THE NAME GAME
Well, that little experiment worked well, didn’t it? You knew the names on jumpers idea was sunk after just one game of round five, for what seemed a fairly obvious reason. Their size, or lack of it.
Was it for crowds at the games or the TV audience? Either way, no one emerged satisfied with the results.
Even on the box, the result was a swirl of letters illegible on any shot except the close-up at a stoppage, more than a slight problem given ours is game that doesn’t stop that frequently and has a large playing field conducive only to the medium or long shot.
As for those actually at the grounds, numbers on some club jumpers are hard enough to recognise from the stands, let alone a name crammed on top of them several dozen point sizes smaller.
So who wins? Not for the first time when it comes to a marketing idea, the satirists.
GOOD FRIDAY? GOOD GRIEF!
At the risk of keeping what is already one of this season’s more tiresome debates alive, what exactly is the big deal about a game on the public holiday?
Any outrage on religious grounds is at best confected given the hardly overwhelming influence religion plays in today’s secular society. And any outrage about continuing not to play is a little rich given how many different days and timeslots the season now occupies.
As for just who plays who, do the vast bulk of people getting their knickers in a twist about this or that club’s claims to the date even have any idea how big a difference in terms of revenue a Good Friday game would make? Or whether the same fixture on a Saturday or Sunday might actually draw more people or viewers?
As a snorefest, this one’s up there with the debate about who kicks off the new season. News flash. It’s one game. There’ll be 206 others played in 2015.
RIGHT ON, RICHO
Ken Hinkley was the AFL Coaches Association's coach of the year for 2013. This season’s winner is obviously still a wide-open field, but if a snap poll were taken now, Alan Richardson would surely have to figure prominently.
Starting in some cases a couple of months behind his peers, the St Kilda coach had some challenges ahead of him when he was appointed.
But a fractured club appears to have united behind the new man very quickly, and the way veterans such as Nick Riewoldt, Lenny Hayes and Leigh Montagna, and kids such as Luke Dunstan, Jack Billings, Jack Newnes, Josh Saunders and Jimmy Webster have responded is instructive.
Richardson’s reputation as a teacher is borne out in the latter group’s continued development. And his appeal to the older hands who could be forgiven for feeling jaded about their football at this stage is self-evident. Oh, the Saints’ 3-2 win-loss ledger isn’t bad, either.
