The heart beats true

And look now! All those Hawthorn members sitting in the rain watching their team get spanked. Footy is the gift that keeps on giving.

Stick around until Thursday. It’ll be an epic week of sad calls to talkback from Collingwood and Geelong members who can’t get tickets to the grand final. That’ll lift anyone’s spirits.

Thats hot.

Geelong looking very virusy.

Geelong have played in 14 of the last 19 Preliminary Finals. Equaliwhat?

Salary and soft cap changes for the bottom sides is so logical to me that I use it to highlight to people how uninterested in equalisation the AFL is. As for the drop off, I’ve often wondered if the AFL has run the numbers on big club hereditary supporter retention vs disgruntled fans and figured that future generations will outgrow the angry folks abandoning the sport.

It’s over. At some point the analytics told the AFL that 85% of its audience aren’t going anywhere - regardless of results. Huge, monumental spectacle is what the AFL wants its brand to be. Why spend decades building up half the competition when the other half already provides everything you need? The smart big clubs woke up to this a while back. Collingwood’s list strategy is diabolical on paper, but they know they’ll just top up on talent because the system is built to sustain them. 3 of Geelong’s 4 best players came from other clubs. This year was the least competitive season of AFL ever. The top 9 teams were decided by mid April. Thats 5.5 months of meaningless footy for half the clubs. The Age report on how poor this season was because they aren’t feeding directly from the AFL trough. Everyone else just happily follows the talking points, or else they might not get a good free suite at next years Gather Round. It annoys me enormously that 2025 will be a huge financial success for the AFL because its overall product has stunk this year, and the guy leading the organisation never really wanted the job, and clearly has no vision for the future of the game. This is all part of the problem. It continues to succeed in spite of itself, because we love the game too much.

Tom Morris reporting it’s between you and Nathan Buckley for the Chief Executive Platypus role. Buckley also talking to River Derwent.

Needed to score earlier.

Kate Hore is unbelievable

Umps getting way too involved

Adelaide have ruined this finals series.

I played footy against Kings school in ‘96 when he was already drafted to Geelong. The Cats wouldn’t let him play in the school footy team, but he was very chirpy from the sidelines. It’s only been 30 years, so he has some work to do to win me back over.

also, no leaks. Heard it only via the email. 👍

did not see that coming.

This is not a coincidence on the AFL’s part. The profitability and engagement of European football doesn’t waver, even though they have massive inequality. In fact successful clubs being constantly successful is more profitable. The AFL took note. Big clubs playing in big games makes the game look huge. They no longer have any interest in seeing small clubs succeed. It’s not as profitable, and doesn’t drive engagement with the sport.

Jackson and Andrew kicking clutch goals just to remind Melbourne supporters what could have been. 😡

What a game!

I’ve never been to Optus, so a local can tell me, but it always seems comparatively loud. Is it the acoustics in the stadium?

You know nothing about footy.

I know. Does the first week of finals usually stink like this? 💩

It’s classic Fox. Way more Hawks fans watching, so they are calling for them. Their bias is wild, and once you see it it makes the games unwatchable.

That free kick was unbelievably soft. Umpires need to be smarter than that.

Geelong have 2 massive systemic advantages already (their home ground advantage, and the lifestyle sell). If we let them also play finals at GMHBA they’ll win the flag every second year for the next century.

Makes unbelievably tough snaps look easy, and then makes weird kicking decisions when a regulation drop punt would do the job. He’s definitely a Pickett.