Wait A While Before You Judge AFL.

Way back when I was a lad, yes I know that that was along time ago! Anyway, in my youth Australian Rules Football (ARF) was very big in Victoria (Vic) and a little less so in Tasmania, (Tassie) South Australia (SA) and West Australia (WA), but not big at all in Queensland (QLD, New South Wales (NSW) and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). In fact, AFL was so big in Victoria that the Victorian Football League (VFL) was the pinnacle for all ARF players.

Back then, Victoria had 12 teams and for any AFL player from anywhere, it was really hitting the big time to play in one of the VFL teams.

The VFL was actually a misnomer, as eleven of the 12 teams were either in Melbourne or it’s inner suburbs and the 12^th was only an hour or two down the road then (Now about 45 minutes) at Geelong. So it really was a Melbourne based league in reality!

Anyway having 12 teams in or around Melbourne started to become unviable and in an effort to make the game more a national game than a local game, the VFL Administration sent one team to Sydney in NSW and a little latter created a new team “ex niliho” in Queensland on the Gold coast.

This latter team struggled and later it was amalgamated with another former Melbourne club and moved to Brisbane itself. Since then, new teams have been formed in both WA and SA and so the Game is now more national with 16 teams in the competition. Also as it has long moved out of being Victorian Football the VFL became the Australian Football League.

As part of its drive to make interstate football more attractive to the best Victorian players and to even out the competition a little, certain advantages were given to the interstate clubs to level the playing field so to speak.

However as since 2000 interstate Teams have won most of the grand finals with the Victorian Teams missing out there have been rumblings of discontent.

Before and just after the start of this season there was a great hue and cry about not only doing away with the advantages the other states had but also to give Victorian teams special help to get them back on top again as Victorian teams were then still struggling.

However the AFL did nothing at the time and now that hue and cry has well and truly died down greatly, as week-by-week Victorian teams were winning.

When it came to the final 8 for the currant season, half were Victorian Teams and after the first week of finals, we were down to 2 interstate clubs and 4 Victorian Teams. Then after last week, we are now down to 3 Vic teams and only one interstater.

Now at this point of writing that one team could still fight its way into the final and even win it but the point is that now at season’s end Victorian football is not in as dire straights as a lot of people thought.

As I thought about this I came to the following conclusions:

1. Sport like life, is often very cyclical and there will always be ups and downs.

2. To be a marketable Item or popular sport, you have to go out into the market place and compete with a wider competition.

3. However, all competition takes time, so don’t be too impatient.

4. Expect ups and downs as part of your own peculiar life cycle and learn from them.

So, what changes have there been in your life or work situations that you are not happy with?

What realistically can you do to adjust to these new situations? Endure them or embrace them? Fight against them, or fight for them?

And should you, whilst still striving for success, just wait patiently for the desired effects, knowing that success takes time and effort and often-extreme patience? Again, what say you? Walter