aids or brain injuries. It’s noise pollution, is what it is, not entertainment.” - Mary

‘Members do the hard yards’
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Footy fans have spoken, and they’ve had plenty to say
Greg Baum
Greg Baum
Sports columnist
Many readers also took issue with ticketing and grand final access.

Linda wanted the grand final moved around the country (it is contracted to be played at the MCG until the late 2050s). Noreen wanted a more simple way to buy tickets for her team’s away games. Christine wanted more grand final tickets available for members of competing clubs, “NOT funnelled off to corporates who don’t necessarily support either team. We long-term (and long-suffering) members do the hard yards all season, every season, and should be able to see our team’s ultimate triumph in person.”

“Stop selling tickets for finals and go back to first in, best dressed until the ground is full. This means those who are there are real fans and not corporates or once-a-year attendees.” - John

And some wanted the fairness of the fixture addressed.

“A good start would be to arrange fixtures so all teams play all others an equal number of times. I don’t suppose there’s any hope that some protected [Victorian] teams will be forced to play away from their hallowed grounds the way interstate teams must? It’s still the VFL with other states invited to help fill the coffers.” - Wally

“Fixture fairness – so called ‘traditional’ blockbuster games [reduce] the fairness of the competition. With the odd number of teams in the competition if they can’t play each other once or twice per season the top six teams should play each other twice and each of the other teams once. The middle group of six should play each other twice and the others once. The same for the bottom six.” - Michael

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Morrissey Breen
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Post by Morrissey Breen
‘Ruining the sport’: What readers want the AFL to change
February 20, 2022 — 1.50pm
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/ruining-the-sport-what-readers-want-the-afl-to-change-20220220-p59y01.html
In late 2021, the AFL Fans Association undertook a survey of more than 800 people to find out what they felt the burning issues were for supporters. The results? More than a third were worried about the proliferation of gambling advertising; some called for the stand rule to be abolished; others were tired of rule changes and wanted clearer umpiring interpretations.
Those topics were far and away the most common response when The Age opened the floor for readers to have their say on the issue they most wanted the league to address. An overwhelming majority wanted an end to gambling advertising and sponsorships. Some responses have been edited for brevity.
Gambling advertising was a key concern for many readers.
Gambling advertising was a key concern for many readers.CREDIT:AFL PHOTOS
‘Cruel and greedy’
“Remove the gambling ads. How disgraceful that the one of the biggest financial generators for the AFL is this insidious gambling industry. You cannot watch the game or any sport without the gambling ads and promoters peddling the wares. Gambling is a personal choice, but unfortunately there are consequences, and when so much money is involved, the only ones to profit are the vested interest. Horses, dogs are also victims.” - Paula
“Gambling ads need to be dropped. It is at such a high level that it will be encouraging many of our young and people in general to gamble.” - Derek
“No more advertising of gambling ‘opportunities’. If people want to gamble, they will, but it is cruel and greedy to advertise it in the high emotion atmosphere that surrounds live games or televised games. Please get rid of it. It targets problem gamblers and young people with anonymity.” - Victoria
“Gambling advertising – it endorses an activity that causes great social harm in Australia. One of the attractive aspects of attending an AFL match or watching/listening to an AFL broadcast is to see that for many fans it is still a family activity. Gambling ads normalise ‘having a punt’ as part of following AFL and there will be a section of the audience who are introduced to gambling in this way. Although I think that the prospect of match fixing in AFL is low, being able to bet on who will kick the first goal etc could lead to the corruption of some players.” - Jay
“Stop gambling promotion about odds being part of commentators’ information to public. It just normalises gambling.” - Deborah
“Ban betting advertising on television, print, radio and at stadiums, it is not having a positive impact on young children and young adults. I no longer enjoy watching it; as a parent it is irresponsible to allow my child to see consistent advertising/commentary on betting. They are normalising gambling and encouraging it as if it is necessary to enjoy the game. I don’t understand how this is allowed. ” - Teresa
“Remove gambling adds – it is exactly the same as tobacco advertising in sports in the past when that was banned in 1976 due to the enormous societal impact. Even my teenage children notice them and think they are harmful and there are too many.” - J
RELATED ARTICLE
Fan survey
AFL 2022
‘Stop promoting gambling:’ Betting ads a burning issue in AFL fan survey
Some readers thought the problem with advertising gambling extended to other areas, including alcohol and junk food.
“Gambling advertising in media and hoardings around grounds to cease immediately. AFL to cease advertising junk food and junk drinks. The same goes for gambling sponsorship. Also, all of the above should apply to alcohol sponsorship.” - Warwick
And the sentiment was that sponsorship as well as advertising should be addressed.
“Cease all association with gambling, including sponsorship deals and advertising. Eradicate it from the sport, please. It is ruining the sport.” - Richard
“Advertising on gambling in any form should be banned. The AFL should mandate this in its commercial arrangements.” - Ron
“I appreciate the AFL needs sponsors, but facilitating gambling agencies to hammer kids with these adds, simply in order to line their pockets, is abhorrent. The consequences of this will last generations.” - Mark
‘Rules change every year’
Rule changes and officiating were also hot topics among readers, but the sentiment was mixed. Some people wanted rules changed, while others have had enough of modifications.
RELATED ARTICLE
Umpiring and rule changes formed a key concern in the AFL Fans Association survey.
AFL 2022
Fans take a stand on rule changes, commentary and curtain raisers
“[The AFL should change] the stand rule and nominating for ruck contests, it slows the game down and goes back to Auskick rules.” - Ian
“Remove the stand and ruck nomination rules, remove ‘six-six-six’ ... Scoring has reduced since these rules came in.” - Brendan
But not everyone was opposed to the stand rule.
“The stand rule is to me probably the best rule for opening the game up that has been tried and works – game flow is decluttered and better to watch.” - Patrick
Some wanted a change to 50-metre penalties.
“Fifty-metre penalty is excessive and punishes what are often very minor infringements to a ridiculous degree often resulting in a certain goal. Spoils the spectacle for me. Twenty-metre penalty would be more appropriate.” - Carlos
Others had different solutions for similar problems. Sam wanted the league to get “more flow or movement into the game, opening up play so talented players can display skills”. But John called for more free kicks to be paid. “Push in the back, holding the ball. Too many instances where these result in ball-ups.”
And how to relieve the pressure on umpires? Stop making so many changes and remove the need for interpretation.
“It’s no wonder the umpires are criticised so frequently, when rules change every year. They are forced to adjudicate new or changed rules every year. No more rule changes unless it is absolutely necessary.” - Masher
“Scrap prior opportunity, just give ball possessor three seconds to legally dispose of the ball when legally tackled. No interpretation needed.” - Dave
“... Confine ‘prior opportunity’ to only a bad memory.” - Bill
“... There have [been] more changes to rules in the last 20 years than the previous 50 years. Now we have rules made to undo the consequences of previous rule changes.” - David
“Overall, if a rule can’t be applied ‘by the book’ and not subject to a myriad of interpretations it would be better off being scrapped. Often former player commentators talk about a play being “technically” a free kick, but suggesting the umpire could have let it go. If it doesn’t matter, scrap the rule. The closer we can get to a simpler decision the better off we will be.” - Rod
And some readers had other suggestions.
“The running through the protected area rule should only be applied if it clearly has impeded the ball carrier. Even if a player was impacted the 50-metre penalty is too great and should be reduced to 25 metres.” - Marshall
“Give the player who attacks the ball a chance to make the play. This reward the tackler approach is rubbish! If I want to watch a game of no stop tackling being ‘rewarded’ I will become a rugby league fan.” - Ian
Readers had an issue with interpretation of rules as well as rule changes.
Readers had an issue with interpretation of rules as well as rule changes.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
“Scraping the post or touching the ball as it goes through the goals. The camera work and quality is not good enough for the purpose and it makes little sense to agonise through the process. If it goes through the big sticks it’s a goal. If it goes through the small sticks it’s a point. If it bounces back into play it is play on. Simple.” - Ron
‘Reduce the volume’
Lots of readers were unhappy with how quarter- and half-time breaks are filled with noise. Nick‘s No.1 concern was “incessant, high-volume ‘entertainment’“. Matt’s was “loud music and ads between quarters”. Most just wanted to be able to chat to family and friends.
“Reduce the volume of the ‘entertainment’. Time was we used to like talking before the game and half-time. We can also get rid of the constant changes in fluro advertising, plus we don’t need three tiers of illuminated banners to tell us a goal has been kicked.” - David
“Noisy entertainment which interferes with ability to socialise with family and friends because we can’t hear each other. Revolving advertising is disturbing for people with migraines and other sensory disabilities.” - Bernadette
“Stop the loud, LOUD ‘entertainment’ at the end of each quarter. Just let us interact and chat and be social with people in the crowd around us. We can’t, because there’s non-stop music and announcements at high decibel levels ruining our time at the footy. It’s a total turn off. I know many people who don’t go any more because of it. God help people with tinnitus, hearing aids or brain injuries. It’s noise pollution, is what it is, not entertainment.” - Mary
‘Members do the hard yards’
RELATED ARTICLE
Rule changes have irked footy fans.
Opinion
AFL 2022
Footy fans have spoken, and they’ve had plenty to say
Greg Baum
Greg Baum
Sports columnist
Many readers also took issue with ticketing and grand final access.
Linda wanted the grand final moved around the country (it is contracted to be played at the MCG until the late 2050s). Noreen wanted a more simple way to buy tickets for her team’s away games. Christine wanted more grand final tickets available for members of competing clubs, “NOT funnelled off to corporates who don’t necessarily support either team. We long-term (and long-suffering) members do the hard yards all season, every season, and should be able to see our team’s ultimate triumph in person.”
“Stop selling tickets for finals and go back to first in, best dressed until the ground is full. This means those who are there are real fans and not corporates or once-a-year attendees.” - John
And some wanted the fairness of the fixture addressed.
“A good start would be to arrange fixtures so all teams play all others an equal number of times. I don’t suppose there’s any hope that some protected [Victorian] teams will be forced to play away from their hallowed grounds the way interstate teams must? It’s still the VFL with other states invited to help fill the coffers.” - Wally
“Fixture fairness – so called ‘traditional’ blockbuster games [reduce] the fairness of the competition. With the odd number of teams in the competition if they can’t play each other once or twice per season the top six teams should play each other twice and each of the other teams once. The middle group of six should play each other twice and the others once. The same for the bottom six.” - Michael
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Mon, Feb 14, 2022, 09:47
https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/tv-view-unleash-graeme-souness-on-these-animal-hating-low-lives-1.4801333
Mary Hannigan
2
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday. Photograph: AMA/Corbis via Getty Images
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday. Photograph: AMA/Corbis via Getty Images

“Sometimes, maybe, God’s on your side,” said Kilcoo’s Eugene Branagan when TG4’s Micheál O’Domhnaill asked him to explain, for all that’s good and holy, how his team had managed to beat Kilmacud Crokes in the All-Ireland club final when their hopes had been given the last rites more than once in the course of the contest.
And divine intervention, as it proved, was kind of the theme of the sporting day, not least when it came to analysing Ireland’s what-might-have-been trip to Paris.
The learnings?
Rob Kearney, doffing his cap to Joey Carbery’s efforts, had no doubt. “I think the most important thing we’ve learnt is that Ireland have a rugby team without Johnny Sexton, which is a big plus,” he said.
Shane Horgan?
“With Sexton at 10, Ireland would have won that game.”
Rob and his Virgin Media teammate Matt Williams thought this was decidedly harsh, not least on Joey, but Shane wouldn’t budge from his belief if the deity that is Johnny was on the pitch instead of spectating, then Ireland would have been home and hosed.
“A missed opportunity,” he said of the game, although Matt pointed out that Ireland “went toe to toe with the heavyweight champion of the world” and only lost on points. “That’s all you can bloody lose on in rugby,” Shane didn’t say, but he was thinking it.
Joe Molloy tried to cheer Shane up by telling him that the final of The Masked Singer was coming up on Virgin Media, but while that had Rob and Matt quite excited, Shane was unmoved.
“A missed opportunity,” he said again, Ireland’s Grand Slam hopes down the Swanee, but come Sunday Rob tried to reassure him that most probably France wouldn’t win the Grand Slam either because “they were no outstanding shakes themselves yesterday”.

Souness sticks up for the cat
The outstanding shakes, as it turned out, were to be found in Sky Sports’ Super Sunday studio where Graeme Souness pulverised the wretched excuse for a human being that is Kurt Zouma.
It was last September, when Sky brought us “the world’s first ever net zero carbon football match”, that Graeme revealed himself to be a highly passionate animal lover, a revelation that some of us never saw coming. It’s not that he isn’t most probably a good man, it’s just that you wouldn’t necessarily expect this level of empathy from someone who saw opposing shins as legitimate targets in the course of their playing career. Although, admittedly, it’s hard to find a seamless link here.
The mere mention of Zouma’s name, then, was never going to go down well.
“We don’t know what he’s been through,” said Jamie Carragher when news filtered through that Zouma had dropped out of the West Ham team due to play Leicester. “Not as much as the cat went through,” said Graeme, his cheek muscles flexing so violently, Jamie looked scared. Micah Richards too.
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday.
“I wouldn’t have played him again this year,” he said, “if I was a player I wouldn’t want to be in the same dressing room with him, I would not want him around the place.”
His emotions hadn’t eased come full-time in the game - “I’d love to see him pursued in court, I think what he’s guilty of is outrageous behaviour that goes beyond the pale” - Micah, quite heroically, daring to debate him, pointing out that there are convicted murderers back out on the streets again. He did, then, believe banning Zouma until the end of the season would be too harsh a punishment.

“Would you allow him to have another cat in his house,” Graeme asked him. By now, Micah would have been afraid to enter Graeme’s house.
Graeme Souness? Legend.
Meanwhile, over on Sky Sports News, word was filtering through about a video showing former eventing Olympic champion Sir Mark Todd whipping a horse 10 times with a branch to try and force it through a water obstacle.
Truly, our world is screwed. It needs divine intervention. Or Graeme Souness to be allowed deal with these low-lives.
Topics:
Eugene Branagan
Graeme Souness
Jamie Carragher
Joey Carbery
Kurt Zouma
Matt Williams
Rob Kearney
Shane Horgan
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VJ

VJDevine
6 DAYS AGO
Souness, hard man but top cat, great analyst.
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MI

michael1
6 DAYS AGO
There was none of the "Wretched Excuse for a Human Being" when one of our own "Media Darling" Jockeys was caught punching a Horse in The Head several times.
As for Souness... hes done more damage to Human Beings on the Pitch than Zouma did to the unfortunate Cat... what he did was grossly wrong..but that doesent make him Jack the Ripper.
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Morrissey Breen
2022-02-25 11:54:11 UTC
Permalink
Post by Morrissey Breen
Post by Morrissey Breen
‘Ruining the sport’: What readers want the AFL to change
February 20, 2022 — 1.50pm
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/ruining-the-sport-what-readers-want-the-afl-to-change-20220220-p59y01.html
In late 2021, the AFL Fans Association undertook a survey of more than 800 people to find out what they felt the burning issues were for supporters. The results? More than a third were worried about the proliferation of gambling advertising; some called for the stand rule to be abolished; others were tired of rule changes and wanted clearer umpiring interpretations.
Those topics were far and away the most common response when The Age opened the floor for readers to have their say on the issue they most wanted the league to address. An overwhelming majority wanted an end to gambling advertising and sponsorships. Some responses have been edited for brevity.
Gambling advertising was a key concern for many readers.
Gambling advertising was a key concern for many readers.CREDIT:AFL PHOTOS
‘Cruel and greedy’
“Remove the gambling ads. How disgraceful that the one of the biggest financial generators for the AFL is this insidious gambling industry. You cannot watch the game or any sport without the gambling ads and promoters peddling the wares. Gambling is a personal choice, but unfortunately there are consequences, and when so much money is involved, the only ones to profit are the vested interest. Horses, dogs are also victims.” - Paula
“Gambling ads need to be dropped. It is at such a high level that it will be encouraging many of our young and people in general to gamble.” - Derek
“No more advertising of gambling ‘opportunities’. If people want to gamble, they will, but it is cruel and greedy to advertise it in the high emotion atmosphere that surrounds live games or televised games. Please get rid of it. It targets problem gamblers and young people with anonymity.” - Victoria
“Gambling advertising – it endorses an activity that causes great social harm in Australia. One of the attractive aspects of attending an AFL match or watching/listening to an AFL broadcast is to see that for many fans it is still a family activity. Gambling ads normalise ‘having a punt’ as part of following AFL and there will be a section of the audience who are introduced to gambling in this way. Although I think that the prospect of match fixing in AFL is low, being able to bet on who will kick the first goal etc could lead to the corruption of some players.” - Jay
“Stop gambling promotion about odds being part of commentators’ information to public. It just normalises gambling.” - Deborah
“Ban betting advertising on television, print, radio and at stadiums, it is not having a positive impact on young children and young adults. I no longer enjoy watching it; as a parent it is irresponsible to allow my child to see consistent advertising/commentary on betting. They are normalising gambling and encouraging it as if it is necessary to enjoy the game. I don’t understand how this is allowed. ” - Teresa
“Remove gambling adds – it is exactly the same as tobacco advertising in sports in the past when that was banned in 1976 due to the enormous societal impact. Even my teenage children notice them and think they are harmful and there are too many.” - J
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‘Stop promoting gambling:’ Betting ads a burning issue in AFL fan survey
Some readers thought the problem with advertising gambling extended to other areas, including alcohol and junk food.
“Gambling advertising in media and hoardings around grounds to cease immediately. AFL to cease advertising junk food and junk drinks. The same goes for gambling sponsorship. Also, all of the above should apply to alcohol sponsorship.” - Warwick
And the sentiment was that sponsorship as well as advertising should be addressed.
“Cease all association with gambling, including sponsorship deals and advertising. Eradicate it from the sport, please. It is ruining the sport.” - Richard
“Advertising on gambling in any form should be banned. The AFL should mandate this in its commercial arrangements.” - Ron
“I appreciate the AFL needs sponsors, but facilitating gambling agencies to hammer kids with these adds, simply in order to line their pockets, is abhorrent. The consequences of this will last generations.” - Mark
‘Rules change every year’
Rule changes and officiating were also hot topics among readers, but the sentiment was mixed. Some people wanted rules changed, while others have had enough of modifications.
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“[The AFL should change] the stand rule and nominating for ruck contests, it slows the game down and goes back to Auskick rules.” - Ian
“Remove the stand and ruck nomination rules, remove ‘six-six-six’ ... Scoring has reduced since these rules came in.” - Brendan
But not everyone was opposed to the stand rule.
“The stand rule is to me probably the best rule for opening the game up that has been tried and works – game flow is decluttered and better to watch.” - Patrick
Some wanted a change to 50-metre penalties.
“Fifty-metre penalty is excessive and punishes what are often very minor infringements to a ridiculous degree often resulting in a certain goal. Spoils the spectacle for me. Twenty-metre penalty would be more appropriate.” - Carlos
Others had different solutions for similar problems. Sam wanted the league to get “more flow or movement into the game, opening up play so talented players can display skills”. But John called for more free kicks to be paid. “Push in the back, holding the ball. Too many instances where these result in ball-ups.”
And how to relieve the pressure on umpires? Stop making so many changes and remove the need for interpretation.
“It’s no wonder the umpires are criticised so frequently, when rules change every year. They are forced to adjudicate new or changed rules every year. No more rule changes unless it is absolutely necessary.” - Masher
“Scrap prior opportunity, just give ball possessor three seconds to legally dispose of the ball when legally tackled. No interpretation needed.” - Dave
“... Confine ‘prior opportunity’ to only a bad memory.” - Bill
“... There have [been] more changes to rules in the last 20 years than the previous 50 years. Now we have rules made to undo the consequences of previous rule changes.” - David
“Overall, if a rule can’t be applied ‘by the book’ and not subject to a myriad of interpretations it would be better off being scrapped. Often former player commentators talk about a play being “technically” a free kick, but suggesting the umpire could have let it go. If it doesn’t matter, scrap the rule. The closer we can get to a simpler decision the better off we will be.” - Rod
And some readers had other suggestions.
“The running through the protected area rule should only be applied if it clearly has impeded the ball carrier. Even if a player was impacted the 50-metre penalty is too great and should be reduced to 25 metres.” - Marshall
“Give the player who attacks the ball a chance to make the play. This reward the tackler approach is rubbish! If I want to watch a game of no stop tackling being ‘rewarded’ I will become a rugby league fan.” - Ian
Readers had an issue with interpretation of rules as well as rule changes.
Readers had an issue with interpretation of rules as well as rule changes.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
“Scraping the post or touching the ball as it goes through the goals. The camera work and quality is not good enough for the purpose and it makes little sense to agonise through the process. If it goes through the big sticks it’s a goal. If it goes through the small sticks it’s a point. If it bounces back into play it is play on. Simple.” - Ron
‘Reduce the volume’
Lots of readers were unhappy with how quarter- and half-time breaks are filled with noise. Nick‘s No.1 concern was “incessant, high-volume ‘entertainment’“. Matt’s was “loud music and ads between quarters”. Most just wanted to be able to chat to family and friends.
“Reduce the volume of the ‘entertainment’. Time was we used to like talking before the game and half-time. We can also get rid of the constant changes in fluro advertising, plus we don’t need three tiers of illuminated banners to tell us a goal has been kicked.” - David
“Noisy entertainment which interferes with ability to socialise with family and friends because we can’t hear each other. Revolving advertising is disturbing for people with migraines and other sensory disabilities.” - Bernadette
“Stop the loud, LOUD ‘entertainment’ at the end of each quarter. Just let us interact and chat and be social with people in the crowd around us. We can’t, because there’s non-stop music and announcements at high decibel levels ruining our time at the footy. It’s a total turn off. I know many people who don’t go any more because of it. God help people with tinnitus, hearing aids or brain injuries. It’s noise pollution, is what it is, not entertainment.” - Mary
‘Members do the hard yards’
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Opinion
AFL 2022
Footy fans have spoken, and they’ve had plenty to say
Greg Baum
Greg Baum
Sports columnist
Many readers also took issue with ticketing and grand final access.
Linda wanted the grand final moved around the country (it is contracted to be played at the MCG until the late 2050s). Noreen wanted a more simple way to buy tickets for her team’s away games. Christine wanted more grand final tickets available for members of competing clubs, “NOT funnelled off to corporates who don’t necessarily support either team. We long-term (and long-suffering) members do the hard yards all season, every season, and should be able to see our team’s ultimate triumph in person.”
“Stop selling tickets for finals and go back to first in, best dressed until the ground is full. This means those who are there are real fans and not corporates or once-a-year attendees.” - John
And some wanted the fairness of the fixture addressed.
“A good start would be to arrange fixtures so all teams play all others an equal number of times. I don’t suppose there’s any hope that some protected [Victorian] teams will be forced to play away from their hallowed grounds the way interstate teams must? It’s still the VFL with other states invited to help fill the coffers.” - Wally
“Fixture fairness – so called ‘traditional’ blockbuster games [reduce] the fairness of the competition. With the odd number of teams in the competition if they can’t play each other once or twice per season the top six teams should play each other twice and each of the other teams once. The middle group of six should play each other twice and the others once. The same for the bottom six.” - Michael
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Divine intervention in Kilcoo; Shane Horgan worships at the altar of Johnny Sexton
Mon, Feb 14, 2022, 09:47
https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/tv-view-unleash-graeme-souness-on-these-animal-hating-low-lives-1.4801333
Mary Hannigan
2
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday. Photograph: AMA/Corbis via Getty Images
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday. Photograph: AMA/Corbis via Getty Images
“Sometimes, maybe, God’s on your side,” said Kilcoo’s Eugene Branagan when TG4’s Micheál O’Domhnaill asked him to explain, for all that’s good and holy, how his team had managed to beat Kilmacud Crokes in the All-Ireland club final when their hopes had been given the last rites more than once in the course of the contest.
And divine intervention, as it proved, was kind of the theme of the sporting day, not least when it came to analysing Ireland’s what-might-have-been trip to Paris.
The learnings?
Rob Kearney, doffing his cap to Joey Carbery’s efforts, had no doubt. “I think the most important thing we’ve learnt is that Ireland have a rugby team without Johnny Sexton, which is a big plus,” he said.
Shane Horgan?
“With Sexton at 10, Ireland would have won that game.”
Rob and his Virgin Media teammate Matt Williams thought this was decidedly harsh, not least on Joey, but Shane wouldn’t budge from his belief if the deity that is Johnny was on the pitch instead of spectating, then Ireland would have been home and hosed.
“A missed opportunity,” he said of the game, although Matt pointed out that Ireland “went toe to toe with the heavyweight champion of the world” and only lost on points. “That’s all you can bloody lose on in rugby,” Shane didn’t say, but he was thinking it.
Joe Molloy tried to cheer Shane up by telling him that the final of The Masked Singer was coming up on Virgin Media, but while that had Rob and Matt quite excited, Shane was unmoved.
“A missed opportunity,” he said again, Ireland’s Grand Slam hopes down the Swanee, but come Sunday Rob tried to reassure him that most probably France wouldn’t win the Grand Slam either because “they were no outstanding shakes themselves yesterday”.
Souness sticks up for the cat
The outstanding shakes, as it turned out, were to be found in Sky Sports’ Super Sunday studio where Graeme Souness pulverised the wretched excuse for a human being that is Kurt Zouma.
It was last September, when Sky brought us “the world’s first ever net zero carbon football match”, that Graeme revealed himself to be a highly passionate animal lover, a revelation that some of us never saw coming. It’s not that he isn’t most probably a good man, it’s just that you wouldn’t necessarily expect this level of empathy from someone who saw opposing shins as legitimate targets in the course of their playing career. Although, admittedly, it’s hard to find a seamless link here.
The mere mention of Zouma’s name, then, was never going to go down well.
“We don’t know what he’s been through,” said Jamie Carragher when news filtered through that Zouma had dropped out of the West Ham team due to play Leicester. “Not as much as the cat went through,” said Graeme, his cheek muscles flexing so violently, Jamie looked scared. Micah Richards too.
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday.
“I wouldn’t have played him again this year,” he said, “if I was a player I wouldn’t want to be in the same dressing room with him, I would not want him around the place.”
His emotions hadn’t eased come full-time in the game - “I’d love to see him pursued in court, I think what he’s guilty of is outrageous behaviour that goes beyond the pale” - Micah, quite heroically, daring to debate him, pointing out that there are convicted murderers back out on the streets again. He did, then, believe banning Zouma until the end of the season would be too harsh a punishment.
“Would you allow him to have another cat in his house,” Graeme asked him. By now, Micah would have been afraid to enter Graeme’s house.
Graeme Souness? Legend.
Meanwhile, over on Sky Sports News, word was filtering through about a video showing former eventing Olympic champion Sir Mark Todd whipping a horse 10 times with a branch to try and force it through a water obstacle.
Truly, our world is screwed. It needs divine intervention. Or Graeme Souness to be allowed deal with these low-lives.
Eugene Branagan
Graeme Souness
Jamie Carragher
Joey Carbery
Kurt Zouma
Matt Williams
Rob Kearney
Shane Horgan
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ALL COMMENTS 2
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VJ
VJDevine
6 DAYS AGO
Souness, hard man but top cat, great analyst.
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MI
michael1
6 DAYS AGO
There was none of the "Wretched Excuse for a Human Being" when one of our own "Media Darling" Jockeys was caught punching a Horse in The Head several times.
As for Souness... hes done more damage to Human Beings on the Pitch than Zouma did to the unfortunate Cat... what he did was grossly wrong..but that doesent make him Jack the Ripper.
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‘Due for another realignment’: Retired great weighs in on AFL’s major umpire move
Melbourne thump Roos by 88 points!
Melbourne thump Roos by 88 points! | 01:29

Tom Morris
Tom Morris from Fox Sports
@tommorris32
February 25th, 2022 1:16 pm
The VFL/AFL games record holder for umpires has called on the league to punish “subtle” acts of dissent from players with 50 metre penalties and free kicks.

Earlier this week the AFL sent a memo to clubs outlining the importance for respect towards umpires.

Stream every match of every round of the 2022 Toyota AFL Premiership Season Live & Ad-Break Free In Play on Kayo. New to Kayo? Try 14-days free now.

The instruction was interpreted by some clubs as a crackdown, with umpires instructed to uphold a less tolerant approach when players dispute decisions.

Round 1
Pointsbet
AFL
Mar 18 7:25pm AEST
FT
Richmond
Richmond
105
Carlton
80
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 19 7:50pm AEST
FT
Collingwood
53
Bulldogs
69
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 20 1:45pm AEST
FT
Melbourne
80
Fremantle
58
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 20 4:35pm AEST
FT
Adelaide
103
Geelong
91
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 20 7:25pm AEST
FT
Essendon
91
Hawthorn
92
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94
Sydney
125
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65
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Port Adelaide
117
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78
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86
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58
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Shane McInerney, who umpired 500 matches between 1994 and 2019 including two Grand Finals, praised the memo as a necessary “reset.”

Speaking to foxfooty.com.au, McInerney detailed three scenarios which he believes should now result in a penalty.

“We are due for another realignment I think,” McInerney said.


“The players have worked out what demonstrative abuse looks like and I think we need to reset what we actually mean by good umpire/player relationships.

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Retired umpire Shane McInerney believes the new memo sent from the AFL was needed. (AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Retired umpire Shane McInerney believes the new memo sent from the AFL was needed. (AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Source: AAP
“In a situation like deliberate out of bounds where three or four players will stand around appealing with their arms out, that’s not a good look for the game and not what we want to see. I’d penalise that.

“We see forwards getting free kicks and the defending standing and pointing at the big screen. That’s not a good look for the sport.

“I think it is important that players can ask questions on why certain decisions are made. By and large that does happen. There are a few more habits that have crept in that the game doesn’t need. It’s a distraction that serves to embarrass or undermine an umpire’s authority.”

And the third example?

“Sometimes there are two or three defenders wanting to have their two bobs worth,” McInerney continued.

“That’s not on. The umpire has a job to do at that point in time.”

In the AFL’s note to clubs, executive general manager Andrew Dillon praised the sacrifices players and staff have made across the past two seasons.

But in reviewing the 2021 season, he said there were “a number of instances” where the “AFL community” fell short of certain standards relating to sportsmanship and respect for umpires.

“The AFL and its clubs have a unique leadership role in the community, and with that role comes responsibility. Disrespect towards umpires is an issue at all levels of football and has no place,” Dillon said.

McInerney is hoping to see more respect displayed to umpires. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
McInerney is hoping to see more respect displayed to umpires. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Source: Getty Images
“We are 6,000 umpires short at the community football level and it is incumbent on us to set the right example at the elite level so we can encourage and retain umpires across the country to best support the rapidly growing player participation base.”

While McInerney believes a correlation exists between the top level and local football, he argued the issue is not finding umpires, rather it is retaining them.

He also declared the changes made by the AFL have the potential to filter down quickly.

“I think what happens at the AFL level plays a role in umpire shortage, but I don’t think there is a direct correlation,” he said.

“There has been an explosion in women’s footy and that has placed a demand on all sorts of components with grounds, facilities, coaches and so forth.

“In my view, I’ve always understood that it’s not about attracting people to umpiring – lots of people like to give it a go – I think it’s more around the retention. The match day experience goes a long way to ensure that you can have retention of umpires.”

He added: “The response is a pretty quick response. Invariably when the AFL makes a change to a Law or an interpretation, spectators think at the lower level think that’s how their games will be officiated. Those competitions pick up really quickly.

“It’s something that could be achieved this coming season.”

On Friday morning, North Melbourne great and Fox Footy expert David King cautioned against any significant changes to interpretations around umpire feedback.

David King cautioned against major changes to interpretations around umpire feedback. Picture: Hamish Blair
David King cautioned against major changes to interpretations around umpire feedback. Picture: Hamish Blair
Source: Herald Sun
“The abuse of the umpire being an instant 50m penalty, I don’t believe AFL players ever abuse an umpire, they may be angry with a decision at a given point in time and they may be frustrated and say something but it’s not to abuse or belittle an umpire,” King said on SEN Breakfast.

“It’s an act that’s gone in three seconds, it’s always been a part of our game and it’s never been a problem, don’t tell me that if it comes from over the fence in lesser games or at junior footy, this is something in my opinion that has been overplayed.

“There were two 50m penalties paid yesterday that I thought ‘gee-whiz that’s really tough’, the players not standing there abusing the umpires, they’re questioning the decision, it’s going to bring significant backlash.

“Put it right in your diary now, it’ll be the most talked-about thing on a Monday morning in three weeks’ time about someone getting a 50m for saying ‘you can’t pay that Ray’.”


McInerney said one of the challenges for umpires is disregarding their own subjective perspective on player feedback.

“In our game, yes we can have personalities,” he continued.

“But everyone is interpreting the same part of the law as each other. This area is no different. It’s not about what certain personalities can or can’t handle. No. It’s about the role of the umpire and how the players engage with that person in their role.

“There is no room for umpires to take into account whether they can handle it or can’t. I can’t stress that enough. That is not what this is about.”

18.8.2 Free Kicks – Umpires

A field Umpire shall award a Free Kick against a Player or Official who:

(a) uses abusive, insulting, threatening or obscene language towards an Umpire;

(b) behaves in an abusive, insulting, threatening or obscene manner towards an Umpire;

(c) intentionally, unreasonably or carelessly makes contact with an Umpire;

(d) disputes a decision of an Umpire;

(e) fails to follow the instruction of an Umpire; or

(f) intentionally or carelessly engages in conduct which affects, interferes with or prevents an Umpire from performing their duties.

https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/due-for-another-realignment-retired-great-weighs-in-on-afls-great-umpire-debate/news-story/c8319c342aff5f772e15f13d8fee78bd
Morrissey Breen
2022-02-25 11:59:23 UTC
Permalink
Good Weekend
This was published 10 months ago

Craig Hutchison is building a sports media empire – but not everyone’s a fan

Shallow, manipulative snake-oil salesman or “horribly admirable” builder of Australia’s version of ESPN? Meet Craig Hutchison, the university dropout turned journalist who’s not playing games.

By Konrad Marshall
APRIL 12, 2021
Craig Hutchison: “It can be easy to criticise when your name is not attached, I get that. I’ve dished it out along the way on air and need to accept that goes with the territory. I am clearly not everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s okay.”
Craig Hutchison: “It can be easy to criticise when your name is not attached, I get that. I’ve dished it out along the way on air and need to accept that goes with the territory. I am clearly not everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s okay.”CREDIT:KRISTOFFER PAULSEN. STYLING BY ELLA MURPHY. BASKETBALLS BY AUSA HOOPS, OTHER SPORTING EQUIPMENT FROM REBEL SPORT AND THE CRICKET WAREHOUSE.
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In a private bar at the “Paris End” of Collins Street in Melbourne, the Stella Artois is flowing and the banter is blowing as a server with strawberry blonde curls, wearing a pink cheerleader uniform, is handing out mini hotdogs. It’s 10am on a Monday in February, and as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers play the Kansas City Chiefs in the US Super Bowl, a girthy middle-aged viewer goads his mate into another schooner: “C’arn, ya soft cock!”

The room is well-fed and well-lubricated, well-heeled and well-connected, filled with alpha males from real estate and finance, Lottoland and McDonald’s, and the sprawling tentacles of the sports industry. Former AFL executive Richard Simkiss chats with retired Philadelphia Eagles punter Saverio Rocca. Heavyweight player agent Paul Connors catches up with veteran broadcaster Dwayne Russell. Melbourne Cup-winning trainer Danny O’Brien says g’day to Melbourne Racing Club chairman Mike Symons.

They’re here because of their mate, their host, the big bald guy in the blue suit, 6 foot 3 with a waistline he’s trying to tighten, who has more power than all of them combined. It’s Craig Hutchison, known in this city since the 1990s as a dogged and combative journalist, now a canny and ruthless businessman.

“Hutchy”, 46, is chief executive and majority shareholder of the Sports Entertainment Network, a company he created 15 years ago as a tiny PR agency named Crocmedia, which later morphed into a prolific creator of syndicated sports radio content and is now a byzantine beast that owns and operates 21 radio stations across Australia, with broadcast rights to the AFL, NRL, soccer, cricket, basketball and more. With about $70 million in annual revenue, it has turned this country boy and university dropout into a millionaire media mogul.

His portfolio is busily diversifying, too, including into TV production (Rainmaker) and talent (Bravo Management), boutique events (Ballpark Entertainment) and publishing (AFL Record). It also now, inevitably, owns part of a sporting team (National Basketball League club Melbourne United). After more than a decade of incremental acquisitions and mergers, Hutchison has built a national sports media empire – from scratch, by stealth.

When Hutchison started his journalism cadetship at the Herald Sun in 1993, he was the odd man out among his peers, says one former colleague. “Look where he’s at now – a millionaire, and the most high-profile of us all.”
When Hutchison started his journalism cadetship at the Herald Sun in 1993, he was the odd man out among his peers, says one former colleague. “Look where he’s at now – a millionaire, and the most high-profile of us all.”CREDIT:COURTESY OF CRAIG HUTCHISON
But what of the man himself? To some he’s just another loudmouth in Melbourne’s vaudevillian sporting tradition – the front-bar pundit who throws the first punch then sits back and watches the fight. “He’s a superb contrarian,” notes Monash University sports academic Tom Heenan. “There’s actually something horribly admirable about him.”


His niggling, needling persona – on full display in programs like Footy Classified (produced by Nine, the publisher of Good Weekend) – draws more than a little ire, as do the commercial grievances against his company, from exploiting interns to mass sackings (more on those later). Just ask a few of his sports media contemporaries about old mate Hutchy.

They spit their insults: “He’s a corporate thug.” They bemoan his influence: “He’s a shallow, manipulative snake oil salesman, whose ascent is actually doing irreparable damage to the sporting media.” The aggrieved often seem amused by him ... until they’re not: “He picked me off in the most offensive way,” mutters one journalistic target. “It confirmed what I’d always thought of him but had never had said – that he’s a piece of shit.”

For Hutchison, such attacks seem to bemuse more than aggravate. “Those whacks are a little sharper than I expected, but I would assume they’ve come from footy journalists, and unfortunately our media can be a contact sport at times,” he says. “I would be certain those quotes don’t come from anyone we’ve ever worked with from a partnership and business perspective. And everyone’s entitled to a view – it can be easy to criticise when your name is not attached, I get that. I’ve dished it out along the way on air and need to accept that goes with the territory. I am clearly not everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s okay.”

He also seems an unknown quantity, even to some who know him well. “I had this unsubstantiated theory that he’s actually a Scientologist, because there’s this utterly secretive nature to what he does,” says one former colleague. “He’s one of the smartest people I’ve met, but a total mystery.”

“The only way to underestimate him today would be not paying attention, or be set against him for reasons of jealousy or bitterness. Doubt away, but watch him build it.”
Hutchison once mused of his nascent company, “I’d love to be News Corp.” Facetious perhaps, yet industry watchers ponder what this chaos-maker can do in our fractured media landscape, as he gobbles up cheap radio stations in capital cities and regional towns, fills them with sport – not just the big leagues but lawn bowls, hockey, athletics and more – then streams and podcasts and digitises the lot, stitching it all together into a vast patchwork quilt of frequencies, apps and “synergistic value propositions” for advertisers keen to align themselves with the games Australians play.

Once primarily a Victoria-centric operator, Hutchison’s business has in the past year pushed north, heavily, with new stations in NSW and Queensland chasing audiences that follow the Steeden and the Gilbert more than the Sherrin, while securing the rights not just to Super Rugby and the rugby league season but State of Origin, too, the latter to feed a growing appetite for programs under his “NRL Nation” banner.


His endgame is not so much world domination as constant, creeping growth, like a weed insinuating itself into every monetisable open patch of the national media landscape. “It’s trying to see how far we can go, how far we can take it,” he says. “Sport is our fairway, and I feel like we’re just getting started.”

He has momentum. “There are people in play who are taking him very seriously,” says Jake Challenor, publisher of trade website Radio Today. Australian radio programming doyen Craig Bruce won’t bet against Hutchison either: “If anyone can sell the vision of an Australian version of ESPN, it’s him.”

With new scale and reach, perceptions are shifting, at least according to his star employee, Australia’s preeminent sports broadcaster, Gerard Whateley. “The sum total of Hutchy just isn’t the shop window,” Whateley says. “The only way to underestimate him today would be not paying attention, or be set against him for reasons of jealousy or bitterness. Doubt away, but watch him build it.”

And Hutchy himself? He knows he polarises. People like him, he says, or they really, really don’t. “No one seems to sit on the fence,” he says, smiling apologetically. “I guess I’m running at a hard pace? Maybe I miss some cues along the way? I probably played up to it a bit at times, too? But it’s not really who I am.” He pauses. “At least, I don’t think it is.”

Hutchison is now part-owner of NBL team Melbourne United.
Hutchison is now part-owner of NBL team Melbourne United.CREDIT:COURTESY OF CRAIG HUTCHISON
I first spoke to Hutchison in winter last year, as Melbourne’s hard lockdown briefly lifted. It was 6pm on a Tuesday, high in his South Melbourne office. He seemed nervous, shifting uncomfortably in a caramel leather seat, rubbing his hands on his knees and thighs. “It’s not really my cup of tea to sit down and chat, but I’ll find a way.”

He certainly found a way last year. His business has pushed all its chips in on sport, one of the domains most interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and this gleaming building – the headquarters of flagship station 1116 SEN – had a coronavirus scare, two cases prompting a shutdown, deep clean and the relocation of 30 roles (organised in about two hours) to home offices. Of the 17 sports he has rights to, 16 were dormant.


“It was tough,” he says. Yet once sport restarted, talk radio surged, offering the angry and the despondent a place to natter or vent. Consumption of his radio programs through mobile platforms went berserk, with about 60,000 texts a month flowing through a button on SEN apps. “Sport was a way of returning a regular rhythm to your life, even for a few hours,” he says. “Escapism in dark times.”

He was lucky, too. The “essential business” of “chasing, pacing and racing” (greyhounds, harnesses and thoroughbreds) kept going, supplying his expanding “SENTrack” racing stations with constant content. Rather than ducking for cover, the company has purchased 28 radio licences in the past 18 months, and is steadily relaunching them as sports stations stocked with Hutchison’s preferred talent. There’s 1170 SEN in Sydney (with NRL identity Matty Johns and popular caller Andrew Voss), along with 1053AM Brisbane (featuring former Australian Test cricketer Ian Healy), as well as SEN Spirit 621AM Southwest in Perth with “Gilly and Goss” (cricket great Adam Gilchrist with journalist Tim Gossage). That’s not to mention this year’s acquisition of 29 licences in New Zealand, where “SENZ” will be headed by former Kiwi cricket skipper Brendon McCullum.

Buying licences in bulk might look scattershot, but the launches themselves are staggered and curated – more by necessity than indulgence. “I use cricket
analogies too much,” says Hutchison, “but we’ve had to transform ourselves from being a T20 player into Steve Smith, where shot selection is everything.” Care is required. No one has ever built an Australian sports media network, let alone from such beginnings.


Craig Hutchison lives in a plummy terrace in affluent South Yarra, with partner Clare Hazell Wright, a part-time model, part-time entrepreneur, and her two children Ava, 13, and Nicholas, 11. He grew up in rural Warragul, east of Melbourne in Gippsland. His dad, Ken, was the hardware shop manager, the loyal servant with the 25-year silver watch who left his job when he refused to fire someone. “You won’t find an enemy of Dad’s in eight decades on the planet,” Hutchison says, “whereas I’ve probably got a new one before lunchtime on Monday.”

Hutchison knew early that he wanted to work in sport. “Dad says it was from the age of three, when I ran around with the lead of a toaster, pretending it was a microphone.” He was 12 when Ken offered to write sport stories for the Warragul and Drouin Gazette, then told young Craig to write them instead. A year later Ken went back to the Gazette and told them Craig was taking over. Too young, they replied. “And Dad said, ‘Well, he’s been doing them for a year under my name.’ ”

But he wasn’t an academic star, nor did he work hard. In year 12 at the local high school, Hutchison applied to RMIT’s prestigious journalism program – his only preference – but missed the cut wildly. “That was a shock,” he says. “I was just in a little bubble, with people recognising my name in the local paper making me think I was on my way.” He enrolled in a creative writing degree at Victoria University, but dropped out, lacking interest or drive.


In 1993, not much more than a year after leaving high school, he sat the Herald Sun cadetship exam. The last candidate accepted into the program, he was miles off the pace. Within weeks the cadet counsellor, Kim Lockwood, gave it to him straight. He wasn’t as educated, worldly or ambitious as the others: “They’re going home and reading literature, you’re going home and watching Lethal Weapon videos,” Hutchison recalls being told. “I’m going to give you three more weeks, but I don’t know if this is gonna last.”

Journalist Gabriella Coslovich remembers Hutchison as the odd man out in her cadet year “yet possibly also the most suited to the place”, she reflects. “Look where he’s at now – a millionaire, and the most high-profile of us all. He’s developed this blustering, blokey persona perfect for mainstream TV, talkback radio and social media. In hindsight, if anyone was going to make it big, it was him.”

He did it on the back of a newfound work ethic. When Hutchison learnt that Lockwood started work at 5.30am, he decided to arrive earlier. “Classes didn’t start until 9am, but I would get to work at 5.15am and say, ‘Good morning Mr Lockwood,’ as he walked past.”

That meant he had a few hours of free time, in which he started being a journalist: making calls and pitching stories. Then he thought, “Well, if I can do that at the start of the day, I can do it at the end of the day, too.”

Classes finished at 4pm, so he stayed until 8pm, bookending his daily cadet duties with a day’s worth of journalism. “That’s just how I’ve been ever since,” he says. “I’ve always thought, ‘I’m not going to be as good as everyone else in eight hours, so my day has gotta be 12, 13 or 14 hours to be competitive.’ ”

“As a 19-year-old he was standing on people’s toes breaking stories. Now he’s standing on people’s toes buying radio stations.”
He also began rubbing people the wrong way. There was an old-school newsroom territoriality – this guy writes cricket, that guy writes soccer –which Hutchison ignored. Phil Gardner, then sports editor, later editor-in-chief, laughs at the way the rookie rankled his peers.


“As a 19-year-old he was standing on people’s toes breaking stories.” Gardner says. “Now he’s standing on people’s toes buying radio stations.”

He was, in truth, on a personal warpath. His mum, Pauline, a humanitarian who supported every local mission and cause, passed away from leukaemia when Hutchison was 21. “It took four or five weeks from diagnosis to ...” his voice trails off. “We took for granted how wonderful she was. That was the biggest moment of all time, and my response was – in a weird way – to get determined to make something, and turn a bit combative.”

His brother chose to lock down, and ended up working in insurance. His sister chose to travel, and now lives in Amsterdam. Hutchison himself upped the ante, switching from print to the airwaves, first as a sports producer at radio station Magic 693, then RSN927. “That was part of the healing from Mum – constantly looking for a distraction.”

Planning segments and wrangling guests, volume was again pivotal to his success: “I might not be able to convert as many calls as everyone else, so I’ve gotta make more calls to start.”

He was 23 when he moved to TV, joining Network Ten as a sports reporter. It was another baptism of fire: “I was ill-prepared. My screen test was embarrassing. I was inarticulate. Just rough and nervous.” He moved to Seven next and was its chief football reporter for seven years, before hitting a wall in 2005. His girlfriend had left him and moved to America, prompting a “complete meltdown” at the age of 30.

“I’d just been going so hard at journalism; crash or crash through, every day. I got up one morning and got on a plane, landed, had a formal break-up with my partner in Los Angeles that day, kept going to New York, found an apartment uptown, and threw my bag in the cupboard. No plan or purpose, heartbroken, lost – I was just completely cooked.”

He started doing radio crosses to stations back home, about Australians playing in the National Basketball Association, or “Only in America” sports stories. During a trip across to LA he met freelance Australian entertainment journalist James Swanwick, who was similarly burnt out. “We were shooting basketball in his backyard and said, ‘Why don’t we start a business? Maybe PR?’ ”

They came up with the name Crocmedia, and found a client through the Australian consulate, but Hutchison admits he didn’t remotely know what he was doing. They pivoted to television distribution, crashing international TV fairs and convincing bodies such as America’s national lacrosse association to let Crocmedia represent it in broadcast rights negotiations. “But we were terrible at that, too.” Hutchison laboured on the business each winter in America, from September to March, then returned to Australia to cover every AFL season in multiple roles for Nine. “I didn’t see summer for five years.”

He landed a daunting reporting gig in 2007 for The Footy Show (AFL) and was “forever anxious” over the pressure to come up with a big story each week. Yet it lit a fire. The first story he broke was about the notorious drug culture at the West Coast Eagles, for which he won a Walkley Award. Ten years on, he would host The Footy Show but be sacked after a month (in fairness, when the carcass of the program was already beginning to smell). “You need to have gravitas, X-factor, screen charisma, and I don’t. It’s a high-profile thing to lose, but the thing I’ve learnt about myself – and it’s a flaw – is that I’m not much good when I’m not in control.”

Still, that ouster follows him. Hutchison recently implied on radio that basketballer Andrew Bogut is overpaid by the Sydney Kings. Bogut fired back on Twitter, suggesting Hutchison focus on his professional shortcomings, adding a dose of fat-shaming: “I know VIC is in lockdown and you couldn’t grab your box or 10 of Krispy Kremes for breaky, but keep my name out of your mouth.” The following weekend, 10 cases of donuts arrived at SEN HQ.

Hutchison shrugs: “I took a photo, had a laugh, and gave them to staff.” Being a sports reporter in Melbourne, he adds, ranks somewhere between used-car salesman and personal injury lawyer. He’s been punched in a pub. Had his car blocked in his driveway by an irate fan.

With his “Off the Bench” co-host in Melbourne, former AFL player Liam “Pickers” Pickering
With his “Off the Bench” co-host in Melbourne, former AFL player Liam “Pickers” PickeringCREDIT:COURTESY OF CRAIG HUTCHISON
And yet he traffics in antagonism, particularly on Nine’s weekly Footy Classified, a conflict-heavy AFL panel show where, since 2007, he’s been the resident devil’s advocate, initially because he felt “unworthy” sitting alongside retired AFL superstar Wayne Carey and pioneering journo Caroline Wilson. “In my head I was like, ‘What’s my role in this room?’ I had nothing to do but cause an argument.”

That pantomime persona – “like a wrestler”, he says, “your own personality dialled up by 10 per cent” – also saw him sacked from 3AW in 2007, where he had been hosting a weekly AFL show called Off the Bench. “They wanted warmth,” he explains. “No one has ever called me ‘warm’.”

It became a crisis-begets-opportunity moment. That same day, 3AW axed a show that was syndicated into regional Victorian stations in Horsham, Hamilton, Swan Hill and Colac. Hutchison called those stations and immediately offered them Off the Bench, which he would continue producing, independently. He knew exactly how. When taping his live crosses from America to stations back home, he only got paid by finding his own sponsors. That model – giving stations free content, or paying them to take it, then selling advertising yourself – became the bedrock of his network, leading The Australian Financial Review to eventually describe Crocmedia as “redefining football broadcast economics”. He still hosts Off the Bench every Saturday, 14 years on. “We now make nine versions of that show, into 70-odd radio stations around the country. That show built our business.”

Hutchison with AFL legend turned commentator Malcolm Blight at Adelaide radio station 1116 SEN.
Hutchison with AFL legend turned commentator Malcolm Blight at Adelaide radio station 1116 SEN. CREDIT:@HUTCHYCRAIG/INSTAGRAM
In some ways that’s also when the light bulb lit up about the commercial potential of rural Australia, where the local footy/netball club is the centre of every town, followed by the cricket club, racing track, or bowlo. “Regional Australia is 37 per cent of the population, and no one makes content for them,” he says. “No one.”

He’s not wrong, says Megan Brownlow, an independent media analyst and former PricewaterhouseCoopers partner. One-third of our population lives in regional Australia, but only a tenth of advertising expenditure occurs there, even though country customers have demonstrably better brand loyalty. “Their income might be lower but so is the cost of living, so they have more discretionary spending, too,” says Brownlow. “Brands often miss a trick there.”

It was also a less expensive way to start building. Hutchison had a map on his wall for years, colouring in dots where he could syndicate content. “It doesn’t matter whether you live in Swan Hill or Sydney, you’re a quantifiable part of the puzzle. You still drink beer, eat McDonald’s, go to the bank, drive a car.”

Things got serious in 2017 when the owner of SEN radio, Pacific Star Network – backed by Perth rich-lister Rhonda Wyllie, who’s married to one-time AFL legal eagle Jeff Browne – raised the capital through its Viburnum Funds to orchestrate a merger with Crocmedia. Hutchison was installed as managing director of the listed company (Pacific Star Network Limited) with an annual salary of $883,752 and controlling shares worth about $12 million, from where he began a round of mass sackings referred to by others as the “summer of carnage”.

Program host Kevin Hillier, now with RSN927, understood cultural change was the nature of the beast, but his own perfunctory phone call from HR disappointed. “No one likes to be sacked, but I do think there is a respectful way of finishing someone’s employment, and I don’t think that was the way.” David Schwarz, who co-hosted the popular afternoon talkback show The Run Home with Mark Allen, was left “numb” when told their contracts would not be renewed. “We came off air at 7 o’clock, and we had five minutes to get our stuff and get out of the building,” Schwarz said on a podcast last year. “Hutchy had pulled the trigger, and we were out.”

“You’ve got to build a product for a bunch of shareholders, of which I am one. It’s not a job where you can just pick and choose your friends.”
No one was safe. Kevin Bartlett, an official AFL “legend” and long-time friend of Hutchison’s – his first mentor in radio – found his high-rating show unceremoniously shifted from mornings to afternoons, prompting his exit. They no longer speak.

I prod Hutchison about the fallout. “They had been great contributors and were emotionally attached to what they helped build, so it was worlds colliding.” Does it sting, though, to torch such personal, established bridges, so thoroughly? “I’m a human being. I’m not immune. But you’ve got to build a product for a bunch of shareholders, of which I am one. It’s not a job where you can just pick and choose your friends.”

Take Mark Allen, for instance. Hutchison says he actually wanted Allen to stay, hosting a golf show, podcast and additional broadcasting duties – just not the old afternoon job that he had. “Unfortunately he declined – which is his right. We respect Mark, and wished him every success, and have never closed the door on opportunities.” Allen, now back on radio with Schwarz at 3AW, remains clipped in his characterisation of the man. “My advice to anyone doing business with Craig Hutchison is simple: be very careful,” Allen says. “Do your due diligence and see what he’s unfortunately capable of. Many, many people have found out the hard way.”

In the summer of 2012 and 2013, Gemma Lee Smith was a 21-year-old aspiring sports journalist and casual employee of Crocmedia, a graveyard-shift producer earning $75 a night, from 11pm to 6am. “You’re trying to get your foot in the door, so you don’t want to make a bad impression,” she says, “but I got the sense that they would get interns in and use them, maybe pay them a little bit and then get rid of them and get new ones in.”

Smith contacted Fair Work Australia, and a lawsuit was filed with the ombudsman in June 2013. Crocmedia was forced to pay her about $7000, and also fined $24,000 for breaching minimum wage conditions. Judge Riethmuller of the Federal Circuit Court noted that the conduct of the company was “at best dishonourable” and “at worst exploitative”.

By the time of the merger with Pacific Star Network the company was a slicker unit, cashed up with Wyllie’s funds to make its most audacious play – convincing the best sports caller in the nation to leave the ABC.

With SEN sports caller Gerard Whateley. After a fallout in 1999, the former colleagues didn’t speak to each other for more than a decade.
With SEN sports caller Gerard Whateley. After a fallout in 1999, the former colleagues didn’t speak to each other for more than a decade.CREDIT:COURTESY OF CRAIG HUTCHISON
“Gerard Whateley just embodied what we wanted to build, with a tone reflective of a modern sports fan. Dream caller, versatile, lifting the tenor of conversation,” says Hutchison. “The complication was that he and I hadn’t spoken much in 15 years.”

The pair had been incredibly close once, first at the Herald Sun (where Whateley was Hutchison’s cadet mentor) and also later, helping each other lay down footy commentary demo tapes, or practising TV elocution and projection. Firm friends, they ended up in direct competition, and in 1999 fell out badly on the job.

At that time, Leigh Colbert had stood down as captain of Geelong to join North Melbourne, and was flying overseas. A standard airport stakeout ensued. Hutchison arrived early, got the interview, and watched Colbert head for his flight to Los Angeles, via Sydney. Whateley arrived next and asked Hutchison if he’d seen Colbert yet. If Hutchison conceded he had, it would give Whateley a chance to get a crew to intercept Colbert in Sydney, so Hutchison kept shtum.

Whateley suggested they search the airport, which they did, for two hours, Hutchison pretending to hunt for a footballer who was already long gone. In his mind his job was war, every single day – and his obligation was to his employer, not his friendship. “It sounds silly,” he says. “But I couldn’t promise you, looking back, that I would do much differently.”

Hutchison’s story led the Channel Seven news that night: “Exclusive: Captain of Geelong quits” and Whateley fumed. The pair didn’t speak for more than a decade.

“When you’re young, you take to heart these things more intensely than you should, and that rests with me,” Whateley says now. “I carried that for too long.”

Hutchison won him back with a simple pitch. Victorians turn on Neil Mitchell or Virginia Trioli to feel the pulse of Melbourne, and Sydneysiders listen to their closest equivalents in Ray Hadley or Wendy Harmer and Robbie Buck: SEN would offer Whateley an equivalency in sport. Once the coup was complete, Whateley’s opening monologue was hardly the talkback tone of the old SEN. It was a soaring oration –almost a sermon – a highbrow flip given the more prevalent view of SEN radio as “80 per cent bullshit, 20 per cent ads”.

The latter characterisation is based on Hutchison himself, and his gift for inflating and inflaming any and every spurious wedge issue – turning a footballer’s hairstyle into a 24-hour cycle of hot takes and outrage.

Rohan Connolly, who runs the sport and lifestyle website Footyology, says he regards Hutchison as “without doubt one of the best news breakers” among his peers. “I suppose the downside of that ability,” Connolly adds, “is the idea that you can frame everything in terms of headlines and talking points, and that no issue is too silly if you can create some angst and friction between opposing points of view, no matter how contrived.”

Whateley, though, believes this instinctive understanding of hot-button trigger points is just the minutiae. A broader example is the morning Australian cricket’s Sandpapergate broke, when Hutchison called Whateley to suggest he go on air, immediately, on his day off. “We broadcast for three hours, and people were just riveted to this national conversation about what the cricket team had done,” Whateley says. “His instincts were spot-on in capturing the national mood before it had declared itself.”

Yet there are those who wonder how far Hutchison can stretch his resources to meet his grand national vision. Licences, talent and marketing are costly. The ratings aren’t great so far, although that’s somewhat mitigated by the narrowness of his advertising target, 25- to 35-year-old males. The key questions that crop up are, “What sort of cash-flow runway does he have until it becomes profitable?” and “Who’s funding this, anyway?”

Speculation abounds. It’s his mate, racing expert and investor John “Dr Turf” Rothfield. No, Westpac’s backing him. Nup, there’s a shadowy American financier bankrolling the whole thing. The truth is a more mundane mix of individuals and banks, but also Viburnum, the West Australian fund manager. Its managing partner of public equity, SEN chairman Craig Coleman, says the sense of scale betrays the reality of SEN. The network has mostly bought stations with small earnings and little content, with a view to developing them. “It’s not like we’re buying Triple M,” Coleman says. “We’re creatively reusing licences and leveraging them across our footprint. We think that’ll be valuable one day, whether that’s next week or in three years.”

The other theory floated about Hutchison’s rapid expansion, that he’s plumping the pig up for sale, is one he dismisses without debate. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” he insists. “If you were fattening a business you’d be trying to extract profits and dividends, rather than investing in the future. I’m here for the long haul.”

Indeed, some believe his logical next move would be to capitalise on the deep AFL affiliations he’s fostered – co-owning a racehorse with league boss Gillon McLachlan, for instance – and make a bold play for part of a future broadcast rights deal. If the question ever becomes “Go big or go home?” , Challenor can’t see Hutchison answering with the latter: “I just cannot imagine him building it up to sell, and sailing off into the sunset,” he says. “Ego plays such a big part in this whole vision.”

“I’ve always thought, ‘I’m not going to be as good as everyone else in eight hours, so my day has gotta be 12, 13 or 14 hours to be competitive,’ ” says Craig Hutchinson.
“I’ve always thought, ‘I’m not going to be as good as everyone else in eight hours, so my day has gotta be 12, 13 or 14 hours to be competitive,’ ” says Craig Hutchinson.CREDIT:KRISTOFFER PAULSEN
Back on the screen at the Super Bowl party, the teams are trotting onto the astroturf to play but the atmosphere in this basement bar is subdued, perhaps because the men here would normally be over in the US, watching the game live. Hutchison goes every year. He’s done so for almost two decades, at first with a few mates, then a few dozen. Eventually he had to start formally organising these man-cations, and now he takes as many as 90 friends and clients every year, each guy paying about $15,000 for the experience.

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It’s that rare spot on the calendar when he can cut loose a little, and also a chance for him to watch the pinnacle orgy of American sports media up close. He visits all the expos and digital suites, learning the latest promotional gimmicks and product-placement techniques, not to mention the carnival of coverage they call “Radio Row”. A working holiday, it simultaneously releases a pressure valve and gets him juiced. After every Super Bowl Hutchison quits drinking for 100 days, so he can harness all that inspiration and capitalise with clarity.

“It’s really kind of inspiring, looking at what people are doing,” he says. “It just gives you a shot of enthusiasm.”

He stares at the screen now, where the pixelated players are standing for America the Beautiful. “Everyone in that world is thinking much, much bigger,” he says, pointing at the wide open field. “I don’t want to put a ceiling on what’s achievable either. I don’t want to put a limit on what we can be.”

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https://www.smh.com.au/national/craig-hutchison-is-building-a-sports-media-empire-but-not-everyone-s-a-fan-20210304-p577u1.html
Post by Morrissey Breen
Post by Morrissey Breen
Post by Morrissey Breen
‘Ruining the sport’: What readers want the AFL to change
February 20, 2022 — 1.50pm
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/ruining-the-sport-what-readers-want-the-afl-to-change-20220220-p59y01.html
In late 2021, the AFL Fans Association undertook a survey of more than 800 people to find out what they felt the burning issues were for supporters. The results? More than a third were worried about the proliferation of gambling advertising; some called for the stand rule to be abolished; others were tired of rule changes and wanted clearer umpiring interpretations.
Those topics were far and away the most common response when The Age opened the floor for readers to have their say on the issue they most wanted the league to address. An overwhelming majority wanted an end to gambling advertising and sponsorships. Some responses have been edited for brevity.
Gambling advertising was a key concern for many readers.
Gambling advertising was a key concern for many readers.CREDIT:AFL PHOTOS
‘Cruel and greedy’
“Remove the gambling ads. How disgraceful that the one of the biggest financial generators for the AFL is this insidious gambling industry. You cannot watch the game or any sport without the gambling ads and promoters peddling the wares. Gambling is a personal choice, but unfortunately there are consequences, and when so much money is involved, the only ones to profit are the vested interest. Horses, dogs are also victims.” - Paula
“Gambling ads need to be dropped. It is at such a high level that it will be encouraging many of our young and people in general to gamble.” - Derek
“No more advertising of gambling ‘opportunities’. If people want to gamble, they will, but it is cruel and greedy to advertise it in the high emotion atmosphere that surrounds live games or televised games. Please get rid of it. It targets problem gamblers and young people with anonymity.” - Victoria
“Gambling advertising – it endorses an activity that causes great social harm in Australia. One of the attractive aspects of attending an AFL match or watching/listening to an AFL broadcast is to see that for many fans it is still a family activity. Gambling ads normalise ‘having a punt’ as part of following AFL and there will be a section of the audience who are introduced to gambling in this way. Although I think that the prospect of match fixing in AFL is low, being able to bet on who will kick the first goal etc could lead to the corruption of some players.” - Jay
“Stop gambling promotion about odds being part of commentators’ information to public. It just normalises gambling.” - Deborah
“Ban betting advertising on television, print, radio and at stadiums, it is not having a positive impact on young children and young adults. I no longer enjoy watching it; as a parent it is irresponsible to allow my child to see consistent advertising/commentary on betting. They are normalising gambling and encouraging it as if it is necessary to enjoy the game. I don’t understand how this is allowed. ” - Teresa
“Remove gambling adds – it is exactly the same as tobacco advertising in sports in the past when that was banned in 1976 due to the enormous societal impact. Even my teenage children notice them and think they are harmful and there are too many.” - J
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‘Stop promoting gambling:’ Betting ads a burning issue in AFL fan survey
Some readers thought the problem with advertising gambling extended to other areas, including alcohol and junk food.
“Gambling advertising in media and hoardings around grounds to cease immediately. AFL to cease advertising junk food and junk drinks. The same goes for gambling sponsorship. Also, all of the above should apply to alcohol sponsorship.” - Warwick
And the sentiment was that sponsorship as well as advertising should be addressed.
“Cease all association with gambling, including sponsorship deals and advertising. Eradicate it from the sport, please. It is ruining the sport.” - Richard
“Advertising on gambling in any form should be banned. The AFL should mandate this in its commercial arrangements.” - Ron
“I appreciate the AFL needs sponsors, but facilitating gambling agencies to hammer kids with these adds, simply in order to line their pockets, is abhorrent. The consequences of this will last generations.” - Mark
‘Rules change every year’
Rule changes and officiating were also hot topics among readers, but the sentiment was mixed. Some people wanted rules changed, while others have had enough of modifications.
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Umpiring and rule changes formed a key concern in the AFL Fans Association survey.
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Fans take a stand on rule changes, commentary and curtain raisers
“[The AFL should change] the stand rule and nominating for ruck contests, it slows the game down and goes back to Auskick rules.” - Ian
“Remove the stand and ruck nomination rules, remove ‘six-six-six’ ... Scoring has reduced since these rules came in.” - Brendan
But not everyone was opposed to the stand rule.
“The stand rule is to me probably the best rule for opening the game up that has been tried and works – game flow is decluttered and better to watch.” - Patrick
Some wanted a change to 50-metre penalties.
“Fifty-metre penalty is excessive and punishes what are often very minor infringements to a ridiculous degree often resulting in a certain goal. Spoils the spectacle for me. Twenty-metre penalty would be more appropriate.” - Carlos
Others had different solutions for similar problems. Sam wanted the league to get “more flow or movement into the game, opening up play so talented players can display skills”. But John called for more free kicks to be paid. “Push in the back, holding the ball. Too many instances where these result in ball-ups.”
And how to relieve the pressure on umpires? Stop making so many changes and remove the need for interpretation.
“It’s no wonder the umpires are criticised so frequently, when rules change every year. They are forced to adjudicate new or changed rules every year. No more rule changes unless it is absolutely necessary.” - Masher
“Scrap prior opportunity, just give ball possessor three seconds to legally dispose of the ball when legally tackled. No interpretation needed.” - Dave
“... Confine ‘prior opportunity’ to only a bad memory.” - Bill
“... There have [been] more changes to rules in the last 20 years than the previous 50 years. Now we have rules made to undo the consequences of previous rule changes.” - David
“Overall, if a rule can’t be applied ‘by the book’ and not subject to a myriad of interpretations it would be better off being scrapped. Often former player commentators talk about a play being “technically” a free kick, but suggesting the umpire could have let it go. If it doesn’t matter, scrap the rule. The closer we can get to a simpler decision the better off we will be.” - Rod
And some readers had other suggestions.
“The running through the protected area rule should only be applied if it clearly has impeded the ball carrier. Even if a player was impacted the 50-metre penalty is too great and should be reduced to 25 metres.” - Marshall
“Give the player who attacks the ball a chance to make the play. This reward the tackler approach is rubbish! If I want to watch a game of no stop tackling being ‘rewarded’ I will become a rugby league fan.” - Ian
Readers had an issue with interpretation of rules as well as rule changes.
Readers had an issue with interpretation of rules as well as rule changes.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
“Scraping the post or touching the ball as it goes through the goals. The camera work and quality is not good enough for the purpose and it makes little sense to agonise through the process. If it goes through the big sticks it’s a goal. If it goes through the small sticks it’s a point. If it bounces back into play it is play on. Simple.” - Ron
‘Reduce the volume’
Lots of readers were unhappy with how quarter- and half-time breaks are filled with noise. Nick‘s No.1 concern was “incessant, high-volume ‘entertainment’“. Matt’s was “loud music and ads between quarters”. Most just wanted to be able to chat to family and friends.
“Reduce the volume of the ‘entertainment’. Time was we used to like talking before the game and half-time. We can also get rid of the constant changes in fluro advertising, plus we don’t need three tiers of illuminated banners to tell us a goal has been kicked.” - David
“Noisy entertainment which interferes with ability to socialise with family and friends because we can’t hear each other. Revolving advertising is disturbing for people with migraines and other sensory disabilities.” - Bernadette
“Stop the loud, LOUD ‘entertainment’ at the end of each quarter. Just let us interact and chat and be social with people in the crowd around us. We can’t, because there’s non-stop music and announcements at high decibel levels ruining our time at the footy. It’s a total turn off. I know many people who don’t go any more because of it. God help people with tinnitus, hearing aids or brain injuries. It’s noise pollution, is what it is, not entertainment.” - Mary
‘Members do the hard yards’
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Many readers also took issue with ticketing and grand final access.
Linda wanted the grand final moved around the country (it is contracted to be played at the MCG until the late 2050s). Noreen wanted a more simple way to buy tickets for her team’s away games. Christine wanted more grand final tickets available for members of competing clubs, “NOT funnelled off to corporates who don’t necessarily support either team. We long-term (and long-suffering) members do the hard yards all season, every season, and should be able to see our team’s ultimate triumph in person.”
“Stop selling tickets for finals and go back to first in, best dressed until the ground is full. This means those who are there are real fans and not corporates or once-a-year attendees.” - John
And some wanted the fairness of the fixture addressed.
“A good start would be to arrange fixtures so all teams play all others an equal number of times. I don’t suppose there’s any hope that some protected [Victorian] teams will be forced to play away from their hallowed grounds the way interstate teams must? It’s still the VFL with other states invited to help fill the coffers.” - Wally
“Fixture fairness – so called ‘traditional’ blockbuster games [reduce] the fairness of the competition. With the odd number of teams in the competition if they can’t play each other once or twice per season the top six teams should play each other twice and each of the other teams once. The middle group of six should play each other twice and the others once. The same for the bottom six.” - Michael
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TV View: Unleash Graeme Souness on these animal-hating low-lives
Divine intervention in Kilcoo; Shane Horgan worships at the altar of Johnny Sexton
Mon, Feb 14, 2022, 09:47
https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/tv-view-unleash-graeme-souness-on-these-animal-hating-low-lives-1.4801333
Mary Hannigan
2
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday. Photograph: AMA/Corbis via Getty Images
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday. Photograph: AMA/Corbis via Getty Images
“Sometimes, maybe, God’s on your side,” said Kilcoo’s Eugene Branagan when TG4’s Micheál O’Domhnaill asked him to explain, for all that’s good and holy, how his team had managed to beat Kilmacud Crokes in the All-Ireland club final when their hopes had been given the last rites more than once in the course of the contest.
And divine intervention, as it proved, was kind of the theme of the sporting day, not least when it came to analysing Ireland’s what-might-have-been trip to Paris.
The learnings?
Rob Kearney, doffing his cap to Joey Carbery’s efforts, had no doubt. “I think the most important thing we’ve learnt is that Ireland have a rugby team without Johnny Sexton, which is a big plus,” he said.
Shane Horgan?
“With Sexton at 10, Ireland would have won that game.”
Rob and his Virgin Media teammate Matt Williams thought this was decidedly harsh, not least on Joey, but Shane wouldn’t budge from his belief if the deity that is Johnny was on the pitch instead of spectating, then Ireland would have been home and hosed.
“A missed opportunity,” he said of the game, although Matt pointed out that Ireland “went toe to toe with the heavyweight champion of the world” and only lost on points. “That’s all you can bloody lose on in rugby,” Shane didn’t say, but he was thinking it.
Joe Molloy tried to cheer Shane up by telling him that the final of The Masked Singer was coming up on Virgin Media, but while that had Rob and Matt quite excited, Shane was unmoved.
“A missed opportunity,” he said again, Ireland’s Grand Slam hopes down the Swanee, but come Sunday Rob tried to reassure him that most probably France wouldn’t win the Grand Slam either because “they were no outstanding shakes themselves yesterday”.
Souness sticks up for the cat
The outstanding shakes, as it turned out, were to be found in Sky Sports’ Super Sunday studio where Graeme Souness pulverised the wretched excuse for a human being that is Kurt Zouma.
It was last September, when Sky brought us “the world’s first ever net zero carbon football match”, that Graeme revealed himself to be a highly passionate animal lover, a revelation that some of us never saw coming. It’s not that he isn’t most probably a good man, it’s just that you wouldn’t necessarily expect this level of empathy from someone who saw opposing shins as legitimate targets in the course of their playing career. Although, admittedly, it’s hard to find a seamless link here.
The mere mention of Zouma’s name, then, was never going to go down well.
“We don’t know what he’s been through,” said Jamie Carragher when news filtered through that Zouma had dropped out of the West Ham team due to play Leicester. “Not as much as the cat went through,” said Graeme, his cheek muscles flexing so violently, Jamie looked scared. Micah Richards too.
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday.
“I wouldn’t have played him again this year,” he said, “if I was a player I wouldn’t want to be in the same dressing room with him, I would not want him around the place.”
His emotions hadn’t eased come full-time in the game - “I’d love to see him pursued in court, I think what he’s guilty of is outrageous behaviour that goes beyond the pale” - Micah, quite heroically, daring to debate him, pointing out that there are convicted murderers back out on the streets again. He did, then, believe banning Zouma until the end of the season would be too harsh a punishment.
“Would you allow him to have another cat in his house,” Graeme asked him. By now, Micah would have been afraid to enter Graeme’s house.
Graeme Souness? Legend.
Meanwhile, over on Sky Sports News, word was filtering through about a video showing former eventing Olympic champion Sir Mark Todd whipping a horse 10 times with a branch to try and force it through a water obstacle.
Truly, our world is screwed. It needs divine intervention. Or Graeme Souness to be allowed deal with these low-lives.
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VJ
VJDevine
6 DAYS AGO
Souness, hard man but top cat, great analyst.
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MI
michael1
6 DAYS AGO
There was none of the "Wretched Excuse for a Human Being" when one of our own "Media Darling" Jockeys was caught punching a Horse in The Head several times.
As for Souness... hes done more damage to Human Beings on the Pitch than Zouma did to the unfortunate Cat... what he did was grossly wrong..but that doesent make him Jack the Ripper.
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‘Due for another realignment’: Retired great weighs in on AFL’s major umpire move
Melbourne thump Roos by 88 points!
Melbourne thump Roos by 88 points! | 01:29
Tom Morris
Tom Morris from Fox Sports
@tommorris32
February 25th, 2022 1:16 pm
The VFL/AFL games record holder for umpires has called on the league to punish “subtle” acts of dissent from players with 50 metre penalties and free kicks.
Earlier this week the AFL sent a memo to clubs outlining the importance for respect towards umpires.
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The instruction was interpreted by some clubs as a crackdown, with umpires instructed to uphold a less tolerant approach when players dispute decisions.
Round 1
Pointsbet
AFL
Mar 18 7:25pm AEST
FT
Richmond
Richmond
105
Carlton
80
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 19 7:50pm AEST
FT
Collingwood
53
Bulldogs
69
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 20 1:45pm AEST
FT
Melbourne
80
Fremantle
58
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 20 4:35pm AEST
FT
Adelaide
103
Geelong
91
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 20 7:25pm AEST
FT
Essendon
91
Hawthorn
92
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 20 7:45pm AEST
FT
Brisbane
94
Sydney
125
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 21 1:10pm AEST
FT
North Melbourne
North Melbourne
65
Port Adelaide
Port Adelaide
117
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 21 3:20pm AEST
FT
Greater Western Sydney
Greater Western Sydney
78
St Kilda
St Kilda
86
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 21 6:10pm AEST
FT
West Coast
West Coast
83
Gold Coast
Gold Coast
58
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
Shane McInerney, who umpired 500 matches between 1994 and 2019 including two Grand Finals, praised the memo as a necessary “reset.”
Speaking to foxfooty.com.au, McInerney detailed three scenarios which he believes should now result in a penalty.
“We are due for another realignment I think,” McInerney said.
“The players have worked out what demonstrative abuse looks like and I think we need to reset what we actually mean by good umpire/player relationships.
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Retired umpire Shane McInerney believes the new memo sent from the AFL was needed. (AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Retired umpire Shane McInerney believes the new memo sent from the AFL was needed. (AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Source: AAP
“In a situation like deliberate out of bounds where three or four players will stand around appealing with their arms out, that’s not a good look for the game and not what we want to see. I’d penalise that.
“We see forwards getting free kicks and the defending standing and pointing at the big screen. That’s not a good look for the sport.
“I think it is important that players can ask questions on why certain decisions are made. By and large that does happen. There are a few more habits that have crept in that the game doesn’t need. It’s a distraction that serves to embarrass or undermine an umpire’s authority.”
And the third example?
“Sometimes there are two or three defenders wanting to have their two bobs worth,” McInerney continued.
“That’s not on. The umpire has a job to do at that point in time.”
In the AFL’s note to clubs, executive general manager Andrew Dillon praised the sacrifices players and staff have made across the past two seasons.
But in reviewing the 2021 season, he said there were “a number of instances” where the “AFL community” fell short of certain standards relating to sportsmanship and respect for umpires.
“The AFL and its clubs have a unique leadership role in the community, and with that role comes responsibility. Disrespect towards umpires is an issue at all levels of football and has no place,” Dillon said.
McInerney is hoping to see more respect displayed to umpires. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
McInerney is hoping to see more respect displayed to umpires. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Source: Getty Images
“We are 6,000 umpires short at the community football level and it is incumbent on us to set the right example at the elite level so we can encourage and retain umpires across the country to best support the rapidly growing player participation base.”
While McInerney believes a correlation exists between the top level and local football, he argued the issue is not finding umpires, rather it is retaining them.
He also declared the changes made by the AFL have the potential to filter down quickly.
“I think what happens at the AFL level plays a role in umpire shortage, but I don’t think there is a direct correlation,” he said.
“There has been an explosion in women’s footy and that has placed a demand on all sorts of components with grounds, facilities, coaches and so forth.
“In my view, I’ve always understood that it’s not about attracting people to umpiring – lots of people like to give it a go – I think it’s more around the retention. The match day experience goes a long way to ensure that you can have retention of umpires.”
He added: “The response is a pretty quick response. Invariably when the AFL makes a change to a Law or an interpretation, spectators think at the lower level think that’s how their games will be officiated. Those competitions pick up really quickly.
“It’s something that could be achieved this coming season.”
On Friday morning, North Melbourne great and Fox Footy expert David King cautioned against any significant changes to interpretations around umpire feedback.
David King cautioned against major changes to interpretations around umpire feedback. Picture: Hamish Blair
David King cautioned against major changes to interpretations around umpire feedback. Picture: Hamish Blair
Source: Herald Sun
“The abuse of the umpire being an instant 50m penalty, I don’t believe AFL players ever abuse an umpire, they may be angry with a decision at a given point in time and they may be frustrated and say something but it’s not to abuse or belittle an umpire,” King said on SEN Breakfast.
“It’s an act that’s gone in three seconds, it’s always been a part of our game and it’s never been a problem, don’t tell me that if it comes from over the fence in lesser games or at junior footy, this is something in my opinion that has been overplayed.
“There were two 50m penalties paid yesterday that I thought ‘gee-whiz that’s really tough’, the players not standing there abusing the umpires, they’re questioning the decision, it’s going to bring significant backlash.
“Put it right in your diary now, it’ll be the most talked-about thing on a Monday morning in three weeks’ time about someone getting a 50m for saying ‘you can’t pay that Ray’.”
McInerney said one of the challenges for umpires is disregarding their own subjective perspective on player feedback.
“In our game, yes we can have personalities,” he continued.
“But everyone is interpreting the same part of the law as each other. This area is no different. It’s not about what certain personalities can or can’t handle. No. It’s about the role of the umpire and how the players engage with that person in their role.
“There is no room for umpires to take into account whether they can handle it or can’t. I can’t stress that enough. That is not what this is about.”
18.8.2 Free Kicks – Umpires
(a) uses abusive, insulting, threatening or obscene language towards an Umpire;
(b) behaves in an abusive, insulting, threatening or obscene manner towards an Umpire;
(c) intentionally, unreasonably or carelessly makes contact with an Umpire;
(d) disputes a decision of an Umpire;
(e) fails to follow the instruction of an Umpire; or
(f) intentionally or carelessly engages in conduct which affects, interferes with or prevents an Umpire from performing their duties.
https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/due-for-another-realignment-retired-great-weighs-in-on-afls-great-umpire-debate/news-story/c8319c342aff5f772e15f13d8fee78bd
Morrissey Breen
2022-02-25 12:01:36 UTC
Permalink
Zero scrum game: is it too late to save rugby union?

Lauded by fans as “the game they play in heaven”, rugby union has gone to hell in a handbasket, beset for two decades by infighting, financial crises, declining audiences and fierce competition from the AFL and NRL. Can a new CEO and free-to-air TV deal get it kicking again?

By Tim Elliott
APRIL 2, 2021
Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan says, “We’re on the ground floor of a complete rebuild for rugby. But it’s taken a long time getting to this point, and it’ll take quite a few years to get out of it.”
Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan says, “We’re on the ground floor of a complete rebuild for rugby. But it’s taken a long time getting to this point, and it’ll take quite a few years to get out of it.”CREDIT:JAMES BRICKWOOD
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It’s a balmy evening in January, and the Pearl Ballroom at Sydney’s Crown Towers is looking its finest, with its theatre-style curtains and platinum-coloured wall panelling, its floating chandeliers and mirrored ceiling. Chef Guillaume Brahimi has outdone himself, dishing up a tartare of yellowfin tuna for entrée followed by minute steak with Cafe de Paris butter. There is pinot gris, shiraz and chardonnay, and here to enjoy it, the premier cru of Australian rugby union’s gilded past: David Campese, John Eales and Nick Farr-Jones; the fridge-like Phil Kearns, Gary Ella and even Eric Tweedale, who, at the age of 99, is the oldest living Wallaby. They’re all here, the great and good of “the game they play in heaven”, grazing at the table like buffalo at a watering hole. It’s a rugby Valhalla, with pistachio gateau for dessert.

Tonight’s event has been organised by Rugby Australia, the game’s governing body, with the express purpose of picking a permanent colour for the national jersey. The national team, the Wallabies, have traditionally worn gold, but over the decades that gold has morphed like a lava lamp from the warm ochre of the 1980s to a burnt orange and even, most recently, a traffic-stopping yellow.

“A picture says a thousand words,” Hamish McLennan, RA’s chairman, told the media in the lead-up to the event. “It [the constant colour changes] shows the madness of our inconsistency.”

Tall and urbane, with thick, dark hair, McLennan, who took over the role in June 2020, radiates charm and capability, with the casual confidence of a man who enters a job interview with another offer in his back pocket. He’s positioned tonight’s event as an exercise in unity and esprit de corps, a way of honouring history while building for the future. “We need to decide,” he tells me. “The symbolism is important.”

The fans have already spoken: in an online poll conducted by The Sydney Morning Herald, most popular among the 13,300 votes cast was the jersey worn by the Wallabies in 1991, the year Australia won its first Rugby World Cup. McLennan has said the poll result will have a bearing on tonight. “After all, the fans own the jersey.”

Rugby legends mull over which jersey to pick as permanent Wallabies colours. From left, Phil Kearns, Gary Ella, Bob Dwyer, David Campese and Tim Gavin.
Rugby legends mull over which jersey to pick as permanent Wallabies colours. From left, Phil Kearns, Gary Ella, Bob Dwyer, David Campese and Tim Gavin.CREDIT:EDWINA PICKLES
Soon, the voting begins. There are eight jerseys to choose from. As each one is presented to the room, there’s a show of hands and the numbers noted. Another jersey, more hands, more numbers. A certain dissonance arises: we’re told to forget nostalgia and think about the future, but nostalgia is built into the process. Indeed, for Australian rugby fans, traumatised by decades of defeat, nostalgia is all they have left.


In the end, after several rounds of increasingly raucous voting, of good-natured heckling and faux outrage, the number of jerseys has been whittled down, from eight to six to four to two, and finally, the winner, as duly presaged, the 1991 World Cup-winning design.

Most agree it’s a victory for good taste and sound judgment. But it is also, inevitably, a victory for nostalgia. Once again, to everyone’s relief, Australian rugby is going back to the future.

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It’s hard to imagine now, but once upon a time Australians were very good at playing rugby union. The Wallabies won World Cups in 1991 and 1999. In 2000, they retained the Bledisloe Cup against the New Zealand All Blacks for the third year running, and took out the Tri Nations Series, beating the All Blacks and the Springboks, the national team of South Africa. The NSW Waratahs ranked alongside the AFL’s Collingwood and the NRL’s Brisbane Broncos as one of the country’s most recognised sporting brands.

The game brought in big money and colossal crowds: more than 109,000 packed in to Sydney’s Stadium Australia in 2000 to watch the Wallabies and the All Blacks play what has been described as “the greatest ever rugby match”. In 2001, the Wallabies won a three-Test series against the British & Irish Lions. Two years later, when Australia hosted the World Cup, rugby was, for perhaps the first time in its history, a mainstream sport in which the broad mass of Australians were emotionally invested.

The period since then has been a waking nightmare for Australian rugby. The Wallabies have slumped from second in the world to seventh. We haven’t won a Bledisloe Cup since 2002. Crowds and TV audiences have plummeted. There have been intermittent victories over the All Blacks and others; Australia even made the World Cup final in 2015. But such victories have invariably been followed by humiliating defeats, a pattern of false dawns that has bred within the rugby community a culture of scepticism and apathy.

“Rugby is on the bones of its arse right now ... and what you’re left with is a bunch of huge men, who we don’t know, running into one another.”

Thousands of fans have drifted away to rugby league or Aussie Rules, disillusioned not only with the on-field performances but with the game’s dysfunctional governance. Despite being run by a coterie of investment bankers and private equity chiefs, rugby has lurched from one financial crisis to another, in some cases staving off insolvency with emergency loans.

“Rugby is on the bones of its arse right now,” says columnist and author Peter FitzSimons. “There used to be a magic and romance to it, and now that magic is gone, and what you’re left with is a bunch of huge men, who we don’t know, running into one another.”

FitzSimons, 59, appeared in seven Tests for the Wallabies in 1989-90, “when we played for the honour of it,” he says, “and got paid $50 a day.” He embodies a certain amateur-era type; grizzled and voluble, given to self-mythologising, with a face that appears to have been hurriedly chiselled from a block of salt.

Like many fans, FitzSimons, who infamously started an all-in brawl against France in 1990 at the Sydney Football Stadium, mourns the raw colour of amateur rugby and the figures it produced: Ray Price and David Campese, the dancing Ella brothers and Roger Gould, with quads like bags of concrete; players like Greg Cornelsen, who cowed the All Blacks with four tries at Eden Park in 1978, and Stan Pilecki, who was once interrupted smoking a cigarette when called off the bench for a Wallabies match in Argentina.


“Rugby has lost its theatre,” says FitzSimons. “There are no characters any more. Now we have 15 professional footballers whom no one can relate to. The key is to know who is representing us again, to care about them, and to see them win.”

There have, in fact, been some wins of late, albeit off the field. For the past 25 years rugby has been broadcast on Foxtel, majority owned by Rupert Murdoch. When the rights became available in 2020, Foxtel offered $31 million a year, down from an annual $57 million payment since 2015. In November last year, McLennan and interim CEO Rob Clarke declined the offer, signing instead with Nine Entertainment Co. (publisher of Good Weekend), in a deal worth $100 million over three years.


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The deal, which starts this year, includes the rights to Wallabies Tests, the women’s game, including the national team, the Wallaroos, and the club schedule. It also covers Super Rugby, a provincial competition which has in the past featured teams from South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Argentina and Japan. (The competition has since become an Australia-only model, due to COVID-19.)

Most importantly, the agreement involves a commitment to show a weekly Saturday night Super Rugby game on the Nine Network – the first time the competition has been given a free-to-air platform.

The Nine deal is widely seen as the last best hope for the code. McLennan tells me it could reactivate “rugby’s latent fan base”, a secret army of followers waiting to emerge from their basements wearing Wallabies scarves and waving gold flags.

“The problem before was exposure,” says McLennan. “A lot of people didn’t actually see rugby because they couldn’t afford pay TV. Now with free-to-air, suddenly rugby is going to be more front of mind. Kids will see it and they will want to play, and that makes it bigger, and more money will come into the game.”

“It’s really exciting,” says Stephen Moore, former Wallabies skipper and 129-Test veteran. “[McLennan] is a smart guy and 100 per cent committed to the game being its best.” But Moore acknowledges that rugby’s problems are bigger than a broadcast deal. “The state of the game here is so bad at the moment that it has to be transformed totally. For too long we’ve papered over the problems, and look where that’s got us.”

The Wallabies walk off the field after yet another defeat against the All Blacks, in the 2011 World Cup.
The Wallabies walk off the field after yet another defeat against the All Blacks, in the 2011 World Cup.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES

In 2017, Rugby Australia moved into a new headquarters, a gleaming, cobalt-blue glass and steel structure in Moore Park, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. There’s a high-performance gym, a 600-square-metre indoor training area and a rooftop running track. From the second-floor boardroom, where I’ve come to meet RA’s new CEO, Andy Marinos, you can see the construction site of the former Sydney Football Stadium, once home to so many of rugby’s mythic victories, and which now, in a metaphor almost too obvious to mention, has been reduced to an enormous crater.

Marinos, 48, has a close-cropped beard and a torso like a concrete bollard. He played rugby at the provincial level in South Africa, where he grew up, and also for Wales, in the early 2000s (he has Welsh ancestry). He then moved into administration, managing the South African Rugby Union. For the past five years, he’s been based in Sydney as the CEO of SANZAAR, the body that runs Super Rugby and the Rugby Championship, an international competition between Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.

Marinos has arrived at RA at a turbulent time, even by the turbulent standards of Australian rugby. Last year saw the rancourous departure of the then CEO Raelene Castle, a global pandemic and record financial losses. “Rugby has been through a lot,” he says. “But COVID is an inflection point. It gives you the opportunity to restart.”

One of his immediate priorities is financial stability. “That way we can stop being reactive and start being more strategic about how we’re wanting to do things.” The money from Nine should right the ship in the short term. But repairing the game in the long run and making the Wallabies win again will be infinitely harder.

“Rugby has been through a lot, but COVID is an inflection point. It gives you the opportunity to restart.”
“There are so many constituent parts,” says Marinos. “Creating pathways for the players, managing stakeholders, the sponsors, fans and the community game.”

He believes his outsider status is an advantage. “I’m not caught up in the things that happened [in Australian rugby] in the past,” he says. “I don’t have any preference for a particular state, place or person.” He’s free, then, to begin “rugby’s journey of renewal, one that is about being genuine, authentic and listening to people.”


I must look sceptical. “It’s a fantastic opportunity!” he says. “But it’s going to take time to fix. And it’s not going to be easy.”

Almost everyone has a different take on why Australian rugby is broken. Some blame the referees; others blame the rules; it’s AFL’s fault, or rugby league’s. It’s stupid coaches, overpaid players, inept leadership. When I ask Eric Tweedale what he thinks the problem is, he says it all began when the game went professional, which seems as good a place to start as any.

According to legend, rugby began in 1823, at Rugby School in England. For most of its history, it was staunchly amateur. But successive World Cups, in 1987, 1991 and 1995, saw the game explode in popularity, increasing the demands on players, who insisted on being paid. In 1995, the three most powerful southern hemisphere rugby unions, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia, formed a body called SANZAR, to oversee Super Rugby and the Tri Nations. SANZAR approached Rupert Murdoch, who paid $US555 million over 10 years for the rights to broadcast the games on his nascent cable network, Foxtel. Sensing the momentum, the world’s governing body, the International Rugby Board, declared the game professional in 1995.

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Australia’s cut of the broadcast rights was $35 million a year. Despite this, the game’s peak body, then called Australian Rugby Union, remained an amateur outfit, with no fewer than 21 committees overseeing everything from finances to player selection. The committees were run by honoraries, whose positions as such gave them considerable status within the rugby community, not to mention good parking and the best seats at games. When former NSW State Bank chief John O’Neill became CEO of the ARU in 1995, he set about abolishing the committees outright, seeding a bitter antipathy from the honoraries, or the “blazer brigade” as he called them, that would bedevil rugby for years to come.

O’Neill didn’t want for confidence. (In his 2007 book, It’s Only a Game, he writes of becoming “quite depressed” to discover how “over-qualified” he was for the job.) But there was no doubting his ability. He broadened the game’s appeal, boosted participation, and presided over the hugely successful 2003 World Cup in Australia which left the ARU with a $45 million profit. He also attempted to centralise authority and take power away from the states, particularly NSW and Queensland, whose squabbling had hobbled the game for years. “They didn’t like that,” he tells me. “They thought I was too influential.”

After the 2003 World Cup, O’Neill still had a year on his contract, and intended to stay until 2007. But his enemies had other ideas. In late 2003, O’Neill, then acknowledged as one of the country’s finest sports administrators, was pushed out. Rugby writer Peter Jenkins wrote that O’Neill’s “only crime was being high-profile, and of daring to challenge his directors”. Australian rugby had begun a long tradition of shooting itself in the foot.

From left, former Australian Rugby Union boss Gary Flowers; John O’Neill, who was pushed out as ARU CEO after antagonising the “blazer brigade”; Bill Pulver is one of eight Shore old boys to be Rugby Australia and NSWRU officeholders in recent times.
From left, former Australian Rugby Union boss Gary Flowers; John O’Neill, who was pushed out as ARU CEO after antagonising the “blazer brigade”; Bill Pulver is one of eight Shore old boys to be Rugby Australia and NSWRU officeholders in recent times.CREDIT:EDWINA PICKLES; AAP; DANIEL MUNOZ
O’Neill and his deputy Matt Carroll had wanted to put the $45 million World Cup windfall in a trust. “The idea was that it’d be a future fund,” says Carroll, who is now CEO of the Australian Olympic Committee. “If they’d invested that money back then, it’d probably be worth $100 million now and be producing a yearly income for rugby.”

But they didn’t. Instead, the money was given to the state unions and ploughed into a new competition called the Australian Rugby Championship (ARC), featuring eight teams from around the country. The ARC, which was announced in mid-2006 by then CEO, Gary Flowers, was intended as a pathway from the club system to Super Rugby. But the model was flawed from the outset. The teams had no history and no local followings. It was expensive and attracted almost no sponsorship. It also detracted from the established club scenes in Sydney and Brisbane, angering the game’s grassroots. By the end of the first season, the ARC had lost $4.7 million, with forecast losses of $8 million by the end of 2008.

At the same time, the ARU was struggling with inflated player salaries. When rugby went professional in 1995, Murdoch had faced competition from rugby league, which had attempted to sign up most of rugby’s best players. At the same time, fellow media mogul Kerry Packer was backing a rival competition called World Rugby Corporation. Players were in demand, and in order to win, Murdoch was forced to pay top dollar. Salaries skyrocketed, and were pushed even higher thanks to competition from cashed-up clubs in the northern hemisphere, some of which had billionaire owners.

“In comparison to other sports, rugby players were getting a higher proportion of the revenues,” says management consultant Michael Crawford, who has advised the ARU for 20 years. “This left less money for development and created further anger at the community level.”

Flowers stood down in 2007, opening the way for O’Neill and Carroll to return. They immediately scrapped the ARC. But the performance of the Wallabies, the financial engine of Australian rugby, was going from bad to worse. In 2009, Australia lost four matches to the All Blacks, two to the Springboks, and one to Scotland. Super Rugby was also faltering. The three Australian teams, the ACT Brumbies, the NSW Waratahs and the Queensland Reds, had all at one time or another enjoyed considerable success. In 2006, a fourth Australian team, the Perth-based Western Force, was added to the competition, followed by a fifth team, the Melbourne Rebels, in 2011. The idea was to give the game a national footprint and generate more broadcast dollars.

But it soon became apparent that Australia didn’t have enough talent to go around. According to a 2017 Senate standing committee report into the future of Australian rugby, the expansion from three to four to five teams saw a step down in performance, from Australian sides winning 60 per cent of their games to 50 per cent to 40 per cent. When the teams began to go broke, their owners – the state unions – ran to the ARU for a handout. By the end of 2011, the national body was funding the Super Rugby outfits to the tune of $25 million a year.

The obvious answer was private ownership. “In the US and Europe, 90 per cent of professional sporting clubs are privately owned and have strong business models,” says Colin Smith, director of the advisory firm, Global Media and Sports. “And that’s because they focus on the profit motive.”

“The parochialism and backward thinking are crippling rugby. It’s a self-made destruction.”
In 2008, Smith was charged by the ARU with getting the state unions to consider private ownership. But according to Smith, “the general reaction [from the states] was, ‘Under no circumstances’.” A board member of one union told Smith that he didn’t want to sell his Super Rugby team because he might miss out on free tickets to the games. “The thinking [was] incredibly myopic,” says Smith. “It just shows a complete lack of understanding of how the business of sports works.”

Smith has worked in sports for 30 years. There is virtually no market that he has not run the ruler over, no major club that he has not scrutinised. But rugby is special to him. “The first game I attended was in the early ’90s at Twickenham between England and the Barbarians. It was absolutely scintillating, and I was hooked.” But he now despairs for the game in Australia. “The parochialism and backward thinking are crippling rugby. It’s a self-made destruction.”

Dejected Wallabies players after losing to Argentina in 2018. The once high-flying national team has slipped to seventh in the world rankings.
Dejected Wallabies players after losing to Argentina in 2018. The once high-flying national team has slipped to seventh in the world rankings.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
Rugby is played in more than 120 countries, with 9.6 million registered players worldwide. Outside Australia, the game is booming: the 2019 Rugby World Cup, held in Japan, drew a total broadcast audience of 857 million over six weeks. (When Japan played Scotland, 54.8 million people in Japan watched it on television, nearly half the population.) Such events showcase the lore and legend of each national team, together with their signature playing styles: the mercurial French, the doughty Scots, the flamboyant Fijians, and the Welsh, whose scrum could push down mountains.

The Wallabies used to be famous for “running rugby”, a swaggering brand of free-flowing football made famous by the Ella brothers and David Campese, among others. Now, not so much. Indeed, the saddest thing a rugby fan can hear is that the game in Australia has become boring. Observers blame the referees, who have become increasingly pedantic. But the complexity of the rules is also a problem, especially compared to rugby league or AFL.

For years, rugby administrators have tinkered with the laws to make the game a better spectacle, but it’s a slow process. “Rugby is a global game,” says Brett Robinson, former Wallaby and current member of the World Rugby Council, which oversees laws, regulations and player welfare. “League and AFL are essentially domestic sports. It’s easy for them to make rule changes, but we have to influence over 100 nations to make changes that can be applied across the world and ultimately at a World Cup every four years.”

Rugby connoisseurs claim the complexity of the game is part of its beauty; that rugby is chess to rugby league’s checkers. But sometimes checkers is all a sports fan has time for. This is especially true in Australia, which has no less than four football codes – league, union, AFL and soccer – all competing for hearts and minds. And in an era when sport has become mass entertainment, being dull is death.

Rugby connoisseurs claim the complexity of the game is part of its beauty; that rugby is chess to rugby league’s checkers.
Growing rugby’s fan base is essential. One way of doing that is by winning games; the other is to create new audiences. “To me, the biggest wasted opportunity has been the failure to bring more people outside the narrow culture of rugby into the sport,” says James Curran, a Sydney University history professor who is writing a book about David Campese. “Rugby officialdom hasn’t been able to move beyond those who were supporting the game in the 1970s.”

Most of rugby’s elite players are still drawn from a small number of private schools in Sydney and Brisbane. The same goes for the game’s leadership, at both national and state levels, an inordinate number of whom come from Sydney’s most exclusive private schools, including Newington, Scots or St Joseph’s. One school in particular, Shore, figures prominently.

No fewer than eight recent RA and NSWRU office holders are Shore old boys, including current chairman, Hamish McLennan, recently departed CEO Rob Clarke and director Phil Waugh.

When the ARU went looking for a new CEO in 2012, it conducted what it described as a worldwide search before turning up Shore old boy Bill Pulver, in Sydney’s affluent harbourside suburb of Mosman. (Living, as it happened, right next door to ARU director John Eales). Pulver received a ringing endorsement from then ARU chairman, Michael Hawker, another Shore old boy who had played rugby with Pulver in the school’s First XV some 35 years earlier. “The whole thing is so incestuous,” says Colin Smith. “It’s not good for the game.”

It also reflects a fundamental disconnect to the game’s grassroots, which attracts a far broader demographic. “Many of our players are scaffolders or concreters,” says Craig Moran, general manager of Western Sydney Two Blues rugby club, in Parramatta. “They’re not rich people.”

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Founded in 1879, Two Blues is a Shute Shield stalwart. The club is operated almost entirely by volunteers, including Dennis “Muncher” Garlick, the 71-year-old waterboy, and the helpers who run the canteen, which provides much of the club’s revenue. But clubs like Moran’s have over the years been variously ignored or held in contempt by the ARU. In 2014, when the ARU was facing insolvency, Pulver requested the clubs forgo their annual $100,000 grants. Two years later, when the clubs requested the grants be reinstated, Pulver refused, reportedly saying he didn’t want them to “piss it up the wall”. (Pulver declined to take part in this story.)

State administrators have been equally out of touch. For decades the NSWRU has appointed a development officer for Shute Shield clubs, including Two Blues. But, according to Moran, it never understood the cultural dimension of the job. “Western Sydney has a large Islander population but we didn’t have any development officers who were Islanders. Development officers have to understand the social conditions. You can’t just send someone from Manly to be a DO in Merrylands.”

Moran says the game is “cannibalising itself”. Recent years have seen lavish pre-season launches at exclusive nightclubs; catered corporate events and runaway overstaffing. Last year it emerged that RA had spent $19 million on corporate costs in 2019, and just $4.3 million on community rugby, and was employing more than 200 people.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” says Scott Allen, who was appointed assistant coach to the women’s national rugby team, the Wallaroos, in 2016. “I remember walking into ARU headquarters on my first day and there were people and desks everywhere. And I thought, ‘What the f… are all these people doing?’ ”

Pulver had some wins, including a $285 million, five-year broadcast deal with Foxtel. But he also oversaw the disastrous axing of the Western Force Super Rugby team in 2017. The decision enraged Force fans, and saw the West Australian premier threaten to sue the ARU. Thousands of people protested in Perth, led by mining magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest.

“The process was a charade,” Forrest tells me. “It was shocking leadership and governance.” Former Wallaby Nathan Sharpe described the decision on Twitter as “the biggest mistake the ARU could have made”. The episode effectively ended Pulver’s term. He quit, in August 2017, pocketing a $300,000 bonus on his way out the door.

RA chairman Hamish McLennan, left, and CEO Andy Marinos are aiming
to “rebuild” rugby.
RA chairman Hamish McLennan, left, and CEO Andy Marinos are aiming to “rebuild” rugby.CREDIT:DOMINIC LORRIMER
Not all of rugby’s woes are self-inflicted. You can’t blame administrators for time zone differences, which mean that games involving Australian teams overseas are often broadcast here at 3am or 4am. It’s also hard for Australia to compete with the financial might of the northern hemisphere unions, which regularly poach our best players. Then there’s Israel Folau, the star Wallaby whose homophobic social media posts wound up costing RA millions of dollars in legal fees and saw the game ensnared in a high-profile debate over free speech that it could not win.

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Yet infighting and opportunism continue to poison the game. Last year saw a clumsy attempt to overthrow the RA board, when 11 former Wallaby captains wrote an open letter accusing the game’s leadership, headed by CEO Raelene Castle, of mismanagement. Castle, who is from New Zealand, had taken over from Pulver in 2017, and was wrestling with the financial impact of COVID. At the same time, she had put the broadcast rights out to tender, snubbing long-time partner Foxtel. Castle’s decision would eventually deliver a huge win for rugby, opening the way for a $100 million deal with Nine, part of which involved a free-to-air component.

But at the time Foxtel was furious. Castle found herself under attack from journalists at News Corp (Foxtel’s majority owner). Then came the captains’ letter, the public faces of which were Nick Farr Jones and former Foxtel commentator Phil Kearns. The letter was regarded by many as baldly self-serving of Kearns, who had lost out to Castle for the CEO’s job two years before. Kearns denies this.

“No one from Foxtel ever rang me and said they wanted me to run for CEO,” he tells me. “[And there] was never any talk by the captains explicitly of me going into the CEO role.” It was telling, however, that Kearns and the others had not intervened when the game faced insolvency under Pulver. “In any case,” says Sam Bruce, rugby writer at ESPN, “if they really wanted to help the game, there was nothing stopping them from calling Castle and saying, ‘How can I help?’ ”

“The whole episode painted a really ugly picture for the game right when what it needed most was positivity and cohesion.”
As far as Bruce is concerned, the coup was just another power play. “Castle was an outsider,” he says. “She was a Kiwi, a woman, and she didn’t live in Mosman. Her appointment caught rugby’s old boys’ establishment off guard. They thought they were losing control.” Castle resigned in April 2020, her decision prompted by what the then chairman Paul McLean described as a campaign of “abhorrent” bullying, both online and from vested interests in the media. Says Bruce: “The whole episode painted a really ugly picture for the game right when what it needed most was positivity and cohesion.”

In 2012, John O’Neill put together a presentation using a report by US management guru Jim Collins. Collins outlines five key stages of an organisation’s collapse, including Inaction, Crisis and Dissolution. On the last page O’Neill had written: “Where is Australian rugby?” One could ask the same question now.

A commentator on the sports website The Roar suggests the game is facing a “multi-generational battle” to restore its fortunes. A GreenandGoldRugby.com reader proposed that rugby go amateur again. Peter FitzSimons, meanwhile, believes the game’s worst days are behind it. “We have crossed the Valley of Death and are slowly starting to climb to the other side.”

Hamish McLennan is similarly upbeat. “We’ve got some great young players coming through [at the elite level],” he says, when we meet at RA’s Moore Park HQ. “And there’s been a lot of good work reconnecting with the grassroots.” McLennan has stopped the soap opera at head office, and established an advisory board to bid for the 2027 World Cup (Phil Kearns is the executive director). “That’s the light on the hill,” nods McLennan. “We stand a pretty good chance of getting that.”

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Private equity is also in the picture. Luxembourg based CVC Capital Partners has invested $1.2 billion in European rugby, most recently buying a 14 per cent stake in the Six Nations, a yearly tournament between Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, England and Italy. And American group Silver Lake Partners reportedly plans to put $NZ465 million into New Zealand rugby in return for a 15 per cent share of commercial rights. McLennan says a number of private equity outfits, including CVC, Bruin Capital and Silver Lake, are likewise looking at Australia.

It’s unclear what such an investment would look like. “Do we do it at a competition level, do we include the clubs or not, do we sell a part of the Wallabies or the whole organisation? We have to figure that out,” says McLennan.

There’s a lot at stake. “We’re on the ground floor of a complete rebuild for rugby. But it’s taken a long time getting to this point, and it’ll take quite a few years to get out of it.”

For those who believe the game is beyond salvation here, he points to Argentina, who beat the All Blacks for the first time ever last year. “That’s the thing with sport,” says McLennan. “You can come from nowhere and surprise people.”

To read more from Good Weekend magazine, visit our page at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times.


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Post by Morrissey Breen
Post by Morrissey Breen
Post by Morrissey Breen
‘Ruining the sport’: What readers want the AFL to change
February 20, 2022 — 1.50pm
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/ruining-the-sport-what-readers-want-the-afl-to-change-20220220-p59y01.html
In late 2021, the AFL Fans Association undertook a survey of more than 800 people to find out what they felt the burning issues were for supporters. The results? More than a third were worried about the proliferation of gambling advertising; some called for the stand rule to be abolished; others were tired of rule changes and wanted clearer umpiring interpretations.
Those topics were far and away the most common response when The Age opened the floor for readers to have their say on the issue they most wanted the league to address. An overwhelming majority wanted an end to gambling advertising and sponsorships. Some responses have been edited for brevity.
Gambling advertising was a key concern for many readers.
Gambling advertising was a key concern for many readers.CREDIT:AFL PHOTOS
‘Cruel and greedy’
“Remove the gambling ads. How disgraceful that the one of the biggest financial generators for the AFL is this insidious gambling industry. You cannot watch the game or any sport without the gambling ads and promoters peddling the wares. Gambling is a personal choice, but unfortunately there are consequences, and when so much money is involved, the only ones to profit are the vested interest. Horses, dogs are also victims.” - Paula
“Gambling ads need to be dropped. It is at such a high level that it will be encouraging many of our young and people in general to gamble.” - Derek
“No more advertising of gambling ‘opportunities’. If people want to gamble, they will, but it is cruel and greedy to advertise it in the high emotion atmosphere that surrounds live games or televised games. Please get rid of it. It targets problem gamblers and young people with anonymity.” - Victoria
“Gambling advertising – it endorses an activity that causes great social harm in Australia. One of the attractive aspects of attending an AFL match or watching/listening to an AFL broadcast is to see that for many fans it is still a family activity. Gambling ads normalise ‘having a punt’ as part of following AFL and there will be a section of the audience who are introduced to gambling in this way. Although I think that the prospect of match fixing in AFL is low, being able to bet on who will kick the first goal etc could lead to the corruption of some players.” - Jay
“Stop gambling promotion about odds being part of commentators’ information to public. It just normalises gambling.” - Deborah
“Ban betting advertising on television, print, radio and at stadiums, it is not having a positive impact on young children and young adults. I no longer enjoy watching it; as a parent it is irresponsible to allow my child to see consistent advertising/commentary on betting. They are normalising gambling and encouraging it as if it is necessary to enjoy the game. I don’t understand how this is allowed. ” - Teresa
“Remove gambling adds – it is exactly the same as tobacco advertising in sports in the past when that was banned in 1976 due to the enormous societal impact. Even my teenage children notice them and think they are harmful and there are too many.” - J
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‘Stop promoting gambling:’ Betting ads a burning issue in AFL fan survey
Some readers thought the problem with advertising gambling extended to other areas, including alcohol and junk food.
“Gambling advertising in media and hoardings around grounds to cease immediately. AFL to cease advertising junk food and junk drinks. The same goes for gambling sponsorship. Also, all of the above should apply to alcohol sponsorship.” - Warwick
And the sentiment was that sponsorship as well as advertising should be addressed.
“Cease all association with gambling, including sponsorship deals and advertising. Eradicate it from the sport, please. It is ruining the sport.” - Richard
“Advertising on gambling in any form should be banned. The AFL should mandate this in its commercial arrangements.” - Ron
“I appreciate the AFL needs sponsors, but facilitating gambling agencies to hammer kids with these adds, simply in order to line their pockets, is abhorrent. The consequences of this will last generations.” - Mark
‘Rules change every year’
Rule changes and officiating were also hot topics among readers, but the sentiment was mixed. Some people wanted rules changed, while others have had enough of modifications.
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“[The AFL should change] the stand rule and nominating for ruck contests, it slows the game down and goes back to Auskick rules.” - Ian
“Remove the stand and ruck nomination rules, remove ‘six-six-six’ ... Scoring has reduced since these rules came in.” - Brendan
But not everyone was opposed to the stand rule.
“The stand rule is to me probably the best rule for opening the game up that has been tried and works – game flow is decluttered and better to watch.” - Patrick
Some wanted a change to 50-metre penalties.
“Fifty-metre penalty is excessive and punishes what are often very minor infringements to a ridiculous degree often resulting in a certain goal. Spoils the spectacle for me. Twenty-metre penalty would be more appropriate.” - Carlos
Others had different solutions for similar problems. Sam wanted the league to get “more flow or movement into the game, opening up play so talented players can display skills”. But John called for more free kicks to be paid. “Push in the back, holding the ball. Too many instances where these result in ball-ups.”
And how to relieve the pressure on umpires? Stop making so many changes and remove the need for interpretation.
“It’s no wonder the umpires are criticised so frequently, when rules change every year. They are forced to adjudicate new or changed rules every year. No more rule changes unless it is absolutely necessary.” - Masher
“Scrap prior opportunity, just give ball possessor three seconds to legally dispose of the ball when legally tackled. No interpretation needed.” - Dave
“... Confine ‘prior opportunity’ to only a bad memory.” - Bill
“... There have [been] more changes to rules in the last 20 years than the previous 50 years. Now we have rules made to undo the consequences of previous rule changes.” - David
“Overall, if a rule can’t be applied ‘by the book’ and not subject to a myriad of interpretations it would be better off being scrapped. Often former player commentators talk about a play being “technically” a free kick, but suggesting the umpire could have let it go. If it doesn’t matter, scrap the rule. The closer we can get to a simpler decision the better off we will be.” - Rod
And some readers had other suggestions.
“The running through the protected area rule should only be applied if it clearly has impeded the ball carrier. Even if a player was impacted the 50-metre penalty is too great and should be reduced to 25 metres.” - Marshall
“Give the player who attacks the ball a chance to make the play. This reward the tackler approach is rubbish! If I want to watch a game of no stop tackling being ‘rewarded’ I will become a rugby league fan.” - Ian
Readers had an issue with interpretation of rules as well as rule changes.
Readers had an issue with interpretation of rules as well as rule changes.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
“Scraping the post or touching the ball as it goes through the goals. The camera work and quality is not good enough for the purpose and it makes little sense to agonise through the process. If it goes through the big sticks it’s a goal. If it goes through the small sticks it’s a point. If it bounces back into play it is play on. Simple.” - Ron
‘Reduce the volume’
Lots of readers were unhappy with how quarter- and half-time breaks are filled with noise. Nick‘s No.1 concern was “incessant, high-volume ‘entertainment’“. Matt’s was “loud music and ads between quarters”. Most just wanted to be able to chat to family and friends.
“Reduce the volume of the ‘entertainment’. Time was we used to like talking before the game and half-time. We can also get rid of the constant changes in fluro advertising, plus we don’t need three tiers of illuminated banners to tell us a goal has been kicked.” - David
“Noisy entertainment which interferes with ability to socialise with family and friends because we can’t hear each other. Revolving advertising is disturbing for people with migraines and other sensory disabilities.” - Bernadette
“Stop the loud, LOUD ‘entertainment’ at the end of each quarter. Just let us interact and chat and be social with people in the crowd around us. We can’t, because there’s non-stop music and announcements at high decibel levels ruining our time at the footy. It’s a total turn off. I know many people who don’t go any more because of it. God help people with tinnitus, hearing aids or brain injuries. It’s noise pollution, is what it is, not entertainment.” - Mary
‘Members do the hard yards’
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Many readers also took issue with ticketing and grand final access.
Linda wanted the grand final moved around the country (it is contracted to be played at the MCG until the late 2050s). Noreen wanted a more simple way to buy tickets for her team’s away games. Christine wanted more grand final tickets available for members of competing clubs, “NOT funnelled off to corporates who don’t necessarily support either team. We long-term (and long-suffering) members do the hard yards all season, every season, and should be able to see our team’s ultimate triumph in person.”
“Stop selling tickets for finals and go back to first in, best dressed until the ground is full. This means those who are there are real fans and not corporates or once-a-year attendees.” - John
And some wanted the fairness of the fixture addressed.
“A good start would be to arrange fixtures so all teams play all others an equal number of times. I don’t suppose there’s any hope that some protected [Victorian] teams will be forced to play away from their hallowed grounds the way interstate teams must? It’s still the VFL with other states invited to help fill the coffers.” - Wally
“Fixture fairness – so called ‘traditional’ blockbuster games [reduce] the fairness of the competition. With the odd number of teams in the competition if they can’t play each other once or twice per season the top six teams should play each other twice and each of the other teams once. The middle group of six should play each other twice and the others once. The same for the bottom six.” - Michael
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TV View: Unleash Graeme Souness on these animal-hating low-lives
Divine intervention in Kilcoo; Shane Horgan worships at the altar of Johnny Sexton
Mon, Feb 14, 2022, 09:47
https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/tv-view-unleash-graeme-souness-on-these-animal-hating-low-lives-1.4801333
Mary Hannigan
2
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday. Photograph: AMA/Corbis via Getty Images
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday. Photograph: AMA/Corbis via Getty Images
“Sometimes, maybe, God’s on your side,” said Kilcoo’s Eugene Branagan when TG4’s Micheál O’Domhnaill asked him to explain, for all that’s good and holy, how his team had managed to beat Kilmacud Crokes in the All-Ireland club final when their hopes had been given the last rites more than once in the course of the contest.
And divine intervention, as it proved, was kind of the theme of the sporting day, not least when it came to analysing Ireland’s what-might-have-been trip to Paris.
The learnings?
Rob Kearney, doffing his cap to Joey Carbery’s efforts, had no doubt. “I think the most important thing we’ve learnt is that Ireland have a rugby team without Johnny Sexton, which is a big plus,” he said.
Shane Horgan?
“With Sexton at 10, Ireland would have won that game.”
Rob and his Virgin Media teammate Matt Williams thought this was decidedly harsh, not least on Joey, but Shane wouldn’t budge from his belief if the deity that is Johnny was on the pitch instead of spectating, then Ireland would have been home and hosed.
“A missed opportunity,” he said of the game, although Matt pointed out that Ireland “went toe to toe with the heavyweight champion of the world” and only lost on points. “That’s all you can bloody lose on in rugby,” Shane didn’t say, but he was thinking it.
Joe Molloy tried to cheer Shane up by telling him that the final of The Masked Singer was coming up on Virgin Media, but while that had Rob and Matt quite excited, Shane was unmoved.
“A missed opportunity,” he said again, Ireland’s Grand Slam hopes down the Swanee, but come Sunday Rob tried to reassure him that most probably France wouldn’t win the Grand Slam either because “they were no outstanding shakes themselves yesterday”.
Souness sticks up for the cat
The outstanding shakes, as it turned out, were to be found in Sky Sports’ Super Sunday studio where Graeme Souness pulverised the wretched excuse for a human being that is Kurt Zouma.
It was last September, when Sky brought us “the world’s first ever net zero carbon football match”, that Graeme revealed himself to be a highly passionate animal lover, a revelation that some of us never saw coming. It’s not that he isn’t most probably a good man, it’s just that you wouldn’t necessarily expect this level of empathy from someone who saw opposing shins as legitimate targets in the course of their playing career. Although, admittedly, it’s hard to find a seamless link here.
The mere mention of Zouma’s name, then, was never going to go down well.
“We don’t know what he’s been through,” said Jamie Carragher when news filtered through that Zouma had dropped out of the West Ham team due to play Leicester. “Not as much as the cat went through,” said Graeme, his cheek muscles flexing so violently, Jamie looked scared. Micah Richards too.
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday.
“I wouldn’t have played him again this year,” he said, “if I was a player I wouldn’t want to be in the same dressing room with him, I would not want him around the place.”
His emotions hadn’t eased come full-time in the game - “I’d love to see him pursued in court, I think what he’s guilty of is outrageous behaviour that goes beyond the pale” - Micah, quite heroically, daring to debate him, pointing out that there are convicted murderers back out on the streets again. He did, then, believe banning Zouma until the end of the season would be too harsh a punishment.
“Would you allow him to have another cat in his house,” Graeme asked him. By now, Micah would have been afraid to enter Graeme’s house.
Graeme Souness? Legend.
Meanwhile, over on Sky Sports News, word was filtering through about a video showing former eventing Olympic champion Sir Mark Todd whipping a horse 10 times with a branch to try and force it through a water obstacle.
Truly, our world is screwed. It needs divine intervention. Or Graeme Souness to be allowed deal with these low-lives.
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VJ
VJDevine
6 DAYS AGO
Souness, hard man but top cat, great analyst.
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MI
michael1
6 DAYS AGO
There was none of the "Wretched Excuse for a Human Being" when one of our own "Media Darling" Jockeys was caught punching a Horse in The Head several times.
As for Souness... hes done more damage to Human Beings on the Pitch than Zouma did to the unfortunate Cat... what he did was grossly wrong..but that doesent make him Jack the Ripper.
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‘Due for another realignment’: Retired great weighs in on AFL’s major umpire move
Melbourne thump Roos by 88 points!
Melbourne thump Roos by 88 points! | 01:29
Tom Morris
Tom Morris from Fox Sports
@tommorris32
February 25th, 2022 1:16 pm
The VFL/AFL games record holder for umpires has called on the league to punish “subtle” acts of dissent from players with 50 metre penalties and free kicks.
Earlier this week the AFL sent a memo to clubs outlining the importance for respect towards umpires.
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The instruction was interpreted by some clubs as a crackdown, with umpires instructed to uphold a less tolerant approach when players dispute decisions.
Round 1
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Mar 18 7:25pm AEST
FT
Richmond
Richmond
105
Carlton
80
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
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AFL
Mar 19 7:50pm AEST
FT
Collingwood
53
Bulldogs
69
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 20 1:45pm AEST
FT
Melbourne
80
Fremantle
58
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 20 4:35pm AEST
FT
Adelaide
103
Geelong
91
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
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Mar 20 7:25pm AEST
FT
Essendon
91
Hawthorn
92
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 20 7:45pm AEST
FT
Brisbane
94
Sydney
125
MATCH CENTRE
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Mar 21 1:10pm AEST
FT
North Melbourne
North Melbourne
65
Port Adelaide
Port Adelaide
117
MATCH CENTRE
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Mar 21 3:20pm AEST
FT
Greater Western Sydney
Greater Western Sydney
78
St Kilda
St Kilda
86
MATCH CENTRE
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Mar 21 6:10pm AEST
FT
West Coast
West Coast
83
Gold Coast
Gold Coast
58
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
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Shane McInerney, who umpired 500 matches between 1994 and 2019 including two Grand Finals, praised the memo as a necessary “reset.”
Speaking to foxfooty.com.au, McInerney detailed three scenarios which he believes should now result in a penalty.
“We are due for another realignment I think,” McInerney said.
“The players have worked out what demonstrative abuse looks like and I think we need to reset what we actually mean by good umpire/player relationships.
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Retired umpire Shane McInerney believes the new memo sent from the AFL was needed. (AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Retired umpire Shane McInerney believes the new memo sent from the AFL was needed. (AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Source: AAP
“In a situation like deliberate out of bounds where three or four players will stand around appealing with their arms out, that’s not a good look for the game and not what we want to see. I’d penalise that.
“We see forwards getting free kicks and the defending standing and pointing at the big screen. That’s not a good look for the sport.
“I think it is important that players can ask questions on why certain decisions are made. By and large that does happen. There are a few more habits that have crept in that the game doesn’t need. It’s a distraction that serves to embarrass or undermine an umpire’s authority.”
And the third example?
“Sometimes there are two or three defenders wanting to have their two bobs worth,” McInerney continued.
“That’s not on. The umpire has a job to do at that point in time.”
In the AFL’s note to clubs, executive general manager Andrew Dillon praised the sacrifices players and staff have made across the past two seasons.
But in reviewing the 2021 season, he said there were “a number of instances” where the “AFL community” fell short of certain standards relating to sportsmanship and respect for umpires.
“The AFL and its clubs have a unique leadership role in the community, and with that role comes responsibility. Disrespect towards umpires is an issue at all levels of football and has no place,” Dillon said.
McInerney is hoping to see more respect displayed to umpires. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
McInerney is hoping to see more respect displayed to umpires. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Source: Getty Images
“We are 6,000 umpires short at the community football level and it is incumbent on us to set the right example at the elite level so we can encourage and retain umpires across the country to best support the rapidly growing player participation base.”
While McInerney believes a correlation exists between the top level and local football, he argued the issue is not finding umpires, rather it is retaining them.
He also declared the changes made by the AFL have the potential to filter down quickly.
“I think what happens at the AFL level plays a role in umpire shortage, but I don’t think there is a direct correlation,” he said.
“There has been an explosion in women’s footy and that has placed a demand on all sorts of components with grounds, facilities, coaches and so forth.
“In my view, I’ve always understood that it’s not about attracting people to umpiring – lots of people like to give it a go – I think it’s more around the retention. The match day experience goes a long way to ensure that you can have retention of umpires.”
He added: “The response is a pretty quick response. Invariably when the AFL makes a change to a Law or an interpretation, spectators think at the lower level think that’s how their games will be officiated. Those competitions pick up really quickly.
“It’s something that could be achieved this coming season.”
On Friday morning, North Melbourne great and Fox Footy expert David King cautioned against any significant changes to interpretations around umpire feedback.
David King cautioned against major changes to interpretations around umpire feedback. Picture: Hamish Blair
David King cautioned against major changes to interpretations around umpire feedback. Picture: Hamish Blair
Source: Herald Sun
“The abuse of the umpire being an instant 50m penalty, I don’t believe AFL players ever abuse an umpire, they may be angry with a decision at a given point in time and they may be frustrated and say something but it’s not to abuse or belittle an umpire,” King said on SEN Breakfast.
“It’s an act that’s gone in three seconds, it’s always been a part of our game and it’s never been a problem, don’t tell me that if it comes from over the fence in lesser games or at junior footy, this is something in my opinion that has been overplayed.
“There were two 50m penalties paid yesterday that I thought ‘gee-whiz that’s really tough’, the players not standing there abusing the umpires, they’re questioning the decision, it’s going to bring significant backlash.
“Put it right in your diary now, it’ll be the most talked-about thing on a Monday morning in three weeks’ time about someone getting a 50m for saying ‘you can’t pay that Ray’.”
McInerney said one of the challenges for umpires is disregarding their own subjective perspective on player feedback.
“In our game, yes we can have personalities,” he continued.
“But everyone is interpreting the same part of the law as each other. This area is no different. It’s not about what certain personalities can or can’t handle. No. It’s about the role of the umpire and how the players engage with that person in their role.
“There is no room for umpires to take into account whether they can handle it or can’t. I can’t stress that enough. That is not what this is about.”
18.8.2 Free Kicks – Umpires
(a) uses abusive, insulting, threatening or obscene language towards an Umpire;
(b) behaves in an abusive, insulting, threatening or obscene manner towards an Umpire;
(c) intentionally, unreasonably or carelessly makes contact with an Umpire;
(d) disputes a decision of an Umpire;
(e) fails to follow the instruction of an Umpire; or
(f) intentionally or carelessly engages in conduct which affects, interferes with or prevents an Umpire from performing their duties.
https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/due-for-another-realignment-retired-great-weighs-in-on-afls-great-umpire-debate/news-story/c8319c342aff5f772e15f13d8fee78bd
Morrissey Breen
2022-02-25 12:30:34 UTC
Permalink
FIVE KEY STAGES OF AN ORGANIZATION'S COLLAPSE
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-union/zero-scrum-game-is-it-too-late-to-save-rugby-union-20210203-p56z7r.html

In 2012, John O’Neill put together a presentation using a report by US management guru Jim Collins. Collins outlines five key stages of an organisation’s collapse, including Inaction, Crisis and Dissolution. On the last page O’Neill had written: “Where is Australian rugby?” One could ask the same question now.
Post by Morrissey Breen
Zero scrum game: is it too late to save rugby union?
Lauded by fans as “the game they play in heaven”, rugby union has gone to hell in a handbasket, beset for two decades by infighting, financial crises, declining audiences and fierce competition from the AFL and NRL. Can a new CEO and free-to-air TV deal get it kicking again?
By Tim Elliott
APRIL 2, 2021
Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan says, “We’re on the ground floor of a complete rebuild for rugby. But it’s taken a long time getting to this point, and it’ll take quite a few years to get out of it.”
Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan says, “We’re on the ground floor of a complete rebuild for rugby. But it’s taken a long time getting to this point, and it’ll take quite a few years to get out of it.”CREDIT:JAMES BRICKWOOD
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It’s a balmy evening in January, and the Pearl Ballroom at Sydney’s Crown Towers is looking its finest, with its theatre-style curtains and platinum-coloured wall panelling, its floating chandeliers and mirrored ceiling. Chef Guillaume Brahimi has outdone himself, dishing up a tartare of yellowfin tuna for entrée followed by minute steak with Cafe de Paris butter. There is pinot gris, shiraz and chardonnay, and here to enjoy it, the premier cru of Australian rugby union’s gilded past: David Campese, John Eales and Nick Farr-Jones; the fridge-like Phil Kearns, Gary Ella and even Eric Tweedale, who, at the age of 99, is the oldest living Wallaby. They’re all here, the great and good of “the game they play in heaven”, grazing at the table like buffalo at a watering hole. It’s a rugby Valhalla, with pistachio gateau for dessert.
Tonight’s event has been organised by Rugby Australia, the game’s governing body, with the express purpose of picking a permanent colour for the national jersey. The national team, the Wallabies, have traditionally worn gold, but over the decades that gold has morphed like a lava lamp from the warm ochre of the 1980s to a burnt orange and even, most recently, a traffic-stopping yellow.
“A picture says a thousand words,” Hamish McLennan, RA’s chairman, told the media in the lead-up to the event. “It [the constant colour changes] shows the madness of our inconsistency.”
Tall and urbane, with thick, dark hair, McLennan, who took over the role in June 2020, radiates charm and capability, with the casual confidence of a man who enters a job interview with another offer in his back pocket. He’s positioned tonight’s event as an exercise in unity and esprit de corps, a way of honouring history while building for the future. “We need to decide,” he tells me. “The symbolism is important.”
The fans have already spoken: in an online poll conducted by The Sydney Morning Herald, most popular among the 13,300 votes cast was the jersey worn by the Wallabies in 1991, the year Australia won its first Rugby World Cup. McLennan has said the poll result will have a bearing on tonight. “After all, the fans own the jersey.”
Rugby legends mull over which jersey to pick as permanent Wallabies colours. From left, Phil Kearns, Gary Ella, Bob Dwyer, David Campese and Tim Gavin.
Rugby legends mull over which jersey to pick as permanent Wallabies colours. From left, Phil Kearns, Gary Ella, Bob Dwyer, David Campese and Tim Gavin.CREDIT:EDWINA PICKLES
Soon, the voting begins. There are eight jerseys to choose from. As each one is presented to the room, there’s a show of hands and the numbers noted. Another jersey, more hands, more numbers. A certain dissonance arises: we’re told to forget nostalgia and think about the future, but nostalgia is built into the process. Indeed, for Australian rugby fans, traumatised by decades of defeat, nostalgia is all they have left.
In the end, after several rounds of increasingly raucous voting, of good-natured heckling and faux outrage, the number of jerseys has been whittled down, from eight to six to four to two, and finally, the winner, as duly presaged, the 1991 World Cup-winning design.
Most agree it’s a victory for good taste and sound judgment. But it is also, inevitably, a victory for nostalgia. Once again, to everyone’s relief, Australian rugby is going back to the future.
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It’s hard to imagine now, but once upon a time Australians were very good at playing rugby union. The Wallabies won World Cups in 1991 and 1999. In 2000, they retained the Bledisloe Cup against the New Zealand All Blacks for the third year running, and took out the Tri Nations Series, beating the All Blacks and the Springboks, the national team of South Africa. The NSW Waratahs ranked alongside the AFL’s Collingwood and the NRL’s Brisbane Broncos as one of the country’s most recognised sporting brands.
The game brought in big money and colossal crowds: more than 109,000 packed in to Sydney’s Stadium Australia in 2000 to watch the Wallabies and the All Blacks play what has been described as “the greatest ever rugby match”. In 2001, the Wallabies won a three-Test series against the British & Irish Lions. Two years later, when Australia hosted the World Cup, rugby was, for perhaps the first time in its history, a mainstream sport in which the broad mass of Australians were emotionally invested.
The period since then has been a waking nightmare for Australian rugby. The Wallabies have slumped from second in the world to seventh. We haven’t won a Bledisloe Cup since 2002. Crowds and TV audiences have plummeted. There have been intermittent victories over the All Blacks and others; Australia even made the World Cup final in 2015. But such victories have invariably been followed by humiliating defeats, a pattern of false dawns that has bred within the rugby community a culture of scepticism and apathy.
“Rugby is on the bones of its arse right now ... and what you’re left with is a bunch of huge men, who we don’t know, running into one another.”
Thousands of fans have drifted away to rugby league or Aussie Rules, disillusioned not only with the on-field performances but with the game’s dysfunctional governance. Despite being run by a coterie of investment bankers and private equity chiefs, rugby has lurched from one financial crisis to another, in some cases staving off insolvency with emergency loans.
“Rugby is on the bones of its arse right now,” says columnist and author Peter FitzSimons. “There used to be a magic and romance to it, and now that magic is gone, and what you’re left with is a bunch of huge men, who we don’t know, running into one another.”
FitzSimons, 59, appeared in seven Tests for the Wallabies in 1989-90, “when we played for the honour of it,” he says, “and got paid $50 a day.” He embodies a certain amateur-era type; grizzled and voluble, given to self-mythologising, with a face that appears to have been hurriedly chiselled from a block of salt.
Like many fans, FitzSimons, who infamously started an all-in brawl against France in 1990 at the Sydney Football Stadium, mourns the raw colour of amateur rugby and the figures it produced: Ray Price and David Campese, the dancing Ella brothers and Roger Gould, with quads like bags of concrete; players like Greg Cornelsen, who cowed the All Blacks with four tries at Eden Park in 1978, and Stan Pilecki, who was once interrupted smoking a cigarette when called off the bench for a Wallabies match in Argentina.
“Rugby has lost its theatre,” says FitzSimons. “There are no characters any more. Now we have 15 professional footballers whom no one can relate to. The key is to know who is representing us again, to care about them, and to see them win.”
There have, in fact, been some wins of late, albeit off the field. For the past 25 years rugby has been broadcast on Foxtel, majority owned by Rupert Murdoch. When the rights became available in 2020, Foxtel offered $31 million a year, down from an annual $57 million payment since 2015. In November last year, McLennan and interim CEO Rob Clarke declined the offer, signing instead with Nine Entertainment Co. (publisher of Good Weekend), in a deal worth $100 million over three years.
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The deal, which starts this year, includes the rights to Wallabies Tests, the women’s game, including the national team, the Wallaroos, and the club schedule. It also covers Super Rugby, a provincial competition which has in the past featured teams from South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Argentina and Japan. (The competition has since become an Australia-only model, due to COVID-19.)
Most importantly, the agreement involves a commitment to show a weekly Saturday night Super Rugby game on the Nine Network – the first time the competition has been given a free-to-air platform.
The Nine deal is widely seen as the last best hope for the code. McLennan tells me it could reactivate “rugby’s latent fan base”, a secret army of followers waiting to emerge from their basements wearing Wallabies scarves and waving gold flags.
“The problem before was exposure,” says McLennan. “A lot of people didn’t actually see rugby because they couldn’t afford pay TV. Now with free-to-air, suddenly rugby is going to be more front of mind. Kids will see it and they will want to play, and that makes it bigger, and more money will come into the game.”
“It’s really exciting,” says Stephen Moore, former Wallabies skipper and 129-Test veteran. “[McLennan] is a smart guy and 100 per cent committed to the game being its best.” But Moore acknowledges that rugby’s problems are bigger than a broadcast deal. “The state of the game here is so bad at the moment that it has to be transformed totally. For too long we’ve papered over the problems, and look where that’s got us.”
The Wallabies walk off the field after yet another defeat against the All Blacks, in the 2011 World Cup.
The Wallabies walk off the field after yet another defeat against the All Blacks, in the 2011 World Cup.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
In 2017, Rugby Australia moved into a new headquarters, a gleaming, cobalt-blue glass and steel structure in Moore Park, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. There’s a high-performance gym, a 600-square-metre indoor training area and a rooftop running track. From the second-floor boardroom, where I’ve come to meet RA’s new CEO, Andy Marinos, you can see the construction site of the former Sydney Football Stadium, once home to so many of rugby’s mythic victories, and which now, in a metaphor almost too obvious to mention, has been reduced to an enormous crater.
Marinos, 48, has a close-cropped beard and a torso like a concrete bollard. He played rugby at the provincial level in South Africa, where he grew up, and also for Wales, in the early 2000s (he has Welsh ancestry). He then moved into administration, managing the South African Rugby Union. For the past five years, he’s been based in Sydney as the CEO of SANZAAR, the body that runs Super Rugby and the Rugby Championship, an international competition between Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.
Marinos has arrived at RA at a turbulent time, even by the turbulent standards of Australian rugby. Last year saw the rancourous departure of the then CEO Raelene Castle, a global pandemic and record financial losses. “Rugby has been through a lot,” he says. “But COVID is an inflection point. It gives you the opportunity to restart.”
One of his immediate priorities is financial stability. “That way we can stop being reactive and start being more strategic about how we’re wanting to do things.” The money from Nine should right the ship in the short term. But repairing the game in the long run and making the Wallabies win again will be infinitely harder.
“Rugby has been through a lot, but COVID is an inflection point. It gives you the opportunity to restart.”
“There are so many constituent parts,” says Marinos. “Creating pathways for the players, managing stakeholders, the sponsors, fans and the community game.”
He believes his outsider status is an advantage. “I’m not caught up in the things that happened [in Australian rugby] in the past,” he says. “I don’t have any preference for a particular state, place or person.” He’s free, then, to begin “rugby’s journey of renewal, one that is about being genuine, authentic and listening to people.”
I must look sceptical. “It’s a fantastic opportunity!” he says. “But it’s going to take time to fix. And it’s not going to be easy.”
Almost everyone has a different take on why Australian rugby is broken. Some blame the referees; others blame the rules; it’s AFL’s fault, or rugby league’s. It’s stupid coaches, overpaid players, inept leadership. When I ask Eric Tweedale what he thinks the problem is, he says it all began when the game went professional, which seems as good a place to start as any.
According to legend, rugby began in 1823, at Rugby School in England. For most of its history, it was staunchly amateur. But successive World Cups, in 1987, 1991 and 1995, saw the game explode in popularity, increasing the demands on players, who insisted on being paid. In 1995, the three most powerful southern hemisphere rugby unions, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia, formed a body called SANZAR, to oversee Super Rugby and the Tri Nations. SANZAR approached Rupert Murdoch, who paid $US555 million over 10 years for the rights to broadcast the games on his nascent cable network, Foxtel. Sensing the momentum, the world’s governing body, the International Rugby Board, declared the game professional in 1995.
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Australia’s cut of the broadcast rights was $35 million a year. Despite this, the game’s peak body, then called Australian Rugby Union, remained an amateur outfit, with no fewer than 21 committees overseeing everything from finances to player selection. The committees were run by honoraries, whose positions as such gave them considerable status within the rugby community, not to mention good parking and the best seats at games. When former NSW State Bank chief John O’Neill became CEO of the ARU in 1995, he set about abolishing the committees outright, seeding a bitter antipathy from the honoraries, or the “blazer brigade” as he called them, that would bedevil rugby for years to come.
O’Neill didn’t want for confidence. (In his 2007 book, It’s Only a Game, he writes of becoming “quite depressed” to discover how “over-qualified” he was for the job.) But there was no doubting his ability. He broadened the game’s appeal, boosted participation, and presided over the hugely successful 2003 World Cup in Australia which left the ARU with a $45 million profit. He also attempted to centralise authority and take power away from the states, particularly NSW and Queensland, whose squabbling had hobbled the game for years. “They didn’t like that,” he tells me. “They thought I was too influential.”
After the 2003 World Cup, O’Neill still had a year on his contract, and intended to stay until 2007. But his enemies had other ideas. In late 2003, O’Neill, then acknowledged as one of the country’s finest sports administrators, was pushed out. Rugby writer Peter Jenkins wrote that O’Neill’s “only crime was being high-profile, and of daring to challenge his directors”. Australian rugby had begun a long tradition of shooting itself in the foot.
From left, former Australian Rugby Union boss Gary Flowers; John O’Neill, who was pushed out as ARU CEO after antagonising the “blazer brigade”; Bill Pulver is one of eight Shore old boys to be Rugby Australia and NSWRU officeholders in recent times.
From left, former Australian Rugby Union boss Gary Flowers; John O’Neill, who was pushed out as ARU CEO after antagonising the “blazer brigade”; Bill Pulver is one of eight Shore old boys to be Rugby Australia and NSWRU officeholders in recent times.CREDIT:EDWINA PICKLES; AAP; DANIEL MUNOZ
O’Neill and his deputy Matt Carroll had wanted to put the $45 million World Cup windfall in a trust. “The idea was that it’d be a future fund,” says Carroll, who is now CEO of the Australian Olympic Committee. “If they’d invested that money back then, it’d probably be worth $100 million now and be producing a yearly income for rugby.”
But they didn’t. Instead, the money was given to the state unions and ploughed into a new competition called the Australian Rugby Championship (ARC), featuring eight teams from around the country. The ARC, which was announced in mid-2006 by then CEO, Gary Flowers, was intended as a pathway from the club system to Super Rugby. But the model was flawed from the outset. The teams had no history and no local followings. It was expensive and attracted almost no sponsorship. It also detracted from the established club scenes in Sydney and Brisbane, angering the game’s grassroots. By the end of the first season, the ARC had lost $4.7 million, with forecast losses of $8 million by the end of 2008.
At the same time, the ARU was struggling with inflated player salaries. When rugby went professional in 1995, Murdoch had faced competition from rugby league, which had attempted to sign up most of rugby’s best players. At the same time, fellow media mogul Kerry Packer was backing a rival competition called World Rugby Corporation. Players were in demand, and in order to win, Murdoch was forced to pay top dollar. Salaries skyrocketed, and were pushed even higher thanks to competition from cashed-up clubs in the northern hemisphere, some of which had billionaire owners.
“In comparison to other sports, rugby players were getting a higher proportion of the revenues,” says management consultant Michael Crawford, who has advised the ARU for 20 years. “This left less money for development and created further anger at the community level.”
Flowers stood down in 2007, opening the way for O’Neill and Carroll to return. They immediately scrapped the ARC. But the performance of the Wallabies, the financial engine of Australian rugby, was going from bad to worse. In 2009, Australia lost four matches to the All Blacks, two to the Springboks, and one to Scotland. Super Rugby was also faltering. The three Australian teams, the ACT Brumbies, the NSW Waratahs and the Queensland Reds, had all at one time or another enjoyed considerable success. In 2006, a fourth Australian team, the Perth-based Western Force, was added to the competition, followed by a fifth team, the Melbourne Rebels, in 2011. The idea was to give the game a national footprint and generate more broadcast dollars.
But it soon became apparent that Australia didn’t have enough talent to go around. According to a 2017 Senate standing committee report into the future of Australian rugby, the expansion from three to four to five teams saw a step down in performance, from Australian sides winning 60 per cent of their games to 50 per cent to 40 per cent. When the teams began to go broke, their owners – the state unions – ran to the ARU for a handout. By the end of 2011, the national body was funding the Super Rugby outfits to the tune of $25 million a year.
The obvious answer was private ownership. “In the US and Europe, 90 per cent of professional sporting clubs are privately owned and have strong business models,” says Colin Smith, director of the advisory firm, Global Media and Sports. “And that’s because they focus on the profit motive.”
“The parochialism and backward thinking are crippling rugby. It’s a self-made destruction.”
In 2008, Smith was charged by the ARU with getting the state unions to consider private ownership. But according to Smith, “the general reaction [from the states] was, ‘Under no circumstances’.” A board member of one union told Smith that he didn’t want to sell his Super Rugby team because he might miss out on free tickets to the games. “The thinking [was] incredibly myopic,” says Smith. “It just shows a complete lack of understanding of how the business of sports works.”
Smith has worked in sports for 30 years. There is virtually no market that he has not run the ruler over, no major club that he has not scrutinised. But rugby is special to him. “The first game I attended was in the early ’90s at Twickenham between England and the Barbarians. It was absolutely scintillating, and I was hooked.” But he now despairs for the game in Australia. “The parochialism and backward thinking are crippling rugby. It’s a self-made destruction.”
Dejected Wallabies players after losing to Argentina in 2018. The once high-flying national team has slipped to seventh in the world rankings.
Dejected Wallabies players after losing to Argentina in 2018. The once high-flying national team has slipped to seventh in the world rankings.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
Rugby is played in more than 120 countries, with 9.6 million registered players worldwide. Outside Australia, the game is booming: the 2019 Rugby World Cup, held in Japan, drew a total broadcast audience of 857 million over six weeks. (When Japan played Scotland, 54.8 million people in Japan watched it on television, nearly half the population.) Such events showcase the lore and legend of each national team, together with their signature playing styles: the mercurial French, the doughty Scots, the flamboyant Fijians, and the Welsh, whose scrum could push down mountains.
The Wallabies used to be famous for “running rugby”, a swaggering brand of free-flowing football made famous by the Ella brothers and David Campese, among others. Now, not so much. Indeed, the saddest thing a rugby fan can hear is that the game in Australia has become boring. Observers blame the referees, who have become increasingly pedantic. But the complexity of the rules is also a problem, especially compared to rugby league or AFL.
For years, rugby administrators have tinkered with the laws to make the game a better spectacle, but it’s a slow process. “Rugby is a global game,” says Brett Robinson, former Wallaby and current member of the World Rugby Council, which oversees laws, regulations and player welfare. “League and AFL are essentially domestic sports. It’s easy for them to make rule changes, but we have to influence over 100 nations to make changes that can be applied across the world and ultimately at a World Cup every four years.”
Rugby connoisseurs claim the complexity of the game is part of its beauty; that rugby is chess to rugby league’s checkers. But sometimes checkers is all a sports fan has time for. This is especially true in Australia, which has no less than four football codes – league, union, AFL and soccer – all competing for hearts and minds. And in an era when sport has become mass entertainment, being dull is death.
Rugby connoisseurs claim the complexity of the game is part of its beauty; that rugby is chess to rugby league’s checkers.
Growing rugby’s fan base is essential. One way of doing that is by winning games; the other is to create new audiences. “To me, the biggest wasted opportunity has been the failure to bring more people outside the narrow culture of rugby into the sport,” says James Curran, a Sydney University history professor who is writing a book about David Campese. “Rugby officialdom hasn’t been able to move beyond those who were supporting the game in the 1970s.”
Most of rugby’s elite players are still drawn from a small number of private schools in Sydney and Brisbane. The same goes for the game’s leadership, at both national and state levels, an inordinate number of whom come from Sydney’s most exclusive private schools, including Newington, Scots or St Joseph’s. One school in particular, Shore, figures prominently.
No fewer than eight recent RA and NSWRU office holders are Shore old boys, including current chairman, Hamish McLennan, recently departed CEO Rob Clarke and director Phil Waugh.
When the ARU went looking for a new CEO in 2012, it conducted what it described as a worldwide search before turning up Shore old boy Bill Pulver, in Sydney’s affluent harbourside suburb of Mosman. (Living, as it happened, right next door to ARU director John Eales). Pulver received a ringing endorsement from then ARU chairman, Michael Hawker, another Shore old boy who had played rugby with Pulver in the school’s First XV some 35 years earlier. “The whole thing is so incestuous,” says Colin Smith. “It’s not good for the game.”
It also reflects a fundamental disconnect to the game’s grassroots, which attracts a far broader demographic. “Many of our players are scaffolders or concreters,” says Craig Moran, general manager of Western Sydney Two Blues rugby club, in Parramatta. “They’re not rich people.”
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Founded in 1879, Two Blues is a Shute Shield stalwart. The club is operated almost entirely by volunteers, including Dennis “Muncher” Garlick, the 71-year-old waterboy, and the helpers who run the canteen, which provides much of the club’s revenue. But clubs like Moran’s have over the years been variously ignored or held in contempt by the ARU. In 2014, when the ARU was facing insolvency, Pulver requested the clubs forgo their annual $100,000 grants. Two years later, when the clubs requested the grants be reinstated, Pulver refused, reportedly saying he didn’t want them to “piss it up the wall”. (Pulver declined to take part in this story.)
State administrators have been equally out of touch. For decades the NSWRU has appointed a development officer for Shute Shield clubs, including Two Blues. But, according to Moran, it never understood the cultural dimension of the job. “Western Sydney has a large Islander population but we didn’t have any development officers who were Islanders. Development officers have to understand the social conditions. You can’t just send someone from Manly to be a DO in Merrylands.”
Moran says the game is “cannibalising itself”. Recent years have seen lavish pre-season launches at exclusive nightclubs; catered corporate events and runaway overstaffing. Last year it emerged that RA had spent $19 million on corporate costs in 2019, and just $4.3 million on community rugby, and was employing more than 200 people.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” says Scott Allen, who was appointed assistant coach to the women’s national rugby team, the Wallaroos, in 2016. “I remember walking into ARU headquarters on my first day and there were people and desks everywhere. And I thought, ‘What the f… are all these people doing?’ ”
Pulver had some wins, including a $285 million, five-year broadcast deal with Foxtel. But he also oversaw the disastrous axing of the Western Force Super Rugby team in 2017. The decision enraged Force fans, and saw the West Australian premier threaten to sue the ARU. Thousands of people protested in Perth, led by mining magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest.
“The process was a charade,” Forrest tells me. “It was shocking leadership and governance.” Former Wallaby Nathan Sharpe described the decision on Twitter as “the biggest mistake the ARU could have made”. The episode effectively ended Pulver’s term. He quit, in August 2017, pocketing a $300,000 bonus on his way out the door.
RA chairman Hamish McLennan, left, and CEO Andy Marinos are aiming
to “rebuild” rugby.
RA chairman Hamish McLennan, left, and CEO Andy Marinos are aiming to “rebuild” rugby.CREDIT:DOMINIC LORRIMER
Not all of rugby’s woes are self-inflicted. You can’t blame administrators for time zone differences, which mean that games involving Australian teams overseas are often broadcast here at 3am or 4am. It’s also hard for Australia to compete with the financial might of the northern hemisphere unions, which regularly poach our best players. Then there’s Israel Folau, the star Wallaby whose homophobic social media posts wound up costing RA millions of dollars in legal fees and saw the game ensnared in a high-profile debate over free speech that it could not win.
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Yet infighting and opportunism continue to poison the game. Last year saw a clumsy attempt to overthrow the RA board, when 11 former Wallaby captains wrote an open letter accusing the game’s leadership, headed by CEO Raelene Castle, of mismanagement. Castle, who is from New Zealand, had taken over from Pulver in 2017, and was wrestling with the financial impact of COVID. At the same time, she had put the broadcast rights out to tender, snubbing long-time partner Foxtel. Castle’s decision would eventually deliver a huge win for rugby, opening the way for a $100 million deal with Nine, part of which involved a free-to-air component.
But at the time Foxtel was furious. Castle found herself under attack from journalists at News Corp (Foxtel’s majority owner). Then came the captains’ letter, the public faces of which were Nick Farr Jones and former Foxtel commentator Phil Kearns. The letter was regarded by many as baldly self-serving of Kearns, who had lost out to Castle for the CEO’s job two years before. Kearns denies this.
“No one from Foxtel ever rang me and said they wanted me to run for CEO,” he tells me. “[And there] was never any talk by the captains explicitly of me going into the CEO role.” It was telling, however, that Kearns and the others had not intervened when the game faced insolvency under Pulver. “In any case,” says Sam Bruce, rugby writer at ESPN, “if they really wanted to help the game, there was nothing stopping them from calling Castle and saying, ‘How can I help?’ ”
“The whole episode painted a really ugly picture for the game right when what it needed most was positivity and cohesion.”
As far as Bruce is concerned, the coup was just another power play. “Castle was an outsider,” he says. “She was a Kiwi, a woman, and she didn’t live in Mosman. Her appointment caught rugby’s old boys’ establishment off guard. They thought they were losing control.” Castle resigned in April 2020, her decision prompted by what the then chairman Paul McLean described as a campaign of “abhorrent” bullying, both online and from vested interests in the media. Says Bruce: “The whole episode painted a really ugly picture for the game right when what it needed most was positivity and cohesion.”
In 2012, John O’Neill put together a presentation using a report by US management guru Jim Collins. Collins outlines five key stages of an organisation’s collapse, including Inaction, Crisis and Dissolution. On the last page O’Neill had written: “Where is Australian rugby?” One could ask the same question now.
A commentator on the sports website The Roar suggests the game is facing a “multi-generational battle” to restore its fortunes. A GreenandGoldRugby.com reader proposed that rugby go amateur again. Peter FitzSimons, meanwhile, believes the game’s worst days are behind it. “We have crossed the Valley of Death and are slowly starting to climb to the other side.”
Hamish McLennan is similarly upbeat. “We’ve got some great young players coming through [at the elite level],” he says, when we meet at RA’s Moore Park HQ. “And there’s been a lot of good work reconnecting with the grassroots.” McLennan has stopped the soap opera at head office, and established an advisory board to bid for the 2027 World Cup (Phil Kearns is the executive director). “That’s the light on the hill,” nods McLennan. “We stand a pretty good chance of getting that.”
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Private equity is also in the picture. Luxembourg based CVC Capital Partners has invested $1.2 billion in European rugby, most recently buying a 14 per cent stake in the Six Nations, a yearly tournament between Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, England and Italy. And American group Silver Lake Partners reportedly plans to put $NZ465 million into New Zealand rugby in return for a 15 per cent share of commercial rights. McLennan says a number of private equity outfits, including CVC, Bruin Capital and Silver Lake, are likewise looking at Australia.
It’s unclear what such an investment would look like. “Do we do it at a competition level, do we include the clubs or not, do we sell a part of the Wallabies or the whole organisation? We have to figure that out,” says McLennan.
There’s a lot at stake. “We’re on the ground floor of a complete rebuild for rugby. But it’s taken a long time getting to this point, and it’ll take quite a few years to get out of it.”
For those who believe the game is beyond salvation here, he points to Argentina, who beat the All Blacks for the first time ever last year. “That’s the thing with sport,” says McLennan. “You can come from nowhere and surprise people.”
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Post by Morrissey Breen
Post by Morrissey Breen
Post by Morrissey Breen
‘Ruining the sport’: What readers want the AFL to change
February 20, 2022 — 1.50pm
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/ruining-the-sport-what-readers-want-the-afl-to-change-20220220-p59y01.html
In late 2021, the AFL Fans Association undertook a survey of more than 800 people to find out what they felt the burning issues were for supporters. The results? More than a third were worried about the proliferation of gambling advertising; some called for the stand rule to be abolished; others were tired of rule changes and wanted clearer umpiring interpretations.
Those topics were far and away the most common response when The Age opened the floor for readers to have their say on the issue they most wanted the league to address. An overwhelming majority wanted an end to gambling advertising and sponsorships. Some responses have been edited for brevity.
Gambling advertising was a key concern for many readers.
Gambling advertising was a key concern for many readers.CREDIT:AFL PHOTOS
‘Cruel and greedy’
“Remove the gambling ads. How disgraceful that the one of the biggest financial generators for the AFL is this insidious gambling industry. You cannot watch the game or any sport without the gambling ads and promoters peddling the wares. Gambling is a personal choice, but unfortunately there are consequences, and when so much money is involved, the only ones to profit are the vested interest. Horses, dogs are also victims.” - Paula
“Gambling ads need to be dropped. It is at such a high level that it will be encouraging many of our young and people in general to gamble.” - Derek
“No more advertising of gambling ‘opportunities’. If people want to gamble, they will, but it is cruel and greedy to advertise it in the high emotion atmosphere that surrounds live games or televised games. Please get rid of it. It targets problem gamblers and young people with anonymity.” - Victoria
“Gambling advertising – it endorses an activity that causes great social harm in Australia. One of the attractive aspects of attending an AFL match or watching/listening to an AFL broadcast is to see that for many fans it is still a family activity. Gambling ads normalise ‘having a punt’ as part of following AFL and there will be a section of the audience who are introduced to gambling in this way. Although I think that the prospect of match fixing in AFL is low, being able to bet on who will kick the first goal etc could lead to the corruption of some players.” - Jay
“Stop gambling promotion about odds being part of commentators’ information to public. It just normalises gambling.” - Deborah
“Ban betting advertising on television, print, radio and at stadiums, it is not having a positive impact on young children and young adults. I no longer enjoy watching it; as a parent it is irresponsible to allow my child to see consistent advertising/commentary on betting. They are normalising gambling and encouraging it as if it is necessary to enjoy the game. I don’t understand how this is allowed. ” - Teresa
“Remove gambling adds – it is exactly the same as tobacco advertising in sports in the past when that was banned in 1976 due to the enormous societal impact. Even my teenage children notice them and think they are harmful and there are too many.” - J
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Some readers thought the problem with advertising gambling extended to other areas, including alcohol and junk food.
“Gambling advertising in media and hoardings around grounds to cease immediately. AFL to cease advertising junk food and junk drinks. The same goes for gambling sponsorship. Also, all of the above should apply to alcohol sponsorship.” - Warwick
And the sentiment was that sponsorship as well as advertising should be addressed.
“Cease all association with gambling, including sponsorship deals and advertising. Eradicate it from the sport, please. It is ruining the sport.” - Richard
“Advertising on gambling in any form should be banned. The AFL should mandate this in its commercial arrangements.” - Ron
“I appreciate the AFL needs sponsors, but facilitating gambling agencies to hammer kids with these adds, simply in order to line their pockets, is abhorrent. The consequences of this will last generations.” - Mark
‘Rules change every year’
Rule changes and officiating were also hot topics among readers, but the sentiment was mixed. Some people wanted rules changed, while others have had enough of modifications.
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“[The AFL should change] the stand rule and nominating for ruck contests, it slows the game down and goes back to Auskick rules.” - Ian
“Remove the stand and ruck nomination rules, remove ‘six-six-six’ ... Scoring has reduced since these rules came in.” - Brendan
But not everyone was opposed to the stand rule.
“The stand rule is to me probably the best rule for opening the game up that has been tried and works – game flow is decluttered and better to watch.” - Patrick
Some wanted a change to 50-metre penalties.
“Fifty-metre penalty is excessive and punishes what are often very minor infringements to a ridiculous degree often resulting in a certain goal. Spoils the spectacle for me. Twenty-metre penalty would be more appropriate.” - Carlos
Others had different solutions for similar problems. Sam wanted the league to get “more flow or movement into the game, opening up play so talented players can display skills”. But John called for more free kicks to be paid. “Push in the back, holding the ball. Too many instances where these result in ball-ups.”
And how to relieve the pressure on umpires? Stop making so many changes and remove the need for interpretation.
“It’s no wonder the umpires are criticised so frequently, when rules change every year. They are forced to adjudicate new or changed rules every year. No more rule changes unless it is absolutely necessary.” - Masher
“Scrap prior opportunity, just give ball possessor three seconds to legally dispose of the ball when legally tackled. No interpretation needed.” - Dave
“... Confine ‘prior opportunity’ to only a bad memory.” - Bill
“... There have [been] more changes to rules in the last 20 years than the previous 50 years. Now we have rules made to undo the consequences of previous rule changes.” - David
“Overall, if a rule can’t be applied ‘by the book’ and not subject to a myriad of interpretations it would be better off being scrapped. Often former player commentators talk about a play being “technically” a free kick, but suggesting the umpire could have let it go. If it doesn’t matter, scrap the rule. The closer we can get to a simpler decision the better off we will be.” - Rod
And some readers had other suggestions.
“The running through the protected area rule should only be applied if it clearly has impeded the ball carrier. Even if a player was impacted the 50-metre penalty is too great and should be reduced to 25 metres.” - Marshall
“Give the player who attacks the ball a chance to make the play. This reward the tackler approach is rubbish! If I want to watch a game of no stop tackling being ‘rewarded’ I will become a rugby league fan.” - Ian
Readers had an issue with interpretation of rules as well as rule changes.
Readers had an issue with interpretation of rules as well as rule changes.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
“Scraping the post or touching the ball as it goes through the goals. The camera work and quality is not good enough for the purpose and it makes little sense to agonise through the process. If it goes through the big sticks it’s a goal. If it goes through the small sticks it’s a point. If it bounces back into play it is play on. Simple.” - Ron
‘Reduce the volume’
Lots of readers were unhappy with how quarter- and half-time breaks are filled with noise. Nick‘s No.1 concern was “incessant, high-volume ‘entertainment’“. Matt’s was “loud music and ads between quarters”. Most just wanted to be able to chat to family and friends.
“Reduce the volume of the ‘entertainment’. Time was we used to like talking before the game and half-time. We can also get rid of the constant changes in fluro advertising, plus we don’t need three tiers of illuminated banners to tell us a goal has been kicked.” - David
“Noisy entertainment which interferes with ability to socialise with family and friends because we can’t hear each other. Revolving advertising is disturbing for people with migraines and other sensory disabilities.” - Bernadette
“Stop the loud, LOUD ‘entertainment’ at the end of each quarter. Just let us interact and chat and be social with people in the crowd around us. We can’t, because there’s non-stop music and announcements at high decibel levels ruining our time at the footy. It’s a total turn off. I know many people who don’t go any more because of it. God help people with tinnitus, hearing aids or brain injuries. It’s noise pollution, is what it is, not entertainment.” - Mary
‘Members do the hard yards’
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Many readers also took issue with ticketing and grand final access.
Linda wanted the grand final moved around the country (it is contracted to be played at the MCG until the late 2050s). Noreen wanted a more simple way to buy tickets for her team’s away games. Christine wanted more grand final tickets available for members of competing clubs, “NOT funnelled off to corporates who don’t necessarily support either team. We long-term (and long-suffering) members do the hard yards all season, every season, and should be able to see our team’s ultimate triumph in person.”
“Stop selling tickets for finals and go back to first in, best dressed until the ground is full. This means those who are there are real fans and not corporates or once-a-year attendees.” - John
And some wanted the fairness of the fixture addressed.
“A good start would be to arrange fixtures so all teams play all others an equal number of times. I don’t suppose there’s any hope that some protected [Victorian] teams will be forced to play away from their hallowed grounds the way interstate teams must? It’s still the VFL with other states invited to help fill the coffers.” - Wally
“Fixture fairness – so called ‘traditional’ blockbuster games [reduce] the fairness of the competition. With the odd number of teams in the competition if they can’t play each other once or twice per season the top six teams should play each other twice and each of the other teams once. The middle group of six should play each other twice and the others once. The same for the bottom six.” - Michael
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TV View: Unleash Graeme Souness on these animal-hating low-lives
Divine intervention in Kilcoo; Shane Horgan worships at the altar of Johnny Sexton
Mon, Feb 14, 2022, 09:47
https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/tv-view-unleash-graeme-souness-on-these-animal-hating-low-lives-1.4801333
Mary Hannigan
2
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday. Photograph: AMA/Corbis via Getty Images
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday. Photograph: AMA/Corbis via Getty Images
“Sometimes, maybe, God’s on your side,” said Kilcoo’s Eugene Branagan when TG4’s Micheál O’Domhnaill asked him to explain, for all that’s good and holy, how his team had managed to beat Kilmacud Crokes in the All-Ireland club final when their hopes had been given the last rites more than once in the course of the contest.
And divine intervention, as it proved, was kind of the theme of the sporting day, not least when it came to analysing Ireland’s what-might-have-been trip to Paris.
The learnings?
Rob Kearney, doffing his cap to Joey Carbery’s efforts, had no doubt. “I think the most important thing we’ve learnt is that Ireland have a rugby team without Johnny Sexton, which is a big plus,” he said.
Shane Horgan?
“With Sexton at 10, Ireland would have won that game.”
Rob and his Virgin Media teammate Matt Williams thought this was decidedly harsh, not least on Joey, but Shane wouldn’t budge from his belief if the deity that is Johnny was on the pitch instead of spectating, then Ireland would have been home and hosed.
“A missed opportunity,” he said of the game, although Matt pointed out that Ireland “went toe to toe with the heavyweight champion of the world” and only lost on points. “That’s all you can bloody lose on in rugby,” Shane didn’t say, but he was thinking it.
Joe Molloy tried to cheer Shane up by telling him that the final of The Masked Singer was coming up on Virgin Media, but while that had Rob and Matt quite excited, Shane was unmoved.
“A missed opportunity,” he said again, Ireland’s Grand Slam hopes down the Swanee, but come Sunday Rob tried to reassure him that most probably France wouldn’t win the Grand Slam either because “they were no outstanding shakes themselves yesterday”.
Souness sticks up for the cat
The outstanding shakes, as it turned out, were to be found in Sky Sports’ Super Sunday studio where Graeme Souness pulverised the wretched excuse for a human being that is Kurt Zouma.
It was last September, when Sky brought us “the world’s first ever net zero carbon football match”, that Graeme revealed himself to be a highly passionate animal lover, a revelation that some of us never saw coming. It’s not that he isn’t most probably a good man, it’s just that you wouldn’t necessarily expect this level of empathy from someone who saw opposing shins as legitimate targets in the course of their playing career. Although, admittedly, it’s hard to find a seamless link here.
The mere mention of Zouma’s name, then, was never going to go down well.
“We don’t know what he’s been through,” said Jamie Carragher when news filtered through that Zouma had dropped out of the West Ham team due to play Leicester. “Not as much as the cat went through,” said Graeme, his cheek muscles flexing so violently, Jamie looked scared. Micah Richards too.
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday.
“I wouldn’t have played him again this year,” he said, “if I was a player I wouldn’t want to be in the same dressing room with him, I would not want him around the place.”
His emotions hadn’t eased come full-time in the game - “I’d love to see him pursued in court, I think what he’s guilty of is outrageous behaviour that goes beyond the pale” - Micah, quite heroically, daring to debate him, pointing out that there are convicted murderers back out on the streets again. He did, then, believe banning Zouma until the end of the season would be too harsh a punishment.
“Would you allow him to have another cat in his house,” Graeme asked him. By now, Micah would have been afraid to enter Graeme’s house.
Graeme Souness? Legend.
Meanwhile, over on Sky Sports News, word was filtering through about a video showing former eventing Olympic champion Sir Mark Todd whipping a horse 10 times with a branch to try and force it through a water obstacle.
Truly, our world is screwed. It needs divine intervention. Or Graeme Souness to be allowed deal with these low-lives.
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VJ
VJDevine
6 DAYS AGO
Souness, hard man but top cat, great analyst.
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MI
michael1
6 DAYS AGO
There was none of the "Wretched Excuse for a Human Being" when one of our own "Media Darling" Jockeys was caught punching a Horse in The Head several times.
As for Souness... hes done more damage to Human Beings on the Pitch than Zouma did to the unfortunate Cat... what he did was grossly wrong..but that doesent make him Jack the Ripper.
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‘Due for another realignment’: Retired great weighs in on AFL’s major umpire move
Melbourne thump Roos by 88 points!
Melbourne thump Roos by 88 points! | 01:29
Tom Morris
Tom Morris from Fox Sports
@tommorris32
February 25th, 2022 1:16 pm
The VFL/AFL games record holder for umpires has called on the league to punish “subtle” acts of dissent from players with 50 metre penalties and free kicks.
Earlier this week the AFL sent a memo to clubs outlining the importance for respect towards umpires.
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The instruction was interpreted by some clubs as a crackdown, with umpires instructed to uphold a less tolerant approach when players dispute decisions.
Round 1
Pointsbet
AFL
Mar 18 7:25pm AEST
FT
Richmond
Richmond
105
Carlton
80
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 19 7:50pm AEST
FT
Collingwood
53
Bulldogs
69
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 20 1:45pm AEST
FT
Melbourne
80
Fremantle
58
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 20 4:35pm AEST
FT
Adelaide
103
Geelong
91
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 20 7:25pm AEST
FT
Essendon
91
Hawthorn
92
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 20 7:45pm AEST
FT
Brisbane
94
Sydney
125
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
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AFL
Mar 21 1:10pm AEST
FT
North Melbourne
North Melbourne
65
Port Adelaide
Port Adelaide
117
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
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AFL
Mar 21 3:20pm AEST
FT
Greater Western Sydney
Greater Western Sydney
78
St Kilda
St Kilda
86
MATCH CENTRE
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AFL
Mar 21 6:10pm AEST
FT
West Coast
West Coast
83
Gold Coast
Gold Coast
58
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
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Shane McInerney, who umpired 500 matches between 1994 and 2019 including two Grand Finals, praised the memo as a necessary “reset.”
Speaking to foxfooty.com.au, McInerney detailed three scenarios which he believes should now result in a penalty.
“We are due for another realignment I think,” McInerney said.
“The players have worked out what demonstrative abuse looks like and I think we need to reset what we actually mean by good umpire/player relationships.
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Retired umpire Shane McInerney believes the new memo sent from the AFL was needed. (AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Retired umpire Shane McInerney believes the new memo sent from the AFL was needed. (AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Source: AAP
“In a situation like deliberate out of bounds where three or four players will stand around appealing with their arms out, that’s not a good look for the game and not what we want to see. I’d penalise that.
“We see forwards getting free kicks and the defending standing and pointing at the big screen. That’s not a good look for the sport.
“I think it is important that players can ask questions on why certain decisions are made. By and large that does happen. There are a few more habits that have crept in that the game doesn’t need. It’s a distraction that serves to embarrass or undermine an umpire’s authority.”
And the third example?
“Sometimes there are two or three defenders wanting to have their two bobs worth,” McInerney continued.
“That’s not on. The umpire has a job to do at that point in time.”
In the AFL’s note to clubs, executive general manager Andrew Dillon praised the sacrifices players and staff have made across the past two seasons.
But in reviewing the 2021 season, he said there were “a number of instances” where the “AFL community” fell short of certain standards relating to sportsmanship and respect for umpires.
“The AFL and its clubs have a unique leadership role in the community, and with that role comes responsibility. Disrespect towards umpires is an issue at all levels of football and has no place,” Dillon said.
McInerney is hoping to see more respect displayed to umpires. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
McInerney is hoping to see more respect displayed to umpires. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Source: Getty Images
“We are 6,000 umpires short at the community football level and it is incumbent on us to set the right example at the elite level so we can encourage and retain umpires across the country to best support the rapidly growing player participation base.”
While McInerney believes a correlation exists between the top level and local football, he argued the issue is not finding umpires, rather it is retaining them.
He also declared the changes made by the AFL have the potential to filter down quickly.
“I think what happens at the AFL level plays a role in umpire shortage, but I don’t think there is a direct correlation,” he said.
“There has been an explosion in women’s footy and that has placed a demand on all sorts of components with grounds, facilities, coaches and so forth.
“In my view, I’ve always understood that it’s not about attracting people to umpiring – lots of people like to give it a go – I think it’s more around the retention. The match day experience goes a long way to ensure that you can have retention of umpires.”
He added: “The response is a pretty quick response. Invariably when the AFL makes a change to a Law or an interpretation, spectators think at the lower level think that’s how their games will be officiated. Those competitions pick up really quickly.
“It’s something that could be achieved this coming season.”
On Friday morning, North Melbourne great and Fox Footy expert David King cautioned against any significant changes to interpretations around umpire feedback.
David King cautioned against major changes to interpretations around umpire feedback. Picture: Hamish Blair
David King cautioned against major changes to interpretations around umpire feedback. Picture: Hamish Blair
Source: Herald Sun
“The abuse of the umpire being an instant 50m penalty, I don’t believe AFL players ever abuse an umpire, they may be angry with a decision at a given point in time and they may be frustrated and say something but it’s not to abuse or belittle an umpire,” King said on SEN Breakfast.
“It’s an act that’s gone in three seconds, it’s always been a part of our game and it’s never been a problem, don’t tell me that if it comes from over the fence in lesser games or at junior footy, this is something in my opinion that has been overplayed.
“There were two 50m penalties paid yesterday that I thought ‘gee-whiz that’s really tough’, the players not standing there abusing the umpires, they’re questioning the decision, it’s going to bring significant backlash.
“Put it right in your diary now, it’ll be the most talked-about thing on a Monday morning in three weeks’ time about someone getting a 50m for saying ‘you can’t pay that Ray’.”
McInerney said one of the challenges for umpires is disregarding their own subjective perspective on player feedback.
“In our game, yes we can have personalities,” he continued.
“But everyone is interpreting the same part of the law as each other. This area is no different. It’s not about what certain personalities can or can’t handle. No. It’s about the role of the umpire and how the players engage with that person in their role.
“There is no room for umpires to take into account whether they can handle it or can’t. I can’t stress that enough. That is not what this is about.”
18.8.2 Free Kicks – Umpires
(a) uses abusive, insulting, threatening or obscene language towards an Umpire;
(b) behaves in an abusive, insulting, threatening or obscene manner towards an Umpire;
(c) intentionally, unreasonably or carelessly makes contact with an Umpire;
(d) disputes a decision of an Umpire;
(e) fails to follow the instruction of an Umpire; or
(f) intentionally or carelessly engages in conduct which affects, interferes with or prevents an Umpire from performing their duties.
https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/due-for-another-realignment-retired-great-weighs-in-on-afls-great-umpire-debate/news-story/c8319c342aff5f772e15f13d8fee78bd
Morrissey Breen
2022-02-26 07:02:58 UTC
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Post by Morrissey Breen
FIVE KEY STAGES OF AN ORGANIZATION'S COLLAPSE
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-union/zero-scrum-game-is-it-too-late-to-save-rugby-union-20210203-p56z7r.html
In 2012, John O’Neill put together a presentation using a report by US management guru Jim Collins. Collins outlines five key stages of an organisation’s collapse, including Inaction, Crisis and Dissolution. On the last page O’Neill had written: “Where is Australian rugby?” One could ask the same question now.
Post by Morrissey Breen
Zero scrum game: is it too late to save rugby union?
Lauded by fans as “the game they play in heaven”, rugby union has gone to hell in a handbasket, beset for two decades by infighting, financial crises, declining audiences and fierce competition from the AFL and NRL. Can a new CEO and free-to-air TV deal get it kicking again?
By Tim Elliott
APRIL 2, 2021
Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan says, “We’re on the ground floor of a complete rebuild for rugby. But it’s taken a long time getting to this point, and it’ll take quite a few years to get out of it.”
Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan says, “We’re on the ground floor of a complete rebuild for rugby. But it’s taken a long time getting to this point, and it’ll take quite a few years to get out of it.”CREDIT:JAMES BRICKWOOD
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It’s a balmy evening in January, and the Pearl Ballroom at Sydney’s Crown Towers is looking its finest, with its theatre-style curtains and platinum-coloured wall panelling, its floating chandeliers and mirrored ceiling. Chef Guillaume Brahimi has outdone himself, dishing up a tartare of yellowfin tuna for entrée followed by minute steak with Cafe de Paris butter. There is pinot gris, shiraz and chardonnay, and here to enjoy it, the premier cru of Australian rugby union’s gilded past: David Campese, John Eales and Nick Farr-Jones; the fridge-like Phil Kearns, Gary Ella and even Eric Tweedale, who, at the age of 99, is the oldest living Wallaby. They’re all here, the great and good of “the game they play in heaven”, grazing at the table like buffalo at a watering hole. It’s a rugby Valhalla, with pistachio gateau for dessert.
Tonight’s event has been organised by Rugby Australia, the game’s governing body, with the express purpose of picking a permanent colour for the national jersey. The national team, the Wallabies, have traditionally worn gold, but over the decades that gold has morphed like a lava lamp from the warm ochre of the 1980s to a burnt orange and even, most recently, a traffic-stopping yellow.
“A picture says a thousand words,” Hamish McLennan, RA’s chairman, told the media in the lead-up to the event. “It [the constant colour changes] shows the madness of our inconsistency.”
Tall and urbane, with thick, dark hair, McLennan, who took over the role in June 2020, radiates charm and capability, with the casual confidence of a man who enters a job interview with another offer in his back pocket. He’s positioned tonight’s event as an exercise in unity and esprit de corps, a way of honouring history while building for the future. “We need to decide,” he tells me. “The symbolism is important.”
The fans have already spoken: in an online poll conducted by The Sydney Morning Herald, most popular among the 13,300 votes cast was the jersey worn by the Wallabies in 1991, the year Australia won its first Rugby World Cup. McLennan has said the poll result will have a bearing on tonight. “After all, the fans own the jersey.”
Rugby legends mull over which jersey to pick as permanent Wallabies colours. From left, Phil Kearns, Gary Ella, Bob Dwyer, David Campese and Tim Gavin.
Rugby legends mull over which jersey to pick as permanent Wallabies colours. From left, Phil Kearns, Gary Ella, Bob Dwyer, David Campese and Tim Gavin.CREDIT:EDWINA PICKLES
Soon, the voting begins. There are eight jerseys to choose from. As each one is presented to the room, there’s a show of hands and the numbers noted. Another jersey, more hands, more numbers. A certain dissonance arises: we’re told to forget nostalgia and think about the future, but nostalgia is built into the process. Indeed, for Australian rugby fans, traumatised by decades of defeat, nostalgia is all they have left.
In the end, after several rounds of increasingly raucous voting, of good-natured heckling and faux outrage, the number of jerseys has been whittled down, from eight to six to four to two, and finally, the winner, as duly presaged, the 1991 World Cup-winning design.
Most agree it’s a victory for good taste and sound judgment. But it is also, inevitably, a victory for nostalgia. Once again, to everyone’s relief, Australian rugby is going back to the future.
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It’s hard to imagine now, but once upon a time Australians were very good at playing rugby union. The Wallabies won World Cups in 1991 and 1999. In 2000, they retained the Bledisloe Cup against the New Zealand All Blacks for the third year running, and took out the Tri Nations Series, beating the All Blacks and the Springboks, the national team of South Africa. The NSW Waratahs ranked alongside the AFL’s Collingwood and the NRL’s Brisbane Broncos as one of the country’s most recognised sporting brands.
The game brought in big money and colossal crowds: more than 109,000 packed in to Sydney’s Stadium Australia in 2000 to watch the Wallabies and the All Blacks play what has been described as “the greatest ever rugby match”. In 2001, the Wallabies won a three-Test series against the British & Irish Lions. Two years later, when Australia hosted the World Cup, rugby was, for perhaps the first time in its history, a mainstream sport in which the broad mass of Australians were emotionally invested.
The period since then has been a waking nightmare for Australian rugby. The Wallabies have slumped from second in the world to seventh. We haven’t won a Bledisloe Cup since 2002. Crowds and TV audiences have plummeted. There have been intermittent victories over the All Blacks and others; Australia even made the World Cup final in 2015. But such victories have invariably been followed by humiliating defeats, a pattern of false dawns that has bred within the rugby community a culture of scepticism and apathy.
“Rugby is on the bones of its arse right now ... and what you’re left with is a bunch of huge men, who we don’t know, running into one another.”
Thousands of fans have drifted away to rugby league or Aussie Rules, disillusioned not only with the on-field performances but with the game’s dysfunctional governance. Despite being run by a coterie of investment bankers and private equity chiefs, rugby has lurched from one financial crisis to another, in some cases staving off insolvency with emergency loans.
“Rugby is on the bones of its arse right now,” says columnist and author Peter FitzSimons. “There used to be a magic and romance to it, and now that magic is gone, and what you’re left with is a bunch of huge men, who we don’t know, running into one another.”
FitzSimons, 59, appeared in seven Tests for the Wallabies in 1989-90, “when we played for the honour of it,” he says, “and got paid $50 a day.” He embodies a certain amateur-era type; grizzled and voluble, given to self-mythologising, with a face that appears to have been hurriedly chiselled from a block of salt.
Like many fans, FitzSimons, who infamously started an all-in brawl against France in 1990 at the Sydney Football Stadium, mourns the raw colour of amateur rugby and the figures it produced: Ray Price and David Campese, the dancing Ella brothers and Roger Gould, with quads like bags of concrete; players like Greg Cornelsen, who cowed the All Blacks with four tries at Eden Park in 1978, and Stan Pilecki, who was once interrupted smoking a cigarette when called off the bench for a Wallabies match in Argentina.
“Rugby has lost its theatre,” says FitzSimons. “There are no characters any more. Now we have 15 professional footballers whom no one can relate to. The key is to know who is representing us again, to care about them, and to see them win.”
There have, in fact, been some wins of late, albeit off the field. For the past 25 years rugby has been broadcast on Foxtel, majority owned by Rupert Murdoch. When the rights became available in 2020, Foxtel offered $31 million a year, down from an annual $57 million payment since 2015. In November last year, McLennan and interim CEO Rob Clarke declined the offer, signing instead with Nine Entertainment Co. (publisher of Good Weekend), in a deal worth $100 million over three years.
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The deal, which starts this year, includes the rights to Wallabies Tests, the women’s game, including the national team, the Wallaroos, and the club schedule. It also covers Super Rugby, a provincial competition which has in the past featured teams from South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Argentina and Japan. (The competition has since become an Australia-only model, due to COVID-19.)
Most importantly, the agreement involves a commitment to show a weekly Saturday night Super Rugby game on the Nine Network – the first time the competition has been given a free-to-air platform.
The Nine deal is widely seen as the last best hope for the code. McLennan tells me it could reactivate “rugby’s latent fan base”, a secret army of followers waiting to emerge from their basements wearing Wallabies scarves and waving gold flags.
“The problem before was exposure,” says McLennan. “A lot of people didn’t actually see rugby because they couldn’t afford pay TV. Now with free-to-air, suddenly rugby is going to be more front of mind. Kids will see it and they will want to play, and that makes it bigger, and more money will come into the game.”
“It’s really exciting,” says Stephen Moore, former Wallabies skipper and 129-Test veteran. “[McLennan] is a smart guy and 100 per cent committed to the game being its best.” But Moore acknowledges that rugby’s problems are bigger than a broadcast deal. “The state of the game here is so bad at the moment that it has to be transformed totally. For too long we’ve papered over the problems, and look where that’s got us.”
The Wallabies walk off the field after yet another defeat against the All Blacks, in the 2011 World Cup.
The Wallabies walk off the field after yet another defeat against the All Blacks, in the 2011 World Cup.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
In 2017, Rugby Australia moved into a new headquarters, a gleaming, cobalt-blue glass and steel structure in Moore Park, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. There’s a high-performance gym, a 600-square-metre indoor training area and a rooftop running track. From the second-floor boardroom, where I’ve come to meet RA’s new CEO, Andy Marinos, you can see the construction site of the former Sydney Football Stadium, once home to so many of rugby’s mythic victories, and which now, in a metaphor almost too obvious to mention, has been reduced to an enormous crater.
Marinos, 48, has a close-cropped beard and a torso like a concrete bollard. He played rugby at the provincial level in South Africa, where he grew up, and also for Wales, in the early 2000s (he has Welsh ancestry). He then moved into administration, managing the South African Rugby Union. For the past five years, he’s been based in Sydney as the CEO of SANZAAR, the body that runs Super Rugby and the Rugby Championship, an international competition between Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.
Marinos has arrived at RA at a turbulent time, even by the turbulent standards of Australian rugby. Last year saw the rancourous departure of the then CEO Raelene Castle, a global pandemic and record financial losses. “Rugby has been through a lot,” he says. “But COVID is an inflection point. It gives you the opportunity to restart.”
One of his immediate priorities is financial stability. “That way we can stop being reactive and start being more strategic about how we’re wanting to do things.” The money from Nine should right the ship in the short term. But repairing the game in the long run and making the Wallabies win again will be infinitely harder.
“Rugby has been through a lot, but COVID is an inflection point. It gives you the opportunity to restart.”
“There are so many constituent parts,” says Marinos. “Creating pathways for the players, managing stakeholders, the sponsors, fans and the community game.”
He believes his outsider status is an advantage. “I’m not caught up in the things that happened [in Australian rugby] in the past,” he says. “I don’t have any preference for a particular state, place or person.” He’s free, then, to begin “rugby’s journey of renewal, one that is about being genuine, authentic and listening to people.”
I must look sceptical. “It’s a fantastic opportunity!” he says. “But it’s going to take time to fix. And it’s not going to be easy.”
Almost everyone has a different take on why Australian rugby is broken. Some blame the referees; others blame the rules; it’s AFL’s fault, or rugby league’s. It’s stupid coaches, overpaid players, inept leadership. When I ask Eric Tweedale what he thinks the problem is, he says it all began when the game went professional, which seems as good a place to start as any.
According to legend, rugby began in 1823, at Rugby School in England. For most of its history, it was staunchly amateur. But successive World Cups, in 1987, 1991 and 1995, saw the game explode in popularity, increasing the demands on players, who insisted on being paid. In 1995, the three most powerful southern hemisphere rugby unions, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia, formed a body called SANZAR, to oversee Super Rugby and the Tri Nations. SANZAR approached Rupert Murdoch, who paid $US555 million over 10 years for the rights to broadcast the games on his nascent cable network, Foxtel. Sensing the momentum, the world’s governing body, the International Rugby Board, declared the game professional in 1995.
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Australia’s cut of the broadcast rights was $35 million a year. Despite this, the game’s peak body, then called Australian Rugby Union, remained an amateur outfit, with no fewer than 21 committees overseeing everything from finances to player selection. The committees were run by honoraries, whose positions as such gave them considerable status within the rugby community, not to mention good parking and the best seats at games. When former NSW State Bank chief John O’Neill became CEO of the ARU in 1995, he set about abolishing the committees outright, seeding a bitter antipathy from the honoraries, or the “blazer brigade” as he called them, that would bedevil rugby for years to come.
O’Neill didn’t want for confidence. (In his 2007 book, It’s Only a Game, he writes of becoming “quite depressed” to discover how “over-qualified” he was for the job.) But there was no doubting his ability. He broadened the game’s appeal, boosted participation, and presided over the hugely successful 2003 World Cup in Australia which left the ARU with a $45 million profit. He also attempted to centralise authority and take power away from the states, particularly NSW and Queensland, whose squabbling had hobbled the game for years. “They didn’t like that,” he tells me. “They thought I was too influential.”
After the 2003 World Cup, O’Neill still had a year on his contract, and intended to stay until 2007. But his enemies had other ideas. In late 2003, O’Neill, then acknowledged as one of the country’s finest sports administrators, was pushed out. Rugby writer Peter Jenkins wrote that O’Neill’s “only crime was being high-profile, and of daring to challenge his directors”. Australian rugby had begun a long tradition of shooting itself in the foot.
From left, former Australian Rugby Union boss Gary Flowers; John O’Neill, who was pushed out as ARU CEO after antagonising the “blazer brigade”; Bill Pulver is one of eight Shore old boys to be Rugby Australia and NSWRU officeholders in recent times.
From left, former Australian Rugby Union boss Gary Flowers; John O’Neill, who was pushed out as ARU CEO after antagonising the “blazer brigade”; Bill Pulver is one of eight Shore old boys to be Rugby Australia and NSWRU officeholders in recent times.CREDIT:EDWINA PICKLES; AAP; DANIEL MUNOZ
O’Neill and his deputy Matt Carroll had wanted to put the $45 million World Cup windfall in a trust. “The idea was that it’d be a future fund,” says Carroll, who is now CEO of the Australian Olympic Committee. “If they’d invested that money back then, it’d probably be worth $100 million now and be producing a yearly income for rugby.”
But they didn’t. Instead, the money was given to the state unions and ploughed into a new competition called the Australian Rugby Championship (ARC), featuring eight teams from around the country. The ARC, which was announced in mid-2006 by then CEO, Gary Flowers, was intended as a pathway from the club system to Super Rugby. But the model was flawed from the outset. The teams had no history and no local followings. It was expensive and attracted almost no sponsorship. It also detracted from the established club scenes in Sydney and Brisbane, angering the game’s grassroots. By the end of the first season, the ARC had lost $4.7 million, with forecast losses of $8 million by the end of 2008.
At the same time, the ARU was struggling with inflated player salaries. When rugby went professional in 1995, Murdoch had faced competition from rugby league, which had attempted to sign up most of rugby’s best players. At the same time, fellow media mogul Kerry Packer was backing a rival competition called World Rugby Corporation. Players were in demand, and in order to win, Murdoch was forced to pay top dollar. Salaries skyrocketed, and were pushed even higher thanks to competition from cashed-up clubs in the northern hemisphere, some of which had billionaire owners.
“In comparison to other sports, rugby players were getting a higher proportion of the revenues,” says management consultant Michael Crawford, who has advised the ARU for 20 years. “This left less money for development and created further anger at the community level.”
Flowers stood down in 2007, opening the way for O’Neill and Carroll to return. They immediately scrapped the ARC. But the performance of the Wallabies, the financial engine of Australian rugby, was going from bad to worse. In 2009, Australia lost four matches to the All Blacks, two to the Springboks, and one to Scotland. Super Rugby was also faltering. The three Australian teams, the ACT Brumbies, the NSW Waratahs and the Queensland Reds, had all at one time or another enjoyed considerable success. In 2006, a fourth Australian team, the Perth-based Western Force, was added to the competition, followed by a fifth team, the Melbourne Rebels, in 2011. The idea was to give the game a national footprint and generate more broadcast dollars.
But it soon became apparent that Australia didn’t have enough talent to go around. According to a 2017 Senate standing committee report into the future of Australian rugby, the expansion from three to four to five teams saw a step down in performance, from Australian sides winning 60 per cent of their games to 50 per cent to 40 per cent. When the teams began to go broke, their owners – the state unions – ran to the ARU for a handout. By the end of 2011, the national body was funding the Super Rugby outfits to the tune of $25 million a year.
The obvious answer was private ownership. “In the US and Europe, 90 per cent of professional sporting clubs are privately owned and have strong business models,” says Colin Smith, director of the advisory firm, Global Media and Sports. “And that’s because they focus on the profit motive.”
“The parochialism and backward thinking are crippling rugby. It’s a self-made destruction.”
In 2008, Smith was charged by the ARU with getting the state unions to consider private ownership. But according to Smith, “the general reaction [from the states] was, ‘Under no circumstances’.” A board member of one union told Smith that he didn’t want to sell his Super Rugby team because he might miss out on free tickets to the games. “The thinking [was] incredibly myopic,” says Smith. “It just shows a complete lack of understanding of how the business of sports works.”
Smith has worked in sports for 30 years. There is virtually no market that he has not run the ruler over, no major club that he has not scrutinised. But rugby is special to him. “The first game I attended was in the early ’90s at Twickenham between England and the Barbarians. It was absolutely scintillating, and I was hooked.” But he now despairs for the game in Australia. “The parochialism and backward thinking are crippling rugby. It’s a self-made destruction.”
Dejected Wallabies players after losing to Argentina in 2018. The once high-flying national team has slipped to seventh in the world rankings.
Dejected Wallabies players after losing to Argentina in 2018. The once high-flying national team has slipped to seventh in the world rankings.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
Rugby is played in more than 120 countries, with 9.6 million registered players worldwide. Outside Australia, the game is booming: the 2019 Rugby World Cup, held in Japan, drew a total broadcast audience of 857 million over six weeks. (When Japan played Scotland, 54.8 million people in Japan watched it on television, nearly half the population.) Such events showcase the lore and legend of each national team, together with their signature playing styles: the mercurial French, the doughty Scots, the flamboyant Fijians, and the Welsh, whose scrum could push down mountains.
The Wallabies used to be famous for “running rugby”, a swaggering brand of free-flowing football made famous by the Ella brothers and David Campese, among others. Now, not so much. Indeed, the saddest thing a rugby fan can hear is that the game in Australia has become boring. Observers blame the referees, who have become increasingly pedantic. But the complexity of the rules is also a problem, especially compared to rugby league or AFL.
For years, rugby administrators have tinkered with the laws to make the game a better spectacle, but it’s a slow process. “Rugby is a global game,” says Brett Robinson, former Wallaby and current member of the World Rugby Council, which oversees laws, regulations and player welfare. “League and AFL are essentially domestic sports. It’s easy for them to make rule changes, but we have to influence over 100 nations to make changes that can be applied across the world and ultimately at a World Cup every four years.”
Rugby connoisseurs claim the complexity of the game is part of its beauty; that rugby is chess to rugby league’s checkers. But sometimes checkers is all a sports fan has time for. This is especially true in Australia, which has no less than four football codes – league, union, AFL and soccer – all competing for hearts and minds. And in an era when sport has become mass entertainment, being dull is death.
Rugby connoisseurs claim the complexity of the game is part of its beauty; that rugby is chess to rugby league’s checkers.
Growing rugby’s fan base is essential. One way of doing that is by winning games; the other is to create new audiences. “To me, the biggest wasted opportunity has been the failure to bring more people outside the narrow culture of rugby into the sport,” says James Curran, a Sydney University history professor who is writing a book about David Campese. “Rugby officialdom hasn’t been able to move beyond those who were supporting the game in the 1970s.”
Most of rugby’s elite players are still drawn from a small number of private schools in Sydney and Brisbane. The same goes for the game’s leadership, at both national and state levels, an inordinate number of whom come from Sydney’s most exclusive private schools, including Newington, Scots or St Joseph’s. One school in particular, Shore, figures prominently.
No fewer than eight recent RA and NSWRU office holders are Shore old boys, including current chairman, Hamish McLennan, recently departed CEO Rob Clarke and director Phil Waugh.
When the ARU went looking for a new CEO in 2012, it conducted what it described as a worldwide search before turning up Shore old boy Bill Pulver, in Sydney’s affluent harbourside suburb of Mosman. (Living, as it happened, right next door to ARU director John Eales). Pulver received a ringing endorsement from then ARU chairman, Michael Hawker, another Shore old boy who had played rugby with Pulver in the school’s First XV some 35 years earlier. “The whole thing is so incestuous,” says Colin Smith. “It’s not good for the game.”
It also reflects a fundamental disconnect to the game’s grassroots, which attracts a far broader demographic. “Many of our players are scaffolders or concreters,” says Craig Moran, general manager of Western Sydney Two Blues rugby club, in Parramatta. “They’re not rich people.”
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Founded in 1879, Two Blues is a Shute Shield stalwart. The club is operated almost entirely by volunteers, including Dennis “Muncher” Garlick, the 71-year-old waterboy, and the helpers who run the canteen, which provides much of the club’s revenue. But clubs like Moran’s have over the years been variously ignored or held in contempt by the ARU. In 2014, when the ARU was facing insolvency, Pulver requested the clubs forgo their annual $100,000 grants. Two years later, when the clubs requested the grants be reinstated, Pulver refused, reportedly saying he didn’t want them to “piss it up the wall”. (Pulver declined to take part in this story.)
State administrators have been equally out of touch. For decades the NSWRU has appointed a development officer for Shute Shield clubs, including Two Blues. But, according to Moran, it never understood the cultural dimension of the job. “Western Sydney has a large Islander population but we didn’t have any development officers who were Islanders. Development officers have to understand the social conditions. You can’t just send someone from Manly to be a DO in Merrylands.”
Moran says the game is “cannibalising itself”. Recent years have seen lavish pre-season launches at exclusive nightclubs; catered corporate events and runaway overstaffing. Last year it emerged that RA had spent $19 million on corporate costs in 2019, and just $4.3 million on community rugby, and was employing more than 200 people.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” says Scott Allen, who was appointed assistant coach to the women’s national rugby team, the Wallaroos, in 2016. “I remember walking into ARU headquarters on my first day and there were people and desks everywhere. And I thought, ‘What the f… are all these people doing?’ ”
Pulver had some wins, including a $285 million, five-year broadcast deal with Foxtel. But he also oversaw the disastrous axing of the Western Force Super Rugby team in 2017. The decision enraged Force fans, and saw the West Australian premier threaten to sue the ARU. Thousands of people protested in Perth, led by mining magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest.
“The process was a charade,” Forrest tells me. “It was shocking leadership and governance.” Former Wallaby Nathan Sharpe described the decision on Twitter as “the biggest mistake the ARU could have made”. The episode effectively ended Pulver’s term. He quit, in August 2017, pocketing a $300,000 bonus on his way out the door.
RA chairman Hamish McLennan, left, and CEO Andy Marinos are aiming
to “rebuild” rugby.
RA chairman Hamish McLennan, left, and CEO Andy Marinos are aiming to “rebuild” rugby.CREDIT:DOMINIC LORRIMER
Not all of rugby’s woes are self-inflicted. You can’t blame administrators for time zone differences, which mean that games involving Australian teams overseas are often broadcast here at 3am or 4am. It’s also hard for Australia to compete with the financial might of the northern hemisphere unions, which regularly poach our best players. Then there’s Israel Folau, the star Wallaby whose homophobic social media posts wound up costing RA millions of dollars in legal fees and saw the game ensnared in a high-profile debate over free speech that it could not win.
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Yet infighting and opportunism continue to poison the game. Last year saw a clumsy attempt to overthrow the RA board, when 11 former Wallaby captains wrote an open letter accusing the game’s leadership, headed by CEO Raelene Castle, of mismanagement. Castle, who is from New Zealand, had taken over from Pulver in 2017, and was wrestling with the financial impact of COVID. At the same time, she had put the broadcast rights out to tender, snubbing long-time partner Foxtel. Castle’s decision would eventually deliver a huge win for rugby, opening the way for a $100 million deal with Nine, part of which involved a free-to-air component.
But at the time Foxtel was furious. Castle found herself under attack from journalists at News Corp (Foxtel’s majority owner). Then came the captains’ letter, the public faces of which were Nick Farr Jones and former Foxtel commentator Phil Kearns. The letter was regarded by many as baldly self-serving of Kearns, who had lost out to Castle for the CEO’s job two years before. Kearns denies this.
“No one from Foxtel ever rang me and said they wanted me to run for CEO,” he tells me. “[And there] was never any talk by the captains explicitly of me going into the CEO role.” It was telling, however, that Kearns and the others had not intervened when the game faced insolvency under Pulver. “In any case,” says Sam Bruce, rugby writer at ESPN, “if they really wanted to help the game, there was nothing stopping them from calling Castle and saying, ‘How can I help?’ ”
“The whole episode painted a really ugly picture for the game right when what it needed most was positivity and cohesion.”
As far as Bruce is concerned, the coup was just another power play. “Castle was an outsider,” he says. “She was a Kiwi, a woman, and she didn’t live in Mosman. Her appointment caught rugby’s old boys’ establishment off guard. They thought they were losing control.” Castle resigned in April 2020, her decision prompted by what the then chairman Paul McLean described as a campaign of “abhorrent” bullying, both online and from vested interests in the media. Says Bruce: “The whole episode painted a really ugly picture for the game right when what it needed most was positivity and cohesion.”
In 2012, John O’Neill put together a presentation using a report by US management guru Jim Collins. Collins outlines five key stages of an organisation’s collapse, including Inaction, Crisis and Dissolution. On the last page O’Neill had written: “Where is Australian rugby?” One could ask the same question now.
A commentator on the sports website The Roar suggests the game is facing a “multi-generational battle” to restore its fortunes. A GreenandGoldRugby.com reader proposed that rugby go amateur again. Peter FitzSimons, meanwhile, believes the game’s worst days are behind it. “We have crossed the Valley of Death and are slowly starting to climb to the other side.”
Hamish McLennan is similarly upbeat. “We’ve got some great young players coming through [at the elite level],” he says, when we meet at RA’s Moore Park HQ. “And there’s been a lot of good work reconnecting with the grassroots.” McLennan has stopped the soap opera at head office, and established an advisory board to bid for the 2027 World Cup (Phil Kearns is the executive director). “That’s the light on the hill,” nods McLennan. “We stand a pretty good chance of getting that.”
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Private equity is also in the picture. Luxembourg based CVC Capital Partners has invested $1.2 billion in European rugby, most recently buying a 14 per cent stake in the Six Nations, a yearly tournament between Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, England and Italy. And American group Silver Lake Partners reportedly plans to put $NZ465 million into New Zealand rugby in return for a 15 per cent share of commercial rights. McLennan says a number of private equity outfits, including CVC, Bruin Capital and Silver Lake, are likewise looking at Australia.
It’s unclear what such an investment would look like. “Do we do it at a competition level, do we include the clubs or not, do we sell a part of the Wallabies or the whole organisation? We have to figure that out,” says McLennan.
There’s a lot at stake. “We’re on the ground floor of a complete rebuild for rugby. But it’s taken a long time getting to this point, and it’ll take quite a few years to get out of it.”
For those who believe the game is beyond salvation here, he points to Argentina, who beat the All Blacks for the first time ever last year. “That’s the thing with sport,” says McLennan. “You can come from nowhere and surprise people.”
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Post by Morrissey Breen
Post by Morrissey Breen
Post by Morrissey Breen
‘Ruining the sport’: What readers want the AFL to change
February 20, 2022 — 1.50pm
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/ruining-the-sport-what-readers-want-the-afl-to-change-20220220-p59y01.html
In late 2021, the AFL Fans Association undertook a survey of more than 800 people to find out what they felt the burning issues were for supporters. The results? More than a third were worried about the proliferation of gambling advertising; some called for the stand rule to be abolished; others were tired of rule changes and wanted clearer umpiring interpretations.
Those topics were far and away the most common response when The Age opened the floor for readers to have their say on the issue they most wanted the league to address. An overwhelming majority wanted an end to gambling advertising and sponsorships. Some responses have been edited for brevity.
Gambling advertising was a key concern for many readers.
Gambling advertising was a key concern for many readers.CREDIT:AFL PHOTOS
‘Cruel and greedy’
“Remove the gambling ads. How disgraceful that the one of the biggest financial generators for the AFL is this insidious gambling industry. You cannot watch the game or any sport without the gambling ads and promoters peddling the wares. Gambling is a personal choice, but unfortunately there are consequences, and when so much money is involved, the only ones to profit are the vested interest. Horses, dogs are also victims.” - Paula
“Gambling ads need to be dropped. It is at such a high level that it will be encouraging many of our young and people in general to gamble.” - Derek
“No more advertising of gambling ‘opportunities’. If people want to gamble, they will, but it is cruel and greedy to advertise it in the high emotion atmosphere that surrounds live games or televised games. Please get rid of it. It targets problem gamblers and young people with anonymity.” - Victoria
“Gambling advertising – it endorses an activity that causes great social harm in Australia. One of the attractive aspects of attending an AFL match or watching/listening to an AFL broadcast is to see that for many fans it is still a family activity. Gambling ads normalise ‘having a punt’ as part of following AFL and there will be a section of the audience who are introduced to gambling in this way. Although I think that the prospect of match fixing in AFL is low, being able to bet on who will kick the first goal etc could lead to the corruption of some players.” - Jay
“Stop gambling promotion about odds being part of commentators’ information to public. It just normalises gambling.” - Deborah
“Ban betting advertising on television, print, radio and at stadiums, it is not having a positive impact on young children and young adults. I no longer enjoy watching it; as a parent it is irresponsible to allow my child to see consistent advertising/commentary on betting. They are normalising gambling and encouraging it as if it is necessary to enjoy the game. I don’t understand how this is allowed. ” - Teresa
“Remove gambling adds – it is exactly the same as tobacco advertising in sports in the past when that was banned in 1976 due to the enormous societal impact. Even my teenage children notice them and think they are harmful and there are too many.” - J
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Some readers thought the problem with advertising gambling extended to other areas, including alcohol and junk food.
“Gambling advertising in media and hoardings around grounds to cease immediately. AFL to cease advertising junk food and junk drinks. The same goes for gambling sponsorship. Also, all of the above should apply to alcohol sponsorship.” - Warwick
And the sentiment was that sponsorship as well as advertising should be addressed.
“Cease all association with gambling, including sponsorship deals and advertising. Eradicate it from the sport, please. It is ruining the sport.” - Richard
“Advertising on gambling in any form should be banned. The AFL should mandate this in its commercial arrangements.” - Ron
“I appreciate the AFL needs sponsors, but facilitating gambling agencies to hammer kids with these adds, simply in order to line their pockets, is abhorrent. The consequences of this will last generations.” - Mark
‘Rules change every year’
Rule changes and officiating were also hot topics among readers, but the sentiment was mixed. Some people wanted rules changed, while others have had enough of modifications.
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Fans take a stand on rule changes, commentary and curtain raisers
“[The AFL should change] the stand rule and nominating for ruck contests, it slows the game down and goes back to Auskick rules.” - Ian
“Remove the stand and ruck nomination rules, remove ‘six-six-six’ ... Scoring has reduced since these rules came in.” - Brendan
But not everyone was opposed to the stand rule.
“The stand rule is to me probably the best rule for opening the game up that has been tried and works – game flow is decluttered and better to watch.” - Patrick
Some wanted a change to 50-metre penalties.
“Fifty-metre penalty is excessive and punishes what are often very minor infringements to a ridiculous degree often resulting in a certain goal. Spoils the spectacle for me. Twenty-metre penalty would be more appropriate.” - Carlos
Others had different solutions for similar problems. Sam wanted the league to get “more flow or movement into the game, opening up play so talented players can display skills”. But John called for more free kicks to be paid. “Push in the back, holding the ball. Too many instances where these result in ball-ups.”
And how to relieve the pressure on umpires? Stop making so many changes and remove the need for interpretation.
“It’s no wonder the umpires are criticised so frequently, when rules change every year. They are forced to adjudicate new or changed rules every year. No more rule changes unless it is absolutely necessary.” - Masher
“Scrap prior opportunity, just give ball possessor three seconds to legally dispose of the ball when legally tackled. No interpretation needed.” - Dave
“... Confine ‘prior opportunity’ to only a bad memory.” - Bill
“... There have [been] more changes to rules in the last 20 years than the previous 50 years. Now we have rules made to undo the consequences of previous rule changes.” - David
“Overall, if a rule can’t be applied ‘by the book’ and not subject to a myriad of interpretations it would be better off being scrapped. Often former player commentators talk about a play being “technically” a free kick, but suggesting the umpire could have let it go. If it doesn’t matter, scrap the rule. The closer we can get to a simpler decision the better off we will be.” - Rod
And some readers had other suggestions.
“The running through the protected area rule should only be applied if it clearly has impeded the ball carrier. Even if a player was impacted the 50-metre penalty is too great and should be reduced to 25 metres.” - Marshall
“Give the player who attacks the ball a chance to make the play. This reward the tackler approach is rubbish! If I want to watch a game of no stop tackling being ‘rewarded’ I will become a rugby league fan.” - Ian
Readers had an issue with interpretation of rules as well as rule changes.
Readers had an issue with interpretation of rules as well as rule changes.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
“Scraping the post or touching the ball as it goes through the goals. The camera work and quality is not good enough for the purpose and it makes little sense to agonise through the process. If it goes through the big sticks it’s a goal. If it goes through the small sticks it’s a point. If it bounces back into play it is play on. Simple.” - Ron
‘Reduce the volume’
Lots of readers were unhappy with how quarter- and half-time breaks are filled with noise. Nick‘s No.1 concern was “incessant, high-volume ‘entertainment’“. Matt’s was “loud music and ads between quarters”. Most just wanted to be able to chat to family and friends.
“Reduce the volume of the ‘entertainment’. Time was we used to like talking before the game and half-time. We can also get rid of the constant changes in fluro advertising, plus we don’t need three tiers of illuminated banners to tell us a goal has been kicked.” - David
“Noisy entertainment which interferes with ability to socialise with family and friends because we can’t hear each other. Revolving advertising is disturbing for people with migraines and other sensory disabilities.” - Bernadette
“Stop the loud, LOUD ‘entertainment’ at the end of each quarter. Just let us interact and chat and be social with people in the crowd around us. We can’t, because there’s non-stop music and announcements at high decibel levels ruining our time at the footy. It’s a total turn off. I know many people who don’t go any more because of it. God help people with tinnitus, hearing aids or brain injuries. It’s noise pollution, is what it is, not entertainment.” - Mary
‘Members do the hard yards’
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Footy fans have spoken, and they’ve had plenty to say
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Many readers also took issue with ticketing and grand final access.
Linda wanted the grand final moved around the country (it is contracted to be played at the MCG until the late 2050s). Noreen wanted a more simple way to buy tickets for her team’s away games. Christine wanted more grand final tickets available for members of competing clubs, “NOT funnelled off to corporates who don’t necessarily support either team. We long-term (and long-suffering) members do the hard yards all season, every season, and should be able to see our team’s ultimate triumph in person.”
“Stop selling tickets for finals and go back to first in, best dressed until the ground is full. This means those who are there are real fans and not corporates or once-a-year attendees.” - John
And some wanted the fairness of the fixture addressed.
“A good start would be to arrange fixtures so all teams play all others an equal number of times. I don’t suppose there’s any hope that some protected [Victorian] teams will be forced to play away from their hallowed grounds the way interstate teams must? It’s still the VFL with other states invited to help fill the coffers.” - Wally
“Fixture fairness – so called ‘traditional’ blockbuster games [reduce] the fairness of the competition. With the odd number of teams in the competition if they can’t play each other once or twice per season the top six teams should play each other twice and each of the other teams once. The middle group of six should play each other twice and the others once. The same for the bottom six.” - Michael
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TV View: Unleash Graeme Souness on these animal-hating low-lives
Divine intervention in Kilcoo; Shane Horgan worships at the altar of Johnny Sexton
Mon, Feb 14, 2022, 09:47
https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/tv-view-unleash-graeme-souness-on-these-animal-hating-low-lives-1.4801333
Mary Hannigan
2
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday. Photograph: AMA/Corbis via Getty Images
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday. Photograph: AMA/Corbis via Getty Images
“Sometimes, maybe, God’s on your side,” said Kilcoo’s Eugene Branagan when TG4’s Micheál O’Domhnaill asked him to explain, for all that’s good and holy, how his team had managed to beat Kilmacud Crokes in the All-Ireland club final when their hopes had been given the last rites more than once in the course of the contest.
And divine intervention, as it proved, was kind of the theme of the sporting day, not least when it came to analysing Ireland’s what-might-have-been trip to Paris.
The learnings?
Rob Kearney, doffing his cap to Joey Carbery’s efforts, had no doubt. “I think the most important thing we’ve learnt is that Ireland have a rugby team without Johnny Sexton, which is a big plus,” he said.
Shane Horgan?
“With Sexton at 10, Ireland would have won that game.”
Rob and his Virgin Media teammate Matt Williams thought this was decidedly harsh, not least on Joey, but Shane wouldn’t budge from his belief if the deity that is Johnny was on the pitch instead of spectating, then Ireland would have been home and hosed.
“A missed opportunity,” he said of the game, although Matt pointed out that Ireland “went toe to toe with the heavyweight champion of the world” and only lost on points. “That’s all you can bloody lose on in rugby,” Shane didn’t say, but he was thinking it.
Joe Molloy tried to cheer Shane up by telling him that the final of The Masked Singer was coming up on Virgin Media, but while that had Rob and Matt quite excited, Shane was unmoved.
“A missed opportunity,” he said again, Ireland’s Grand Slam hopes down the Swanee, but come Sunday Rob tried to reassure him that most probably France wouldn’t win the Grand Slam either because “they were no outstanding shakes themselves yesterday”.
Souness sticks up for the cat
The outstanding shakes, as it turned out, were to be found in Sky Sports’ Super Sunday studio where Graeme Souness pulverised the wretched excuse for a human being that is Kurt Zouma.
It was last September, when Sky brought us “the world’s first ever net zero carbon football match”, that Graeme revealed himself to be a highly passionate animal lover, a revelation that some of us never saw coming. It’s not that he isn’t most probably a good man, it’s just that you wouldn’t necessarily expect this level of empathy from someone who saw opposing shins as legitimate targets in the course of their playing career. Although, admittedly, it’s hard to find a seamless link here.
The mere mention of Zouma’s name, then, was never going to go down well.
“We don’t know what he’s been through,” said Jamie Carragher when news filtered through that Zouma had dropped out of the West Ham team due to play Leicester. “Not as much as the cat went through,” said Graeme, his cheek muscles flexing so violently, Jamie looked scared. Micah Richards too.
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday.
“I wouldn’t have played him again this year,” he said, “if I was a player I wouldn’t want to be in the same dressing room with him, I would not want him around the place.”
His emotions hadn’t eased come full-time in the game - “I’d love to see him pursued in court, I think what he’s guilty of is outrageous behaviour that goes beyond the pale” - Micah, quite heroically, daring to debate him, pointing out that there are convicted murderers back out on the streets again. He did, then, believe banning Zouma until the end of the season would be too harsh a punishment.
“Would you allow him to have another cat in his house,” Graeme asked him. By now, Micah would have been afraid to enter Graeme’s house.
Graeme Souness? Legend.
Meanwhile, over on Sky Sports News, word was filtering through about a video showing former eventing Olympic champion Sir Mark Todd whipping a horse 10 times with a branch to try and force it through a water obstacle.
Truly, our world is screwed. It needs divine intervention. Or Graeme Souness to be allowed deal with these low-lives.
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VJ
VJDevine
6 DAYS AGO
Souness, hard man but top cat, great analyst.
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MI
michael1
6 DAYS AGO
There was none of the "Wretched Excuse for a Human Being" when one of our own "Media Darling" Jockeys was caught punching a Horse in The Head several times.
As for Souness... hes done more damage to Human Beings on the Pitch than Zouma did to the unfortunate Cat... what he did was grossly wrong..but that doesent make him Jack the Ripper.
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‘Due for another realignment’: Retired great weighs in on AFL’s major umpire move
Melbourne thump Roos by 88 points!
Melbourne thump Roos by 88 points! | 01:29
Tom Morris
Tom Morris from Fox Sports
@tommorris32
February 25th, 2022 1:16 pm
The VFL/AFL games record holder for umpires has called on the league to punish “subtle” acts of dissent from players with 50 metre penalties and free kicks.
Earlier this week the AFL sent a memo to clubs outlining the importance for respect towards umpires.
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The instruction was interpreted by some clubs as a crackdown, with umpires instructed to uphold a less tolerant approach when players dispute decisions.
Round 1
Pointsbet
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Mar 18 7:25pm AEST
FT
Richmond
Richmond
105
Carlton
80
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 19 7:50pm AEST
FT
Collingwood
53
Bulldogs
69
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 20 1:45pm AEST
FT
Melbourne
80
Fremantle
58
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 20 4:35pm AEST
FT
Adelaide
103
Geelong
91
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
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AFL
Mar 20 7:25pm AEST
FT
Essendon
91
Hawthorn
92
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 20 7:45pm AEST
FT
Brisbane
94
Sydney
125
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
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Mar 21 1:10pm AEST
FT
North Melbourne
North Melbourne
65
Port Adelaide
Port Adelaide
117
MATCH CENTRE
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Mar 21 3:20pm AEST
FT
Greater Western Sydney
Greater Western Sydney
78
St Kilda
St Kilda
86
MATCH CENTRE
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AFL
Mar 21 6:10pm AEST
FT
West Coast
West Coast
83
Gold Coast
Gold Coast
58
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
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Shane McInerney, who umpired 500 matches between 1994 and 2019 including two Grand Finals, praised the memo as a necessary “reset.”
Speaking to foxfooty.com.au, McInerney detailed three scenarios which he believes should now result in a penalty.
“We are due for another realignment I think,” McInerney said.
“The players have worked out what demonstrative abuse looks like and I think we need to reset what we actually mean by good umpire/player relationships.
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Retired umpire Shane McInerney believes the new memo sent from the AFL was needed. (AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Retired umpire Shane McInerney believes the new memo sent from the AFL was needed. (AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Source: AAP
“In a situation like deliberate out of bounds where three or four players will stand around appealing with their arms out, that’s not a good look for the game and not what we want to see. I’d penalise that.
“We see forwards getting free kicks and the defending standing and pointing at the big screen. That’s not a good look for the sport.
“I think it is important that players can ask questions on why certain decisions are made. By and large that does happen. There are a few more habits that have crept in that the game doesn’t need. It’s a distraction that serves to embarrass or undermine an umpire’s authority.”
And the third example?
“Sometimes there are two or three defenders wanting to have their two bobs worth,” McInerney continued.
“That’s not on. The umpire has a job to do at that point in time.”
In the AFL’s note to clubs, executive general manager Andrew Dillon praised the sacrifices players and staff have made across the past two seasons.
But in reviewing the 2021 season, he said there were “a number of instances” where the “AFL community” fell short of certain standards relating to sportsmanship and respect for umpires.
“The AFL and its clubs have a unique leadership role in the community, and with that role comes responsibility. Disrespect towards umpires is an issue at all levels of football and has no place,” Dillon said.
McInerney is hoping to see more respect displayed to umpires. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
McInerney is hoping to see more respect displayed to umpires. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Source: Getty Images
“We are 6,000 umpires short at the community football level and it is incumbent on us to set the right example at the elite level so we can encourage and retain umpires across the country to best support the rapidly growing player participation base.”
While McInerney believes a correlation exists between the top level and local football, he argued the issue is not finding umpires, rather it is retaining them.
He also declared the changes made by the AFL have the potential to filter down quickly.
“I think what happens at the AFL level plays a role in umpire shortage, but I don’t think there is a direct correlation,” he said.
“There has been an explosion in women’s footy and that has placed a demand on all sorts of components with grounds, facilities, coaches and so forth.
“In my view, I’ve always understood that it’s not about attracting people to umpiring – lots of people like to give it a go – I think it’s more around the retention. The match day experience goes a long way to ensure that you can have retention of umpires.”
He added: “The response is a pretty quick response. Invariably when the AFL makes a change to a Law or an interpretation, spectators think at the lower level think that’s how their games will be officiated. Those competitions pick up really quickly.
“It’s something that could be achieved this coming season.”
On Friday morning, North Melbourne great and Fox Footy expert David King cautioned against any significant changes to interpretations around umpire feedback.
David King cautioned against major changes to interpretations around umpire feedback. Picture: Hamish Blair
David King cautioned against major changes to interpretations around umpire feedback. Picture: Hamish Blair
Source: Herald Sun
“The abuse of the umpire being an instant 50m penalty, I don’t believe AFL players ever abuse an umpire, they may be angry with a decision at a given point in time and they may be frustrated and say something but it’s not to abuse or belittle an umpire,” King said on SEN Breakfast.
“It’s an act that’s gone in three seconds, it’s always been a part of our game and it’s never been a problem, don’t tell me that if it comes from over the fence in lesser games or at junior footy, this is something in my opinion that has been overplayed.
“There were two 50m penalties paid yesterday that I thought ‘gee-whiz that’s really tough’, the players not standing there abusing the umpires, they’re questioning the decision, it’s going to bring significant backlash.
“Put it right in your diary now, it’ll be the most talked-about thing on a Monday morning in three weeks’ time about someone getting a 50m for saying ‘you can’t pay that Ray’.”
McInerney said one of the challenges for umpires is disregarding their own subjective perspective on player feedback.
“In our game, yes we can have personalities,” he continued.
“But everyone is interpreting the same part of the law as each other. This area is no different. It’s not about what certain personalities can or can’t handle. No. It’s about the role of the umpire and how the players engage with that person in their role.
“There is no room for umpires to take into account whether they can handle it or can’t. I can’t stress that enough. That is not what this is about.”
18.8.2 Free Kicks – Umpires
(a) uses abusive, insulting, threatening or obscene language towards an Umpire;
(b) behaves in an abusive, insulting, threatening or obscene manner towards an Umpire;
(c) intentionally, unreasonably or carelessly makes contact with an Umpire;
(d) disputes a decision of an Umpire;
(e) fails to follow the instruction of an Umpire; or
(f) intentionally or carelessly engages in conduct which affects, interferes with or prevents an Umpire from performing their duties.
https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/due-for-another-realignment-retired-great-weighs-in-on-afls-great-umpire-debate/news-story/c8319c342aff5f772e15f13d8fee78bd
Collingwood V's St.Kilda Victoria Park 1960

Collingwood V's St.Kilda Victoria park
13 August 1960
Collingwood Beats St.Kilda In The Mud
Collingwood8.12 (60)St Kilda7.7 (49 )Crowd 22,640
Morrissey Breen
2022-03-23 08:32:07 UTC
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Post by Morrissey Breen
Post by Morrissey Breen
FIVE KEY STAGES OF AN ORGANIZATION'S COLLAPSE
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-union/zero-scrum-game-is-it-too-late-to-save-rugby-union-20210203-p56z7r.html
In 2012, John O’Neill put together a presentation using a report by US management guru Jim Collins. Collins outlines five key stages of an organisation’s collapse, including Inaction, Crisis and Dissolution. On the last page O’Neill had written: “Where is Australian rugby?” One could ask the same question now.
Post by Morrissey Breen
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By Tim Elliott
APRIL 2, 2021
Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan says, “We’re on the ground floor of a complete rebuild for rugby. But it’s taken a long time getting to this point, and it’ll take quite a few years to get out of it.”
Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan says, “We’re on the ground floor of a complete rebuild for rugby. But it’s taken a long time getting to this point, and it’ll take quite a few years to get out of it.”CREDIT:JAMES BRICKWOOD
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It’s a balmy evening in January, and the Pearl Ballroom at Sydney’s Crown Towers is looking its finest, with its theatre-style curtains and platinum-coloured wall panelling, its floating chandeliers and mirrored ceiling. Chef Guillaume Brahimi has outdone himself, dishing up a tartare of yellowfin tuna for entrée followed by minute steak with Cafe de Paris butter. There is pinot gris, shiraz and chardonnay, and here to enjoy it, the premier cru of Australian rugby union’s gilded past: David Campese, John Eales and Nick Farr-Jones; the fridge-like Phil Kearns, Gary Ella and even Eric Tweedale, who, at the age of 99, is the oldest living Wallaby. They’re all here, the great and good of “the game they play in heaven”, grazing at the table like buffalo at a watering hole. It’s a rugby Valhalla, with pistachio gateau for dessert.
Tonight’s event has been organised by Rugby Australia, the game’s governing body, with the express purpose of picking a permanent colour for the national jersey. The national team, the Wallabies, have traditionally worn gold, but over the decades that gold has morphed like a lava lamp from the warm ochre of the 1980s to a burnt orange and even, most recently, a traffic-stopping yellow.
“A picture says a thousand words,” Hamish McLennan, RA’s chairman, told the media in the lead-up to the event. “It [the constant colour changes] shows the madness of our inconsistency.”
Tall and urbane, with thick, dark hair, McLennan, who took over the role in June 2020, radiates charm and capability, with the casual confidence of a man who enters a job interview with another offer in his back pocket. He’s positioned tonight’s event as an exercise in unity and esprit de corps, a way of honouring history while building for the future. “We need to decide,” he tells me. “The symbolism is important.”
The fans have already spoken: in an online poll conducted by The Sydney Morning Herald, most popular among the 13,300 votes cast was the jersey worn by the Wallabies in 1991, the year Australia won its first Rugby World Cup. McLennan has said the poll result will have a bearing on tonight. “After all, the fans own the jersey.”
Rugby legends mull over which jersey to pick as permanent Wallabies colours. From left, Phil Kearns, Gary Ella, Bob Dwyer, David Campese and Tim Gavin.
Rugby legends mull over which jersey to pick as permanent Wallabies colours. From left, Phil Kearns, Gary Ella, Bob Dwyer, David Campese and Tim Gavin.CREDIT:EDWINA PICKLES
Soon, the voting begins. There are eight jerseys to choose from. As each one is presented to the room, there’s a show of hands and the numbers noted. Another jersey, more hands, more numbers. A certain dissonance arises: we’re told to forget nostalgia and think about the future, but nostalgia is built into the process. Indeed, for Australian rugby fans, traumatised by decades of defeat, nostalgia is all they have left.
In the end, after several rounds of increasingly raucous voting, of good-natured heckling and faux outrage, the number of jerseys has been whittled down, from eight to six to four to two, and finally, the winner, as duly presaged, the 1991 World Cup-winning design.
Most agree it’s a victory for good taste and sound judgment. But it is also, inevitably, a victory for nostalgia. Once again, to everyone’s relief, Australian rugby is going back to the future.
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It’s hard to imagine now, but once upon a time Australians were very good at playing rugby union. The Wallabies won World Cups in 1991 and 1999. In 2000, they retained the Bledisloe Cup against the New Zealand All Blacks for the third year running, and took out the Tri Nations Series, beating the All Blacks and the Springboks, the national team of South Africa. The NSW Waratahs ranked alongside the AFL’s Collingwood and the NRL’s Brisbane Broncos as one of the country’s most recognised sporting brands.
The game brought in big money and colossal crowds: more than 109,000 packed in to Sydney’s Stadium Australia in 2000 to watch the Wallabies and the All Blacks play what has been described as “the greatest ever rugby match”. In 2001, the Wallabies won a three-Test series against the British & Irish Lions. Two years later, when Australia hosted the World Cup, rugby was, for perhaps the first time in its history, a mainstream sport in which the broad mass of Australians were emotionally invested.
The period since then has been a waking nightmare for Australian rugby. The Wallabies have slumped from second in the world to seventh. We haven’t won a Bledisloe Cup since 2002. Crowds and TV audiences have plummeted. There have been intermittent victories over the All Blacks and others; Australia even made the World Cup final in 2015. But such victories have invariably been followed by humiliating defeats, a pattern of false dawns that has bred within the rugby community a culture of scepticism and apathy.
“Rugby is on the bones of its arse right now ... and what you’re left with is a bunch of huge men, who we don’t know, running into one another.”
Thousands of fans have drifted away to rugby league or Aussie Rules, disillusioned not only with the on-field performances but with the game’s dysfunctional governance. Despite being run by a coterie of investment bankers and private equity chiefs, rugby has lurched from one financial crisis to another, in some cases staving off insolvency with emergency loans.
“Rugby is on the bones of its arse right now,” says columnist and author Peter FitzSimons. “There used to be a magic and romance to it, and now that magic is gone, and what you’re left with is a bunch of huge men, who we don’t know, running into one another.”
FitzSimons, 59, appeared in seven Tests for the Wallabies in 1989-90, “when we played for the honour of it,” he says, “and got paid $50 a day.” He embodies a certain amateur-era type; grizzled and voluble, given to self-mythologising, with a face that appears to have been hurriedly chiselled from a block of salt.
Like many fans, FitzSimons, who infamously started an all-in brawl against France in 1990 at the Sydney Football Stadium, mourns the raw colour of amateur rugby and the figures it produced: Ray Price and David Campese, the dancing Ella brothers and Roger Gould, with quads like bags of concrete; players like Greg Cornelsen, who cowed the All Blacks with four tries at Eden Park in 1978, and Stan Pilecki, who was once interrupted smoking a cigarette when called off the bench for a Wallabies match in Argentina.
“Rugby has lost its theatre,” says FitzSimons. “There are no characters any more. Now we have 15 professional footballers whom no one can relate to. The key is to know who is representing us again, to care about them, and to see them win.”
There have, in fact, been some wins of late, albeit off the field. For the past 25 years rugby has been broadcast on Foxtel, majority owned by Rupert Murdoch. When the rights became available in 2020, Foxtel offered $31 million a year, down from an annual $57 million payment since 2015. In November last year, McLennan and interim CEO Rob Clarke declined the offer, signing instead with Nine Entertainment Co. (publisher of Good Weekend), in a deal worth $100 million over three years.
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The deal, which starts this year, includes the rights to Wallabies Tests, the women’s game, including the national team, the Wallaroos, and the club schedule. It also covers Super Rugby, a provincial competition which has in the past featured teams from South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Argentina and Japan. (The competition has since become an Australia-only model, due to COVID-19.)
Most importantly, the agreement involves a commitment to show a weekly Saturday night Super Rugby game on the Nine Network – the first time the competition has been given a free-to-air platform.
The Nine deal is widely seen as the last best hope for the code. McLennan tells me it could reactivate “rugby’s latent fan base”, a secret army of followers waiting to emerge from their basements wearing Wallabies scarves and waving gold flags.
“The problem before was exposure,” says McLennan. “A lot of people didn’t actually see rugby because they couldn’t afford pay TV. Now with free-to-air, suddenly rugby is going to be more front of mind. Kids will see it and they will want to play, and that makes it bigger, and more money will come into the game.”
“It’s really exciting,” says Stephen Moore, former Wallabies skipper and 129-Test veteran. “[McLennan] is a smart guy and 100 per cent committed to the game being its best.” But Moore acknowledges that rugby’s problems are bigger than a broadcast deal. “The state of the game here is so bad at the moment that it has to be transformed totally. For too long we’ve papered over the problems, and look where that’s got us.”
The Wallabies walk off the field after yet another defeat against the All Blacks, in the 2011 World Cup.
The Wallabies walk off the field after yet another defeat against the All Blacks, in the 2011 World Cup.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
In 2017, Rugby Australia moved into a new headquarters, a gleaming, cobalt-blue glass and steel structure in Moore Park, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. There’s a high-performance gym, a 600-square-metre indoor training area and a rooftop running track. From the second-floor boardroom, where I’ve come to meet RA’s new CEO, Andy Marinos, you can see the construction site of the former Sydney Football Stadium, once home to so many of rugby’s mythic victories, and which now, in a metaphor almost too obvious to mention, has been reduced to an enormous crater.
Marinos, 48, has a close-cropped beard and a torso like a concrete bollard. He played rugby at the provincial level in South Africa, where he grew up, and also for Wales, in the early 2000s (he has Welsh ancestry). He then moved into administration, managing the South African Rugby Union. For the past five years, he’s been based in Sydney as the CEO of SANZAAR, the body that runs Super Rugby and the Rugby Championship, an international competition between Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.
Marinos has arrived at RA at a turbulent time, even by the turbulent standards of Australian rugby. Last year saw the rancourous departure of the then CEO Raelene Castle, a global pandemic and record financial losses. “Rugby has been through a lot,” he says. “But COVID is an inflection point. It gives you the opportunity to restart.”
One of his immediate priorities is financial stability. “That way we can stop being reactive and start being more strategic about how we’re wanting to do things.” The money from Nine should right the ship in the short term. But repairing the game in the long run and making the Wallabies win again will be infinitely harder.
“Rugby has been through a lot, but COVID is an inflection point. It gives you the opportunity to restart.”
“There are so many constituent parts,” says Marinos. “Creating pathways for the players, managing stakeholders, the sponsors, fans and the community game.”
He believes his outsider status is an advantage. “I’m not caught up in the things that happened [in Australian rugby] in the past,” he says. “I don’t have any preference for a particular state, place or person.” He’s free, then, to begin “rugby’s journey of renewal, one that is about being genuine, authentic and listening to people.”
I must look sceptical. “It’s a fantastic opportunity!” he says. “But it’s going to take time to fix. And it’s not going to be easy.”
Almost everyone has a different take on why Australian rugby is broken. Some blame the referees; others blame the rules; it’s AFL’s fault, or rugby league’s. It’s stupid coaches, overpaid players, inept leadership. When I ask Eric Tweedale what he thinks the problem is, he says it all began when the game went professional, which seems as good a place to start as any.
According to legend, rugby began in 1823, at Rugby School in England. For most of its history, it was staunchly amateur. But successive World Cups, in 1987, 1991 and 1995, saw the game explode in popularity, increasing the demands on players, who insisted on being paid. In 1995, the three most powerful southern hemisphere rugby unions, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia, formed a body called SANZAR, to oversee Super Rugby and the Tri Nations. SANZAR approached Rupert Murdoch, who paid $US555 million over 10 years for the rights to broadcast the games on his nascent cable network, Foxtel. Sensing the momentum, the world’s governing body, the International Rugby Board, declared the game professional in 1995.
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Australia’s cut of the broadcast rights was $35 million a year. Despite this, the game’s peak body, then called Australian Rugby Union, remained an amateur outfit, with no fewer than 21 committees overseeing everything from finances to player selection. The committees were run by honoraries, whose positions as such gave them considerable status within the rugby community, not to mention good parking and the best seats at games. When former NSW State Bank chief John O’Neill became CEO of the ARU in 1995, he set about abolishing the committees outright, seeding a bitter antipathy from the honoraries, or the “blazer brigade” as he called them, that would bedevil rugby for years to come.
O’Neill didn’t want for confidence. (In his 2007 book, It’s Only a Game, he writes of becoming “quite depressed” to discover how “over-qualified” he was for the job.) But there was no doubting his ability. He broadened the game’s appeal, boosted participation, and presided over the hugely successful 2003 World Cup in Australia which left the ARU with a $45 million profit. He also attempted to centralise authority and take power away from the states, particularly NSW and Queensland, whose squabbling had hobbled the game for years. “They didn’t like that,” he tells me. “They thought I was too influential.”
After the 2003 World Cup, O’Neill still had a year on his contract, and intended to stay until 2007. But his enemies had other ideas. In late 2003, O’Neill, then acknowledged as one of the country’s finest sports administrators, was pushed out. Rugby writer Peter Jenkins wrote that O’Neill’s “only crime was being high-profile, and of daring to challenge his directors”. Australian rugby had begun a long tradition of shooting itself in the foot.
From left, former Australian Rugby Union boss Gary Flowers; John O’Neill, who was pushed out as ARU CEO after antagonising the “blazer brigade”; Bill Pulver is one of eight Shore old boys to be Rugby Australia and NSWRU officeholders in recent times.
From left, former Australian Rugby Union boss Gary Flowers; John O’Neill, who was pushed out as ARU CEO after antagonising the “blazer brigade”; Bill Pulver is one of eight Shore old boys to be Rugby Australia and NSWRU officeholders in recent times.CREDIT:EDWINA PICKLES; AAP; DANIEL MUNOZ
O’Neill and his deputy Matt Carroll had wanted to put the $45 million World Cup windfall in a trust. “The idea was that it’d be a future fund,” says Carroll, who is now CEO of the Australian Olympic Committee. “If they’d invested that money back then, it’d probably be worth $100 million now and be producing a yearly income for rugby.”
But they didn’t. Instead, the money was given to the state unions and ploughed into a new competition called the Australian Rugby Championship (ARC), featuring eight teams from around the country. The ARC, which was announced in mid-2006 by then CEO, Gary Flowers, was intended as a pathway from the club system to Super Rugby. But the model was flawed from the outset. The teams had no history and no local followings. It was expensive and attracted almost no sponsorship. It also detracted from the established club scenes in Sydney and Brisbane, angering the game’s grassroots. By the end of the first season, the ARC had lost $4.7 million, with forecast losses of $8 million by the end of 2008.
At the same time, the ARU was struggling with inflated player salaries. When rugby went professional in 1995, Murdoch had faced competition from rugby league, which had attempted to sign up most of rugby’s best players. At the same time, fellow media mogul Kerry Packer was backing a rival competition called World Rugby Corporation. Players were in demand, and in order to win, Murdoch was forced to pay top dollar. Salaries skyrocketed, and were pushed even higher thanks to competition from cashed-up clubs in the northern hemisphere, some of which had billionaire owners.
“In comparison to other sports, rugby players were getting a higher proportion of the revenues,” says management consultant Michael Crawford, who has advised the ARU for 20 years. “This left less money for development and created further anger at the community level.”
Flowers stood down in 2007, opening the way for O’Neill and Carroll to return. They immediately scrapped the ARC. But the performance of the Wallabies, the financial engine of Australian rugby, was going from bad to worse. In 2009, Australia lost four matches to the All Blacks, two to the Springboks, and one to Scotland. Super Rugby was also faltering. The three Australian teams, the ACT Brumbies, the NSW Waratahs and the Queensland Reds, had all at one time or another enjoyed considerable success. In 2006, a fourth Australian team, the Perth-based Western Force, was added to the competition, followed by a fifth team, the Melbourne Rebels, in 2011. The idea was to give the game a national footprint and generate more broadcast dollars.
But it soon became apparent that Australia didn’t have enough talent to go around. According to a 2017 Senate standing committee report into the future of Australian rugby, the expansion from three to four to five teams saw a step down in performance, from Australian sides winning 60 per cent of their games to 50 per cent to 40 per cent. When the teams began to go broke, their owners – the state unions – ran to the ARU for a handout. By the end of 2011, the national body was funding the Super Rugby outfits to the tune of $25 million a year.
The obvious answer was private ownership. “In the US and Europe, 90 per cent of professional sporting clubs are privately owned and have strong business models,” says Colin Smith, director of the advisory firm, Global Media and Sports. “And that’s because they focus on the profit motive.”
“The parochialism and backward thinking are crippling rugby. It’s a self-made destruction.”
In 2008, Smith was charged by the ARU with getting the state unions to consider private ownership. But according to Smith, “the general reaction [from the states] was, ‘Under no circumstances’.” A board member of one union told Smith that he didn’t want to sell his Super Rugby team because he might miss out on free tickets to the games. “The thinking [was] incredibly myopic,” says Smith. “It just shows a complete lack of understanding of how the business of sports works.”
Smith has worked in sports for 30 years. There is virtually no market that he has not run the ruler over, no major club that he has not scrutinised. But rugby is special to him. “The first game I attended was in the early ’90s at Twickenham between England and the Barbarians. It was absolutely scintillating, and I was hooked.” But he now despairs for the game in Australia. “The parochialism and backward thinking are crippling rugby. It’s a self-made destruction.”
Dejected Wallabies players after losing to Argentina in 2018. The once high-flying national team has slipped to seventh in the world rankings.
Dejected Wallabies players after losing to Argentina in 2018. The once high-flying national team has slipped to seventh in the world rankings.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
Rugby is played in more than 120 countries, with 9.6 million registered players worldwide. Outside Australia, the game is booming: the 2019 Rugby World Cup, held in Japan, drew a total broadcast audience of 857 million over six weeks. (When Japan played Scotland, 54.8 million people in Japan watched it on television, nearly half the population.) Such events showcase the lore and legend of each national team, together with their signature playing styles: the mercurial French, the doughty Scots, the flamboyant Fijians, and the Welsh, whose scrum could push down mountains.
The Wallabies used to be famous for “running rugby”, a swaggering brand of free-flowing football made famous by the Ella brothers and David Campese, among others. Now, not so much. Indeed, the saddest thing a rugby fan can hear is that the game in Australia has become boring. Observers blame the referees, who have become increasingly pedantic. But the complexity of the rules is also a problem, especially compared to rugby league or AFL.
For years, rugby administrators have tinkered with the laws to make the game a better spectacle, but it’s a slow process. “Rugby is a global game,” says Brett Robinson, former Wallaby and current member of the World Rugby Council, which oversees laws, regulations and player welfare. “League and AFL are essentially domestic sports. It’s easy for them to make rule changes, but we have to influence over 100 nations to make changes that can be applied across the world and ultimately at a World Cup every four years.”
Rugby connoisseurs claim the complexity of the game is part of its beauty; that rugby is chess to rugby league’s checkers. But sometimes checkers is all a sports fan has time for. This is especially true in Australia, which has no less than four football codes – league, union, AFL and soccer – all competing for hearts and minds. And in an era when sport has become mass entertainment, being dull is death.
Rugby connoisseurs claim the complexity of the game is part of its beauty; that rugby is chess to rugby league’s checkers.
Growing rugby’s fan base is essential. One way of doing that is by winning games; the other is to create new audiences. “To me, the biggest wasted opportunity has been the failure to bring more people outside the narrow culture of rugby into the sport,” says James Curran, a Sydney University history professor who is writing a book about David Campese. “Rugby officialdom hasn’t been able to move beyond those who were supporting the game in the 1970s.”
Most of rugby’s elite players are still drawn from a small number of private schools in Sydney and Brisbane. The same goes for the game’s leadership, at both national and state levels, an inordinate number of whom come from Sydney’s most exclusive private schools, including Newington, Scots or St Joseph’s. One school in particular, Shore, figures prominently.
No fewer than eight recent RA and NSWRU office holders are Shore old boys, including current chairman, Hamish McLennan, recently departed CEO Rob Clarke and director Phil Waugh.
When the ARU went looking for a new CEO in 2012, it conducted what it described as a worldwide search before turning up Shore old boy Bill Pulver, in Sydney’s affluent harbourside suburb of Mosman. (Living, as it happened, right next door to ARU director John Eales). Pulver received a ringing endorsement from then ARU chairman, Michael Hawker, another Shore old boy who had played rugby with Pulver in the school’s First XV some 35 years earlier. “The whole thing is so incestuous,” says Colin Smith. “It’s not good for the game.”
It also reflects a fundamental disconnect to the game’s grassroots, which attracts a far broader demographic. “Many of our players are scaffolders or concreters,” says Craig Moran, general manager of Western Sydney Two Blues rugby club, in Parramatta. “They’re not rich people.”
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Founded in 1879, Two Blues is a Shute Shield stalwart. The club is operated almost entirely by volunteers, including Dennis “Muncher” Garlick, the 71-year-old waterboy, and the helpers who run the canteen, which provides much of the club’s revenue. But clubs like Moran’s have over the years been variously ignored or held in contempt by the ARU. In 2014, when the ARU was facing insolvency, Pulver requested the clubs forgo their annual $100,000 grants. Two years later, when the clubs requested the grants be reinstated, Pulver refused, reportedly saying he didn’t want them to “piss it up the wall”. (Pulver declined to take part in this story.)
State administrators have been equally out of touch. For decades the NSWRU has appointed a development officer for Shute Shield clubs, including Two Blues. But, according to Moran, it never understood the cultural dimension of the job. “Western Sydney has a large Islander population but we didn’t have any development officers who were Islanders. Development officers have to understand the social conditions. You can’t just send someone from Manly to be a DO in Merrylands.”
Moran says the game is “cannibalising itself”. Recent years have seen lavish pre-season launches at exclusive nightclubs; catered corporate events and runaway overstaffing. Last year it emerged that RA had spent $19 million on corporate costs in 2019, and just $4.3 million on community rugby, and was employing more than 200 people.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” says Scott Allen, who was appointed assistant coach to the women’s national rugby team, the Wallaroos, in 2016. “I remember walking into ARU headquarters on my first day and there were people and desks everywhere. And I thought, ‘What the f… are all these people doing?’ ”
Pulver had some wins, including a $285 million, five-year broadcast deal with Foxtel. But he also oversaw the disastrous axing of the Western Force Super Rugby team in 2017. The decision enraged Force fans, and saw the West Australian premier threaten to sue the ARU. Thousands of people protested in Perth, led by mining magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest.
“The process was a charade,” Forrest tells me. “It was shocking leadership and governance.” Former Wallaby Nathan Sharpe described the decision on Twitter as “the biggest mistake the ARU could have made”. The episode effectively ended Pulver’s term. He quit, in August 2017, pocketing a $300,000 bonus on his way out the door.
RA chairman Hamish McLennan, left, and CEO Andy Marinos are aiming
to “rebuild” rugby.
RA chairman Hamish McLennan, left, and CEO Andy Marinos are aiming to “rebuild” rugby.CREDIT:DOMINIC LORRIMER
Not all of rugby’s woes are self-inflicted. You can’t blame administrators for time zone differences, which mean that games involving Australian teams overseas are often broadcast here at 3am or 4am. It’s also hard for Australia to compete with the financial might of the northern hemisphere unions, which regularly poach our best players. Then there’s Israel Folau, the star Wallaby whose homophobic social media posts wound up costing RA millions of dollars in legal fees and saw the game ensnared in a high-profile debate over free speech that it could not win.
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Yet infighting and opportunism continue to poison the game. Last year saw a clumsy attempt to overthrow the RA board, when 11 former Wallaby captains wrote an open letter accusing the game’s leadership, headed by CEO Raelene Castle, of mismanagement. Castle, who is from New Zealand, had taken over from Pulver in 2017, and was wrestling with the financial impact of COVID. At the same time, she had put the broadcast rights out to tender, snubbing long-time partner Foxtel. Castle’s decision would eventually deliver a huge win for rugby, opening the way for a $100 million deal with Nine, part of which involved a free-to-air component.
But at the time Foxtel was furious. Castle found herself under attack from journalists at News Corp (Foxtel’s majority owner). Then came the captains’ letter, the public faces of which were Nick Farr Jones and former Foxtel commentator Phil Kearns. The letter was regarded by many as baldly self-serving of Kearns, who had lost out to Castle for the CEO’s job two years before. Kearns denies this.
“No one from Foxtel ever rang me and said they wanted me to run for CEO,” he tells me. “[And there] was never any talk by the captains explicitly of me going into the CEO role.” It was telling, however, that Kearns and the others had not intervened when the game faced insolvency under Pulver. “In any case,” says Sam Bruce, rugby writer at ESPN, “if they really wanted to help the game, there was nothing stopping them from calling Castle and saying, ‘How can I help?’ ”
“The whole episode painted a really ugly picture for the game right when what it needed most was positivity and cohesion.”
As far as Bruce is concerned, the coup was just another power play. “Castle was an outsider,” he says. “She was a Kiwi, a woman, and she didn’t live in Mosman. Her appointment caught rugby’s old boys’ establishment off guard. They thought they were losing control.” Castle resigned in April 2020, her decision prompted by what the then chairman Paul McLean described as a campaign of “abhorrent” bullying, both online and from vested interests in the media. Says Bruce: “The whole episode painted a really ugly picture for the game right when what it needed most was positivity and cohesion.”
In 2012, John O’Neill put together a presentation using a report by US management guru Jim Collins. Collins outlines five key stages of an organisation’s collapse, including Inaction, Crisis and Dissolution. On the last page O’Neill had written: “Where is Australian rugby?” One could ask the same question now.
A commentator on the sports website The Roar suggests the game is facing a “multi-generational battle” to restore its fortunes. A GreenandGoldRugby.com reader proposed that rugby go amateur again. Peter FitzSimons, meanwhile, believes the game’s worst days are behind it. “We have crossed the Valley of Death and are slowly starting to climb to the other side.”
Hamish McLennan is similarly upbeat. “We’ve got some great young players coming through [at the elite level],” he says, when we meet at RA’s Moore Park HQ. “And there’s been a lot of good work reconnecting with the grassroots.” McLennan has stopped the soap opera at head office, and established an advisory board to bid for the 2027 World Cup (Phil Kearns is the executive director). “That’s the light on the hill,” nods McLennan. “We stand a pretty good chance of getting that.”
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Private equity is also in the picture. Luxembourg based CVC Capital Partners has invested $1.2 billion in European rugby, most recently buying a 14 per cent stake in the Six Nations, a yearly tournament between Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, England and Italy. And American group Silver Lake Partners reportedly plans to put $NZ465 million into New Zealand rugby in return for a 15 per cent share of commercial rights. McLennan says a number of private equity outfits, including CVC, Bruin Capital and Silver Lake, are likewise looking at Australia.
It’s unclear what such an investment would look like. “Do we do it at a competition level, do we include the clubs or not, do we sell a part of the Wallabies or the whole organisation? We have to figure that out,” says McLennan.
There’s a lot at stake. “We’re on the ground floor of a complete rebuild for rugby. But it’s taken a long time getting to this point, and it’ll take quite a few years to get out of it.”
For those who believe the game is beyond salvation here, he points to Argentina, who beat the All Blacks for the first time ever last year. “That’s the thing with sport,” says McLennan. “You can come from nowhere and surprise people.”
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Post by Morrissey Breen
Post by Morrissey Breen
Post by Morrissey Breen
‘Ruining the sport’: What readers want the AFL to change
February 20, 2022 — 1.50pm
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/ruining-the-sport-what-readers-want-the-afl-to-change-20220220-p59y01.html
In late 2021, the AFL Fans Association undertook a survey of more than 800 people to find out what they felt the burning issues were for supporters. The results? More than a third were worried about the proliferation of gambling advertising; some called for the stand rule to be abolished; others were tired of rule changes and wanted clearer umpiring interpretations.
Those topics were far and away the most common response when The Age opened the floor for readers to have their say on the issue they most wanted the league to address. An overwhelming majority wanted an end to gambling advertising and sponsorships. Some responses have been edited for brevity.
Gambling advertising was a key concern for many readers.
Gambling advertising was a key concern for many readers.CREDIT:AFL PHOTOS
‘Cruel and greedy’
“Remove the gambling ads. How disgraceful that the one of the biggest financial generators for the AFL is this insidious gambling industry. You cannot watch the game or any sport without the gambling ads and promoters peddling the wares. Gambling is a personal choice, but unfortunately there are consequences, and when so much money is involved, the only ones to profit are the vested interest. Horses, dogs are also victims.” - Paula
“Gambling ads need to be dropped. It is at such a high level that it will be encouraging many of our young and people in general to gamble.” - Derek
“No more advertising of gambling ‘opportunities’. If people want to gamble, they will, but it is cruel and greedy to advertise it in the high emotion atmosphere that surrounds live games or televised games. Please get rid of it. It targets problem gamblers and young people with anonymity.” - Victoria
“Gambling advertising – it endorses an activity that causes great social harm in Australia. One of the attractive aspects of attending an AFL match or watching/listening to an AFL broadcast is to see that for many fans it is still a family activity. Gambling ads normalise ‘having a punt’ as part of following AFL and there will be a section of the audience who are introduced to gambling in this way. Although I think that the prospect of match fixing in AFL is low, being able to bet on who will kick the first goal etc could lead to the corruption of some players.” - Jay
“Stop gambling promotion about odds being part of commentators’ information to public. It just normalises gambling.” - Deborah
“Ban betting advertising on television, print, radio and at stadiums, it is not having a positive impact on young children and young adults. I no longer enjoy watching it; as a parent it is irresponsible to allow my child to see consistent advertising/commentary on betting. They are normalising gambling and encouraging it as if it is necessary to enjoy the game. I don’t understand how this is allowed. ” - Teresa
“Remove gambling adds – it is exactly the same as tobacco advertising in sports in the past when that was banned in 1976 due to the enormous societal impact. Even my teenage children notice them and think they are harmful and there are too many.” - J
RELATED ARTICLE
Fan survey
AFL 2022
‘Stop promoting gambling:’ Betting ads a burning issue in AFL fan survey
Some readers thought the problem with advertising gambling extended to other areas, including alcohol and junk food.
“Gambling advertising in media and hoardings around grounds to cease immediately. AFL to cease advertising junk food and junk drinks. The same goes for gambling sponsorship. Also, all of the above should apply to alcohol sponsorship.” - Warwick
And the sentiment was that sponsorship as well as advertising should be addressed.
“Cease all association with gambling, including sponsorship deals and advertising. Eradicate it from the sport, please. It is ruining the sport.” - Richard
“Advertising on gambling in any form should be banned. The AFL should mandate this in its commercial arrangements.” - Ron
“I appreciate the AFL needs sponsors, but facilitating gambling agencies to hammer kids with these adds, simply in order to line their pockets, is abhorrent. The consequences of this will last generations.” - Mark
‘Rules change every year’
Rule changes and officiating were also hot topics among readers, but the sentiment was mixed. Some people wanted rules changed, while others have had enough of modifications.
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Umpiring and rule changes formed a key concern in the AFL Fans Association survey.
AFL 2022
Fans take a stand on rule changes, commentary and curtain raisers
“[The AFL should change] the stand rule and nominating for ruck contests, it slows the game down and goes back to Auskick rules.” - Ian
“Remove the stand and ruck nomination rules, remove ‘six-six-six’ ... Scoring has reduced since these rules came in.” - Brendan
But not everyone was opposed to the stand rule.
“The stand rule is to me probably the best rule for opening the game up that has been tried and works – game flow is decluttered and better to watch.” - Patrick
Some wanted a change to 50-metre penalties.
“Fifty-metre penalty is excessive and punishes what are often very minor infringements to a ridiculous degree often resulting in a certain goal. Spoils the spectacle for me. Twenty-metre penalty would be more appropriate.” - Carlos
Others had different solutions for similar problems. Sam wanted the league to get “more flow or movement into the game, opening up play so talented players can display skills”. But John called for more free kicks to be paid. “Push in the back, holding the ball. Too many instances where these result in ball-ups.”
And how to relieve the pressure on umpires? Stop making so many changes and remove the need for interpretation.
“It’s no wonder the umpires are criticised so frequently, when rules change every year. They are forced to adjudicate new or changed rules every year. No more rule changes unless it is absolutely necessary.” - Masher
“Scrap prior opportunity, just give ball possessor three seconds to legally dispose of the ball when legally tackled. No interpretation needed.” - Dave
“... Confine ‘prior opportunity’ to only a bad memory.” - Bill
“... There have [been] more changes to rules in the last 20 years than the previous 50 years. Now we have rules made to undo the consequences of previous rule changes.” - David
“Overall, if a rule can’t be applied ‘by the book’ and not subject to a myriad of interpretations it would be better off being scrapped. Often former player commentators talk about a play being “technically” a free kick, but suggesting the umpire could have let it go. If it doesn’t matter, scrap the rule. The closer we can get to a simpler decision the better off we will be.” - Rod
And some readers had other suggestions.
“The running through the protected area rule should only be applied if it clearly has impeded the ball carrier. Even if a player was impacted the 50-metre penalty is too great and should be reduced to 25 metres.” - Marshall
“Give the player who attacks the ball a chance to make the play. This reward the tackler approach is rubbish! If I want to watch a game of no stop tackling being ‘rewarded’ I will become a rugby league fan.” - Ian
Readers had an issue with interpretation of rules as well as rule changes.
Readers had an issue with interpretation of rules as well as rule changes.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
“Scraping the post or touching the ball as it goes through the goals. The camera work and quality is not good enough for the purpose and it makes little sense to agonise through the process. If it goes through the big sticks it’s a goal. If it goes through the small sticks it’s a point. If it bounces back into play it is play on. Simple.” - Ron
‘Reduce the volume’
Lots of readers were unhappy with how quarter- and half-time breaks are filled with noise. Nick‘s No.1 concern was “incessant, high-volume ‘entertainment’“. Matt’s was “loud music and ads between quarters”. Most just wanted to be able to chat to family and friends.
“Reduce the volume of the ‘entertainment’. Time was we used to like talking before the game and half-time. We can also get rid of the constant changes in fluro advertising, plus we don’t need three tiers of illuminated banners to tell us a goal has been kicked.” - David
“Noisy entertainment which interferes with ability to socialise with family and friends because we can’t hear each other. Revolving advertising is disturbing for people with migraines and other sensory disabilities.” - Bernadette
“Stop the loud, LOUD ‘entertainment’ at the end of each quarter. Just let us interact and chat and be social with people in the crowd around us. We can’t, because there’s non-stop music and announcements at high decibel levels ruining our time at the footy. It’s a total turn off. I know many people who don’t go any more because of it. God help people with tinnitus, hearing aids or brain injuries. It’s noise pollution, is what it is, not entertainment.” - Mary
‘Members do the hard yards’
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AFL 2022
Footy fans have spoken, and they’ve had plenty to say
Greg Baum
Greg Baum
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Many readers also took issue with ticketing and grand final access.
Linda wanted the grand final moved around the country (it is contracted to be played at the MCG until the late 2050s). Noreen wanted a more simple way to buy tickets for her team’s away games. Christine wanted more grand final tickets available for members of competing clubs, “NOT funnelled off to corporates who don’t necessarily support either team. We long-term (and long-suffering) members do the hard yards all season, every season, and should be able to see our team’s ultimate triumph in person.”
“Stop selling tickets for finals and go back to first in, best dressed until the ground is full. This means those who are there are real fans and not corporates or once-a-year attendees.” - John
And some wanted the fairness of the fixture addressed.
“A good start would be to arrange fixtures so all teams play all others an equal number of times. I don’t suppose there’s any hope that some protected [Victorian] teams will be forced to play away from their hallowed grounds the way interstate teams must? It’s still the VFL with other states invited to help fill the coffers.” - Wally
“Fixture fairness – so called ‘traditional’ blockbuster games [reduce] the fairness of the competition. With the odd number of teams in the competition if they can’t play each other once or twice per season the top six teams should play each other twice and each of the other teams once. The middle group of six should play each other twice and the others once. The same for the bottom six.” - Michael
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TV View: Unleash Graeme Souness on these animal-hating low-lives
Divine intervention in Kilcoo; Shane Horgan worships at the altar of Johnny Sexton
Mon, Feb 14, 2022, 09:47
https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/tv-view-unleash-graeme-souness-on-these-animal-hating-low-lives-1.4801333
Mary Hannigan
2
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday. Photograph: AMA/Corbis via Getty Images
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday. Photograph: AMA/Corbis via Getty Images
“Sometimes, maybe, God’s on your side,” said Kilcoo’s Eugene Branagan when TG4’s Micheál O’Domhnaill asked him to explain, for all that’s good and holy, how his team had managed to beat Kilmacud Crokes in the All-Ireland club final when their hopes had been given the last rites more than once in the course of the contest.
And divine intervention, as it proved, was kind of the theme of the sporting day, not least when it came to analysing Ireland’s what-might-have-been trip to Paris.
The learnings?
Rob Kearney, doffing his cap to Joey Carbery’s efforts, had no doubt. “I think the most important thing we’ve learnt is that Ireland have a rugby team without Johnny Sexton, which is a big plus,” he said.
Shane Horgan?
“With Sexton at 10, Ireland would have won that game.”
Rob and his Virgin Media teammate Matt Williams thought this was decidedly harsh, not least on Joey, but Shane wouldn’t budge from his belief if the deity that is Johnny was on the pitch instead of spectating, then Ireland would have been home and hosed.
“A missed opportunity,” he said of the game, although Matt pointed out that Ireland “went toe to toe with the heavyweight champion of the world” and only lost on points. “That’s all you can bloody lose on in rugby,” Shane didn’t say, but he was thinking it.
Joe Molloy tried to cheer Shane up by telling him that the final of The Masked Singer was coming up on Virgin Media, but while that had Rob and Matt quite excited, Shane was unmoved.
“A missed opportunity,” he said again, Ireland’s Grand Slam hopes down the Swanee, but come Sunday Rob tried to reassure him that most probably France wouldn’t win the Grand Slam either because “they were no outstanding shakes themselves yesterday”.
Souness sticks up for the cat
The outstanding shakes, as it turned out, were to be found in Sky Sports’ Super Sunday studio where Graeme Souness pulverised the wretched excuse for a human being that is Kurt Zouma.
It was last September, when Sky brought us “the world’s first ever net zero carbon football match”, that Graeme revealed himself to be a highly passionate animal lover, a revelation that some of us never saw coming. It’s not that he isn’t most probably a good man, it’s just that you wouldn’t necessarily expect this level of empathy from someone who saw opposing shins as legitimate targets in the course of their playing career. Although, admittedly, it’s hard to find a seamless link here.
The mere mention of Zouma’s name, then, was never going to go down well.
“We don’t know what he’s been through,” said Jamie Carragher when news filtered through that Zouma had dropped out of the West Ham team due to play Leicester. “Not as much as the cat went through,” said Graeme, his cheek muscles flexing so violently, Jamie looked scared. Micah Richards too.
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday.
“I wouldn’t have played him again this year,” he said, “if I was a player I wouldn’t want to be in the same dressing room with him, I would not want him around the place.”
His emotions hadn’t eased come full-time in the game - “I’d love to see him pursued in court, I think what he’s guilty of is outrageous behaviour that goes beyond the pale” - Micah, quite heroically, daring to debate him, pointing out that there are convicted murderers back out on the streets again. He did, then, believe banning Zouma until the end of the season would be too harsh a punishment.
“Would you allow him to have another cat in his house,” Graeme asked him. By now, Micah would have been afraid to enter Graeme’s house.
Graeme Souness? Legend.
Meanwhile, over on Sky Sports News, word was filtering through about a video showing former eventing Olympic champion Sir Mark Todd whipping a horse 10 times with a branch to try and force it through a water obstacle.
Truly, our world is screwed. It needs divine intervention. Or Graeme Souness to be allowed deal with these low-lives.
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VJ
VJDevine
6 DAYS AGO
Souness, hard man but top cat, great analyst.
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MI
michael1
6 DAYS AGO
There was none of the "Wretched Excuse for a Human Being" when one of our own "Media Darling" Jockeys was caught punching a Horse in The Head several times.
As for Souness... hes done more damage to Human Beings on the Pitch than Zouma did to the unfortunate Cat... what he did was grossly wrong..but that doesent make him Jack the Ripper.
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‘Due for another realignment’: Retired great weighs in on AFL’s major umpire move
Melbourne thump Roos by 88 points!
Melbourne thump Roos by 88 points! | 01:29
Tom Morris
Tom Morris from Fox Sports
@tommorris32
February 25th, 2022 1:16 pm
The VFL/AFL games record holder for umpires has called on the league to punish “subtle” acts of dissent from players with 50 metre penalties and free kicks.
Earlier this week the AFL sent a memo to clubs outlining the importance for respect towards umpires.
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The instruction was interpreted by some clubs as a crackdown, with umpires instructed to uphold a less tolerant approach when players dispute decisions.
Round 1
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AFL
Mar 18 7:25pm AEST
FT
Richmond
Richmond
105
Carlton
80
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 19 7:50pm AEST
FT
Collingwood
53
Bulldogs
69
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 20 1:45pm AEST
FT
Melbourne
80
Fremantle
58
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 20 4:35pm AEST
FT
Adelaide
103
Geelong
91
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 20 7:25pm AEST
FT
Essendon
91
Hawthorn
92
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 20 7:45pm AEST
FT
Brisbane
94
Sydney
125
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
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AFL
Mar 21 1:10pm AEST
FT
North Melbourne
North Melbourne
65
Port Adelaide
Port Adelaide
117
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
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AFL
Mar 21 3:20pm AEST
FT
Greater Western Sydney
Greater Western Sydney
78
St Kilda
St Kilda
86
MATCH CENTRE
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AFL
Mar 21 6:10pm AEST
FT
West Coast
West Coast
83
Gold Coast
Gold Coast
58
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
Shane McInerney, who umpired 500 matches between 1994 and 2019 including two Grand Finals, praised the memo as a necessary “reset.”
Speaking to foxfooty.com.au, McInerney detailed three scenarios which he believes should now result in a penalty.
“We are due for another realignment I think,” McInerney said.
“The players have worked out what demonstrative abuse looks like and I think we need to reset what we actually mean by good umpire/player relationships.
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Retired umpire Shane McInerney believes the new memo sent from the AFL was needed. (AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Retired umpire Shane McInerney believes the new memo sent from the AFL was needed. (AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Source: AAP
“In a situation like deliberate out of bounds where three or four players will stand around appealing with their arms out, that’s not a good look for the game and not what we want to see. I’d penalise that.
“We see forwards getting free kicks and the defending standing and pointing at the big screen. That’s not a good look for the sport.
“I think it is important that players can ask questions on why certain decisions are made. By and large that does happen. There are a few more habits that have crept in that the game doesn’t need. It’s a distraction that serves to embarrass or undermine an umpire’s authority.”
And the third example?
“Sometimes there are two or three defenders wanting to have their two bobs worth,” McInerney continued.
“That’s not on. The umpire has a job to do at that point in time.”
In the AFL’s note to clubs, executive general manager Andrew Dillon praised the sacrifices players and staff have made across the past two seasons.
But in reviewing the 2021 season, he said there were “a number of instances” where the “AFL community” fell short of certain standards relating to sportsmanship and respect for umpires.
“The AFL and its clubs have a unique leadership role in the community, and with that role comes responsibility. Disrespect towards umpires is an issue at all levels of football and has no place,” Dillon said.
McInerney is hoping to see more respect displayed to umpires. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
McInerney is hoping to see more respect displayed to umpires. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Source: Getty Images
“We are 6,000 umpires short at the community football level and it is incumbent on us to set the right example at the elite level so we can encourage and retain umpires across the country to best support the rapidly growing player participation base.”
While McInerney believes a correlation exists between the top level and local football, he argued the issue is not finding umpires, rather it is retaining them.
He also declared the changes made by the AFL have the potential to filter down quickly.
“I think what happens at the AFL level plays a role in umpire shortage, but I don’t think there is a direct correlation,” he said.
“There has been an explosion in women’s footy and that has placed a demand on all sorts of components with grounds, facilities, coaches and so forth.
“In my view, I’ve always understood that it’s not about attracting people to umpiring – lots of people like to give it a go – I think it’s more around the retention. The match day experience goes a long way to ensure that you can have retention of umpires.”
He added: “The response is a pretty quick response. Invariably when the AFL makes a change to a Law or an interpretation, spectators think at the lower level think that’s how their games will be officiated. Those competitions pick up really quickly.
“It’s something that could be achieved this coming season.”
On Friday morning, North Melbourne great and Fox Footy expert David King cautioned against any significant changes to interpretations around umpire feedback.
David King cautioned against major changes to interpretations around umpire feedback. Picture: Hamish Blair
David King cautioned against major changes to interpretations around umpire feedback. Picture: Hamish Blair
Source: Herald Sun
“The abuse of the umpire being an instant 50m penalty, I don’t believe AFL players ever abuse an umpire, they may be angry with a decision at a given point in time and they may be frustrated and say something but it’s not to abuse or belittle an umpire,” King said on SEN Breakfast.
“It’s an act that’s gone in three seconds, it’s always been a part of our game and it’s never been a problem, don’t tell me that if it comes from over the fence in lesser games or at junior footy, this is something in my opinion that has been overplayed.
“There were two 50m penalties paid yesterday that I thought ‘gee-whiz that’s really tough’, the players not standing there abusing the umpires, they’re questioning the decision, it’s going to bring significant backlash.
“Put it right in your diary now, it’ll be the most talked-about thing on a Monday morning in three weeks’ time about someone getting a 50m for saying ‘you can’t pay that Ray’.”
McInerney said one of the challenges for umpires is disregarding their own subjective perspective on player feedback.
“In our game, yes we can have personalities,” he continued.
“But everyone is interpreting the same part of the law as each other. This area is no different. It’s not about what certain personalities can or can’t handle. No. It’s about the role of the umpire and how the players engage with that person in their role.
“There is no room for umpires to take into account whether they can handle it or can’t. I can’t stress that enough. That is not what this is about.”
18.8.2 Free Kicks – Umpires
(a) uses abusive, insulting, threatening or obscene language towards an Umpire;
(b) behaves in an abusive, insulting, threatening or obscene manner towards an Umpire;
(c) intentionally, unreasonably or carelessly makes contact with an Umpire;
(d) disputes a decision of an Umpire;
(e) fails to follow the instruction of an Umpire; or
(f) intentionally or carelessly engages in conduct which affects, interferes with or prevents an Umpire from performing their duties.
https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/due-for-another-realignment-retired-great-weighs-in-on-afls-great-umpire-debate/news-story/c8319c342aff5f772e15f13d8fee78bd
Collingwood V's St.Kilda Victoria Park 1960
http://youtu.be/Y4vz-EIkijo
Collingwood V's St.Kilda Victoria park
13 August 1960
Collingwood Beats St.Kilda In The Mud
Collingwood8.12 (60)St Kilda7.7 (49 )Crowd 22,640
https://wwos.nine.com.au/afl/daniel-venables-west-coast-eagles-concussion-head-injury/5e8f6964-3f5b-442c-ac27-87f004f3e417

Former Eagle Daniel Venables' worrying concussion admission

At just 19 years of age, former West Coast Eagles player Daniel Venables was forced to retire after a sickening collision resulted in seven brain bleeds.
Venabales was knocked unconscious during the Eagles' 2019 round nine fixture with Melbourne when he slammed into opponent Tim Smith and landed awkwardly during a marking contest.
Speaking on Nine's Today, Venables said the incident has been life-altering as the now 23-year-old continues to battle the long-term complications caused by the traumatic head injury.
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Daniel Venables (Wayne Ludbey)
"I was knocked unconscious, so I went into the rooms and [later] went home that night where my head felt like it was going to explode," he said.
"The next morning I went and had some scans and that's when I found out I had seven bleeds on the brain.
"I guess my life changed in an instant straight after that."
"I've suffered chronic head pain and a few other issues and it's been three years."
Unable to fully recover from his symptoms, Venables' career was over after just 29 games. Two years later an AFL medical panel unanimously recommended he avoid contact sport.
Reflecting on the lasting impact the brain injury has had on his life, Venables said that in that moment his whole world came crashing down.
"It's definitely hard, six months before I played in the 2018 premiership as a 19-year-old (the youngest team member), so I was on top of the world and then I had this accident and I didn't really know, and no one really knew what the ramifications of it were," he said.
"That's probably the hardest bit, the unknown of head trauma and concussion. So it's definitely hard to come to terms with and we still don't really know today. I don't really have any clear path of the future of what's going to happen and how to get my symptoms better."
Asked whether the AFL has gone far enough to protect players from a similar fate, Venables declared an overhaul of concussion protocols was needed.

Venables was immediately stretchered off by the Eagles' medical staff after landing awkwardly (AAP)
"I feel there's a lot more work to do, to be honest," he said.
"There's so much research that's coming out and so many new ways of approaching things.
"I think it's more of a cultural change as well and knowing when you do get a little knock, it's alright to stand up (for yourself), and I feel that in the past has been hard.
Concussion campaigner Peter Jess agreed the issue incorporated a careless culture within the code.
"I think Dan was right on the money there when he said there needs to be a culture change," he said.
"We need to shift from bravery to one of respect, so if you think you're going to have a collision with a player then you need to really think about whether you should stop."
Jess made an example of last night's tribunal result in which West Coast small forward Willie Rioli successfully appealed his one-match suspension, despite crashing into Gold Coast's Matt Rowell during their Round 1 match.
"You only have to look and see at the tribunal where Rioli cannoned into a bloke's head and it was deemed not to be reckless or dangerous- yet his hip hit this guy's head and he jumped into him," he said.
Willie Rioli destroys former No.1 pick in sickening collision
Play Video
Willie Rioli destroys former No.1 pick in sickening collision
"I mean if we don't stop that then we're in serious trouble."
With Aussie Rules being a contact and collision sport, Jess agreed a more even balance needs to be struck between the entertainment factor of the game and the duty of care afforded to players.
"One of the points that I've made to the AFL, if we look at the biomechanics of how concussions happen, we have to strip that back and find ways we can stop it, and if we can't stop it then we have to find ways to make it a minimum," he said.
"By doing that we actually recognise that the dangers of collisions, whether you hit a head or not are still the same because what causes the damage is the transfer of energy from one body to the other. You know it goes to the softest part of the body which is the brain.
Morrissey Breen
2022-03-27 09:35:23 UTC
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https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=football

football
OK, here goes... slowly:
The word describes a very populare game, which is played all over the world.
The word consists of two parts, which quite accurately descibes the game:
1) Foot
2) Ball

Part 1) Foot. This means that the foot is the main body part involved when playing this game.
Part 2) Ball. This means that the game is played with a spheric (globe-shaped) object.

This definition seems to be understood all over the world, except in the US, where they have misunderstood both parts of the word. Instead of using their feet, they mainly use their hands. And, instead of using a ball, they use an egg-shaped object.
(Somewhere in the world, exept USA): -Let's play football!
Reaction: they play football

(Somwhere in USA): -Let's play football!
Reaction: they play some strange game, not involving a ball, and hardly using their feet.
by SengaSengana October 6, 2010
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A name given to two different sports in which America and the rest of the world use to waste their lives away constantly arguing over which is better. Honestly, I'm an American. And I love the game of American football. But notice how I haven't said that I hate football (aka soccer). In fact, I love that sport, too. I just totally suck at it. Haha. C'mon, be real ya'll. Both games are cool. Even rugby too. It's cool. I have no idea how to play it, but I enjoy trying. It's all preference. For all ya'll that say football is whack cause we wear padding, go ahead and say whatever the fuck you want to say. That padding protects us so we can stay a little safer to enjoy the game a little longer. I don't care if I don't use it, I've tackled mofos twice my size without any padding on. The point I'm trying to make; All three games are great. They all require stratedgy, strength, speed, and endurance. So just shut the fuck up, grab the ball that suits you, and play your damn game already. You got that? Kay, just helping out. I'm just a 15yr old from a small town. Yeah, yeah... What do I know? Honestly? I know it's fucking pointless for ya'll to fight over sports. So just save your shit for someone who's still too much of a punk to simply enjoy a game of American football, football, or rugby. Peace people! Damn. Haha.
(just writing to fill in this shit :P)
(damn, now i gotta write "football" too. there, ya happy you fuckers?)
by Dennis #25 Southern Cowboys October 12, 2008
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The greatest and most popular sport in history with more than 5 times the TV audience of the next most popular (cricket - every radio and TV in the sub-continent is permanently tuned to Pakistan/India cricket matches - that's a big audience).

Only Americans call it 'soccer' owing to their vast ignorance of what goes on outside their national boundaries and the misnomer which has them thinking than a corruption of rugby, with all the danger and most of the skill removed can also be called 'football'.

'The Beautiful Game' can be played anywhere, on almost any surface, by any number of players, for almost any length of time. And is. There is no country on earth that doesn't play. It has inspired more passion, more courage and more excitement than any other sport in history and dwarfs everything else.
Football is, without question, the defining sporting activity of the human race.
by sicinius October 15, 2007
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When a girl is playing footsie with you, and her foot travels up to your crotch.
She was playing football with me all through dinner.
by pseudonym April 12, 2004
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A lovely game that alot of people play.
Also the most importmant sport in the world.
Very famous, but also fun for people who like football.
If you dont play football yet, i would say:
Give it a try!

Ofcourse if you start at older age, you wont get as good as Ronaldo, Messi, ...
But doesnt matter, its just for fun! ( Mostly )
D1: " Wanna play some Football?"
D2: " Football is shit!"
D1: " Just cause you cant play football, no reason to call it shit! "
by Sint-Truiden March 11, 2009
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the sport of American (or Gridiron) football is called so because we wanted a sport that was european football and rugby combined. the first version of american football had the punter kick it and players going down feild to catch the ball (pretty much feet passing, then it was switched to the passing seen today). and it was originally callled "American Football" which is why the first professional american football league was called the "American Football League"(which later merged with the NFL). it was called "american" because it is our version of your game. Pretty soon, we dropped the word "american" out of it and it became "football" so all of this is just a big misunderstanding! lol ---- from a guy who likes both american and european football

also, both sports are VERY physical, and I"ve never played rugby (i have watched though, and it's pretty cool) but getting tackled in football HURTS!!!! the pads don't do much when there's a 6'6" guy with 275 pounds of muscle trying to rip your head off!
all I'm trying to say is yes, we copied your name, but on ACCIDENT! just remember that it's just a misunderstanding.... I'm sorry for all of these ignorant assholes making the rest of us american football fans look like,.......well,.......ignorant assholes.
by football,soccer,whogivesaFuck! May 27, 2010
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A variety of games that which Europeans and Americans tend to argue over pointlessly till the end of time as to which version is "right" never minding the fact that due to Cultural Mutation different words can mean different things in other places
Typically Americans profess love for the version that involves padding and an ovoid ball in which the point of the game is to move the ball ten yards down the field at a time through either rushing or passing before passing into the plain of the "End Zone" placed at either ends of a 100 Yard Field to score points
Europeans tend to extol the virtues of a much simpler sport that only requires a pair of goals placed at either end of a field and is played with a checkered Spherical Ball
American: Hey, lets go play Soccer!
European: HEY FUCK YOU! ITS CALLED FOOTBALL YOU IGNORANT YANK!
Rest of World: Oh for fuck's sake stop arguing and just play dammit!
by Rick Dominated April 30, 2008
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Post by Morrissey Breen
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FIVE KEY STAGES OF AN ORGANIZATION'S COLLAPSE
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-union/zero-scrum-game-is-it-too-late-to-save-rugby-union-20210203-p56z7r.html
In 2012, John O’Neill put together a presentation using a report by US management guru Jim Collins. Collins outlines five key stages of an organisation’s collapse, including Inaction, Crisis and Dissolution. On the last page O’Neill had written: “Where is Australian rugby?” One could ask the same question now.
Post by Morrissey Breen
Zero scrum game: is it too late to save rugby union?
Lauded by fans as “the game they play in heaven”, rugby union has gone to hell in a handbasket, beset for two decades by infighting, financial crises, declining audiences and fierce competition from the AFL and NRL. Can a new CEO and free-to-air TV deal get it kicking again?
By Tim Elliott
APRIL 2, 2021
Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan says, “We’re on the ground floor of a complete rebuild for rugby. But it’s taken a long time getting to this point, and it’ll take quite a few years to get out of it.”
Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan says, “We’re on the ground floor of a complete rebuild for rugby. But it’s taken a long time getting to this point, and it’ll take quite a few years to get out of it.”CREDIT:JAMES BRICKWOOD
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It’s a balmy evening in January, and the Pearl Ballroom at Sydney’s Crown Towers is looking its finest, with its theatre-style curtains and platinum-coloured wall panelling, its floating chandeliers and mirrored ceiling. Chef Guillaume Brahimi has outdone himself, dishing up a tartare of yellowfin tuna for entrée followed by minute steak with Cafe de Paris butter. There is pinot gris, shiraz and chardonnay, and here to enjoy it, the premier cru of Australian rugby union’s gilded past: David Campese, John Eales and Nick Farr-Jones; the fridge-like Phil Kearns, Gary Ella and even Eric Tweedale, who, at the age of 99, is the oldest living Wallaby. They’re all here, the great and good of “the game they play in heaven”, grazing at the table like buffalo at a watering hole. It’s a rugby Valhalla, with pistachio gateau for dessert.
Tonight’s event has been organised by Rugby Australia, the game’s governing body, with the express purpose of picking a permanent colour for the national jersey. The national team, the Wallabies, have traditionally worn gold, but over the decades that gold has morphed like a lava lamp from the warm ochre of the 1980s to a burnt orange and even, most recently, a traffic-stopping yellow.
“A picture says a thousand words,” Hamish McLennan, RA’s chairman, told the media in the lead-up to the event. “It [the constant colour changes] shows the madness of our inconsistency.”
Tall and urbane, with thick, dark hair, McLennan, who took over the role in June 2020, radiates charm and capability, with the casual confidence of a man who enters a job interview with another offer in his back pocket. He’s positioned tonight’s event as an exercise in unity and esprit de corps, a way of honouring history while building for the future. “We need to decide,” he tells me. “The symbolism is important.”
The fans have already spoken: in an online poll conducted by The Sydney Morning Herald, most popular among the 13,300 votes cast was the jersey worn by the Wallabies in 1991, the year Australia won its first Rugby World Cup. McLennan has said the poll result will have a bearing on tonight. “After all, the fans own the jersey.”
Rugby legends mull over which jersey to pick as permanent Wallabies colours. From left, Phil Kearns, Gary Ella, Bob Dwyer, David Campese and Tim Gavin.
Rugby legends mull over which jersey to pick as permanent Wallabies colours. From left, Phil Kearns, Gary Ella, Bob Dwyer, David Campese and Tim Gavin.CREDIT:EDWINA PICKLES
Soon, the voting begins. There are eight jerseys to choose from. As each one is presented to the room, there’s a show of hands and the numbers noted. Another jersey, more hands, more numbers. A certain dissonance arises: we’re told to forget nostalgia and think about the future, but nostalgia is built into the process. Indeed, for Australian rugby fans, traumatised by decades of defeat, nostalgia is all they have left.
In the end, after several rounds of increasingly raucous voting, of good-natured heckling and faux outrage, the number of jerseys has been whittled down, from eight to six to four to two, and finally, the winner, as duly presaged, the 1991 World Cup-winning design.
Most agree it’s a victory for good taste and sound judgment. But it is also, inevitably, a victory for nostalgia. Once again, to everyone’s relief, Australian rugby is going back to the future.
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Top five Wallabies tries
Spanning four decades, here are five of the Wallabies finest tries.
It’s hard to imagine now, but once upon a time Australians were very good at playing rugby union. The Wallabies won World Cups in 1991 and 1999. In 2000, they retained the Bledisloe Cup against the New Zealand All Blacks for the third year running, and took out the Tri Nations Series, beating the All Blacks and the Springboks, the national team of South Africa. The NSW Waratahs ranked alongside the AFL’s Collingwood and the NRL’s Brisbane Broncos as one of the country’s most recognised sporting brands.
The game brought in big money and colossal crowds: more than 109,000 packed in to Sydney’s Stadium Australia in 2000 to watch the Wallabies and the All Blacks play what has been described as “the greatest ever rugby match”. In 2001, the Wallabies won a three-Test series against the British & Irish Lions. Two years later, when Australia hosted the World Cup, rugby was, for perhaps the first time in its history, a mainstream sport in which the broad mass of Australians were emotionally invested.
The period since then has been a waking nightmare for Australian rugby. The Wallabies have slumped from second in the world to seventh. We haven’t won a Bledisloe Cup since 2002. Crowds and TV audiences have plummeted. There have been intermittent victories over the All Blacks and others; Australia even made the World Cup final in 2015. But such victories have invariably been followed by humiliating defeats, a pattern of false dawns that has bred within the rugby community a culture of scepticism and apathy.
“Rugby is on the bones of its arse right now ... and what you’re left with is a bunch of huge men, who we don’t know, running into one another.”
Thousands of fans have drifted away to rugby league or Aussie Rules, disillusioned not only with the on-field performances but with the game’s dysfunctional governance. Despite being run by a coterie of investment bankers and private equity chiefs, rugby has lurched from one financial crisis to another, in some cases staving off insolvency with emergency loans.
“Rugby is on the bones of its arse right now,” says columnist and author Peter FitzSimons. “There used to be a magic and romance to it, and now that magic is gone, and what you’re left with is a bunch of huge men, who we don’t know, running into one another.”
FitzSimons, 59, appeared in seven Tests for the Wallabies in 1989-90, “when we played for the honour of it,” he says, “and got paid $50 a day.” He embodies a certain amateur-era type; grizzled and voluble, given to self-mythologising, with a face that appears to have been hurriedly chiselled from a block of salt.
Like many fans, FitzSimons, who infamously started an all-in brawl against France in 1990 at the Sydney Football Stadium, mourns the raw colour of amateur rugby and the figures it produced: Ray Price and David Campese, the dancing Ella brothers and Roger Gould, with quads like bags of concrete; players like Greg Cornelsen, who cowed the All Blacks with four tries at Eden Park in 1978, and Stan Pilecki, who was once interrupted smoking a cigarette when called off the bench for a Wallabies match in Argentina.
“Rugby has lost its theatre,” says FitzSimons. “There are no characters any more. Now we have 15 professional footballers whom no one can relate to. The key is to know who is representing us again, to care about them, and to see them win.”
There have, in fact, been some wins of late, albeit off the field. For the past 25 years rugby has been broadcast on Foxtel, majority owned by Rupert Murdoch. When the rights became available in 2020, Foxtel offered $31 million a year, down from an annual $57 million payment since 2015. In November last year, McLennan and interim CEO Rob Clarke declined the offer, signing instead with Nine Entertainment Co. (publisher of Good Weekend), in a deal worth $100 million over three years.
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The deal, which starts this year, includes the rights to Wallabies Tests, the women’s game, including the national team, the Wallaroos, and the club schedule. It also covers Super Rugby, a provincial competition which has in the past featured teams from South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Argentina and Japan. (The competition has since become an Australia-only model, due to COVID-19.)
Most importantly, the agreement involves a commitment to show a weekly Saturday night Super Rugby game on the Nine Network – the first time the competition has been given a free-to-air platform.
The Nine deal is widely seen as the last best hope for the code. McLennan tells me it could reactivate “rugby’s latent fan base”, a secret army of followers waiting to emerge from their basements wearing Wallabies scarves and waving gold flags.
“The problem before was exposure,” says McLennan. “A lot of people didn’t actually see rugby because they couldn’t afford pay TV. Now with free-to-air, suddenly rugby is going to be more front of mind. Kids will see it and they will want to play, and that makes it bigger, and more money will come into the game.”
“It’s really exciting,” says Stephen Moore, former Wallabies skipper and 129-Test veteran. “[McLennan] is a smart guy and 100 per cent committed to the game being its best.” But Moore acknowledges that rugby’s problems are bigger than a broadcast deal. “The state of the game here is so bad at the moment that it has to be transformed totally. For too long we’ve papered over the problems, and look where that’s got us.”
The Wallabies walk off the field after yet another defeat against the All Blacks, in the 2011 World Cup.
The Wallabies walk off the field after yet another defeat against the All Blacks, in the 2011 World Cup.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
In 2017, Rugby Australia moved into a new headquarters, a gleaming, cobalt-blue glass and steel structure in Moore Park, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. There’s a high-performance gym, a 600-square-metre indoor training area and a rooftop running track. From the second-floor boardroom, where I’ve come to meet RA’s new CEO, Andy Marinos, you can see the construction site of the former Sydney Football Stadium, once home to so many of rugby’s mythic victories, and which now, in a metaphor almost too obvious to mention, has been reduced to an enormous crater.
Marinos, 48, has a close-cropped beard and a torso like a concrete bollard. He played rugby at the provincial level in South Africa, where he grew up, and also for Wales, in the early 2000s (he has Welsh ancestry). He then moved into administration, managing the South African Rugby Union. For the past five years, he’s been based in Sydney as the CEO of SANZAAR, the body that runs Super Rugby and the Rugby Championship, an international competition between Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.
Marinos has arrived at RA at a turbulent time, even by the turbulent standards of Australian rugby. Last year saw the rancourous departure of the then CEO Raelene Castle, a global pandemic and record financial losses. “Rugby has been through a lot,” he says. “But COVID is an inflection point. It gives you the opportunity to restart.”
One of his immediate priorities is financial stability. “That way we can stop being reactive and start being more strategic about how we’re wanting to do things.” The money from Nine should right the ship in the short term. But repairing the game in the long run and making the Wallabies win again will be infinitely harder.
“Rugby has been through a lot, but COVID is an inflection point. It gives you the opportunity to restart.”
“There are so many constituent parts,” says Marinos. “Creating pathways for the players, managing stakeholders, the sponsors, fans and the community game.”
He believes his outsider status is an advantage. “I’m not caught up in the things that happened [in Australian rugby] in the past,” he says. “I don’t have any preference for a particular state, place or person.” He’s free, then, to begin “rugby’s journey of renewal, one that is about being genuine, authentic and listening to people.”
I must look sceptical. “It’s a fantastic opportunity!” he says. “But it’s going to take time to fix. And it’s not going to be easy.”
Almost everyone has a different take on why Australian rugby is broken. Some blame the referees; others blame the rules; it’s AFL’s fault, or rugby league’s. It’s stupid coaches, overpaid players, inept leadership. When I ask Eric Tweedale what he thinks the problem is, he says it all began when the game went professional, which seems as good a place to start as any.
According to legend, rugby began in 1823, at Rugby School in England. For most of its history, it was staunchly amateur. But successive World Cups, in 1987, 1991 and 1995, saw the game explode in popularity, increasing the demands on players, who insisted on being paid. In 1995, the three most powerful southern hemisphere rugby unions, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia, formed a body called SANZAR, to oversee Super Rugby and the Tri Nations. SANZAR approached Rupert Murdoch, who paid $US555 million over 10 years for the rights to broadcast the games on his nascent cable network, Foxtel. Sensing the momentum, the world’s governing body, the International Rugby Board, declared the game professional in 1995.
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Australia’s cut of the broadcast rights was $35 million a year. Despite this, the game’s peak body, then called Australian Rugby Union, remained an amateur outfit, with no fewer than 21 committees overseeing everything from finances to player selection. The committees were run by honoraries, whose positions as such gave them considerable status within the rugby community, not to mention good parking and the best seats at games. When former NSW State Bank chief John O’Neill became CEO of the ARU in 1995, he set about abolishing the committees outright, seeding a bitter antipathy from the honoraries, or the “blazer brigade” as he called them, that would bedevil rugby for years to come.
O’Neill didn’t want for confidence. (In his 2007 book, It’s Only a Game, he writes of becoming “quite depressed” to discover how “over-qualified” he was for the job.) But there was no doubting his ability. He broadened the game’s appeal, boosted participation, and presided over the hugely successful 2003 World Cup in Australia which left the ARU with a $45 million profit. He also attempted to centralise authority and take power away from the states, particularly NSW and Queensland, whose squabbling had hobbled the game for years. “They didn’t like that,” he tells me. “They thought I was too influential.”
After the 2003 World Cup, O’Neill still had a year on his contract, and intended to stay until 2007. But his enemies had other ideas. In late 2003, O’Neill, then acknowledged as one of the country’s finest sports administrators, was pushed out. Rugby writer Peter Jenkins wrote that O’Neill’s “only crime was being high-profile, and of daring to challenge his directors”. Australian rugby had begun a long tradition of shooting itself in the foot.
From left, former Australian Rugby Union boss Gary Flowers; John O’Neill, who was pushed out as ARU CEO after antagonising the “blazer brigade”; Bill Pulver is one of eight Shore old boys to be Rugby Australia and NSWRU officeholders in recent times.
From left, former Australian Rugby Union boss Gary Flowers; John O’Neill, who was pushed out as ARU CEO after antagonising the “blazer brigade”; Bill Pulver is one of eight Shore old boys to be Rugby Australia and NSWRU officeholders in recent times.CREDIT:EDWINA PICKLES; AAP; DANIEL MUNOZ
O’Neill and his deputy Matt Carroll had wanted to put the $45 million World Cup windfall in a trust. “The idea was that it’d be a future fund,” says Carroll, who is now CEO of the Australian Olympic Committee. “If they’d invested that money back then, it’d probably be worth $100 million now and be producing a yearly income for rugby.”
But they didn’t. Instead, the money was given to the state unions and ploughed into a new competition called the Australian Rugby Championship (ARC), featuring eight teams from around the country. The ARC, which was announced in mid-2006 by then CEO, Gary Flowers, was intended as a pathway from the club system to Super Rugby. But the model was flawed from the outset. The teams had no history and no local followings. It was expensive and attracted almost no sponsorship. It also detracted from the established club scenes in Sydney and Brisbane, angering the game’s grassroots. By the end of the first season, the ARC had lost $4.7 million, with forecast losses of $8 million by the end of 2008.
At the same time, the ARU was struggling with inflated player salaries. When rugby went professional in 1995, Murdoch had faced competition from rugby league, which had attempted to sign up most of rugby’s best players. At the same time, fellow media mogul Kerry Packer was backing a rival competition called World Rugby Corporation. Players were in demand, and in order to win, Murdoch was forced to pay top dollar. Salaries skyrocketed, and were pushed even higher thanks to competition from cashed-up clubs in the northern hemisphere, some of which had billionaire owners.
“In comparison to other sports, rugby players were getting a higher proportion of the revenues,” says management consultant Michael Crawford, who has advised the ARU for 20 years. “This left less money for development and created further anger at the community level.”
Flowers stood down in 2007, opening the way for O’Neill and Carroll to return. They immediately scrapped the ARC. But the performance of the Wallabies, the financial engine of Australian rugby, was going from bad to worse. In 2009, Australia lost four matches to the All Blacks, two to the Springboks, and one to Scotland. Super Rugby was also faltering. The three Australian teams, the ACT Brumbies, the NSW Waratahs and the Queensland Reds, had all at one time or another enjoyed considerable success. In 2006, a fourth Australian team, the Perth-based Western Force, was added to the competition, followed by a fifth team, the Melbourne Rebels, in 2011. The idea was to give the game a national footprint and generate more broadcast dollars.
But it soon became apparent that Australia didn’t have enough talent to go around. According to a 2017 Senate standing committee report into the future of Australian rugby, the expansion from three to four to five teams saw a step down in performance, from Australian sides winning 60 per cent of their games to 50 per cent to 40 per cent. When the teams began to go broke, their owners – the state unions – ran to the ARU for a handout. By the end of 2011, the national body was funding the Super Rugby outfits to the tune of $25 million a year.
The obvious answer was private ownership. “In the US and Europe, 90 per cent of professional sporting clubs are privately owned and have strong business models,” says Colin Smith, director of the advisory firm, Global Media and Sports. “And that’s because they focus on the profit motive.”
“The parochialism and backward thinking are crippling rugby. It’s a self-made destruction.”
In 2008, Smith was charged by the ARU with getting the state unions to consider private ownership. But according to Smith, “the general reaction [from the states] was, ‘Under no circumstances’.” A board member of one union told Smith that he didn’t want to sell his Super Rugby team because he might miss out on free tickets to the games. “The thinking [was] incredibly myopic,” says Smith. “It just shows a complete lack of understanding of how the business of sports works.”
Smith has worked in sports for 30 years. There is virtually no market that he has not run the ruler over, no major club that he has not scrutinised. But rugby is special to him. “The first game I attended was in the early ’90s at Twickenham between England and the Barbarians. It was absolutely scintillating, and I was hooked.” But he now despairs for the game in Australia. “The parochialism and backward thinking are crippling rugby. It’s a self-made destruction.”
Dejected Wallabies players after losing to Argentina in 2018. The once high-flying national team has slipped to seventh in the world rankings.
Dejected Wallabies players after losing to Argentina in 2018. The once high-flying national team has slipped to seventh in the world rankings.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
Rugby is played in more than 120 countries, with 9.6 million registered players worldwide. Outside Australia, the game is booming: the 2019 Rugby World Cup, held in Japan, drew a total broadcast audience of 857 million over six weeks. (When Japan played Scotland, 54.8 million people in Japan watched it on television, nearly half the population.) Such events showcase the lore and legend of each national team, together with their signature playing styles: the mercurial French, the doughty Scots, the flamboyant Fijians, and the Welsh, whose scrum could push down mountains.
The Wallabies used to be famous for “running rugby”, a swaggering brand of free-flowing football made famous by the Ella brothers and David Campese, among others. Now, not so much. Indeed, the saddest thing a rugby fan can hear is that the game in Australia has become boring. Observers blame the referees, who have become increasingly pedantic. But the complexity of the rules is also a problem, especially compared to rugby league or AFL.
For years, rugby administrators have tinkered with the laws to make the game a better spectacle, but it’s a slow process. “Rugby is a global game,” says Brett Robinson, former Wallaby and current member of the World Rugby Council, which oversees laws, regulations and player welfare. “League and AFL are essentially domestic sports. It’s easy for them to make rule changes, but we have to influence over 100 nations to make changes that can be applied across the world and ultimately at a World Cup every four years.”
Rugby connoisseurs claim the complexity of the game is part of its beauty; that rugby is chess to rugby league’s checkers. But sometimes checkers is all a sports fan has time for. This is especially true in Australia, which has no less than four football codes – league, union, AFL and soccer – all competing for hearts and minds. And in an era when sport has become mass entertainment, being dull is death.
Rugby connoisseurs claim the complexity of the game is part of its beauty; that rugby is chess to rugby league’s checkers.
Growing rugby’s fan base is essential. One way of doing that is by winning games; the other is to create new audiences. “To me, the biggest wasted opportunity has been the failure to bring more people outside the narrow culture of rugby into the sport,” says James Curran, a Sydney University history professor who is writing a book about David Campese. “Rugby officialdom hasn’t been able to move beyond those who were supporting the game in the 1970s.”
Most of rugby’s elite players are still drawn from a small number of private schools in Sydney and Brisbane. The same goes for the game’s leadership, at both national and state levels, an inordinate number of whom come from Sydney’s most exclusive private schools, including Newington, Scots or St Joseph’s. One school in particular, Shore, figures prominently.
No fewer than eight recent RA and NSWRU office holders are Shore old boys, including current chairman, Hamish McLennan, recently departed CEO Rob Clarke and director Phil Waugh.
When the ARU went looking for a new CEO in 2012, it conducted what it described as a worldwide search before turning up Shore old boy Bill Pulver, in Sydney’s affluent harbourside suburb of Mosman. (Living, as it happened, right next door to ARU director John Eales). Pulver received a ringing endorsement from then ARU chairman, Michael Hawker, another Shore old boy who had played rugby with Pulver in the school’s First XV some 35 years earlier. “The whole thing is so incestuous,” says Colin Smith. “It’s not good for the game.”
It also reflects a fundamental disconnect to the game’s grassroots, which attracts a far broader demographic. “Many of our players are scaffolders or concreters,” says Craig Moran, general manager of Western Sydney Two Blues rugby club, in Parramatta. “They’re not rich people.”
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Founded in 1879, Two Blues is a Shute Shield stalwart. The club is operated almost entirely by volunteers, including Dennis “Muncher” Garlick, the 71-year-old waterboy, and the helpers who run the canteen, which provides much of the club’s revenue. But clubs like Moran’s have over the years been variously ignored or held in contempt by the ARU. In 2014, when the ARU was facing insolvency, Pulver requested the clubs forgo their annual $100,000 grants. Two years later, when the clubs requested the grants be reinstated, Pulver refused, reportedly saying he didn’t want them to “piss it up the wall”. (Pulver declined to take part in this story.)
State administrators have been equally out of touch. For decades the NSWRU has appointed a development officer for Shute Shield clubs, including Two Blues. But, according to Moran, it never understood the cultural dimension of the job. “Western Sydney has a large Islander population but we didn’t have any development officers who were Islanders. Development officers have to understand the social conditions. You can’t just send someone from Manly to be a DO in Merrylands.”
Moran says the game is “cannibalising itself”. Recent years have seen lavish pre-season launches at exclusive nightclubs; catered corporate events and runaway overstaffing. Last year it emerged that RA had spent $19 million on corporate costs in 2019, and just $4.3 million on community rugby, and was employing more than 200 people.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” says Scott Allen, who was appointed assistant coach to the women’s national rugby team, the Wallaroos, in 2016. “I remember walking into ARU headquarters on my first day and there were people and desks everywhere. And I thought, ‘What the f… are all these people doing?’ ”
Pulver had some wins, including a $285 million, five-year broadcast deal with Foxtel. But he also oversaw the disastrous axing of the Western Force Super Rugby team in 2017. The decision enraged Force fans, and saw the West Australian premier threaten to sue the ARU. Thousands of people protested in Perth, led by mining magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest.
“The process was a charade,” Forrest tells me. “It was shocking leadership and governance.” Former Wallaby Nathan Sharpe described the decision on Twitter as “the biggest mistake the ARU could have made”. The episode effectively ended Pulver’s term. He quit, in August 2017, pocketing a $300,000 bonus on his way out the door.
RA chairman Hamish McLennan, left, and CEO Andy Marinos are aiming
to “rebuild” rugby.
RA chairman Hamish McLennan, left, and CEO Andy Marinos are aiming to “rebuild” rugby.CREDIT:DOMINIC LORRIMER
Not all of rugby’s woes are self-inflicted. You can’t blame administrators for time zone differences, which mean that games involving Australian teams overseas are often broadcast here at 3am or 4am. It’s also hard for Australia to compete with the financial might of the northern hemisphere unions, which regularly poach our best players. Then there’s Israel Folau, the star Wallaby whose homophobic social media posts wound up costing RA millions of dollars in legal fees and saw the game ensnared in a high-profile debate over free speech that it could not win.
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Yet infighting and opportunism continue to poison the game. Last year saw a clumsy attempt to overthrow the RA board, when 11 former Wallaby captains wrote an open letter accusing the game’s leadership, headed by CEO Raelene Castle, of mismanagement. Castle, who is from New Zealand, had taken over from Pulver in 2017, and was wrestling with the financial impact of COVID. At the same time, she had put the broadcast rights out to tender, snubbing long-time partner Foxtel. Castle’s decision would eventually deliver a huge win for rugby, opening the way for a $100 million deal with Nine, part of which involved a free-to-air component.
But at the time Foxtel was furious. Castle found herself under attack from journalists at News Corp (Foxtel’s majority owner). Then came the captains’ letter, the public faces of which were Nick Farr Jones and former Foxtel commentator Phil Kearns. The letter was regarded by many as baldly self-serving of Kearns, who had lost out to Castle for the CEO’s job two years before. Kearns denies this.
“No one from Foxtel ever rang me and said they wanted me to run for CEO,” he tells me. “[And there] was never any talk by the captains explicitly of me going into the CEO role.” It was telling, however, that Kearns and the others had not intervened when the game faced insolvency under Pulver. “In any case,” says Sam Bruce, rugby writer at ESPN, “if they really wanted to help the game, there was nothing stopping them from calling Castle and saying, ‘How can I help?’ ”
“The whole episode painted a really ugly picture for the game right when what it needed most was positivity and cohesion.”
As far as Bruce is concerned, the coup was just another power play. “Castle was an outsider,” he says. “She was a Kiwi, a woman, and she didn’t live in Mosman. Her appointment caught rugby’s old boys’ establishment off guard. They thought they were losing control.” Castle resigned in April 2020, her decision prompted by what the then chairman Paul McLean described as a campaign of “abhorrent” bullying, both online and from vested interests in the media. Says Bruce: “The whole episode painted a really ugly picture for the game right when what it needed most was positivity and cohesion.”
In 2012, John O’Neill put together a presentation using a report by US management guru Jim Collins. Collins outlines five key stages of an organisation’s collapse, including Inaction, Crisis and Dissolution. On the last page O’Neill had written: “Where is Australian rugby?” One could ask the same question now.
A commentator on the sports website The Roar suggests the game is facing a “multi-generational battle” to restore its fortunes. A GreenandGoldRugby.com reader proposed that rugby go amateur again. Peter FitzSimons, meanwhile, believes the game’s worst days are behind it. “We have crossed the Valley of Death and are slowly starting to climb to the other side.”
Hamish McLennan is similarly upbeat. “We’ve got some great young players coming through [at the elite level],” he says, when we meet at RA’s Moore Park HQ. “And there’s been a lot of good work reconnecting with the grassroots.” McLennan has stopped the soap opera at head office, and established an advisory board to bid for the 2027 World Cup (Phil Kearns is the executive director). “That’s the light on the hill,” nods McLennan. “We stand a pretty good chance of getting that.”
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Private equity is also in the picture. Luxembourg based CVC Capital Partners has invested $1.2 billion in European rugby, most recently buying a 14 per cent stake in the Six Nations, a yearly tournament between Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, England and Italy. And American group Silver Lake Partners reportedly plans to put $NZ465 million into New Zealand rugby in return for a 15 per cent share of commercial rights. McLennan says a number of private equity outfits, including CVC, Bruin Capital and Silver Lake, are likewise looking at Australia.
It’s unclear what such an investment would look like. “Do we do it at a competition level, do we include the clubs or not, do we sell a part of the Wallabies or the whole organisation? We have to figure that out,” says McLennan.
There’s a lot at stake. “We’re on the ground floor of a complete rebuild for rugby. But it’s taken a long time getting to this point, and it’ll take quite a few years to get out of it.”
For those who believe the game is beyond salvation here, he points to Argentina, who beat the All Blacks for the first time ever last year. “That’s the thing with sport,” says McLennan. “You can come from nowhere and surprise people.”
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Post by Morrissey Breen
Post by Morrissey Breen
Post by Morrissey Breen
‘Ruining the sport’: What readers want the AFL to change
February 20, 2022 — 1.50pm
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/ruining-the-sport-what-readers-want-the-afl-to-change-20220220-p59y01.html
In late 2021, the AFL Fans Association undertook a survey of more than 800 people to find out what they felt the burning issues were for supporters. The results? More than a third were worried about the proliferation of gambling advertising; some called for the stand rule to be abolished; others were tired of rule changes and wanted clearer umpiring interpretations.
Those topics were far and away the most common response when The Age opened the floor for readers to have their say on the issue they most wanted the league to address. An overwhelming majority wanted an end to gambling advertising and sponsorships. Some responses have been edited for brevity.
Gambling advertising was a key concern for many readers.
Gambling advertising was a key concern for many readers.CREDIT:AFL PHOTOS
‘Cruel and greedy’
“Remove the gambling ads. How disgraceful that the one of the biggest financial generators for the AFL is this insidious gambling industry. You cannot watch the game or any sport without the gambling ads and promoters peddling the wares. Gambling is a personal choice, but unfortunately there are consequences, and when so much money is involved, the only ones to profit are the vested interest. Horses, dogs are also victims.” - Paula
“Gambling ads need to be dropped. It is at such a high level that it will be encouraging many of our young and people in general to gamble.” - Derek
“No more advertising of gambling ‘opportunities’. If people want to gamble, they will, but it is cruel and greedy to advertise it in the high emotion atmosphere that surrounds live games or televised games. Please get rid of it. It targets problem gamblers and young people with anonymity.” - Victoria
“Gambling advertising – it endorses an activity that causes great social harm in Australia. One of the attractive aspects of attending an AFL match or watching/listening to an AFL broadcast is to see that for many fans it is still a family activity. Gambling ads normalise ‘having a punt’ as part of following AFL and there will be a section of the audience who are introduced to gambling in this way. Although I think that the prospect of match fixing in AFL is low, being able to bet on who will kick the first goal etc could lead to the corruption of some players.” - Jay
“Stop gambling promotion about odds being part of commentators’ information to public. It just normalises gambling.” - Deborah
“Ban betting advertising on television, print, radio and at stadiums, it is not having a positive impact on young children and young adults. I no longer enjoy watching it; as a parent it is irresponsible to allow my child to see consistent advertising/commentary on betting. They are normalising gambling and encouraging it as if it is necessary to enjoy the game. I don’t understand how this is allowed. ” - Teresa
“Remove gambling adds – it is exactly the same as tobacco advertising in sports in the past when that was banned in 1976 due to the enormous societal impact. Even my teenage children notice them and think they are harmful and there are too many.” - J
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Some readers thought the problem with advertising gambling extended to other areas, including alcohol and junk food.
“Gambling advertising in media and hoardings around grounds to cease immediately. AFL to cease advertising junk food and junk drinks. The same goes for gambling sponsorship. Also, all of the above should apply to alcohol sponsorship.” - Warwick
And the sentiment was that sponsorship as well as advertising should be addressed.
“Cease all association with gambling, including sponsorship deals and advertising. Eradicate it from the sport, please. It is ruining the sport.” - Richard
“Advertising on gambling in any form should be banned. The AFL should mandate this in its commercial arrangements.” - Ron
“I appreciate the AFL needs sponsors, but facilitating gambling agencies to hammer kids with these adds, simply in order to line their pockets, is abhorrent. The consequences of this will last generations.” - Mark
‘Rules change every year’
Rule changes and officiating were also hot topics among readers, but the sentiment was mixed. Some people wanted rules changed, while others have had enough of modifications.
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“[The AFL should change] the stand rule and nominating for ruck contests, it slows the game down and goes back to Auskick rules.” - Ian
“Remove the stand and ruck nomination rules, remove ‘six-six-six’ ... Scoring has reduced since these rules came in.” - Brendan
But not everyone was opposed to the stand rule.
“The stand rule is to me probably the best rule for opening the game up that has been tried and works – game flow is decluttered and better to watch.” - Patrick
Some wanted a change to 50-metre penalties.
“Fifty-metre penalty is excessive and punishes what are often very minor infringements to a ridiculous degree often resulting in a certain goal. Spoils the spectacle for me. Twenty-metre penalty would be more appropriate.” - Carlos
Others had different solutions for similar problems. Sam wanted the league to get “more flow or movement into the game, opening up play so talented players can display skills”. But John called for more free kicks to be paid. “Push in the back, holding the ball. Too many instances where these result in ball-ups.”
And how to relieve the pressure on umpires? Stop making so many changes and remove the need for interpretation.
“It’s no wonder the umpires are criticised so frequently, when rules change every year. They are forced to adjudicate new or changed rules every year. No more rule changes unless it is absolutely necessary.” - Masher
“Scrap prior opportunity, just give ball possessor three seconds to legally dispose of the ball when legally tackled. No interpretation needed.” - Dave
“... Confine ‘prior opportunity’ to only a bad memory.” - Bill
“... There have [been] more changes to rules in the last 20 years than the previous 50 years. Now we have rules made to undo the consequences of previous rule changes.” - David
“Overall, if a rule can’t be applied ‘by the book’ and not subject to a myriad of interpretations it would be better off being scrapped. Often former player commentators talk about a play being “technically” a free kick, but suggesting the umpire could have let it go. If it doesn’t matter, scrap the rule. The closer we can get to a simpler decision the better off we will be.” - Rod
And some readers had other suggestions.
“The running through the protected area rule should only be applied if it clearly has impeded the ball carrier. Even if a player was impacted the 50-metre penalty is too great and should be reduced to 25 metres.” - Marshall
“Give the player who attacks the ball a chance to make the play. This reward the tackler approach is rubbish! If I want to watch a game of no stop tackling being ‘rewarded’ I will become a rugby league fan.” - Ian
Readers had an issue with interpretation of rules as well as rule changes.
Readers had an issue with interpretation of rules as well as rule changes.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
“Scraping the post or touching the ball as it goes through the goals. The camera work and quality is not good enough for the purpose and it makes little sense to agonise through the process. If it goes through the big sticks it’s a goal. If it goes through the small sticks it’s a point. If it bounces back into play it is play on. Simple.” - Ron
‘Reduce the volume’
Lots of readers were unhappy with how quarter- and half-time breaks are filled with noise. Nick‘s No.1 concern was “incessant, high-volume ‘entertainment’“. Matt’s was “loud music and ads between quarters”. Most just wanted to be able to chat to family and friends.
“Reduce the volume of the ‘entertainment’. Time was we used to like talking before the game and half-time. We can also get rid of the constant changes in fluro advertising, plus we don’t need three tiers of illuminated banners to tell us a goal has been kicked.” - David
“Noisy entertainment which interferes with ability to socialise with family and friends because we can’t hear each other. Revolving advertising is disturbing for people with migraines and other sensory disabilities.” - Bernadette
“Stop the loud, LOUD ‘entertainment’ at the end of each quarter. Just let us interact and chat and be social with people in the crowd around us. We can’t, because there’s non-stop music and announcements at high decibel levels ruining our time at the footy. It’s a total turn off. I know many people who don’t go any more because of it. God help people with tinnitus, hearing aids or brain injuries. It’s noise pollution, is what it is, not entertainment.” - Mary
‘Members do the hard yards’
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Many readers also took issue with ticketing and grand final access.
Linda wanted the grand final moved around the country (it is contracted to be played at the MCG until the late 2050s). Noreen wanted a more simple way to buy tickets for her team’s away games. Christine wanted more grand final tickets available for members of competing clubs, “NOT funnelled off to corporates who don’t necessarily support either team. We long-term (and long-suffering) members do the hard yards all season, every season, and should be able to see our team’s ultimate triumph in person.”
“Stop selling tickets for finals and go back to first in, best dressed until the ground is full. This means those who are there are real fans and not corporates or once-a-year attendees.” - John
And some wanted the fairness of the fixture addressed.
“A good start would be to arrange fixtures so all teams play all others an equal number of times. I don’t suppose there’s any hope that some protected [Victorian] teams will be forced to play away from their hallowed grounds the way interstate teams must? It’s still the VFL with other states invited to help fill the coffers.” - Wally
“Fixture fairness – so called ‘traditional’ blockbuster games [reduce] the fairness of the competition. With the odd number of teams in the competition if they can’t play each other once or twice per season the top six teams should play each other twice and each of the other teams once. The middle group of six should play each other twice and the others once. The same for the bottom six.” - Michael
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TV View: Unleash Graeme Souness on these animal-hating low-lives
Divine intervention in Kilcoo; Shane Horgan worships at the altar of Johnny Sexton
Mon, Feb 14, 2022, 09:47
https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/tv-view-unleash-graeme-souness-on-these-animal-hating-low-lives-1.4801333
Mary Hannigan
2
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday. Photograph: AMA/Corbis via Getty Images
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday. Photograph: AMA/Corbis via Getty Images
“Sometimes, maybe, God’s on your side,” said Kilcoo’s Eugene Branagan when TG4’s Micheál O’Domhnaill asked him to explain, for all that’s good and holy, how his team had managed to beat Kilmacud Crokes in the All-Ireland club final when their hopes had been given the last rites more than once in the course of the contest.
And divine intervention, as it proved, was kind of the theme of the sporting day, not least when it came to analysing Ireland’s what-might-have-been trip to Paris.
The learnings?
Rob Kearney, doffing his cap to Joey Carbery’s efforts, had no doubt. “I think the most important thing we’ve learnt is that Ireland have a rugby team without Johnny Sexton, which is a big plus,” he said.
Shane Horgan?
“With Sexton at 10, Ireland would have won that game.”
Rob and his Virgin Media teammate Matt Williams thought this was decidedly harsh, not least on Joey, but Shane wouldn’t budge from his belief if the deity that is Johnny was on the pitch instead of spectating, then Ireland would have been home and hosed.
“A missed opportunity,” he said of the game, although Matt pointed out that Ireland “went toe to toe with the heavyweight champion of the world” and only lost on points. “That’s all you can bloody lose on in rugby,” Shane didn’t say, but he was thinking it.
Joe Molloy tried to cheer Shane up by telling him that the final of The Masked Singer was coming up on Virgin Media, but while that had Rob and Matt quite excited, Shane was unmoved.
“A missed opportunity,” he said again, Ireland’s Grand Slam hopes down the Swanee, but come Sunday Rob tried to reassure him that most probably France wouldn’t win the Grand Slam either because “they were no outstanding shakes themselves yesterday”.
Souness sticks up for the cat
The outstanding shakes, as it turned out, were to be found in Sky Sports’ Super Sunday studio where Graeme Souness pulverised the wretched excuse for a human being that is Kurt Zouma.
It was last September, when Sky brought us “the world’s first ever net zero carbon football match”, that Graeme revealed himself to be a highly passionate animal lover, a revelation that some of us never saw coming. It’s not that he isn’t most probably a good man, it’s just that you wouldn’t necessarily expect this level of empathy from someone who saw opposing shins as legitimate targets in the course of their playing career. Although, admittedly, it’s hard to find a seamless link here.
The mere mention of Zouma’s name, then, was never going to go down well.
“We don’t know what he’s been through,” said Jamie Carragher when news filtered through that Zouma had dropped out of the West Ham team due to play Leicester. “Not as much as the cat went through,” said Graeme, his cheek muscles flexing so violently, Jamie looked scared. Micah Richards too.
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday.
“I wouldn’t have played him again this year,” he said, “if I was a player I wouldn’t want to be in the same dressing room with him, I would not want him around the place.”
His emotions hadn’t eased come full-time in the game - “I’d love to see him pursued in court, I think what he’s guilty of is outrageous behaviour that goes beyond the pale” - Micah, quite heroically, daring to debate him, pointing out that there are convicted murderers back out on the streets again. He did, then, believe banning Zouma until the end of the season would be too harsh a punishment.
“Would you allow him to have another cat in his house,” Graeme asked him. By now, Micah would have been afraid to enter Graeme’s house.
Graeme Souness? Legend.
Meanwhile, over on Sky Sports News, word was filtering through about a video showing former eventing Olympic champion Sir Mark Todd whipping a horse 10 times with a branch to try and force it through a water obstacle.
Truly, our world is screwed. It needs divine intervention. Or Graeme Souness to be allowed deal with these low-lives.
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VJ
VJDevine
6 DAYS AGO
Souness, hard man but top cat, great analyst.
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MI
michael1
6 DAYS AGO
There was none of the "Wretched Excuse for a Human Being" when one of our own "Media Darling" Jockeys was caught punching a Horse in The Head several times.
As for Souness... hes done more damage to Human Beings on the Pitch than Zouma did to the unfortunate Cat... what he did was grossly wrong..but that doesent make him Jack the Ripper.
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‘Due for another realignment’: Retired great weighs in on AFL’s major umpire move
Melbourne thump Roos by 88 points!
Melbourne thump Roos by 88 points! | 01:29
Tom Morris
Tom Morris from Fox Sports
@tommorris32
February 25th, 2022 1:16 pm
The VFL/AFL games record holder for umpires has called on the league to punish “subtle” acts of dissent from players with 50 metre penalties and free kicks.
Earlier this week the AFL sent a memo to clubs outlining the importance for respect towards umpires.
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The instruction was interpreted by some clubs as a crackdown, with umpires instructed to uphold a less tolerant approach when players dispute decisions.
Round 1
Pointsbet
AFL
Mar 18 7:25pm AEST
FT
Richmond
Richmond
105
Carlton
80
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 19 7:50pm AEST
FT
Collingwood
53
Bulldogs
69
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 20 1:45pm AEST
FT
Melbourne
80
Fremantle
58
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 20 4:35pm AEST
FT
Adelaide
103
Geelong
91
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 20 7:25pm AEST
FT
Essendon
91
Hawthorn
92
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 20 7:45pm AEST
FT
Brisbane
94
Sydney
125
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 21 1:10pm AEST
FT
North Melbourne
North Melbourne
65
Port Adelaide
Port Adelaide
117
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 21 3:20pm AEST
FT
Greater Western Sydney
Greater Western Sydney
78
St Kilda
St Kilda
86
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
AFL
Mar 21 6:10pm AEST
FT
West Coast
West Coast
83
Gold Coast
Gold Coast
58
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
VIEW ALL SCORES
Shane McInerney, who umpired 500 matches between 1994 and 2019 including two Grand Finals, praised the memo as a necessary “reset.”
Speaking to foxfooty.com.au, McInerney detailed three scenarios which he believes should now result in a penalty.
“We are due for another realignment I think,” McInerney said.
“The players have worked out what demonstrative abuse looks like and I think we need to reset what we actually mean by good umpire/player relationships.
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Retired umpire Shane McInerney believes the new memo sent from the AFL was needed. (AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Retired umpire Shane McInerney believes the new memo sent from the AFL was needed. (AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Source: AAP
“In a situation like deliberate out of bounds where three or four players will stand around appealing with their arms out, that’s not a good look for the game and not what we want to see. I’d penalise that.
“We see forwards getting free kicks and the defending standing and pointing at the big screen. That’s not a good look for the sport.
“I think it is important that players can ask questions on why certain decisions are made. By and large that does happen. There are a few more habits that have crept in that the game doesn’t need. It’s a distraction that serves to embarrass or undermine an umpire’s authority.”
And the third example?
“Sometimes there are two or three defenders wanting to have their two bobs worth,” McInerney continued.
“That’s not on. The umpire has a job to do at that point in time.”
In the AFL’s note to clubs, executive general manager Andrew Dillon praised the sacrifices players and staff have made across the past two seasons.
But in reviewing the 2021 season, he said there were “a number of instances” where the “AFL community” fell short of certain standards relating to sportsmanship and respect for umpires.
“The AFL and its clubs have a unique leadership role in the community, and with that role comes responsibility. Disrespect towards umpires is an issue at all levels of football and has no place,” Dillon said.
McInerney is hoping to see more respect displayed to umpires. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
McInerney is hoping to see more respect displayed to umpires. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Source: Getty Images
“We are 6,000 umpires short at the community football level and it is incumbent on us to set the right example at the elite level so we can encourage and retain umpires across the country to best support the rapidly growing player participation base.”
While McInerney believes a correlation exists between the top level and local football, he argued the issue is not finding umpires, rather it is retaining them.
He also declared the changes made by the AFL have the potential to filter down quickly.
“I think what happens at the AFL level plays a role in umpire shortage, but I don’t think there is a direct correlation,” he said.
“There has been an explosion in women’s footy and that has placed a demand on all sorts of components with grounds, facilities, coaches and so forth.
“In my view, I’ve always understood that it’s not about attracting people to umpiring – lots of people like to give it a go – I think it’s more around the retention. The match day experience goes a long way to ensure that you can have retention of umpires.”
He added: “The response is a pretty quick response. Invariably when the AFL makes a change to a Law or an interpretation, spectators think at the lower level think that’s how their games will be officiated. Those competitions pick up really quickly.
“It’s something that could be achieved this coming season.”
On Friday morning, North Melbourne great and Fox Footy expert David King cautioned against any significant changes to interpretations around umpire feedback.
David King cautioned against major changes to interpretations around umpire feedback. Picture: Hamish Blair
David King cautioned against major changes to interpretations around umpire feedback. Picture: Hamish Blair
Source: Herald Sun
“The abuse of the umpire being an instant 50m penalty, I don’t believe AFL players ever abuse an umpire, they may be angry with a decision at a given point in time and they may be frustrated and say something but it’s not to abuse or belittle an umpire,” King said on SEN Breakfast.
“It’s an act that’s gone in three seconds, it’s always been a part of our game and it’s never been a problem, don’t tell me that if it comes from over the fence in lesser games or at junior footy, this is something in my opinion that has been overplayed.
“There were two 50m penalties paid yesterday that I thought ‘gee-whiz that’s really tough’, the players not standing there abusing the umpires, they’re questioning the decision, it’s going to bring significant backlash.
“Put it right in your diary now, it’ll be the most talked-about thing on a Monday morning in three weeks’ time about someone getting a 50m for saying ‘you can’t pay that Ray’.”
McInerney said one of the challenges for umpires is disregarding their own subjective perspective on player feedback.
“In our game, yes we can have personalities,” he continued.
“But everyone is interpreting the same part of the law as each other. This area is no different. It’s not about what certain personalities can or can’t handle. No. It’s about the role of the umpire and how the players engage with that person in their role.
“There is no room for umpires to take into account whether they can handle it or can’t. I can’t stress that enough. That is not what this is about.”
18.8.2 Free Kicks – Umpires
(a) uses abusive, insulting, threatening or obscene language towards an Umpire;
(b) behaves in an abusive, insulting, threatening or obscene manner towards an Umpire;
(c) intentionally, unreasonably or carelessly makes contact with an Umpire;
(d) disputes a decision of an Umpire;
(e) fails to follow the instruction of an Umpire; or
(f) intentionally or carelessly engages in conduct which affects, interferes with or prevents an Umpire from performing their duties.
https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/due-for-another-realignment-retired-great-weighs-in-on-afls-great-umpire-debate/news-story/c8319c342aff5f772e15f13d8fee78bd
Collingwood V's St.Kilda Victoria Park 1960
http://youtu.be/Y4vz-EIkijo
Collingwood V's St.Kilda Victoria park
13 August 1960
Collingwood Beats St.Kilda In The Mud
Collingwood8.12 (60)St Kilda7.7 (49 )Crowd 22,640
https://wwos.nine.com.au/afl/daniel-venables-west-coast-eagles-concussion-head-injury/5e8f6964-3f5b-442c-ac27-87f004f3e417
Former Eagle Daniel Venables' worrying concussion admission
At just 19 years of age, former West Coast Eagles player Daniel Venables was forced to retire after a sickening collision resulted in seven brain bleeds.
Venabales was knocked unconscious during the Eagles' 2019 round nine fixture with Melbourne when he slammed into opponent Tim Smith and landed awkwardly during a marking contest.
Speaking on Nine's Today, Venables said the incident has been life-altering as the now 23-year-old continues to battle the long-term complications caused by the traumatic head injury.
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Daniel Venables (Wayne Ludbey)
"I was knocked unconscious, so I went into the rooms and [later] went home that night where my head felt like it was going to explode," he said.
"The next morning I went and had some scans and that's when I found out I had seven bleeds on the brain.
"I guess my life changed in an instant straight after that."
"I've suffered chronic head pain and a few other issues and it's been three years."
Unable to fully recover from his symptoms, Venables' career was over after just 29 games. Two years later an AFL medical panel unanimously recommended he avoid contact sport.
Reflecting on the lasting impact the brain injury has had on his life, Venables said that in that moment his whole world came crashing down.
"It's definitely hard, six months before I played in the 2018 premiership as a 19-year-old (the youngest team member), so I was on top of the world and then I had this accident and I didn't really know, and no one really knew what the ramifications of it were," he said.
"That's probably the hardest bit, the unknown of head trauma and concussion. So it's definitely hard to come to terms with and we still don't really know today. I don't really have any clear path of the future of what's going to happen and how to get my symptoms better."
Asked whether the AFL has gone far enough to protect players from a similar fate, Venables declared an overhaul of concussion protocols was needed.
Venables was immediately stretchered off by the Eagles' medical staff after landing awkwardly (AAP)
"I feel there's a lot more work to do, to be honest," he said.
"There's so much research that's coming out and so many new ways of approaching things.
"I think it's more of a cultural change as well and knowing when you do get a little knock, it's alright to stand up (for yourself), and I feel that in the past has been hard.
Concussion campaigner Peter Jess agreed the issue incorporated a careless culture within the code.
"I think Dan was right on the money there when he said there needs to be a culture change," he said.
"We need to shift from bravery to one of respect, so if you think you're going to have a collision with a player then you need to really think about whether you should stop."
Jess made an example of last night's tribunal result in which West Coast small forward Willie Rioli successfully appealed his one-match suspension, despite crashing into Gold Coast's Matt Rowell during their Round 1 match.
"You only have to look and see at the tribunal where Rioli cannoned into a bloke's head and it was deemed not to be reckless or dangerous- yet his hip hit this guy's head and he jumped into him," he said.
Willie Rioli destroys former No.1 pick in sickening collision
Play Video
Willie Rioli destroys former No.1 pick in sickening collision
"I mean if we don't stop that then we're in serious trouble."
With Aussie Rules being a contact and collision sport, Jess agreed a more even balance needs to be struck between the entertainment factor of the game and the duty of care afforded to players.
"One of the points that I've made to the AFL, if we look at the biomechanics of how concussions happen, we have to strip that back and find ways we can stop it, and if we can't stop it then we have to find ways to make it a minimum," he said.
"By doing that we actually recognise that the dangers of collisions, whether you hit a head or not are still the same because what causes the damage is the transfer of energy from one body to the other. You know it goes to the softest part of the body which is the brain.
Morrissey Breen
2022-04-10 14:01:01 UTC
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Post by Morrissey Breen
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=football
football
The word describes a very populare game, which is played all over the world.
1) Foot
2) Ball
Part 1) Foot. This means that the foot is the main body part involved when playing this game.
Part 2) Ball. This means that the game is played with a spheric (globe-shaped) object.
This definition seems to be understood all over the world, except in the US, where they have misunderstood both parts of the word. Instead of using their feet, they mainly use their hands. And, instead of using a ball, they use an egg-shaped object.
(Somewhere in the world, exept USA): -Let's play football!
Reaction: they play football
(Somwhere in USA): -Let's play football!
Reaction: they play some strange game, not involving a ball, and hardly using their feet.
by SengaSengana October 6, 2010
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football
A name given to two different sports in which America and the rest of the world use to waste their lives away constantly arguing over which is better. Honestly, I'm an American. And I love the game of American football. But notice how I haven't said that I hate football (aka soccer). In fact, I love that sport, too. I just totally suck at it. Haha. C'mon, be real ya'll. Both games are cool. Even rugby too. It's cool. I have no idea how to play it, but I enjoy trying. It's all preference. For all ya'll that say football is whack cause we wear padding, go ahead and say whatever the fuck you want to say. That padding protects us so we can stay a little safer to enjoy the game a little longer. I don't care if I don't use it, I've tackled mofos twice my size without any padding on. The point I'm trying to make; All three games are great. They all require stratedgy, strength, speed, and endurance. So just shut the fuck up, grab the ball that suits you, and play your damn game already. You got that? Kay, just helping out. I'm just a 15yr old from a small town. Yeah, yeah... What do I know? Honestly? I know it's fucking pointless for ya'll to fight over sports. So just save your shit for someone who's still too much of a punk to simply enjoy a game of American football, football, or rugby. Peace people! Damn. Haha.
(just writing to fill in this shit :P)
(damn, now i gotta write "football" too. there, ya happy you fuckers?)
by Dennis #25 Southern Cowboys October 12, 2008
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The greatest and most popular sport in history with more than 5 times the TV audience of the next most popular (cricket - every radio and TV in the sub-continent is permanently tuned to Pakistan/India cricket matches - that's a big audience).
Only Americans call it 'soccer' owing to their vast ignorance of what goes on outside their national boundaries and the misnomer which has them thinking than a corruption of rugby, with all the danger and most of the skill removed can also be called 'football'.
'The Beautiful Game' can be played anywhere, on almost any surface, by any number of players, for almost any length of time. And is. There is no country on earth that doesn't play. It has inspired more passion, more courage and more excitement than any other sport in history and dwarfs everything else.
Football is, without question, the defining sporting activity of the human race.
by sicinius October 15, 2007
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When a girl is playing footsie with you, and her foot travels up to your crotch.
She was playing football with me all through dinner.
by pseudonym April 12, 2004
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football
A lovely game that alot of people play.
Also the most importmant sport in the world.
Very famous, but also fun for people who like football.
Give it a try!
Ofcourse if you start at older age, you wont get as good as Ronaldo, Messi, ...
But doesnt matter, its just for fun! ( Mostly )
D1: " Wanna play some Football?"
D2: " Football is shit!"
D1: " Just cause you cant play football, no reason to call it shit! "
by Sint-Truiden March 11, 2009
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the sport of American (or Gridiron) football is called so because we wanted a sport that was european football and rugby combined. the first version of american football had the punter kick it and players going down feild to catch the ball (pretty much feet passing, then it was switched to the passing seen today). and it was originally callled "American Football" which is why the first professional american football league was called the "American Football League"(which later merged with the NFL). it was called "american" because it is our version of your game. Pretty soon, we dropped the word "american" out of it and it became "football" so all of this is just a big misunderstanding! lol ---- from a guy who likes both american and european football
also, both sports are VERY physical, and I"ve never played rugby (i have watched though, and it's pretty cool) but getting tackled in football HURTS!!!! the pads don't do much when there's a 6'6" guy with 275 pounds of muscle trying to rip your head off!
all I'm trying to say is yes, we copied your name, but on ACCIDENT! just remember that it's just a misunderstanding.... I'm sorry for all of these ignorant assholes making the rest of us american football fans look like,.......well,.......ignorant assholes.
by football,soccer,whogivesaFuck! May 27, 2010
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football
A variety of games that which Europeans and Americans tend to argue over pointlessly till the end of time as to which version is "right" never minding the fact that due to Cultural Mutation different words can mean different things in other places
Typically Americans profess love for the version that involves padding and an ovoid ball in which the point of the game is to move the ball ten yards down the field at a time through either rushing or passing before passing into the plain of the "End Zone" placed at either ends of a 100 Yard Field to score points
Europeans tend to extol the virtues of a much simpler sport that only requires a pair of goals placed at either end of a field and is played with a checkered Spherical Ball
American: Hey, lets go play Soccer!
European: HEY FUCK YOU! ITS CALLED FOOTBALL YOU IGNORANT YANK!
Rest of World: Oh for fuck's sake stop arguing and just play dammit!
by Rick Dominated April 30, 2008
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Post by Morrissey Breen
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FIVE KEY STAGES OF AN ORGANIZATION'S COLLAPSE
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-union/zero-scrum-game-is-it-too-late-to-save-rugby-union-20210203-p56z7r.html
In 2012, John O’Neill put together a presentation using a report by US management guru Jim Collins. Collins outlines five key stages of an organisation’s collapse, including Inaction, Crisis and Dissolution. On the last page O’Neill had written: “Where is Australian rugby?” One could ask the same question now.
Post by Morrissey Breen
Zero scrum game: is it too late to save rugby union?
Lauded by fans as “the game they play in heaven”, rugby union has gone to hell in a handbasket, beset for two decades by infighting, financial crises, declining audiences and fierce competition from the AFL and NRL. Can a new CEO and free-to-air TV deal get it kicking again?
By Tim Elliott
APRIL 2, 2021
Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan says, “We’re on the ground floor of a complete rebuild for rugby. But it’s taken a long time getting to this point, and it’ll take quite a few years to get out of it.”
Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan says, “We’re on the ground floor of a complete rebuild for rugby. But it’s taken a long time getting to this point, and it’ll take quite a few years to get out of it.”CREDIT:JAMES BRICKWOOD
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It’s a balmy evening in January, and the Pearl Ballroom at Sydney’s Crown Towers is looking its finest, with its theatre-style curtains and platinum-coloured wall panelling, its floating chandeliers and mirrored ceiling. Chef Guillaume Brahimi has outdone himself, dishing up a tartare of yellowfin tuna for entrée followed by minute steak with Cafe de Paris butter. There is pinot gris, shiraz and chardonnay, and here to enjoy it, the premier cru of Australian rugby union’s gilded past: David Campese, John Eales and Nick Farr-Jones; the fridge-like Phil Kearns, Gary Ella and even Eric Tweedale, who, at the age of 99, is the oldest living Wallaby. They’re all here, the great and good of “the game they play in heaven”, grazing at the table like buffalo at a watering hole. It’s a rugby Valhalla, with pistachio gateau for dessert.
Tonight’s event has been organised by Rugby Australia, the game’s governing body, with the express purpose of picking a permanent colour for the national jersey. The national team, the Wallabies, have traditionally worn gold, but over the decades that gold has morphed like a lava lamp from the warm ochre of the 1980s to a burnt orange and even, most recently, a traffic-stopping yellow.
“A picture says a thousand words,” Hamish McLennan, RA’s chairman, told the media in the lead-up to the event. “It [the constant colour changes] shows the madness of our inconsistency.”
Tall and urbane, with thick, dark hair, McLennan, who took over the role in June 2020, radiates charm and capability, with the casual confidence of a man who enters a job interview with another offer in his back pocket. He’s positioned tonight’s event as an exercise in unity and esprit de corps, a way of honouring history while building for the future. “We need to decide,” he tells me. “The symbolism is important.”
The fans have already spoken: in an online poll conducted by The Sydney Morning Herald, most popular among the 13,300 votes cast was the jersey worn by the Wallabies in 1991, the year Australia won its first Rugby World Cup. McLennan has said the poll result will have a bearing on tonight. “After all, the fans own the jersey.”
Rugby legends mull over which jersey to pick as permanent Wallabies colours. From left, Phil Kearns, Gary Ella, Bob Dwyer, David Campese and Tim Gavin.
Rugby legends mull over which jersey to pick as permanent Wallabies colours. From left, Phil Kearns, Gary Ella, Bob Dwyer, David Campese and Tim Gavin.CREDIT:EDWINA PICKLES
Soon, the voting begins. There are eight jerseys to choose from. As each one is presented to the room, there’s a show of hands and the numbers noted. Another jersey, more hands, more numbers. A certain dissonance arises: we’re told to forget nostalgia and think about the future, but nostalgia is built into the process. Indeed, for Australian rugby fans, traumatised by decades of defeat, nostalgia is all they have left.
In the end, after several rounds of increasingly raucous voting, of good-natured heckling and faux outrage, the number of jerseys has been whittled down, from eight to six to four to two, and finally, the winner, as duly presaged, the 1991 World Cup-winning design.
Most agree it’s a victory for good taste and sound judgment. But it is also, inevitably, a victory for nostalgia. Once again, to everyone’s relief, Australian rugby is going back to the future.
Play Video
Top five Wallabies tries
Play video
2:45
Top five Wallabies tries
Spanning four decades, here are five of the Wallabies finest tries.
It’s hard to imagine now, but once upon a time Australians were very good at playing rugby union. The Wallabies won World Cups in 1991 and 1999. In 2000, they retained the Bledisloe Cup against the New Zealand All Blacks for the third year running, and took out the Tri Nations Series, beating the All Blacks and the Springboks, the national team of South Africa. The NSW Waratahs ranked alongside the AFL’s Collingwood and the NRL’s Brisbane Broncos as one of the country’s most recognised sporting brands.
The game brought in big money and colossal crowds: more than 109,000 packed in to Sydney’s Stadium Australia in 2000 to watch the Wallabies and the All Blacks play what has been described as “the greatest ever rugby match”. In 2001, the Wallabies won a three-Test series against the British & Irish Lions. Two years later, when Australia hosted the World Cup, rugby was, for perhaps the first time in its history, a mainstream sport in which the broad mass of Australians were emotionally invested.
The period since then has been a waking nightmare for Australian rugby. The Wallabies have slumped from second in the world to seventh. We haven’t won a Bledisloe Cup since 2002. Crowds and TV audiences have plummeted. There have been intermittent victories over the All Blacks and others; Australia even made the World Cup final in 2015. But such victories have invariably been followed by humiliating defeats, a pattern of false dawns that has bred within the rugby community a culture of scepticism and apathy.
“Rugby is on the bones of its arse right now ... and what you’re left with is a bunch of huge men, who we don’t know, running into one another.”
Thousands of fans have drifted away to rugby league or Aussie Rules, disillusioned not only with the on-field performances but with the game’s dysfunctional governance. Despite being run by a coterie of investment bankers and private equity chiefs, rugby has lurched from one financial crisis to another, in some cases staving off insolvency with emergency loans.
“Rugby is on the bones of its arse right now,” says columnist and author Peter FitzSimons. “There used to be a magic and romance to it, and now that magic is gone, and what you’re left with is a bunch of huge men, who we don’t know, running into one another.”
FitzSimons, 59, appeared in seven Tests for the Wallabies in 1989-90, “when we played for the honour of it,” he says, “and got paid $50 a day.” He embodies a certain amateur-era type; grizzled and voluble, given to self-mythologising, with a face that appears to have been hurriedly chiselled from a block of salt.
Like many fans, FitzSimons, who infamously started an all-in brawl against France in 1990 at the Sydney Football Stadium, mourns the raw colour of amateur rugby and the figures it produced: Ray Price and David Campese, the dancing Ella brothers and Roger Gould, with quads like bags of concrete; players like Greg Cornelsen, who cowed the All Blacks with four tries at Eden Park in 1978, and Stan Pilecki, who was once interrupted smoking a cigarette when called off the bench for a Wallabies match in Argentina.
“Rugby has lost its theatre,” says FitzSimons. “There are no characters any more. Now we have 15 professional footballers whom no one can relate to. The key is to know who is representing us again, to care about them, and to see them win.”
There have, in fact, been some wins of late, albeit off the field. For the past 25 years rugby has been broadcast on Foxtel, majority owned by Rupert Murdoch. When the rights became available in 2020, Foxtel offered $31 million a year, down from an annual $57 million payment since 2015. In November last year, McLennan and interim CEO Rob Clarke declined the offer, signing instead with Nine Entertainment Co. (publisher of Good Weekend), in a deal worth $100 million over three years.
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The deal, which starts this year, includes the rights to Wallabies Tests, the women’s game, including the national team, the Wallaroos, and the club schedule. It also covers Super Rugby, a provincial competition which has in the past featured teams from South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Argentina and Japan. (The competition has since become an Australia-only model, due to COVID-19.)
Most importantly, the agreement involves a commitment to show a weekly Saturday night Super Rugby game on the Nine Network – the first time the competition has been given a free-to-air platform.
The Nine deal is widely seen as the last best hope for the code. McLennan tells me it could reactivate “rugby’s latent fan base”, a secret army of followers waiting to emerge from their basements wearing Wallabies scarves and waving gold flags.
“The problem before was exposure,” says McLennan. “A lot of people didn’t actually see rugby because they couldn’t afford pay TV. Now with free-to-air, suddenly rugby is going to be more front of mind. Kids will see it and they will want to play, and that makes it bigger, and more money will come into the game.”
“It’s really exciting,” says Stephen Moore, former Wallabies skipper and 129-Test veteran. “[McLennan] is a smart guy and 100 per cent committed to the game being its best.” But Moore acknowledges that rugby’s problems are bigger than a broadcast deal. “The state of the game here is so bad at the moment that it has to be transformed totally. For too long we’ve papered over the problems, and look where that’s got us.”
The Wallabies walk off the field after yet another defeat against the All Blacks, in the 2011 World Cup.
The Wallabies walk off the field after yet another defeat against the All Blacks, in the 2011 World Cup.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
In 2017, Rugby Australia moved into a new headquarters, a gleaming, cobalt-blue glass and steel structure in Moore Park, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. There’s a high-performance gym, a 600-square-metre indoor training area and a rooftop running track. From the second-floor boardroom, where I’ve come to meet RA’s new CEO, Andy Marinos, you can see the construction site of the former Sydney Football Stadium, once home to so many of rugby’s mythic victories, and which now, in a metaphor almost too obvious to mention, has been reduced to an enormous crater.
Marinos, 48, has a close-cropped beard and a torso like a concrete bollard. He played rugby at the provincial level in South Africa, where he grew up, and also for Wales, in the early 2000s (he has Welsh ancestry). He then moved into administration, managing the South African Rugby Union. For the past five years, he’s been based in Sydney as the CEO of SANZAAR, the body that runs Super Rugby and the Rugby Championship, an international competition between Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.
Marinos has arrived at RA at a turbulent time, even by the turbulent standards of Australian rugby. Last year saw the rancourous departure of the then CEO Raelene Castle, a global pandemic and record financial losses. “Rugby has been through a lot,” he says. “But COVID is an inflection point. It gives you the opportunity to restart.”
One of his immediate priorities is financial stability. “That way we can stop being reactive and start being more strategic about how we’re wanting to do things.” The money from Nine should right the ship in the short term. But repairing the game in the long run and making the Wallabies win again will be infinitely harder.
“Rugby has been through a lot, but COVID is an inflection point. It gives you the opportunity to restart.”
“There are so many constituent parts,” says Marinos. “Creating pathways for the players, managing stakeholders, the sponsors, fans and the community game.”
He believes his outsider status is an advantage. “I’m not caught up in the things that happened [in Australian rugby] in the past,” he says. “I don’t have any preference for a particular state, place or person.” He’s free, then, to begin “rugby’s journey of renewal, one that is about being genuine, authentic and listening to people.”
I must look sceptical. “It’s a fantastic opportunity!” he says. “But it’s going to take time to fix. And it’s not going to be easy.”
Almost everyone has a different take on why Australian rugby is broken. Some blame the referees; others blame the rules; it’s AFL’s fault, or rugby league’s. It’s stupid coaches, overpaid players, inept leadership. When I ask Eric Tweedale what he thinks the problem is, he says it all began when the game went professional, which seems as good a place to start as any.
According to legend, rugby began in 1823, at Rugby School in England. For most of its history, it was staunchly amateur. But successive World Cups, in 1987, 1991 and 1995, saw the game explode in popularity, increasing the demands on players, who insisted on being paid. In 1995, the three most powerful southern hemisphere rugby unions, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia, formed a body called SANZAR, to oversee Super Rugby and the Tri Nations. SANZAR approached Rupert Murdoch, who paid $US555 million over 10 years for the rights to broadcast the games on his nascent cable network, Foxtel. Sensing the momentum, the world’s governing body, the International Rugby Board, declared the game professional in 1995.
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Australia’s cut of the broadcast rights was $35 million a year. Despite this, the game’s peak body, then called Australian Rugby Union, remained an amateur outfit, with no fewer than 21 committees overseeing everything from finances to player selection. The committees were run by honoraries, whose positions as such gave them considerable status within the rugby community, not to mention good parking and the best seats at games. When former NSW State Bank chief John O’Neill became CEO of the ARU in 1995, he set about abolishing the committees outright, seeding a bitter antipathy from the honoraries, or the “blazer brigade” as he called them, that would bedevil rugby for years to come.
O’Neill didn’t want for confidence. (In his 2007 book, It’s Only a Game, he writes of becoming “quite depressed” to discover how “over-qualified” he was for the job.) But there was no doubting his ability. He broadened the game’s appeal, boosted participation, and presided over the hugely successful 2003 World Cup in Australia which left the ARU with a $45 million profit. He also attempted to centralise authority and take power away from the states, particularly NSW and Queensland, whose squabbling had hobbled the game for years. “They didn’t like that,” he tells me. “They thought I was too influential.”
After the 2003 World Cup, O’Neill still had a year on his contract, and intended to stay until 2007. But his enemies had other ideas. In late 2003, O’Neill, then acknowledged as one of the country’s finest sports administrators, was pushed out. Rugby writer Peter Jenkins wrote that O’Neill’s “only crime was being high-profile, and of daring to challenge his directors”. Australian rugby had begun a long tradition of shooting itself in the foot.
From left, former Australian Rugby Union boss Gary Flowers; John O’Neill, who was pushed out as ARU CEO after antagonising the “blazer brigade”; Bill Pulver is one of eight Shore old boys to be Rugby Australia and NSWRU officeholders in recent times.
From left, former Australian Rugby Union boss Gary Flowers; John O’Neill, who was pushed out as ARU CEO after antagonising the “blazer brigade”; Bill Pulver is one of eight Shore old boys to be Rugby Australia and NSWRU officeholders in recent times.CREDIT:EDWINA PICKLES; AAP; DANIEL MUNOZ
O’Neill and his deputy Matt Carroll had wanted to put the $45 million World Cup windfall in a trust. “The idea was that it’d be a future fund,” says Carroll, who is now CEO of the Australian Olympic Committee. “If they’d invested that money back then, it’d probably be worth $100 million now and be producing a yearly income for rugby.”
But they didn’t. Instead, the money was given to the state unions and ploughed into a new competition called the Australian Rugby Championship (ARC), featuring eight teams from around the country. The ARC, which was announced in mid-2006 by then CEO, Gary Flowers, was intended as a pathway from the club system to Super Rugby. But the model was flawed from the outset. The teams had no history and no local followings. It was expensive and attracted almost no sponsorship. It also detracted from the established club scenes in Sydney and Brisbane, angering the game’s grassroots. By the end of the first season, the ARC had lost $4.7 million, with forecast losses of $8 million by the end of 2008.
At the same time, the ARU was struggling with inflated player salaries. When rugby went professional in 1995, Murdoch had faced competition from rugby league, which had attempted to sign up most of rugby’s best players. At the same time, fellow media mogul Kerry Packer was backing a rival competition called World Rugby Corporation. Players were in demand, and in order to win, Murdoch was forced to pay top dollar. Salaries skyrocketed, and were pushed even higher thanks to competition from cashed-up clubs in the northern hemisphere, some of which had billionaire owners.
“In comparison to other sports, rugby players were getting a higher proportion of the revenues,” says management consultant Michael Crawford, who has advised the ARU for 20 years. “This left less money for development and created further anger at the community level.”
Flowers stood down in 2007, opening the way for O’Neill and Carroll to return. They immediately scrapped the ARC. But the performance of the Wallabies, the financial engine of Australian rugby, was going from bad to worse. In 2009, Australia lost four matches to the All Blacks, two to the Springboks, and one to Scotland. Super Rugby was also faltering. The three Australian teams, the ACT Brumbies, the NSW Waratahs and the Queensland Reds, had all at one time or another enjoyed considerable success. In 2006, a fourth Australian team, the Perth-based Western Force, was added to the competition, followed by a fifth team, the Melbourne Rebels, in 2011. The idea was to give the game a national footprint and generate more broadcast dollars.
But it soon became apparent that Australia didn’t have enough talent to go around. According to a 2017 Senate standing committee report into the future of Australian rugby, the expansion from three to four to five teams saw a step down in performance, from Australian sides winning 60 per cent of their games to 50 per cent to 40 per cent. When the teams began to go broke, their owners – the state unions – ran to the ARU for a handout. By the end of 2011, the national body was funding the Super Rugby outfits to the tune of $25 million a year.
The obvious answer was private ownership. “In the US and Europe, 90 per cent of professional sporting clubs are privately owned and have strong business models,” says Colin Smith, director of the advisory firm, Global Media and Sports. “And that’s because they focus on the profit motive.”
“The parochialism and backward thinking are crippling rugby. It’s a self-made destruction.”
In 2008, Smith was charged by the ARU with getting the state unions to consider private ownership. But according to Smith, “the general reaction [from the states] was, ‘Under no circumstances’.” A board member of one union told Smith that he didn’t want to sell his Super Rugby team because he might miss out on free tickets to the games. “The thinking [was] incredibly myopic,” says Smith. “It just shows a complete lack of understanding of how the business of sports works.”
Smith has worked in sports for 30 years. There is virtually no market that he has not run the ruler over, no major club that he has not scrutinised. But rugby is special to him. “The first game I attended was in the early ’90s at Twickenham between England and the Barbarians. It was absolutely scintillating, and I was hooked.” But he now despairs for the game in Australia. “The parochialism and backward thinking are crippling rugby. It’s a self-made destruction.”
Dejected Wallabies players after losing to Argentina in 2018. The once high-flying national team has slipped to seventh in the world rankings.
Dejected Wallabies players after losing to Argentina in 2018. The once high-flying national team has slipped to seventh in the world rankings.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
Rugby is played in more than 120 countries, with 9.6 million registered players worldwide. Outside Australia, the game is booming: the 2019 Rugby World Cup, held in Japan, drew a total broadcast audience of 857 million over six weeks. (When Japan played Scotland, 54.8 million people in Japan watched it on television, nearly half the population.) Such events showcase the lore and legend of each national team, together with their signature playing styles: the mercurial French, the doughty Scots, the flamboyant Fijians, and the Welsh, whose scrum could push down mountains.
The Wallabies used to be famous for “running rugby”, a swaggering brand of free-flowing football made famous by the Ella brothers and David Campese, among others. Now, not so much. Indeed, the saddest thing a rugby fan can hear is that the game in Australia has become boring. Observers blame the referees, who have become increasingly pedantic. But the complexity of the rules is also a problem, especially compared to rugby league or AFL.
For years, rugby administrators have tinkered with the laws to make the game a better spectacle, but it’s a slow process. “Rugby is a global game,” says Brett Robinson, former Wallaby and current member of the World Rugby Council, which oversees laws, regulations and player welfare. “League and AFL are essentially domestic sports. It’s easy for them to make rule changes, but we have to influence over 100 nations to make changes that can be applied across the world and ultimately at a World Cup every four years.”
Rugby connoisseurs claim the complexity of the game is part of its beauty; that rugby is chess to rugby league’s checkers. But sometimes checkers is all a sports fan has time for. This is especially true in Australia, which has no less than four football codes – league, union, AFL and soccer – all competing for hearts and minds. And in an era when sport has become mass entertainment, being dull is death.
Rugby connoisseurs claim the complexity of the game is part of its beauty; that rugby is chess to rugby league’s checkers.
Growing rugby’s fan base is essential. One way of doing that is by winning games; the other is to create new audiences. “To me, the biggest wasted opportunity has been the failure to bring more people outside the narrow culture of rugby into the sport,” says James Curran, a Sydney University history professor who is writing a book about David Campese. “Rugby officialdom hasn’t been able to move beyond those who were supporting the game in the 1970s.”
Most of rugby’s elite players are still drawn from a small number of private schools in Sydney and Brisbane. The same goes for the game’s leadership, at both national and state levels, an inordinate number of whom come from Sydney’s most exclusive private schools, including Newington, Scots or St Joseph’s. One school in particular, Shore, figures prominently.
No fewer than eight recent RA and NSWRU office holders are Shore old boys, including current chairman, Hamish McLennan, recently departed CEO Rob Clarke and director Phil Waugh.
When the ARU went looking for a new CEO in 2012, it conducted what it described as a worldwide search before turning up Shore old boy Bill Pulver, in Sydney’s affluent harbourside suburb of Mosman. (Living, as it happened, right next door to ARU director John Eales). Pulver received a ringing endorsement from then ARU chairman, Michael Hawker, another Shore old boy who had played rugby with Pulver in the school’s First XV some 35 years earlier. “The whole thing is so incestuous,” says Colin Smith. “It’s not good for the game.”
It also reflects a fundamental disconnect to the game’s grassroots, which attracts a far broader demographic. “Many of our players are scaffolders or concreters,” says Craig Moran, general manager of Western Sydney Two Blues rugby club, in Parramatta. “They’re not rich people.”
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Founded in 1879, Two Blues is a Shute Shield stalwart. The club is operated almost entirely by volunteers, including Dennis “Muncher” Garlick, the 71-year-old waterboy, and the helpers who run the canteen, which provides much of the club’s revenue. But clubs like Moran’s have over the years been variously ignored or held in contempt by the ARU. In 2014, when the ARU was facing insolvency, Pulver requested the clubs forgo their annual $100,000 grants. Two years later, when the clubs requested the grants be reinstated, Pulver refused, reportedly saying he didn’t want them to “piss it up the wall”. (Pulver declined to take part in this story.)
State administrators have been equally out of touch. For decades the NSWRU has appointed a development officer for Shute Shield clubs, including Two Blues. But, according to Moran, it never understood the cultural dimension of the job. “Western Sydney has a large Islander population but we didn’t have any development officers who were Islanders. Development officers have to understand the social conditions. You can’t just send someone from Manly to be a DO in Merrylands.”
Moran says the game is “cannibalising itself”. Recent years have seen lavish pre-season launches at exclusive nightclubs; catered corporate events and runaway overstaffing. Last year it emerged that RA had spent $19 million on corporate costs in 2019, and just $4.3 million on community rugby, and was employing more than 200 people.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” says Scott Allen, who was appointed assistant coach to the women’s national rugby team, the Wallaroos, in 2016. “I remember walking into ARU headquarters on my first day and there were people and desks everywhere. And I thought, ‘What the f… are all these people doing?’ ”
Pulver had some wins, including a $285 million, five-year broadcast deal with Foxtel. But he also oversaw the disastrous axing of the Western Force Super Rugby team in 2017. The decision enraged Force fans, and saw the West Australian premier threaten to sue the ARU. Thousands of people protested in Perth, led by mining magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest.
“The process was a charade,” Forrest tells me. “It was shocking leadership and governance.” Former Wallaby Nathan Sharpe described the decision on Twitter as “the biggest mistake the ARU could have made”. The episode effectively ended Pulver’s term. He quit, in August 2017, pocketing a $300,000 bonus on his way out the door.
RA chairman Hamish McLennan, left, and CEO Andy Marinos are aiming
to “rebuild” rugby.
RA chairman Hamish McLennan, left, and CEO Andy Marinos are aiming to “rebuild” rugby.CREDIT:DOMINIC LORRIMER
Not all of rugby’s woes are self-inflicted. You can’t blame administrators for time zone differences, which mean that games involving Australian teams overseas are often broadcast here at 3am or 4am. It’s also hard for Australia to compete with the financial might of the northern hemisphere unions, which regularly poach our best players. Then there’s Israel Folau, the star Wallaby whose homophobic social media posts wound up costing RA millions of dollars in legal fees and saw the game ensnared in a high-profile debate over free speech that it could not win.
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Yet infighting and opportunism continue to poison the game. Last year saw a clumsy attempt to overthrow the RA board, when 11 former Wallaby captains wrote an open letter accusing the game’s leadership, headed by CEO Raelene Castle, of mismanagement. Castle, who is from New Zealand, had taken over from Pulver in 2017, and was wrestling with the financial impact of COVID. At the same time, she had put the broadcast rights out to tender, snubbing long-time partner Foxtel. Castle’s decision would eventually deliver a huge win for rugby, opening the way for a $100 million deal with Nine, part of which involved a free-to-air component.
But at the time Foxtel was furious. Castle found herself under attack from journalists at News Corp (Foxtel’s majority owner). Then came the captains’ letter, the public faces of which were Nick Farr Jones and former Foxtel commentator Phil Kearns. The letter was regarded by many as baldly self-serving of Kearns, who had lost out to Castle for the CEO’s job two years before. Kearns denies this.
“No one from Foxtel ever rang me and said they wanted me to run for CEO,” he tells me. “[And there] was never any talk by the captains explicitly of me going into the CEO role.” It was telling, however, that Kearns and the others had not intervened when the game faced insolvency under Pulver. “In any case,” says Sam Bruce, rugby writer at ESPN, “if they really wanted to help the game, there was nothing stopping them from calling Castle and saying, ‘How can I help?’ ”
“The whole episode painted a really ugly picture for the game right when what it needed most was positivity and cohesion.”
As far as Bruce is concerned, the coup was just another power play. “Castle was an outsider,” he says. “She was a Kiwi, a woman, and she didn’t live in Mosman. Her appointment caught rugby’s old boys’ establishment off guard. They thought they were losing control.” Castle resigned in April 2020, her decision prompted by what the then chairman Paul McLean described as a campaign of “abhorrent” bullying, both online and from vested interests in the media. Says Bruce: “The whole episode painted a really ugly picture for the game right when what it needed most was positivity and cohesion.”
In 2012, John O’Neill put together a presentation using a report by US management guru Jim Collins. Collins outlines five key stages of an organisation’s collapse, including Inaction, Crisis and Dissolution. On the last page O’Neill had written: “Where is Australian rugby?” One could ask the same question now.
A commentator on the sports website The Roar suggests the game is facing a “multi-generational battle” to restore its fortunes. A GreenandGoldRugby.com reader proposed that rugby go amateur again. Peter FitzSimons, meanwhile, believes the game’s worst days are behind it. “We have crossed the Valley of Death and are slowly starting to climb to the other side.”
Hamish McLennan is similarly upbeat. “We’ve got some great young players coming through [at the elite level],” he says, when we meet at RA’s Moore Park HQ. “And there’s been a lot of good work reconnecting with the grassroots.” McLennan has stopped the soap opera at head office, and established an advisory board to bid for the 2027 World Cup (Phil Kearns is the executive director). “That’s the light on the hill,” nods McLennan. “We stand a pretty good chance of getting that.”
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Private equity is also in the picture. Luxembourg based CVC Capital Partners has invested $1.2 billion in European rugby, most recently buying a 14 per cent stake in the Six Nations, a yearly tournament between Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, England and Italy. And American group Silver Lake Partners reportedly plans to put $NZ465 million into New Zealand rugby in return for a 15 per cent share of commercial rights. McLennan says a number of private equity outfits, including CVC, Bruin Capital and Silver Lake, are likewise looking at Australia.
It’s unclear what such an investment would look like. “Do we do it at a competition level, do we include the clubs or not, do we sell a part of the Wallabies or the whole organisation? We have to figure that out,” says McLennan.
There’s a lot at stake. “We’re on the ground floor of a complete rebuild for rugby. But it’s taken a long time getting to this point, and it’ll take quite a few years to get out of it.”
For those who believe the game is beyond salvation here, he points to Argentina, who beat the All Blacks for the first time ever last year. “That’s the thing with sport,” says McLennan. “You can come from nowhere and surprise people.”
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Post by Morrissey Breen
Post by Morrissey Breen
Post by Morrissey Breen
‘Ruining the sport’: What readers want the AFL to change
February 20, 2022 — 1.50pm
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/ruining-the-sport-what-readers-want-the-afl-to-change-20220220-p59y01.html
In late 2021, the AFL Fans Association undertook a survey of more than 800 people to find out what they felt the burning issues were for supporters. The results? More than a third were worried about the proliferation of gambling advertising; some called for the stand rule to be abolished; others were tired of rule changes and wanted clearer umpiring interpretations.
Those topics were far and away the most common response when The Age opened the floor for readers to have their say on the issue they most wanted the league to address. An overwhelming majority wanted an end to gambling advertising and sponsorships. Some responses have been edited for brevity.
Gambling advertising was a key concern for many readers.
Gambling advertising was a key concern for many readers.CREDIT:AFL PHOTOS
‘Cruel and greedy’
“Remove the gambling ads. How disgraceful that the one of the biggest financial generators for the AFL is this insidious gambling industry. You cannot watch the game or any sport without the gambling ads and promoters peddling the wares. Gambling is a personal choice, but unfortunately there are consequences, and when so much money is involved, the only ones to profit are the vested interest. Horses, dogs are also victims.” - Paula
“Gambling ads need to be dropped. It is at such a high level that it will be encouraging many of our young and people in general to gamble.” - Derek
“No more advertising of gambling ‘opportunities’. If people want to gamble, they will, but it is cruel and greedy to advertise it in the high emotion atmosphere that surrounds live games or televised games. Please get rid of it. It targets problem gamblers and young people with anonymity.” - Victoria
“Gambling advertising – it endorses an activity that causes great social harm in Australia. One of the attractive aspects of attending an AFL match or watching/listening to an AFL broadcast is to see that for many fans it is still a family activity. Gambling ads normalise ‘having a punt’ as part of following AFL and there will be a section of the audience who are introduced to gambling in this way. Although I think that the prospect of match fixing in AFL is low, being able to bet on who will kick the first goal etc could lead to the corruption of some players.” - Jay
“Stop gambling promotion about odds being part of commentators’ information to public. It just normalises gambling.” - Deborah
“Ban betting advertising on television, print, radio and at stadiums, it is not having a positive impact on young children and young adults. I no longer enjoy watching it; as a parent it is irresponsible to allow my child to see consistent advertising/commentary on betting. They are normalising gambling and encouraging it as if it is necessary to enjoy the game. I don’t understand how this is allowed. ” - Teresa
“Remove gambling adds – it is exactly the same as tobacco advertising in sports in the past when that was banned in 1976 due to the enormous societal impact. Even my teenage children notice them and think they are harmful and there are too many.” - J
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Some readers thought the problem with advertising gambling extended to other areas, including alcohol and junk food.
“Gambling advertising in media and hoardings around grounds to cease immediately. AFL to cease advertising junk food and junk drinks. The same goes for gambling sponsorship. Also, all of the above should apply to alcohol sponsorship.” - Warwick
And the sentiment was that sponsorship as well as advertising should be addressed.
“Cease all association with gambling, including sponsorship deals and advertising. Eradicate it from the sport, please. It is ruining the sport.” - Richard
“Advertising on gambling in any form should be banned. The AFL should mandate this in its commercial arrangements.” - Ron
“I appreciate the AFL needs sponsors, but facilitating gambling agencies to hammer kids with these adds, simply in order to line their pockets, is abhorrent. The consequences of this will last generations.” - Mark
‘Rules change every year’
Rule changes and officiating were also hot topics among readers, but the sentiment was mixed. Some people wanted rules changed, while others have had enough of modifications.
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“[The AFL should change] the stand rule and nominating for ruck contests, it slows the game down and goes back to Auskick rules.” - Ian
“Remove the stand and ruck nomination rules, remove ‘six-six-six’ ... Scoring has reduced since these rules came in.” - Brendan
But not everyone was opposed to the stand rule.
“The stand rule is to me probably the best rule for opening the game up that has been tried and works – game flow is decluttered and better to watch.” - Patrick
Some wanted a change to 50-metre penalties.
“Fifty-metre penalty is excessive and punishes what are often very minor infringements to a ridiculous degree often resulting in a certain goal. Spoils the spectacle for me. Twenty-metre penalty would be more appropriate.” - Carlos
Others had different solutions for similar problems. Sam wanted the league to get “more flow or movement into the game, opening up play so talented players can display skills”. But John called for more free kicks to be paid. “Push in the back, holding the ball. Too many instances where these result in ball-ups.”
And how to relieve the pressure on umpires? Stop making so many changes and remove the need for interpretation.
“It’s no wonder the umpires are criticised so frequently, when rules change every year. They are forced to adjudicate new or changed rules every year. No more rule changes unless it is absolutely necessary.” - Masher
“Scrap prior opportunity, just give ball possessor three seconds to legally dispose of the ball when legally tackled. No interpretation needed.” - Dave
“... Confine ‘prior opportunity’ to only a bad memory.” - Bill
“... There have [been] more changes to rules in the last 20 years than the previous 50 years. Now we have rules made to undo the consequences of previous rule changes.” - David
“Overall, if a rule can’t be applied ‘by the book’ and not subject to a myriad of interpretations it would be better off being scrapped. Often former player commentators talk about a play being “technically” a free kick, but suggesting the umpire could have let it go. If it doesn’t matter, scrap the rule. The closer we can get to a simpler decision the better off we will be.” - Rod
And some readers had other suggestions.
“The running through the protected area rule should only be applied if it clearly has impeded the ball carrier. Even if a player was impacted the 50-metre penalty is too great and should be reduced to 25 metres.” - Marshall
“Give the player who attacks the ball a chance to make the play. This reward the tackler approach is rubbish! If I want to watch a game of no stop tackling being ‘rewarded’ I will become a rugby league fan.” - Ian
Readers had an issue with interpretation of rules as well as rule changes.
Readers had an issue with interpretation of rules as well as rule changes.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
“Scraping the post or touching the ball as it goes through the goals. The camera work and quality is not good enough for the purpose and it makes little sense to agonise through the process. If it goes through the big sticks it’s a goal. If it goes through the small sticks it’s a point. If it bounces back into play it is play on. Simple.” - Ron
‘Reduce the volume’
Lots of readers were unhappy with how quarter- and half-time breaks are filled with noise. Nick‘s No.1 concern was “incessant, high-volume ‘entertainment’“. Matt’s was “loud music and ads between quarters”. Most just wanted to be able to chat to family and friends.
“Reduce the volume of the ‘entertainment’. Time was we used to like talking before the game and half-time. We can also get rid of the constant changes in fluro advertising, plus we don’t need three tiers of illuminated banners to tell us a goal has been kicked.” - David
“Noisy entertainment which interferes with ability to socialise with family and friends because we can’t hear each other. Revolving advertising is disturbing for people with migraines and other sensory disabilities.” - Bernadette
“Stop the loud, LOUD ‘entertainment’ at the end of each quarter. Just let us interact and chat and be social with people in the crowd around us. We can’t, because there’s non-stop music and announcements at high decibel levels ruining our time at the footy. It’s a total turn off. I know many people who don’t go any more because of it. God help people with tinnitus, hearing aids or brain injuries. It’s noise pollution, is what it is, not entertainment.” - Mary
‘Members do the hard yards’
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Many readers also took issue with ticketing and grand final access.
Linda wanted the grand final moved around the country (it is contracted to be played at the MCG until the late 2050s). Noreen wanted a more simple way to buy tickets for her team’s away games. Christine wanted more grand final tickets available for members of competing clubs, “NOT funnelled off to corporates who don’t necessarily support either team. We long-term (and long-suffering) members do the hard yards all season, every season, and should be able to see our team’s ultimate triumph in person.”
“Stop selling tickets for finals and go back to first in, best dressed until the ground is full. This means those who are there are real fans and not corporates or once-a-year attendees.” - John
And some wanted the fairness of the fixture addressed.
“A good start would be to arrange fixtures so all teams play all others an equal number of times. I don’t suppose there’s any hope that some protected [Victorian] teams will be forced to play away from their hallowed grounds the way interstate teams must? It’s still the VFL with other states invited to help fill the coffers.” - Wally
“Fixture fairness – so called ‘traditional’ blockbuster games [reduce] the fairness of the competition. With the odd number of teams in the competition if they can’t play each other once or twice per season the top six teams should play each other twice and each of the other teams once. The middle group of six should play each other twice and the others once. The same for the bottom six.” - Michael
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TV View: Unleash Graeme Souness on these animal-hating low-lives
Divine intervention in Kilcoo; Shane Horgan worships at the altar of Johnny Sexton
Mon, Feb 14, 2022, 09:47
https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/tv-view-unleash-graeme-souness-on-these-animal-hating-low-lives-1.4801333
Mary Hannigan
2
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday. Photograph: AMA/Corbis via Getty Images
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday. Photograph: AMA/Corbis via Getty Images
“Sometimes, maybe, God’s on your side,” said Kilcoo’s Eugene Branagan when TG4’s Micheál O’Domhnaill asked him to explain, for all that’s good and holy, how his team had managed to beat Kilmacud Crokes in the All-Ireland club final when their hopes had been given the last rites more than once in the course of the contest.
And divine intervention, as it proved, was kind of the theme of the sporting day, not least when it came to analysing Ireland’s what-might-have-been trip to Paris.
The learnings?
Rob Kearney, doffing his cap to Joey Carbery’s efforts, had no doubt. “I think the most important thing we’ve learnt is that Ireland have a rugby team without Johnny Sexton, which is a big plus,” he said.
Shane Horgan?
“With Sexton at 10, Ireland would have won that game.”
Rob and his Virgin Media teammate Matt Williams thought this was decidedly harsh, not least on Joey, but Shane wouldn’t budge from his belief if the deity that is Johnny was on the pitch instead of spectating, then Ireland would have been home and hosed.
“A missed opportunity,” he said of the game, although Matt pointed out that Ireland “went toe to toe with the heavyweight champion of the world” and only lost on points. “That’s all you can bloody lose on in rugby,” Shane didn’t say, but he was thinking it.
Joe Molloy tried to cheer Shane up by telling him that the final of The Masked Singer was coming up on Virgin Media, but while that had Rob and Matt quite excited, Shane was unmoved.
“A missed opportunity,” he said again, Ireland’s Grand Slam hopes down the Swanee, but come Sunday Rob tried to reassure him that most probably France wouldn’t win the Grand Slam either because “they were no outstanding shakes themselves yesterday”.
Souness sticks up for the cat
The outstanding shakes, as it turned out, were to be found in Sky Sports’ Super Sunday studio where Graeme Souness pulverised the wretched excuse for a human being that is Kurt Zouma.
It was last September, when Sky brought us “the world’s first ever net zero carbon football match”, that Graeme revealed himself to be a highly passionate animal lover, a revelation that some of us never saw coming. It’s not that he isn’t most probably a good man, it’s just that you wouldn’t necessarily expect this level of empathy from someone who saw opposing shins as legitimate targets in the course of their playing career. Although, admittedly, it’s hard to find a seamless link here.
The mere mention of Zouma’s name, then, was never going to go down well.
“We don’t know what he’s been through,” said Jamie Carragher when news filtered through that Zouma had dropped out of the West Ham team due to play Leicester. “Not as much as the cat went through,” said Graeme, his cheek muscles flexing so violently, Jamie looked scared. Micah Richards too.
“That cat hadn’t done anything wrong,” he added, a line that none of us - and be honest here - ever anticipated hearing on Sky Sports Super Sunday.
“I wouldn’t have played him again this year,” he said, “if I was a player I wouldn’t want to be in the same dressing room with him, I would not want him around the place.”
His emotions hadn’t eased come full-time in the game - “I’d love to see him pursued in court, I think what he’s guilty of is outrageous behaviour that goes beyond the pale” - Micah, quite heroically, daring to debate him, pointing out that there are convicted murderers back out on the streets again. He did, then, believe banning Zouma until the end of the season would be too harsh a punishment.
“Would you allow him to have another cat in his house,” Graeme asked him. By now, Micah would have been afraid to enter Graeme’s house.
Graeme Souness? Legend.
Meanwhile, over on Sky Sports News, word was filtering through about a video showing former eventing Olympic champion Sir Mark Todd whipping a horse 10 times with a branch to try and force it through a water obstacle.
Truly, our world is screwed. It needs divine intervention. Or Graeme Souness to be allowed deal with these low-lives.
Eugene Branagan
Graeme Souness
Jamie Carragher
Joey Carbery
Kurt Zouma
Matt Williams
Rob Kearney
Shane Horgan
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VJ
VJDevine
6 DAYS AGO
Souness, hard man but top cat, great analyst.
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MI
michael1
6 DAYS AGO
There was none of the "Wretched Excuse for a Human Being" when one of our own "Media Darling" Jockeys was caught punching a Horse in The Head several times.
As for Souness... hes done more damage to Human Beings on the Pitch than Zouma did to the unfortunate Cat... what he did was grossly wrong..but that doesent make him Jack the Ripper.
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‘Due for another realignment’: Retired great weighs in on AFL’s major umpire move
Melbourne thump Roos by 88 points!
Melbourne thump Roos by 88 points! | 01:29
Tom Morris
Tom Morris from Fox Sports
@tommorris32
February 25th, 2022 1:16 pm
The VFL/AFL games record holder for umpires has called on the league to punish “subtle” acts of dissent from players with 50 metre penalties and free kicks.
Earlier this week the AFL sent a memo to clubs outlining the importance for respect towards umpires.
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The instruction was interpreted by some clubs as a crackdown, with umpires instructed to uphold a less tolerant approach when players dispute decisions.
Round 1
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Mar 18 7:25pm AEST
FT
Richmond
Richmond
105
Carlton
80
MATCH CENTRE
*Odds are current as of 25th February 2022, 2:10pm AEST
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AFL
Mar 19 7:50pm AEST
FT
Collingwood
53
Bulldogs
69
MATCH CENTRE
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AFL
Mar 20 1:45pm AEST
FT
Melbourne
80
Fremantle
58
MATCH CENTRE
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AFL
Mar 20 4:35pm AEST
FT
Adelaide
103
Geelong
91
MATCH CENTRE
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AFL
Mar 20 7:25pm AEST
FT
Essendon
91
Hawthorn
92
MATCH CENTRE
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Mar 20 7:45pm AEST
FT
Brisbane
94
Sydney
125
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Mar 21 1:10pm AEST
FT
North Melbourne
North Melbourne
65
Port Adelaide
Port Adelaide
117
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Mar 21 3:20pm AEST
FT
Greater Western Sydney
Greater Western Sydney
78
St Kilda
St Kilda
86
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Mar 21 6:10pm AEST
FT
West Coast
West Coast
83
Gold Coast
Gold Coast
58
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Shane McInerney, who umpired 500 matches between 1994 and 2019 including two Grand Finals, praised the memo as a necessary “reset.”
Speaking to foxfooty.com.au, McInerney detailed three scenarios which he believes should now result in a penalty.
“We are due for another realignment I think,” McInerney said.
“The players have worked out what demonstrative abuse looks like and I think we need to reset what we actually mean by good umpire/player relationships.
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Retired umpire Shane McInerney believes the new memo sent from the AFL was needed. (AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Retired umpire Shane McInerney believes the new memo sent from the AFL was needed. (AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Source: AAP
“In a situation like deliberate out of bounds where three or four players will stand around appealing with their arms out, that’s not a good look for the game and not what we want to see. I’d penalise that.
“We see forwards getting free kicks and the defending standing and pointing at the big screen. That’s not a good look for the sport.
“I think it is important that players can ask questions on why certain decisions are made. By and large that does happen. There are a few more habits that have crept in that the game doesn’t need. It’s a distraction that serves to embarrass or undermine an umpire’s authority.”
And the third example?
“Sometimes there are two or three defenders wanting to have their two bobs worth,” McInerney continued.
“That’s not on. The umpire has a job to do at that point in time.”
In the AFL’s note to clubs, executive general manager Andrew Dillon praised the sacrifices players and staff have made across the past two seasons.
But in reviewing the 2021 season, he said there were “a number of instances” where the “AFL community” fell short of certain standards relating to sportsmanship and respect for umpires.
“The AFL and its clubs have a unique leadership role in the community, and with that role comes responsibility. Disrespect towards umpires is an issue at all levels of football and has no place,” Dillon said.
McInerney is hoping to see more respect displayed to umpires. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
McInerney is hoping to see more respect displayed to umpires. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Source: Getty Images
“We are 6,000 umpires short at the community football level and it is incumbent on us to set the right example at the elite level so we can encourage and retain umpires across the country to best support the rapidly growing player participation base.”
While McInerney believes a correlation exists between the top level and local football, he argued the issue is not finding umpires, rather it is retaining them.
He also declared the changes made by the AFL have the potential to filter down quickly.
“I think what happens at the AFL level plays a role in umpire shortage, but I don’t think there is a direct correlation,” he said.
“There has been an explosion in women’s footy and that has placed a demand on all sorts of components with grounds, facilities, coaches and so forth.
“In my view, I’ve always understood that it’s not about attracting people to umpiring – lots of people like to give it a go – I think it’s more around the retention. The match day experience goes a long way to ensure that you can have retention of umpires.”
He added: “The response is a pretty quick response. Invariably when the AFL makes a change to a Law or an interpretation, spectators think at the lower level think that’s how their games will be officiated. Those competitions pick up really quickly.
“It’s something that could be achieved this coming season.”
On Friday morning, North Melbourne great and Fox Footy expert David King cautioned against any significant changes to interpretations around umpire feedback.
David King cautioned against major changes to interpretations around umpire feedback. Picture: Hamish Blair
David King cautioned against major changes to interpretations around umpire feedback. Picture: Hamish Blair
Source: Herald Sun
“The abuse of the umpire being an instant 50m penalty, I don’t believe AFL players ever abuse an umpire, they may be angry with a decision at a given point in time and they may be frustrated and say something but it’s not to abuse or belittle an umpire,” King said on SEN Breakfast.
“It’s an act that’s gone in three seconds, it’s always been a part of our game and it’s never been a problem, don’t tell me that if it comes from over the fence in lesser games or at junior footy, this is something in my opinion that has been overplayed.
“There were two 50m penalties paid yesterday that I thought ‘gee-whiz that’s really tough’, the players not standing there abusing the umpires, they’re questioning the decision, it’s going to bring significant backlash.
“Put it right in your diary now, it’ll be the most talked-about thing on a Monday morning in three weeks’ time about someone getting a 50m for saying ‘you can’t pay that Ray’.”
McInerney said one of the challenges for umpires is disregarding their own subjective perspective on player feedback.
“In our game, yes we can have personalities,” he continued.
“But everyone is interpreting the same part of the law as each other. This area is no different. It’s not about what certain personalities can or can’t handle. No. It’s about the role of the umpire and how the players engage with that person in their role.
“There is no room for umpires to take into account whether they can handle it or can’t. I can’t stress that enough. That is not what this is about.”
18.8.2 Free Kicks – Umpires
(a) uses abusive, insulting, threatening or obscene language towards an Umpire;
(b) behaves in an abusive, insulting, threatening or obscene manner towards an Umpire;
(c) intentionally, unreasonably or carelessly makes contact with an Umpire;
(d) disputes a decision of an Umpire;
(e) fails to follow the instruction of an Umpire; or
(f) intentionally or carelessly engages in conduct which affects, interferes with or prevents an Umpire from performing their duties.
https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/due-for-another-realignment-retired-great-weighs-in-on-afls-great-umpire-debate/news-story/c8319c342aff5f772e15f13d8fee78bd
Collingwood V's St.Kilda Victoria Park 1960
http://youtu.be/Y4vz-EIkijo
Collingwood V's St.Kilda Victoria park
13 August 1960
Collingwood Beats St.Kilda In The Mud
Collingwood8.12 (60)St Kilda7.7 (49 )Crowd 22,640
https://wwos.nine.com.au/afl/daniel-venables-west-coast-eagles-concussion-head-injury/5e8f6964-3f5b-442c-ac27-87f004f3e417
Former Eagle Daniel Venables' worrying concussion admission
At just 19 years of age, former West Coast Eagles player Daniel Venables was forced to retire after a sickening collision resulted in seven brain bleeds.
Venabales was knocked unconscious during the Eagles' 2019 round nine fixture with Melbourne when he slammed into opponent Tim Smith and landed awkwardly during a marking contest.
Speaking on Nine's Today, Venables said the incident has been life-altering as the now 23-year-old continues to battle the long-term complications caused by the traumatic head injury.
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Daniel Venables (Wayne Ludbey)
"I was knocked unconscious, so I went into the rooms and [later] went home that night where my head felt like it was going to explode," he said.
"The next morning I went and had some scans and that's when I found out I had seven bleeds on the brain.
"I guess my life changed in an instant straight after that."
"I've suffered chronic head pain and a few other issues and it's been three years."
Unable to fully recover from his symptoms, Venables' career was over after just 29 games. Two years later an AFL medical panel unanimously recommended he avoid contact sport.
Reflecting on the lasting impact the brain injury has had on his life, Venables said that in that moment his whole world came crashing down.
"It's definitely hard, six months before I played in the 2018 premiership as a 19-year-old (the youngest team member), so I was on top of the world and then I had this accident and I didn't really know, and no one really knew what the ramifications of it were," he said.
"That's probably the hardest bit, the unknown of head trauma and concussion. So it's definitely hard to come to terms with and we still don't really know today. I don't really have any clear path of the future of what's going to happen and how to get my symptoms better."
Asked whether the AFL has gone far enough to protect players from a similar fate, Venables declared an overhaul of concussion protocols was needed.
Venables was immediately stretchered off by the Eagles' medical staff after landing awkwardly (AAP)
"I feel there's a lot more work to do, to be honest," he said.
"There's so much research that's coming out and so many new ways of approaching things.
"I think it's more of a cultural change as well and knowing when you do get a little knock, it's alright to stand up (for yourself), and I feel that in the past has been hard.
Concussion campaigner Peter Jess agreed the issue incorporated a careless culture within the code.
"I think Dan was right on the money there when he said there needs to be a culture change," he said.
"We need to shift from bravery to one of respect, so if you think you're going to have a collision with a player then you need to really think about whether you should stop."
Jess made an example of last night's tribunal result in which West Coast small forward Willie Rioli successfully appealed his one-match suspension, despite crashing into Gold Coast's Matt Rowell during their Round 1 match.
"You only have to look and see at the tribunal where Rioli cannoned into a bloke's head and it was deemed not to be reckless or dangerous- yet his hip hit this guy's head and he jumped into him," he said.
Willie Rioli destroys former No.1 pick in sickening collision
Play Video
Willie Rioli destroys former No.1 pick in sickening collision
"I mean if we don't stop that then we're in serious trouble."
With Aussie Rules being a contact and collision sport, Jess agreed a more even balance needs to be struck between the entertainment factor of the game and the duty of care afforded to players.
"One of the points that I've made to the AFL, if we look at the biomechanics of how concussions happen, we have to strip that back and find ways we can stop it, and if we can't stop it then we have to find ways to make it a minimum," he said.
"By doing that we actually recognise that the dangers of collisions, whether you hit a head or not are still the same because what causes the damage is the transfer of energy from one body to the other. You know it goes to the softest part of the body which is the brain.
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Watch: Moment Francisco Lindor Is Hit in the Face by Steve Cishek Pitch
BY PATRICIA MCKNIGHT ON 4/9/22 AT 12:06 AM EDT
https://www.newsweek.com/watch-moment-francisco-lindor-hit-face-steve-cishek-pitch-1696611

Dugouts from both teams were cleared during the New York Mets and Washington Nationals game after Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor was hit in the face Friday night.

In a widely-shared clip on social media, Nationals pitcher Steve Cishek threw a fastball clocking in at 88 miles per hour, according to ESPN. The ball struck Lindor right in the face, throwing him to the ground and causing his helmet to fly off as he tumbled. Game commentators groaned at the impact.

In the heat of the moment, Mets manager Buck Showalter stormed out of the dugout livid, yelling. Nearly the entire team followed Showalter onto the field.

Nationals players also took to the field in an intense exchange. The two teams can be seen yelling and pushing each other on the field.



Steve Cishek throws a dangerous pitch to Lindor, a day after Pete Alonso was hit in the face, and we have the first benches clearing incident of 2022 pic.twitter.com/YLXplPB7GD

— Baseball Fight Club (@mlb_fights) April 9, 2022
Lindor pointed near his mouth as Showalter and a Mets trainer checked on him. He eventually got back on his feet and received attention from medical trainers. X-rays on Lindor's jaw were negative, and he passed concussion protocol, according to Major League Baseball (MLB).

The game was delayed for more than 10 minutes while umpires deliberated, eventually deciding to eject Cishek from the game. The pitcher was making his Nationals debut and had just entered in relief of starter Josiah Gray after the Mets had taken a 4-3 lead, according to the Associated Press.

MLB cites Lindor's injury as the second similar incident in the season's first two days.

Francisco Lindor
Francisco Lindor of the New York Mets passed concussion protocol after getting hit in the face with a fastball by Washington Nationals pitcher Steve Cishek. Above, Lindor lies on the ground at Nationals Park after being hit on April 8, 2022, in Washington, D.C. Getty Images
The night before, Mets player Pete Alonso was hit in the shoulder by a ball at 95 miles per hour and it ricocheted to his face. Alonso also left the game but was mostly unharmed, MLB says.

"I won't make light of it—I'm not happy about it," Showalter said after the game. "Just like [Mets catcher James] McCann, got the slider that bounced off his foot, but don't like to see that." McCann was hit by two pitches on opening day, a fastball and another breaking ball that hit him on the foot.

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Alonso said he was just happy the hit wasn't worse, being grateful he still had all his teeth.

"It's an emotional game played by people that care," he added when asked if the dugout was angry. "You ever gotten hit by a pitch in the mouth? Not particularly pleasant, so certainly, there's some emotion there."

Newsweek reached out to the Mets for comment.

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