Fox Footy channel stalwart Gerard Healy, interviewing Fremantle's Ross Lyon about aspects of the modern-day coaching job, and coaches box, asked a leading question of our time: "Are you at risk of getting too much information?"
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Indeed, AFL season 2015 has frequently provided a compelling case that television exposes us to too much "information".
"Both sides being called in for the official proceedings," spotted a keen-eyed Sandy Roberts before the West Coast v North preliminary final. "The national anthem is part of that." Actually, in the finals preceding the GF, the national anthem is ALL of that, unless there's one of the boundary umpires muttering excerpts from the national constitution under his breath.
The "information" continued.
"It's going to be an electrifying start," predicted Cameron Ling, going way out on a limb for a final in a packed stadium.
Actually, Brian Taylor was expressly and repeatedly astounded about the crowd size, apparently having expected something meagre for a Perth side playing a preliminary final in Perth. "It's absolutely going to go all the way to the end, this one," vouch-safed Matthew Richardson, reassuring football fans who are tired of all those matches that pull up irritatingly short of a conclusion.
Noted David King of the Eagles in the first quarter: "They were on the ropes. They were on the rack." Tough enough to be a boxer, but apparently this one was being tortured by the Spanish Inquisition.
"They have a diabolical need for a goal!" yodelled Brian Taylor, proving he had a diabolical need for a dictionary.
This was, of course, only one game from one week, but any regular viewers of football will recognise this as a microcosm of the volume and type of "information" on offer across what seems like an increasingly lengthy football season.
Just a few random suggestions about potentially tidying this, err, informational flow.
You can't really defy the laws of physics, or – as was suggested of a goal replayed during the Brownlow telecast – the "laws of geometry".
I mean, people say that, exaggerating to make a point, but one of the reasons the laws of physics are called that is because they're laws.
All of science doesn't have to make an accommodation just because someone dribbles in a squirrelly-looking one from the boundary line.
If intercept marks include – as current commentary practice would indicate – those instances when some attacker has a brain-fade and kicks it straight to the stunned defender who just happened to be in the way and was lucky he didn't swallow the ball, of what precise, or any, value are an individual's stats for having taken intercept marks?
It's a bit like giving a traffic bollard stats for cars that hit it. Finally, you can say what you like about ads for pergolas, concrete pendant lights, chickens, the armed forces and cars, but at least they stay right in the ad breaks where they belong. It might be a novelty if the gambling ads followed suit.
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