Jaded No More

Yes and he’s fun to watch.

Caddy is giving ADHD energy. I love unpredictable players when they don’t play for us.

This is very easy to pick. Viney in for Spargo. That’s it. Bench will be Turner McVee Rivers and AJ. Sharp sub, or if they want to get a full game into him at Casey, Laurie a sub smokey.

Aidan Johnson, it is your time to SHINE on KB… if that scumbag plays. Otherwise I hear Moore is partial to a good knee in the back.

That’s like asking Collingwood who is replacing Nick Daicos, or the Dogs who would replace Bont. The answer is someone who isn’t as good but can play their role. No team can replace their best players. It’s why injuries are one of the most significant factors in winning a flag.

Do we want McKay? History suggests that we do. Will we pay his salary? Not when we have bigger fish to fry like keeping Kosi. And we don't need Walsh, he's a Temu version of Clarry.

It is rather unbelievable because everyone wants to believe the AFL is a fair and equal competition, despite being shown on a daily basis that is, in fact, not at all.

Were you shocked when Judd got the Visy ambassador deal to join Carlton? Do you know how many shares Pavlich owns in WA mining companies, and why he never left to go back to SA? These things are common place in AFL. Geelong just does it better than most, because they have more resources to leverage which are easy to 'hide', especially in terms of property. You would be shocked if you knew how little Tom Hawkins got paid over his footballing journey, but he and Emma's property is worth millions. Now go prove that property was bought by the club but is now somehow owned by Tom and Emma...

Except lots of other clubs do similar things, so it is not in their interest to expose the Cats. This is not a situation that is unique to Geelong, but they do have more of a leg up because of who some of their major funders/sponsors are.

The point is that what is being reported is a total cover up by the AFL to protect their beloved Geelong. Either that or Geelong are incredibly good at hiding these non kosher deals.

It is a cover up. My husband is related to a Geelong player who shall remain anonymous, who earns well below league average (and is a top 20 player in the league!), but somehow owns a piece of property worth around $15mil. Likewise I know people at Cotton On Group, and the ambassador salary they pay Smith is more than any of their big name ambassadors who have actual modeling careers.

My Essendon supporting mate (don’t judge we’ve been friends for 25 years!) is ripping his hair out at their injury list. They have not one tall left.

Hopefully the injury isn’t to Spargo’s DJ arm

The problem with dealing with football in the context of the law, is that playing football is inherently dangerous. You can jump for a mark, land badly and do your ACL. You can get tackled legally and break your arm. We will never be able to eliminate injuries in AFL, including head injuries. It's like saying we want to eliminate all road accident injuries. It's never going to happen, because driving is inherently dangerous. That's why we punish dangerous driving, people who drink and drive etc, because we can't punish every accidental car smash, but certainly we can punish callous actions that increase the risk of deadly accidents. It's why you can insure yourself in case of a car accident, but that insurance is void if you caused the accident due to being drunk, driving without a license etc etc. The AFL is much the same. There are actions that we absolutely want to eliminate from the game, which do not contribute positively to the play, and which increase the likelihood of injury. So something like leaving the ground, turning your body, turning your opponent 360 and slamming them into the ground, tunnelling, tripping etc. These are mostly easily identifiable actions which can be punished, and therefore the risk of injury is reduced. It's why we introduced frees for taking the legs out, even when sometimes it's unavoidable, because it can lead to terrible injuries. Now of course there will always be grey areas, and incidents that don't fall within those parameters, but you're not achieving anything by punishing a legal tackle which in 99% of cases doesn't lead to injury, in a worse way that punishing someone jumping into an opponent with no hope of getting the ball. Because players will continue to chase down opponents and lay tackles, but players can absolutely learn to stop leaving the ground to try and hit an opponent when they know they've lost the contest. In much the same way as players have learnt to stop tunnelling in marking contests. You need to punish the avoidable actions, regardless of outcome, rather than the unavoidable actions that result in the occasional injury - so for example, Maynard on Gus totally avoidable, but Moore on Trac probably not so, because he had every right to contest the marking contest and we see players push their knees into an opponent to gain momentum 20 times a game and nobody gets hurt.

He’s going to knock someone out with that thing one day and then his hair will get suspended

Exactly my take

How so, because Spargo miraculously is so short that Mills missed his head and therefore he avoided a concussion? Mills turned his body and left the ground to make contact. If that’s Kosi doing it, it’s 3 weeks even if his opponent gets straight back up. There is absolutely no doubt that again this broken system took into account Spargo’s lack of concussion. If he does get concussed that is 3 weeks. This stupid outcome based system needs a total overhaul.

And kudos to Grundy who went out of his way to say hello to some of our support staff on the boundary post game. He is a genuinely nice man, and I wish him the best. Except for when he plays us because Gawn is and always be the better player.

But of course he only got one. A joke.

And I bet none of them also had NINE scoring shots!!! With every passing week, the price for a Kosi trade goes up. I’m thinking Jackson, plus 3 first round picks, and Longmire’s first born. Alternatively I suggest we throw the sort of ludicrous money at Kosi that would make you weep, so he has no choice but to stay. I dare anyone to find a 23 year old who impacts the game as much as Kosi when he’s on. So damaging in the midfield, so damaging going inside 50, so damaging forward. Just so so good and still so young, and the most fun player to watch as well. When he’s having a day out you just have a smile on your face.

Tmac can't replace AJ for 2 reasons 1- he's said himself that he has no power in his feet to jump for marks anymore, and therefore he can't play as a forward 2- he can't ruck AJ is in direct competition with JVR, for the simple fact that we have to have a ruck backup both to help Max, and if heaven forbid Max gets injured in game. JVR is a far superior footballer in terms of skills, and also in the way that he rucks. He's a very competitive ruckman, whereas AJ is not. AJ competes and gives you 1000% and he's the sort of player you want lining up against [censored] like Maynard, but he's also someone who drops chest marks, and fumbles and gives away frees in the ruck for not being tall enough or having a big enough leap to compensate. There are arguments to be made about him staying in the team, or being left out for Roo, and neither are right or wrong. But he has definitely brought a different dynamic to the forwardline which has seen us win games, while at the same time I am not counting on him to kick many goals, or win many ruck contests, certainly not in the way I think JVR can.

He was off for a bit getting his eye looked at. But also with Lindsay and Langford playing so well on the wing, plus Chin, we can afford to rest him a bit more which is a good thing. Playing 90% game time is a sure fire way to get him injured.

The post game hackling was the only redeeming feature of this snooze fest. I nearly fell asleep listening to it on the way home from our game.

Watch the replay. It wasn’t his knee at all. His ankle rolled a little and he was perfectly fine and played the rest of the game unhampered. Considering he’s no stranger to an ACL, there’s no chance he suspects something and doesn’t immediately come off given the game was done.

He’s thinking how to convince Goody to move Disco back to the forwardline