FIRST we want to acknowledge the tributes paid to Allan Jeans throughout the media. Thursday's newspapers, especially Melbourne's, dedicated page after page to celebrating the life and football career of the revered St Kilda and Hawthorn premiership coach. Jeans deserved every bit of it.
We would also refer you to the extensive tribute we've compiled on afl.com.au.
In other news, the AFL and NRL look set to lock horns on another front - team names.
As the AFL implements an expansion plan that has placed a team on the Gold Coast this season and will place another in western Sydney next year, the NRL has growth plans of its own.
The NRL is currently considering the bids of a host of consortia currently vying for a team licence. One of those is bidding to launch a second Brisbane-based team, which would be the NRL's fourth team in Queensland.
Naturally, that would not make life any easier for the Brisbane Lions and, to a lesser extent, Gold Coast to win their share of the south-east Queensland fan base.
A more immediate fight looms, however. Ironically, it will involve a Victorian club, Essendon. How can the Bombers be dragged into a turf 'war' being waged two states away?
Simple. The prospective Brisbane team wants to be known as the Brisbane Bombers.
Thursday's Courier-Mail ran the new team's proposed logo, which was reportedly lodged with Australia's trade marks authority last week. The name Bombers is emblazoned across the logo's top above a drawing of an old-time fighter pilot, complete with aviator cap and goggles.
Not surprisingly, Essendon greeted the news less than enthusiastically. Chief executive Ian Robson told the Courier-Mail the club would refer the matter to the AFL's lawyers to see whether its intellectual property in the Bombers name was being breached.
"Our club has been around for 130 years and the Bomber name has enormous brand equity as a football club around Australia," Robson said.
"There have been examples of teams co-existing such as the Wests Tigers in rugby league and the Tigers of Richmond, but those Tigers clubs go back a long way in both codes."
AFL football operations general manager Adrian Anderson told The Age the League would investigate the possible breach of Essendon's rights.
The Age said Essendon had confirmed with the AFL that the names Essendon Bombers and Bombers had been registered as trade marks by the AFL.
You can understand Essendon's reluctance to share the Bombers nickname. It's been synonymous with Essendon for as long as most of us can remember.
But it will be interesting to see what happens if the Brisbane team is the successful NRL bidder. Trade mark law is an uncertain beast at the best of times.
Eagles' rise now run of the mill
West Coast's rise from 2010 wooden-spooner to 2011 top-four contender has been well documented.
While many predicted the Eagles would make it back-to-back 'spoons' this year, West Coast coach John Worsfold was quietly confident about his team's prospects.
Even in some of 2010's most trying times, Worsfold said he was confident his playing group had the talent and attitude to not only take the Eagles back up to the ladder's upper reaches, but also to stay there for a sustained stretch.
Worsfold, himself, might have been surprised at how quickly the floundering Eagles of last year have taken flight this season. But Martin Blake points out in Thursday's Age that such sudden transformations are happening more than ever in today's competition.
Although no side in League history has gone from winning the wooden spoon one year to winning the premiership the next - Essendon (1907-08) and Collingwood (1976-77) went from last to runner-up - Blake listed six teams since 1997 that had risen at least 10 places up the ladder. The only team among them to have won a premiership was Adelaide, which climbed from 12th in 1996 to first in 1997.
Two of those teams went from winning the wooden spoon to finishing fourth the next year - Melbourne (1997-98) and the Brisbane Lions (1998-99).
Since 1996, 10 teams have gone from 12th or lower on the ladder to finish fourth or higher the following year. From 1977-95, just six teams ranked third-last or lower managed a similar feat the next season.
Why are such rapid rises more common now?
Blake said it might be because the competition had become more equal under the draft and salary cap, or because teams were now prepared to "give away a season and play the kids". He also said teams often enjoyed a performance spike in the first season of a new coach, such as those enjoyed by Adelaide under Malcolm Blight in 1997, by Melbourne under Neale Daniher in 1998 and by the Lions under Leigh Matthews in 1999.
Daniher told Blake that although rebuilding clubs often had breakthrough years, most often they did so on the back of a core of experienced players. In 1998, Melbourne regained veterans such as Jimmy Stynes, Garry Lyon, Steven Tingay and David Schwarz from injury, he said. And Daniher, now West Coast football operations manager, said the return from injury of Dean Cox, Darren Glass and Daniel Kerr had been crucial to the Eagles' resurgence in 2011.
It's a fascinating trend and one that should give hope to all supporters. If the winged Eagles of 2010 can turn things around so quickly, anything seems possible.
Sub rule bonuses
Rohan Connolly gave the substitute rule a big thumbs up in The Age on Thursday.
Connolly said the AFL had won "a major philosophical battle" over the rule that, since being introduction at the start of the season, had enhanced the game as a spectacle.
Rather than dragging the standard of games down as some feared, Connolly said the increased player fatigue the rule caused had led to an rise in long kicking and high marking, especially in final quarters. Scoring, goalkicking accuracy and kicking efficiency were also at their best in final quarters, Connolly said.
Connolly said statistics to the end of round 16 showed the game had "returned to traditional values" this season. He said long kicking was up 18 per cent on last year and 41 per cent on 2009, handballs were down from a 2010 average of 340 a game to 309, and contested marking had risen 12 per cent on 2010 and 34 per cent on 2005. Connolly also said backward kicks had also dropped from an average of 20 a game in 2010 to 16.5.
Each of these are developments Media Watch wholeheartedly endorses.
In short
Neil Craig will walk before he is pushed out as Adelaide Crows coach, former Crows football operations manager John Reid told The Advertiser. Reid, who was part of the panel that appointed Craig at the end of 2004, acknowledged the Crows would review Craig's position if the club had "a lousy end to the year". But he said Craig would the review such a finish "more severely than anybody". "If Neil thinks that it's just not working for whatever reason … Neil will be the first one, I think, to sum that up," Reid said.
West Coast chief executive Trevor Nisbett has slammed the proposed annuity scheme the AFL Players' Association is pushing for under the current collective bargaining agreement negotiations, The Age's Caroline Wilson reports. Under the plan, footballers would earn retirement payments of $400,000 after five years' service. But Nisbett said the scheme would "go broke" and was an insult to current players who would not benefit from it.
Port Adelaide full-back Alipate Carlile told The Advertiser he had not received a formal offer from Greater Western Sydney and said the "lure" of family would play a big role when he decided his playing future. Carlile said he would consult his family when he visited them in Wangaratta, Victoria, in coming weeks and expected to make a decision soon after. Unfortunately, The Advertiser's online site, AdelaideNow, mistakenly ran a photo of Carlile's teammate Troy Chaplin with this story.
The views in this story are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL
