titan_uranus

If you asked people before the season if they'd take a prelim appearance, I suspect the majority would have said yes. It would be hard not to have said yes, coming off two seasons not even in the finals. Making a prelim qualifies for "going deep into finals", so it's pretty hard to top it other than by winning a flag. As is clear, we have demonstrated significant improvement in almost all facets of our game, as well as in what we do off-field. However, given what's happened this year, there's no doubt many of us will be disappointed if we don't win it this year. There are no guarantees in football: the Dogs had one run at it in 2016, happened to grab it, and then didn't win a final for 5 more years. We've had an incredibly good run with injuries this year which may not be the case ever again. And we finished 1st having only lost 4 times all year. If we don't win it now, many will argue if we'll ever win it (although, to be fair, we missed a number of home games and/or home games with crowds, and have to play a prelim on neutral territory). Demonland will be a very interesting place if we lose the PF or the GF this year, that's for sure.

Dogs are being seriously over-rated based on a win vs one of the weakest finals sides (an 11-11 Essendon whose late season form came from beating the bottom 5) in recent memory. And they're on a six-day break against Brisbane's seven-day break, travelling interstate to play Brisbane at the Gabba, where the Lions haven't lost since Round 1 (10-game wining streak) and have won 29 of their last 34 games, and where the Dogs have lost 7 of their last 8. I expect a Brisbane win. I also expect a Geelong win, but if a side were to go out in straight sets it would be a side carrying 11 players over the age of 30 who haven't had a break in 3 months.

September brings out the best in Demonland.

Except when we lose, in which case the podcast is apparently a distraction which should be canned so that he can focus on football... (Tongue slightly in cheek here).

Write Geelong off at your own peril. Yes, they're out of form, but they are still a seriously dangerous proposition when they get it right: see, for example, the second quarter 10 days ago.

The AFL or a player can appeal a Tribunal decision on one of four grounds: Error of law Decision of Tribunal was so unreasonable that no Tribunal acting reasonably could have reached it Classification of offence by Tribunal was manifestly excessive or inadequate Sanction imposed was manifestly excessive or inadequate The AFL would be appealing under ground 4, that the sanction was manifestly inadequate. Greene is entitled to appeal, and if he wants to get off he'd have to argue that the Tribunal either made an error of law, or its decision was so unreasonable that no reasonable Tribunal could have reached it. If there had been an error of law, I reckon we'd have heard about it by now (and GWS wouldn't have immediately said they won't appeal), and I don't think anyone could argue the decision was so unreasonable that no Tribunal could reasonably have reached it. tl;dr - I don't think there's much risk to the AFL of Greene winning an appeal.

Correct verdict, penalty the absolute bare minimum but IMO too light. The AFL has a lot of work to do with its MRO/Tribunal process for 2022. Greene, like Selwood, is a brilliant example of why repeated fines do nothing to deter behaviour.

All valid points to debate, except the one about the second quarter IMO. Was it really Smith who kept him to one possession and a point in the second quarter? In that quarter inside 50s were 18-9 in our favour and the ball spent significant periods in our forward half. Do you recall Cameron being on the end of a chain of possession and Smith beating him? I don't (which isn't to say it didn't happen, just that I don't recall it happening).

This is a valid debate. It does not mean what Greene did is any less worthy of suspension, though.

The intent point is very important. Under the AFL Guidelines, he can only be suspended if the contact was intentional. Careless, unreasonable or accidental contact with an umpire just nets you a fine. If he gets off, the AFL needs to take a good look at its Guidelines (which, I've said a million times this year, are broken). He says he had no subjective intention of contacting Stevic. If the Tribunal agrees with that (remember, they didn't agree with Viney's evidence a month back), the AFL has to show that the contact was disrespectful, demonstrative, forceful or aggressive, because the Guidelines say that if it's one of those things, it's deemed to be intentional.

I know, and I disagree with the strategy. I understand what his legal team is doing. The charge is making intentional contact. He says he didn't actually intend to make contact. That's not necessarily relevant, because the AFL Guidelines say contact that is disrespectful, demonstrative, forceful or aggressive is deemed to be intentional. So his argument is that his contact was none of those four things. The problem I see with his argument is that I think it's unlikely he convinces the Tribunal that his actions weren't disrespectful or demonstrative. I think they were comfortably both of those things. If this action is neither disrespectful nor demonstrative, what the [censored] was it?

He's pleaded not guilty. Not the strategy I would have taken, but OK.

We're not playing kids because they are the "bright future". We're two wins away from a flag. We're playing them because they're in our best 22 right now.

No they weren't. They won the game but we put them under enough heat to make me think we can beat them if we play them again. But I doubt it matters as I don't see the Dogs beating Brisbane in Brisbane off a six day break, let alone backing up with beating Port in Adelaide when they've had the week off to rest and recover.

Matthew Lloyd had a look at him on the AFL website this morning, suggesting his positioning in some of the one-on-one contests with Cameron was poor. Athleticism is great but he has to know how, and when, to use it.

Andrews was on Brown for most of the first half at least, wasn't he?

I agree with this. I heard Gerard Whateley's opening on his radio show this morning. He said something about how people in the AFL industry/media who had tried defending Greene were wrong to do so, but I didn't hear him name anyone in particular. That might be because most/all of those who have defended him are his colleagues on either Fox or SEN. We have Luke Hodge, who in the post-match interview tried to lead Greene into saying it was an accident. Justin Leppitscsh blamed Stevic for not getting out of Greene's way. Nick Riewoldt (I believe) said he wanted to "fly the flag" for Greene. Kane Cornes says Greene should be fine unless Stevic effectively rats him out, putting the pressure on the umpire (in this case the victim). Matthew Richardson thinks it should be a fine only. There are also current players defending him, including Petracca (I can't read the Herald Sun article but apparently it's here), as well as Pendlebury and Taylor Adams. That's slightly more understandable given what we know about the all-important player's code. Some/all of the above may have said what they said without seeing the side angle camera footage which removes any debate over whether there was contact or not. But having seen the footage which shows obvious contact, if you still think this isn't worthy of a multi-week suspension, you are contributing to a cultural problem within the AFL which will only serve to increase the horrendous standard of AFL umpiring (i.e. if we don't take a strong stance to protect umpires at the elite level, we'll struggle to get better umpires into the system).

Can you see the outright hypocrisy in you lecturing me to not "use words that might suit your narrative in place of what I actually said", whilst simultaneously telling me what you think I said in my post? I might have clumsily worded it using too many negatives (personally I read it back and it's clear to me), but consistently with the rest of my post, what I was trying to say was that I do not believe anyone else on our list could have played on Cameron for as long as Smith did on Saturday night and come away from that game with anything other than significant criticism. Your initial post was to say no one on our list could have curbed Cameron given his speed and agility. Didn't Hibberd have a good game on Cameron in Round 12, where he kicked 2 goals rather than 5? The argument that Cameron would have been too good for anyone, therefore we shouldn't criticise Smith as much or at all, is in my view a cop out.

I don't know about the rest but three of the four Weightman free kicks were completely there. The one that wasn't was the fourth, where he was pushed out of bounds and just fell over, but got a free for a push in the back somehow. Again, there is no rule that says the free kick count has to be even. Essendon were largely crap all day. It isn't necessarily a surprise that if the Dogs were first to the ball and had their head over it more, they'd get more free kicks.

Here's the footage (albeit still not a lot):

The first three were all there. The fourth wasn't, though. Called a push in the back, he was pushed fairly off the ball. The rest of it is Essendon whinging. Take all his goals out and they still lose that game by 5 goals. Weightman's free kicks didn't stop them kicking 0 goals in the second half.

Would much rather play GWS. Just go back and look at the second quarter last week to remind yourself of what could happen if we play Geelong. Yes they looked rubbish vs Port but they lost the QF last year and still made the GF. It won't matter so much if we win and then Port wins: both sides will have had the same breaks.

Example number 897123 that the MRO system and its plethora of fines doesn't work.

My last sentence is a double negative. What I was trying to say is that I think Smith is the only player on our list who could spend the entire game on Cameron, have Cameron kick 5, and then get praised. Anyone else would be lambasted. Arguing no one else could have gone with Cameron is circuitous - you take his form beating Smith and then say "well no one else could go with that". But we don't know what a different/better defender could have done by way of positioning, blocking, etc. I've openly said I've never rated Smith, but my posts about him are to question why there is so much praise after a player conceded 5 goals to his direct opponent and I think it's a cop out to say "oh Cameron's too good".

Actually, if it's considered disrespectful that means under the Tribunal guidelines it is deemed to have been intentional. Aggressive, forceful, demonstrative or disrespectful means intentional. I don't think anyone can be happy if this is 2 weeks, given Viney's was 2 weeks. Viney at 2 means Greene should be 3 at an absolute minimum.