R4 tips

This week’s winners, assuming I’m right, of course, will be:

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

15 winners so far. A bit behind early, but I’ll get there.

Round Four

Jared Brennan comes in for Albert Proud, while Jamie Charman’s in for the unlucky Matthew Leuenberger. The Pies are not necessarily disadvantaged by the tribunal-enforced loss of Cloke and Maxwell by the inclusion of Rocca and Goldsack.

Rocca certainly has his good days but I’ve never been convinced by his play; all too often when he’s called on to kick an important goal he fails to take the opportunity. But there’s no doubt he’s an imposing figure and he’ll be set on a strong showing at the Gabba.

In Brisbane there’s a growing and palpable sense that the Lions are building something. Against the Swans it felt like the players are actually starting to enjoy themselves in a way that hasn’t been obvious since 2002.

When Leigh Matthews took over in 1999, something took hold of the playing group. Quite quickly they’d been moulded into a strong finals-bound team after a despondent 1998 season. The change isn’t as stark this time – we don’t have as far to come as we did that year – but nevertheless we seem to be getting somewhere, and a win over the league’s most hated side could only increase the momentum.

And a Friday night match! It’s great that the Lions are going to be on the big national stage, and it means prime-time coverage on Seven. The Seven programmers must be grinding their teeth. Hard luck guys. Last week I experimented with taking my six-year-old son to the whole match, which frankly was less than successful. It’s a hobby-horse of mine, but give us some day games next year please! As a result I’ll only be attending until half-time. So if the Lions are down at half-time and you see me leaving, it’s because of that, OK?

Speaking as a former Pie myself, there’s nothing I like more than a win over this side, even if I have to watch the second half from home. Go Lions!

Three weeks in

Since last I wrote, rather too long ago, the Lions have defeated West Coast, lost to Carlton and returned to the Gabba to despatch the Swans for the first time since my son was a year old.

The signs are all good. Given we won just one quarter against West Coast I found that victory a bit unconvincing, but we put in a fighting performance against the resurgent Blues despite snoozing for a bit over a quarter.

The win over Sydney was most satisfying however. These guys have been touching us up for years now, so to put them behind us was great. The skills shown by the boys was a marked improvement on a month ago, all the more remarkable given the atrociously slippery conditions.

I was shocked however to hear of the passing of Rob Dickson and his son in South Africa. I'd not heard the news prior to the announcement at the game, and I was dumbfounded. He played just the two games for the Bears but he was a major part of the Bears' 1991 reserves premiership (I still have the video) and he seemed to really embrace the Gold Coast/Queensland lifestyle. And of course he'd found a niche in video production which produced some wonderful work; I'm still halfway through watching his The Essence of the Game and am enjoying the way it casts a spotlight on footy at every level.

A dreadful tragedy. Vale Dicko.

But the cycle of life rolls on, the season continues, and Collingwood awaits.

Round 1 tips

I completely forgot to list my tips for the first round for posterity. The round, with my tips in bold:

Richmond v Carlton (one down already!)

Hawthorn v Geelong

Collingwood v Adelaide

Brisbane v West Coast

St Kilda v Sydney

Melbourne v North Melbourne

Port Adelaide v Essendon

Fremantle v Western Bulldogs

AFL broadcast deal already outdated

The season is upon us with Richmond and Carlton slugging it out tomorrow night in front of a sellout crowd at the 'G. And in a great move for Victorian footy fans, Ten is showing it live into Melbourne.

In Queensland, however, it's a different story. Free-to-air viewers won't get to see it until 11.15pm, and as it's not a public holiday on Friday the viewing audience will be in the asterisks.

Okay, it has to be acknowledged that we in Queensland are getting a much better deal now than in the days of the Fox Footy Channel. Fox Footy was prevented from showing Friday night footy live into the northern states under the terms of the then broadcasting agreement, and it was only due to a public outcry that the agreement was hastily (and begrudgingly, in Nine's case) adjusted to allow Fox Footy to show the matches from 9pm.

Prior to that, Seven's coverage was rarely started prior to 11.30pm, unless it was a Brisbane game in which case you were treated to a match from about 10pm.

Now, however, Queensland gets six or seven matches live on average, with same-day replays of the other two. If you don't have Foxtel, you can get three live games a week and same day replays of two others.

But here's where the funny business starts. Seven Qld prefers to avoid splitting its signal as much as possible, so Queensland and NSW always get the same Sunday afternoon match, regardless of whether that match is live on Foxtel anyway. So this weekend we're being treated to a Sydney match simulcast on Fox Sports AND Seven, with the latter taking the Fox Sports feed and crossing back to their own studio at halftime and fulltime.

So what happens to the match that Seven was supposed to show on Sunday afternoon? Well, Seven's contract specifies that they have to show their contracted matches either live or a same-day replay. So you'll find the Sunday game they were meant to show being scheduled at 11.59pm Sunday night. Yes, a minute to midnight. Can you get any more cynical?

But of course, we're now living in a digital, multi-channeling age. It should be possible for both Seven and Ten to show matches on Seven HD or the new ONE channel live, therefore enabling them to maximise their ratings (those Elvis movies are great, aren't they?) and still allow AFL followers in the northern states to get their live footy fix on FTA, without making them stay up until the wee hours.

Think again. The Federal Government's anti-siphoning legislation, originally set up to make sure that networks couldn't buy up sports rights and not use them, and also prevent Foxtel from buying everything, actually prevents the networks from showing regular-season AFL matches live on a multi-channel platform without them having first been shown (or simulcast) on the standard channel.

Is that not completely mad? The Government's been crying out for ways to accelerate the switchover to digital television for years. Here's a sure-fire way to drive sports fans to go digital, and it's not permitted. It's a complete absurdity.

Over the last few weeks, Seven has been showing NAB Cup games live on Seven HD into the northern states. If not for this misguided, outdated legislation, this could be happening again.

If this seems as stupid to you as it does to me, contact your local Federal MP! The anti-siphoning legislation needs to be updated for the digital age. There's absolutely no good reason why footy fans in the northern states should be denied live or near-live coverage of every match and it's about time this was recognised.

Nothing to be Proud of

AAP is reporting that Albert Proud will have to wait until April 14 for sentencing in his trial on one count of assault occasioning bodily harm, to which he plead guilty. The maximum penalty is seven years' gaol.

Given the controversy surrounding NRL players at the moment (and much of the last two or three years), it would be nice to be able to stand up and say that AFL players are above that sort of thing. However it seems that footballers are footballers. The best we can say is that the problem seems to be more endemic in the NRL, but that's not much of a comfort.

It's particularly disappointing for me as I'd taken a great interest in Proud in recent years. I was delighted when his hard work to be drafted paid off, and even happier that the Lions had got him. Frankly I feel a bit betrayed as a Lions supporter and member.

Practice match v Richmond @ Carrara

lions.com.au has published the squads for Friday night's praccy against Richmond at Gold Coast Stadium:

Brisbane Lions unplaced squad of 24 players:
1. Mitch Clark
2. Albert Proud
4. Travis Johnstone
5. Scott Harding
6. Luke Power
7. Jed Adcock
8. Tim Notting
10. Daniel Rich
11. Justin Sherman
12. James Hawksley
14. Lachlan Henderson
15. Matt Tyler
16. Jonathan Brown
23. Matthew Leuenberger
24. Joel Patfull
26. Joel Macdonald
28. Troy Selwood
31. James Polkinghorne
32. Cheynee Stiller
33. Rhan Hooper
34. Bradd Dalziell
35. Michael Rischitelli
36. Daniel Bradshaw
39. Josh Drummond

Good to see the return of Notting and Sherman. I was pretty critical of Sherman last season, but his NAB Cup efforts were quite impressive. Hopefully he can put a good season together. Richmond's squad looks close to full-strength, on the other hand.

Richmond unplaced squad of 24 players:
2. Will Thursfield
3. Brett Deledio
4. Andrew Raines
5. Troy Simmonds
7. Nathan Brown
8. Jack Riewoldt
10. Shane Edwards
11. Joel Bowden
12. Matthew Richardson
13. Jordan McMahon
16. Luke McGuane
17. Chris Newman
18. Alex Rance
20. Mitch Morton
21. Shane Tuck
23. Daniel Jackson
25. Jay Schulz
30. Richard Tambling
32. Ben Cousins
35. Matt White
40. Kelvin Moore
41. Nathan Foley
43. Andrew Browne
44. Angus Graham

The inclusion of Cousins, and particularly Richardson (who spent most of last season proving me wrong about him) indicates how seriously the Tigers are taking this road trip, I think.

I won't be going. My Carrara-attending days are behind me I think. But I hope to be attending the Open Day at the Gabba the following morning with the wife and kids. Sounds like fun!