Jaded No More

One week for coming in late to a tackle you were not involved in, to hit someone in the head. Thank god he wasn’t contesting a ground ball 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄 AFL is broken

I’d be even angrier given Disco has been fantastic down back and is getting good continuity And if we wanted to replace Disco down back we should debut Adams! Honestly 2025 can’t end soon enough

Incredibly disappointed that we dropped Jefferson. Petty could have played down back instead of May. We are supposed to be finding new ways to win but we keep playing the same players in the same roles.

Could absolutely do a Goldy and be a backup and ruck coach beyond his current contract, if he's willing

He’s nominated for Mark of the Year instead Gotta love the AFL 🙄🙄🙄

Or Fight MND if he prefers.

By the same token Evans had time to adjust his position to avoid collision. The argument will be that he did what he could physically to try and slow down and minimise the impact of the contact, by not lifting his arm, with the time he had to react, which was proven to be less than 0.6 seconds. Their argument was that he had enough time to minimise the impact by avoiding the collision altogether, since they conceded that he did not bump, raise an arm etc. That is physically not true. There is no world in which May and Evans totally avoid touching each other, with the miniscule amount of time they had once the ball bounces in the direction of Evans. And if Evans is the size of May, or if May is the size of Evans, their collision looks totally different as it's either a shoulder clash or a head clash, rather than a shoulder to head clash. We made the height argument, but not sure how much we focused on it. To me, it's a critical part of the discussion, as it changes the outcome. No concussion = no suspension, thereby proving that the action is NOT in question here, but rather the outcome. Again. The tribunal basically is saying May should never have chased after that ball because he should have known Evans was going to win it, because he should have known how the ball will bounce. It's a ridiculous argument in a game that is unpredictable.

They want to win their lawsuits by saying "we tried to punish every player who caused concussion' in order to stamp out head injuries in the game. Never mind that this could not be further from the truth, because they didn't suspend the guy who concussed Petty, nor TDK for concussing May. I am not suggesting those players should be suspended, but their argument will be that they're forcing a duty of care on players and punishing those who don't display it. Of course you can argue what is duty of care. Is it duty of care not to go flying knees first into an opponent? Is it duty of care not to contest a ground ball if you're only a 50% chance of winning it? Is it duty of care not to lay a chase down tackle? The rules are murky, and while some things are black and white, aka leave the ground, hit someone high behind play, raise your arm and collect someone etc, some actions are just grey. 99% of marks don't result in concussion, 99% of ground ball gets don't result in concussion, 99% of chase down tackles don't result in concussion. So to punish the 1%, if those actions were taken with the reasonable expectation of winning the ball, is just stupid. This reminds me a lot of the JVR suspension a couple of years ago, where JVR had eyes on the ball and went to spoil and accidently collected his opponent in the head. How many spoils since then have resulted in concussion? The appeals board was right to throw out his suspension, because suspending him would never have stopped players from spoiling a high ball, just as suspending May would never stop players from chasing a ground ball. Whereas suspending guys for leaving the ground to bump, has significantly reduced those incidents, because they are very avoidable and not necessary. Keep your feet on the ground if you're going to bump an opponent to win the ball, is much easier to execute than asking a player to measure the projection of the bounce of the ball at full speed within 0.5 seconds of said bounce.

They can argue that with 0.5 seconds to react, once he realised he wasn't going to win the ball, he tucked his arm in and braced for contact, instead of lifting or opening his arm to cause more excessive damage. They can also argue that May had one foot off the ground with 0.5 seconds to go, and couldn't in any physical measure change his position. There is just not enough time physically for May to do anything but brace for contact, or try to lift his arm and hurt his opponent. He chose to brace, thereby minimising the impact to himself and, in the case of Evans being bigger/taller, to his opponent too. The AFL tribunal already concluded that May did not elect to bump, so what they are basically saying is that he should have vanished into thin air, or levitated away from the contest. FFS he is a 100kg man, not a prima ballerina, you're asking physically impossible things of players with milliseconds of reaction time.

Failure of leadership if we don't appeal. If we choose not to appeal because we don't think we can mount a strong enough case at the appeals board, I would love for Green or Richo to come out and actually say this is why we aren't appealing, and that we think the sanction is unfair and we wholeheartedly support our players going for the ball. Of course I have so little faith in the management of this club, that I doubt that will happen. Add this to the "reasons 2025 has sucked" column.

Anyone know the deadline for lodging an appeal? I presume we are trying to find a real lawyer and check if we have a strong enough case to take this to the appeals board… other than “you’re a bunch of a holes” I would be bitterly disappointed if we don’t fight this on grounds of our season being over, or because May is gonna miss time with concussion anyway. The principle matters and we can’t keep just accepting the AFL’s rubbish decisions. We are not their bloody punching bag. To think that Lynch only got one extra week for literally punching an opponent in the head unprovoked, and Rioli got just one week for threatening to hurt an opponent via text is just vile. And don’t get me started on Pies players being straight up thugs with zero ramifications.

Natural born entertainer Great future in the media awaits

You’re a clown Respectfully, [censored] off

At least Adrian Anderson’s record remains intact

Get absolutely stuffed. Appeal appeal appeal Sick to death of our players being made an example of, while thugs from other clubs get off. Enough.

Well I can’t see how he doesn’t get off. So he’s definitely getting life in prison

It’s the battle of who is doing a worse job at pleading their case Woods has never played elite level football, and it shows. To suggest a player should know the ball can bounce unpredictably is like saying “the sky is blue”, it’s true but has no relevance to this case. Otherwise you’re telling players to never do anything in case the ball bounces the wrong way.

It’s giving Lionel Hutz

And I assume Adrian runs on a “no win no fee”? No other reason we keep using him

@Lucifers Hero as I said yesterday the AFL is seeking a 3 week ban, which fits exactly within the guidelines of the charge being careless, high contact and severe impact. My guess is that the MRO knew we’d argue the careless part and hence it’s gone to the tribunal. If this useless lawyer can argue his actions weren’t careless he will get off

First quarter effort was putrid. But after that we lost the game because our ball use was once again offensively bad. Another week where the opposition’s intercept defender has a field day picking off our rubbish inside 50s

Elephants Am I playing this game right?

We needed to hire whoever got Pearce off