Jaded No More

And you’d say: “yes I play contact sport. I also tackle opponents when I know it will result in contact”.

This whole “you looked at him for 0.3 seconds makes you guilty” is just the dumbest argument I’ve heard. If players don’t look over at their opponent in play, can you imagine how many horrific head clashes and other impact injuries we’d see every week?! Are players meant to play blind?

Clearly JVR is smarter than the 3 baboons representing the AFL. Sounds about right. Well done young man.

He's suggesting it looks bad for JVR because he took his eyes off the ball. I'd argue that JVR's peripheral vision is good enough to suggest that he knew an opponent was there, and had he not looked over at him to judge the positioning of said opponent, he would have flattened him and probably himself too. He showed duty of care by looking over to judge how to approach the contest. Nowhere in the rule book does it say you can't look at your opponent while attempting to spoil. In fact, I am sure most footballers directly look at their opponent and the ball while going for a spoil, or a lot more players would end up giving away high contact free kicks. You can see in the replay that JVR tries to adjust his arm, which is fully stretched out by the way, to avoid contact with Ballard, which is why he ends up approaching it so awkwardly and his other arm almost loops over the top of Ballard. If JVR wanted to hurt Ballard, he would have approach the contest completely differently, and he would have really hurt him.

Needed a stretcher for impact.

I dunno, to me Trac always looks moments away from both his legs falling off. He has this weird gait like he's suffering some sort of permanent knee/hip/back injury. The amount of times I see him hobble off after a game thinking he's injured, and then he plays the following week and gets 30 touches is truly remarkable.

And what if we sustain an injury 5 minutes in and he has to play a full game? It is a very risky strategy, and honestly if our attitude going into this week's game is that it's no more than a practice game, we will get our arses handed to us. Hawks might be tanking, but the optics of playing really well against us and just losing are not lost on me. It will buy Mitchell a few more weeks without heavy scrutiny. Let's not go into this week pretending like the win is in the bag. Not only is it not, but percentage is going to be extremely important given how tight the ladder is.

I think it's very risky to play someone straight away in the seniors who has essentially missed 2 seasons of football with a variety of injuries. He never looked right to me last season, and I think it would be pointless to rush him in when the season is still very long. For his own confidence if nothing else, I think a few weeks at Casey is needed. I would say not before KB will he play seniors, but what do I know.

Best news when of course Casey has a bye 🙄

I’m sure all 17 Gold Coast fans were totally enraged 😂

I think it’s a safe bet the crowd will be at least 50/50 if not favoring Melbourne. Hawks fans can’t be keen to come watch their side at the moment.

Anyone know what time the case is being heard tonight? And can I tune in with a pitchfork at the ready?

The fact that being a MEDIUM forward Fritsch is as consistent as he is, tells you what a gun he is. Anyone suggesting he isn't in the top echelon of forwards in the AFL is drunk.

I’m glad I was wrong. I think there was a lot of public pressure on the club to appeal.

Anderson and Rowell were definitely the two most dominant players on the ground. Only fair they got votes. Anderson ripped us apart. Lol at Ballard getting votes. Cheeky.

We don’t need to use the Cripps incident. It’s completely irrelevant. Show last week’s vision of Fogarty and Lynch earlier in the year.

Yep. Parents should just let their kids stare at screens and vape instead. And never ever let them in a moving vehicle.

If you are concerned about your kid getting hurt, then don't let them play AFL. It is as simple as that. Injuries will never be avoided in a contact sport, it does not matter what we do.

The last line in the article from the website regarding the appeal is good... I assume GC will send in a medical report to back this up "The club has reached out to the Gold Coast Suns, and pleasingly Ballard has recovered well and is expected to play this week."

Except the outcome wasn't even a problem here, as Ballard suffered neither a neck injury nor a concussion in the end. We are now punishing players because a doctor made a call to get a stretcher on the ground out of an abundance of caution?

I assume we are trying to put a case together first. That will take a little bit of time. I have no idea when the cut off is to accept or challenge but I suspect it’s today as the tribunal will likely sit tomorrow or Wednesday.

If we don’t appeal this, it will be the first time in many many years that I will be deeply disappointed with the club. We haven’t put a foot wrong IMO in a long time. I was very happy to accept the Kosi penalty, but if we don’t defend a kid who plays the game with good intent and bravery, I would be incredibly upset. JVR deserves better and if we accept this suspension we are telling him 6 games in, that he has to spend the rest of his career second guessing if he should attack the contest or not. I would hate to lose that side of his game because it is a big part of what makes him so special.

Absolutely this. His duty of care was to look at Ballard once he committed to the spoil to assess where both the player and the ball were likely to land. If he blindly goes for the spoil both players could have clashed heads and both would have ended up with bad concussions. How the [censored] is this a better result than JVR taking a split second to look at Ballard to ensure his own safety, as well as the safety of his opponent? We really think Foggerty has no peripheral vision and didn't know he was about to hit a Collingwood player when he went for that spoil last week? This notion of eyes for the ball is frankly idiotic. JVR didn't line him up off the ball. And honestly if that was Lever or May executing the spoil, their fist would have likely connected perfectly and nobody would even speak of it. But a 6 game forward who is a big boy goes for it and stuffs up, and he deserves 2 weeks off.

Ross Lyon is who we are taking advice from now? Fritta is not getting dropped ffs.

JVR is obviously expected, in the split second that he has to spoil a high ball, to take out a calculator and calculate the exact timing and angle at which he is to hit the ball in order to avoid touching his opponent while also ensuring his fist hits the ball directly into the hands of Kosi who then goes on to kick a banana from the pocket 🙄 Quite honestly the AFL is absolutely cooked.