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AFL footy boss Laura Kane reveals a plan to give remote WA communities more access to elite footy pathways​

Craig O'DonoghueThe West Australian
Wed, 26 June 2024 2:00AM
Comments
Craig O'Donoghue
The AFL is investigating opportunities to establish elite footy hubs in remote parts of Western Australia in a bid to give more youngsters the chance to become AFL players without having to leave home during high school to chase their dream.
AFL Executive General Manager of Football Laura Kane has spent her first season in the role travelling around the country searching for ways to improve the talent pathway.

Better not give regional WA to Victorian sides as NGA zones...
 
Her comments after the disgrace that was round zero - effectively the flies and shit argument; "plenty watched, so it must be good" - raised alarms, but Laura's comments about the asterisked West Coast flag teams being sufficient evidence that Freo should shut up and quietly accept being drystroked by the fixture have made me very suspicious of anything she has to offer.
Yeah I hate to say it but she's just another Vic flog at decision making level with no knowledge of the or desire to acknowledge what the wa teams go through.
 
Freo media team I know you read this, can we please get a Treacy highlights video for his 50th!
 

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Yeah I hate to say it but she's just another Vic flog at decision making level with no knowledge of the or desire to acknowledge what the wa teams go through.
Maybe the AFL Execs should have to come to WA every week during the season just to experience what it's like. I was kind of not shocked exactly, but disappointed she said - oh WA is a very big place and you can't just drive out to the regional centres. For talent development, I think the WA clubs and footy commission do well on a small budget, it would be good if the AFL just supplements the budget tbh, and provides some extra resources to help with training of the staff who work in that area. Laura Kane does seem like a consensus builder and someone who listens - just hope she doesn't stay only in the Vic Centric bubble of AFL house.
 

AFL footy boss Laura Kane reveals a plan to give remote WA communities more access to elite footy pathways​

Craig O'DonoghueThe West Australian
Wed, 26 June 2024 2:00AM
Comments
Craig O'Donoghue
The AFL is investigating opportunities to establish elite footy hubs in remote parts of Western Australia in a bid to give more youngsters the chance to become AFL players without having to leave home during high school to chase their dream.
AFL Executive General Manager of Football Laura Kane has spent her first season in the role travelling around the country searching for ways to improve the talent pathway.
What would the point of that be exactly? The romance is wonderful but its not an efficient use of money. For reference the entire population of the the Pilbara, the Kimberly and the Gascoyne combined is not much more than Bunbury, scattered over an area bigger than NSW. They'd all still have to travel unless there was like 10+ of them and clearly that's not happening.

If it was about maximising opportunities for non city people then they'd put facilities in Bunbury, Albany, Kal and Gero because that's where there are actually people in numbers who don't live in greater Perth. But thats not what its about is it: It's about being seen to be doing something without actually doing something.

We don't need AFL paid for academies, we need the footy commission to pull its finger out of its arse and stop (and I think I'm quoting myself here) stop acting as West Coasts paramilitary wing and actual work fully towards the betterment of WA footy.
 
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Laura Kane said that running with four umpires give the chance for more diversity within the ranks.I question that , how come that we are not seeing any female umpires in the AFL right now. Are the ladies that participated last year not good enough to umpire this seasons AFL games!!
She blows a lot of smoke up the rear end of the football public, particularly the WA football public.
A mouth piece for the wonderful Boys Club of the VFL.
The"opening round was the greatest smoke and mirror exercize ever by the VFL. A system that allows those clubs that did not participate in the round to play the entire season with one bye, while other get two.
I wonder if Gil still holds the reins and decides just what happens.Nothing has changed, if anything, it has got worse with Kane and Dillon in charge.
Hopefully the WA clubs and the franchise clubs keep pounding on the VFL door about the inequality of the entire competition.It is far too easy for them to say, "It is what it is" but they know that it can be changed quite easily.
The wheels are in motion, slowly turning at this moment, but trurning non the less, to tell them, the VFL, that all is not well.
 
Laura Kane said that running with four umpires give the chance for more diversity within the ranks.I question that , how come that we are not seeing any female umpires in the AFL right now. Are the ladies that participated last year not good enough to umpire this seasons AFL games!!
She blows a lot of smoke up the rear end of the football public, particularly the WA football public.
A mouth piece for the wonderful Boys Club of the VFL.
The"opening round was the greatest smoke and mirror exercize ever by the VFL. A system that allows those clubs that did not participate in the round to play the entire season with one bye, while other get two.
I wonder if Gil still holds the reins and decides just what happens.Nothing has changed, if anything, it has got worse with Kane and Dillon in charge.
Hopefully the WA clubs and the franchise clubs keep pounding on the VFL door about the inequality of the entire competition.It is far too easy for them to say, "It is what it is" but they know that it can be changed quite easily.
The wheels are in motion, slowly turning at this moment, but trurning non the less, to tell them, the VFL, that all is not well.
Yep,
The AFL in their quest for money, have let slip that they can change what ever they want, when ever they want. We can now start demanding change and not taking no for an answer. They need to start evening the ledger rather than making it harder ever year for our state.
 
This is a great read as to the squirrel grip the AFL have over the competition. But, maybe at long last, the Melbourne media are beginning to get the message that all is not well in the AFL.
The article is from The Age.


Jonathan Horn
Mon 24 Jun 2024 01.00 AEST
It started on a bus in Detroit. Several AFL executives on an NFL Super Bowl junket were sitting next to the Canadian software guru Rick Stone. For years, the AFL fixture had been done by hand, and then on a spreadsheet. With two new franchises coming, and with billions of broadcast dollars at stake, they needed a more sophisticated model.
“I was doing manufacturing scheduling at the time and it’s not a big leap from that to sports leagues scheduling and optimisation,” Stone told AFL.com.au last year. “The software is very similar for all the leagues. But the rules and the priorities are very different for every league.”
Dustin Martin exiting the MCG as fans lean over to touch his hands
The prince of Punt Road: AFL fans rise as one for Dustin Martin’s 300th
Read more
The AFL is upfront about its priorities. “The two KPIs of the fixture are broadcast viewership and attendance,” fixture boss Josh Bowler said. It’s a mix of algorithms, favours and compromises. It’s one of the AFL’s primary levers to appease, to reward, to penetrate challenging markets and to offer a leg up.
But ultimately, it’s about satisfying the host broadcasters. The former AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou, who’s being touted as the next chair of the AFL Commission, was on radio last week talking about the prospect of a universal mid-season bye. He recalled [not always his strong suit] many a meeting where Channel Seven and Foxtel executives shouted down the mere suggestion of it.
Demetriou’s successor, Gillon McLachlan, negotiated a $4.5bn broadcast rights deal that handed an extraordinary amount of power to the host broadcasters. They want double-up, blockbuster games between big-drawing traditional rivals. They want to play every Thursday night. Hell, they’d make them play every night if they could get away with it. A semblance of evenness, fairness and clarity are pushed well down the list of priorities.
It has taken nearly four months, but now that all teams have had at least one bye, you’d think we’d finally have a sense of the ladder and where each teams stands.
But there’s so many inequities and quirks that skew and confuse things. Carlton’s win on Friday was a complete performance, a total domination, and surely the clearest sign yet that they’re ready to contend for a premiership. But their draw is completely nonsensical.
By the second week of August, Carlton will have played Collingwood, North Melbourne, Richmond, Port Adelaide, GWS and Geelong twice. But they won’t yet have played Hawthorn, West Coast or St Kilda. Similarly, the Giants just played their second Sydney derby in seven weeks, but don’t play Fremantle for the first time until round 23.
Their main contenders all have their own inherent advantages and disadvantages. Essendon, who play North Melbourne and West Coast twice, play their next eight games in Melbourne. Collingwood plays seven of its remaining nine home and away games at the MCG. Meanwhile, if Sydney finish first and win two home finals, they won’t have played or trained at the MCG since April.
It’s swings and roundabouts of course. The Swans had two byes before many other clubs even had one. Heading into round 15, the ladder leaders had enjoyed 33 more days rest between games than West Coast and Geelong.
It means we should be cautious of jumping to conclusions on teams and on coaches. Just over a month ago, several prominent commentators had Luke Beveridge’s head on the chopping block, a focus which has since shifted to the two South Australian coaches. Brisbane had an especially difficult draw in the first few months, but play six of their last nine in Queensland, and completely outplayed Port Adelaide on Saturday.
“There’s no way that you could look at the draw and say it’s fair anywhere,” the Magpies coach, Craig McRae, said earlier this year. It will always be imperfect. The one thing that would simplify it – cutting the season back and having each team play each other once, with a double up derby and/or blockbuster game – will of course never happen.
But there are some basic tenets that would make it less compromised and confusing. The first would be to the countenance the idea of a universal week or fortnight off, at the same time each season. The second would be to address the opportunities for non-Victorian teams to play at the MCG. The third would be to accept that the introduction of opening round and gather round have completely upended the fixture, to the point where several teams had enjoyed two byes before others had one break. And finally, as important as attendances and eyeballs on screens are, fairness and basic comprehensibility should be afforded vaguely equal weight.
Everything about the AFL is compromised. Playing the grand final at the MCG every year compromises it. Having a CEO who goes on to run Tabcorp compromises it. But there has to be a better way to fixture the 18 teams – one that strikes a balance between commercial imperatives, high performance and fairness, and at the very least, one that makes sense.
 

AFL footy boss Laura Kane reveals a plan to give remote WA communities more access to elite footy pathways​

Craig O'DonoghueThe West Australian
Wed, 26 June 2024 2:00AM
Comments
Craig O'Donoghue
The AFL is investigating opportunities to establish elite footy hubs in remote parts of Western Australia in a bid to give more youngsters the chance to become AFL players without having to leave home during high school to chase their dream.
AFL Executive General Manager of Football Laura Kane has spent her first season in the role travelling around the country searching for ways to improve the talent pathway.
Was there any more to this article?
 

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AFL footy boss Laura Kane reveals a plan to give remote WA communities more access to elite footy pathways​

Headshot of Craig O'Donoghue
Craig O'DonoghueThe West Australian
Tue, 25 June 2024 6:00PM
Comments
Craig O'Donoghue
The AFL is investigating opportunities to establish elite footy hubs in remote parts of Western Australia in a bid to give more youngsters the chance to become AFL players without having to leave home during high school to chase their dream.
AFL Executive General Manager of Football Laura Kane has spent her first season in the role travelling around the country searching for ways to improve the talent pathway.
She said visiting remote areas in WA had been eye opening and shown that more work needs to players in those regions with the same chances to succeed as youngsters living in other parts of Australia.
76dd76372819189f95ce40bf1176552a3f964946.jpg
A young Liam Henry in outback WA Yes
“I’ve found it fascinating how large scale the talent pathways are,” Kane told The West Australian.
“The distance between Perth and everywhere else in WA, it’s a really long way away. So we need to work out what does that look like?
“How do we replicate the offering around other metropolitan cities that don’t have such distance? You could drive from regional to metropolitan (areas) in a lot of other places in the southern states but can’t do that in WA and can’t do that in Queensland.
“How can we create hubs? How can we work with the Footy Commission and the WAFL clubs to create as many opportunities as possible and cultivate the talent that we know is there?”
2ded72b5298c7d255fe5382b573f3d3909f5b2d3.jpg
A young Sam Petrevski-Seton at home in Halls Creek Yes
Kane’s comments follow Fremantle and West Coast pushing for greater access to their Next Generation Academy players given the amount of work it takes for them to travel, identify and develop youngsters in remote areas.
Kane said the AFL’s focus was on giving every boy and girl in Australia the same opportunities to get drafted, regardless of where they live. She said it was also vital to support players who don’t get drafted so they can continue developing in the WAFL.
Kane said that could result in more AFL funding for the states to run programs or the potential for the AFL to be in charge of those hubs.
“It’s a bit of both. It’s working together. it’s working with all of the stakeholders that currently deliver are currently fund and making sure we’ve got the resources to develop the talent,” she said.
ba49cc89e1a623136aea8cbe470fbd12a9eb5248.jpg
AFL Executive General Manager of Football Laura Kane No
“I spend a lot of time trying to learn and understand what the pathway looks like. The sheer distance and what that does to talent, which we’re responsible for at the AFL, and working closely with the footy commission over there around what does that look like moving forward for boys and girls?
“But other conversations we’ve been having are around what’s the state league offering? What can we do that makes it easier for the players who aren’t picked for AFL?”
 
This is a great read as to the squirrel grip the AFL have over the competition. But, maybe at long last, the Melbourne media are beginning to get the message that all is not well in the AFL.
The article is from The Age.


Jonathan Horn
Mon 24 Jun 2024 01.00 AEST
It started on a bus in Detroit. Several AFL executives on an NFL Super Bowl junket were sitting next to the Canadian software guru Rick Stone. For years, the AFL fixture had been done by hand, and then on a spreadsheet. With two new franchises coming, and with billions of broadcast dollars at stake, they needed a more sophisticated model.
“I was doing manufacturing scheduling at the time and it’s not a big leap from that to sports leagues scheduling and optimisation,” Stone told AFL.com.au last year. “The software is very similar for all the leagues. But the rules and the priorities are very different for every league.”
Dustin Martin exiting the MCG as fans lean over to touch his hands
The prince of Punt Road: AFL fans rise as one for Dustin Martin’s 300th
Read more
The AFL is upfront about its priorities. “The two KPIs of the fixture are broadcast viewership and attendance,” fixture boss Josh Bowler said. It’s a mix of algorithms, favours and compromises. It’s one of the AFL’s primary levers to appease, to reward, to penetrate challenging markets and to offer a leg up.
But ultimately, it’s about satisfying the host broadcasters. The former AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou, who’s being touted as the next chair of the AFL Commission, was on radio last week talking about the prospect of a universal mid-season bye. He recalled [not always his strong suit] many a meeting where Channel Seven and Foxtel executives shouted down the mere suggestion of it.
Demetriou’s successor, Gillon McLachlan, negotiated a $4.5bn broadcast rights deal that handed an extraordinary amount of power to the host broadcasters. They want double-up, blockbuster games between big-drawing traditional rivals. They want to play every Thursday night. Hell, they’d make them play every night if they could get away with it. A semblance of evenness, fairness and clarity are pushed well down the list of priorities.
It has taken nearly four months, but now that all teams have had at least one bye, you’d think we’d finally have a sense of the ladder and where each teams stands.
But there’s so many inequities and quirks that skew and confuse things. Carlton’s win on Friday was a complete performance, a total domination, and surely the clearest sign yet that they’re ready to contend for a premiership. But their draw is completely nonsensical.
By the second week of August, Carlton will have played Collingwood, North Melbourne, Richmond, Port Adelaide, GWS and Geelong twice. But they won’t yet have played Hawthorn, West Coast or St Kilda. Similarly, the Giants just played their second Sydney derby in seven weeks, but don’t play Fremantle for the first time until round 23.
Their main contenders all have their own inherent advantages and disadvantages. Essendon, who play North Melbourne and West Coast twice, play their next eight games in Melbourne. Collingwood plays seven of its remaining nine home and away games at the MCG. Meanwhile, if Sydney finish first and win two home finals, they won’t have played or trained at the MCG since April.
It’s swings and roundabouts of course. The Swans had two byes before many other clubs even had one. Heading into round 15, the ladder leaders had enjoyed 33 more days rest between games than West Coast and Geelong.
It means we should be cautious of jumping to conclusions on teams and on coaches. Just over a month ago, several prominent commentators had Luke Beveridge’s head on the chopping block, a focus which has since shifted to the two South Australian coaches. Brisbane had an especially difficult draw in the first few months, but play six of their last nine in Queensland, and completely outplayed Port Adelaide on Saturday.
“There’s no way that you could look at the draw and say it’s fair anywhere,” the Magpies coach, Craig McRae, said earlier this year. It will always be imperfect. The one thing that would simplify it – cutting the season back and having each team play each other once, with a double up derby and/or blockbuster game – will of course never happen.
But there are some basic tenets that would make it less compromised and confusing. The first would be to the countenance the idea of a universal week or fortnight off, at the same time each season. The second would be to address the opportunities for non-Victorian teams to play at the MCG. The third would be to accept that the introduction of opening round and gather round have completely upended the fixture, to the point where several teams had enjoyed two byes before others had one break. And finally, as important as attendances and eyeballs on screens are, fairness and basic comprehensibility should be afforded vaguely equal weight.
Everything about the AFL is compromised. Playing the grand final at the MCG every year compromises it. Having a CEO who goes on to run Tabcorp compromises it. But there has to be a better way to fixture the 18 teams – one that strikes a balance between commercial imperatives, high performance and fairness, and at the very least, one that makes sense.
1719413412646.jpeg
 

AFL footy boss Laura Kane reveals a plan to give remote WA communities more access to elite footy pathways​

Headshot of Craig O'Donoghue'Donoghue
Craig O'DonoghueThe West Australian
Tue, 25 June 2024 6:00PM
Comments
Craig O'Donoghue
The AFL is investigating opportunities to establish elite footy hubs in remote parts of Western Australia in a bid to give more youngsters the chance to become AFL players without having to leave home during high school to chase their dream.
AFL Executive General Manager of Football Laura Kane has spent her first season in the role travelling around the country searching for ways to improve the talent pathway.
She said visiting remote areas in WA had been eye opening and shown that more work needs to players in those regions with the same chances to succeed as youngsters living in other parts of Australia.
76dd76372819189f95ce40bf1176552a3f964946.jpg
A young Liam Henry in outback WA Yes
“I’ve found it fascinating how large scale the talent pathways are,” Kane told The West Australian.
“The distance between Perth and everywhere else in WA, it’s a really long way away. So we need to work out what does that look like?
“How do we replicate the offering around other metropolitan cities that don’t have such distance? You could drive from regional to metropolitan (areas) in a lot of other places in the southern states but can’t do that in WA and can’t do that in Queensland.
“How can we create hubs? How can we work with the Footy Commission and the WAFL clubs to create as many opportunities as possible and cultivate the talent that we know is there?”
2ded72b5298c7d255fe5382b573f3d3909f5b2d3.jpg
A young Sam Petrevski-Seton at home in Halls Creek Yes
Kane’s comments follow Fremantle and West Coast pushing for greater access to their Next Generation Academy players given the amount of work it takes for them to travel, identify and develop youngsters in remote areas.
Kane said the AFL’s focus was on giving every boy and girl in Australia the same opportunities to get drafted, regardless of where they live. She said it was also vital to support players who don’t get drafted so they can continue developing in the WAFL.
Kane said that could result in more AFL funding for the states to run programs or the potential for the AFL to be in charge of those hubs.
“It’s a bit of both. It’s working together. it’s working with all of the stakeholders that currently deliver are currently fund and making sure we’ve got the resources to develop the talent,” she said.
ba49cc89e1a623136aea8cbe470fbd12a9eb5248.jpg
AFL Executive General Manager of Football Laura Kane No
“I spend a lot of time trying to learn and understand what the pathway looks like. The sheer distance and what that does to talent, which we’re responsible for at the AFL, and working closely with the footy commission over there around what does that look like moving forward for boys and girls?
“But other conversations we’ve been having are around what’s the state league offering? What can we do that makes it easier for the players who aren’t picked for AFL?”
She knows corporate speak.
Another snake.
 
Fred, I am miles away from being the vanguard of woke. In fact, being Catholic makes me ultra contra mundum - and, rightly so, the modern world being an undeniable piece of shit - but I have to say this: it takes cojones to be your true self and especially so if that openly challenges and defies others to accept you. That courage deserves our respect.

I reckon Dean Laidley was a tough son of a bitch and I reckon Dani Laidley is even tougher. God bless her.

She must really want this to put up with the shit that she puts up with. That means something to me. Be a mensch and try some understanding.

Her footy analysis isn't bad - the rating of players comes from a place of genuine knowledge and experience - but the avenue for expression isn't really there.
It’s amazing to me that the most visible trans person in the country is a former player and coach writing for the main tabloid paper of one of the more conservative states in the country. Kudos to her.
 
I think that is actually the bit that gets me. And that dinosaurs like Mick Malthouse were among the first to embrace Laidley.

But maybe that's a reflection of my own tendency to stereotype.

Or my naivety - given that in many ways it is another example of the deeply troubling way the AFL and associated media looks after its own when it comes to abusers. An extraordinarily damaging way to add insult to injury for the abused.

Agus fágaimíd siúd mar atá sé.
 
I think that is actually the bit that gets me. And that dinosaurs like Mick Malthouse were among the first to embrace Laidley.

But maybe that's a reflection of my own tendency to stereotype.

Or my naivety - given that in many ways it is another example of the deeply troubling way the AFL and associated media looks after its own when it comes to abusers. An extraordinarily damaging way to add insult to injury for the abused.

Agus fágaimíd siúd mar atá sé.
****wits like Sam Newman are Wayne Carey are being phased out. Laidley is pretty smart in not bashing people over the head with her gender. She's doing it one opinion piece at a time.
 

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