chookrat

I read this as not only meaning the actual impact was light but also that Kossie played fairly and did show duty of care, e.g he could have lined me up but consciously decided to pull back from full contact.

It was graded High Contact, Careless, Medium Impact which = 1 week. Low impact = a fine.

I reckon we have a good chance of having it downgraded as it looks like Pickett pulls back a bit before impact resulting in pretty light contact. It is clear that the actual impact was low and also argue potential for injury is low due to Pickett pulling back from the bump. That Pickett made the decision to pull back from forceful contact is exactly what the AFL is looking to achieve and thus a low impact grading is available and appropriate.

I reckon it will be looked at and we might need to argue the case but that it will ultimately be graded as low impact. The action started as a smother and finished with a brace with the shoulder contact being pretty light. We might also argue the other player ran into Kossie and therefore the contact was reasonable.

Jane, that would not have been an enjoyable 6 months. While all injuries are different it is often the case with back injuries that muscular imbalances and dysfunctional movement patterns become the main issue after the initial acute injury. The physios will make sure that Maysie is keeping his trunk mobile and exercising with a level that is tolerable so that he is ready to play. While I'm sure he will be in pain the players and club medicos understand that pain is just feedback and nothing to worry about. This is a problem I see with general medicine that doctors tell civilians to avoid pain and prescribe pain medication rather than work through it in a sensible manner.

I'd be surprised if May misses more than three weeks and hopefully he is back for the Brisbane match. He can always wear a guard to help protect the ribs. As for the cracked vertebrae while it sounds serious it might not pact him in any way. I'm not to stressed as we have plenty of depth and will ensure we keep evolving.

It makes sense that we are above Brisbane, them being an interstate team and us being Victorian and all.

I don't get the argument that you cannot win the flag if you lose the first 3 matches on the basis that it hasn't happened before. There are 23 games in the season and between 16 and 17 wins gets a top 4 finish and probable home finals. Whats to say a team cannot lose the first 3 games and win 17 of the remaining 20 to finish top 2?

Like others here have said the environment Watts was drafted into was not professional and the expectations the club put on him were unfair on a young player. This said there are others who succeeded in the same environment and Jack was given every opportunity to do well under Roos and Goodwin. The impression I get from his media appearances is he really lacks confidence in himself as a person which makes it really difficult to thrive in adversity.

Rather than shortening the matches the AFL could pause play within quarters to show more betting ads to kids. I'm comfortable with an April start and 18 matches when Tassie join. Appreciate this won't happen due to tv rights and revenue but any changes that make the season longer take away from the game.

I wonder whether Kate Roffey's comment re being more like Collingwood is to do with their memberships increasing due to off field discretions while ours seem to have dropped. I'm not too concerned as the numbers will bounce back if our on field form warrants it.

Could it be a matter of managing him to be able to play games where during the week its pretty much some skills work and light work on the track. I recall that Nick Reiwaldt barely trained with the main group during season in the second half of his career due to his knee and we probably only need Ben to play half a dozen games with Petty and Fullarton becoming available.

Love hearing about Melksham's progress. He epitomizes courage and sacrifice. When on holidays in the Sunshine Coast after our finals exit last year my wife was on the beach with our two youngest and they started playing with Jake's kids and my wife got chatting with Jake's partner and they were super nice. On or off the field he is so important to our team and would love for him to hold up the cup in September.

I think in a round about way Robbo is actually arguing the case for Gus's contract to be paid outside of the cap.

We could head this off by relocating our Training and Admin facilities to Moggs Creek. In seriousness I cannot see how Geelong would come up with the 2 x early first round picks to satisfy any trade and thats if Clarry wanted to leave Melbourne and go there. I think this sort of rubbish reporting will only intensify depending on how our season progresses.

The muppets in the Media such as Dermie tend to forget that we've had substantial periods in the past 3 seasons where our forward line has functioned well. Even last year in towards the back end of the season our forward line was working very well with Jake Melksham, JVR, a hobbling Fritta along with Kossie and Trac as our key target at stages. Continuity has been our biggest issue which is the same problem other clubs who pay $$$ for marque key forwards, e.g. Richmond with Lynch, who are always injured and cant string games together.

It could be as simple as Goody pulling a couple of the forwards to the side and say "Boys, we need you to kick more goals.". I winder if the club has tried this or if they are instead to focussed on creating stoppages on our forward 50.

Our final round v Sydney last year had similarities to the Geelong 2021 match. I think an objective position of our past 2 years is that we were good enough to win enough games to finish top 4 but had too many banged up players and limped into finals (2022) and injuries to key personnel (2023) which meant we were probably a 1 to 2 goal worse side than if we had Petty or Melksham and a fit Fritta going into finals. Sydney beat us on Thursday night because they are a very good disciplined side and we didn't handle the slippery ball well around stoppage and were able to take our strength away from us and then us it to their advantage. I also wouldn't be surprised if changes to our game style where we move the ball more aggressively take a bit of time to bed in and while we still win the majority of our games that our best form is through the second half of the season.

Personally I like that we've almost closed up shop re comms and instead simply focusing on our footy. I can guarantee that none of our supporters will remember spelling players names incorrectly, putting up the wrong pictures, not providing updates on practice matches and generally not doing social media if we win ag least 4 of our first 6 matches. Actions speak louder than words.

Good point, Its worth noting that Viney successfully appealed an MRO suspension on the basis that he was bracing and not bumping. The Maynard argument is that he left the ground to smother and that he had a right to brace for contact when contact was inevitable. Per other posters I think that if Maynard was required to have a duty of care to Gus that he probably would have kept his arms outstretched and therefore not caused brain trauma to Gus. It would be interesting to see the percentage of concussions in AFL that are to the ball carrier as the result of bumps or other incidents where the opponent is careless towards the ball carrier. I suspect these would account for the majority of concussions and could be reduced by making it clear that bumps are not allowed and that defenders owe a duty of care to the ball cartier, and that these changes would have next to no impact on the quality of the game.

I agree with everything except for the ability of the AFL to successfully uphold and suspension. It is worth remembering that we successfully appealed JVR's suspension for the exact reason that Maynard would have been successful on appeal. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.abc.net.au/article/102335210 Under the rules last year a player does not owe any duty of care to the impact if their actions unless they have breached a rule such as rough conduct which covers bumps and contact below the knees but does not apply to incidental or careless contact during a smother or spoil.

My take is he was definitely putting pressure on the ball carrier but hard to know whether this included deliberate body contact either before or after he left the ground. This is why I think any high contact to the ball carrier when they are in possession of or have disposed of the ball should be reportable and treated as rough conduct.

640MD, if you read the Tribunal Guidelines it is has specific provisions that spell out that any bump that results in high contact is reportable. There are no such provisions for spoils, smothers and other football actions. I get that there is alot of angst re the brain trauma to Brayshaw as a result of Maynard's action, not to mention the way that the Collingwood supporters behaved on the ground and Eddie afterwards. This said I think the MRO and Tribunal have been consistent in how they grade incidents for st least the past few seasons. Can I propose we stop complaining re the Tribunal and enjoy winning and giving it back to Collingwood supporters at the ground when we smash them. I think we are a genuine contender this year and complaining about the MRO is not befitting for a champion.

WCW while a large billboard on the main road to and from the airport at a time of record immigration, in the heartland of the children of Essendon supporters watching the despair of their parents team miss finals again, is all well and good can we get back to outrage at players names being spelt incorrectly and the wrong photos being used 🤪

Monoccular, the Rough Conduct provisions specifically cover bumps but there is no provision for football actions such as smothers or spoils. Even if the Tribunal had suspended Maynard it would have been overturned on appeal. The JVR spoil case earlier in the season made it clear that the AFL Tribunal could not impose an additional duty of care on players outside of the existing rules and while a key difference in the JVR case the ball was in dispute this isn't relevant in the way the rules are currently written. I think the AFL have missed the opportunity to protect the ball carrier, by both making any bump a reportable offence regardless of whether there is high contact due to its potential for high contact, while imposing a duty of care for any high contact that results in injury on the ball carrier.