There won't be much to come out of that umpire complaining, Hardwick's example was Charlie being spun in the tackle but the reality is Andrew didn't halt Charlie's movement or inhibit his disposal so the umpire is correct.
Despite an out of the box low free kick count there wasn't much obvious stuff missed, and I suspect the main complaint will be that all the subtle / borderline frees went GC's direction in the 1st half, but I didn't see any major clangers by the umpires for either side.
The problem as we all know it is that the umpiring is an interpretation that changes regularly, week to week month to month. Whether that is driven by the public, media or AFL opinion it doesn't matter. It's clearly not stable.
I'm against Hardwick's demand umpires blow the whistle sooner, he seems to think "We the public" want that as the default, which in effect encourages and rewards tacklers. But for me it's the exact opposite of what the general public want, we want the player hunting the ball rewarded, we do not want the sniper who sits off the contests and tackles rewarded.
Doc had some great stuff to say about umpiring on the Ben and Harry Podcast, he described how players are trained to compete around the queue based method umpires use to make decisions. But he said it's the one thing he would change if he could, he'd get rid of queue based umpiring.
Where does this concept of queue based decision making come from, it's probably a response to slow motion replays and broadcaster behaviour! It's interesting the media is pointing at the coaches today, and the media points at the umpires, and the media points at the AFL administration, but it's actually the media doing most of the driving.
It's interesting to read the media picking up on the stupidity of AI responses.
At first the media tried the scare tactic, AI will become our overlord, then when the fear waned it was AI will be the cure all, and that's clearly not the case.
But now the media is going down the AI is stupid route, and that's never been or ever will be the case because AI is neither smart nor dumb.
As I mentioned right from the start, AI is only as good as the data you feed it on, and the real problem is humans are liars and bullcrap artists. The volume of bullsh1t drowns out the truth, and AI is learning from all the bullcrap people speak and write and it's learning that delivering stupid responses creates more clicks. AI learns from a feedback loop.
The problem has never been AI, and the problem has never been technology, the problem is always and will always be human.
The folly of rucking BigH by default was exposed in the commentary when Brown started banging on about TDK going solo.
King rightly came in and described why solo rucking TDK is not sustainable season long, then there was a suggestion to ruck Charlie and King nearly fell out of his chair, and he describe why you don't ruck Charlie ever, and the same applies to overuse of BigH in the ruck, the risk is too high relative to the benefit.
The BigH to the ruck is an occasional pinch hit option, not a default tactic.
If our MC aren't smart enough to make use of Pitto and TDK sensibly, as required, we have an MC problem it's not the players.
Personally, I though the return of Saad and the front and square work of Williams made a huge difference yesterday, and off the back of Cripps and Walsh being dominant things might have got better if Witts had zero respite.
Williams is not scared to get at the feet of the marking contests and it makes a a huge difference. I also note once his confidence was up he got a few runs through the midfield and did well, his critics should take note.
I thought it's laughable that some have suggested GC were an easy kill, Miller, Rowell, Witts, Lukosius, King, Andrew, we destroyed the GC strengths, surely whoever suggested the easy kill was joking.
I felt TDK as our solo ruck worked OK against Witts solo, whether it's TDK or Pitto solo against Witts making a difference I don't now, how long is a piece of string.
I also don't know what happens if we have both against a solo Witts, but I suspect when Pitto is in good form alongside TDK they make a very powerful combo, it's the same as what happened to Gawn. I doubt we'll overlook that opportunity when it presents.
I thought TDK / Witts broke about even today, with TDK having the general play and Witts having the stoppages, but Witts win was deconstructed by Cripps, Walsh and Hewett so that's a good outcome for us. However, with Cripps and Walsh playing like that I can't see things getting worse for us if we are stoppage dominant in the ruck.
Williams had significant game influence today, fans seem reluctant to give him credit where credit is due. For me his F50 success highlights a fundamental contributing cause of our failings over the last few weeks. How can it be a rookie SF like Williams gets in all the right spaces, while relatively more seasoned SFs like Fantasia, Owies and Durdin cannot?
His whole political history is a prime example of this, surely ?
@PaulP Sorry I fixed it, should have written "global politics".
I was trying to discuss Trump's influence on dud politicians in other countries, the low end bottom feeders are adopting his tactics pretty much everywhere you look! Trump's behaviour like a universal user manual for how to sh1t in the pool and peg the blame on someone else!
Currently there is a prime example of where Trump has taken global politics, to the very very bottom of the barrel!
At the moment there in the lead-up to a general election in India, voters are being bombarded with fake news, AI generated garbage, and all sorts of social media sh1zen. When the conventional mainstream media in India made an issue of it, exposing the fakery, the politicians refused to oppose it effectively ticking it off as a legitimate campaign tactic.
Trump willingness to allow foreign interference in the US elections, his open and active spread of disinformation, his blatant lies, is now setting the entire planet onto a course that can't possible end well.
What Trump does is a modern day equivalent of Mao's War on Sparrows!
Defending has been our problem this year but it's not our D50 group that are the cause.
I think even in the absence of Doc and Saad, the group including Weiters, McGovern, Newman, Boyd, Williams, Young, Cincotta, Cowan and Kemp have done OK.
Oddly, our problems in F50 are probably caused by the absence of Saad and Doc from our D50, and it gets compounded when Kemp or McGovern are out.
AFL is a game of opposites, if you are being scored against too easily, the problem is most likely a combination of Forwards and Mids, if you can't score the problem is most likely a mix of Halfbacks and Mids.
I think our biggest problem is that we've wasted periods of domination, quarters or halves where the opposition barely touched the footy yet we couldn't score. Not a single easy win despite kicking 5, 6 or 7 goals in a row, it's hurting us as the season grows longer. We let opponents back into the game too easily, when we should actually have our foot on the oppositions throat.
It's not really feasible to make conclusions about the absence of presence of SoJ or Martin unless the same analysis is done when they were available, and in context the circumstance is not the same season to season, so I doubt it holds much relevance.
Interesting that our current Top 3 are last years Top 3, Owies 3rd again, yet fans want Owies dropped. The thing we are missing so far this season are the other medium small forwards in Motlop and Martin who were 4th and 5th in 2023. In 2024 Cottrell and TDK are 4th and 5th.
I'm not sure the accuracy stats mean much, Charlie has quite a few goals from Joe the Goose type scores roving the back of the pack, I've already discussed that in another thread. Both Harry and Charlie have missed goals from almost point blank, and from shots near the point of the 50m, so the mix of who gets shots where would be important. The media hysteria colours fan perceptions, but I can't say Charlie is much more reliable than Harry in the moment.
The complete miss itself isn't a value stat, because it records no context.
Then a replacement for Pitto. Do we bring in Young to do some rucking or just go with Harry as backup and bring in someone else? There's not too many left in the VFL that I can think of to come in so maybe Cincotta stays in and Williams plays a bit more in the middle/forward?
Will be interesting if the rumours are true about TDK injured.
Is Weiters really a chance, would you risk doing a Munster and turning a slight tear into a season ending injury?
Some people seriously injured in flight overnight, while I feel sorry for the people killed or injured I suspect most of the injured ignored the airline guidelines.
I've probably already been around the globe a dozen times or more having racked up 500K miles two decades ago and stopped counting, it must be hundreds and hundreds of flights mostly international.
I've never been on the flight were they tell you don't bother with your seatbelt and leave your crap on the floor. Yet I see people do this every flight, worse they undo the belt and have a sleep. I can't say how many times I've seen clear air turbulence hit one of the flights I've been on, enough turbulence to send the staff and service carts heading towards the ceiling. The worst I've suffered is having the person next to me spill a coffee on my legs. Yet people continually ignore the warnings, people are stupid!
On one flight after such an event I had to berate a passenger who unloaded on a hostess for not serving when the seatbelt light came on, people are stupid and ignorant.
Like cigarette packet warnings, as cruel as it may be for some nervous flyers, the airlines should show a movie about what happens to make passengers realise how serious the recommendations are.
It's not just the offenders who get hurt, it's the people around them.
................. or a VFL unknown player I have warmed to Boyd and think he is in our best 22/23 and happy to give Austin a tick for his recruiting.
In fairness to Boyd he wasn't really an unknown, it was quite a surprise for some that he had slipped in the pecking order to become a MSD candidate, they had expected him to be picked up in the draft proper but for reasons we will never know clubs let him slide.
I suppose at the time he first nominated he was playing as a Wing / HFF, in the link man type role, and it was only his last season of VFL that he has settled into defence.
Criticism of Ollie is not about his tireless effort. He runs and runs and runs... but not enough comes from all that effort. Acres runs and runs all day as well, with considerable impact in games.
Ollie needs, like many others, to commit his body to tackling, his tackling efforts have been and are a liability... easily broken. The only reason I recommend dropping Ollie to the Magoos is so he can learn to add other strings to his bow.
The problem that Ollie and others like him have is the focus on weaknesses that the AFL brings, if you hesitate opponents see it and forever more know, they know where to stand and what to say to put doubts in your head, it's the sporting equivalent of a game of chicken and they know you've blinked before.
All AFL players have to continually improve their shortcomings, expect every opponent to know them, and if there is no improvement expect those deficits to be amplified week in week out.
