FireInTheBennelly

In the grand scheme of things, it would now seem to have been a very bizarre year to create this wider competition.

I must be seeing things. Tmac's was a mark, Jackson's was a mark, Heppel's wasn't? He even knew it wasn't and played on.

What size is this fish? Could it be the elusive big fish we've been trying to land for years? We probably need a riddle here.

Same. I reckon titan needs to loosen_up

Top of the table clash, you'd think we'd have the best umpires and the game on in primetime. Disappointing

Are we winning?

God I love Demonland. When we were constantly getting smashed and destroyed by umpires, it was because we were second to the ball. On the weekend, we won the free kick count, yet we can't blame the umpires because we were second to the ball. There's always some incredible logic on here to defend umpires. I loved the one about the Adelaide umpire that was too scared to pay the deliberate oob because he would've been attacked by the locals. We don't live in South America people! Yet that same decision, when the suggestion came that umpires are corrupt, was met with a major howling down. In a country with corruption from top to bottom. AFL teams prepared to inject their entire list with performance enhancing drugs. Other sports where players have been convicted of fixing certain outcomes. Racehorse trainers sponsored by major betting corporations. That was deemed to be more unrealistic. I find these behaviours to be quite incredible. Back to the Collingwood game. Think about this from a footy, snap decision point of view. How would you play the next kick if you'd just been told to play on after taking a mark and not moving off the mark in the slightest? Think about the psychology of what is happening, that's where the game is being changed. Free kick counts can be manipulated easily enough based on where they are paid. Do we get that info? No. I had data about 4-5 years ago that proved any game could be won by a team having 13 more free kicks than their opposition. 100%. That is no longer the case, and it conveniently coincides with new rules that are extremely difficult to adjudicate. Stand. Umpire has to watch the man on the mark as well as the kicker. Impossible. Watch what happens in a Hawthorn game.... Their MotM is all over the place. Never pinged. Again I go back to the pies game. In the backline Moore took a mark, goes back, takes 2 steps right, 3 steps left, still no play on call. There's no interpretation there, he's off his mark, twice. I'd be surprised if the AFL and NRL didn't have the same 'advisors'. They both came up with extremely dubious rule changes around the same time, that can change the game, purely on the ref/umpires discretion. Stand vs set restart. Surely the AFL knows the game is impossible to adjudicate as it is, yet they keep piling new stupidity on top. Where does it end? And more importantly, why? Tactics evolve on their own. A perfect example of this is going back to what I think Sue said before with the hands in the back rule. The rule was always no push in the back, until Alistair Lynch was so good at hiding his pushes in the back they had to change it to hands in the back. Now we're full circle and it's back to pushes, yet at every contest, it's less clear which way a free kick should be paid. Just watched a Euro game between Denmark and Belgium. A Dane goes down in the box and gets carded for diving. Didn't look like a dive, but the replay showed no contact. Dive. Geez those professional refs are the goods.... Ow abou i Gil. It's a professional sport with millions punted on it annually. It's an absolute farce that umpires aren't professional. It really shouldn't be legal to bet on it. Can you imagine where horseracing would be without professional stewards? It's hard enough to keep the [censored] honest anyway. I worked in a stable years ago, I know.

My head's in a spin

There's that 40/60 green cordial come back to haunt

Ease up Cal, that's not helping at all

USA, USA, USA. Muppets

Yes quite right. It's only our boots that are going up our opponent's ends this year

https://youtu.be/Qz-R857qXrM

Do you have any relatives named Yolanda? They'll know the answer

What?

Cool, honey bunny

How long before he picks up the nickname Noel?

JT's cooking up a smokey for sure

It's very low key in the commentary box, almost as if this wasn't supposed to happen, as if the commentary team wasn't prepared for a Melbourne win. What do you reckon BT? [censored] moron

Kozzie had beans for lunch

Quick question for the Bont. Did you just get outmarked by Spargo?

Only an hour to go. Fire up!

Is this our first chance to play a team above us on the ladder? Funny thing though, if we do win, we still won't have beaten anyone above us on the ladder.

Does rivers get that role and nev comes in? He's the one player we don't really seem to have a ready replacement for