Maybe it’s time to move to the last touch rule for out of bounds
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Former Carlton captain Sam Docherty will play his final game this Thursday night.
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Just watched footy classified and I am staggered are the reports west coast are offering Harley Reid over 20 mill to sign until 2037. He is not worth that much after 2 seasons.
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I’d do the AFLW ruleset for it - throw ins inside 50, with the umpire coming in 10 metres, and then last touch in the middle.
The 10 metres in rule I think helps a lot with those times the ball is just bashed back out of bounds again. I wouldn’t be opposed to it being a ball up 10m in instead of the throw in though.
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I don’t mind that (I thought AFLW was last touch across the whole ground, shows how much I pay attention). Would you keep the clock going for last-touch kick-ins?
I get that this is a tactical thing, but I agree.
I’d also like to see something implemented that discourages the need for successive ball-ups, too - better calling of holding the ball, maybe.
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Its a risk - he’s potentially someone WCE can build a dynasty around (but he needs to get rid of some of the petty and scrappy bits of play like the tripping), but at the same time WCE are unlikely to want him to go elsewhere so there is some value in throwing money at him.
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Yeah, it was a relatively recent change (2023) from last touch for the whole ground. I feel it is a good balance.
AFLW also have altered clock rules so they don’t really deal with it - it’s continuous clock until the last 2 mins of the quarter, then they have time on, with exceptions for injuries and the 30 seconds after each goal. That would probably be too radical for AFL, but would fix it.
If they don’t make that change, then I think you’d have to stop the clock, but usually there’s an advantage to moving it fast before the opposition have time to reset, so it somewhat evens out.
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No one is IMO. Hope this crushes their hopes on picking up other great players because they’ll deserve it for paying big overs.
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I wouldn’t be upset if my club offered Nick Daicos 20+ mill
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AFL may be forced into major finals shake-up after NFL targets early September clash at MCG
The AFL could be forced to make a significant compromise to its semi-final fixture next season with Friday September 11 shaping as a potential date for the LA Rams historic MCG clash.
The Rams will be the home tenant at the MCG for the 2026 clash against a yet-to-be-announced opponent, with the NFL hopeful of scheduling that clash in the opening round of their 2026-2027 season.
The most likely date for that game would be on Friday morning in Melbourne to allow for a Thursday night prime time contest back into American households.
The possibility of a game in early September had given rise to the possibility the AFL might schedule their pre-finals bye on that weekend.
But the NFL game is likely to fall on the second weekend of September, which instead lines up with the second week of the AFL’s finals across semi-final weekend.
It would prevent the league from scheduling Friday and Saturday night finals at the MCG under a scenario where Victorian teams both earned home finals.
The quickest possible turnaround from a Friday morning NFL game to return it to an AFL finals venue would be Saturday night.
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The nature of the cap is that the more you give to one, the less you have for the rest, inevitably your club will have a crunch and will need to take players out to stay under that cap. I also think any amount over $1 mill per year is excessive and should be for the top of the top (fully proven like Judd was) only.
On top of this, contract length is also going to screw a number of clubs over as they stretch out these contracts. 12 years, really? There is no guaranteed funding past 2031. What happens if the comp needs to reduce the cap?
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I don’t disagree at all.
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Presumably the goal would be to heavily front load it while they are rebuilding, so they can have him on less than the market rate by the time West Coast are competitive in the 30s and build a team around him.
Given the salary cap also has a salary floor, clubs have to pay at least 95% of the cap in a given year (with the ability to go slightly over the cap in a rolling average), sides in a rebuild with not much star talent can probably structure deals like this and almost not feel it.
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That’s true but I don’t think Harley Reid deserves that sort of money on his current form.
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Speaking on Nine’s Today, the former Collingwood president laid out his bold plan as he looks for a new way to rejuvenate the competition.
"What I’ve said is, play the 17 games where everyone plays each other once, have four exotics - which are three rivalry rounds basically and the Gather Round. That means we have these other games, so we are able to fill up the stadiums and keep it exciting.
"Then we go into what I’m calling a qualifying round - at the moment, we’ve got teams who don’t want to play and supporters who don’t want to turn up.
"All my plan does is put the good teams against each other, the middle teams against each other and the spuds can play against each other, so that they’re not mucking up the fixture and the ladder at the end of the season.
“You end up with a final eight, which is what we have now … it means you can reset it.”
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Rodan is a goal umpire for Essendon v Western Bulldogs tonight.
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Hard to tell from that pic… probably a fair bit of it is because the Swans pretty much can’t make the finals.
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Why are they suddenly playing two games tonight anyway?
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