Discussion 2023 General AFL Discussion

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Lots of talk about young Daicos for the Brownlow this year (fair enough too) but I wouldn't be writing off the Bont. Having a cracking season so far, and seems to be killing it again in the rain tonight.
If sides start clamping down on nick then he won't get there.
 

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Disappointing that the Giants couldn't get up, if Toby Greene played they probably would have won that game.
 
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Lots of talk about young Daicos for the Brownlow this year (fair enough too) but I wouldn't be writing off the Bont. Having a cracking season so far, and seems to be killing it again in the rain tonight.
Bont is the best player in the game right now IMO. His mix of contested ball and clearance work to go along with his class is next level. Every touch is like gold, he’s a special player.
 
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He’s the best player in the game right now IMO. His mix of contested ball and clearance work to go along with his class is next level. Every touch is like gold, he’s a special player.

Not sure I would call him the best player in the game but he is the best young player for sure and will no doubt attract a lot of Brownlow votes.

There are better players than Daicos like Jeremy Cameron and Max Gawn but they won't get as many Brownlow votes as they aren't midfielders.
 
Not sure I would call him the best player in the game but he is the best young player for sure and will no doubt attract a lot of Brownlow votes.

There are better players than Daicos like Jeremy Cameron and Max Gawn but they won't get as many Brownlow votes as they aren't midfielders.
If Cameron kicks the 100 I hope he wins the Brownlow. A forward winning would be a nice change of pace.

Or mitchito would take that
 
Not sure I would call him the best player in the game but he is the best young player for sure and will no doubt attract a lot of Brownlow votes.

There are better players than Daicos like Jeremy Cameron and Max Gawn but they won't get as many Brownlow votes as they aren't midfielders.
I was talking about the Bont being the best. I’ll edit my post to make it more obvious. He’s on another level ATM.
 
I was talking about the Bont being the best. I’ll edit my post to make it more obvious. He’s on another level ATM.

Yeah that makes more sense, the Bont is definitely a contender for the best player in the game along with Cameron and Gawn.
 
I watch way too much football. Every year, every game as long as there is not a clash. On some rare occasions I agree to go out to dinner or a party on a Friday or Saturday night, maybe once or twice in a season. I'm old too, I'm 65 & I've been obsessed with footy for a long time.

AFL is a great game. It has all the great components that a exciting game can have but it's unsellable to the rest of the world or just about anybody that hasn't grown up with it. The rules are just too confusing to newcomers. It's not about... it happened or it didn't, it was offside or not, it was a forward pass or it wasn't. Was it holding the ball? Did he/she have prior opportunity? Was there insufficient intent or was he/she really intending to do something else but just executed poorly? Was it a Mark did he/she hold it long enough. Every umpire sees thing differently & most are inconsistent.

When I played footy as a kid we had one field umpire & we alway knew what to expect with the different blokes that held the whistle. As we have introduced more field umpires & new rules the grey areas have just expanded. If umpiring was done to the absolute letter of the law it would be an total shit game. There would be a free kick at almost every contest. So the game is left in the hands of the umpires to interpret the game the way they feel fit to do with the rules that they are given. That sounds reasonable but it is just so vastly inconsistent from game to game.

I not advocating we should sell the game to the Americans or whoever but in it's present form it's impossible to watch the game with a newcomer & explain it. It is full of great highlights & phenomenal physical feats but so damn confusing with it's adjudication.

When you observe something over & over for many years, certain trends emerge. In particular umpiring trends. For example... big name player with get a better go with the umpire than rookies. There are exceptions, some players, like Lance Franklin get a raw deal & others like Tom Hawkins are totally kissed on the whatsy. The trend is that clubs like Brisbane, Gold Coast, Western Sydney & Fremantle get effed over constantly while clubs like Collingwood, Carton, Richmond & Hawthorne seem to have the umpires on their payroll. Also, teams at the top of the ladder, seem to fair better with umpiring decisions than lowly teams, as I see it.

Every game one team will be advantaged by the umpiring & conversely one team will be at a disadvantaged. That's our game... it's not 100% fair. Last week we lost against Port & I think we got the best deal with the umps. Tonight Gold Coast played one of my favourite teams & got absolutely & completely shafted. Almost every game I've watch this year I think" gosh, the umpiring can't get any worse than this". I actually really believe it's not on the umpires. It's our silly rules.

We need to stop leaving it up to interpretation... out of bounds... last touch. If you have the ball you either hand pass or kick, if you can't or don't then it's a free kick. In cricket you either catch it or you drop it, same should be said of marking the ball. Just take all the grey areas away. Maybe they're bad ideas but bad umpiring is destroying the game as far as I'm concerned.. give these guys something decent to work with FFS.
 
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I watch way too much football. Every year, every game as long as there is not a clash. On some rare occasions I agree to go out to dinner or a party on a Friday or Saturday night, maybe once or twice in a season. I'm old too, I'm 65 & I've been obsessed with footy for a long time.

AFL is a great game. It has all the great components that a exciting game can have but it's unsellable to the rest of the world or just about anybody that hasn't grown up with it. The rules are just too confusing to newcomers. It's not about... it happened or it didn't, it was offside or not, it was a forward pass or it wasn't. Was it holding the ball? Did he/she have prior opportunity? Was there insufficient intent or was he/she really intending to do something else but just executed poorly? Was it a Mark did he/she hold it long enough. Every umpire sees thing differently & most are inconsistent.

When I played footy as a kid we had one field umpire & we alway knew what to expect with the different blokes that held the whistle. As we have introduced more field umpires & new rules the grey areas have just expanded. If umpiring was done to the absolute letter of the law it would be an total s**t game. There would be a free kick at almost every contest. So the game is left in the hands of the umpires to interpret the game the way they feel fit to do with the rules that they are given. That sounds reasonable but it is just so vastly inconsistent from game to game.

I not advocating we should sell the game to the Americans or whoever but in it's present form it's impossible to watch the game with a newcomer & explain it. It is full of great highlights & phenomenal physical feats but so damn confusing with it's adjudication.

When you observe something over & over for many years, certain trends emerge. In particular umpiring trends. For example... big name player with get a better go with the umpire than rookies. There are exceptions, some players, like Lance Franklin get a raw deal & others like Tom Hawkins are totally kissed on the whatsy. The trend is that clubs like Brisbane, Gold Coast, Western Sydney & Fremantle get effed over constantly while clubs like Collingwood, Carton, Richmond & Hawthorne seem to have the umpires on their payroll. Also, teams at the top of the ladder, seem to fair better with umpiring decisions than lowly teams, as I see it.

Every game one team will be advantaged by the umpiring & conversely one team will be at a disadvantaged. That's our game... it's not 100% fair. Last week we lost against Port & I think we got the best deal with the umps. Tonight Gold Coast played one of my favourite teams & got absolutely & completely shafted. Almost every game I've watch this year I think" gosh, the umpiring can't get any worse than this". I actually really believe it's not on the umpires. It's our silly rules.

We need to stop leaving it up to interpretation... out of bounds... last touch. If you have the ball you either hand pass or kick, if you can't or don't then it's a free kick. In cricket you either catch it or you drop it, same should be said of marking the ball. Just take all the grey areas away. Maybe they're bad ideas but bad umpiring is destroying the game as far as I'm concerned.. give these guys something decent to work with FFS.
Excellent post! I don't know another sport that messes around with its rules and umpiring as often as AFL, it's maddening for everyone clearly.

Maybe there should be some rule that the umpiring direction and rules and interpretations have to be unchanged for 5 years at a time to allow fans, teams and coaches to adapt correctly.
 
Just watching TRSF and old mate Kano saying he thinks the Blues are a bottom six team. I've done the ladder predictor a few times over the last few weeks and each time had them finishing 12th, so yeah, don't think he's too far off that one.

It's a beautiful day! 🤩
 
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Excellent post! I don't know another sport that messes around with its rules and umpiring as often as AFL, it's maddening for everyone clearly.

Maybe there should be some rule that the umpiring direction and rules and interpretations have to be unchanged for 5 years at a time to allow fans, teams and coaches to adapt correctly.
Yehhhh except that basically every sport does.

Cricket just recently clarified mankadding and drs is constantly improving.

NFL had like 4 straight years where they changed the catch the rule, recently they changed the kick off rule.

Basketball introduced to no call on shooters initiating contact.

Rugby league has the hip drop.

Soccer brought in the white card.

Now some of these rules don’t really impact the viewer but they’re all changes.

They all do it, as they not only should be have to. As sports evolve and coaches find new and inventive ways to bend or break rules and make the game duller in the name of chasing a win. Think of it this way, say they had just changed the deliberate out of bounds rule and got the wording slightly off, you want to force us to wait 5 years to clarify that?

The issue we have as a sport imo isn’t that the rules change it’s that we don’t have full time professionals, especially given there probably isn’t a more physically demanding sport to officiate (maybe ice hockey?). We expect our umpires to be elite decision makers whilst running 10-15km over the course of 2ish hours.

The afls solution to the coverage wasn’t to go full time and allow them to train and recover properly it was to intoduce a fourth umpire and confuse the whole “umpire in charge” thing.

That’s why the umpiring is so shit this year especially.
 
Yehhhh except that basically every sport does.

Cricket just recently clarified mankadding and drs is constantly improving.

NFL had like 4 straight years where they changed the catch the rule, recently they changed the kick off rule.

Basketball introduced to no call on shooters initiating contact.

Rugby league has the hip drop.

Soccer brought in the white card.

Now some of these rules don’t really impact the viewer but they’re all changes.

They all do it, as they not only should be have to. As sports evolve and coaches find new and inventive ways to bend or break rules and make the game duller in the name of chasing a win. Think of it this way, say they had just changed the deliberate out of bounds rule and got the wording slightly off, you want to force us to wait 5 years to clarify that?

The issue we have as a sport imo isn’t that the rules change it’s that we don’t have full time professionals, especially given there probably isn’t a more physically demanding sport to officiate (maybe ice hockey?). We expect our umpires to be elite decision makers whilst running 10-15km over the course of 2ish hours.

The afls solution to the coverage wasn’t to go full time and allow them to train and recover properly it was to intoduce a fourth umpire and confuse the whole “umpire in charge” thing.

That’s why the umpiring is so s**t this year especially.
Also you’ll find every sport in the world thinks the same, that their umpires are the worst.

You won’t find a more hated group of people in world sport then the PGMOL, the people who run the refs in the EPL. My team, Arsenal, are probably going to lose the league by 1 or 2 points and in one of our games the video assistant referee literally forgot to draw the off side line on an equalising goal for our opposition. Cost us two points which could be the title. The money in that game dwarfs ours.

The issue is as the game becomes more professional each year people can’t accept human error but the problem is the decisions are made by humans. Think about how many mistakes players make it game.
 
Also you’ll find every sport in the world thinks the same, that their umpires are the worst.

You won’t find a more hated group of people in world sport then the PGMOL, the people who run the refs in the EPL. My team, Arsenal, are probably going to lose the league by 1 or 2 points and in one of our games the video assistant referee literally forgot to draw the off side line on an equalising goal for our opposition. Cost us two points which could be the title. The money in that game dwarfs ours.

The issue is as the game becomes more professional each year people can’t accept human error but the problem is the decisions are made by humans. Think about how many mistakes players make it game.
I bemoan afl umpires as much as anyone but I more bemoan the absolute ****ing howlers than the technical and touchy stuff (at least after our games in the live threads 😂). Like the non call on Murphy last week (and that was more because of the player safety element).

However overall you’re absolutely right, it’s all going to depend what you watch.
 
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