Gut Feelings is back again, a little late this week as the mind ticked over and Round 1 approached

A random collection of thoughts from the influential minds, deep inside the Nest!

• The shortened Covid-19 QAFL season has a bit of “Forrest Gump” about it—you are not sure what you are going to get!! With an influx of NEAFL players back into the QAFL and QFA as well (!) some clubs may have a completely new look. Only time will tell who are the teams to beat.

• The Magpies had a solid internal trial last week but were missing quite a few of it regular senior players but plenty of youngsters put their hand up for selection, would want to be on match committee for quids!

• The Reserves  (under first time coach Cory Hopkins) and Colts (under Drew Mitchell and Ben Jaenke-Cain) will also be incredibly strong, with the Reserves likely to feature a team containing at least 50% of who have played Senior football

• The other highlight will be the return of the Sherwood Women’s team after a break of 5 years and numerous facility upgrades. With Womens football at Sherwood dating back to 1972, its great to see the ladies back in black & white this week!

• Sherwood had one of the strongest womens’  teams in Queensland in the early 2000s, often coached by Will Fozard - but the team went into hibernation after the 2011 floods wiped out the club facilities and the playing group en masse were tempted to another club.

• Coach Mitch Merritt has worked hard to build a team from scratch and on return to training had an influx of players to ensure the Pies will have a strong lineup. Merritt has been assisted by Western Districts QAFL 1996 Premiership Captain and 1993 Best and fairest winner Cam Bulley.  

• The Magpies will start in QFAW Division 2 South with a team featuring plenty of first gamers.

• The Sherwood Grey Magpies have been active in the off season, helping fund the new coaches boxes at the ground and have also encouraged many past players to come along to the footy on Saturday. The Grey Magpies have also invited their old adversaries from Mt Gravatt to enjoy the hospitality at the Nest and relive many old memories—most of the Sherwood ones will be good, Mt Gravatt not so!!

• Unfortunately the new coaches boxes won’t quite be ready in time, so in Round 1 vs Mt Gravatt the home and away coaches will be just 10m apart!

• The club honour boards are still in the process of being updated after the renaming of the senior teams to Sherwood. Hopefully the new boards will be up before the next home game on August 1st.

• Some other interesting or unfortunate outcomes of the shortened season and COVID-19 period is the lack of representative football. At Senior level, its welcome news with the Academy Series not wiping out large parts of Senior lists at random intervals and giving players the opportunity to play genuine Senior State League football.

• With a full contingent of the academy players in circulation, the QAFL Colts will be a red hot competition

• Unfortunately in other younger age groups it has robbed youngsters of the opportunity to go on memorable footy trips with their representative teammates, and enjoy great experiences they may never get the opportunity to again. Several boys in junior state team contention will ‘age out’ and miss their chance.

• It’s great to see several of the Sherwood youth and junior teams coached by players from the Senior ranks with Sherwood Girls U11s coached by some of the experienced Senior Womens players, while the u12s, 14s and 16s are coached by players from both the Sherwood and Kenmore Senior squad ranks.

• Gut Feelings has written several times about ways in which to speed up the game and reduce congestion –good to see hawthorn coach Alistair Clarkson  picked up on a couple of suggestions re incorrect disposal.

• One was to pay free kicks for incorrect disposal –too many times players get tackled and then just let the ball roll out—no attempt to handpass or kick the ball and with no free kick the rugby type maul continues until the umpire blows the whistle for a ball up. Then the umpire waits until the ruckmen put their hand up and after about 10 seconds the ball is thrown in the air. In the meantime another 10 players have arrived to further congest the area. 

• In addition the boundary umpires wait 10 seconds to throw the ball in for the same reason –waiting for ruckmen to arrive but by that time another 10 players are  also now at the boundary thrown in contest.

• Old TV vision from the 1980s and before  shows the field umpire blow the whistle quickly if there is no free kick and the ball is locked in and then immediately bounced the ball with about 2-3 players from each side at the contest. The boundary umpires—and there was one each side—managed to get the ball back in quickly as soon as they picked the ball up.

• So Gut feelings suggests to get rid of the hand in the air ruckmen and simply have a rule  that only two players contest the ruck or boundary throw in and if a third player contest then it is a free kick.  Umpires throw the ball up ASAP and boundary umpires throw the ball in ASAP.  I think this has been mentioned previously!!.

• The other rule, which Gut feelings calls the “Steve Mitchell Rule”, which  looks like it is now being implemented at AFL level is if a player tucks the ball in to take the tackle and then does not dispose of it CORRECTLY as soon as possible will be penalised for holding the ball.

• Gut Feelings is of the opinion that radical rule changes are not needed to keep the game as most of us know it. Talking about zones, reducing teams to 16 players etc  will mean fundamental changes to our game.  If zones were introduced I can imagine a scenario where the ball stops 1 metre outside the 50 metre arc and players who are in inside the zone cannot pick the ball up!!  As BT would say, “ boy, oh, boy!!” 

• The Brisbane Lions are playing attacking  football and prepared to take a risk and kick to the open side and also to a contest and as a result they dismantled Port Adelaide and similarly the Giants dismantled the Hawks defence with controlled but rapid ball movement.  So there is hope for footy yet!! 

• We in Queensland are lucky to have our local community football back as all local footy in Victoria has been cancelled for the season. The Riverina, ACT and Sydney leagues are  at this stage playing a shortened season but it is a lot of pain for footballers and netballers and their communities for the 2020 season. Even in the dark days of WW2 when regular competitions were put on hold often shortened competitions were still played and the pubs were still open!!

• The likelihood is that the QAFL will comprise 12 teams in 2012 with the addition of Aspley , Redland and Noosa. The QAFL will have a tightly controlled salary cap and the points system in place to make sure the competition is relatively even as noted below.

• The QAFL made some tweaks to the points system this season to allow for NEAFL players to return to their QAFL alignments without attracting too high a rating.

• Hence Sherwood will be well under the maximum points allowed due to most of the NEAFL returnees all coming through the Magpies ranks at some stage of their development.  

The QAFL points system is:

Category 1:   Player  developed within own club – 1 Point (40 Junior games)

Category 2: Community Player – 2 Points

A player who has played more reserves games than senior games in total, over the current and/or previous three (3) Seasons at community football level or has played in competitions that do not meet the Category 3 - Senior Community Player criteria.

Category 2: Youth and Rising Star Eligible player - 2 Points

Player recruited from another club that is under twenty (20) years of age prior to 1 January of the competition year.

Category 3: Senior Community Player – 3 Points

Player who has played the same or more senior games than reserves games in total, over the current and or previous three (3) Seasons in QFA Div 1 or AFL Cairns or any interstate Senior competition (that does not meet the Category 4 threshold).
The player must have played at least 5 games in total, for either the Seniors or Reserves teams (not accumulated across both).

Category 4: Premium Competition Player – 4 Points

Players from premium competitions interstate eg Ovens and Murray League , TSL, NTFL, WAAFL, EDFL, GVFL etc

Category 5 : state League – 5 Points

Players who have played minimum 5 seniors games in VFL, WAFL, NEAFL or SANFL in any of the previous 3 seasons

Category 6: AFL Player - 6 Points

Player who has played a minimum one AFL game in any of the current or previous 3 seasons

The Sherwood Football Club Senior Footy Department have done their homework and with a largely homegrown list, are unlikely to get within 10 points of the points cap during the season.