Autopsy 2026 Rd 6 Collapse. Copy. Paste.

[SBYM]

Feels like the lowest point for the club since the Great Salary Cap Escapade.

FML

 

[Blue By Blood]

This is superbly well said.

Been there myself and couldn't have said it better.

I didn't fess up my struggles to anyone until I was literally on deaths door a fair few years older than Lij is. But at his age I couldnt tell anyone I was in a horrible way. The fear of people knowing is so immense you just mask and pretend everything is ok to everyone around you. You even fake your own identity and mood just so people don't notice.

You turn to drugs and alcohol and it fills the gap for a while until it doesn't. Which is also part of the illness.

If you have not experienced it then you just simply cannot comment or even remotely understand what it is like to go through something so dark.

Pretty stunned at some of the commentary around a young bloke with very serious health issues.

Well said also. I think it's important to look at things from both angles. We absolutely need to throw our arms around Lij and give him all the support that is needed. I really hope we go above and beyond to support him. We are a club. We are a family. I hope he doesn't feel responsible for letting everyone down because the reality is he probably tried his hardest to get up for the game and thought missing would be letting everyone down. This is a failure by the club not the player IMO.

But it can't be ignored now that the playing group need to be able to trust their fellow team mates out on the field. You're essentially going to war with your brothers and you need to know every single one of the other players have your back on field. Without the trust (just like in life) everything falls to pieces. One link that gets broken can break a team. Just like one shield that drops can allow a sword through. I think it's going to be hard for the group to trust him from here on as that's just human nature. It's a combative sport and you need to be physically and mentally strong and unfortunately Lij may not be able to cope (I hope he can and does with support I truly do). But as someone who also suffers with this, I know it's always going to be a week by week management thing with him and that does lend itself to some doubts around fitness to perform at the level. We already saw the distressing signs of players shunning him during and after the game. I'm not saying all of this as a dig at Lij. I really rate him and want him to succeed. He's a top 10 talent on our list no doubt in my eyes. I was big on him coming back onto the list.

The big issue here is despite what the club issued to Sam Edmund (SEN Sports for anyone who wants to go read the article).. how they didn't bring him off when they noticed very early he wasn't right is staggering. They've even said they knew early which makes it worse. With such a vulnerable player, how they didn't have more stringent pre game checks and welfare markers in place is also staggering. Additionally, if his team mates noticed his erratic/off behaviour and weren't hounding the coaching staff to get him off and to look after him is also disturbing. Where is the proper administration? And where is the leadership from the players? I think now it's even hard for the players to trust the administration when they see such gross incompetence. I hate to say it but as much as the club preached in preseason about lifting the culture through bonding camps and such.. it stinks right now on so many levels and it's falling apart badly. Hang in there though fellow Baggers. We always have each other to get through all the crap we have had to endure for years.

 

[MPH78]

Why do we defend, with all 18 players, so deep? We just retreat and invite pressure that we’ve proven time and again that we can’t handle. Oppo moves the ball down field with no pressure and still hit up targets in their F50.

And the few times we try to run and carry from the back half we have no one to @#$%&! kick to. How many times are we streaming through the corridor and have to kick wide to the wing?

Coaching. System. Structure.

Appalling.

 

[RPCB]

It’s nice to see that the AFL and media have located their own pulse and are all over the Elijah Hollands situation. When Geelong were playing Tyson Stengle

18

Tyson Stengle

Age

27

Ht

175cm

Wt

71kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

9.3

2star

K

5.8

2star

HB

3.5

3star

M

1.8

2star

T

2.4

4star

G

1.1

4star

D

10.3

3star

K

5.3

2star

HB

5.0

3star

M

1.3

1star

T

2.0

3star

G

0.5

4star

D

8.8

3star

K

5.6

3star

HB

3.2

3star

M

1.8

2star

T

2.6

4star

G

1.6

5star

one week after he overdosed in a nightclub, you didn’t hear a single peep out of any of them.

 

[agro]

Name the 5.

Bruce Reid, Eric Pascoe and Murray Vance for starters.

 

[passmark]

worked with an alco who downed half bottle Vodka before work and was fine for the first hour or so until it kicked in.
So not an expert but definitely familiar with outcomes of such behaviour.
It may be exactly as indicated, " a mental health episode" but thats a bloody large umbrella these days.

Sure

 

[sosos]

Okay.

Under Voss, winning or losing has always been a habit. When we lose, we lose multiple games in a row and everything goes to shit. Pressure gets brought to bear, leading to mistake after mistake after mistake; there was a play where Ollie Hollands ran onto a loose ball, fumbled around 7-8 times before eventually receiving a handball which he then went to kick only for it to get smothered. Whole moments of the game felt like Teague was the coach tonight; the refusal to change things to affect the game, the insistence on following the structure when it ceased working, the dropping of heads. The good thing at least is that we now know it definitely isn't fitness; most of the list is available, and both this and last week's games weren't lost through an inability to run a game out. No, this is structural and mental.

Put very simply, there was always going to be a concern this season about how we were going to kick our goals. No Curnow meant that one of the things we needed to develop was an alternate means of scoring, and despite every midfielder - and we have no genuine goalkicking mids - kicking less goals than their average (except Pitto) and Harry kicked 1.4, our scoring has been pretty good given the complete change in method. I thought at times our transition play to set up shots on goal was excellent last night. Hayward, Ainsworth, Gov, Frankie and Kemp all held up their end of the bargain.

Harry threatened to tear the game apart. He had Frampton on toast when the umpire wasn't plucking free kicks to gift Framption the ball out of thin air. The problem is where he's taking his shots from. When you have a left footer, them leading to the narrow side is a fool's errand unless they're like Franklin and can get the ball to drift right to left rather than the traditional way. Two of his shots were missed from close shots in that left side pocket. This is IMO an adjustment; used to be that Charlie'd lead to that pocket and Harry'd take the other side. The other thing about it is that McKay is 28; ideally he can play long, as he's not been as injury prone as others have. Players can go to their mid 30's pretty simply now.

The reaction to him being concussed in here is appalling. You don't get to choose your fellow supporters, but I wish you could choose who they weren't sometimes. He copped a fist/forearm to the right side of his head from a player who had jumped at a right angle to him full pelt. The other thing too is that to say that he gets 'concussed easily' or 'he gets concussed from some soft knocks' portrays a misunderstanding of what concussion actually is.

You, as a fan, do not get to judge a person for not wanting CTE late in life. If you think you do, you can kindly go **** yourself.

We now come to Elijah. One of my most favourite things in the world is when media figures of disparate expertise all collectively choose to analyse the body language of someone they don't know. It just thrills me to bits when I hear people coming to concrete conclusions about the pathology, mental state or acumen of someone else based upon thirty seconds of footage; it's just so, so good to realise how smart everyone is and just how transparent a person they don't know a good 80+ metres away is over the course of a thirty second snippet of footage can be. Why, I'm surprised that more people aren't also excellent at poker - as opposed to just thinking they are - if they're just so good at reading people.

The media who published that footage knew what they were doing. No-one is immune to propaganda and that is what this thread demonstrates; that so many just ****ing bought what Tom Morris was selling displays that people are willing to add 2 and 2 and get 11. People seem to forget who Tom Morris is, too. He's vile, a vulture picking at a carcass; actually, that's offensive to vultures because they at least clean up biomes.

And now I'm left wondering if the fans are worth the sport; if success or victory will ever purge from me the reality that some of you won't ever deserve it if and when it happens. I'm not talking about someone who I disagree with wildly but our disagreements are sport related; I'm talking about a willingness to participate in something awful purely for the purposes of piling on.

It'll turn onfield, eventually. But some need to seriously re-evaluate how you participate in this sport.

You write well. This kind of long-form assessment is fine food for the soul.

 

[Stig O'Hara]

Bruce Reid, Eric Pascoe and Murray Vance for starters.

Bruce Reid…….dont get me started, he’s in every list.

 

[agro]

Name the 5.

Bruce Reid, Eric Pascoe, Murray Vance, Graeme Robertson.

 

[4flagsin5yrs]

Agree by all accounts he was okay before the game, but became an anxiousz/ erratic during the game
I read somewhere he only played part of the last quarter. Is that true? Does anyone know?

you haven't seen his shot at goal in the warm up?

 

[passmark]

We’ll never know exactly but I’m fairly confident of my judgement based on what I saw.

..no self reflection seems contagious.

 

[Don Woody]

We won't see finals or a flag for 15 years at this rate. Once 19th and 20th teams enter its good night.

Poor recruitment, poor game plan and players who have some of the worst skills imaginable for professional athletes.

Last night just reinforced the mediocrity that is CFC

 

[Accidental genius]

Prop him permanently in the forward line. Big H being out Kempy will probably be double teamed now. We'll have to rely on Gov or other avenues to kick goals.

It’s where Gov plays his best footy.

Is he injured?

 

[xDQ82x]

Would the club be allowed to drug test him post game?

 

[Kruezing]

Why do we defend, with all 18 players, so deep? We just retreat and invite pressure that we’ve proven time and again that we can’t handle. Oppo moves the ball down field with no pressure and still hit up targets in their F50.

And the few times we try to run and carry from the back half we have no one to @#$%&! kick to. How many times are we streaming through the corridor and have to kick wide to the wing?

Coaching. System. Structure.

Appalling.

It’s bizarre we basically give up half the ground amateurs hour stuff … need to go back to basic man on man

 

[Accidental genius]

Compared to previous weeks we kept at it and were still in the gsme till tge siren…could have won it too

To do that with virtually Eli in no man’s land and H off late was probably still a slight improvement on previous weeks.

Some ball movement thst led to goals looked good whilst lots were riddled with mistakes.

 

[SkyhorseTamer]

They won because a 4 gamer missed the goals by a meter.

correct. The preceding 3.999 quarters were irrelevant warm up. The real footy begins after the final siren

 

[KJP7]

Would the club be allowed to drug test him post game?

You’d imagine players with a known history would be target tested by the anti doping body?

ALPA most likely wouldn’t allow a club to act independently.

 

[Juddrockz]

My understanding is that he told the club he wasn’t right and that they were monitoring his heart rate. If someone is having a mental health episode they aren’t rationale and if he made others aware of it, when he is know to have mental health issues, they should have protected him.

If this was the case with Lij why would they take the risk and play him? This is the thing im gobsmacked about. We really needed to win that game last night and basically went in with a player not right?
I just dont understand it.
Never mind,Voss mentioned during the week the club had been managing Lij.
This just doesn't sit right with me at all. The club has done the wrong thing by Lij and the CFC.
I hope Lij gets the help and support he needs moving forward.

 

[Yubby]

Is someone able to summarise for me what we know about what happened with Lij last night? 47 pages has left me confused. Eg what we've learned since the game, about what we knew before game, during and after?

 

[Accidental genius]

Is someone able to summarise for me what we know about what happened with Lij last night? 47 pages has left me confused. Eg what we've learned since the game, about what we knew before game, during and after?

Something like this…

During the week lij discusses with Voss about feeling anxious /not sleeping well ahead of the blockbuster game

During warm up vision from a spectators recording showed erratic behaviour and really poor attempts at set shots

During game (first 3 Qs) he only had 1 possession, apparently reports of erratic behaviour …gave the birdie to team mates…looked lost …went to filths huddle

4th Q was seen on bench with cameras closely monitoring him…that’s when most commentators/viewers started becoming aware of issue

 

[Accidental genius]

Seriously how good is Carroll ??

Reckon we’ve got a good player there.

 

[teddy-hopkins]

Why wouldn't we go man on man? Teams like that are happy to lead into the pockets and take shots from there as they practice it and are good at it. Elliott and Macstay both had uncontested marks in the pockets and kicked 2 each from the pockets

Good question. It's something we'd have to train to do but obviously but not many other teams let our guys chip it all the way down the field allowing 10-15m space to everyone.

 

[SkyhorseTamer]

It could also be the behaviour of someone having a severe mental episode in front of 80,000 people.

Could be. But that is still the same 'point' geth is railing against as unprovable. Doesn't matter really what the cause was. Club let it get to an unsalvageable spot.

 

[SkyhorseTamer]

Yeh, but as I said 3 months is nothing. Given the issues it is crazy to think 3 good months means he's all okay

Absolutely right. My best friend OD'd after a full year clean. Her mum had a heart attack and so my friend relapsed and it got her.

Now it isn't necessarily drugs with lij but whatever it is. Mental health based improvements are super slow. Relapses are super fast. Even if the relapse is just succumbing to a large anxiety attack. - I know. I got fairly messed up aftewhat happened... Takes a lot. He needs support and time!! Prof football Just doesnt seem to be a good environment to rebuild a solid foundation in mental health.