The knock against Tsunoda is 4 seasons into his F1 career he is still prone to outbursts like we saw in Bahrain where he defied team orders and dive bombed his teammate on the cool down lap. Red Bull want a team player in that second seat, not someone who is going to cause disharmony and give them headaches. An uptick in form wont change euro-centric Helmut Marko’s mind if you look like a problem.

and although Albon’s crash wasn’t his fault

Debatable. Igor Sushko who raced in Japan for 8 years pinned the blame on Albon:

“100% Albon’s fault. You can’t place your car there, the circuit is way too narrow, Riccardo was on the inside AND in front of Albon.”

Even as a Williams fan, I felt he was optimistic trying to take the outside line through the Esses on the first lap. Given Williams situation he had even more incentive to take the more conservative option. Was satisfied with it being called it racing incident.

Ricciardo qualifying .055s behind his teammate after essentially one practice session gave hope to a positive result. Alas both RBs were swamped starting on the mediums, which lead to the inevitable midfield melee he found himself in. It seemed to me the boffins at RB didn’t get a good read on the conditions, which were warmer and drier than Saturday (IIRC Sunday was about 23°C with about 45% humidity, while Saturday was 17°C with 74% humidity), which lead to incorrect tyre prep on the formation lap. They promptly switched Yuki to softs for the restart.

And while I’m a lifelong Williams fan, I’m in two minds about Albon’s car positioning. He had bags of grip, which lead to a speed advantage over Ricciardo, which lead to him putting his car in the only space available. But it was also a move that was never going to work. More so given Williams current position, a more conservative mindset would have been beneficial. Afterall they had opted for a low drag setup which would have made them a beast down the straights.

There are plenty of people ready to discard Ricciardo into the wilderness, Australians included (the toxicity has practically made engaging with F1 social media unbearable). And if you were to objectively measure his performances like you’d do any other driver their rationale might be justified (but never their language) But I can’t bring myself to join them. The guy can drive, he beat Vettel at Red Bull, he’s the only teammate that challenged Verstappen, he took Renault back to the podium, and even in a year of misery, he still brought it home to the top step that one fine day in Italy. RB will be giving him a new chassis for China, a track he has won at, and often done well. So let’s hope he has a good weekend, because I dread the response if he doesn’t.

In Steiner’s defence the new car was already designed and developed before his departure. To Komatsu’s credit though his pragmatic approach is seems to be fostering a more successful environment than the emotional rollercoaster that followed Steiner.

Freo spokesperson saying that arrangement is ‘best for our program’.

Best for our bank balance more likely.

*alluding to obtaining drugs

Chris Mainwaring OD’ed on cocaine.

Daniel Kerr has a laundry list of red flags

Joel Smith, failed a drug test last year and now charged with trafficking cocaine.

Sam Fisher was charged for trafficking, with reports indicating St Kilda were worried about his “lifestyle issues” as far back as 2012.

Gavin Crosisca admitted he was addicted to marijuana, amphetamines and alcohol throughout and after his career.

Chris Yarran is on record saying meth ended his career

Dayle Garlett started using meth not long after being drafted by Hawthorn

Then there was the Jack Watts text messages alluding to text messages, and the photo of him snorting white power that apparently was “totally legal tobacco product”

I mean if your bar is Ben Cousins, the most extreme and public example of addiction, then you need to lower the bar

“He is a ball-getting player, so he’s not the best tacker, because the best tacklers are prepared to lose their feet to stick that tackle.”

The criticisms I saw weren’t about his tackling or defensive pressure, it was about him shying away from loose ball contests. He wasn’t getting the ball.

Not all that unrealistic though, seen enough MMA fighters try to post out of a takedown only to break their arm when their weight bends it the wrong way. When you’re not expecting the fall people tend to reflexively stick their arm out.

I mean… it’s just the state rep guernsey they’ve worn since at least 1947 (prior to that it was the map with a football in it, not the ‘T’), so its intended to be a reflection of Tasmania’s rich football history and resonate Tasmanians.

Still, calling yourself the Devils with the elaborate branding, then not featuring it on your guernsey is an odd choice. Plus should a second Tasmanian team come along some point in the future, it will be hard to establish themselves against a team with a state identity with all its history. You kinda see the end result of that with West Coast and Fremantle.

At least its not as bad as Gold Coast, who still look like they’re running around in a placeholder guernsey.

Am I crazy for thinking the dumping action was more dangerous than the kick. Could’ve easily broken McGrath’s arm.

Well…

“From that day on, I checked out, fully checked out. I slammed my chair in and I go, ‘this is f***ing bulls**t’ and I walked out.”

sounds like the emotional maturity of a 13 year old.

I must be missing something because Mansour played in Round 1 for Souths both seasons he was there… story makes it sound like he was dropped for Round 1 at the 11th hour in 2022.

He was dropped after Round 1, didn’t come back into the side until Round 5.

He should be careful not to overexert himself like that with skin so thin.

Just find it bewildering that a league that was on its knees, cap in hand, during the pandemic suddenly has all this money for these grand plans.

…broken into the American market

Bit of stretch. The two games were watched by less people in America than the population of Cairns. And the audience was largely made up of ex-pats and tourists from the southern hemisphere.

But we all know it wasn’t about bringing the game to US households, it was about grabbing more gambling money.

The other factor rarely raised when comparing eras is the cars today are near bulletproof, or at the very least, designed in such a way that the problems that arise during a race are more manageable.
The cars in the 70s, 80s, even 90s were made of glass by comparison. They’d drop oil, chew gearboxes and detonate engines. Even the suspension components of today can take beating; Damon Hill wishes it was as robust in ’94. Half the field would retire through failures, while the next quarter would be laps down. If you had 10 cars finish you’d be lucky for most of them to be on the lead lap.
People often look back on the 70s and 80s as some golden period of fierce on track action, when it really wasn’t. Much like today, positional changes were often the result of tyre and/or fuel strategies creating a performance deficit at different points in the race.
There’s talk that the Saudis are planning on building some wild circuit likened to Mario Kart track, with flashy lights and unseen elevation changes. Maybe we need a few blue shells too.

The program leading into the NRL matches – a college basketball game between Xavier and Georgetown – drew 162,000 viewers.

Worth noting this game went into overtime and the NRL was bumped to FS2 for 15-20 minutes. Ok for people on cable packages, but those on streaming services that fragment Fox Sports and only offer FS1 meant they missed out a quarter of the game.

Should just do as the NHL.

A player’s salary is forfeited for the duration of their suspension and is instead paid into the Players Emergency Assistance Fund, which is used to assist former players and their families during times of hardship, such as medical expenses, mental health or substance abuse programs.

No Australian Rules Football is a great game.

AFL is just a league among many.

With the hit itself, and now the Webster family piling on, makes me wonder if there’s a personal element to it. Or they really are just trash people.

Cornes would go away if no one paid him any attention, but then what would outlets put in their headline for clicks. The media might criticize him, but he is ultimately keeping the whole system fed with his “hot takes”.

The only thing I would say to argue against this is the improved rugby participation rates in Victoria, that are on par with WA.

Where there’s been minimal growth in NSW and ACT, and a 12% drop in QLD, Victoria has experienced a 23% increase in the last 7 years.

When the Force were axed participation rates dropped 20% among seniors and 8% for juniors.

Keane pivots his back into contact so I’d hesitate to even call Rioli’s tackle a sling.

But every time I watch it can’t understand what SPP’s intentions are. Players pull off all kinds of agile feats to avoid contact when they have the ball, but when it comes to running to a contest, its a straight line and “bracing” for contact. There’s often never any attempt to mitigate contact when the shape of the contest changes. And for what its worth it does seem like SPP is pulling up when he arrives at the scene. But he never attempts to reach for the ball, or avoid contact, which says to me his intention was to lay his body into the contest, and he simply props and turns his shoulder.

Honestly it just looks like a hockey player finishing his check.

And this is where the coaching and mindset of players, for better or worse, has to change. There is a far greater responsibility to exercise a duty of care towards other players.

Just as you can no longer throw your body into a smother, consequences be damned, you can’t just run a straight line into a contest and “brace” for contact. If the game is fast and dynamic, then you can be fast and dynamic in avoiding contact. If you can sidestep to avoid a tackle, you can sidestep to avoid hitting a bloke in the head.

Fell asleep somewhere between lap 25 and 35 on Saturday. Managed to stay awake for the duration on Sunday, but neither race was terribly engaging. For as good as these cars look, the races are all too processional, with pit stops and tyre life the only determining factor when it came to lap time. Supercars has become somewhat like the cricket, in that you can put it on in the background and check in now and then because very little happens on track. I fear for the sprint races at Melbourne.

Wasn’t too keen on hearing Mostert play the parity card after Race 1. Between the poor showing by Tickford and DJR, and the differences in setup that was hinted by the disparity in different sectors between Mostert and the T8 cars, its all a little too early to be making that kind of noise. During Shootout 1 Brown went from 0.3s down after the first two sectors to over 0.1s up after the 3rd. Seemed to me T8 favoured straight line speed, after all very little overtaking can be achieved over the top of the hill.

Shame we have to wait a month for the next event, more so as its series of sprint races playing 4th chair to F1, F2 and F3.

You mean Firepower? That all went down 10 years before they were cut, Firepower was liquidated in 2008 and Giteau went back to the Brumbies in 2009. They killed the Sydney Kings but the Force and Rabbitohs recovered.

The AFL would love it if people did, it would really help them reinforce their marketing to co-opt the code and make their league synonymous with the sport, along with re-writing history and erasing anything that isn’t “VFL-AFL”.

But it is still just a league, and not the sport. You don’t play NBA, or have a round of PGA, or train UFC.

because everyone plays AFL

*Australian Rules Football

Unless I’ve been eligible for the Brownlow this whole time!