CBA battle heating up
THE BATTLE between the AFL and the AFL Players' Association over the new collective bargaining agreement escalated on Tuesday evening when the League issued an ultimatum saying that unless agreement between the two parties is reached by Monday, the League would nominate the 2012 Total Player Payment figure on Monday morning, so that clubs can negotiate with certainty during the trade period.

The timing by the League was interesting, with football operations manager Adrian Anderson making the announcement on Tuesday evening while speaking on 3AW's Sports Today program.

It didn't leave the AFLPA with time to respond properly for the Wednesday newspapers, nor for the papers themselves to truly analyse what it all means.

AFLPA chief executive Matt Finnis told the Herald Sun that the timing was a bit "perplexing" because he believed negotiations were proceeding well and that an agreement was on the horizon.

The Age obtained a copy of Anderson's memo to the clubs, which contained some of the AFLPA demands such as business class, exit row or three seats for every two players on flights, no more shared hotel rooms and two Grand Final tickets instead of a reduction to one.

That memo was subsequently published late on Tuesday night on this website.

The Age also raised the spectre of industrial action, without specifying what that might be. And we're not sure what it could be given that the season is over and the awards are done. Will they boycott pre-season training? Will there even be pre-season training?

Both the League and the players will have closely monitored the NFL's recently-completed CBA negotiations. While protracted, they proceeded at a fast clip as the hard deadline of the new season approached. Then, just before they were supposed to have been completed, the NFL threw in an item which, for a day or two, threatened to derail the whole process. Things then got back on track and the season started on time, but the negotiations here are tracking at a similar pace.

The only thing now is, we don't have the games to distract us.

Hawks pass up son of a gun
The AFL Combine is under way, with Tuesday the introductory day and the start of the medical screenings and other types of testing.

It is the time of the year when journalists such as Emma Quayle start to shine and on Wednesday she profiled Tom Curran, the Victorian key position player who is the son of former Hawk premiership player Peter Curran, and who held high hopes of being picked by his father's former club with a father-son pick.

His hopes were even higher when Hawthorn's list manager, Graham Wright, called Curran to say he was popping over for a chat. But his hopes were dashed when Wright cut to the chase, saying that the Hawks were holding on to their first pick (no.24 overall) because they were planning to be active during trade week and needed to keep the pick in case they needed it for a trade.

Certainly, the Hawks won't have any chance at securing Adelaide's homesick forward Jack Gunston, if they have already committed their first draft pick elsewhere.

Wright also told Curran that in any event, the Hawks didn't rate him in their top 45 players going into next month's draft. Ouch.

Curran is on crutches at the Combine, so can't take part in all the testing. But with the Hawks out of the way, the interviews started on Tuesday, first Sydney and Carlton, with more to come.

The Swans are interesting. They extracted Josh Kennedy - the third generation of Hawthorn's most treasured family - from the club and made him a star. Could they do the same with Curran?

It would appear he is open to the possibility. "I guess all I can do now is do my best to get drafted, turn myself into a good AFL player and hopefully prove them wrong," he said.

Lions circle Crows' Tippett
Trade week is officially next week, but the Combine represents a chance for the clubs to get together and make a head start on next week's AFL meat market.

Mitch Clark to Fremantle and Jonathan Griffin to Port Adelaide are being talked about as certainties, while Gunston should get to the Hawks.

But the interesting move could be Adelaide's Kurt Tippett back to Queensland, but not to Gold Coast. The Suns already have a tight salary cap and would struggle to accommodate him, but the Lions are laden with draft picks and cap room, and could make the play to get the homesick Queenslander back, according to the Herald Sun's Jon Ralph.

''He is a Queenslander, he is obviously an exceptional athlete and he is becoming a terrific player," said Lions football manager, Dean Warren.

''With Jonathan Brown entering veteran status over the next couple of years he would be a perfect succession plan for Brownie. We need to explore it.''

Power misses out, again
Dean Bailey is returning to South Australia as a senior assistant to Brenton Sanderson. But the Adelaide Advertiser is portraying it as a win for the Crows and a blow for Port Adelaide, where Bailey was an assistant coach before getting the senior job at Melbourne.

The paper reports that Port Adelaide was keen to bring Bailey back to Alberton and to surround coach Matthew Primus with other another experienced former assistant, Phillip Walsh, now at West Coast. But the Power have missed out on both and are still without some seasoned assistants to work with Primus next season.

In short
- Carlton coach Brett Ratten has guaranteed a top-four finish in 2012, according to The Age.  It puts a bit of pressure on the players, but he also didn't spare the membership department, saying the club needed 50,000 members next year as well.

- Geelong skipper Cameron Ling is set to retire, and might join the Channel Seven commentary team. Sports News First had the story on Tuesday night and it was in all of Wednesday's papers.

- Mike Sheahan's annual post-season top 50 will be finalised at the end of the week, but players he rated 31-50 appeared on the Herald Sun website on Wednesday. Notable among those were Steven Milne (50), Brett Deledio (47), Leon Davis (45), Brendon Goddard (42) and Luke Hodge (39).

- As part of his year of getting his life back in order, former Carlton and Brisbane Lions full-forward Brendan Fevola will be walking the Kokoda Track later this month with Geelong premiership players Steve Johnson and Josh Hunt. Fevola told the Herald Sun that he feels like he is in a good place right now.

The views in this story are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.