The issue of Peter Bell and his travel arrangements has interested me from before the season even started. Could it be possible that a player could play for a team but live a three hour drive away? Not only that but is it really fair on the other players who go to training sessions and meetings everyday or has Bell earned enough credits in the bank to have some leniency shown? Personally I don’t think it’s particularly good for team building. Firstly I think to be an AFL footballer, it is a full time job, one that you are required to attend training sessions, physiotherapy sessions, meetings with the coach etc. It is not a side project to bigger business interests that may take place elsewhere. It is also a team game, one that is built on the mateship with your teammates, giving you confidence when you play with them. Not one in which you dont get to associate with one of your teammates for most of the week. I also dont understand why Bell had to carry out his business interests this year, I know the club asked him to play on but wouldn’t it be important that he concentrates on his football and move to Geraldton the following year. It is certainly a difficult situation to guage and I suppose the only people that truly know whether the situation is working is Bell and the Dockers but I certainly don’t think it is the ideal situation for an AFL player. Which poses the question, should AFL players actually have to be at a football club full time and could this set a precedent for more extreme situations?
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What has happened to Western Australian football? It must be the question that is running through the minds of Eagles and Dockers fans. Only five weeks ago, most of the top football commentators had both teams in their top eight, both to play a role in this year’s finals. Now at the end of round five, the Eagles and Dockers have only two wins between them and look anything but playing finals football. So what has happened? From my point of view, the Eagles were always going to struggle in 2008. While it is an awful excuse, an team in which players of the calibre of Ben Cousins and Chris Judd are removed are going to struggle. While Kerr is still brilliant, constant tagging of him is going to be his downfall. While Andrew Embley is struggling with illness his form before that has been nothing to rave about and Chad Fletcher could probably do with a few weeks playing for Subiaco to bring him back down to Earth. And while Priddis had a brilliant first year in 2007, expecting him to carry the brunt of midfield pressure is just too high expectations on someone still getting used to AFL football. As for the forward line at West Coast, it has never been anything to rave about, even in it’s premiership year in 2006. Ashley Hansen struggles with consistency, as does Quentin Lynch, while the crumbing is left to the midfielders who are also expected to carry the workload on the rest of the ground as well. Maybe the rebuilding starts from now but for the very loyal and passionate Eagles fans, it’s going to be a rather sudden fall from grace if they don’t particpate in this year’s finals series.
The Dockers are different altogether. There will be no fall from grace for their fans who still turn up for their games every week. There has to be credit given to those who still pay their membership every year when they seem to hand out the same result year in year out. They are a hard team in which to pinpoint their problems. On paper, they have a team and have done for some years now in which they should be winning games of football and particpating heavily in September action. Instead they lose the games they should win and finish in the bottom half of the ladder. Has it got something to do with the culture or is this just a team that doens’t blend together? For many years they have blamed coaches, believing the answer is in finding a new person to guide the team. Instead I think they need to look at the personel on the field. They constantly recruit big name players who fail to deliver when they cross to Western Australian. The latest one being, Chris Tarrant. For the amount of money he is being paid, he should be doing alot more than he is doing. While Mark Harvey continues to defend Tarrant, even he must be skeptical about his form. The Dockers now have the oldest list in the AFL and nothing to show for it, in terms of trophies. It’s time to start recruiting some young players. Pavlich can’t carry that team forever and if he was ever to leave, they would be a team that would struggle to sometimes kick a decent score. Another shining light is Rhys Palmer, an exciting addition to an otherwise unexciting team. Let’s hope he provides some of what they are looking for. Otherwise Western Australian football could be in for a very disappointing year.
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It has been the main talking point in households across Australia for the whole week – Barry Hall’s punch or “mind freeze” on Brent Staker last Saturday night. Debate raged all week on what should Hall’s punishment be. As an Eagles fan, I have am slightly biased on the matter but after talking to other people who didn’t support the Eagles I realised that my anger was almost as great as theirs. Hall deserved to go for at least eight to ten weeks and the tribunals punishment of seven weeks could be classed as soft. With the punishment being made all that more softer, considering hall could miss up to six weeks with a broken wrist. His suspension should at least start when he is fit and ready to play and no time before. Especially if you consider what his punishment would be if he punched someone like that if he was just someone in society, instead of seven weeks rest from his job he would have been charged with something much more serious such as assault. Which poses the question, should incidents that take place on the sporting field be classified as a criminal offence or should we put it down to white line fever and accept that incidents of violence may occur in our beloved game?
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