Mazer Rackham

Ralph has no idea. I think only a top echelon player could explain where they look, and when, and why, and I would add the caveat that most of them don't actually know because it's so instinctive to them. "Eyes on the ball" is fundamental to any ball sport, but there's so much more to it than that. You often see a good player have a quick glance around them just before the ball comes into proximity, to feed their internal football computer with the necessary information.

I was reminded of those glorious days by the North-St Kilda match on the weekend. It was like watching Melbourne play Melbourne.

I get that but it's not a court hearing. It's a sporting tribunal hearing. The AFL have allowed it to become a quasi-legal hearing and the Cripps thing was the pinnacle revealing the folly of so doing.

We should argue this, and the Chol incident, and the Lynch incident, concussion protocols, the Cripps incident. Anything and everything, amounting to an avalanche of verbiage and video footage. The tribunal have shown they can be bamboozled by quantity over quality and if our reps blather on for long enough, the tribunal will let JvR off just so they can go home at last. At the least I would like to see a video compilation of cited incidents and their wildly varying outcomes, even if it doesn't ultimately help JvR, just to highlight the bewildering inconsistency of the match review process.

The brave Tigers, invincible in the years 2017-2020, also get this treatment. They're still practically unbeatable and Martin, Riewoldt & Cotchin are still in career best form. It takes a lot to beat the brave, fighting Tigers. Without checking, I'd say they are probably on top of the ladder.

Why would the MRO need to watch the incident? Dunstall declared JvR guilty on the spot.

I think they make it harder for themselves by largely ignoring some of the basic rules of the game. The first ones you learn as a youngster. "In the back" happens in nearly every congested pack where players are scrambling for the ball. Wham! A player's full weight lands on the back of another player. Play on ... Throwing. I hear ex-umps on the radio saying, but we CAN'T give a free if there's the slightest chance that it was a legal handball!" Oh yeah? That doesn't stop you awarding a free for "insufficient intent" when there's the slightest chance -- often a good chance -- that the player in question didn't really mean for the ball to go out. One of these (insufficient intent) requires you to read minds, the other (throwing) doesn't. So which one if the easier to crack down on? It's selective application of the rules. If they cracked down on throwing the way they have done with "insufficient intent", the players would clean up their act within a round. Then they create grey areas for themselves. Hands in the back when marking is okay provided no actual pushing but you're allowed to hold your ground. Jesus Christ, talk about creating an impossible rule to police. But there they go. 360 in a tackle. It's holding the ball. Except they let it go, play on. Then they decided it was a free. Then overnight it wasn't again. The pace the game is played at, I understand that it's difficult to umpire. But some of these things things happen right in front of the umps. Maybe they really are blind? (I have not even mentioned the "i" word in this diatribe.) TL;DR: they make it harder on themselves by picking and choosing which rules they will enforce.

BAAAAA! BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Michael Christian gives a flying [censored]! "Let's see ... Jase reckons this guy is gone for all money. Easy decision for me then. High, deliberate, severe. Done and done. Now, what's Dermie have to say? Oh hell. He reckons the guy has to get off! Now what am I supposed to do? Jesus Christ this job is difficult sometimes. Except for when the commentators all agree. I mean, it was easy back when it was Ablett very week. Nothing-to-see-here on autopilot. But this von Ron Bon guy isn't a big name player. Wait. Not a big name player ... I think I can see a way through this hellish dilemma ... let me consult my notes ... under B for Bugg ... yes, here it is ... no-name player, throw the book. Oh thank God. Christ this job is difficult sometimes."

Robbed? I seem to recall watching one of their blokes take a straightforward shot on goal to level the scores, and spray it out to the right. If they were robbed, they did it to themselves.

Kane Cornes?

It's not that it always seems to us like it's MFC players getting the rough end of the pineapple. It's that the TV commentators seem to be doing a semi-officlal "first cut" assessment of these incidents. Christian then seems to follow their lead. I can't recall a "nothing in that" incident getting charged by the MRO, and all the "gee, that'll be looked at" incidents get looked at. Is the MRO allowing himself to be prejudiced by the open slather trial by jury conducted by the TV shows? Is he doing his job and watching each match in isolation, without commentary (and without watching the Sunday star chamber panel shows)? Or does he take the lazy way out and let the media inquisitors make the decisions for him?

Before Christian became the MRO, he had a summer radio show with Mick McGaune, filling in the long slow hours between seasons, and they were both of the mind that the public want to see the best players playing, and that it's some kind of outrage against the game to do anything to prevent them playing. Right out of the box, the wrong man for the job. I think it partly is about Christian. Yes, and the AFL has lost control of it. Or ceded control, to be more accurate.

The Match Review Panel (the TV commentators) have assessed the incident and found the player guilty. The incident will now be referred to the Match Review Officer for sentencing. Having lost control of the tribunal, as evidenced by the Cripps farce last year, the AFL have now lost control of their match review process. Evidently they have outsourced it to the TV channels. All Christian has to do is rock up on a Monday morning and have a gander at who's been condemned by the review shows. All incidents pre-highlighted and assessed for him. Ten minutes later, off for an early lunch, leaving the rest of the week free for golf. Easier job ever. How can the AFL allow it to be hijacked and polluted in this way?

Like the saying goes, you only play as well as you're allowed to. Suns did well but we're more experienced and have more belief. More than any other player in the team (excepting maybe Fritsch), Chandler knows where the goals are. A very useful attribute for a forward.

Maybe we're back to the "rule of the week" where the players had to watch the Friday night game to find out what was being cracked down on, or not, for the round.

I think it's more like "you've got your flag, now can you just go quietly into the night like good minnows so the traditional big clubs can get back into the limelight."

As far as I can make out, it's not in the official rules and never has been. It's an "interpretation" layered on top of the actual rules. Just plonked into the game of the whim of someone, then just as easily removed. "Interpretation" of any game's rules is a joke and an abomination.

Even now channel 7 pipe in crowd noise for low-attendance matches, like they did during COVID lockdown. Better off making your own noise like when playing backyard footy as kids.

It's a risk, but often a necessary one, to appoint an unproven coach. It's a leap of faith to appoint a coach proven to have no success. I can understand recycling Ross Lyon. He took two clubs to grand finals, and but for one bounce of a ball .... whereas Voss, who .... erm ... lemme think ... he, um, well, he .... errrrr ... what's for lunch? Let's not let the schadenfreude tempt us into lionising Collingwood. They're still Collingwood no matter the circumstance.

This is why they need to have some small degree of success. Maybe losing an elimination final. Just enough to keep Voss in the job for years on end. Imagine what a good coach could do with that list. I feel a bit sorry for the kid. Only to a point. Imagine the gloating and rubbing noses in it if they have some success. It's crucial that they waste their talented list and spend another generation in the wilderness.

He's an Essendon thug of old and that's all I need to know.

The compilers of this wish list would be better off making a list of current players who come from Tassie. If all the radio talkback of the last week has any grounding in reality (yes, I know), such players would be champing at the bit to get back there.

You will see that the list only weights 6kg. That's enough for 12 players. So Fritta, because his number is 31, won't fit. An alternative explanation is the the twit doesn't show the entire image until you open the twit and then open the image inside it, but that's a bit of a long shot.

And your pick for supplementary?