nexsus

[footyhead]

Can somone please tell me how you do a link from another sight ?
thanks

[NMWBloods]

Do you mean how do you post a link here?

You can just copy and paste the address from your browser straight into your post, or you can click on the http:// button and follow the prompts.


BTW - it's nexus and site!!

[footyhead]

thanks , here it is.

[footyhead]

nope thats not it.

[footyhead]

nup still can't do it might just watch the experts from now on. I wanted that link thingy, anway now that every doubt has been removed as to my IQ......
here it is ,sans link , i am afraid:-

Departures set AFL major task in game development
By Caroline Wilson
November 30, 2003




The names Ross Smith and John Livy don't exactly roll off the tongue in your average football conversation. And it barely rated a ripple in the off-season tide when both men had their departures from the AFL hierarchy revealed last week.

In truth, however, it was the most significant development that has taken place since Andrew Demetriou took over as chief executive of the game's governing body.

And development is what it's all about. Smith used to be one of the game's big names when he ran around for and captained St Kilda in the 1960s and '70s. And just over four years ago he was handed a task of heading up the new and improved AFL football development department.

It was a job that the league - with hindsight - would now admit it under-rated. Some clubs argue, in fact, that game development takes up the most significant space under the AFL umbrella.

Smith was not a popular appointment among the rank and file at AFL headquarters. Unfairly or not, they saw him as an academic and not a doer. Certainly the league response to a series of articles in the media highlighting the threat of soccer among junior sporting ranks seemed almost paranoid and Smith was nowhere to be seen during the public battle that followed. The choice of his replacement will be crucial and far more important than any commission report on the subject.
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But Demetriou has said this year that he feared rugby more than soccer, and while World Cup fever in Melbourne has passed, and never quite reached the temperature predicted, the manner in which the Wallabies won Australia's hearts - and quite literally took over New South Wales and Queensland - reminded the AFL code how big the job remained for the game in those northern states.

Livy announced he was quitting as chief executive of the NSW/ACT AFL. In short, he was responsible for developing the game in that holy grail named Sydney.

It was not Livy's fault that the last AFL media deal mucked up the television coverage of Friday night football into so many of his key development areas. But the fact is his departure will signal a new strategy for game development in NSW. And one that focuses upon the one true way to make AFL football count in Sydney.

And the answer to that is pretty simple. It's the Swans, stupid.

In 1998, according to the league's official press release two days ago announcing Livy's departure, 32,600 players were registered footballers across NSW and the ACT. That number has grown to 55,000, a figure that simply does not mean that much when so many of the big Sydney schools still refuse to embrace the code and when you consider the millions of dollars the AFL has ploughed into the area, not to mention the heartache among 16 clubs over arguments about extra salary cap money and draft picks.

The Sydney Swans have been telling the AFL for years that they, not the AFL, are the only brand that counts in Sydney where Australian rules football is concerned. And right at this moment it is a good time to be backing that particular horse given what the Swans achieved under Paul Roos this season.

Sydney's last two games in 2003 played in Sydney were at Telstra Stadium and attracted a combined total crowd of more than 140,000 fans - not a figure embarrassed in any way by the World Cup semi-final and final crowds involving Australia.

In fact, the Sydney-Collingwood game at the end of the season - plenty of support from the Magpies - did more for AFL development in NSW than three years worth of AusKick clinics.

And there are bright spots on the horizon. The Swans and Roos have become a team and clubs now boast a new headline-grabbing front man in Barry Hall, not to mention two impressive backroom operators in Andrew Ireland and Miles Baron-Hay.

The Swans also have a committed media partner in Channel Ten, which, despite the poor ratings, dreadful in fact, will continue to show all Sydney's Saturday night games in prime time next season.

But the poor showing in television terms of the Sydney-Brisbane preliminary final compared with the rugby league ratings on the same weekend illustrate the size of the task ahead.

Now Demetriou has to find the right person to work with Sydney and run it all from an AFL point of view. The job will remain a political hot potato because of ongoing animosity from the Victorian clubs.

He has quickly identified one big problem in the AFL; identifying the answer will be a tougher task.

[email protected]


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