No different to Tayla Harris moving from Brisbane to Carlton, or Moana Hope moving from Collingwood to North.

No different to Buddy moving to Sydney, Dangerfield moving to Geelong, Lynch moving to Richmond and countless other men trading clubs each year – even the big name ones.

While I think there are a several fundamental issues with consistency, especially around the treatment of “stars” versus “ordinary” players, I think one of the unmentioned issues is advantage.

Often the player is deemed to have taken advantage when they play on before the call is made, and they want to take the ball back and have a free kick, but it’s too late.

There should be no reason why when advantage is called, that the player shouldnt still have the choice whether to take advantage, or come back. Surely it won’t slow down the game too much for that.

In the end, the umpiring doesn’t affect the game that much. The better teams win, the poorer teams lose. This happens regardless of the umpires.

The thing is, they introduced the rule as it is, and then everyone whinges when a team tries to exploit it. It’s within the rules to just get a warning, let them do it to get a tactical advantage. If Freo also didn’t have a warning already, they could have done the same, but they didn’t.

Kinda the same with the 30 seconds for a shot on goal. Just last night BT said one of the players was “milking” the clock. He has 30 seconds, how he choses to use that 30 seconds is up to him. There’s no rule that states you have to use as small amount of the 30 seconds as possible just because you think someone takes too long.

I agree with pretty much all of this.
I would also add that we need to remove deliberate out of bounds and deliberate rushed. While it hasn’t been an issue so much lately, just get rid of them both.
The other issue is inconsistency with giving 50m penalties or just warnings. Often you’ll hear the umpires tell a player five, six times to move back or get out of the way. Other times, bang, they’ll award a penalty without so much as a breath. Seems to be the big, popular, superstar players get better treatment of this.

It’s ok, nothing to worry about! When you submit a comment it shows in a full block. When it actually is published, the line breaks are still there.

I’d comment on them, but apparently this post is not open for discussion!
Ok then… my 2¢
1. True
2. I have learnt from this.
3. Very true. Same for racism, homophobia (incl transgender), mental health.
4. Probably seems to be true.
5. That’s why there’s a line.
6. I’ll take your word for it.
7. Seems like they can’t do anything on purpose.
8. He’s probably quite fun to be around.
9. 53,000 people agree I’m sure.
10. Yes indeed. And yes indeed.
11. Is that a good or bad thing
12. Not just the NRL.
13. Sportsmen who suffer repeated head trauma probably have trouble thinking much at all.
14. Done the time.
15. Do you like camping? Is this a reward or punishment?
16. But fireworks….
17. Mostly.
18. Be better if they brought back the Nth Melb Giants and SE Melb Magic!
19. No we are not. It’s not really a surprise.
20. I’ll take your word for it.
21. Interesting. I’d suggest contested scrums.
22. The problem is they’d probably get rid of the good ones and leave the rubbish ones.
23. Gourmet hot dogs yes.
24. I have learnt from this one.
25. Don’t get carried away?
26. On the whole. Doesn’t mean we have to sexualise them though.
27. No he/she/it does not. Why would one side be chosen over the other!?
28. Seeing as the NRL one is dead, I presume you’re referring to the AFL one. Controversially, I think it died when Eddie left.
29. Superstar in the making.
30. Definitely. Absolutely.

I think probably the question actually is: Is there a better female athlete in Australia right now than Erin Phillips?

Except,there are plenty of other places (both in Australia and around the world) that pronounce castle “carsle”, or call potato cakes “scallops”.

And also, that say everyone else needs to adhere to their rules about what they call various sports.

This is an AFL discussion, what we call sports derived from the game invented at Rugby college is, in reality, not relevant.

They are both varieties of Rugby football. As a Victorian, I object to the classification of Australian Rules football as AFL but I live with it because I know people call them different things in different places.
Deal with it. In Vic (and by Victorians) they are both lumped in together as Rugby.

In NSW there is, yes. And in national context yes probably. In other states there may be too.
However in Victoria you ask anyone if they follow the “Rugby” they will say they follow the Storm (or sometimes another team). If anyone in Victoria has any need to discuss Union, they will specify that as Union.
It’s a perfectly legal regional variation of English.
In Victoria there is no need to distinguish between the League and Union because there’s not that much interest in either.
Like I said above, in Vic it’s potato cake, bathers, sausage in bread, Castlemain (cassel-main) and rugby.
As AFL is usually spoken about by Victorians (being the primary market for AFL – the league), in AFL context, rugby means League as well as Union.
Anything else is pedantry and code warring.

Maybe instead of the Gold Coast, which seems to be somewhat of a football cross-code graveyard, they should have created a second Brisbane based team. Perhaps a Logan based team with some Gold Coast connections, or even a team at Ipswich.
Of course not putting all their eggs in the Gary Ablett basket for seven years may have helped. It was probably the worst decision to bring him in and then expect him to carry everyone. They never really developed or (by the sound of it) cared for any other players.
Now they find they’re struggling because they didn’t have anyone to fall back on when he left.

NRL/Rugby League can be called simply Rugby. It’s not wrong, it’s a regional variation, like potato cake vs scallop.
In Victoria (at least, possibly SA, WA and Tas) codes are called:
• Football, Footy, Aussie Rules = Australian Rules. Rarely is it called AFL (thats the league not the sport)
• Soccer, sometimes Football (where it’s clear) = Association Football
• Rugby, Rugby League = Rugby League. Never referred to just as League.
• Rugby, Rugby Union = Rugby Union.
There is usually only a distinction made between the two rugbies where its necessary. Use of Rugby alone without context generally indicates League.

As this is a discussion on an AFL post, vernacular from states where this dominates is perfectly acceptable.

Yeah but nah. The “Victorian” media have had a love fest with Sydney for years, they rave about the Crows and and even the WA teams get their love. Back in the days of 3peat, the Lions were everyone in the media’s second favourite team.

It’s all about perspective.

These aren’t real “Power Rankings” because I know better… I think it should be… It’s not good enough…

Honestlty, AD, I think you’ve done a good job here. I was sure that you’d have put my Dees last, that was really not acceptable for them. Good to see you think Essendon are even worse.

I just went back and looked, I’d possibly have Hawthorn drop a spot or two, but then I couldn’t find anyone to replace them with. To me that means they’re probably in the right spot. I agree, Brisbane look the goods at the moment. It may be a case of May premiers, but still, we all got carried away by Norths 9-0 a few years back.

To those whingers complaining it’s not a real power rankings, I say again, start your own version if you think you know better. AD does this each week, without pay, knowing he’ll cop it from the armchair experts. Keep it up!

Fair point. The public spotlight is harsh, and they are well compensated for it.
However, the money and the fame doesn’t make one immune to the black dog of mental health issues, and the added stresses of fame and fortune probably exacerbate any underlying issues. Clubs,the AFL and the players association should probably be doing more to treat, diagnose and manage mental health within their playing group.

It is sad. He was a loyal servant of Melbourne right through our darkest era, and while not a star, was frequently one of our best players in the worst periods. He fell out of favour and found some career-best form at the Pies.
I think (afltables.com will have the answer) he is the current record holder for games without finals. He probably deserved to play at least one, as much as anyone.

Exactly. Every little mistake is scrutinised by thousands. Imagine having a weekly performance appraisal at work, but with not just your manager, but all you customers, clients, suppliers and interested onlookers.

“… but there’s other players in the competition that’ll milk it for what it is.”

Or perhaps there are players in the comp that will genuinely be injured and their normal reaction is to keel over. It’s not always just harden up or milk it….

Seriously. This is your actual response to the article. To attack the politics of an individual named in the article and then denigrate him by calling him something funny.
Funny, that you also point out that his wages were paid for by taxpayers, like that means anything, then go on to talk about being in the Navy, where I suppose that unless you worked for free, your wages were also paid for by the taxpayer.

No where in society should we accept hatred towards anyone be that Liam Ryan and indigenous players, Tayla Harris and the AFLW players, muslims praying in a mosque in Christchurch or Race Discrimination Commissioners with names that are difficult to pronounce and easy to make fun of.

People hide behind their @ on social media (including commenting on news sites like The Roar) feeling superior because they can come up with a witty retort using a fake name.

Actually agree with most of this. We should be celebrating Freo and Brisbane’s wins – for different reasons.
Brisbane were stunningly good against last year’s premiers, even if it was a case of West Coast not turning up, Brisbane capitalised on that and put in a stellar performance.
North Melbourne’s peformance made Essendon look good, Freo was the reason for North’s poor showing. The fact that Freo were supposed to be a cellar-dwelling team this year makes it all the better.
Everyone so critical about AD’s rankings could easily put their keyboard to use to write their own article: https://www.theroar.com.au/contribute/
Just sayin’.

Unfortunately, it seems it’s a case of who rather that what.
If it is a player we (as a football community) have freely maligned in the past, then we feel free to continue to do so and don’t accept the reasons given. Some of the comments here demonstrate this. We question the timing, the background, the players past, or look for reasons to discredit them. This judgement is usually based on whether they are players we’re supposed to idolise or not. Same story, different players.

Social media includes comments on news and media sites, such as this. It’s the only way most people have to express their ideas. Rather than be dictated to by media conglomerations about what we should see, what news we should know about, social media can be really helpful.

Social media is not the problem, it’s those that abuse the platform.

Some of the best games of footy have been in the ALFW. The Bulldogs Dees game the other week was epic.

The narrative, the yarn, the storyline, is as important as the level of play when it comes to deciding the Brownlow medal.

100% agree with this. I think this almost amounts to media manipulation of the Brownlow.
They pick the player they want, tell the story and and the umpires fall for it. I think it’s not just Fyfe, Dangerfield, Martin and Mitchell, but I would suggest it goes as far back Judd’s first in 2004.
Sure there have been some that didn’t fit the mould – Cooney, Priddis – but almost always it’s the player that has already been ‘deemed’ the winner by many in the media and industry.