Titus O’Reily’s 2014 AFL Season Almanac: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the AFL Premiership

Titus O’Reily’s writings/ramblings can be found at:

http://titusoreily.com/

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/

Inside Football

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ISBN: 978-0-646-92777-0

Table of Contents

Introduction

Season 2014 in review

Essendon Saga

Mick Malthouse

Buddy Franklin heads North

The Ivory Tower

Preseason

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

Introduction

It’s been three years since I started writing about AFL and sport. In that time I’ve written about 300,000 odd words, sent about 20,000 tweets and offended every type of supporter.

I’ve also broken upwards of thirty TV remotes watching Melbourne play.

When I started, I thought I would do this for a week, before losing interest.

After my first two articles managed to attract a GWS Giants type audience, I thought it had been an interesting experiment but didn’t see it going anywhere.

My early pieces were attempts at serious type sports analysis. Even I got bored reading them.

Just as I was going to give it all away, I wrote a satirical piece and surprisingly, people seemed to actually like it.

I found it suited my style too, so I kept going.

Eventually, I came to just enjoy the writing, the interaction with people on Twitter and the sheer idiotic silliness of it all.

That’s become the key for me. People often ask why I write so much and how I keep it up.

The simple answer is, I enjoy it.

Writing and tweeting is an outlet I never had before and I’ve really come to like so many people who I’ve come to know through social media and the blog.

Even the people who write ‘Titus is the least funny person ever’ make me at least smile at the fact they have an opinion on this nonsense.

Making people laugh, or trying to, is a lot of fun and hearing from people that enjoy it is a great reward.

Writing satire also has its own rewards. It lets you poke holes in the nonsense we’re often told and have a laugh at the absurdity that is so much of day-to-day life.

I was surprised when I looked back at season 2014 and saw I had enough material for a book.

Knowing that very few people would be interested, I quickly got to work pulling it together and here it is.

I hope it provides a few moments of light entertainment and a big thank you to everyone for the kind words and support in 2014.

Bring on the 2015 season and a certain Melbourne Demons Premiership.

Titus O’Reily October 2014

Season 2014 in review

What a season! It had everything: poor crowds, the continuation of the Essendon scandal, variable ticketing … but it also had it share of lowlights.

It began with a split round that lasted for what felt like forever and sucked all the excitement out of the return of the footy season.

We said goodbye to an AFL CEO and welcomed another.

Gary Ablett was injured after dominating and another winter came and went, leaving no snow in Paul Roos’ hair.

There was the red threat of communism in the form of equalisation and millions of complaints about Sydney’s Cost of Living Allowance.

Ninety-eight percent of them were from Eddie McGuire.

Then there were the retirements, so, so many retirements.

Lenny Hayes took retiring to a whole new level, with his farewell tour lasting longer than some player’s entire careers.

We also had the great man Jonathan Brown give it away after his body finally caved under years of crashing packs and carrying his team.

The Buddy experiment seemed to be a success both on the field and off it, annoying Eddie McGuire on a weekly basis.

Carlton self-destructed, which was great for most of us, while Collingwood collapsed late, which was even better.

We also had another full year of the wonderful Essendon saga, which is almost as old as GWS. It is highly likely it will never end.

The new Adelaide Oval was a huge success and was very loud, if we believe what we were told several thousand times.

We saw Matt Priddis win the Brownlow, Buddy the Coleman and Adam Goodes the Australian of the Year.

Richmond resurrected their season, only to be left destroyed by the Power in a brutal display and we unfortunately saw Luke Darcy wearing gloves.

In the end though, it was Hawthorn and Sydney in the Grand Final and it was brutal.

The Hawks are supreme above all again. How depressing.

Essendon Saga

Legends tell us that there was once a time before the Essendon saga. Those days are now shrouded in the mists of time, known only to Dustin Fletcher.

Personally, I thought the second season of the supplement scandal was better than the first.

The whole ‘James in France’ storyline was nice, we saw Tania develop into a more rounded character and the change from Demetriou to Gillon McLachlan was a nice change of pace to stop things going stale.

Unfortunately for footy fans, I think the chances of this getting renewed for a third season are very high.

So here are my various takes on the Essendon saga, a saga that has the magical ability to make almost everyone involved in it look bad. 

New Essendon CEO multiple choice test

The following quiz was given to every candidate for the position of Essendon CEO.

It was multiple choice to reflect the quality of candidates.

Will you ‘Stand By Hird’?

a) Yes

b) Yes, yes, yes!

c) Hell Yeah

d) I can’t say yes any more strongly than I already have

e) You’re scaring me now

How close will you ‘Stand by Hird’?

a) Really close

b) Within earshot

c) Close enough without it getting awkward

d) Spooning close

Do you believe Essendon have done anything wrong?

a) No

b) It’s been a conspiracy by the AFL

c) It’s been a conspiracy by all the other clubs

d) It’s all a conspiracy by Caroline Wilson

e) All of the above

Who is your favourite AFL journalist?

a) Mark Robinson

b) No really, it is

What do you think is the biggest challenge facing Essendon?

a) Repairing the relationship with the AFL

b) Addressing the financial position of the club

c) The ongoing ASADA investigation

d) Sneaking James Hird into meetings

e) Caroline Wilson

Should James Hird be allowed to return to the club?

a) Yes

b) Probably

c) Whatever Paul Little thinks

What is ASADA?

a) A mildly incompetent government agency

b) The slowest force known to physics’ standard model

c) A force for evil

d) Part of the international conspiracy to destroy this great club

What is the role of Paul Little?

a) Chairman

b) Whatever he wants it to be

c) Saviour of this club

d) Conjurer of deals so ridiculous it’s amazing he pulls them off

e) Staying several steps ahead of Andrew Demetriou

My Essendon Integrity Officer job application

Background:

This job was eventually filled but not by me surprisingly. Can you imagine thinking ‘that sounds like a good job?’

In the wake of last year’s ‘supplements scandal,’ which is fortunately all over thanks to the swift work of ASADA, Essendon are now advertising for an ‘Integrity Officer.’

Always looking for a bit of extra money in my spare time, I’ve written the following application. Once you read it, you’ll know I’m a sure thing.

Dear Chairman Little

I’m writing to you regarding the ‘Integrity Officer Role,’ that I saw people making jokes about on social media recently.

I strongly believe that I could possibly do that job if you are looking for a very cheap option.

Skimming over bits of the ad, it’s clear to me that I’m a perfect fit for the job.

I’m familiar with the trouble ‘potentially’ illegal supplements can bring to a club.

As a passionate Melbourne fan, I’m also familiar with making it all go away like nothing ever happened.

I’m not saying I had any involvement with that but let’s just say a few AFL and ASADA people are enjoying unlimited access to a few of my many ski lodges.

Another positive I would bring to the role is my complete lack of any medical experience at all.

I Googled ‘supplements’ and after reading a bit on Wikipedia about them, I still don’t really know what they are.

This lack of medical background makes me distrustful of doctors and medical professionals.

As your Integrity Officer, I’ll never let a player receive medical attention of any sort.

Personally, I believe there are few injuries in the modern game that can’t be fixed by ‘walking it off.’ Anything more serious can usually be cured with leeches.

This lack of modern medicine in the club should see us free and clear of any breaches of anti-doping laws.

The downside is, it might also see us free and clear of playing in finals. Hardly a change, then.

I’ve also stolen a heap of HR policies from a place I used to work at. These stolen documents will underpin our new commitment to integrity. Don’t worry, I’ll do a ‘find and replace’ in Word so no one will ever know where they came from.

Importantly, I’ve also got extensive experience appearing in various courts across the country.

I don’t think there’s a jurisdiction in Australia where I haven’t had to front up to court in some capacity.

There would be few judges in Australia who wouldn’t have met me or at least read about me in case law.

Lastly, I can promise you that as Integrity Officer, I will do everything and anything to stop any breaches of our new policies and procedures coming to light. You don’t ask how I do this and I will only ask for money when it’s needed.

I look forward to your reply and I can produce references from any person you’d like, as long as it’s in writing and you don’t need to speak to them.

Looking forward to working with you.

Titus

Essendon/AFL meeting agenda

Titus Comment:

I wrote this because it was just such a farcical meeting if ever there was one. It was a total attempt to make people believe they didn’t all hate each other. It didn’t work.

This week, the AFL’s Andrew Demetriou and Gillon McLachlan will visit Essendon’s hierarchy including Chairman Paul Little, to discuss progress on administrative changes the club is making.

Here, exclusively, is the agenda for the day which I’m told is super-accurate.

9:00am Awkward and frosty welcome (10 mins)

9:10am Weird, silent stand-off as people work out who will sit where. (39 minutes)

9:49am Paul Little makes very brief opening remarks. (1 hour)

10:49am Andrew Demetriou responds angrily (1 hour)

11:49am Team-building exercise: tell the group about a time Tania Hird made your life more difficult. Please limit it to one story. (1 hour)

12:49pm Lunch – Meatloaf with a vitamin supplement buffet (1 hour)

1:49pm Paul Little to take AFL representatives through the details of how he is shaping the club in his own image. (1 hour)

2:49pm Update on progress made by ASADA on their investigation. (1 min)

2:50pm Andrew to outline the AFL’s vision for an Essendon without James Hird (30 mins)

3:20pm Media discussion. Decide on a public statement about the day’s events. Agree what information the AFL will leak to The Age and Essendon to Mark Robinson. (45 mins)

4:05pm Paul Little to meet with Gillon privately to discuss a world without Andrew. (1 hour)

5:05pm Finish. AFL representatives to depart.

5:06pm Essendon to sweep facility for listening devices.

ASADA CEO job ad

The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) is seeking someone, anyone really, to become our next Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

Our last one ‘retired’ because they launched an ill-advised joint investigation with the AFL. Then they never delivered an outcome.

They also treated the NRL in a completely different, though no less glacial manner.

Now the whole thing’s stuffed and a retired Federal Court judge has been bought in to try and wrap this mess up.

To say the Federal Government thinks the organisation is completely incompetent would be seen as the ‘Pollyanna’ view round here.

Wow, this is probably over-sharing for a job ad.

Anyway, now we need someone else who wants to be a CEO of a beleaguered, lumbering government bureaucracy.

The successful candidate must meet the following criteria:

Wants to be a CEO

Wants to be CEO of ASADA

Has skills in report writing and delivery

Feels comfortable in media conferences involving 30-odd people that make ridiculously over-the-top claims

Is willing to work and probably live in Canberra

Has a vague awareness of drugs in sports as an issue

Is keen to spend lots of time with the egomaniacs that run the various sporting codes

Has a ‘sciencey’ type background

Enjoys ‘completing’ tasks. Possibly has a to-do list

Has a name Ministers can pronounce

Can look like they know what they are doing to the media

Knowledge of doping regimes, legislation, techniques etc, is nice and all but hardly essential.

The role comes with an office that has one of those nice little meeting areas in it, which is cool. The salary is good, If you consider it in the context of actual output.

You’ll also get free tickets to pretty much any sporting event you can think of, so there’s that too. Full disclosure: The scope for bribes is not as good as you would think unfortunately.

AFL announce they no longer officially hate Essendon

Titus Comment:

Early in the year, the AFL and Paul Little met to smooth things over. I wrote this when both came out and pretended everything was now back to normal. Guess what? It wasn’t.

The AFL would like to announce that it no longer officially hates the Essendon Football Club.

This change in policy follows a highly productive meeting between the AFL’s CEO Andrew Demetriou and Essendon chairman Paul little.

Sure, unofficially there’s still a host of issues that need to be dealt with and a simmering resentment that won’t go away anytime soon.

Officially, however, both parties agree to say all the right things publicly. Phrases such as ‘fresh start’, ‘in the past’ and ‘genuine goodwill on both sides’ are all going to get a good run.

This is obviously a positive move forward but it’s not like the AFL and Essendon are going to move in together or anything like that. The AFL is just not currently ‘actively hating’ Essendon.

The AFL is hopeful that the relationship can progress over time and one day the AFL and Essendon may even have a sleepover.

The meeting itself was productive and the AFL was very pleased with the range of finger food on offer. The lack of vegetarian options was seen as a big positive.

The AFL was particularly impressed by the club’s admission that everything was their fault and the AFL had been right all along.

During a tour of Essendon’s new facility, the AFL was pleased to see no junkies, no one shooting up, no used needles and no members of the Hird family.

It is the AFL’s view that, with the hating over, the AFL and the Essendon Football Club can now focus on hating more productive things. ASADA, Jeff Kennett and salad were all mentioned as potential opportunities.

Paul Little open letter: nothing new, just saying hi

Titus Comment:

There was a period there when I thought Paul Little was going for the world record in open letters. It calmed down eventually, but I suspect that was more due to legal advice than anything else.

Dear members,

In the club’s crisis communication plan, someone has written ‘Open letter from Paul’ for today.

None of us can remember who put this in the plan and to be candid, we can’t figure out what the open letter was meant to be about.

As you can imagine, I’ve had to write so many of these bloody things it’s hardly surprising someone stuck this in the plan. Odds on, we would normally need one.

It could be a hangover from an earlier draft. Document control is important but is so often overlooked by senior executives, to their peril, in my opinion.

I reckon I’ve written more open letters in the last few months than in my entire career before coming here. It’s just another hassle I don’t really need.

The comms team here are nice and all but I hardly want a bunch of people who could only get a ‘degree’ in media and communications clogging up my office all the time.

That said, a crisis plan is there for a reason and if it says ‘Open letter from Paul’, then you’re going to get an open letter from Paul.

Not much has happened since the last open letter though.

I guess it was nice to see the AFL captains come out against our players being named. It would have been nicer if they’d done that when it was actually happening but still, better late than never I suppose.

I went to a nice restaurant the other night with the family. That was good, although a bit on the pricey side.

What else? Let see…..oh! Australia winning the cricket was great. I didn’t stay up for all of it but caught some highlights this morning.

Anyway, I reckon we can tick this one off as done now.

Of course, I should add, we’ve done nothing wrong; constant leaking is damaging the integrity of the investigation; media are awful. All that stuff still stands.

Just refer to any of my forty-odd other open letters if you want the detail.

Regards

Paul Little

Chairman

ASADA update: Investigation into Essendon Football Club

Titus Comment:

Painting ASADA as a big, lumbering bureaucracy wasn’t that hard to do, after all, they’re a big, lumbering bureaucracy.

There has been a lot of interest, from various stakeholders, on how ASADA’s investigation into the Essendon Football Club is coming along.

A lot of that interest has been in the form of the Minister’s chief-of-staff ringing me and yelling ‘what the hell are you guys doing?’

The good news is the investigation team is making great strides. Here are some of the key achievements from recent months:

Huge morning tea for Gary’s birthday (accounting Gary, not Gary from legal). Everyone attended and it pushed through lunch and into a wonderful afternoon tea. A lot of people had to leave after that unfortunately, to do the childcare/school run.

We’ve managed to upgrade Lotus Notes on almost everyone’s computer. This is obviously a huge step forward for the agency.

Sharon and Peter finally finished writing that show cause letter to Stephen Dank. Both cut into their lunch several times over the last six months to get it finished. Peter’s insistence on continuing to use ‘Word Perfect’ has slowed the process down somewhat.

Jodie picked up one of those coffee machines from Aldi that everyone is talking about. I can tell you, we’ve all been enjoying our morning coffees ever since and it’s so much cheaper than buying one every day.

The standoff between finance and operations has ended peacefully, with Barry agreeing to take the slightly smaller office on level two, on the condition he gets Fridays off.

I retired but need to get around to finding a successor. So far the 70-odd people I’ve asked have laughed before saying ‘oh, you’re serious.’

The investigations team have found a wonderful font to publish our final report in. As Trevor said at after-work-drinks the other day though: ‘Now we need to write the bloody thing!’

Anyway, I hope you’ve found this update useful and we will be providing a new update in a few months. Give or take.

Warm Regards

Aurora Andruska

Chief Executive Officer ASADA

ASADA Show Cause letter template

Titus Comment:

Before this season, I imagine most people had no idea what a ‘show cause letter’ was. Thanks to ASADA, we still have no idea.

We hear all about the ‘Show Cause’ letters ASADA issues to athletes but few people have ever seen one. Luckily, I’ve managed to get my hands on the template they use. Here it is:

Dear (Insert athlete’s name, no nicknames anymore)

The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) is a government body responsible for appearing to maintain sporting integrity through the elimination of doping.

You may remember we started an investigation concerning you (2/3/10) years ago.

We are now writing to you to show cause as to why you shouldn’t be banned for a period of time for doing stuff.

‘Show cause’ means we need you to justify, explain, or prove you didn’t do anything wrong or we will then take action against you.

It’s great for us. It’s kind of asking you to help us do our job to find you guilty.

Ideally, you would just admit you are in the wrong and tell us what you did. This would cut out a lot of paperwork and expensive lawyers.

You are personally accused of (select from the following points):

Knowingly taking performance-enhancing drugs;

Unknowingly taking performance-enhancing drugs;

Selling performance-enhancing drugs;

Holding performance-enhancing drugs for a friend;

Being Stephen Dank;

Not knowing what you took but we have no proof so would really like it if you just told us;

Failing a drug test;

Being a professional cyclist;

Having never failed a drug test but we think you would have if you’d done one.

You have a week to respond to this letter because we make you rush even though we’ve taken our sweet old time to get around to you.

Wishing you the best of luck with this.

(insert ASADA Employee name)

Essendon launch legal action against everyone

The Essendon Football Club has today announced they‘ve commenced legal proceeding against everyone.

Speaking at a pre-game function, president Paul Little said he’d had enough of a ‘narrow legal strategy.’

It’s just easier for me to sue everyone. I was having trouble keeping track of who we were having legal battles with. Now I know it’s everyone.

Captain Jobe Watson said he was ‘disappointed but understood’ being sued by his own club.

It’s disappointing in a way but you’ve just got to trust that they’ve got our best interests at heart.

Long-time Hawks fan Ben Rogers said he was proud to be sued by Essendon.

This is personally a dream come true. As a Hawthorn fan I hate Essendon. This will just make the next win even sweeter.

However, some dedicated Bombers supporters have questioned the legal strategy.

Personally I’m a bit surprised that as a member I’m still being sued. I’m basically funding a lawsuit against myself, said Frank DePilgio, a 40-year Bomber member.

I’m wondering if I should stop buying a membership but you can’t do that. I still love the club.

Paul Little said the issue had got tricky when it came to people oversees.

We’ve got this guy in France I was keen to sue but the extradition agreements with France are not as good as you’d think.

Plus, this guys wife’s a lawyer, so you’ve got to be careful.

More ASADA ‘secret deal’ emails revealed

Titus Comment:

When news of a ‘secret deal’ broke people couldn’t believe it. Oh, wait a minute, they really could.

Recently revealed emails show ASADA and the AFL had worked out a ‘secret deal’ on how to handle the investigation into the Essendon supplements scandal. New emails reveal how the deal was set up.

To: ASADA

From: AFL

Hey,

Could we get some sort of ‘secret deal’ on this peptides stuff? We’ll send you a few free tickets if you’re interested.

To: AFL

From: ASADA

Sure! What are you thinking?

These free tickets aren’t to GWS games are they?

To: ASADA

From: AFL

Just something that says we’ll do this jointly, that all our players will be either completely exonerated and/or have no penalties. Nothing out of order.

Would be good to wrap this up before the 2013 finals. We don’t want this going on forever!

The tickets will be to real AFL games. Good seats too. We’ll even buy you a couple of pies.

To: AFL

From: ASADA

Alright, no problem. I hope we can hang out after the game.

There’s no way this will go on a long time. We work pretty fast around here.

Do you think we should offer something to the NRL too? Just to appear balanced?

To: ASADA

From: AFL

Nah. Those guys say mean stuff about you all the time. They’re not your friends like we are.

Of course we’ll hang out after the game. We’re great friends who help each other out. You should send a note to the Prime Minister’s Office too, just to cover this all off and keep them in the loop.

To: PM’s office

From: ASADA

Just wanted to let you know we’ve agreed to do a ‘secret deal’ with the AFL to clear all their players involved in this. We’re just going to do this with the AFL because they’re nice to us and are our friends.

The NRL won’t be offered the same deal because they’ve been saying mean things about us to the media and it’s really upset us.

To: ASADA

From: PM’s office

That all sounds above-board.

Hey, could you see if the AFL