Linked in the sense that clubs are too risk averse. But we can't change that. League just needs to even things out so a kid from the back of Burke isn't (comparatively) riskier than a kid from LA or Cork or Dubbo.He seemed to be focusing in the style of the game than the racial problems that were the focus of the article.Maybe they are linked?
No ovals at the Back of Bourke
That excuses just about any unfairness in any system for any reason, Diggs.Nor is it (entirely) about the clubs. It’s their decision not to take a big gamble. And if the system as it stands forces all these kids to be a massive gamble, this isn’t going to improve.
Do you think we’re currently finding the outback kids who are able to make it?
It should be the situation that a kid from bumfuck nowhere, NT only has to put in as much desire & work as his counterpart from Melbourne or Perth. It’s clearly not. It probably won’t ever be. But we should be trying to make it as close a gap as possible.
Put this in context that the AFL spend millions each and every year taking a few dozen filthy rich coaches and executives and a few journoes on a nice junket to the Super Bowl and a few NBA games. Which then allows them to discover such closet guarded secrets as “they play it at night” and “they have pre-game entertainment” and “they have big training facilities”. Money well spent.
We’re spending millions on getting Irishmen and now Yanks over here. Let alone the tens of millions sunk into QLD and NSW footy. The only money issue is what to do with it all.
But they cut a measly $50k of funding to broadcast top end footy across the top end. Pocket change. They apparently don’t give a flyer about footy in the NT, witness the falling standards of the NT sides in the U18s. And less and less top end kids getting drafted.
I can’t imagine how it feels for a talented, dedicated kid running around up there to have your name crossed off because your folks couldn’t travel hundreds of kms for under 14s rep footy three times a week - but I can’t imagine it would engender hope and encourage your dedication. I’d probably take it as a kick in the nads.The top end could do with a few of those shekels. Make it easier for kids to get to rep footy and prove themselves capable of stepping up the grade - and hence a better candidate for clubs to draft. And a few rule changes to make it easier for clubs to look at these kids would help. Don’t mind the zone idea at all. Helps redress the imbalance the NSW/QLD clubs now have, too.
Again, clubs aren’t stoopid. They invest in the areas that they believe will offer them a return. They believe that Ireland and elsewhere offer better value for money. Perhaps they’ve accepted that the cultural gap that northern players face is too great to overcome. The growing list of players who haven’t come to terms with the demands of AFL life supports this.In summary money talks. And there’s a good reason why the AFL isn’t investing in these areas.
I can’t even fathom how it’s less of a risk to grab someone who has literally never played the game and teach them not only to play it, but at the elite level, than teaching someone who can most definitely play it, how to settle in the big smoke. It’s almost as if someone at the AFL is having the trading places dollar bet.
Hence why I think the only sticking point being the list spot needs to be taking away.
Hear hear
Linked in the sense that clubs are too risk averse. But we can't change that. League just needs to even things out so a kid from the back of Burke isn't (comparatively) riskier than a kid from LA or Cork or Dubbo.He seemed to be focusing in the style of the game than the racial problems that were the focus of the article.Maybe they are linked?
I mean every player who wants to play in the AFL sign their lives and rights over, regardless.
I think we should just keep building our relationship with the island. Sponsor juniors. Pick up some more players for the VFL team. Do a week long training camp there over the preseason and play an exhibition match against the Tiwi side.
We already have some (not sure how much) input with the Tiwi bombers. Obviously we get nothing from that.
OK, it was a point not very well made, backed up with a poor example.The AFL can be very good at things like this if they want to. Cf the kids coming out of NSW/QLD (OK the clubs are officially in charge of half a state each but all 4 are just extensions of the league, in every facet), or the kids coming out of Ireland since the AFL took it over about 6? years ago.Where I was going was, I don’t think the AFL should put their grubby tentacles into it.
Get someone who actually gives a stuff, and not someone who is going to read what to do out of a manual.
And the best place organisation to do something about it is us.
I think we should just keep building our relationship with the island. Sponsor juniors. Pick up some more players for the VFL team. Do a week long training camp there over the preseason and play an exhibition match against the Tiwi side.
OK, it was a point not very well made, backed up with a poor example.Where I was going was, I don’t think the AFL should put their grubby tentacles into it.
Get someone who actually gives a stuff, and not someone who is going to read what to do out of a manual.
And the best place organisation to do something about it is us.
agreed no-one wants the AFL to do anything. We just want them to pay for it with all the money they make and take off us.
OK, it was a point not very well made, backed up with a poor example.Where I was going was, I don’t think the AFL should put their grubby tentacles into it.
Get someone who actually gives a stuff, and not someone who is going to read what to do out of a manual.
And the best place organisation to do something about it is us.agreed no-one wants the AFL to do anything. We just want them to pay for it with all the money they make and take off us.
OK, it was a point not very well made, backed up with a poor example.
Where I was going was, I don’t think the AFL should put their grubby tentacles into it.
Get someone who actually gives a stuff, and not someone who is going to read what to do out of a manual.
And the best place organisation to do something about it is us.
yeah I think its the clubs, the afl has shat the bed with it tbh
if we got the Tiwi Islands we could add Tippa to our list tomorrow
Love your work, Mero, but really think that’s as stupid a post as you’ve ever made.
I reckon the current batch of kids from the NT probably grew up watching guys of 5, 10 years ago who did get drafted and had reasonable careers - Wonaemirri, Riolis, even Tambling, etc. Those guys certainly weren’t robots, nor were they boring, they were just better coached and fitter.
The kids of 2015 would be fairly aware their careers are a non starter with things as they are, going into every champs game with a fair chance of a 100 point smashing. I reckon they would be fairly aware that the NSW and QLD kids who they used to beat are now the ones who, with a lot of AFL investment dollars, are doing the thumping. I reckon they’ve picked up that those other kids are fitter and more organised and have better coaching and that that contributes.
The assumption that they don’t want that? Seems a bit stupid to me.
The assumption that getting fitter and better at sticking to a plan makes you somehow worse? Cobblers.
I'm not against the idea of investing. I just don't think the AFL is the best fit. I've worked for the AFL in development and it's basically structured so footballers can go to clinics and teach kids of varying ages the type of things that everyone else is doing. Auskick is awesome because every dad in Australia can pick up the DVDs, the manual and run the sessions. However, when it comes to developing older kids, they're going to do the same thing, and it's less beneficial, and more conducive to producing robots. Everything comes out of a book, so that the bloke that just finished 100 games can walk into his first ever real job and not have to think about what it is he has to do. So we'll see kids come into the Calder Cannons Footy Factory and the Eastern Ranges Footy Factory and become like everyone else. And if the AFL step in, the NT Thunder Footy Factory. Because they're taught the things that players do in the AFL. Case in point. Shaun Edwards. Closest thing we've had to Andrew Lovett since Andrew Lovett. And yet he couldn't get a game until he showed a defensive side to his game. In other words weed out every bit of uniqueness he brings and make him like everyone else. They might thrown money at the problem, but the AFL judge success based on what they've invested, not on what comes out of it. From my experience, people at the AFL run programs like these so they can put on their resume that they ran programs like these.If a club, however, invested into an area, even perhaps with AFL money, and with a guarantee of cherry picking players, they could appoint someone from the club, but from that area, and work with them at a more personal level. And I think we would be well placed to be that club. Get Sheedy, Long, Rioli, Lovett-Murray involved and see what sort of difference we could make.
I was gonna play AFL but they wanted me to get fit enough and I was like back off my uniqueness you robot factory.
I’m not against the idea of investing.
I just don’t think the AFL is the best fit.
I’ve worked for the AFL in development and it’s basically structured so footballers can go to clinics and teach kids of varying ages the type of things that everyone else is doing.
Auskick is awesome because every dad in Australia can pick up the DVDs, the manual and run the sessions.
However, when it comes to developing older kids, they’re going to do the same thing, and it’s less beneficial, and more conducive to producing robots. Everything comes out of a book, so that the bloke that just finished 100 games can walk into his first ever real job and not have to think about what it is he has to do.
So we’ll see kids come into the Calder Cannons Footy Factory and the Eastern Ranges Footy Factory and become like everyone else. And if the AFL step in, the NT Thunder Footy Factory.
Because they’re taught the things that players do in the AFL.
Case in point. Shaun Edwards.
Closest thing we’ve had to Andrew Lovett since Andrew Lovett.
And yet he couldn’t get a game until he showed a defensive side to his game.
In other words weed out every bit of uniqueness he brings and make him like everyone else.
They might thrown money at the problem, but the AFL judge success based on what they’ve invested, not on what comes out of it.
From my experience, people at the AFL run programs like these so they can put on their resume that they ran programs like these.
If a club, however, invested into an area, even perhaps with AFL money, and with a guarantee of cherry picking players, they could appoint someone from the club, but from that area, and work with them at a more personal level. And I think we would be well placed to be that club. Get Sheedy, Long, Rioli, Lovett-Murray involved and see what sort of difference we could make.
Is the risk that if the AFL intervene earlier in the NT etc and start implementing the processes/skills etc required to make it in today's AFL, that the flair and excitement we are after would just be removed at an early age and all players turn into TAC clones?The risk would be that they waste a little bit of money which would only improve the game and some kids’ lives and career prospects, which they could give to someone rich. That would be a tragedy.
PR consultants need money too you know.Imagine if Peter Gordon had to pay for his own flights, tickets, hotel rooms, champagne and caviar on the next junket? Poverty!
Is the risk that if the AFL intervene earlier in the NT etc and start implementing the processes/skills etc required to make it in today's AFL, that the flair and excitement we are after would just be removed at an early age and all players turn into TAC clones?The risk would be that they waste a little bit of money which would only improve the game and some kids’ lives and career prospects, which they could give to someone rich. That would be a tragedy.
PR consultants need money too you know.
Imagine if Peter Gordon had to pay for his own flights, tickets, hotel rooms, champagne and caviar on the next junket? Poverty!
Is the risk that if the AFL intervene earlier in the NT etc and start implementing the processes/skills etc required to make it in today's AFL, that the flair and excitement we are after would just be removed at an early age and all players turn into TAC clones?The risk would be that they waste a little bit of money which would only improve the game and some kids’ lives and career prospects, which they could give to someone rich. That would be a tragedy.
He seemed to be focusing in the style of the game than the racial problems that were the focus of the article.
Maybe they are linked?
Avoid him like a virulent strain of herpes. Which he's probably got.
And would be happy to give you.
He seemed to be focusing in the style of the game than the racial problems that were the focus of the article.