sue

Generally Kayo works OK but a few times it has frozen and nothing can be done until I reload Kayo in the browser I am using (on a Mac). Nothing else is putting pressure on my Wifi at the time. A problem at their end I am pretty sure.

I think the rain forcing centre square throwups must or should have been a great advantage to Draper. The bad bounces are so random it takes away some of his natural advantages.

What will you say if we win? What will you say if we lose and it is clear the ruck wasn't the issue. Why bother making these sort of statements?

@WhereDemonsDare did use the word 'hampered', not destroyed. He didn't say we'd have won every game nor never lose by more than 20 points. But surely being 2 good players, one structurally important) out of the list all year is going to hurt. No team wants to go into a season with such a truncated list. (Of course, it might not hurt if by some miracle we didn't have any injuries that naturally occur from time to time, but as you said, they are unavoidable and we did have them).

History buffs: Has there ever been a team in the top 4 so late in the season with a percentage below 100?

I don't follow what King says so I won't get into a discussion about how good his opinions are or whether he makes controversial comments based on very little just to get attention as a lot of commentators seem to do. I hope he does little of that. But presumably you do realise that it is possible to disagree with someone else without being snarky and dismissing their (somewhat misquoted) opinions as 'comedy'.

A lot of furious hindsight being thrown around here about poor selection decisions in the past, the basis of which we don't know. For example, Schache was an unused sub for 2023 semifinal. On the face of it seemed madness. But do we have all the facts that guided the selection committee? Maybe there was someone in the team who had a serious injury concern about whether they could run out the game. Club felt they were good enough to take the risk of playing him and Schache was insurance for that player. But it turned out he was not needed, so in hindsight a different player would have been a better sub. Not saying there was and it wasn't a bungle, just saying we never know all the facts so we should temper our outrage. Our cupboard is rather bare - how many teams could lose 3.5 of their best players and be confident of winning by putting in players who have not impressed at VFL level. And Essendon are full of confidence (hopefully over full). If we lose we'll need deeper analysis of why, rather than just putting it down to selection mistakes.

Sadly (for me and for Casey ) I’ve seen too many VFL games and I’ve not noticed any ruck there doing much to suggest they’d perform at AFL level.

But if that’s the truth then sending that signal may be the right thing to do (or just confirming what is already expressed internally )

Your point? That people do disagree? Personally, I haven't made up my mind (probably because I can't be bothered - there are plenty of other MRO decisions which are so blatantly wrong/biased that I don't have the energy to engage with this one).

all true, but there are too many pessimists on here who are unrealistic in their pessimism.

No, that is realism. Because we do play 2 such teams and we are missing the Captain. It's pessimism to say we haven't got a hope of winning a single clearance and just as well play Billings in the ruck.

The best hope is that he will bend over backwards to get Heeney off and then would find it difficult to explain why Melks' was worse. But I probably underestimate his talents as a contortionist.

At least we don't have to fear him missing games in 2025 with appendicitis.

Nah, I reckon they don't barrack for any team but enjoy pouring cold water on every team on the supporter forums.

Just to prove I don’t only whinge when we lose : that insufficient intent given against the WCE player who belted the ball forward was absolutely stupid. He was clearly trying to get it to 2 teammates all on their own 30m away. Came off his fist slightly off and went 20m and went out. Good grief

That's an interesting idea about HTB. If they made the rule 'if you take posession of the ball and are tackled you have to get rid of the ball legally in a reasonable time' and forgot about prior opportunity altogether, then the only 'vague' thing would be 'reasonable time'. It would reduce ball ups resulting from players taking the ball knowing they will be immediately tackled and lead to more tapping the ball to advantage etc. A more open game might result. Doubtless there would some downide to the idea but worthh considering.

Same for me. I'm embarrassed at the number of times I have had to say "ridiculous free (or missed free), but since I'm barracking against X, I can't complain".

spot on

Sadly most of the commentators are 100+ years old mentally.

Geez, don't hit him too hard with the feather of 'poor form'. Maybe he should have been fined, not zero times as has happened under the unbiased MRO, and not once but 2 times. Once for exaggerating a mild shove to the upper chest and secondly for holding his head pretending it had been hit. Make all the excuse for the AFL you like but you will not convince many that the MRO is not corrupt.

Sure if he faked it, he should be fined. Doubtles you think the guy who gave him the slight push should have been fined - oh wait, that's only for non-C'wood players. Why do you think pointing out bad things our players do somehow makes it impossible for us to call out the AFL for blantant inconsitencies and biases? I hope you are not one of those people who like to show how independent and unbiased they are by taking what they think is an unpopular position no matter how ludicrous. Virtue signalling gone awry.

Why can't we have a discussion about umpiring without someone bringing this up. For anyone interested in our game (ie. not the AFL, but our game), it is an important topic and if a few more people join the debate because we are not winning, so be it. Yes, we do have to win more games and even a flag (oh, we did that), but it doesn't mean we can't criticise the standard of umpiring and the AFL's rules/interpretations.

DISGUSTING. At first all I could do was laugh. AFL is [censored]

What legal expert writes these rules. Doesn’t say if those points are all required AND between points or just one or more are OR between points. You have to deduce it is OR from your knowledge of footy but that is not the way to write clear unambiguous rules. Might explain a lot about the state of the rules.