Hey, let's just welcome back to the Mason cock Show. Big episode today Essendon Adelaide, Adelaide barely pipped Essendon. Now everyone's talking finals for Essden. Is that still a thing? And then we're gonna get into if you're a calling fan, believe me, I feel you're paying this week, we're gonna walk through it bit of therapy, beta therapy for everyone. Also, we're gonna mention the guinea stuff that kind of happened over the weekend. There's a bit to cover in that one.
But also there is a player that has broken a record this weekend, the most fine player in AFL history. Who that might be? Take your guesses. But we're gonna get into it and much much more. And lastly, before we get into this thing, Spotify now has comments, so you can actually comment down some of the things we talk about, what we ask you and all that kind of stuff. You can comment on Spotify to do that so that we can be able to get back to you and help the community connect with us. But without
further ado, this is the Mason cock Show. We are starting this thing right now. All right, legend, we've got a big podcast ahead. Let's start this thing off. Welcome, Branden, Why even bother my?
Why what are we doing here?
I don't even know. I'm going to sweak glass half full. Now we're back to glass half fifty again. Yeah.
Well, the damns were just bursting at the seams and they're just burst through this week.
I actually I give no ships.
I'm that over the first gonn to go support the victory.
I'm an a league guy.
Now this podcast we're going, we're doing stuff footy, We're going to do other sports.
We'll do NBA team there.
The career, I support pickleball or some ship. This it's at least it's got integrity.
Mane. Wow, that's why I'm.
Going to lean straight into your clan, right into my clanger, because this is already arcing back from last week. And I hold grudges, so there's I'm petty as they come. I'm sick of freaking and I didn't write that on there, but I'm still in the demonetization seven minute period here. I'm sick of AFL loopholes and players getting off, whether you think they're innocent or not.
They go through the process.
MRO, then they go to the tribunal, and then they go to real court. Let's stop taking stuff to the real world because they're not real world problems. If you get suspended and then it goes to the tripeuneral and they go, yeah, you probably suspended. Just stay suspended. I'm sick of these like because it muddies the water. We saw Patrick Crips do it the other year, didn't swear, launched into the air and killed a bloke and then he got done for that, but he got off because of the technicality.
And then we look this year, two players.
Did it back to back, copying each other's homework. They went, wait, wait, he got off on a technicality. I'm the same thing. So now, like a bloke going to get suspended, just take it to real court and get out of it. Because the AFL doesn't seem to know what their rules are or what they're arguing, and they keep getting beaten in court pretty easily by the sounds of it. So let's just go to real court each week. Let's just
go to real court and stuff the rules. But we I've talked about this, get into like a little rabbit hole because you can barry hall someone out there and not go to jail because it's not real anything that happens on the grass is not real. But then we're now we're bleeding into the reality of real courts and stuff. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of it. It sucks the joy out of the game. I don't know who's going to get suspended.
Ben Keys.
I thought he was going to get twelve weeks because last week he would have got six weeks, and then next week he's getting no weeks. Well guess what he got off because he had one arm free. We'll talk about that later because I'm already.
He's fired out. I'm sick of my clanger, my clangers. You know. I like to give love to people on this podcast. You know, we like think a bit of a positive podcast, minus what you're talking about. Loose this week, Mad's gonna go with, you know, Afford myself, so I can understand. There's some people that go into slumps right over the weekend. Oh there was a key for that had to be of a rough outing. You could say, oh,
Benny king Kingy zero goals three behind from seven shots. Yes, that's four that did not get counted for reasons of not making the line. That's a rough day. That's a rough day as it's all Ford. Heck, I've got full faith he's going to turn this thing around. You know. I think if anyone can do it, he can do it. He's got the experience and I've got full trust his goal. King site, I'm gonna say it's a clanger this week, but it's not going to be a consistent theme.
We can fix it, And I think I feel bad for someone like Dimmer who's clearly stressed. Get that man a stress ball, but you're getting it to your key forward seven times to have seven cracks at the big sticks and he hits none.
Come on, but I don't know. No, we're back into tournament pushing positive fards up.
Hey, Charlie Kerno kicked three seven last week and he couldn't miss this week.
So it happens. It's Corama. He's due for a few easy goals. Yeah, next week, next week, Benny King, we got full lot for you, brother. Well let's get into results.
My legend, Well, it was a bit starting with the Friday night game, an absolute blockbuster defense out the window. We've got one hundred and thirty andes and then two one hundred and fifteen Adelaide just getting across the line. GWS got the job done against Gold Coast. Unfortunately couldn't kick.
The away game for the Gold Coast. Yeah, I was the Gold Coast.
St Kildo got the job done convincingly over West Coast. Have just kind of fallen off now waiting for the off season break. Hawthorne absolutely annihilated Collingwood. We'll talk about that later. That's a bit sad. Geelong got done at GMHBA against Bulldogs who are back baby, and I'm convinced that they're back for real this time. Port got the job done over Richmond, which they should be doing. Can he still give the midfield a bit of a spray
which we love. Brisbane got the job done against Sydney, got across the line a couple points in it.
Good game of footy. My cocklock got over the it was locked dead last week. Brisbane beat Sydney, got the dubs cocklck.
You've got to be super crisp and clear when you say that sentence, because my cock got over the line there FREO one hundred and sixteen.
Oh my god, it was and there.
Was some injuries out of that. They're going to be very important for their run in the Finals, so we're going to cover that later too, so fair.
Yeah, they beat Melbourne convincingly and then Carlton or not very convincingly against.
Gerry Scary, and there also was a few injuries out of that we're going to talk about. They're gonna be big, big implications for the rest of their season.
Big talking points. So we'll start with that. Harry McKay and it's not so much this incident. We talked about it last week and we've talked about it for the umpteenth time that it looked like Harry mckaye got knocked out, hit his head head on head contact, went down on the ground, stayed down for a considerable amount of time. His eyes were crossed. When he came up close on the broadcast, he stood up. Aidenkoor was like like, look it after him because it looked like he was going
to fall down. He was very unsteady on his feet, so he looked rattled for some time inside fifty at the stoppage. A couple of minutes later he kicked the goal. That doesn't clear him of anything. You can have.
Time to get your senses back. Yeah.
Anyway, so he kicked the goal, an important goal and it was like five six minutes later of real time that the doctor came and said, look, you got to get off the field. He passed his Hia played the rest of the match and got interviewed post match and said like, oh no, I'm fine, Like sometimes you're a bit dazed after getting your head smashed in, but he passed his concussions. So more about this that it was it opened up some more issues, which this is good.
We can learn from these issues each time. But it was that the doctor was down seeing to Blake Acres, who was injured at the time, and because of that there was a delay because the doctor was busy. Obviously he couldn't see that Harry mccla was going through some dramas. So that's one thing, Like I don't know how to get around that.
Do you have any suggestions. We have two doctors at the clubs, so maybe there was another doctor watching the ground. Not too sure how that doll was kind of situated out, but like you can imagine, yes, if you're downstairs attending to someone that's injured, it's tough to also be watching the game that is upstairs going on.
Yeah, and we're led to believe that there is a doctor in the arc.
Led to believe you really worded that.
Interesting, Well, we're led to believe because if there were ever a case that the doctor in the arc should be doing, his job would be to get the message down there to say that Harry McCain is to come from the field at that point in time.
This is something we've talked about on the podcast. We should be taking that out of the arms of the clubs and putting it into the AFL's hands. Have a doctor looking at the arc, have a doctor on the sideline, having the TV there to be able to go through every single entry or hit whoever it is, and be able to make that decision of whether you have to go do hia downstairs.
And because there was even too much of a lag time when the doctor came out, he had to get caught up look through the vision over and over and over, and it was like within three seconds of the incident occurring, a million people watching at home knew that he was in trouble and needed to come from the ground. All the commentators were saying it me and my housemate on the couch. So like, if we're figuring that out, if
we're figuring that out. Surely a doctor or someone from the club should be like, get him from the ground. And now apparently he knocked back a runner, so it starts to get gray and gray. This is why we need the communication to the umpires to say stop the game, get Harry off. He's in a bit of trouble. But the umpire just has to stand there and wait for him to stand back up and then just bounces the ball and player continues on.
Now ask you this.
Do you ever find it weird whenever someone gets injured, right, you have to still go through the gates like on the sideline. Yeah, do you think if someone gets injured in the game stop you can just kind of walk off to the side of the sideline. That's like they're the closest to the race or whatever. Like, why is it you always have to come back to the middle to get back to the bench to then go down under the rooms.
Yeah, that is a good point.
I just I don't know. I just had the start in my head goes, oh, you want to hurry up the game and get it going quicker. Oh, just pull them off the field right there next to.
The boundary without thinking about it. You always change one thing and clubs find a loophole.
Yeah, that's true.
So this is the Loophole Podcast. But like if you're going off on a stretcher, you don't go through the gates, you go straight down the rooms. So it depends on the severity. So I don't know, I don't want to open up more loopholes. But this, you know what we've been talking about for weeks on weeks on weeks, We've landed at this. The AFL has issued three please explains from the weekend to Adelaide for Jordan Dawson's head knocked, to Brede it's been for Harris Andrews, and to Carlton
for Harry McKay. So Carlton have already come out and said that they ran another concussion test with Harry this morning and he passed that.
So it's yeah, we're.
Getting more please explains, We're getting more gray areas, We're getting more loopholes.
It's it's just more fun sucking for mine.
I just hold on, there's nine games over the weekend, and three of the nine games you're asking for, please explain. Yeah, surely you can just go. Look, we're going to take control of this.
You know what's great that we're now we're substituting. Please explains for concussion head knocks with We need to explain these umpire decisions. It's been a it's been a terrible.
Year for just going on in there the AFL. They've always got some headline of something happenings. That's part of it. It's the merry go round of the media storm that is Melbourne.
But we're not done there because we we just want to make it as depressing as possible. Because TDK positive at some point though. TDK came off early in the game. It's a foot injury. They took him down, assessed him, wrapped him back up, and send him back out there because obviously they didn't have pitt in neet because pitt in A, as you like to say, was down an icon Pa playing against Mace, So we had to get TDK back out there. Well, it turns out he's got
a fractured foot. You probably don't want to play on that. That's not and late in the game he collapsed his lungs. Oh, she isn't not a fun one to give.
It's kind of one of those Murphy laws. Murphy's law I think it is where it's like anything that will happen, or anything that could happen will happen like that.
It's just like the worst shit happens.
Yeah, just everything happens.
A Braindon's law, bad shit happens all the time.
But yeah, so TDK reportedly going to miss the rest of the home and away season for them too. I think that's still being quite conservative. Now, if he comes back, how late would you let someone come back from a broken foot and punctured law man?
If he wasn't so valuable during the season, it'd probably be a bit of a question mark. But I think because he was such an important fixture and they're push towards finals, I think he automatically goes back out.
So pitt neet playing well, a pre.
Limp plays well, I reckon they do two rocks. But him playing the VFL right now is like at this time of the year is never an easy thing to do and it's not a good sign for like, you want to be in that team going into finals. So it's a massive opportunity and you know, chance for him to be able to show what he's worth and be a part of a you know, hopefully a finals run for Carlton. So we'll see how it pans out. But I can't imagine if you have a healthy TDK and
not going to go with them. I just like space for him. You just yeah, and there's yeah. TDK is. It's a nice name, isn't it. It just rolls off the tongue, really nice.
It reminds me of like nineteen nineties cassette tapes TDK audio sound something something.
Geez, the gigy news really coming out? Yeah, I love it. Let's move on to the next thing. Zach Butters, your boy, Your boy is statistically chained the game, change the game. He's officially the most defined player in AFL history at thirty two thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars. You kidding me, that's wild.
That's so much stuff you could I always say, that's a lot of TV's.
That's you probably buy. You can buy cars. A nice car, a nice car, Yeah yeah, thirty get you a nice car, hot top.
Yeah, you can probably get the hot tubsaw on a combo.
Oh, I mean an ice bath get thrown there? Who knows that's a full recovery. Loune, what are you?
Thirty two grand? A holiday that's a massive holiday.
That's business class holiday night. That is proper traveling. That is proper traveling. But you know what also is it's a nice end of the year Christmas party for the AFL is what that is?
App it's just a long lunch for the execs.
Yeah, that's true. It's actually probably paying for their overseas travel at the end of the sea. And actually, now put those two and two together. But thirty two thousand dollars two and fifty sorry, thirty two two hundred fifty dollars is a lot of cash, unfortunately for Zach Butters. But I can imagine he's on a fair bit of coin that that doesn't break the pain. Too old bank again, I think if it was a bigger dent, he probably wouldn't be having that much funds.
Yeah, well, looking at Kenny, he probably wants to dnt his head in because he just keeps doing it. He's been guilty sixteen occasions in one hundred and eleven games. He's got a lot of fins to go.
Urkon geez, what the hell's his name from? G WS? Toby Green. They were exciting to give it to me, green boy, You reckon he's a better he's got fined more. He hasn't got fine more.
Because he overtook Toby Green to be number.
One, so Toby was too, he was he was number one nose too. Yeah, yeah, okay, that makes sense because I was about say, I feel like thirty two grand Toby's probably close to that.
Toby Green has also played a lot more footy.
Yeah, but I think he's kind of calmed down. You know. The other big thing was like I was using the cleats in the back of the head and stuff, and that was real and they kind of went after him for that. You know.
That's what I like about Toby Green, Like he's he's a trailblazer for fines. He was getting fines and suspensions and changing rules and stuff just based on pure creativity. He found like an artistic craft in getting fined and suspended, whereas Zach Butters is just a bit of a like a US off ball, a little little gut punch or whatever he pushed over an umpire or whatever.
We touched on pire, which is not allowed allow't. But let's move on to the big winners.
And I'm going to say Friday Night footy because I did not have that one up there as a spectacle that ended up being I'm talking about Esmon versus Adelaide, absolute classic, thirty four goals scoredlle the game a winner, game winner in traffic, and it was a beautiful kig.
I don't know how it.
Didn't get touched, bounced through, just it was so quick snap, like just absolute goal sense for what was happening. Just miraculously with like less than two minutes left, you know, snaps that goal and actually gets him over the line. And it was a back and forth game the whole time.
And it was one of the best games I've probably seen all year because there was the whole drama right of Vesta in last year, with you know them diving on the ball at the very end and the question marks of whether or not it was you know, a free kick or not, and you know, you see big texts going off at the umpire at the end of the game. What the hell the whole and Adelaide finally got a little bit of revenge now from asson game and over the weekend they'd be pretty happy with that.
And there was some impressive performances over the weekend, but it's hard to go past ben Key's game. So he kicked five goals, which is pretty good in a game that came down to a couple of points. But he set up everything. He had twenty two disposal of his twelve score involvements, two goal assists.
Yeah, he was.
He was.
He set up the last goal of the game, to his clearance from stapage to get to Rochelle to be able to snap goal was all him. Yeah.
So if he wasn't kicking them, he was kicking them to the blokes that were kicking them. His partner in crime Fog Darcy Fogg, that he kicked four goals, some really cool ones got the one to kick, like snap from forty or whatever. But there was an incident for ben Keyes that we touched on on the intro that he got I thought he was going to get done because last week two blokes got done for three weeks
and then got off on technicalities. But he tackled Jai Caldwell, kind of pinned an arm and Gay hit his head on the ground, came off to be assessed, ended up missing with ribs. Subbed out of the game, and I just think that would have been the most nervous weight over the time it took to get the decision, because you would have no idea if you're going to get
done for that. But Michael Christian from the MRO did come out and say that Caldwell gathers as a loose ball following a boundary throw in and he's tackled by Keys with his right arm. Caldwell is able to get his left arm down to protect his fall and reduce the force of impact. It is the view of the MRO that Keys exercise the duty of care in executing the tackle.
Now, I think that's a load of horseshit.
Because that man, Michael Christian's son was playing with me in the VFL over the weekend. Don't talk too bad about he was in the rooms.
I used to switch a show with Michael Christian.
He was the talent. We talked every week. I love Chris so but I think this is getting ridiculous and that's gonna get so much more confusing because now we were doing blokes for that a couple of weeks ago. You pin an arm, they hit their head, you're done. So now if they're holding the ball, do they drop the ball to protect themselves? Is that that player's duty of care or is it the tackler's duty of care if they have an arm free, why they and don't
have the ball? Why they're getting tackled? So like, it doesn't make any This is where I'm getting at. This whole thing is cooked and I'm just getting that close to hate.
And watching it. Yeah, because I.
Have always said that people are overreacting when it comes to oh, the rules are like changing, times are changing, and.
There's been a big microscope on I think the AFL and adjudication over the last few years.
I will say that, yeah, but I don't think it's helping when like Andrew Dylon comes out and says, like the umpiring and the officiating is in the.
Best spot it's ever been.
That is being condescending to your followers, your fans. There's so many contradicting things, and yeah, for the longest time, I will say it again that I've been very anti all the people that are like, oh, this is ruining our game because we need to change, and we do. We are one hundred percent need to change. But I'm there's never been more joy sucked out of watching footy for.
Me at the moment.
But I don't think it's necessarily like the changes, the like interpretations or whatever. It's just the clarity. They don't come out one week and say one thing, then the next week say the other thing, and then come out and say we're ticking off on everything. They ticked off on Jeremy Cameron smashing his head. No one came and got him off. He played it out, and then he gets delayed concussion, and then we tick off the whole process just to just absolutely confuse the whole lot. So yeah,
I don't know. I'm hoping they we.
Get the finals.
We get the big dogs in now I'm the best of the best, umpires umpire finals, we have a really fun final series. We forget about it for a bit, but over the summer they need to get to work and figure out how to fix it and then how to communicate it with absolute clarity. So all the fans, all the players, all the coaches from across the league, and everyone under that, because all the coaches from juniors have no idea what the hell's going on?
Like, how do you tell them?
Oh, yeah, no, They're like Charlie Cameron's out there playing this week. He was guilty and he still is guilty. But there was a technicality in the anyway, little Jimmy, you're missing three weeks, Like how do you tell a kid.
That it's stupid?
But just fix it and then we'll come back next year. I think get revved up again.
They come up with that. They've got the kind of a grid system of kind of how you know, high contact, intentional not intentional, all these kind of things, right, and
they've got that grid system. I think they just need to figure out a more detailed way of doing it and then just be ruthless on it and go okay, yes, there's going to be some that might be opinionated say oh yeah, yeah, you kind of got high, but like you didn't protect him at wherever it is, and it's unfortunate that player is going to get fined or that players get suspended. But you know, this is just the way to keep us in structural integrity around the way
we're going to adjudicate things. And sometimes it's not going to fall your way. Sometimes it might, but this is the law of the land of what we're going to do. Keep by Yeah, i'd.
Rather absolute rigidness in the system, but clarity then it's kind of half rigid and then Gray area. So anyway, we'll move on through because we'll get stuck into that. That's as passionate as I'll get. We'll go to the Western Bulldogs versus Geelong game because this is we talk about big winners. And I did say Ben Keys was one of the biggest. I reckon one of the biggest performers. Adam Trelaw my goodness, leave some ball for someone else because he missed last week with he had calf awareness.
He said, yeah, he's got two of us. Yeah, he said that.
The last time he played through that he ended up doing his calf, so he's a little Gunshots came out thirty one touches, three goals, eight tackles, nine score involvements in an away game against Geelong and GMHBA is pretty dumb impressive, wet weather.
It's so impressive.
We talk about other players that you know contributed. Ed Richards twenty nine, two goals, nine clearances. That's a contribution. That's a good We had Rory lob who's just like weeks and weeks it's well in the back line. This is yeah, he went out there and just shut shut down. Jeremy Cameron, like.
I Reckon.
People were like, you keep.
Him to four goals, it's pretty good, like three four goals too, like he's yeah, did a great job on him.
And then hugle Hagen came out again. He's the man at the moment.
Four goals some cracking goals to look dominant. So the Bulldogs are up and about. I feel like they've timed it well. They're peeking at the right time of year. They've beaten some decent teams. It's not just like pushovers, so that now they're just getting that consistency and then who knows if they can wherever they land on the ladder, they're definitely going to be able to shake it up.
They finished, Oh guarantee huge, lock it in, ye, lock it in.
I feel like the ladder, why we're making big claims the ladder at the moment or throw it is the most fraudulent ladder of all time that I can remember, Like my goodness.
So much of it is going to be your momentum going into finals and how that's panning out, rather than if you sit first, eighth, seventh, sixth, fifth, whatever it is.
Yeah, I think there's going to be teams that are like in momentum swings at the moment. There's teams outside of the eight that are playing better than teams inside the eight. There's teams like Hawthorne that are on like a nine out of eleven win streak or something crazy, and they're sitting outside the eight with a slim chance to make it. When you've got other teams like Essendon, you've got to be winning that if you want to be playing finals. So it's every team is stumbling like
hard free massive dominant win this week. Last week they fumbled the bag and could have been second. So it's you know, it's just happening week on week.
Well, let's get into that freol games. It was a demolition out there in the west. Shout out to the Frio Jumpers, by the way, Starlight Starlet Foundation, very cool jumper got to shout that one out. But Melbourne didn't have a rock. Mexican's still not in the team, still injured at the moment.
But that wouldn't have mattered because rocks aren't important, right, that's such If people keep telling me, but they got smashed.
Without a rock, loll did they.
They would have won. Melbourne would have won center clearance though, right you would have thought so, right, it was absolutely demolition. So that Ford's obviously you look at the scoreboard and Frero's Ford's got the job done. Walter's for Jai Amos, who's a he's a young bloke, he's twenty years old, and everyone keeps saying like giving him shit for missing or whatever. He kicked four straight on the weekend, but he's also only twenty years old. Dick Tracy our boy
three goals and Sturt kick three as well. But that's you know, that's all doable when there's an absolute demolition going on in the in the middle and they're just walking it out of there because it was forty seven to nine in the hitouts.
That's rough forty seven hit out to nine, and that was forty seven clearances to sixteen. Oh my lord, forty seven to sixteen. You're just getting the ball just jamm down your throat and the forward line at that point.
Wow, seventeen to eight out of the center and then just didn't seem to be much hesitation from you know, the midfield normally like oh we got a half defend, half attack, you got to get the balance right. They look confident enough to be like we're winning all of.
These We're hitting everything forward.
That must be the scariest thing if you're the midfield, because you're just like, oh my god, I just got.
To just hang it on to your plate, please, just.
Trying to grab them early, but the wrong thirty six a goal, Young, twenty eight eight clearances, a couple of misses, Brayshaw forty one disposals. So they're the main ball getters and they're just walking it out of there. A bit of sad news for Freo is Alex Pierce. Although he did sport a really cool arm cover guard. I'm going I'm it's like a purple one. It looks sick. He looked like a power Ranger. That's what the power Rangers where.
There's anyway he's not a power Ranger. He got a heavy knock and had to come from the field and he was subbed out.
Hopefully it's more.
Of a precaution because they were up like fifty points at the time. Yeah, it's always tough to see someone get injured and never you've got the game kind of already done and.
Just it runs Peers like.
I was a super fan of him. Yeah, he's a nice guy.
Speaks super polite, and it was like last year he was going through those form patches as captain and I had to, you know, navigate through that.
So it's cool seeing him out there.
We'll go on to Port and Kenny and they are fighting because they're gonna I feel like they're going to scrape into this final series and hopefully they can do some damage. But I just I just hope they make it because Kenny was you know, half these teams were given the sack. Another shout out to Chris Fager. Yeah, wouldn't you just be strutting out there saying kiss my ring because.
His name was up and those those comments around which coaches should go At the very beginning of the year, they were talking about sagging him. I was like, man, he just made a grant and final last year.
Chris got in too, like coaches like mate, he's he's coaching coaching.
I love it when those things come up. Who does this?
Well, there's another story because they're saying Kenny is going to go to West Coast, he's the number one man for the job.
She's West Coast desperate to figure out who the next coach is going to be. Dean Cox's big question Mark. Throughout the week, he's officially said, Nat, I'm good, thanks, so staying in Sydney. Sydney really it's not bade Reckon. Yeah, Brodie Grundy is your rock man. You're gonna look pretty good. But now Kenny, Yeah, reported for the West Coast job.
I don't know how this kind of works. It's probably one of those things where he's like going, Okay, we'll wait and see kind of what happens at the end of the year, what the board or whoever it is that makes these decisions, you know, goes about it, and then if you know, if it's on the lesser side, you might go, Okay, this is a obviously a job and if I don't have a job, So hopefully that
doesn't get to that point. I'm big Kenny fan. Obviously everyone knows this on the on the podcast Big Kinny Fan, the Kenny Jig after they get the wins. But we're hoping that he signs a twenty year contract, you know, a ten million year and you know, continues to port Adelaide for us his life. That's that's that's what we're hoping for. And we're not asking for much really, but I'm a mixed bag. I don't know if he if.
I hope for that because that's twenty years at torture Koshi telling you that you're going to get the sack every week.
The CEO president, I don't know.
He's probably camping down in his front yard. Probably sends him mail. But you know that he can handle the scrutiny of West Coast. That's another thing, mate. Maybe maybe take a job with less stress. I don't know, Like who would want it. You're getting potted by your own fans coming off the field a couple of weeks ago. Now you're a chance to go to West Coast. That's probably the most scrutinized team in the comp outside of Collingwood.
But he was He did spray the midfielders even though they were up and about and winning, and I think they came out. Connor Rosey said an interview that it was for defensive pressure.
So okay, keep it never comes to pressure and it just line a bit of a fire and room and keep going.
Let's talk about the big losers. We love talking about depressing shit, so let's get into it. We talk about Essendon, because oh my goodness, it was a great game.
But a bad loss for Essendon.
They got a bit of a mixed bag on the run home a couple of reals I think their first Brisbane and Sydney in the last two rounds, so they want to get all the wins that they can to make that final spot.
I did want to ask.
You going in like I like to predetermine what is a pass mark going into the season, and then anything.
Above that is a win.
People readjust their expectations mid season and then get pissed off when it doesn't doesn't keep going up. So is it a failure if Essendon doesn't win a final this year?
I think it's I don't think it's a failure. I think them making finals in general is a step up from last year obviously, so you're hit in the right direction. So I think that's a pass mark. Them making finals. Then winning a final is static. Right As a supporter base, you've been waiting for a very long time for that to happen. And believe me, if that were to happen, I think you look at the coaching staff and everything else, you're okay, They're going to be around for quite a
few years, right. We have a bit of faith in this team to be able to go forward. But as we saw with Aston and they made these big trades in the off season to try to bring these people in, bring this experience, and to try to get the finals and make that first win at least, right, So I think the way they looked at their offseason, the way they targeted these players, your past and fell Mark, I think for them is probably finals. Yeah.
Yeah, I think either way.
For me, you look at the team and you're like, I would be happy as a fan because one, the communication has been clear from the start.
I think they got in.
A few players in trade period to like bridge some gaps and like prop up some stuff. But I think you can look at the team and go like, Okay, they're going to be good. Yeah, Like they've got some they've got some bones, they've got they can be good. They can be a good team. You have some confidence. You just want some confidence in your team, because I feel for Essendon fans then just like we've been running around with like without a head for years. So it's good to have some direction.
Wow, actually, go bring this up. I saw Zach Merritt was driving like a quarter or a half a million dollar Lamborghini around just casually. I don't know what kind of accounting's going on over there. What the hard or soft cap is it? Yesinon, But g's the ways a car that's that expensive. I have no idea what his family does and what he does outside of football. Dome wants to take it as you want. But that is a sexy car to be driving around as a football player,
that's for sure. Yeah, what do you drive? I drive a beautiful Toyota land Cruiser Prano.
Sir see, because that makes sense you travel around?
Yeah, I like to get out, like two things right, it's a utility vehicle.
You can't take that Porsche down the forest and go camping.
The weird thing is these Range Rover commercials are always it, you know, going over hills and mountains everything else. I'm like, when was the last time you saw range in the city outside of picking up the kids from soccer practice. Come on, let's be real. I would love to have your Raine driver, a sun sorry, we we loved here, or Lamborghini. Let's be honest here.
Datson, Datson's out there, We'll take a couple of those. We'll go straight into the Gold Coast game. Because I at this point we need to say, Okay, pause, let's just get a win on the road. We need to just I don't we just need to get a win on the road, because surely now it's in their heads.
It's obviously it's been publicly stated for the last ten weeks. I feel like the fact that they can't win on the road, and they've lost again over the weekend, so it's it's for sure something that plays on your mind. But it takes is one win and then everyone shuts the hell up about it and that's done and you move on and you can just win as many as you won on the road, because that's what I think.
Like the GWS game, they won the inside fifties sixty six to forty seven, so they had a what nineteen more inside fifties fair advantage.
I'd saying that, Yeah.
Like unfortunately the key Ford missed all seven shots ago, but like I think that's more get out of your head. I was going to say, go on a holiday, But you live on.
The Gold Coast, so you live in a holiday.
You live in a holiday.
Just have a breath.
You got to go to West Coast and take on the Eagles round twenty one and then you get Richmond round twenty four.
That's your last chance.
Otherwise you got to sit on that for the whole off season until next year.
Oh, we're gonna win an away game.
This year, boys, I got a good feeling.
Did we do those training sessions where they got the speakers and the loud speakers going and it's just the audience noise of you can't hear each other. That's how they maybe need to train.
Yeah, I think that's just going to be dimmer standing on the sideline going if you don't win a bloody away again. No cancel in the off season, no Christmas.
Party, no Christmas party. But let's jump into Geelong.
I just want to say it seems like Geelong's GMHBA streak is gone. It's no longer a fortress for Geelong. They're four and three this year. Before this was that the hardest away trip in footy.
You're asking a person that's really never played there because we never have to fair? Yeah, is that unfair?
That's not bringing that up.
You guys never play Geelong and you never play.
Plays at the MCG because they want the money from the game. That's the reason they play there. So the geelong fans that get upset and complain about it, or if you if you didn't have a club that was greedy about making money, you wouldn't have the issue.
Yeah, so it's very simple.
If you don't want to, if you want to have an advantage playing at home, take the pay cut. Yeah. Not many people want to do that, though. I will say this though, their ground over the weekend they had a little curtain raiser. I think it was the VFL was playing there before maybe and they it was raining and they tore that ground up. I was looking at during the AFL game thinking this might be one of the worst grounds I've seen, Like it was a mud pit on the whole side of the field, Like it
was just people slipping over and everything else. I'm thinking, this is wild. This is absolutely wild to think that. Like, I'm playing in a VFL game in icon Park and it was ten times better than what that was. Yeah. Yeah, wow, that's a statement.
Props to icon Park, but that's yeah, that's a rough one, because.
A tough thing for the groundskeeper obviously to keep up with that.
But do you play, you play, you can't play it after no one, not many people have been sticking around after the fact.
But yeah, they tore the ground up before the game. You hear the commentary and stuff they talked about it of like the ground being pretty rough looking.
It's yeah, it would have poured rain all week and they train on that ground all week, so they run out their train on it all week and then you have the VFL game on there, then you have the AFL game on there, and when it's pouring rain.
You can't doesn't do you any favorites.
I think it's going to stand up now we talk about the biggest losers.
Now this is let's just let's pull the band aid off bread and come on.
Unfle But Collingwood was probably in the worst game of footy that I've seen them play in a decade.
Come on, mate, it's it was rough.
I've been there for around that time and I can only think of one in my time that I could think of, and it was round twenty three Brisbane twenty fourteen. That's what I was thinking back to, and there's been some other ones in between, but we're talking real disasters. We can obviously bounce back from that. Finals is still a hope. It was just one of those days going Down big margin couldn't kick straight to save your life.
We talk about we give Benny King a bit of a spray off the top and then it was I think one eleven, one twelve, so you got to be kicking those.
It was a lot wetter.
It was wetter, it was raining a game, it was a lot.
Wetter, So conditions were miserable. But we will jump into it mixedday. We're a little shining right after the top. He's got his first goal back in the AFL team on the return and all the boys got around him.
It would have been nice to see that. Yeah, it's been obviously a long road that's been heavily documented with Down. He's you know, now stepping into that role of checkers out for the rest of the week or the rest of the year. He's now having to fill that role as our key forward and you know, doing his ACL back and hobviously it was December and now playing, you know,
with four or five rounds left. It's pretty impressive. It's a you know, we've talked about before of a credit to you know, what he's been able to do during his rehab and how much time and effort he's put into it. Like it's something that is not the easiest thing to go through, especially with the long term injury like what he had. To see the light at the end of the tunnel sometimes seems like it's so far away. But to see him play on that day, you know,
I meant so much to him. I'm sure it meant so much to his family and his friends and everything else that's involved too, to just see him back out there doing this thing. And I absolutely loved it. It was, you know, a beautiful moment him being able to be out there and it's unfortunately couldn't get the win for him, but you know, I think it was one positive light to you know, a bit of a rough weekend for the club.
Yeah, and that's about it for positives out of this one, unfortunately.
Mate.
So we talk about Maynard. Brandon Maynard high fan non guinea. Probably the best decision the MRO has made in years. We love so He's a great bloke. No, I will say, I just with the fans, I feel like that's a unless it's you know, egregious. I think that they're really just in game free kicks.
He free kicks to call.
Yeah, I think they're free kicks. I don't know about rubbing people out for those stuff. It still falls under the accident category, but at the same time they've been rubbing out accidents, so like, it's always hard to gauge what's going to go down there. But Brandon Maynard free to play did couple fine. So now we talk about the big story out of this one. Jack Ginnovan playing the game of his life thirty one disposals, two goals.
He was giving it to the cheer squad with the sleep he had celebration Scalore taking a photo with the boys after the game, really looking like he's enjoying his time at Hawthorne and kind of running this little rat pack that they have down there. How did you break down guineas game? You well, watching for a little brief period down there out sidelines.
The game the next day, so I had to go in halftime and go get proper for the VFL game on the next day. But Guinea credits only played really well. You know, people talk about his antics and stuff like that and what he does during the game with you know, whether it be fans or opposition. I feel like every time we play Hawthorn, Guiney obviously gets in a scuffle. If you were putting a bet on it and be
a dollar one, that's going to happen. Anya, I'll give it to the crowd and like doing the celebrations and stuff. That's that's just him, right, that's his personality, that's his character, And as someone who's probably done all those things, to be honest, I can't really say, you know, that's terrible. How dare you do that? Whenever? You know it's a that's something I'll probably do every week. So yeah, I think it's all part of the spectacle, right, you know,
it's something we can talk about. It's something that adds entertainment to the game, whether it be you know, love or hatred for someone or whatever it may be. I think that just adds to the whole spectacle of what AFL is. So yeah, I don't I don't have an issue with it. I know some people will probably be upset about it or wherever it is, and that's because they, you know, heavily invested in these kind of things, which is great. But yeah, he played a hell of a
game over the weekend. You go get creditre credits due and you know he played really well.
Yeah, I feel like there's no way. The Cheersquad wouldn't have been given it to him as well. He would have been copping Bronx cheers and stuff. So you can't read into that he's doing that stuff to all fans. He's doing it to immediate fans in his vicinity, and you know you can't. You got to be able to like cop it as well. So it's like we loved
it when he did it for Collingwood. Now he's gone on to play for Hawthorne and you got to copy it when he takes it there, and it's just awesome to see the personality in the game.
It was pretty funny.
All the stuff that he was doing, it's pretty brutal, but he was loving it and he you know, he got the last laugh this time. Thirty one disposal of two goals. An amazing game and he was involved in everything. Talk about involved in everything. James Cicily, my god, he was injured last week, went forward kicked three goals to win the game for him. Now back down back. Thirty disposals and ten intercepts is crazy game.
It's a big question marks. But then how he played forward back in this game and the fact that he went back there thirty spellss. Like you said in ten intercepts, you can understand why he plays in the back line, right, Yeah, he's a pretty damn good player, so you know, it's there's quite a few I think that we're up on probably their averages over the weekend, and Sicily is just
one of those people. I think you look at whenever you see the team that's put in front of you and you almost circle his name, say, this is a man we need to shut down if we're going to be successful, because he has such an impact on games. Being able to turn the ball over and you know, vulnerable places and then then be able to bounce on that is something that they are able to do with him and the team. So yeah, three goals last week
goes back ten intercepts this week. You can understand. It's a good problem to have either way, right, Yeah, he can play forward, he can play back. Just keep him in the team. Yeah, try to keep him healthy because he's had a few question marks in the last few weeks. So they can try to do that. Then I think it's a betterment for their whole team.
And he wasn't absolutely bombarded with inside fifties, so Collingwood's poor defenders have to stand up under sixty nine, inside fifties to thirty seven.
It's a fair avalanche.
Now we talk about this because it's been brought up a million times, Collingwood's age profile.
Oh here we go a go.
Is Collingwood too old?
This is just an easy story, isn't it just an easy click?
I just I'm coming to again directly to one of the other ones, because we're because.
We're celebrating guys they are playing three hundred fifty games or for Horner games, are going Oh wow, we're going to celebrate. We also got to bring it back down, right, don't we Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's grue let's do it. No, this is so typical the media. Yeah, it is what it is. I mean, we're a year older from last year and we won a Grand Final last year. It's funny how things completely change because you've lost a few games, right,
But this is this is yeah, this is it. This is a something I could have predicted ten weeks ago, twenty weeks ago, whatever it is. It's just part of the cyclical nature of the media here because they're pretty lazy. Sorry, that's my crack for the week. But it's just the truth. No, I look at teams like look at Geelong. Huchelong is a perfect you know, explanation of you know, sometimes you can have a down year wherever it is, or things
aren't going your way or whatever it may be. But you know, it doesn't mean that you're just wash everyone out. You know, they've they've still got a strong team, still in finals contention this year, they're playing really well. Like I think that's one of those things you look at them, you say, look, it's as much as probably the media wants to make it all doom and gloom and find all these kind of things to try to crack and separate the group and all that. You know, we're not
going to allow that affect us. You know, we understand that there's a lot of media on the outside, but never get inside the club. You know, we're going to focus on what we can control. As I say, control the controllables very very much a truthful statement. So yeah, this this whole age profile thing, I think it's a
bit bit of BS, to be honest with you. I think we've got some very experienced people and I think last year we saw a lot of it in these close games of that experience helping us get over the line to win some of those games. It was able to propel some to the top four. So, you know, say what you want about it. It's an easy kind of clip. It's an easy kind of you know, storyline for them. But I don't think that's that's the end.
I'll be all, yeah, it's yeah, because we've seen it so much over time. There's been multiple clips that have been lauded for their ability, like Geelong, like Sydney, like all these to you know, stay with the experience and the senior players and then that carries them through for finals for an extended period of time. And when it does work, people use it to promote you and pump
you up and they've had down years. And then likewise, if you cut too deep and you go with all the kids and it doesn't work and you've been down the bottom of the ladder for years, then they have a crack at you're for being too young all the time, and it's yeah, it's just one of those ones that you can pick and choose either way. And I find that that's what this year, when I talk about how draining it's been, has been because no team has been
really in constant good form all the time. So one team will have a cracking game one week and then a terrible game the next week, and they just can't pick it. So they keep saying, jeezus, this team's great, this is what they did well, and this is why they're going to make finals and win the flag.
And then next week they lose.
Then they get no, no, no, they bury them, drag them through the mud. Oh, they're never gonna and then so so many opinions, and they've all been up and down and all over the place, and it just spins your head and it just drains it out of here. So anyway, I will ask this, though finals, you still think you're a chance of finals? Sitting down there thirtieth on the ladder, I.
Think statistically, yeah, there's still a chance for finals. So we're going to have that. We're going to go and put that mindset in one game at a time. You know, we've got Richmond coming up this week and we're going to focus on that and then you know, try to just take one step in front of the other and then kind of work towards this towards the end of the year. But I don't think we'll be looking any
further than the game in front of us. And you know, like we say, try to get better every single day whenever we're going to the club, and I think they'll put us in good stance for the future no matter what it is.
Yeah, it's going to it's going to be interesting to see how it rolls out from here we move into the I just want to touch on this because people people brought up the fact that you were watching the game from the sidelines. They cut to a shot of you the rain and you had your hood on, you had your hood on and your fringe down, and people saying, it's it's the Emo.
Mace is Emo, Mace back.
Tonight will be the night that I will fall for you.
Change must so much nailed it, freaking nailed it so.
Much positivity your head at that moment. No, it's the Dido. My tears gone cold. I'm wondering wa got out of bed? It or the money and rain clouds up my windows and I can't see you, And that's us said.
Where are you are you anyway?
Let's we're just trying to be singers now. Jeez, wow, let's move over to your VFL return. We don't need any more on Emo Mace. We'll make some memes on that. Your VFL return. How was it out there at Icon Park against the Frenchman pitnee.
He's not going to be playing a rock through Carlton's one side now with TDK going down, But no, it was. It was good. It was. It was nice to get back out there, run around, feel pretty confident in the knee and different kind of circumstances within the game, and be able to play out a full game like I hadn't done that for you know, two months now at least,
and it's it's been a fair chuck between games. But it was nice to get back out there, feel normal, be able to kind of get into a full game and get into that exhaustion point of running around and playing a bit of rock and a bit of forward and just being around of football again, just kind of in a game sense, you know, I feel like I've really missed that over the last couple of months. So it was good. Unfortunately we didn't get to win over
the weekend. It was it was a tough trot, just like the AFL team, but it was nice to be back out there and playing just normal football and you know, being able to feel like your body's back to you know, playing I don't even know how to put it back to playing fitness, right, it's probably the best way to put it. Yeah.
So, and you can't really get that from just running laps.
No, you can't. And there's not enough probably, you know, obviously the team's training and stuff, and we do kind of gameplay things along that line, but you're not getting a full game and a training session, right, So it's yeah, and you don't want players getting injured and stuff. You've only got.
About four or five players left on your list, so you need to wrap them up.
Yeah, but it was. It was good. It was beautiful day down there Icon Park. A lot better in GM HBI and now it was subtle, big, subtle big, But no, it was nice to get back. Nice to kind of feel normal and be able to play a full game. That's good. It's good to get a positivity for today. It's a been of a rough try for positivity on this pod. Get some good hit outs, get some good little center bounces. We had no idea. It's kind of funny, right, whenever you play VFL with another person who played AFL
games against right. So I was playing Pitney over the weekend and you kind of have a chat during the game, right, like you obviously both don't want to be there. You want to be playing the AFL side, and you know, for different circumstances or whatever it may be. And yeah, you're sitting there at the center bounce and let's say there's been a few that's going on, a gone laughter, gone right, and it's a rebounce and you're kind of
looking at each other. You just start laughing, thinking there's a maybe ten percent chances things could be a fifty to fifty ball, and yeah, not trying to have to go at the umpires here. And I just want to make that clear, but it is a laugh whenever you kind of have two very experienced people going up against each other, and you know you've obviously played against other
quite a few times. You go, okay, it's like, you know, kind of funny the circumstances you're in and some of the conversations that had during the game.
Speaking of funny, you had a set shot of goal.
How'd that go? Not so good? The wind picked up and make the distance? Okay, good? Now, oh we got a nice laugh to let finish on there.
We'll go through the previews for this week's games, because there's a couple of crackers in here, and we all know that they all matter this time of year. We got Carlton v. Port at Marvel Stadium. I don't think many. I don't know if Carlton fans just supremely irrationally confident or are they just are they getting a bit nervous now that they're not being super convincing last week?
A give him that, but I wouldn't say they've been.
Smashing teams North v Geelong in tazzy blunstone arena.
Danger game game you luck lock it in. I'm gonna say I'd be careful if I was a Geelong fan'd very careful.
Here's your luck for sure.
Gold Coast signs at home versus Brisbane peoples.
That's the cock locker, baby, gold Coast don't lose a home, baby people first? Oh man, you serious serious? I'm serious. I cock locked that thing and I don't care if Brisbane beat the number one on the ladder last week. He gives a dang. It is gold Coast people first, Danny, and they don't lose their.
I don't think we've had have we had a cock lock that's gone down all year. We've been remarkably so last week, didn't you you pick.
Brizsy over Sydney. Yeah, and that's what happened.
Right, Saint Kilda v S and In at Marvel.
I'll do it. I still I'll do it. I'm backing in y had a good one. Just to pers some people are Melbourne v g w S at the Mighty mcg geez without a Rockman. I think they're valuable go g w S on this one. Valuable valuable, Yeah, Rockman are valuable. I'd say vulnerable, valuable, very different, very different.
I will go I'll stick with g w S because once I said I'm sticking with them, they've they've done me well, they've been winning. Uh we'll go free O versus West Coast now free Oh fumble this bad this year. So I'm going to back them into like you know once bit and twice show once stuff up a game against West Coast you know you get it right free Oh win this one.
Thump last week too, So I've got three I must say off.
That's that's my cocklock. West Coast in the in the what do they call it the Derby Debby? Anyway, one of us will be right.
Collingwood v.
Richmond.
Collingwood win this game.
Yeah, we've got colling on the next one.
Sydney versus Western Bulldogs at the SCG.
My goodness, it's going to be a juicy game.
I feel like juicy, juicy game.
Can't Probably did get injured this week too, so there's a question mark around him playing. That could be a massive, massive, massive Nick.
Blakey almost got murdered, but let's not talk about that because we've already talked about those incidents all episode.
But that's a bit ridiculous. Sidney westn Bullocks. You got Sydney, Sidney, I've got them to I hope it's if it's close.
I think that's fine for the Bulldogs, Like obviously you want the points and stuff, but it will give you the belief that you know you can you can take it to him.
Adelaide v.
Hawthorne at Adelaide Oval. I'm actually going Adelaide.
I'm going Adelaide too. I hate to say, because Hawthorne's on a bit of a tear at the moment, but let Adelaide Oval. After the big win last week Againston, I think they've got a bit of confidence again. Yeah, I got a strut about him and I love it. They kept saying to Nixie, are you reckon?
You can knock off a couple of teams on the way home to finals just to like, you know, interrupt their finals campaign. It's like, where we're still a chance?
Still, what are you talking about? We're going to make fun.
I saw the stat's there one percent chance to make it.
So you're saying there's a chance, there's a chance.
So that's all we got this week.
Come on, Adelaide.
Oh let's go on and like get us up for your cocklock cocklock that No, I got them? What do I get? Real? Just easy one? Come on, bring you're better and that. Oh that is it for the podcast the first time. You know, I just expect better things from me. Mate, Wrap it up. But thanks so much
everyone for listening in for the podcast. As we always say, please subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you're listening to this, and also make sure you follow us on all the socials, to YouTube and everywhere else.
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So we got comments, getting the comments.
Yes, getting the comments everyone, But massive, massive thank you for tuning into this episode, and good luck for your footy tipping for the weekend and with that, have an incredible weekend. To be honest, you know, I think it's going to be a beautiful one. I don't know why. I've just got a good feeling. I like that, got a good feeling. That's just bit a positivity in this But massive, massive thank you for tuning in. Have an incredible weekend, like we said, and we'll chat to you soon.
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