sue

Consistency? A million miles away as things currently stand. I posted elsewhere about in another match (can't recall which one it was) the SAME umpire called a 20m+ kick 'play on' and when the player kicked it, he paid a mark for a 10m kick backwards.

Could be, but how many of us expected a flag at the start of the season? Seems to me that expectations rose high due to being unexpectedly near the top of the ladder for so long and that has unreasonably increased the negativity some feel now. Let's hope that whatever happens from now is either a surprise return to form and a flag, or failing that, that we have something solid to build on for next year.

Maybe not, but you hardy expect him to say we have to do a major overhaul at this point in the season. In any case, that would be a stupid policy. We have to tweak some things and hope for some things to click and we get back to the form that saw us beat every good team. Currently that seems unlikely, but I can't see much point in doing anything else right now.

yes, you are a mug these days to try and dispose of the ball. Odds are you may fail and get pinged. Far better to fall to the ground hugging the ball while pretending you are suffering an epileptic fit. (Even that is not consistently required - most of the time you need do nothing, but occasionally you will get pinged if you don't jerk about even if it is clearly futile to do so). If the AFL wants a free flowing game, then favour disposal attempts rather than incentivising a ball-up.

Not an anomaly if the dogs played Richmond every week ?

Armed with my deep expertise in all matters, I can't wait to vote for who is an expert. I hate unelected football pundits, but at least I am expert enough to know most of them have no special expertise.

Yep. Good to see someone looking for the positives

Umpiring up to 2021 standard I see

Umpiring plumbing new depths

The 15 metres standard must be made of rubber. Same umpire 2 successive kicks. First one "not 15 play on", the shorter kick "mark"

It is remarkable how infrequently back players fall forward when pushed in the back compared to forwards. The reason why is obvious. You'd hope umpires would judge whether a forward deserves a free by the push necessary to move a backman.

That's unfair. They are perfectly happy repeating the same ones for as many minutes as are available.

As a paying customer I want more for my money, not less. ?

New definition of front on contact

I detected a whiff of irony in that short list.

copy has arrived. Looks good.

Whenever they say "you heard the umpire" I always ask "why the bloody hell can't we hear them all the time instead of you cretins?"

But it remains a mystery why he can't do that for set shots.

This analysis overlooks the 'assist' of a forward player #1 doing a good kick to another forward who marks inside 50 who then misses the goal. Hardly the fault of player #1.

Who writes these rules? When does a player ever 'elect to incorrectly dispose of the ball'? Perhaps when they deliberately throw it, but a fist missing an attempt to handpass is hardly 'electing'. But what about a player who had prior opportunity who is then tackled and genuinely ATTEMPTS to kick the ball but misses it. No free kick according to that. Any guide to the perplexed?

Why isn't there an option on here to give multiple likes to a post?

I'm driven crazy by commentators giving a lecture on what players need to do, either during the play and then again immediately afterwards as if that somehow proves the wisdom of the original comment. But why do I say 'original' - usually the comment isn't original at all. It's stating the bleeding obvious. As if they are lecturing to 6 year olds or people who have never seen AFL before.

Because we hadn’t lost to the giants yet

Players stand in a random spot and then the ump calls “stand”. Or they have to guess where outside the protected zone is. More distances for the umps to ‘measure’ accurately.

Is that an euphonium?