Mazer Rackham

They're all in on this bogus paradigm. The very concept of "interpretation" is a blight on the game and means simply that the rues are poorly framed. Think of one other sport of any variety that requires its rules to be "interpreted". Bueller?

Some clubs know how to suck up to the umpires better. Our amateur hour umpires are oblivious to the manipulation. A known phenomenon in sports around the world except to the remote corner of the world known as the AFL football competition.

Rule of the week. It's nice to know in these uncertain times that some things never change.

I heard that interview and it was a disgrace. This man is (was) the director of umpiring and his complacency towards the rules he is supposed to be enforcing is shameful. The inmates are running the asylum. So two or three highly paid lawyers are allowed to hijack the future of the game because it would somehow be disastrous if they gave up their part time umpiring gig. They would be "lost to the game". Well how about this? Maybe with professional umpires, more would aspire to it, and the game might "find" some decent umpires who were motivated by it being their breadwinning vocation. And juniors might stick with it, suspecting they might get "job security", "tenure", "support from city hall" and a few other quaint concepts that haven't occurred to the literal amateurs currently running the show. With the state of umpiring as it is, would the loss of these so-called "top" umpires be any real loss? Some "bad" free kicks might be paid? Would anyone even notice? Kennedy was asked about that very strange decision where a guy had a kick at goal, it went off the side of his boot, and he was pinged for deliberate. Is there any better indication that the umpires have lost their way and have no confidence in what they are doing? A situation that can be sheeted home directly to ... the director of umpiring. Kennedy said yes, that one actually was wrong, and it was a "communication issue" between the three umpires, which they worked on in training this week. Maybe, just maybe, professional umpires would have the time & the means & the will to work on potential "communication issues" BEFORE they emerge in a match? It's an old cliche in footy that the umpires are blind. In the case of Hayden Kennedy, it might actually be true.

Dwayne Russell on SEN yesterday had a long interview with Hayden Kennedy, outgoing umpiring director. It had me climbing the walls with frustration and disgust. The complacency of this guy towards the game he is supposed to be a custodian of really should have him run out of town. If he wasn't already retiring, he should do so now out of shame. I won't bore you with the detail but his attitude towards policing throwing would make you gag. God forbid that one legal handball might be penalised! Oh no, let's let 100 throws go through, instead. Apparently it's better that way. And he had the sheer effrontery to say that enforcement of holding the ball is going well, and also he thinks the fans have a good understanding of what constitutes prior. God help us all. With friends like Kennedy, the AFL competition does not need enemies. But, bottom line, the AFL management do not give a [censored] about any of this.

The AFL commission don't put up statues of their people Collingwood FC do Eddie's not going to waste his time on a joint where he can't get a statue They wouldn't have him anyway. They know he'd spend all his time trying to rewrite history, to get Legend status for Lou Richards, things like that, and generally wouldn't keep his eye on the ball. I don't think he'll ever come back, not that it won't be for lack of trying. Too many people there who remember life under the dictatorship. If he ever did come back, it would be something like his return to The Footy Show. He'd lost a yard. Flat presentation, timing gone. A shadow of the one-time TV maestro.

Yes, he was helping the publican tap a new barrel to the pumps. Was shocked to find violencing going on in the premises.

Richmond players go to nightclubs and get into drunken fights: broken wrist Melbourne players carry little old ladies' groceries to the car: sore finger GO DEMONS

Who said men can't multitask!

The honorary MRO Michael Christian was waiting for directions from the official MRO Brian Taylor. None came. Case closed.

If I recall, in that run they played all the (as it turned out) bottom teams, then they got some injuries. They more or less ran out of gas. Then they got a flat tire. Their jumpers didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole their car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts. It wasn't their fault!

Rule 5: rag on enemy clubs at every opportunity

Oh, damn. They seemed like such a nice club.

"Yeah, he offered me two slabs of VB, free use of a Holden ute, a $500 voucher for a tatts parlour, a framed picture of Sav Rocca (only slightly water damaged), the fluffy dice that were hanging from Darren Millane's rear view mirror when .... well, never mind that ... two pairs of Nikes with a certificate authenticating them as not stolen, and 250 signed pictures of Eddie McGuire holding a gold Logie that never got used for some reason. And he said he'd let me keep one of the slabs even if I turned them down. It was pretty tempting but Melbourne came back with the counter offer of being in a team that wins games of football."

You are traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only lacking losses but also humiliation. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, the 2021 AFL season!

I reckon they've crunched the numbers and think we're more than a chance. They don't want to give you $260 so they're offering $38 and hope you squander it on other bets. Can you cash out the $38?

If I was Weids I'd tell the coach Melksham gave me a copy of the photos

I can live with play on for a ball knocked out in a tackle. It's a reward for a good tackle -- the player has been dispossessed. But letting go of the ball is incorrect disposal any which way you look at it. Without prior, an attempt to dispose must be made. Letting go is not an attempt. With prior, you HAVE to dispose legally. It's quite unbelievable that this slack [censored] is permitted. It wouldn't be in any other sport I can think of.

I watched at least a half of each game on Saturday, and all of ours. In every game, the same things stood out. The epidemic of throwing continues. But now we see continually, players who as soon as they are tackled, throwing themselves to the ground to try to force a ball up. Usually they get it, no matter what happens in the melee on the ground. They can thrash around like a landed fish, all the while grasping the ball with both hands. The oppo can manhandle them, high, low, in the back. Occasionally the ump will award a holding the ball. But usually it's a safe bet for a ball up. Once the guy with the ball is on the ground, it seems anything is allowed. Dragging it back in to the scrum, which used to be automatic holding the ball, doesn't count for anything any more. (In the Essendon game, Hooker (I think it was) thought he was going to be tackled out near the boundary line. So he threw himself sideways onto the turf. He misjudged it completely ... the oppo player never got a finger on him. But he must have got points for style or degree of difficulty, coz the ump gave him a free kick.) Then we see players who are tackled and blatantly just let the ball go. The rules say if the ball is forced out in a tackle it's play on. Otherwise, without prior, an attempt to dispose must be made. Letting the ball go is an attempt?? In the back is rarely paid. Player A has the ball. Player B tackles from behind and rides player A into the ground as hard as he can. Squishing him flat. Play on, or ball up. The only clear cut incidence we see is when player B tackles player A from behind and the ball is forced out in the tackle. Holding the ball with great drama every single time. Prior doesn't come into it. Every game, these non-decisions over and over again. Then the decisions that are paid are a coin toss as to which way they'll go. The umpiring is again in crisis. Hocking got a lot of brownie points for his new standing the mark rule, which was actually just an enforcement of the old rule as it used to be, which the umps department let slide over several years. And the first couple of rounds seemed to be a big improvement in repairing the deterioration of policing short kicks & throwing the ball. But now it's back to how it was last year and the year before, which was bleeding awful. The AFL have shown they can go scorched earth on deliberate out of bounds. Same with standing the mark. (Nearly with "natural arcs" -- they still show some leniency there.) Why not with all the rules? Throwing would be an easy one to fix. The only answer I can think of is that they don't really give a fig about the integrity of the game, but only about what the broadcasters want. They're happy with a bastardised version of the game provided there is fast play with lots of goals.

Different bloke. This one is Craig "Two Enns" Hutchinson.

"Can you smell that? Soggy chips, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of soggy chips after a game. One time we played Adelaide at Adelaide. Sell out crowd. Scores level at three quarter time, then we piled on ten goals to nothing in the last. When the final siren blew I looked into the stands. Not one Crows fan there. Just piles of soggy chips. The smell, you know that squashed potato smell, the whole grandstand. Smelled like ...... victory ........................................ someday this season is gonna end."

I remember strolling over to the Western Oval one grey day in the mid 90s. Plugger versus Fitzroy. Sydney were poor that year and Fitzroy were Fitzroy. Plugger kicked 16 and boy did the Swans fans give to the Roys fans. I had imagined that with both teams being so bad, there would have been some kind of commiseration for the Roys plight, but no, the Swans gave it to them like Richmond or Saints fans at their worst. And of course who can forget the old ladies behind the goals at every game at the old SCG. The only thing missing was an umbrella to whack the players with.

Good sides get away with that kind of thing

I reckon the Swans defenders might have done some in-game rehab and tested how well his hand reacts to being punched

We see this all the time and it's almost never pinged. I think the umps must have watched Sam Newman for their understanding of the rule. Like most ex-players, he doesn't know the rules and never did. For further clarification of what is intended by this rule, the 1944 rules say this: RUNNING WITH THE BALL. 17. (i) The ball, when in play, may be taken in the hand and held for any length of time, but shall not be carried further than is necessary for a kick, unless the player strikes it against the ground at least once in every ten yards, which need not be in a straight line; that is, he may turn and dodge.