Swans v Giants Elimination Final 2021

[Roadrunner]

I knew an equivalent incident would be found. I cant see any difference between this and Toby Greene.

Martin fined for umpire contact

Actually I can. Martin's was more aggressive. Giants should appeal.

Barry, I just watched again the incident involving Toby Greene- no doubt whatsoever it was intentional, though not intended to hurt, which is irrelevant when it concerns an umpire- even Stevic!

Please don’t defend the indefensible: Toby is guilty as charged and credit to GWS for not appealing (if true).
It’s a big loss to the team and if he has any sense of decency, he should step down as vice captain. Somehow I doubt he will.

[NeonBible]

Hi all,

We had 10 players on Saturday afternoon playing in their first finals.. i rated their performances out of 10 below:

Chad- Hardly sighted really .. did well to help set up Bell's first goal .. but had some moments he'd like to forget defensively. 4
Rowy- Didn't get a lot of it but won some hard footy and he was a tackling machine all day. 6
Gulden- Also didn't get a lot of it but had some classic moments of Errol brilliance,.. that turn out of trouble.. and his beautiful kick to find Hayward inside 50. 7
Jmac- I just love seeing him tearing through the corridor!! No one does it better for us.. maybe Blakey?? Wasn't his best day by foot though.. 7
Bell- Poor James. Hearing about the grief he was getting on his social media pages.. he'd be disappointed with his day.. the fumbles and missed kicks.. feel for him.. 3
Dawson- Surprised to learn this was his first final?? Feels like he has been around forever!! Wasn't his best day by foot but he is just such a classy player still.. 7
O'Riordan- Not much chance to impress really.. got injured.. came back on.. was OK. Can hold his head high. 7
McLean- Disappointing day for Hayden who was well beat by his opponent and couldn't seem to control his fumbles. He'll learn from it. 3
Fox- Came on as medical sub - can't judge him on that game.. N/A
Melican- Hogan wasn't a good matchup for Lewis. Seemed to struggle.. but took some nice marks.. he's a bit of an enigma.. 6
Wicks- Battled manfully .. he's exciting in the fwd line.. great pressure.. picked up the slack when needed to.. could do with goalkicking practice over the summer. 6

All in all this will be seen as a learning curve for them.. and little more than a blip on the radar when their careers are said and done and they start to participate in more and more finals.. hopefully!! But it was interesting to see who rose to the occasion..

[KTigers]

Ol' Gil is apparently thinking about appealing the length of the sentence, arguing it's insufficient.

Personally, I hate Gil, I think Stevic is a ch^^t, and Toby is a dope, so have no dog in this fight - but I reckon 3-4 is about right.

'I find the decision perplexing': AFL considering shock appeal of Toby Greene ban

Yeah, it's really important that the AFL try and set an example. "Hey kids, you can't touch the umpire but if you develop a long term gambling
problem later on because of the saturation advertising of our "betting partners" that is totally fine".

[Ralph Dawg]

I almost want GWS to win it now just to add insult to Greene's injury.

[mcs]

Yeah, it's really important that the AFL try and set an example. "Hey kids, you can't touch the umpire but if you develop a long term gambling
problem later on because of the saturation advertising of our "betting partners" that is totally fine".

But don't you know KT - that tiny bit of 'gamble responsibly' written at the bottom of an ad in size 2 font, or the garbled words at the end of an ad squashed in make all the difference.

Don't get me started on how much I hate that relationship with the game. A huge positive for mine this season off the field was the Swans ending their relationship with Star and starting a partnership with the NSW Gov responsible gambling people. Doesn't go far enough (but probably as far as a single club can take it). Just need to get rid of Qatar as a sponsor now - but doubt that will be anywhere near as simple.

We all know more broadly the AFL is far too addicted to the money they make from gambling (both through the god awful sponsorship deals and also indirectly through product fees payable by betting companies) to ever seriously try and sever the link. Its good that a fair amount of progress has been made on that more indirect link of clubs owning pokies, but it'll take something much broader to ever get the AFL to move significantly on broader gambling advertising and sponsorship.

[stevoswan]

I almost want GWS to win it now just to add insult to Greene's injury.

As long as they don't invite their 'spiritual leader' up onto the dias, Bob Murphy style! Ugh!

[mcs]

Hi all,

We had 10 players on Saturday afternoon playing in their first finals.. i rated their performances out of 10 below:

Chad- Hardly sighted really .. did well to help set up Bell's first goal .. but had some moments he'd like to forget defensively. 4
Rowy- Didn't get a lot of it but won some hard footy and he was a tackling machine all day. 6
Gulden- Also didn't get a lot of it but had some classic moments of Errol brilliance,.. that turn out of trouble.. and his beautiful kick to find Hayward inside 50. 7
Jmac- I just love seeing him tearing through the corridor!! No one does it better for us.. maybe Blakey?? Wasn't his best day by foot though.. 7
Bell- Poor James. Hearing about the grief he was getting on his social media pages.. he'd be disappointed with his day.. the fumbles and missed kicks.. feel for him.. 3
Dawson- Surprised to learn this was his first final?? Feels like he has been around forever!! Wasn't his best day by foot but he is just such a classy player still.. 7
O'Riordan- Not much chance to impress really.. got injured.. came back on.. was OK. Can hold his head high. 7
McLean- Disappointing day for Hayden who was well beat by his opponent and couldn't seem to control his fumbles. He'll learn from it. 3
Fox- Came on as medical sub - can't judge him on that game.. N/A
Melican- Hogan wasn't a good matchup for Lewis. Seemed to struggle.. but took some nice marks.. he's a bit of an enigma.. 6
Wicks- Battled manfully .. he's exciting in the fwd line.. great pressure.. picked up the slack when needed to.. could do with goalkicking practice over the summer. 6

All in all this will be seen as a learning curve for them.. and little more than a blip on the radar when their careers are said and done and they start to participate in more and more finals.. hopefully!! But it was interesting to see who rose to the occasion..

Not a bad assessment Neon - although I'd have marked up Rowy a little bit (I thought he rose to the occasion well), and marked down Wicks and O'Riordan a bit. But more broadly, about where my overall assessment sits.

Was disappointing that Melican made that poor late call in terms of decision making when he should of found Heeney (I think it was) instead of bombing long (but can fully understand how he did - not having a go, just a shame as his decision making is generally not bad). Thought he started slowly, and clearly struggled at points on Hogan, but had a really, really solid 2nd half up until that point.

Still not convinced he is a long term solution, but hope he can have a trouble free pre-season and we can see him at full fitness from Rd 1 - as one thing we do know is his best footy takes time to reach (always has taken him a few matches to really get towards his best form after injury).

- - - Updated - - -

As long as they don't invite their 'spiritual leader' up onto the dias, Bob Murphy style! Ugh!

If there was a 'vomit' emoji on here, that would be an appropriate description stevo.

Not that I have anything against Bob Murphy, but yeh I didn't enjoy that 'icing' on a very sour cake that day

[0918330512]

As long as they don't invite their 'spiritual leader' up onto the dias, Bob Murphy style! Ugh!

Spiritual leader? Toby Greene = Charles Manson

[Ludwig]

It's not easy being Toby Greene. He's a bit of a sociopath. He should have gone into politics, where he can be himself and no one would notice.

[Ralph Dawg]

Toby is not very bright - has done some very stupid things over the years. Surely Mumford could pull him aside and teach him how to disguise foul play as clumsiness.

[Blood Fever]

Pulling 'that' card sounds pretty desperate Barry.....like someone who knows they have nothing left to argue with. As I said earlier, time to move on.

Poster appears to be having a bit of a meltdown

[Kafka's Ghost]

The above post is hilarious in it's over reach....having said that, lets read what the voice of reason, Titus O'Rielly thinks:

"The Giants will be hoping their luck holds as Toby Greene heads off to the tribunal for bumping an umpire.

It was 100 per cent on purpose, yet a lot of people seem to have decided defending Toby Greene is the hill they’re going to die on.

That seems strange given the rather extraordinary, sustained effort Greene has put in to prove beyond doubt he is a goose.

Still, in a world where people are taking horse worming medicine, it’s hardly surprising that people have decided to just believe Greene is somehow hard done by."

Are you in the horse medicine camp Barry? That's a serious question....

The Monday Knee Jerk Reaction: Finals Week One - Titus O'Reily | Don’t have faith in yourself

Titus is the only football commentator worth reading, really. His columns are the ones I really miss in the off season.

[barry]

Barry, I just watched again the incident
involving Toby Greene- no doubt whatsoever it was intentional, though not intended to hurt, which is irrelevant when it concerns an umpire- even Stevic!

Please don’t defend the indefensible: Toby is guilty as charged and credit to GWS for not appealing (if true).
It’s a big loss to the team and if he has any sense of decency, he should step down as vice captain. Somehow I doubt he will.

But watch the Martin video and tell me how Toby's was significantly worse. It could well be that Toby's suspension was right, and Martin's was wrong. But until that is clarrified, it's a clear case of toby-tax.

Oddly Martin had already got in trouble for touching an umpire that same year.

It does seem a double standard.

[KTigers]

But don't you know KT - that tiny bit of 'gamble responsibly' written at the bottom of an ad in size 2 font, or the garbled words at the end of an ad squashed in make all the difference.

Don't get me started on how much I hate that relationship with the game. A huge positive for mine this season off the field was the Swans ending their relationship with Star and starting a partnership with the NSW Gov responsible gambling people. Doesn't go far enough (but probably as far as a single club can take it). Just need to get rid of Qatar as a sponsor now - but doubt that will be anywhere near as simple.

We all know more broadly the AFL is far too addicted to the money they make from gambling (both through the god awful sponsorship deals and also indirectly through product fees payable by betting companies) to ever seriously try and sever the link. Its good that a fair amount of progress has been made on that more indirect link of clubs owning pokies, but it'll take something much broader to ever get the AFL to move significantly on broader gambling advertising and sponsorship.

Yep. An estimated 400,000 Australians have a gambling problem and we lead the developed world in per capita gambling losses. "Gamble
responsibily" really means "gamble irresponsibily" and everyone knows it. Thankfully it doesn't cause anywhere near the widespread social
problems and family misery as the occasional Auskicker touching the umpire in their Under 10s game.

[mcs]

Yep. An estimated 400,000 Australians have a gambling problem and we lead the developed world in per capita gambling losses. "Gamble
responsibily" really means "gamble irresponsibily" and everyone knows it. Thankfully it doesn't cause anywhere near the widespread social
problems and family misery as the occasional Auskicker touching the umpire in their Under 10s game.

Don't need to tell me about the misery gambling creates - for my sins in another life I'm sure, spent a good 5/6 years working on gambling policy within Government in the first part of my career.

Eye opening is not the right term for some of the stories I can tell from that work, from talking and working closely with those on the front line who see the damage it does (and that's the 'in public' damage - not even touching on much of the 'in private' damage), and indeed on one piece of work interacting directly with some people for which excessive gambling literally ruined their lives.

I won't for one second pretend I have an 'impartial' view after that work, but the role major sporting codes have in 'normalising' gambling sits very, very uncomfortably with me. I'd be very happy with gambling advertising going the same way as tobacco advertising, and I'd love to see genuine reforms achieved with poker machines. But alas, the gambling lobby is like a souped up GWS that is given 500 1st round draft picks and unlimited salary cap, plus access to pretty much every decision maker at will.

Alas, I digress.

Titus is the only football commentator worth reading, really. His columns are the ones I really miss in the off season.

Mongrel Punt is well worth a good read, and Footology is not bad either (though Rohan Connolly can get a bit one track minded at points).

Got to say this was spot on with Titus too:

As the Power midfield got on top, Geelong was distracted from the task at hand by having to launch a search party for Gary Rohan, who had gone missing. Unfortunately, while looking for him, many members of the search party also went missing.

It was with some relief they found him in the second half, he was in defence because that’s why you get Gary Rohan, for his defence.