sue

Please list all the established forwards that were available to us in the last 2 years and consider why we didn't land them.

It's partly wearing thin because every time we find a forward they get injured. Frisch out for many games, Petty out just as he shows he's a forward after coming back from injury, Melksham just as he shows he still a forward to be reckoned with. And to top it off our two old blokes, Brown and Tmac, who maybe just had a bit more in them ended up injured for most of the year. And now JVR out. How much of this is Goodwin's fault? You need a lot of things to win a premiership. Luck is one of them.

But it is reasonable to argue penalities should be bigger in finals. The stakes are high in AFL finals especially where a team may meet the same team twice. For example, when it was clear we were going to lose to C'wood, but could meet them in the GF, why not get some second tier player (little Bill?) to knock the daylight out of the C'wood player we feared most in a GF?

Carlton doc's will say grogginess is a symptom of sore ribs

I'm totally staggered at the commenators (and others) - when was the last time anyone saw a smother that turned into a shirt front? If the AFL accepts this or let's it off on some mumbo jumbo legal technicality then I can only assume that those who run the AFL assume they will be well and ruly retired before the lawsuits destroy Australian footy.

Simple. His actions should make it clear his aim was solely to smother the ball, not take out his opponent.

FMD. I've seen plenty of attempted spoils that miss the footy by a couple of cms. But not seen what happened next. (Again, leaving aside the concussion, just the action.)

This rubbish about it being simply an attempted spoil with an unfortunate accidental outcome. I have never seen a spoil with that outcome before. I don't mean the concussion, I mean the front on contact with the player.

Not suggesting it's a good idea to play Grundy, but wouldn't it be nice if he played on Howe and kicked 5 goals.

Sorry to be a pedant, but your, not you're - which could at a stretch read like C'wood is our worst nightmare.

Not a good day for him, but the ball was up the other end most of the day. Hard to get into it in the circustances.

And they didn't even need to call in their lawyers.

It seems North's VFL had a pretty average season and only 5 AFL listed players on the weekend. Before we get too excited about the propsects of either Grundy or TMac it would be good to have to intelligence on the quality of the individual people they were playing against. Does anyone have it?

The player that wins the Brownlow this year will always have to put up with C'wood supporters and their mates in the media saying 'they only won it because our boy got injured'. I guess that's better than saying someone only won it because he had expensive lawyers.

So if a player shoots at goal but falls short a teammate can punch it through the goals and it’s 6 points? Don’t like it too

But what about the case where a player kicks a ball bouncing towards goal and an opposition player runs it through the goal under pressure within 9m? Unless that is always a goal we will have umpires trying to decide if he ran it through under some unspecified degree of contol or if it just touched or brushed him. Also I don't think we want kicks to be declared a goal when a defender makes a great effort to hit the ball through the goals.

I'm disappointed, I opened this thread thinking you'd had provided a spoof 3 word player analysis for our amusement.

There are so many issues about the AFL and umpiring (not the poor buggers stuck with the job) that I don't think you need a tinfoil hat to think the AFL likes it that way to keep the clicks ticking over. The inconsistency during the heat of a game is perhaps unavoidable, but what in blaze justifies the disappearance of the dissent rule which was introduced to help recruitment of junior umpires etc etc? There were a few people on here who blasted anyone who dared criticise its "zero tolerance" nature as just a step too far. I don't recall them castigating the AFL for going soft on the rule later in the season. Perhaps like the rest of us they realise there is little point in grumbling about the AFL's policies.

Only goals are reviewed. Not points.

The AFL couldn't afford enough cameras.

Because they can't review points in the short time available before the kick in. Lots of time if a goal is called to play ads, have some insincere spruiker gee up the crowd, play some random music, etc. and do a review.

It's ironical that points aren't reviewed in the same way that goals are before play recommences. Understandable of course given the lack of time after a point is awarded before play resumes compared to a centre bounce. But both goals reviewed into points and points into goals can decide a match. Perhaps that's an argument to review nothing and go with umps' call. Maybe it would be cheaper to employ 4 goal umpires than get reliable technology. 4 goal umps, one at each gaol post would be in a good position except for deciding whether a ball is out of bounds or a point. The boundary umps can help decide that as they do now. Don't ask me what to do if the 2 goal umps disagree!

The poster who mistyped ARC as ARK is accidentally correct as to the era of the technology.

When in blazes does a "player elect to incorrectly dispose of the football"? It's bad enough umpires have to guess 'insufficient intent to keep in' or 'deliberate', but it seems they have to guess if a player intended to throw it. Next they will be asked to guess if they intended to throw it when they punched it - players are up to all sorts of tricks you know. The sad thing about these self-contradictory rules is that some poor bastard has to enforce them and 44 others have to play to them and umpteen thousand of us have to tear our hair out understanding why decisions are made or not made. The rules need a clean out by some people who have passed logic 101.

Agree. Or the technology should be upgraded to allow the rules to be implemented. The latter doesn't look like happening real soon.