Recent shellackings by Geelong over Melbourne (186 points), Geelong over Gold Coast (150 points) and Collingwood over Port Adelaide (138 points) have prompted much discussion about the possibility of the AFL becoming a rather lop-sided competition.
The Age’s Rohan Connolly went into some detail in an article on 7 August headlined ‘Scorebored’. He quoted Rodney Eade and Danny Frawley and a few other sages but what’s it like to be in charge of the scoreboard on such a day?
From my limited experience at Williamstown, one is certainly not bored. You find yourself checking and re-checking your six-times table. You find yourself on the move all day, swinging open the big gate, taking down some numbers, hanging up new numbers, swinging closed the big gate and then hoping you haven’t missed the goal umpires waving their flags yet again.
In my first season at Willi in 2008 the home team thrashed the Bendigo Bombers in both games. The reserves kicked about 36 goals (I scratched the final score in pen inside the scoreboard) while the seniors had a score of some symmetry: 50 scoring shots to five, and a winning margin of 155 points.
Scorebored? Not at all.
Scoreboard pressure 
Yes Vin – the scoreboard operators would be no more bored than the winning supporters. In a similar vein, why do cricket commentators say, when a batsman is out for a duck, that he “didn’t trouble the scorers”? In my experience, batsman who come and go quickly are a lot of trouble to operators of scorebooks and scoreboards alike!