sue

</derail> Misused expressions are the norm in AFL. I particularly like the marking one: 'he takes it at its highest point' when what is meant is that he takes it (the ball) when he is at his highest point. Bloody hard to take the mark at the balls highest point except for very low short passes. </endderail>

I wonder how true that is. I could imagine some players would see a GWS flag as a bit unreal, not connected to any footy history compared with being part of a flag by an old establshed team, while others may see being in early GWS flags as big thing to be in at the beginning of new history. I reckon most would much prefer a flag with an old club, but I can see that desire being beaten by the desire for a flag, any flag and GWS giving the best probability.

An odd choice of words indeed. Either there was a serious breach in the past, or Neitz got himself into a verbal tangle. Hopefully the latter.

As someone earlier pointed out, if one club gets such sponsorship, eventually so do all the others, so it just means more and more money around the sport. But what does that really do for the spectator experience? Not much except for improving TV coverage. The game was just as exciting and absorbing to fans 50 years ago as it is today. Sure the players are fitter and being full-timers are somewhat more skilled, but is that worth all the crud which more and more sponsorship brings. Thank god for the salary cap and may it long be rigouously enforced.

I can't see how it could be interpreted any other way. Reading Demonland is playing with my mind.

hmmm, the remark about what happened to Freo when Sandilands went down makes me nervous.

I wouldn't bet on that.

BB, we can't say Hird is playing the victim card himself. He appears to have a genuine problem which everyone should be sympathetic to, even if you feel others with a similar problem may be more deserving of sympathy. But it is irking when the EFC fan club uses his current situation to play the victim card over the entire saga.

I can't see why this thread should be closed, though the temporary halt may have been reasonable given the circumstances. There are issues around the saga which don't involve Hird directly which are perfectly reasonable for discussion eg. where is Jobe's medal. And if they do involve Hird directly, then we should be able to rely on posters to make appropriate comments. Those that don't should be dealt with in the usual way, rather than surpressing an entire topic.

i do not think tiredness was what happened in the second half of the Port match. so im not looking for excuses.. but whatever it was (eg overconfidence?) it carried over into the next game.

True, though we have the luxury of only having to be 'expert' on a single team. But on the other hand, I don't think any of us are paid for our deep insights.

That's a bit misleading. If you look at the for/against graph, we are steadily increasing our lead till about 1/2 way through Q2. After that the graph is pretty much horizontal with a modest improvement by Port and finally a few cheap goals for us towards the end. The skills of both sides just got worse and worse. I found it really striking how second rate we looked in replay. At the time I overlooked that in the (momentary) excitement of the march towards the finals.

I watched a replay of that match recently and it was obvious (as it was not to me at the time) that something was very wrong in the second half. Energy was well down. They often looked as if they were playing in treacle.

Not buying into the pick 15 issue myself, but there is a lot to be said for the above penalty policy. Applies in much of Scandanavia.

Or it may be no one's fault since we can assume the club was well aware of the alternative of keeping him on the list as a LTI and decided that on balance what they did was the best thing to do. As usual, and not unreasonably, we are not privy to the details.

An earlier post suggested that the solution to the problem of short boundary throw-ins etc is that the umpire calls play on at which point it is no longer a ruck contest and anyone can be third, fourth of tenth man up without penalty. Sounds reasonable to me and who knows, it may be the AFL's position. But it would be nice if the AFL detailed these sorts of things when making announcements since most supporters are smart enough to immediately ask the 'what if' questions.

Not sure it will really work since very often the player in possession will try to get back from the mark quickly, but it is at least an admission that it is impossible to apply the current interpretation/rule consistently as opponents are caught in the protected area. Tossing a coin is the best predictor of whether 50m is paid or not at the moment and this change doesn't fix that. BTW, is there actually a rule which says the player moving to take position on the mark is exempt from infringing? They often run right through the protected area without penalty.

Outlawing anything but a "real" kick-in is a separate issue to if and when a penalty applies for deliberately rushing a behind. Fair enough if you want to call for another rule change. But returning to the issue at hand, prior opportunity is too tough a standard in my view. Smacks of a desire by the AFL for more goals and thus more ads on TV.

Will be interesting to see how 3-rd man up ban affects things. I don't like the idea that a bloke kicking out from a behind is considered to have had prior opportunity. If he stuffs up kicking it to himself and is then under immediate pressure, I see no reason why the opposition should be almost gifted a goal because he rushes a behind under pressure. It's not in the spirit of why the rule was introduced. No one would deliberately muck up a kick-to-self because the probability of a goal being scored is too high.

No - we'll need to have an outlet to express our rage when the club is treated as returning heroes next year. And I suspect the fat lady will be singing for many more years.

If anyone was in any doubt about his being a drug cheat, his not returning the physical medal because he 'doesn't know where it is' should set your mind at rest and remove any doubts about his propensity to cheat. If the AFL does not demand it back (and preferably melt it down so it does not become an expensive collectors item) it will be yet more evidence that the AFL has no integrity.

I agree that that level of detail and sequence of events strongly indicates he was ill as you say. But I don't think what Macca/Goodwin/Misso said adds any weight at all - they would say that wouldn't they. Imagine the headlines if they had said yes, even without naming the player(s) and you reported that here. They'd be trying to deal with the fallout for months.

By not showing up Dank can continue to give his little talks with added zest. Now he can point out how his case was unfairly dismissed just because the doctor who looked after his dying great-great-grandmother was run over by a WADA van before he could write him an excuse note for not showing up last week. Or some such.

Sure if that report was correct, but elsewhere he claimed it was not his choice. So what's the truth? Going by what he claims (which may or may not be true), he is not inconsistent. That's all I was saying. As usual we don't have the facts, but it allows us to pop out of football hibernation for the odd rant. Regardless, it is pretty clear he is no longer really required and I think we all agree on that (or is that dangerous groupthink? ) . As to the rest of it, I trust the club management to do the right thing for the club and the fair thing for HL whatever that is.

Because he claims the club stopped him playing for medical reasons - with which he disagreed. So that is consistent. I agree with ManDee that the fact he kept having tests might weaken that position, but on the other hand if you were told you couldn't do something for medical reasons but wanted to, you might keep having tests to find out the truth either way. I'm no great fan of HL's, his behaviour is odd enough, but I don't see that inconsistency is the issue.