The heart beats true

His best game in 2 years I reckon. He was fantastic.

He actually worked out at my gym over the Christmas period here in the inner west (I’m assuming because it was AFLPA mandated time away from the club). He does not have the body of an elite athlete (and I’d know, neither do I).

It’s past your bed time.

It was unbelievably obvious tonight, just as it was against North a few weeks back. I don’t care what anyone says. The game is umpired completely different in the last 15 minutes of most games. It might not be intentional, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. It’s glaringly obvious.

I thought that was the best game I’ve seen McKay play. He really set them up well behind the ball.

I do not understand how that wasn’t a 50 to Lever at the end of the game, and I was going ballistic, and a security guard came over and told me to calm down, and everyone around us told him to [censored] off. And people say Melbourne supporters are soft. We look after our own.

I’ve no respect for people who don’t pick their team in the footy tipping. I’ve picked Melbourne every game since 1986. In our comp there’s a North supporter and she’s dead last because she picks them every round. I know who to call when I need a loyal friend though - and everyone was so pumped for her last weekend. Some of you should be ashamed. 😂

Free to Air TV in this country is some of the most lazy, uninspired content on the planet. Television in Australia doesn’t know what to do in 2025, so it’s doing what it did in 1995 and wondering why the results are different. At this stage most free to air TV is literally aiming to be background noise while people scroll through their phones on the coach. It all needs to go and be rethought. The big sports are fortunate in that their immediacy gives them more cultural currency, so it has a lot of value to local advertisers. I wouldn’t by worried about AFL, NRL, or cricket. And I wouldn’t be upset about free to air killing jobs. They chose to do nothing for a long time with their content, and it’s well overdue to be reimagined.

When it’s cold the Hot Chocolate at the footy is actually pretty good.

This is my entire issue with how ridiculous that decision was. Heeney is a more important player, with a cleaner record than Cameron, but he doesn’t get the rule applied to him? It hasn’t been applied since, and probably never will again. What an absolute joke.

Duggan seems much more likely than a guy who grew up in Perth.

What a bunch of Faff.

Brisbane umpiring is the new Perth umpiring.

This free flowing, run and gun, Ross Lyon game plan is so good to watch.

If he doesn’t get suspended for that then I don’t understand. He swung his fist back and hit a player in the head off the ball, which caused him to bleed and leave the ground. That’s a minimum week easily.

That’s the kind of act the AFL should be doing everything in its power to encourage. Creative and chaotic. An Eagles player could have run onto that and kicked goal of the year and everyone would be lauding Liam Ryan for his creativity. Umpires don’t need to be forcing players to be robotic. Nobody wins then.

The amount of AFL fans who openly talk about how often he throws the ball is laughable. The media never talk about it, but everyone can see it with their own eyes. It’s nuts.

The umpiring against Essendon in the third quarter on Saturday night was an absolute disgrace… and some of the best TV I’ve ever watched.

I laughed out loud when I read this on the AFL’s Footy Fan Survey… Has the score review and the use of technology improved the game? Yes, it's important to get decisions right - 73 per cent No, leave it to the on-field umpires - 27 per cent So the options are - get the decision right, or don’t get it right by leaving it up to the umpire. And they wonder why we don’t trust umpiring decisions? They just told us they don’t either.

Get out a map and look at where the Melbourne footy club is, and then look a long way to your left and you’ll find Adelaide. Geographically 90% of our supporters are in Melbourne, and the vast majority of them aren’t travelling to Adelaide.

I can’t afford to go to Gather Round. It’s an absolute spud of an idea, and the only people who truly like it are those that are there on the AFL’s dime - and it infuriates me when they tell us how great it is all week. Any other week of AFL games played on substandard grounds with 4,000 people in attendance would be qualified as an unmitigated disaster. With 2 South Australian teams anyone who wants to go to Adelaide and see their team play is already guaranteed to get the opportunity every year regardless. So what this is is the AFL taking money from a state government at the expense of the fans. People will say ‘it’s an extra round of footy’, but it’s not a round I, or almost all, Melbourne supporters can go to. Gather Round sucks for the average footy supporter, and the sooner we all start calling it out for what it is the sooner the AFL might learn that it’s pushing us too far, and its product too thin.

After the Maynard incident Jonathan Brown immediately says ‘got to be better than that’ and then realises what he’s said and says ‘anyway, he’s earned himself a free kick’. The pandering to big clubs is ruining the game. I’m so bored by the AFL coverage. It’s making the game seem so fake and manufactured.

I imagine Isaac is just happy they didn’t call him Isack.

I picked Geelong tonight, purely because I firmly believe Essendon are very average, and have only elevated because of the extreme softness of their draw.

Craig McLoss.