Not “back for real” then, just glorified exhibition games.
lol how fairweather are their fans?
Why not have two games that weekend so all four teams play each year?
Should West Coast fail to win any more matches in 2025, then I believe it will be the first time since GWS in 2013 that a team finishes the season with just four premiership points.
What a mess.
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From one of the most cashed up outfits in the entire league too. Absolute mess.
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It feels like the tide is turning (a bit slowly) though - they’ve played much better football under Mini
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Yeah but at least they won a premiership 7 years ago. So many clubs haven’t even got 1 in the last 30.
They are one club that can easily turn it around.
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West Coast and Richmond have had dramatic declines in form since their most recent flags.
Richmond, premiers in 2020, crashed to wooden spooners last season though I attribute this to the retirements of Cotchin, Riewoldt and Martin (their Big Three).
West Coast also crashed from premiers (2006) to wooden spooners four years later (2010), but were able to get to a prelim the following year.
2 loses in a row for Collingwood. Trams have seemed to worked out a way to beat them and it seems it could be their fitness. I still think Collingwood are best positioned to win the flag.
The Magpies’ top spot position is looking shaky after two consecutive narrow losses.
Truly the worst officiated game of the year.
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Yeah Collingwood supporters would say that. As a neutral supporter the frees were there. Collingwood still had more frees than Fremantle.
Hahaha… did you stop watching at three quarter time like the umpires did?
Both teams were shafted throughout. Fremantle got on the wrong side of nonsense dissent calls, and players being thrown head-first into the team benches without consequence. Collingwood seemed incapable of getting a holding the ball free kick. I don’t think either team would have been satisfied with that performance.
Congratulations to Fremantle, who will no doubt still lose to West Coast next week.
What a match
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I was there all game.
I think at some point the game needs to grapple with the fact that there isn’t the umpiring talent to get 4 field umpires for 9 games a weekend.
Part of it is get rid of the bounce to open up the game to umpires who would call it well but struggle on that part. But I don’t think anything has improved compared to when it was three, and now we have an increasing problem of umpire contact because of it.
My biased view as a cats fan is I feel the umpires seem to try and compensate from the impact of the home crowd, there’s a few frees each game that you feel the umps just want to show they can resist the pressure from the boos.
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I don’t know how the AFL thinks they can pull off a 20 team competition. There just isn’t the talent, both on and off the field.
Who Remembers The 1989 VFL Grand Final Between Hawthorn And Geelong?
I am a Collingwood fan and was there today.
Freo to their credit played well and deserved to win. They held their marks and were more accurate in front of goal. Our forward line wasn’t up to it.
But yes, I completely agree with the umpiring. Some howlers on both sides.
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A massive milestone coming up for David Rodan 👏 pic.twitter.com/v7aGZj2Jps
— AFL (@AFL) July 21, 2025
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THE INCREASING length of games and the future of the bounce will be the first agenda items for the AFL’s new executive general manager of football performance, Greg Swann, after he started in his new role on Monday.
Swann said he had worked through “about 43 pages” of inquiries from clubs upon starting in his new role at League headquarters, but said the majority related to shortening quarter lengths and throwing the ball up at centre bounces.
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I know the traditionalists like @rhettrospective and co will disagree with me, but for mine the bounce is an anachronism which should go the way of the drop kick or the flick pass.
Sure, if you really have to, maybe start the game with one but then just ball it up after that - it’s all about having an even contest with which to allow the rucks to compete, a ball up arguably does a better job at that and will save a lot of time in recalled bounces and a lot of difficulty for the umpires.
We stopped bouncing the ball at stoppages around the ground over a decade ago and I’d argue hardly anyone misses it. Do the same for centre restarts.
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