■ I wish I was a collarbone expert because, from what I can see, that will be the next ‘popular’ injury in football. As more and more rugby-type scrums are permitted in our game there’ll be more close-quarter tackles, which will mean more player-on-player collisions with the ground and, presto, – more collarbone fractures. The more stoppages a game has the worse it is to watch. That was always the difference between our game and rugby. The cross-pollination of the codes has made rugby league, in particular, a better spectacle at the expense of our game, in my opinion. I see this suffocation of the game, with nearly every player at every contest, as the single biggest issue in our game. I love high marks, long kicking and the rudimentary skills of Rules. Am I a dinosaur with this view?
■ Wednesday night (May 28) I will be uncontactable when Queensland meets New South Wales in the first of the Rugby League State of Origin games for 2014. I love it, and as a quasi-Queenslander who lived there for 20 years, I always hope the Maroons win, and win handsomely. The Melbourne Storm contingent who play for Queensland are legends of the game – Slater, Smith and Cronk – and of course they have a western suburbs connection as some of the boys play cricket at St Albans.
■ The Big V will be out and about this weekend when the Victorian VFL side plays South Australia at Port Melbourne on Saturday. Werribee and Williamstown have several players in the squad. I know the players love the concept and the chance to represent their state. Let’s hope for all concerned it’s a Big V win.
■ The WRFL publishes its tribunal results on its website and in its weekly Footy Record. Last week it included an under-10 player who was reported and suspended for abusive language towards an umpire. Let’s open the can of worms here, shall we, and let me state for the record that I do work for the WRFL as a broadcast consultant and event MC. That is irrelevant here. Firstly, I am not in favour of publishing junior players tribunal reports of any description. The facts in this case, as I understand them are, that it was not an under-10 player, but a club official who was at fault. We would all agree that this is totally unacceptable. Then the reporting of this incident has to be questioned. As I read it, it was a player who transgressed – which was not the case. I don’t see who wins in this scenario.
Kevin Hillier
