well I am not a footy fan, cant see any reason why such outright violance is allowed on screen but berated so loudly if it happens on the street, the collingwood match on the weekend and that elbow and knee incident is a great case in point (which he got off of by the way)

however given that millions of people follow it religiously then there is obviously something going on there that I am missing, but I will say that anybody that fronts up week after week to get an elbow or knee in his head can surely not be put in to the worlds 100 brainiest people, so I am surprised there is not a person standing out the front of the loos and saying "no dear, this one is the little boys" " and make sure you wash your hands and tuck your shirt in theres a good boy, now off you go and play nice with the other little kiddies and share the ball, play nice now wont you"

yep I used to play cricket and footy, now back then, when we had to chase the dinosaurs off the pitch to play a game,

we had a coach, now this coach was usually a resident of our town or one close by, if we played "dirty" then this coach, as well as all the umpires, all knew ALL of the players, usually like us they grew up in the area of small surrounding towns and knew everyone

if someone got injured through rough or "dirty" play my god you were sent to coventry very quickly and soon became ostrisised throughout the community, it was not tolerated

how would you like it if it was you, dirty bastard would be ringing in your ears for weeks if you did something like that, work would become hard to find, freinds always had something else on that weekend and you wouldnt get picked for next weeks match

how times have changed, take respect away from life and this is what it comes down to

of course we didnt get paid great swags of dough for playing we fronted up for the love of the game, we paid our own way in all things as well as paid to get in to the match and our "subs", no money from nike for me

the world is changing but not for the better