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AFL broadcast deal already outdated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!

Start the countdown...

17 days to go before the Lions-Eagles game...

Welcome to the new blog

Here I am. The show must go on.

Hi - I'm Aslan. You might remember me from such blogs as the Superfooty Brisbane Lions site. Or as The Brain of Morbius from BigFooty or the old Lionised site, now a few years departed.

I spent the last twelve months or so writing for Superfooty, and greatly enjoyed my time. Sadly, the people at the Herald-Sun who manage that site have decided to go with an online forum this year instead of a series of supporter blogs. My opinion? It's a mistake. There are heaps of online forums (I used to say "fora" but have since found it's unnecessary, so take that grammar freaks), and the Superfooty forum is unlikely to find much of an audience. 

I was invited to become a moderator of their forum but decided against it. I've been down that path and don't especially want to repeat the exercise.

So to keep my eye in, I'll be writing my own blog for a while. No deadlines, no expectations, no limits. I'll post about the Lions and the general footy scene, about Queensland sport, music, tv and whatever else I happen to be interested in at the time. Riveting stuff! Well, we'll see I guess.

Oh, and do excuse the rather generic feel to the site design; at some stage I'll look at giving it a fresh coat of paint and maybe some new wallpaper, but this will do for now.

Join me won't you?

First post

The first post of the blog! What's this all about, eh? 

All will be revealed...