Author Archives: xtgplayer

03.30.15
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Rebels at a crossroads

The Melbourne Rebels head into their Good Friday clash with the Queensland Reds desperate for victory at a ground they have not won at since Good Friday 2014.

Jack Debreczeni has stood out for the Melbourne Rebels in 2015

Jack Debreczeni has stood out for the Melbourne Rebels in 2015

The Reds and Rebels don’t have a whole lot in common. Despite this the last two weeks have seen both sides lose to the Lions in a game they should have won. For the Reds it was poor execution in their attacking half after the hooter that let them down, while the Rebels combusted in what was arguably their worst performance ever.

After beating the Crusaders away from home it is fair to say that my hopes were high for the Rebels in 2015. Now the calendar is ready to flip into April, we’re 2-4 and need a lot to fall our way to secure our first finals appearance. To be any chance we need to win on Friday night.

In the last two weeks we have played some of the most fluent rugby I’ve ever seen from a Rebels outfit. In that time we’ve only scored one try. Simply not good enough.

Another lackluster performance on Friday and the scene is set for the rest of the season – disappointment as we try to fight ourselves out of a hole we shouldn’t have been in to start with.

A win going into the bye week offers a glimmer of hope as we travel to Canberra to take on the Brumbies (a team we have always given trouble), followed by a clash against the Waratahs (another team who are having a slower 2015 than anticipated) , before returning home against the Chiefs in the first week of May.

Anything less than 3-1 over this period is unacceptable and we must kick into gear on Friday night.

Since our inception our home record against the Reds (who to their credit have won a title in that period) does not make for pretty reading:

 

2011 : Reds 33 – 18 Rebels

2012 : Reds 32 – 17 Rebels

2013 : Reds 23 – 13 Rebels

2014 :  Reds 36 – 20 Rebels

Being the optimist that I am it’s easy to say that I know what I’m in for on Friday night. History tells me the Rebels are going to lose by two converted tries, but history doesn’t matter. I honestly believe the 2015 crop of Rebels are a different proposition for their opponents.

The two faces that I have been impressed by the most this season are Jack Debreczeni and Lopeti Timani. Debreczeni has stood out because he has shown consistent glimpses of his NRC form, while Timani has a great case of try-line fever. The closer he gets to the try line the faster I’d be moving out of the way if I was on the other side of the ball.

Sadly though the efforts of two are reduced by the all-too-frequent shortfalls. It was on show again against the Hurricanes where we went into the break with a lead and might as well not have come back out after the half time oranges.

So what do we need to do against the Reds to get our season back on track? Use the ball we have.

It seems simple, but if you hold the ball for 7+ phases and don’t do anything with it you aren’t going to win. The Rebels have been guilty of this on countless occasions in the last fortnight, all to often when they are within ten metres of scoring.

I have no doubt this is going to be a focus on the training track this week and I look forward to seeing the results on what will hopefully be a very Good Friday at AAMI Park.

03.30.15
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The Cricket World Cup is bad for the game

There. I said it. The World Cup was bad for the game of cricket.

AustraliawinWC

There is no better feeling in sport than winning. Australia lifting the World Cup for the fourth time in my life was a sweet as any other occasion. Despite this I can’t help be left with a sour taste about what the tournament does for the sport.

Crowds were wonderful, upsets were had and close games were more frequent than they had been at past tournaments. All fun and games, or was it?

The tournament was a success, but the barrage of high scores combined with the “new batting textbook” commentators ranted about leaves me feeling sour.

There were 23, 531 runs scored in the tournament at an average of 500.65 per game. When you factor in that England were playing and they were hopeless, this is a high scoring outlay from the more successful teams in the tournament.

There is a great skill in scoring 400 in 50 overs, there’s no denying that. But it is a skill which is demonstrating that 50% of the game isn’t valued under the current ODI format. If you’re a bowler you’re on a hiding to nothing. Powerplays, No-Balls, Wides and the new rules surrounding the bouncer have all been altered to ensure that runs are scored with ease.

When I first watched cricket a wide was a ball you couldn’t play a shot to with a regulation stance. Now a wide is something that’s either 75cm outside off or anything down the leg side. Two bouncers an over, anything over waist height and a full toss is a no-ball (unless you’re India), and don’t get me started on fielding regulations.

ODIs are successful because they have what the general observer classifies as “constant entertainment”. In a market when the forms of the game are getting shorter, entertainment comes through big hitting rather than a tight bowling battle. If people want big hitting you can replace bowlers with a bowling machine. The majority of bowling were half-volley’s outside off throughout the tournament, so why not give people more of what they so clearly want?

Cricket is one of my favourite sports. I’ll watch any form, but the shorter the game gets the less I care. ODIs aren’t a battle between batsmen and bowlers for the mental edge to get runs on the board. It’s a test of how long a batter will wait for the bowler to start bowling rubbish. If the batter can wait out the two over period at the start of a spell they are going to get runs.

The focus on attack hurts me as a fan, but it also hurts the next generation. Our future test cricketers think watching guys like Brendon McCullum is the way to build your technique to a level where you deserve a Baggy Green. No, it isn’t. McCullum is a wonderful cricketer with one fault – a severe inability to distinguish between forms of the game. Thank you very much short-form cricket for creating a monster which ruins it for the traditionalists. If you want to build an arsenal which will see you become a test great I suggest you YouTube guys like Doug Walters and Steve Waugh. They are the sorts of players we need to develop. I don’t need you scoring 15 an over on the first morning. I need you averaging between 47 and 60. That’s how we win tests, and reach the pinnacle of the sport.

For a pro-hitting rant you’d assume that I think there is never any smart bowling in the shorter forms. I know that Australia won the final with a fantastic bowling performance. Clarke for all of his faults devised a plan to beat an unbeaten team and pulled it off with apparent ease. Credit to him for that, but that performance alone doesn’t swing back to bowlers having a prominent role in the current form of ODIs for mine.

Is anyone else wishing The Ashes would hurry up and start?

08.21.14
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Cerebral Palsy awareness – Steptember

Every coin has two sides. Me? I’m lucky I have Cerebral Palsy.

I don’t often write (seriously) about it and it isn’t something that is a general conversation topic with those who aren’t close to me. There are however times when it’s appropriate to talk about it and the impact it has on my day-to-day life in-depth. This is one of them.11204-cerebral-palsy-awareness

My Cerebral Palsy is mild. That means most people won’t notice it. A shortage of oxygen to the brain and my brain plates not fusing properly is what caused my CP, and I can’t say that thinking about those causes makes me feel invincible.

For as long as I can remember my family have been awesome in making sure I had every available chance to have the highest quality of life possible. And I owe them a lot for that. I remember crying at the thought of wearing my AFO’s to bed (the things that are like shoes that keep your feet straight) and throwing the biggest tantrum the day of my Botox because I couldn’t go and see Casper the Friendly Ghost with my sisters. That would be the same sisters who have constantly had my back when I was called “different” (and many worse things) by those wonderful individuals I had the pleasure of being the same age and live in the same town as. Again, big shoutout for them for keeping me calm in the moments where I couldn’t calm myself.

CP is a fascinating thing. As someone living with it, I think I view it differently to those around me. There are days where I think it’s going to win, or that it already has, but strangely enough on those days it becomes my biggest source of strength. I know my limitations, which at times I try to ignore because I was taught to believe that nothing is impossible. I know that the fighting spirit I have came from the way my parents approached my situation. Nothing was too big a task, no matter the strain it put on them. That hasn’t changed in 26 and a half years and it never will. No words I can write here are ever going to be enough to say how I feel about the person they’ve helped me become.

A lifetime ago. I could swim. I met some great people, did some cool things, saw some great places and have a few bits of paper with the words Australian Record Holder written on them. What might have been? Ask me, I think about it every single day. I wouldn’t have been out of bed at 5.20am four days and week and being picked up at 6pm the same days if it wasn’t for those closest to me telling me I could do anything I wanted.

Not everyone is as lucky as me, and when I see those who aren’t a sense of guilt washes over me. What has that person done to have that life thrust upon them, and how come that didn’t happen to me? All questions that I shouldn’t be asking but I can’t help it.

A lot of the thoughts I’ve written here have never been committed to paper or screen before, because they’re private. Why now then? Cerebral Palsy isn’t something you can buy a few meds for and everything is going to be under control. It’s something that comes without a cure. Raising money makes things easier for families, as well as those who commit their lives to reducing the likelihood of people being born with the disability. I know money doesn’t grow on trees, but anything is great and if you donate more than $2 it’s tax-deductible.

The goal is simple. 10,000 steps a day. The logistics, not so much. For me, walking long distances leaves me rather sore, so please support my efforts to not be able to move by the end of next month!

I’m happy to talk more about Steptember or Cerebral Palsy with anyone, so if you’ve got a question then get in touch.

Lastly, a big thanks to those doing this with me, and supporting something that has inadvertently become part of their lives.

You can donate here:

https://event.steptember.org.au/donate/onbehalfof?id=73260d58-4084-4a2f-9ecb-20f1ca77ec0b

07.13.14
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Tommy Thompson by the numbers

The Melbourne Aces last week announced the signing of Tommy Thompson as their new manager for the 2014-15 Australian Baseball League season.

Thompson is the current manager of the Class A-Advanced Winston-Salem Dash, who are an affiliate of the Chicago White Sox. He comes to Melbourne with a decade of playing experience in the minors, as well as spending twelve years as a manager.blog3WSD

Thompson replaces Phil Dale, who had been at the helm of the Aces since the formation of the league in 2010, leading the Aces to a regular season record of 76-100 (.431) with two playoff appearances in that period.

In his managerial career, Thompson boasts a .486 record (616-651 at the time of positing). While the sample size is much bigger, it doesn’t read much better, with just four seasons with a winning record throughout his career.

When you break down Thompson’s record further, at the four different levels of baseball he’s managed his only  overall winning record comes at Class A-Advanced, where he has a record of .530. With many experts believing the Australia Baseball League floats between A and AA, replication of these numbers will see the Aces make a playoff appearance for the first time since losing the 2011-12 ABLCS to the Perth Heat.

The Aces have just two playoff appearances in the four-year history of the league. Tommy Thompson has led a side he has managed to the playoffs just three times in his twelve years calling the shots from the dugout.

Despite only leading teams to the playoffs at a rate of once every four seasons, he does have a title to his name, after he took the Frederick Keys to the Carolina League title in 2007. The title came on the back of a ten-year break for Thompson, who had last managed the Sioux Falls Canaries in 1997, lasting just 36 games after the side started the campaign 13-23, seeing Thompson relieved of his duties.

One advantage Thompson will find in the ABL is that with half of the teams in the league making the playoffs, the bar is lower, with the lowest winning percentage to ever make the playoffs being a staggering .444, which three teams were tied on in the 2011-12 season. As a manager, Thompson has a record of above .444 on eight of twelve occasions, a stat which should bring a smile to the faces of Aces fans.

Several Aces fans have already discussed the importance of Thompson being a long-term option at Melbourne Ballpark, however history suggests that he may not return for the 2015-16 season. Thompson has three stints longer than a year as a manager, but only one of those stints occurred over consecutive years (Frederick 2007-2008).

One thing is for sure, the Aces spared no expense in getting their man. A worldwide net was cast, and Thompson the fish caught. It is undeniable that his connections through the White Sox organisation and the entire game of baseball will benefit the Aces not only off the field, but also leave them in the position to push for the elusive Claxton Shield title.

 

 

 

 

04.05.14
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Should the bullpen be a concern for the 2014 Red Sox?

Spring ball can be deceiving. That’s never more obvious than at Fenway South, where if you see David Ortiz bat over .100 something is drastically wrong.

Today I’m going to focus on the happenings on the other side of the ball. When I look at the list of guys who threw, but didn’t start a game this spring, it takes a while to filter through them all and get an idea of who to talk about when it comes to specifics.FenwayPark

The two relievers from Spring I’m going to do a brief focus on today are Jose Mijares and Rubby De La Rosa.

De La Rosa has also been a player who made me feel uneasy when he was called into a game. His 4-7 lifetime record with an ERA of 4.21 and 69 hits given up from just under 73 innings of work give me the feeling that I might be right. At 7.36 his ERA this Spring could be mistaken for the price of a Taco Bell value meal. He gave up more hits than he pitched innings, struck out 1.25 guys a game and somehow manage to have a .382 BA against him in the process. How do these numbers support getting a look in at Big League camp, let alone the steady flow of action he’s gotten at Fenway?

Mijares fared better than De La Rosa, but was by no means great. Sure, he had a 5.14 ERA from six appearances, but he doesn’t have any of the other horrendous numbers  we saw with De La Rosa. Four runs on eight hits doesn’t look good, but unless you saw him pitch in every game he played this Spring (which I certainly didn’t), then you aren’t going to get the full story. The 1.58 WHIP came in at 0.2 higher than the MLB average. I think that had he not opted out of his contract, then he may have been able to find a spot at Fenway at some point in 2014.

One of the ways that the Red Sox like to break hearts is to give up runs at the worst possible time (Brandon Workman, anyone?), but I think the cause for concern runs (no pun intended) much deeper.

When you look at the 2013 season, it’s easy to see that we got the World Series title we weren’t expecting, and that should be enough for us to consider the season a success.

We were lucky, and I don’t think there are many Red Sox fans who don’t know that. If Myers makes a regulation catch, if Detroit played a bit smarter and if Ortiz didn’t have the hottest run I’ve ever seen in the Fall, then we may have been waiting for the Home Opener against the Brewers, wondering what might have been, rather than watching probably the most emotional Ring Ceremony of the last decade.

The Red Sox pen had the 21st best ERA in the Majors last year (3.70), which put them at 10th in the AL. As if this was a stat that wasn’t concerning enough, the OBP of opponents of the Red Sox pen was a staggering .320, a number high enough that only nine clubs registered a higher opponent OBP.

24 Blown Saves is a number that should leave all fans wondering where we go from here. Why? Because it’s stats like this that cost us the Division, which isn’t exactly a pretty thought given we play in the toughest division in the game.

On the flipside there were only nine IBB issued by the Red Sox relievers throughout the season, and the faith that any of them can throw at anybody on any given day is certain an asset we are lucky to have.

Do you think the Red Sox should be concerned about the bullpen in 2014?

 

02.19.14
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The “Choke” doesn’t exist

The Olympic and Paralympic season is great. There is more sport than I know what to do with and I get to fall in love with the magic of one of the things I love most in the world all over again.

With this comes problems. Everybody is an expert. I don’t mind the fact that we all pretend to know things that we don’t know Olympic-Ringsabout the sports we watch, I’ve done that multiple times. The problem I have is that everybody is an expert on what it takes to be an Olympian or Paralympian and how that if an athlete doesn’t perform on the day then it must be a “choke”.

Get off your high horse before you injure yourself.

I know what you’re probably thinking, “But how could you know, you were never an Olympian or Paralympian”.

Darn right I wasn’t, and I’m lucky if more than a few days go by where I don’t think about it. There aren’t any certainties in life, but had things progressed as they were I probably would have gone to Beijing and certainly made the trip to London.

So yes, I do know what it takes to that level. By the time that I finished school in 2005 I was in the pool for close to 20 hours a week with another 5 hours spent in the gym or doing other work out of the pool. I got lucky. My parents never complained about the 5am wakeup or the money that they spent so that I could chase a dream. In fact they worked just as hard as I did for it and probably deserved more credit for the success that I had than I did.

I didn’t suffer an injury, there was no reason I couldn’t keep swimming. I made the decision I made, and living with it isn’t the easiest thing to do, but you can’t change the past, so I deal with it however I can.

It’s not easy to represent your country, but it looks easy because you are at the top of your game when you’re doing it. Failing when you’re at the top of your game isn’t a choke, it’s nothing more than a simple act of human failure, which we all have on a daily basis. I’ve lost count of the number of times in the last few weeks that I’ve seen references to Steven Bradbury, or “Doing a Bradbury”. But that’s probably because the people making the point don’t think he deserved it.

  • 12 years at an international level.
  • Almost losing his life after have a skate go through his leg.
  • A broken neck 18 months before Salt Lake City.

Yeah, nothing at all there screams deserving. He made his race plan, he executed it, and as he once said, his reason for taking the Gold Medal wasn’t for the 90 seconds in that race, it was for the 12 years before it.

Chumpy Pullin was favourite heading into the snowboard cross last night, in fact he would have been certain in his mind that today was the day he was going to reach the ultimate goal for any athlete. But things didn’t work out, that’s life, not a choke.

He doesn’t need people saying he choked, how he feels about it is worse than anyone else can make him feel. Trust me, I’ve been there.

It’s 2004 and the last qualifying event before the trials for the Athens games. Having already qualified for trials there was one more event I wanted to add to my schedule. This particular event was one that I had been targeting for years, even though it had always been just out of reach. Everything was set. All I needed to do was swim within about half a second of my best time and I’d be swimming that event in Sydney in two months time, I was ready and nothing could stop me.

The time to beat was 48.10 … The time I swam was 48.11. Never has something that I wanted so badly felt so far away. .01 of a second can be made up anywhere, and I know that I should have done better, but in that time I did all I could, and I walked away knowing that fact.

That race ended up being my first Open-Age medal at a State swim meet, something which I’m awfully proud of and something that I still smile about today.

So why can’t it leave me? The first Grandparent of mine to pass away passed away eight days before that swim. Death is something none of us can control, and at the age of 16 I don’t think I was in any capacity to level out in my mind, as they had planned to be there watching that day. The two events were and forever will be connected, and now I see it is one of the best thing that has ever happened to me, because it shows that no matter what happens, you can find strength in it.

I didn’t choke that day, I just didn’t achieve what I had in mind, that’s life.

So, next time you think an athlete chokes, stop and think. Nothing is ever what it seems, particularly in the world that so few people get to experience.

02.03.14
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Why we need to give Ian Thorpe space

It has been widely reported over the last week, that Ian Thorpe isn’t in a good place. Naturally a select portion of the media in this country see an Olympian “falling from grace” as they describe it and pounce on the opportunity to report. Here’s why I feel for Thorpe and we need to let him take the required steps back to full health.

A lifetime ago I used to swim. Of course it wasn’t literally a lifetime ago, but it has just ticked over seven years since I last raced competitively and that’s what it feels like. I was fortunate in my swimming career (I still am fortunate, but for the purpose of this post I’ll keep the fortune focused on swimming). My parents made sure I could travel to meets anywhere, they drove me to the poolThorpekick and 5.30am and picked me up at 6pm the same night, often without going home from work beforehand. They had longer days than I did with a mortgage to pay and kids to feed and educate, while my two focuses in life were swimming and completing school- often in that order.

Swimming taught me a lot. It taught me what drive can do, it taught me how growing up around people who are now World Record holders can change you as a person and it taught me that anything is possible. But there is one thing that I learnt from swimming that people don’t tell you before you walk in for your first training session as a kid. Swimming is lonely. You don’t train by yourself, in fact you form a great bond with the group that you train with. You might race by yourself, but you are always going to be part of a team. The thing about spending 20-30 hours a week in a pool is that you have a lot of time to think. You focus on the mechanics, you focus on everything that you need to be doing in the pool, but there will come a point where your mind starts to wander. School, friends, sports teams you supported, social life – anything was good to think about because you needed to find a way to pass the time.

What we are seeing with Thorpe now is a result of that process. For the better part of a decade he was in the pool or gym for the majority of time when he wasn’t sleeping. Add to that the fact that the national spotlight shone on him whenever the time came for Australia to compete at home or overseas and you can see why he has fallen to the depths that he has. It’s easy enough to say that athletes need to adjust when they return to being a “normal” member of society, but I find it strange the amount of people commenting on that who have never been in that situation before.

Many who know me don’t know that I used to swim. That in itself is a fair sign that swimming is something you can only see elements of from me. I could have been a Paralympian had a made a few different decisions in my life, but I didn’t and on the days when I think about it for a few seconds too long, I regret how things turned out, even though that might mean that I wouldn’t have everything I have today.

At the end of the day the inside of the mind is a place we can never see, so let’s just all hope that Thorpe can get the help that he needs so we can see him return to being the vibrant person we saw on pool deck.

02.03.14
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Rich Hill a bright spot for Boston

Rich Hill signed a Minor League deal with the Red Sox over the weekend. At first I didn’t think it was a great move, but he could prove an asset to the Red Sox down the stretch in 2014.

Rich Hill’s career numbers in the Majors aren’t great. The guy is 24-22 in nine seasons with a 4.74 ERA.

But here’s what I do like. He’s spent time in Boston. During 2010 and 2011 he made 15 appearances with a 1-0 record in that time.indexrichhill One of the biggest offseason talking points (and rightfully so), has been with regards to where the pitching is going to come from down the stretch. There were all too many occasions last year where the likes of Workman and Tazawa were unable to get the job done, and if we are honest, we were lucky to come out World Champions after some of their efforts at the tail end of the season.

He didn’t post a winning record with the Indians last year, but he did have a strikeout to walk ratio of 1.75/1 across 63 games in the 2013 season. If he can replicate these numbers it will fall slightly below the team average from 2013, but as we saw on many occasions the breaking of a slump last series came from the success of another man on the roster.

The Minor League deal promises that we aren’t going to chew up a lot of money on the guy, and when rosters expand in September, he is the kind of guy we are going to want. The experience he has and the form that he hopefully gets back to in the second half of the season are something that may be vital as we push towards being the first team to repeat this century.

02.03.14
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The Great Escape – version 2014

A month ago I thought Sam Allardyce needed to be sacked because he was sending West Ham towards doom. Now I think Sam Allardyce needs to be sacked because he’s leading us to safety.

The last month has had a fair few low moments. The 6-0 drubbing at Man City which followed a 5-0 shamble at Notts Forest were the low points of the month. Since then we have won away at Cardiff and beaten Swansea at home, two crucial results given their respective standings.

I’m not 100% certain that we are going to get out of this, but there is a Tevez-like feeling marking the return of England SamAllardyceThinkinginternational Andy Carroll . He set up Noble for the second at Cardiff, as well as setting up both goals at home on Saturday. From watching the replays of the goals it is easy to seeing that he is quickly returning to the form that he was in this time last year when a full-time move was first being discussed. The return of Nolan from suspension (for now) has aided this process as the two seem to play the same style of daring football, providing they are on the field at the same time.

So why sack Allardyce? Last week after the draw against Chelsea I was full of praise for the attitude he showed towards his counterpart when the tactics he used to get us what could be a vital point, were questioned. The problem with Allardyce is that he has a history of doing very little in the Premier League besides surviving, with the exception of one UEFA Cup appearance with Bolton he has never achieved anything more than the occasional mid-table finish.

I remember the first time in my life that we went down (2002-03) and thinking that Bolton wouldn’t be far behind us because of the style they played. Unfortunately it is all too common for teams that he manages to scrape by, and to be completely honest I don’t want to see us turn into a club who are happy to finish 17th every year, which lets face it, I’ll be ecstatic with this season.

Remember growing up when you were told about “The West Ham way”, the style of football that had us pushing for Europe and producing the next wave of English internationals? That’s what I want to see again. Bobby Moore didn’t sit in Cassetari’s moving salt and pepper shakers for us to be a club who accepted mediocre. Moore than a football club, isn’t a gimmick, it’s what we are.

We are the emotions of the 2006 FA Cup Final, the disbelief when we were two goals to the good, the running around my house at 1am as Paul Konchesky’s “shot” gave us the lead going into the final third of the game, we are that feeling you got when Stevie G scored one of the greatest goals of all-time and mostly, we are the tears that flowed when Anton Ferdinand missed his penalty.

We have a history to uphold. Eight managers between 1902 and 2001 is something that we are all proud of. That pride comes from knowing that no other club did anything like that in the same 100 year span.

Football in the East End is about the West Ham way, so let’s return to our roots, something Sam Allardyce can NEVER help us do.

Come On You Irons!

02.03.14
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Why Australian sport can’t match the Superbowl

So the Superbowl is over for another year. For American Football fans that means 6 months while they look out the window and wait for preseason to start. In the meantime though, I believe it’s time for both Australian’s and the Australian media to think about why the Superbowl (and American sports in general) is something which will never be matched here.

Sport is great. Australian sport is great. North American sport is great. But they are different. From the way they are covered to the passions that you see coming from the fans. The similarities for mine start and finish with the fact that one team is trying to beat the other.petecarrolcelebrate

The biggest difference between sport in the two continents is the way that sport is covered, and how that coverage can bring a city together to support their team. The perfect example of this is Melbourne newspaper The Age. The Age have a great AFL coverage, but that coverage is split amongst the following teams – Western Bulldogs, Essendon, North Melbourne, Melbourne, Carlton, Collingwood, Richmond, St Kilda and Hawthorn. Regardless of how good the coverage is, the paper has nine teams to cover. How is that coverage meant to unite a city? Pure and simple, It can’t. I think that part of the problem the Australian media face in covering sport, the national competitions that we are running are far too condensed. Take the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as an example of one of many organisations in North America who have the job of covering one team. When the Pittsburgh Pirates run out at the start of April, one thing is for sure – the Post-Gazette will let people know that it’s time to raise the Jolly Roger as the Pirates hunt for their first World Championship since 1979.

When you have a media who are charged with the role of devoting everything that have towards one team in one sport, the results you get are a city who live and die by the performance of their team. You get a city who are united for a single cause, a city that when you are there you can’t help but be sucked into the vortex that is a one-team town in professional sport.

Yes, there are American cities with two teams, but often the lines in the sand are drawn from which side of the city you are born on (Chicago with the Cubs and White Sox is the best example of this).

This is something I had the opportunity to discuss with a good friend of mine, Myles Harris on the most recent episode of Chatter Up on Hewitt Sports Network.

Myles and I have very different sporting backgrounds, but as you can hear in our discussion, this is one of many points that we agree on, and I think it’s certainly something we’ll both discuss at length in the future.

Both Seattle and Denver were at a standstill today, but where is that in the AFL? Even when Fremantle were playing Hawthorn in the 2013 decider, neither Melbourne or Perth came to a standstill, why? Because there are other teams in that city, and fans of those teams would give anything to see their rivals lose.

So how does this relate to the Superbowl? I’m not going to use the halftime show from this year as my landmark, because even though Bruno Mars is a good artist, he isn’t my cup of tea. In 2009 the Superbowl entertainment was Bruce Springsteen. In 2011 the AFL managed to recruit an out of shape, out of date and well off-key Meatloaf. Meatloaf VS Springsteen? Hardly a battle for the ages. Sure, you can say that money is the reason that the AFL couldn’t get someone like Springsteen in their wildest dreams, but that isn’t it. Sure, you can say that the AFL is a sport played in one country, but so is the NFL.

It’s about how you sell your product. Despite what Eddie McGuire says, they’re aren’t legions of 18-year-old males in America who are dreaming of playing for Collingwood. There are however at last count 28 Australian’s playing NCAA Football in Division One. You know what comes after that if you’re talented enough? The NFL.

I’ve been an AFL fan since I could walk, but the AFL are deluded  the way they currently act in the public eye. The product is safe, and as a result of that, it’s getting stale.

When I say safe, I don’t mean that’s it’s in a position to be around in 10 years. Of course it is. Safe in the sense means that they aren’t willing to try anything to get new fans, to grow the game globally, and to market themselves into a position the NFL has managed to do.

Yes, I’m a Melbourne fan, and I in one way or another watch my team every week. I long for the day that we win a title, I have had nothing but pain as a Melbourne supporter, but even a Grand Final victory isn’t going to cloud what I can so clearly see.

The NFL have done such a solid job that there are countless people in Australia who only watch the Superbowl. I know Australian’s who don’t watch Grand Final day, some of whom can be added to that list when their own is playing.

Why is this? The NFL and their clubs make fans feel wanted. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, content that is driven from the organisation rather than the local media. Why is this model working? Because people aren’t willing to sit around and wait for content. Everyone want’s something yesterday, and that’s what isn’t happening in Australian sport.

North American finds a happy medium to ensure they cover all bases. Australia ensures that very few fans are left feeling like they belong.

Just do something AFL. Make the clubs the main source of media. Get the passion going. Make something happen, because at the current rate, they are going to get left behind, because everyday it’s getting easier to watch sport from somewhere else in the world. With our foreign loves making it easier than ever to connect with what they are doing, that is where the passion that many once had for you is going abroad.