AFL baulk at Steffensen talk

Professional athletes are a lot like the Hollywood movie set.

Whenever sportspeople gather, there is always an outpouring of respect - mostly real, sometimes fake - for each other. There is that unwritten code that forces everybody to be happy about everyone else's achievements.

Somehow at the weekend those guidelines were relaxed for John Steffensen.

And it highlighted how, indeed, athletes near at the top of their game have different approaches to their work.

Shortly after Steffensen's victory in the 400m at the Go for 2&5 Track Classic on Saturday, Geelong's new AFL captain Joel Selwood tweeted, "Anyone manage to see John Steffensen interview on ch10 tonight? #confidant (sic) #averagebloke?"

Not long later Steffensen replied via twitterverse, "call me and ask the champ yourself bud!!"

It followed Steffensen's exuberant post-race statement claiming, "It was a murder scene out there tonight - someone should have called triple zero."

Such flamboyance has cost Steffensen plenty of criticism.

Boss needs GF guidelines

So the boss has gone for The Boss.

From reports on the east coast AFL chief Andrew Demetriou has once again shuffled through his pile of old 45s to select the pre-match distraction for this year's premiership decider.

Meatloaf hadn't had a hit since vinyl records were in vogue yet staggered around the MCG stage before last season's grand final. Much the same for Bruce Springsteen but his tunes were far classier when the AFL's master was listening to them on Countdown, the curtain-raiser to the league's ABC highlights show, The Winners, back in the early 1980s - before every home had a CD player.

You get the impression from Springsteen and how he likes to be portrayed as a working class man that if he were Australian he'd be a big football fan.

But he isn't. And that raises a key point about how we celebrate the biggest day of the football calendar.
What should be the golden rules for the activities at the MCG on that last Saturday in September (or first in October as we have had in past two years)?

We must never let the streamers and dancing schoolkids detract from the spectacle involving the 44 combatants but it is generally accepted that there is more to grand final day than just the game.

However, in the wake of Meatloaf's MCG meltdown five months ago we need to make sure that some guidelines are followed.

Celebrate world cricket's dream field

Too much bounce, too much grass, too much movement.

Too much whingeing.

There is no doubt the WACA would have wanted at least two more sessions of play from the third Test between Australia and India. So, too, the local fans.

But, unlike some critics, mostly from the east, don't blame our favourite piece of turf. Point the finger at the players because Perth's premier pitch can make a strong claim to providing some of the most exciting cricket on the planet.

Sure some batsmen are made to look like schoolboy pretenders on the Waroona clay that sits in the middle of the WACA Ground.

Yet for every Virender Sehwag, there is a David Warner. If the wicket is a problem why can one player construct a 180-run innings and share in a 214-run opening stand?