My two ‘millennial’ daughters will occasionally accuse me of being a grumpy old fossil.

I’ve been involved in footy since I was five years old and it puts me in a unique position to provide an insight into how much the game has changed.

There’s been a plethora of developments and evolution within the game especially over the last 30 years, some of which that have been ground-breaking whilst others I’ve struggled with personally. These are some of the pluses and minuses that have been top of mind recently:

Mud -If you played in Victoria, or regional centres in NSW in particular, it was inevitable that mud would be a part of your winter weekend. To play in mud required a different skill set and it opened up advantages for slower, stockier types with a lower centre of gravity. St Kilda notoriously would put the sprinklers on before a home game at Moorabbin providing dream conditions for hard inside midfielders such as Cunningham and Burns to relish. Take a glance at this game from the early 80’s, full of champions. The AFL wouldn’t allow it today. (copy link into a new window to open)

https://youtu.be/4BBg0djXemw?si=mTn7SPTRl8Q53uZU

Personally I enjoyed playing in these games in the old VFA. They were a war of attrition and basically you had no choice. Virtually all the grounds had cricket pitches and some like Dandenong’s Shepley Oval, North Port or Preston’s Cramer St had 50m squares resembling a paddock of chocolate ice cream. The mud was no good for speedsters but ideal for slow, chunky frames. It was the great equaliser. Only problem was, once the weather improved and the mud dried, it was like concrete when you got tackled and often had sharp bits that could pierce the skin.

Man-buns and headbands – I just can’t have them. The players who indulge, spend half the game re-tying them or picking their hair accessories off the ground. Get a haircut and focus on the game. (Bruce Doull excepted of course!)

Socks up and jumper tucked in – I’m a traditionalist. A wise man once said, “If you can’t play, at least look like a footballer”. Well done Horne-Francis for keeping the dream alive but I see the rest of the AFL players are now wearing cut down socks. Not good enough.

Zoning – This used be called ‘loose’ in the olden days. What started with Rodney Eade’s flooding has transformed into athletes, not footballers, doing yo-yo sprints up and down the ground for two hours. Individual players last for 5 or 6 minutes then are replaced with more high intensity runners clogging defences.

Conditioning – I have the utmost respect for the athleticism of today’s players, however does that mean that they are better footballers than the champions of the past? The only difference is the conditioning. Vastly different eras.

Players like Craig Bradley ran half marathons at pace every week but the majority of the players didn’t need to train like today’s players because the game didn’t require them to sprint up and down the ground manically sticking to a structure. Today’s conditioning is very specific and is managed much of the time with the GPS in the neck of the player’s jumpers or the ‘manziers’ they wear at training. Olden days training comprised much more distance in the running and not a lot of science. Remember Robert Walls’s infamous 100 x 100’s at Carlton and Fitzroy?

Recovery – In the olden days, ice baths were where the beer was kept. A Monday night recovery was a 5km run and some stretching. Today, recovery is just as important as the conditioning and rightly so. No wonder we were constantly sore during the week in the olden days!

Interchange – There was only two on the bench in the olden days and you only got replaced if you were injured or played poorly. AFL legends Leigh Matthews and Kevin Bartlett have been crying out for years to have the number of interchanges decreased significantly. The game is looking more like basketball so by fatiguing the players, the game essentially starts to open up and becomes a true test of fitness and the player’s will. It may well mean we see more ‘one on one’ contests and it might just help with the number of soft tissue injuries being sustained these days.

Handballing – This is a skill that on the whole has improved exponentially, simply because today’s players find themselves in so much congestion so often, that they train it extremely well. The quickness of hands and reflexes can be breathtaking in the modern game.

Line specific training – Virtually non-existent in my time playing, it has become very much the norm for todays players as it should be. In the past it was everyone doing the same drill no matter where you played and the duration of training, including punishments could stretch out to long nights. Coaching today is much more advanced, targeted, better organised and efficient.

Over the Top Celebrations – Since when did kicking your first goal become a hysterical hoopla? I must have missed that meeting. I would urge every player of today to watch some vision of Ablett, Dunstall and Lockett after they kicked any of their multitude of goals. Completely devoid of emotion, walking back to the goal square and waiting for the next inside 50. Does that make them any less a team mate or disinterested? No! It’s called humility.

‘Tappety Tap’ – What is it about this generation of footballers whereby they constantly need the affirmation of a hand tap or high 5? My youngest daughter who plays footy in Geelong tells me it’s all about connection. I don’t get it. I see players running 40m to touch the hand of a team mate who has dropped a mark. Save your energy and yell at him or her to concentrate and get the next one for goodness sake. And by the way don’t pick opposition players up off the ground! It’s all too touchy feely for mine. Here’s what you can do:

After match function – Instead of disappearing after a game, share a meal and a drink with your team mates, supporters and the opposition after the game. That’s connection.

Player absences – If you’re getting paid a CEO’s salary, there’s a level of commitment required that doesn’t include attending family weddings. Births, deaths, illnesses etc for sure, but if I heard that a team mate was missing in action because he was a groomsman, I’d be grumpier than usual.

The Big One on One Contests – Carey v Jakovich, Knights v Picken, DiPierdomenico v Hawkins and so many more, worth the price of admission. They were all mouth watering in anticipation but I doubt whether we will see the likes of them again.

Tagging – What a surprise to see Harley Reid stopped in his tracks by a tagger in Windhager? Who woulda thunk it? And incredibly the delicate defensive structures of St Kilda somehow weren’t affected! More tagging of gun players please. It’s a lost art that is sadly neglected.

Goal kicking – Yes I would imagine all the great forwards of the past would find it harder to mark the ball these days with the numbers behind the footy, but I’m positive they still wouldn’t miss the goals when they got their opportunity. Using fatigue as an excuse doesn’t cut it anymore.

Reserves and Colts – There was a time in the VFL, VFA, SANFL and WAFL when you had three games played on the one day. When I was kid, our dad used to take my younger brother and I to Fremantle Oval by 11am for South Freo home games. We’d watch a bit of Colts, then check out the form of the young up and comers in the 2’s followed by the main game. This wasn’t passion, more an indoctrination. Now if I get to Marvel an hour before a game I get to watch the players warm up while a ground announcer screams like a banshee into a microphone and betting ads are flashed on the big screens. Its soulless and kid unfriendly.

The AFL – There is an inherent level of arrogance and complacency within the decision makers in the ivory tower. Two classic recent examples.

  1. The AFL’s Broadcast and Fixture Manager Josh Bowler has left the door open for the NRL to have every Thursday night game on TV, citing that giving games to lower AFL sides won’t attract any viewers. Extraordinarily naïve and insulting to those clubs.
  2. Despite the AFL’s initial uproar over concussion and subsequent litigious paranoia, The General Manager of Football Laura Kane, calls ‘play on’ and ‘nothing to see here’ when Cameron of Geelong and Marshall of St Kilda clearly receive serious head knocks and won’t come off the ground despite being told by their respective club doctors. Of course they won’t come off the ground! Rarely would any AFL player volunteer to come off after a head knock. That’s the whole point! As Jason Dunstall and Gary Lyon said, a thumbs up from a player being assessed on the ground to a doctor is unacceptable. It must be treated like a blood rule. It beggars belief that the league can be so casual.

With approximately 8000 past players registered with the AFLPA, you only need a tiny percentage of them launching legal proceedings for conditions such as CTE and the paranoia soon becomes an expensive call to arms. Get serious AFL.

Despite some negatives, it’s still the best game in the world. It has a glorious past with so many great players who inspired us and pushed through adversity so the players of today can have their salaries and conditions.

I don’t know what these champions of the past got paid but it couldn’t have been much. I think Royce Hart signed with Richmond for a new suit! One can only imagine what those guys would have made today.

I’ll never get my head around the social media of today and the modern player’s willingness to ‘express themselves’. They earn their coin and I marvel at Bont and Nick Daicos just as I once marvelled at Blighty and Trevor Barker.

Provided we see more humility like Bont and the Daicos brothers display, the game is in good hands and grumpy old fossils like me will stay in their box! Go Saints!