The LED boards have been proved the farce they were always going to be, writes Mark Robinson
Clubs won’t publicly say the new LED bench boards are a joke because they don’t want to embarrass headquarters. They don’t have to, the AFL has already embarrassed itself, writes Mark Robinson.
Mark Robinson
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The electronic sideline boards are the farce they were always going to be.
Some clubs are being polite in their distaste of this latest radical insertion into Australian Rules, for many probably think they are a joke.
They won’t say that, of course, because they don’t want to publicly embarrass headquarters.
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And they don’t have to because the AFL has embarrassed itself over this mess.
That they cost $90,000 — how many Sherrins would that buy for junior footy clubs around Australia? — and the players can’t see them in the sun shows a lack of insight from headquarters.
That’s surprising, really, because footy boss Steve Hocking and his comrades gave 12 months to researching and trialling the rules being introduced for this season.
The rules are another story and AFL great Mick Malthouse this week let it be known how disenchanted he is that coaches have partly lost the power to coach on game day.
The mechanics aside, the LED boards were the trade off for runners being booted from the ground until a goal was scored.
They weren’t compulsory for clubs, but that’s also beside the point.
The AFL declared in the pre-season the new rules would allow the players to play more instinctive football.
There was space to create, starting positions to help kick goals and the rules would encourage coaches to be daring and creative with their strategies. All fine ideas.
But they ballsed-up the LED boards concoction.
How can there be instinctive footy when players would be required to continuously look at the interchange bench to see if their number was alight, a sign to come off the ground?
Or look to see what symbol was there to enact on a pre-planned strategy, as has been suggested as a possible use by the boards?
Some commentators thought that was terrific addition to the game.
How exciting, they said. Um, no.
Sideline message boards are used in soccer and American football, professional and college, to name a few sports.
Why do we have to continue to try to follow international sports?
Surely we can keep our indigenous game unique and traditional, while at the same time making adjustments to the rules to try to ensure the uniqueness of our combatants is enhanced and encouraged.
Let’s not give the players more freedom to perform and then swipe it back with sideline electronic boards instructing them how to think.
Coaches like power. Quiet rightly they need that power to extract the best from individuals and from their teams.
The loss of the runner, except for after goals, has decreased that power.
The only good that can come from the ramshackle introduction of the electronics and the reduction of the all-important runners is more coaches, in recovering that power, will hopefully coach from the bench.
You’d rather see them down there guiding and instructing their players, which is their gift, and not some quasi AFL-introduced lollipop man holding up a bloody sign.
Originally published as The LED boards have been proved the farce they were always going to be, writes Mark Robinson
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