Interested to hear some of the unpopular opinions people have and why.
For me:
1. I like Andrew Demitriou. I believe he has done a good job developing the game's brand. I like his no nonsense attitude in interviews.
2. I believe the games rules should be reviewed and sometimes changed. Players get better, coaches develop new tactics and strategies and so the game changes. Having a good institution to review the state of the game as a spectacle is healthy.
3.Lance Franklin isn't in the top few players in the league. That's not to say he couldn't become the very best player in the AFL. He misses too many easy goals. Anyone who has played sport knows that a failure to reward effort is deflating. He needs to become more accurate. This goes for all forwards - Kurt Tippett, Nick Riewoldt and our Lindsay Thomas of course.
Your Franklin comment ? It seems to me that goal kicking is worse than its ever been. Here we are late 2016 and no one can seal a goal without panic, or hand off, or short pass to someone else.
But my unpopular opinion mainly is and has been the expansion. And the rule fiddling. And the lack of anyone on BF with a serious opinion about it, without sarcasm and perhaps a comment.
But mainly the rule fiddling fits into expansion. I believe firmly that we have a diluted competition for the very very hard game that Australian Rules is.
It has become much harder now with two more teams (2 more squads of more than 22 players) to be able to pick up a good amount of promising players.
There maybe some who make it, but some who aren't good enough, there maybe some who are great but won't commit, there maybe some who get injured and never start.
And now with all that going on we have to fill two full squads of what? 35 to 40 players? For elite football in two new clubs!!!???
And we have regular thrashing of several teams per week this year. Real level playing fields, hey?
I think some of the rule bending and tactics like pack wrestling which has over taken the game and called stoppages!!! I think the rules have been tampered with to get the less skillfull players into the game. Its why we see very occasionally two champions go head to head , and screamers , the high marks, can you remember Knights and Van Der Haar swapping speckies a few decades back. Where is that now , one or two maybe three a game.
It is still there but not like it was.
And to the youngies that don't remember real champion "footballers"??? Its what I mean, when I say, you don't know what you missed!
And the AFL had a plan for corporatising and destroying the game as we know it , since the Presidents handed over the game to a pack of suits.
For TV dollars.
That's my unpopular opinions, any one else?
You never know someone might slow down the game and give us back a little but of Australian Rules Football, and I've been saying that longer than Jacko did on TV last week.
Maybe the girls who will be smaller and perhaps as strong and fit, but not as fast as the men, might give us some good skilled footy, like the NT boys who play open skillfull fast footy, watch it on FoxFooty, and then turn on the wrestling match for the so called elite game!
We all know some games are great, I remember when all games were great. There used to be a thrashing here and there , but few and far between , there was always the lower clubs but they all came around again , now its a massacre at least in 2 or 3 games sometimes more games than that a week.
And the QLD game is nearly destroyed, its a tragedy. Look at Richmond how many years to the top for them, donkeys'... that's how many.
And the AFL HAS A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD ????????? There bite into that lot BF folk?