Mazer Rackham

Now we get to see the avalanche of junior players "just demonstrating" thing to the umps. Well played, Christian.

Phil Rhodes was a workmanlike utility who played for Alexander the Great. Career statistics: 3 Thracians, 2 Persians, 4 Cappadocians. Delisted after the battle of Bactria where he copped a bad knee injury, and concussion. Tried for an assistant coach job with the Babylonian army but was forced to resign after a salary cap scandal. An honest trier, remembered fondly.

Original was too deep, ET

Rance should test the boundaries and demonstrate how he grabbed a bloke by the goolies. Star player + fan favourite = he gets off & the ump gets suspended!

It's clear as day in the rule book. Intentionally making contact, attempting to make contact, carelessly making contact with an ump are all reportable offences. The umpiring dept has lost the plot. Why are they chumming up to the players and verbally coaching them when all they're supposed to be doing is refereeing them without fear or favour? Unless .... could it be .... they have a conflicting instruction that overrides their programming and jams their circuits .... "thou shalt contribute to the entertainment of the game". The AFL have a mania for creating grey areas and look what they reap. Self inflicted but all the rest of us suffer along too.

Good old "Brownlow Contention" of course! I must try that next time I'm bretho-d ... "officer, I am in contention for the Brownlow." "Carry on then, citizen."

"No go, Murph. I've sniffed around and no one wants a piece of you. Only club to show anything was Gold Coast." "And they're just as scheiss as us! So I'm stuck here then?" "Not stuck, Mark. Don't say stuck. Say, you want to stay here and help lead them out of trouble." "I'll be dead by then!" "Yeah, probably. But try to drag that part out a bit, I still want my management fees."

Watching Freo/Carlton and Suns/Saints, it was the opposite. Huge packs allowed to go on and on with every infringement in the book going on -- dropping, throwing, holding, more dropping, more throwing ... everything but running too far, and only because it was impossible. It was bad footy, bad umpiring, bad entertainment, bad Gil and bad AFL!

Kelvin Moore, Rod Carter, Dustin Fletcher .... the idea that Rance is anywhere near the "best fullback ever" is completely laughable.

Wouldn't trouble me at all to see Trengove tear it up against us. (Provided we win, of course.)

Saints will rapt with that many inside 50s. And so will Blues.

I think he is referring to the untested but widely believed mantra that you "have to get games into the kids" and "get them games as a group". Because that's what top clubs have done. Has anyone considered that top clubs have players who've played a lot together as a group because they're good players and don't get dropped? That the cart in fact comes after the horse? That was Bailey's idea: no one over 25, get games into the kids as a group. Wait ... then voila! Something magical happens along the journey and ... flag!!! And what did they learn, those kids playing together as a group? First, how to get the sh*t kicked out of them more often than is healthy. They certainly didn't learn a game plan or how to win. Second, because the club is committed to "the group", you don't get dropped. (By the way: not trying to bag Dean. He was good guy with our best interests at heart but it just didn't work out.) Not a recipe for a good culture. In the end we got an injection of culture with Roos and Jackson. Also Cross, Vince, Lewis. If people who know what to do can show other people what to do, there's a fair chance they'll catch on and do it too. Carlton are trying this Bailey plan. But they're getting Neeld results. They're learning how to never kick 100 points. How to avoid thrashings (hah!) while never attacking themselves. How to be dejected and beaten by half time. Funny, we copied CFC's tanking blueprint and it was fool's gold. That taught the rest of the football world that tanking for picks isn't worth it. Now CFC are copying the MFC Bailey plan and it is reaping worse results than Bailey got. They are slow learners.

That second goal to France was a kick in the guts. I'd just told myself we were a chance to pinch a win. But on reflection we still don't have much sting around the box. Only when Timmy's playing and he'll only come on in the utmost emergency as he won't be fit enough to play too many minutes. The VAR certainly needs some fine tuning. That was very peculiar seeing time wound back to the penalty incident. It was a penalty unfortunately. Gee France will find it hard to field a squad in their next match seeing as how many of them received crippling injuries in this one. Some of them multiple times! What a laugh having just watched the fearful punishment the rugby players cop in the state of origin. That's an ongoing problem that soccer has in this country that it doesn't have in other countries. Ole Bert has us playing much better than I thought. Before the match I'd reckoned on 2-0 or 3-1. 2-1 is not too bad for us provided France get in gear and demolish Peru and Denmark. Iceland. If there there was an "everyone's second team"! Poor bloody Messi will be a nervous wreck and in 20 years time will be found begging in rags in Buenos Ares main square while raving about Ronaldo and the world cup. Saw on another site, "In the airport on Madeira, the Ronaldo bust has developed an extra inch of leer."

And what's more ... a veteran of what? Repeated thumpings year in year out? Vince and Lewis were the kind of veterans we needed then. What does Murphy give us that we lack? We would be far better off with an elderly Swan Cat or Hawk if we are needing an injection of experience.

Nil all?

Had the Blues beaten and demoralised by half time and went on to kick only 3 goals for the second half.

pre-op, presumably?

Yes, evil.

The answer is staring us all in the face. In the last 25-odd years, the one change with the biggest effect on how the game is played is interchange. It was introduced as a protection against injury. Your player comes off with a dodgy ankle but later is good to resume. Your player thinks his hammy is twingey and comes off for the docs to check out, turns out it's ok. In the traditional system, they're out for the rest of the game. Like everything Sheedy touched in the rulebook, it got amped up to 11, then to 111. No-one had intended it to be an Olympic relay of players constantly dashing on and off all day. It was ugly footy in 2012/13 with unlimited interchange. Just like today. With the introduction of the cap, the players couldn't roam in a huge pack following the ball. The game opened up again. But now the players have adjusted. Reduction to 16 players means you'll have a huge pack (of 4 less players) following the ball. Players starting in their "set" positions means there will be a delay of 5-10 seconds or so before the huge pack forms. Backwards kicks won't affect the pack. Etc etc. All the fiddling at the edges won't do much. The interchange is the biggest factor and has changed the way the game is played. Don't pile on more counter-rules further changing "the fabric" of the game. Get rid of interchange, or drastically curtail it. (In the NRL, they have 8 per match!)

Yeah, but more time for Roaming F***wit after the game.

The review was like a parliamentary enquiry. The outcome was pre-ordained. (As in, the president would come out of it squeaky clean.) As you say, there was no way the bloke commissioning the report was going to have it say that he should be replaced. I don't know why Pert left but I can easily believe that he was [censored] off, as a lot of CFC members were (and are), at the autocratic ways of their president. Example (one of many): the Gubby Allen fiasco. Whether he'll be good or bad for us, only time will tell, but the way he left CFC is to be taken with several handfuls of salt.

Malthouse is the biggest [insert 4-letter word of your choice, one never to be uttered in polite company] in football. Next week Malthouse will saying, straight faced, that he has never criticised Gary Pert in his entire life.

I think Murphy is a guy who was making waves about the lack of independence of the CFC board (all Eddie appointees) and Eddie hushed him up by having him do the review. Easy to see that that could have rubbed Pert the wrong way. That was all Eddie.

Jack Mueller

For those concerned by his record at CFC ... was he ever really allowed to run his own race there? Eddie is president, CEO, footy manager, list manager, marketing manager and even second-guesses how the boots are studded. I'm inclined to think Pert did well there in spite of the handicap placed on him. One thing: he knows what a big powerful club looks like and how it behaves.