No Oppo Supporters General AFL discussion and other club news

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With Heeney, I get the rule change and that it made it hard/impossible to get off, but I just don't see a suspension for that act as a fair outcome. We can't be in that territory and be comfortable with it. If that was dylan moore (also scrupulously fair), we'd be burning the joint down.

So if thats the correct interpretation of the ruling, the rule needs to change. Accidental and innocuous contact - you can barely see it and he clearly didn't mean to do it.
 
With Heeney, I get the rule change and that it made it hard/impossible to get off, but I just don't see a suspension for that act as a fair outcome. We can't be in that territory and be comfortable with it. If that was dylan moore (also scrupulously fair), we'd be burning the joint down.

So if thats the correct interpretation of the ruling, the rule needs to change. Accidental and innocuous contact - you can barely see it and he clearly didn't mean to do it.
I don't know. I don't think it was necessarily fair but at the same time he definitely chose to throw his arm back so it was intentional. That he got him high was accidental but the movement wasn't. I think it's a weak suspension but I understand why it is one.

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The Brownlow Medal is always referred to being awarded to the FAIREST and best player in the competition that year. The word FAIREST is the first word used. Media flogs need to shut the **** up about eligibility - if you haven't played fairly throughout the year then you don't win it. Spare me the sob stories.
The media are GAGGING for it and then when it's just the best, we'll get the media reports saying they made a mistake and it needed to account for the "fairest" too.
 
For those interested in goal kicking stats, this appears to be a recent update to the Wheeloratings site - Simon Crawshay and kazzooka from the Scaife thread yesterday.


Allows you to analyze by player, by team, shot type, distance. Have fun!
 
For those interested in goal kicking stats, this appears to be a recent update to the Wheeloratings site - Simon Crawshay and kazzooka from the Scaife thread yesterday.


Allows you to analyze by player, by team, shot type, distance. Have fun!
So Sic is only scoring at 12.5% from outside 50m since 2021 (low sample size of course but still low).

I'm honestly surprised at how low that is given how good a kick he is (but general field kicking and kicking for goal are two very different skill sets).
 
So Sic is only scoring at 12.5% from outside 50m since 2021 (low sample size of course but still low).

I'm honestly surprised at how low that is given how good a kick he is (but general field kicking and kicking for goal are two very different skill sets).
Very low. Since he got a reputation for hanging around for the hand-off opposition players are red hot on shutting it down.
 
That requires too much faith in grading and has too much room for interpretation on what is a football action. As much as it seems unfair, a suspension is a suspension.
A suspension is indeed a suspension. But a suspension isn’t necessarily an indication that a player isn’t “fair”.

Suspensions were once only handed out for striking and other “dog acts” like spitting, tripping, kicking, etc. So it made perfect sense to use it as the eligibility for fairness.

But the game and suspensions have evolved dramatically since, and now suspensions are also a mechanism for the league to ass cover from future lawsuits related to CTE and head high blows.

It’s a joke that players that have only been fined for intentionally striking (Hogan, Butters and more) keep their “fairest” qualification but someone like Heeney or even Will Day with his tackle last year are ineligible because in their genuine attempt to play the game in a fair way accidentally caused some form of head contact.

Changes in the eligibility criteria might not cover every edge case, but that doesn’t justify doing nothing at all when there is clearly an issue at hand.
 
A suspension is indeed a suspension. But a suspension isn’t necessarily an indication that a player isn’t “fair”.

Suspensions were once only handed out for striking and other “dog acts” like spitting, tripping, kicking, etc. So it made perfect sense to use it as the eligibility for fairness.

But the game and suspensions have evolved dramatically since, and now suspensions are also a mechanism for the league to ass cover from future lawsuits related to CTE and head high blows.

It’s a joke that players that have only been fined for intentionally striking (Hogan, Butters and more) keep their “fairest” qualification but someone like Heeney or even Will Day with his tackle last year are ineligible because in their genuine attempt to play the game in a fair way accidentally caused some form of head contact.

Changes in the eligibility criteria might not cover every edge case, but that doesn’t justify doing nothing at all when there is clearly an issue at hand.
I get what you mean but related to the Heeny decision, it was considered intentional. He would still miss on the basis of the change you want to make.
 
I get what you mean but related to the Heeny decision, it was considered intentional. He would still miss on the basis of the change you want to make.
True, but I reckon they’ve applied that grading wrong anyway and have setup an awful precedent.

Intentional v careless should speak to the outcome of the action when considering what is typically a legal action. He intended to make contact with Webster’s arms to break the hold to create space for himself. He was careless in that contact was head high. It’s a judgement call for sure but given his record and the fact he wasn’t even looking at him and Webster was falling forward I think he deserved the benefit of the doubt.

The precedent of this is now if you intentionally go for a speckie and your knee makes head contact then why wouldn’t you under the same logic be suspended? Both got eyes on the ball, both performing an action that is otherwise legal.
 
True, but I reckon they’ve applied that grading wrong anyway and have setup an awful precedent.

Intentional v careless should speak to the outcome of the action when considering what is typically a legal action. He intended to make contact with Webster’s arms to break the hold to create space for himself. He was careless in that contact was head high. It’s a judgement call for sure but given his record and the fact he wasn’t even looking at him and Webster was falling forward I think he deserved the benefit of the doubt.

The precedent of this is now if you intentionally go for a speckie and your knee makes head contact then why wouldn’t you under the same logic be suspended? Both got eyes on the ball, both performing an action that is otherwise legal.
I think the AFL would say that as soon as you go to throw your arm back, you're not performing a football movement.

I think it's a bit beside the point though, my point initially was - how much faith do you have in the AFL to get the grading correct? Because a suspension is a suspension, but drilling into the type of suspension and the type of incident is another one of those interpretation calls that make the AFL so unbearable.
 
I think the AFL would say that as soon as you go to throw your arm back, you're not performing a football movement.
Sydney were one of the clubs to argue against that before the season started when there was a change around the interpretation. Was spoken about on SEN earlier in the week.

I think it's a bit beside the point though, my point initially was - how much faith do you have in the AFL to get the grading correct? Because a suspension is a suspension, but drilling into the type of suspension and the type of incident is another one of those interpretation calls that make the AFL so unbearable.
I have waning faith in the MRP and tribunal system for sure and no doubt there would still be controversial howlers. But just because a system is broken or unreliable that’s never a good justification to not bother to try and make incremental fixes.
 
Sydney were one of the clubs to argue against that before the season started when there was a change around the interpretation. Was spoken about on SEN earlier in the week.


I have waning faith in the MRP and tribunal system for sure and no doubt there would still be controversial howlers. But just because a system is broken or unreliable that’s never a good justification to not bother to try and make incremental fixes.
I agree that it's not a justification to not hope for better, and I do hope for better in the MRP and tribunal system, but when it comes to Brownlow eligibility it's just Occam's Razor. Was it a suspension or was it not a suspension is easier and warrants the least amount of debate.

If we start determining eligibility on whether it was intentional, whether it was a football act, a bump is a football act when the ball is close enough but what if the impact is high and someone gets their jaw broken, what if it was an intentional non-football act where someone was fined? I can only imagine how unbearable that discourse would be.
 

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I agree that it's not a justification to not hope for better, and I do hope for better in the MRP and tribunal system, but when it comes to Brownlow eligibility it's just Occam's Razor. Was it a suspension or was it not a suspension is easier and warrants the least amount of debate.
Evidently not. It’s been the hottest topic of debate all week. No one can agree regarding the suspension nor on how the Brownlow criteria should be. And I guarantee it will pop off again if Heeney finishes at the top of the count.

If we start determining eligibility on whether it was intentional, whether it was a football act, a bump is a football act when the ball is close enough but what if the impact is high and someone gets their jaw broken, what if it was an intentional non-football act where someone was fined? I can only imagine how unbearable that discourse would be.
It’s literally no different to the system in place right now. Using suspensions as the qualifier of fairness these days is practically arbitrary given fair play (ie. accidents) can result in suspensions while unfair acts can be downgraded to fines.
 
Evidently not. It’s been the hottest topic of debate all week. No one can agree regarding the suspension nor on how the Brownlow criteria should be. And I guarantee it will pop off again if Heeney finishes at the top of the count.

It’s literally no different to the system in place right now. Using suspensions as the qualifier of fairness these days is practically arbitrary given fair play (ie. accidents) can result in suspensions while unfair acts can be downgraded to fines.
I suppose the point is that these debates happen anyway, and the eligibility argument is an easier one to address. Suspension has been used to determine eligibility forever, it's the easiest way to determine fairness. It's easier to just say that's how it's done and move on.

Trying to determine fairness outside of a suspension you're opening it up to too much interpretation. On intentional vs careless - where does exaggerating contact or staging fall? Shaking the goal post? Time wasting? All those things can be considered intentional. You could say it's just for contact related offences but many of those listed aren't exactly fair.

Suspension isn't perfect but it's easy. I can guarantee the first player to miss a Brownlow by being fined for engaging in an act of staging would create a lot more BS than Heeney missing for his act.
 
I suppose the point is that these debates happen anyway, and the eligibility argument is an easier one to address. Suspension has been used to determine eligibility forever, it's the easiest way to determine fairness. It's easier to just say that's how it's done and move on.

Trying to determine fairness outside of a suspension you're opening it up to too much interpretation. On intentional vs careless - where does exaggerating contact or staging fall? Shaking the goal post? Time wasting? All those things can be considered intentional. You could say it's just for contact related offences but many of those listed aren't exactly fair.

Suspension isn't perfect but it's easy. I can guarantee the first player to miss a Brownlow by being fined for engaging in an act of staging would create a lot more BS than Heeney missing for his act.
I think you're making it seem more complicated than it really is, and I really can't get around the view that it's easier to just stick with a flawed system because that's how we've always done it.

I think in the vast majority of cases it's very clear to most reasonable people if a player has done something "unfair" that justifies them not being eligible under a fairness criteria. And where there is enough doubt about intent why not just give them the benefit of the doubt? Let the suspension stand without ruling them automatically ineligible (because as established suspensions don't always equate to unfairness) and maybe missing a game or two will be the difference in their vote tally.

We could even have the/one captain from each of the 17 other clubs anonymously vote on whether or not a specific incident is worthy of being labelled an unfair act. I'd trust the collective integrity and wisdom of 17 club captains to get the call right over the by-product of non-players (at least not current ones) in a kangaroo court trying to interpret laws and interpretation of the game that change week to week.

(Good discussion, but my last post on the topic)
 
I think you're making it seem more complicated than it really is, and I really can't get around the view that it's easier to just stick with a flawed system because that's how we've always done it.

I think in the vast majority of cases it's very clear to most reasonable people if a player has done something "unfair" that justifies them not being eligible under a fairness criteria. And where there is enough doubt about intent why not just give them the benefit of the doubt? Let the suspension stand without ruling them automatically ineligible (because as established suspensions don't always equate to unfairness) and maybe missing a game or two will be the difference in their vote tally.

We could even have the/one captain from each of the 17 other clubs anonymously vote on whether or not a specific incident is worthy of being labelled an unfair act. I'd trust the collective integrity and wisdom of 17 club captains to get the call right over the by-product of non-players (at least not current ones) in a kangaroo court trying to interpret laws and interpretation of the game that change week to week.

(Good discussion, but my last post on the topic)
Fair enough. I'm not trying to complicate things, I'm just saying that fairness needs to be determined and suspension is the cleanest way to do it (albeit obviously not perfect) without getting in the weeds.

My overarching point would be, instead of changing the Brownlow to be an award that it isn't, we just stop caring about it and switch to hyping up the MVP or the AFCLA award. Having the umpires vote on it is a weird thing of the AFL's that no other sport in the world does, or should do.
 
My god - you would think that he had a career ending injury - ITS ONE WEEK


Tom Delonge Wtf GIF
 
The funniest most stupidest thing I've ever seen was the spining Dias on Brownlow night. People were talking and doing interviews while their back was turned to the tv. Absolute laugh out moment. People with a lot of money do the most stupidest things. Btw, Fyfe, Judd and Cripps don't deserve their Brownlows because they were NOT the fairest in those years. *.
 

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