P
Peter P
Guest
A guest at the preliminary finals was a Prof Tomlinson of Sports Studies, Brighton Uni, UK. You may have heard him on ABC Grandstand. It was his first experience of live footy and his view - "very impressive". What impressed him was the size (of playing field and teams), scale (long kicking to short close in work, ground play to aerial skills) and the amazing "multi-skills" of the players - more than any other team sport - the speed, stamina and total athleticism needed.
We have a truly great game. It has got better not worse over the last 20 years. Today it is fast constant running. Team work is absolutely vital, passing over distances up to 50 metres is frequently pin-point and the game flows so much more.
But if you think it was better in the days of king hits and quarterly shirt-fronts - just stay up and watch the old finals in the all night footy marathon next GF eve. Rarely does a pass hit its target, the game was much more pack to pack, kick and hope, and in comparison a far less exciting game to watch. It was all we knew then and it seemed good enough. But neither was there the competition from a hundred global sports.
Footy demands speed (if you don't have it in your legs you gotta have it in your hands and wit), stamina (to see Woewodin run and run the lines against Carlton in the prelim. final was to see something memorable), skill (more than any other game that narrows its skill to a kicking or hand to hand process), and strength. Yes strength - to break a Liberatore tackle, to grasp the ball away from the other hands in the flying pack, to hold your ground against a Mick Martyn and take the ball in one hand, to tackle and hold a charging Dean Wallis.
But you don't need or have strength in your head or your neck when an elbow or a charging hip comes your way. Nobody does and nobody ever will. Forget the big hits that maim. Go watch boxing or Rugby League if you like. If you get hit enough in the head you'll have trouble remembering your sporting deeds anyway.
The Rugby codes have problems with quadriplegia and repetitive concussion, even soccer players who head the ball a lot are now known to suffer mild brain damage - though much of it may be from head clashes causing concussion rather than the soccer ball per se. Aussie Rules Football can rise above all this and be the most athletic and sublime game of all. That's not turning it into basketball, but the game of speed, stamina, enourmous scale and multi-skilled athleticism that so impressed the professor from the old country.
We have a truly great game. It has got better not worse over the last 20 years. Today it is fast constant running. Team work is absolutely vital, passing over distances up to 50 metres is frequently pin-point and the game flows so much more.
But if you think it was better in the days of king hits and quarterly shirt-fronts - just stay up and watch the old finals in the all night footy marathon next GF eve. Rarely does a pass hit its target, the game was much more pack to pack, kick and hope, and in comparison a far less exciting game to watch. It was all we knew then and it seemed good enough. But neither was there the competition from a hundred global sports.
Footy demands speed (if you don't have it in your legs you gotta have it in your hands and wit), stamina (to see Woewodin run and run the lines against Carlton in the prelim. final was to see something memorable), skill (more than any other game that narrows its skill to a kicking or hand to hand process), and strength. Yes strength - to break a Liberatore tackle, to grasp the ball away from the other hands in the flying pack, to hold your ground against a Mick Martyn and take the ball in one hand, to tackle and hold a charging Dean Wallis.
But you don't need or have strength in your head or your neck when an elbow or a charging hip comes your way. Nobody does and nobody ever will. Forget the big hits that maim. Go watch boxing or Rugby League if you like. If you get hit enough in the head you'll have trouble remembering your sporting deeds anyway.
The Rugby codes have problems with quadriplegia and repetitive concussion, even soccer players who head the ball a lot are now known to suffer mild brain damage - though much of it may be from head clashes causing concussion rather than the soccer ball per se. Aussie Rules Football can rise above all this and be the most athletic and sublime game of all. That's not turning it into basketball, but the game of speed, stamina, enourmous scale and multi-skilled athleticism that so impressed the professor from the old country.