Fair dinkum this guy is invisible to umpires. He should've had a free kick for blocking inside the first 2 mins tonight, and kicked the first goal of the game. But no, nothing to see here.

It's been happening all season, constantly held and blocked out of marking contests.

Watching other games, players are being paid these blatant frees, but not JVR.

What is he doing wrong, and what does he have to change for umpires to see this happening? Is it related to him getting off the suspension we successfully appealed?

Edited August 22, 2025Aug 22 by FireInTheBennelly
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In my opinion it was the football department of coaching that did not protest That is at fault Better to be perennial whingers and winners than losers. That we are !

12 minutes ago, 640MD said:

In my opinion it was the football department of coaching that did not protest That is at fault Better to be perennial whingers and winners than losers. That we are !

I know there's the Shakespearian "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" and without knowing what goes on behind the scenes it may or may not be true but we'd never know because no-one publicly says anything (apologies for the long sentence, I'm almost nearly certain it's grammatically incorrect, but I'm a few cans in celebrating the end of our season).

I'd really like to have a figure head that called out the inequities more often.

He should take lessons from Ben Brown (no, I'm not joking). BBB was excellent at eg when tackled, throwing his arms right out so any fool umpire could see that he didn't have the ball, at throwing out his arms and demonstrating beyond a doubt that he was being blocked.

I think it was on Demonblog, when we got BBB, that the writer said he had had a look at clips of BBB and noticed that he got a lot of frees. Well, he did and there is nothing wrong with it. Nick Daicos is another master of it. If the free is there, let the umpire see it beyond doubt.

Daicos does it. If the free is there or not

Yeah, that’s it…

And I think my point is we do not appear to protest at all. Other clubs far more vocal

And they get results in their favour. Lilted Gus getting thumped or the trip of Kozzy that was two free kicks. One the trip and throwing the ball, either would have changed the result. And we sat back and copped it

S.Smith will be better connected and i think will have much better influence with HQ. I dont want to be whingers but more or less stand up for ourselves. Kozzy suspension and May's this year was highway robbery.

And SFA was said

I reckon it’s because he simply gets on with it, not protesting or whingeing at the umpires.

There’s also the lack of noise of affirmation that comes with all things filth. Daicos could sneeze and the filth would all be up in arms.

For starters, Roo engages in the wrestle or contest rather than trying to launch at it. It is in my mind why he has been so poor and why the free defender is marking so easily. I can’t work out if this is a directive or not. I hope it is and the next coach says just launch at it young fella.

Secondly he doesn’t demand a presence or has a status in the game as yet. I think if he gets back to launching himself, and provide us supporters an occasion to scream Rooooooooo, things will turn.

Look at him ruck, the boy can jump.

The tall skinny guys seem to draw more free kicks, as do the star players.

But I don’t think JVR gets a particularly bad run. He’s just not very good

1 minute ago, DEE32 said:

For starters, Roo engages in the wrestle or contest rather than trying to launch at it. It is in my mind why he has been so poor and why the free defender is marking so easily. I can’t work out if this is a directive or not. I hope it is and the next coach says just launch at it young fella.

You have to do body work to succeed as an AFL key forward, but do it early then release and launch.

JVR improved a fair bit in the last month or so of the season in trusting himself