Is it just me or is anyone else struggling for the usual enormous enthusiasm usually experienced a few days out before the start of the season? I mean don't get me wrong, I am getting there and looking forward to it but there has just been something standing in the way of the nail biting good nerves leading up to this season. I am missing the exciting feeling and I want the anxious jitters back. I want the usual full box and dice experience usually associated with the start of an AFL season.

I actually think it's unfortunately the way football is being reported which is causing a less enthusiastic view. The thrilling highs and devastating lows will no doubt be back soon enough but I usually enjoy the build up to the start of the season and that first match, whoever it's between. This year seemingly it's been flat, tedious and boring.

When you go back over the past several months I reckon you'll find that the majority of football reports, news and updates have been constantly not actually about football. Despite the fact we'll all still be getting mudslinging mileage off Ben Cousins and his ongoing saga I am completely over it all.

The actual football and the buildup have been cast aside by the ambulance chasers of the football journalist world. Craig Hutchison has to be the top dog. You never see him unless he's tipping a bucket on someone. You have to ask the question, does Craig actually enjoy football or is it the limelight of breaking a story which can assist to ruin a football player's life which he enjoys more? Carolyn Wilson is all high and mighty pointing out the flaws of footballer's off the field but the very second the tide turns and someone has a go at her she thinks it's unfair and below the belt. John Worsfold and Mark Williams launched into her the other night on Footy Classified. They did it in a cheap shot kind of way but it was the only way to get their point across and it was at a level and a tactic used by journos today to create headlines. Hutchy sat very quiet in that segment I must say and said very little.

Every time you pick a paper up or turn the radio or television on, headlining football news now is about some indiscretion by some past or present player. Its Cousins has done this, Steve Johnson clocked an 8 second quarter mile eclipsing Collingwood's Sharrod Wellingham, Melbourne's Colin Sylvia broke a curfew and Brock Maclean didn't want to be outdone by Johnson and Wellingham. Wayne Carey, who actually doesn't even play the game anymore, is in need of a new set of wine glasses and Fev has taken a long Jimmy on a Nightclub door! Because of the way of reporting is today and the vast quantity of it, players are becoming more famous for off field issues than what they can do on it and for me it's taking its toll and its wearing very thin.

The local rags want to have a crack at Peter Bell for living in Geraldton, Jeff Farmer for contemplating Jaywalking and, probably soon enough, after dropping a mark Pavlich for having a big nose and not undergoing a nose job because it got in the line of the ball! Have a look at Roger Hayden? They wouldn't contemplate missing the chance to launch negatively into the Jeff Farmer's of the world by outlining what a bloke like Roger Hayden has achieved, an in depth insight to where he has come from and a look forward to where he is heading.

To those who call themselves journalists, Give it a cattle trucking rest! Stop coming up with the crap that is wearing the football loving people down and go and write something constructive and positive. There are plenty of positives out there if you get off your lazy limelight and attention seeking behinds and put some effort in. Write something positive about the actual games and the players which make this great game of Australian Rule Football what it is rather than the, in some cases, petty off-field every day indiscretions that most wouldn't give a rats clacker about if you didn't highlight it. You might be surprised at the positive response you receive.

A day and a half until it begins and about three days until Fremantle run out. Roll out the football because I can't take much more of the rubbish!