Thursday, April 3, 2014: Things that look easy but are actually quite difficult...

Gillon in the name of....

When Andrew Demetriou retires at the end of 2014, he will take a lot of valuable experience with him. You can't work in such a tough position for so many years without learning a thing or two about running a sport and avoiding PR disasters. These are things young Gil would do well to brush up on if he is serious about his tilt to engineer a seamless transition of the keys to AFL house from Demetriou to himself.




Some of these are easy to pick up - the appropriate reaction to hearing that one of your employees has set a dwarf alight for example - while others are more intricate, like the management of, heaven forbid, another ASADA scandal. Trickier still are things that look easy but are actually quite difficult, like explaining to the MCC that you have no intention of changing the current allocation of ANZAC day tickets to war veterans.

Whether this was the fault of a broken hearing aid in the MCC's operations department, a bungling by a fresh-faced AFL employee keen to impress with the use of a big words he didn't quite yet understand or a sinister plot by the AFL to evict the vets and resell their Category A tickets to the cast of My Kitchen Rules at a handsome profit, is still unclear. What we do know is that the MCC, for reasons unclear, contacted the veterans to awkwardly un-invite them from the ANZAC day game, only for the AFL to issue a stern correction, insisting that the whole thing was made up (perhaps a misconstrued April Fools Joke) and that, in fact, everyone would be delighted if they could come along.

The whole thing was pretty unedifying, and presents a pretty simple take-home message for anyone with their sights on the big chair: when you're doing big business with the memory of Gallipoli, at least get the communications right....

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In the news...
Richmond's Brett Deledio is in doubt his teams clash with the Western Bulldogs after a rumoured issue with his ankle.

North Melbourne's Jack Ziebell is also in doubt with coach Brad Scott worried about his ability to take appropriate care of his body in Sunday's game against Port Adelaide. "I've got to work out whether he's his own worst enemy and goes out and hurts himself again." said Scott. 

Finally, in bad news for Supercoaches around the nation, Luke Hodge will miss a week with the groin issue that saw him subbed out of Friday's night win against Essendon. 


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