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SWANSBEST
7th July 2003, 05:56 PM
Clubs driven by self-interest
7:46:40 PM Sun 6 July, 2003
Patrick Smith
afl.com.au
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Geelong?s last kick win over top side Port Adelaide on Sunday would appear to underline the tenet that there is no such animal as a good thing in football. But don?t you believe it.

Collingwood was certain to beat the Kangaroos on Saturday. And not by a little but by a lot. And that is how it panned out.



You only had to think back to the Kangaroos? brave but fruitless battle at Subiaco against West Coast the week before. It was played in rain and slosh. Some players had never seen such atrocious conditions.

Football at Subiaco for any club other than the Eagles or the Dockers is a draining experience. Not even the two-time premier Brisbane could get past Fremantle. It is worse when it is played in the strength-sapping conditions that prevailed in round 13.

Subiaco is now a two-game ground. You lose there and then you lose the following week because you can?t shake the physical hangover of chasing the Western Australian sides around the big spaces of Subiaco.

Kevin Sheedy says it is not as demanding on the Eagles or the Dockers because their bodies are used to it. Such a theory might explain why the Eagles were able to prove such defiant opposition at the SCG on Sunday. The Eagles came home harder than the Swans.

If we accept the Subiaco factor ? and everybody appears to other than Mick Malthouse ? then the teams that don?t have to go there are handed a two-game bonus.

Dean Laidley, who has so shrewdly led the Kangaroos this year, said the West Coast game at Subiaco had contributed to his side?s heavy defeat against Collingwood.

Malthouse said that Laidley had no right to make that claim. Laidley, quite rightly, pointed out that Malthouse wouldn?t have a clue since his team has been fortunate enough not to have made the trip west. It is a valid point.

The Subiaco factor underlines two things. How well the Western Australian clubs have managed to be competitive this year when they have to travel every second week. It also underlines how riddled the competition is with injustices and inequities.

Collingwood has a two-game start on the competition because it has not had to play in the west. Fact. But it is just one of a hundred injustices and nobody really cares much about them.

Think about how the clubs railed against the draft concessions for the northern clubs last year and then tried desperately to have the salary cap concessions removed as well.

The Victorian presidents said that it was simply unfair and all they ever wanted for the competition was an even playing field. That is simply gibberish. What the presidents are really saying is this: we want to keep all our privileges but deny any other club theirs.

If ? for one moment ? Victorian presidents were concerned about a level playing field then why aren?t they bashing down the door of the MCC demanding they relax their stance on finals?

As it stands now non-Victorian clubs might be forced to play finals, including a preliminary final, at the MCG even though they have qualified to stage them at their home grounds.

In keeping with their passion for keeping all things level and fair, the finals system must appear to them as blatantly unbalanced as do salary cap concessions.

But the Victorian presidents will not go to war over the finals. The system promises to work in their favor. They might get to play Fremantle in Melbourne when they really should have travelled to Subiaco.

It is called self-interest and it drives every club. Never fall for the president who says he is only demanding what is right for the health of the competition. Read he is after only what is good for his club.

It is why we have an AFL Commission.


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