Ok enough is enough. I watched  nearly all the games over the first week of the season and the massive ulcer I have which has me talking with a speech impediment is proof I bit my tongue on numerous occasions.  I thought I'd let it go and monitor the situation and maybe, just maybe, it was just round one jitters and the situation would rectify itself in time. I know we've only just completed round two and it's still early days in the season and believe me I've tried to refrain from exploding over this issue but I just can't do it. I'm too impatient and I look forward to football too much to cop this rubbish so I can't sit in a swelled tongue inspired silence anymore. I can't do it.

Friday night's Brisbane V Collingwood at the Gabba pushed me too far and tipped me over the edge. Something has to be done! The AFL season, for us Docker fans, is usually unfortunately only twenty two weeks long and it flies by too rapidly to have many or, in fact, any of the rounds ruined

Now I must say I am trying extremely hard to get enthused but the AFL is making it incredibly difficult. I want to love it and I want to look forward to it each and every week but the love just isn't happening at the minute and I know why. For Christ's sake stop blowing the bloody whistle!

Every contest now has at least one whistle attached to it and more times than not several whistles are heard! We're on the verge of the game being turned into touch footy and let me tell you Jan isn't the only one who isn't happy. On Friday night in the Brisbane game it actually reached a stage where if there wasn't a whistle you said, "Hang on, there was no whistle on that play... what the hell is going on?"

The fickle nature of the games now has fans sitting on the edge of their seats waiting for an umpire's arm signal. It's like waiting for the declaration of the winner of Survivor! The call could go either way. Is the umpire going to award a free kick or is he going to wave his arm and say, "Noooo Bingo." Nobody knows what the heck is going on and we're all completely baffled working out who infringed, if there was an infringement or where the infringement took place. The players themselves haven't a clue. The whistle blows then they look at each other puzzled and then at the adjudicating umpire with blank looks on their faces. I swear I heard Jonathon Brown say, "Is this clown umpiring a football game or delivering mail." The whole forty four players were as confused as a herd of cows on Astro Turf.

I just can't handle it because it's taking somewhat of the skill out of the game. We fans and players need to know where we stand. Player's are in two minds about trying to spoil an opponent. Do they go in and risk, under the new baffling interpretations, offending and giving away a free kick or do they wait, hold back and hope their opponent drops the ball and collect the crumbs. The nature of the game and the speed it's played at suggests it has never ever been completely cut and dry but today its genuine pot luck. One bloke in particular I feel sorry for is Brendan Fevola. He has been completely stooged and it has spread to other areas of his life. On the same night he was pinged for taking a long jimmy on a nightclub door he was earlier seen dancing in a toilet block.

But it's not just the contests where we're been driven mental. Seemingly someone takes a mark, "Whistle." Umpire "Whistle" play on. Yet if a player plays on and the whistle hadn't blown, the offending tackler gets pinged fifty metres because he didn't wait for the whistle. But if the possible offending tackler lets the player with the ball waltz on past its ok because the whistle hadn't gone. There were times in the Fremantle game where one whistle obviously didn't suffice. Three and sometimes four short sharp "Whistle Whistle Whistles" were used to flag one piece of play. It sent the local Salvation Army marching band, which was making their way down Hay Street, into chaos! They were clanging and banging not knowing which whistle to clang and bang to and half of them ended up in separate suburbs.

Maybe I have jumped the gun too soon and the teething problems seemingly being experienced may rectify themselves on the field and on my ulcerated tongue. But if not then something has to be done and it needs to be done now before half the season goes to waste. It can't continue down this horrific whistling touchy touchy path.

I will continue to watch and attempt to grow the enthusiasm for the new AFL because I have to admit I tried the alternative. I flicked over to soccer for five minutes and it made me realize the grass isn't always greener. Three hours of constant whistle blowing is still much more enjoyable.

But the AFL has to step in, admit they have gotten it horribly wrong and put the appropriate measures in place to sort it out. If we're playing Australian Rules Football then fix it up and run it as such. But if, as it seems, the AFL is keen on replicating and running this Rio De Janeiro Mardi Gras whistle blowing spectacle then at least have the decency to attempt a degree of accuracy and employ good looking girls in the stands to lift their tops. Give us something!