Cash for comments

Over the last few years there have been many followers dismayed, disappointed, outraged and broken by the new system. On the other hand there are a few who trumpet the system like the joyous second coming.
After reviewing yesterdays results, surely you either sing from the SAAL song book or walk away.
The scandalous handicaps handed out to the converts has destroyed what was clearly one of Australia’s great running carnivals. It has, in a few short years, become no more than an event equivalent to the local parish picnic mums and dads dash.
At some stage even the sycophantic leeches are going to be embarrassed by the ease of their “wins”.
A great carnival gone bung

The sad part about it all is , it affects racing in VAL as well because those that are walking away and the Coaches told to pack their bags are the ones that will travel and support the VAL.
Im disappointed that theres still selfish Victorians who are still coming over here , getting inflated marks to get cheap results at the expence of the larger picture , and thats Athletic League running in Aust.
Greg Whitecross doesnt belong to a stable, will not bring extras over , take a look how he gets treated compared with others.
Like you say , the value of a win is no longer there.
By the time you are 18 , you have a wall full of sashes and no interest in the sport.

You can’t go blaming coaches and runners for the ridiculous system you have in place. They will only work to the rules. A system that gives an unproven lad 12m in the 70 destroys the fabric of the sport and sends the wrong message about what pro running is about.

POD must have egg on his face though? In good faith he has brought a squad over after being pushed and prod, promised and paraded.
They were used, used to say after last years "Bay" how it was a great meet and found no problems with marks or handicapping, to send a message to Victorian squads, come on over, its all okay.
We this is now a disaster for him and his squad, how embarrassing it must be.
You really got to feel for the kids that given ridiculous marks created by a crap system and then potentially adjusted by poor handicappers that have no idea what they are looking at.
How down these kids will feel once they find they have been DQ'd.
You know what though, they should all know what we and many, many others have said. You run in the SAAL at your own peril!
This surely now will send a very clear message to anyone else thinking of continuing running in the SAAL from either here in SA or interstate, dont risk your reputation.
Vote with your feet and money, do not enter any races for the 2nd half of the season until the SAAL committee immediately removes the handicap system and reinstalls experienced handicappers to fix the problem. If you do not nominate it will send a very clear message. If they dont do this then you must vote all of them out at the next AGM.

Looking at their Vic results, Shillito has been running for 7 years, is a Bendigo 120 winner, and had 7m in the Women’s 70 at Stawell last season. Don’t blame them for the handicap given as she has given ample history for you to judge her on.

Sanchez wrote:Looking at their Vic results, Shillito has been running for 7 years, is a Bendigo 120 winner, and had 7m in the Women’s 70 at Stawell last season. Don’t blame them for the handicap given as she has given ample history for you to judge her on.

Yep and they tell old Floater whos been running since Shillito was in diaphers , we need to see more of you.
I dont think PODs squad would have come if they werent gifted handicaps .

It will be interesting to see how this is handled. Checking on the 70m Stawell time off 7m if you apply the MPS from that result she runs around 8.40 off 9.5m. (this is not an adjusted time) This is basically what she ran, so no case to answer.
At Glenelg she ran 8.362 or adjusted time is 8.194.

It might be a hard case to defend based on her previous run at the Bay 70m off 8.5 and runs 9.05, hence why a handicapper may have given her 9 or 9.5, otherwise based on all other info its not her fault.
Had an SA handicapper done the handicaps I would say that she would likely have run off 7.5m in which case she might have run around 8.395 based on the same conditions ie this would be the adjusted time.
An SA handicapper may have also kept her on 7m if they knew what the wind conditions were at Stawell in which they would check other athletes times to see if a .5m lift was warranted. She has shown improvement during the 2nd half of last season in her 120's.

Once again its the handicap system that fails, its the same as what happened with Tom 2 years ago when arguably his mark was approx .75 too much.
Its the same with Tom Corcoron getting 12m, the system is F'd simple as that!

I cant see this 70m situation going away anytime soon. A State election looming with IMO a likely win to the ALP, so we'll watch how things play out in the next 6-9 months.
What does 30 years, an ALP shadow minister, Bay Sheffield and the SAAL have in common?
I'll leave that for all of you to piece together.

Hi T. S.
Mumbles fixes the problem all the time by just saying , me not understand.How good is it for the league to have a bloke like mumbles.
CHIEF STEWARD’S REPORT
Mort Daly Running Foundation Carnival, Colley Reserve, 5th December 2021.
3. There were very fast times recorded in the sprint events. The reasons for
this are not clear,
CHIEF STEWARD’S REPORT
135th Bay Sheffield Carnival, ACH Group Stadium, 27th-28th December 2021.

3. I’m very pleased to report that the entire Carnival was well conducted,
with no major incidents or controversy.
4. There was however an issue with the 70m times on Day 1. The 70m
runners all recorded unusually fast times. There are several possible
causes for this anomaly, which is under investigation.

The saal is being killed off, dont worry about the handicapping system , the saal is being killed off by the decisions being made elsewhere.
The league is holding around 14 meetings this season, of those 14 only 7 of those meetings are stable based and being run by a stable.Thats no way to preserve a quality asset , no good throwing dollars and expect that to be the saviour, where have all the stable based meetings gone.
Im hearing another stable is pulling the pin next season.
At Crystal Brook approx 50% of the runners were from 3 stables, you aint going no where when you rely on those stables athletes to run multiple times to make up the numbers.
Get back to basic and that is stables holding meetings.
And fancy going ahead with Crystal Brook when they were alerted back in Sept 2021
I almost forgot, meeting on April 10th to finalise moving back to Colley.

On the stables holding meets. It was outlined on the plan I set out that meets being held by clubs or stables that they would receive financial benefits by holding that meet. Currently these clubs get no reward at all of very little that might come in the form of a sausage sizzle and bake sale. Its not good enough. I know when holding the TTG meet sometimes we would make $100-200 at best. This was only due to the good work done by Deb in the office to provide a little more assistance.
Clubs wear the responsibility, with little or no reward, pay the money to the SAAL and thats it. Not enough is done by the SAAL in many areas and this is just one area where not enough is being done.

Be very suprised if clubs even make that at the meetings anymore.
Presentation evening will result in Coastals and Camden taking home all the coaches awards and club awards.
Any prestige ..............none whatsoever.
You need a good group of stables or clubs for a good competition but that has all been killed off.