Autopsy AFL 2025 Round 3 - Hawks v Giants Sat March 29th 7:35pm AEDT (UTAS Tasmania)

[Mr Meow]

Your entire supporter base also called Selwood a cheat for over a decade because he did the exact same thing.

The Watson and Selwood actions are not even close to the same thing - come on. If Joel wasn't paid a free he was still on his feet, with forward momentum to charge clear of a pack or release a handball. The Watson action is ceasing momentum and killing the play. It isn't a method to clear through congestion.

 

[Malik90]

Lewis, Dear, Scrimshaw, MacDonald, Worpel and Harley Reid all to come back into the Hawthorn team.

 

[MinerBoy]

So there really is a wind.

And also rubbish umpiring for the home team.

GWS could not pinged for HTB at all last night. Not sure you had anything to complain about, or weren't Hogan's charity frees enough?

 

[MinerBoy]

They’ve missed plenty of holding against you around the stoppages though. Dirtiest team in the league

Genuinely head****ed

 

[revo333]

The other free kick he gets a lot is when he picks the ball up and people tackle him too high. He's not ducking at all. To call him a ducker is the dumbest thing you can do. He might draw free kicks, accentuate contact - but some of you are so primed to see what you want to see you're making yourselves look stupid.

He ducks, It stood out like a sore thumb in the Essendon game.

But so what? every team has players that do it.

Cody Weightman is the Bulldogs main suspect and any Bulldog supporter who says he doesn't do the same is taking the pi$$.

 

[MinerBoy]

Watson picks the ball up and then leads with his head as a battering ram. Completely different to putting your head over the ball. It’s weak as piss.

How does he pick up the ball to start with without his head over it? Amazing.

 

[Aucklander]

Good game of footy I thought. Both teams look the goods and are great to watch.

Hard to get a read on the "not 15" very inconsistent across most games.

 

[OnceWeWereKings]

Good game of footy I thought. Both teams look the goods and are great to watch.

Hard to get a read on the "not 15" very inconsistent across most games.

You can see it manifest in other parts of the game now. Have watched numerous times this week players running 20-25 meters from the kick-in and not get called because the umps would now call the same distance if kicked as not 15.
Players are running from the square to the 30-35 without being called.

 

[Mitchell Madness]

View attachment file_00000000cf5851fa8430bdfe846c0f62_conversation_id=67e85fd7-5370-800f-b818-a779a80de2b9&me...webp

 

[HairyO]

Good game of footy I thought. Both teams look the goods and are great to watch.

Hard to get a read on the "not 15" very inconsistent across most games.

We had 3 kicks in a row, all around 20m. First 2 called "not 15" and the 3rd paid. But Id say the 3rd was the shortest of them.

Also, umpires still pay 8m kicks if kicking inside F50...

I like what they are trying to do but need to get better at it.

The distance allowed for marks is about half the distance allowed when running and bouncing. Getting them closer is a good thing.

 

[PenAndPaper]

They’ve missed plenty of holding against you around the stoppages though. Dirtiest team in the league

Someone's a bit upset they took our first rounder instead of Carlton's.

 

[Mr Meeseeks]

We have Harley in the news most weeks now for some reaction to the pressure, pundits are calling for fellow media to give him a break as he is a kid...

At the same time Watson - from the same draft class - is getting whacked high regularly, scrutinised after every poor game, put up as the poster boy for the hawks and slagged off by the rest of the competition.... He is completely taking it in his stride with a combative sense of humour and only getting better.

Losers like to sook about his free kicks without seeing he had 21 touches at 85%, 11 contested and multiple scoring involvements, he was a creative spark all day and the giants could not stop him legally. Easily BOG.

He will be a top 10 player in the comp in a few years.

 

[Mitchell Madness]

View attachment 15cd20f0b5224d84dc3fcd427972812e.mp4
For the haters

 

[rei154]

Honest question, if Nick Watson came up against Luke Hodge and Jordan Lewis in their primes in the unsociable Hawks era what do you think would happen?

Would you have been cheering on the serial ducker?

I actually think this is a great question- mostly because the answer is simple.

They would beat the shit out of him with every tackle, ensuring that every time they hit him, they take him to the ground to drive their shoulders/elbows in.

OR

They'd take him high like everyone else then cop three weeks for punching him in the throat.


Only Sydney has tried the first strategy so far (which worked incredibly well), and no one is dumb enough to try the second.

 

[WalshistheGOAT]

The Watson and Selwood actions are not even close to the same thing - come on. If Joel wasn't paid a free he was still on his feet, with forward momentum to charge clear of a pack or release a handball. The Watson action is ceasing momentum and killing the play. It isn't a method to clear through congestion.

I agree, but it was still rorting the rules. Selwoods action just far less distasteful

 

[Leather Poisoning]

No but you did say these...

"Selwood is a massive cheat. Every week ducks and flops"

"Call it ducking, shrugging, whatever - he plays in a way that thousands of fans think is outside the spirit of the game"

"I think that generally speaking if the afl brought in a rule that stopped Joel doing that free-kick-drawing thing he does there would be widespread applause. Call it whatever you want but it’s fairly universally disliked outside of Geelong fans."

jesus dude - get a hobby. Looking up posts of mine from over a decade ago is very weird.

Watson is very short and strong and fast. It's very difficult to tackle him properly. That's where most of his free kicks come from.
He's not folding in half and doing judo moves when a player approaches him. That's what Selwood used to do. It used to infuriate me, because he would turn a legitimate tackle into an illegal one by getting underneath it and lifting his shoulder. Watson isn't doing that. Watson gets most of his free kicks when he is going high speed and it's too fast for the tackler to apply a tackle properly.

 

[rei154]

Strongly recommend everyone going after Watson have a watch of his shins when he picks up a groundball.

The issue is the guy is barely 5 foot tall and has an incredibly aggressive shin angle when he accelerates or changes direction which brings him even lower to the ground.

In his first year, when he was taken high he would lose all momentum every time and end up having his head pulled back because he was a 19 year old without much to him. This year, a lot of the time if he isn't taken to ground by the contact, he is accelerating through it.

Fact is what he does now isn't breaking any rules, it's just breaking the mold of what people are used to seeing from an AFL players build. If tacklers don't learn to play him differently, he's going to have 15+ years of free kicks because people aren't used to him being small.

 

[WalshistheGOAT]

jesus dude - get a hobby. Looking up posts of mine from over a decade ago is very weird.

Watson is very short and strong and fast. It's very difficult to tackle him properly. That's where most of his free kicks come from.
He's not folding in half and doing judo moves when a player approaches him. That's what Selwood used to do. It used to infuriate me, because he would turn a legitimate tackle into an illegal one by getting underneath it and lifting his shoulder. Watson isn't doing that. Watson gets most of his free kicks when he is going high speed and it's too fast for the tackler to apply a tackle properly.

It's okay to admit u hated Selwood doing it because it was cheating and he was playing for an oppo team, but ur okay with Watson, Moore and Ginnivan cheating because they play for your own team.

Everyone knows that's the truth of the matter, I'd just like you to admit it lol

 

[Leather Poisoning]

We have Harley in the news most weeks now for some reaction to the pressure, pundits are calling for fellow media to give him a break as he is a kid...

At the same time Watson - from the same draft class - is getting whacked high regularly, scrutinised after every poor game, put up as the poster boy for the hawks and slagged off by the rest of the competition.... He is completely taking it in his stride with a combative sense of humour and only getting better.

Losers like to sook about his free kicks without seeing he had 21 touches at 85%, 11 contested and multiple scoring involvements, he was a creative spark all day and the giants could not stop him legally. Easily BOG.

He will be a top 10 player in the comp in a few years.

This is a good point.

The guy keeps improving his game. The guy is nailing much bigger players with some huge game-changing tackles. He's setting up 3 or 4 goals a game easily and kicking a couple himself.

But everyone is so obsessed about umpiring him all they want to do is talk about the times where he nearly gets his head ripped off and wants a free kick for it. Strange behaviour

 

[WalshistheGOAT]

I actually think this is a great question- mostly because the answer is simple.

They would beat the shit out of him with every tackle, ensuring that every time they hit him, they take him to the ground to drive their shoulders/elbows in.

OR

They'd take him high like everyone else then cop three weeks for punching him in the throat.


Only Sydney has tried the first strategy so far (which worked incredibly well), and no one is dumb enough to try the second.

An honest answer

 

[Leather Poisoning]

It's okay to admit u hated Selwood doing it because it was cheating and he was playing for an oppo team, but ur okay with Watson, Moore and Ginnivan cheating because they play for your own team.

Everyone knows that's the truth of the matter, I'd just like you to admit it lol

I reckon the posts you quoted were from around 2009ish - it's really really weird that you would go and look it up. I think you need to admit that.

I don't like flopping for free kicks. Ginni and Watson did it a bit at the start of last year. They really haven't done it since about the midpoint of last year but everyone is still hung up on when they did do it. I didn't like it when they did it and I hated it when Selwood did it.

People hate the personality of Watson and Ginnivan. You mentioned Moore - nobody cares when this guy gets high free kicks cos he's a ripping bloke and no-fuss most of the time. All the talk is about Watson because people are either reacting to media hype or just flat out hate the guy. Same with Ginni. But it's no longer about him milking frees - because most of the frees he gets are from moving too fast for people to tackle him properly.

If you want to talk about bias then let's have a talk about bias. The fact you're digging up posts from 15 years ago shows you're so blinded by your own bias that you're not looking at this objectively. Very determined to prove a point instead of looking at the situation for what it is now.

 

[Colonial]

GWS could not pinged for HTB at all last night. Not sure you had anything to complain about, or weren't Hogan's charity frees enough?

You are kidding.

 

[CrowToon]

Head fu@ked…. Love it, keep whining

Im not sure you can dispute this. If you've got a forward line hellbent on lowering the shoulder how can it be anything other than an agreed tactic to play footy like this.

What other outcome than a free kick do you objectively think they are looking for?

 

[WalshistheGOAT]

I reckon the posts you quoted were from around 2009ish - it's really really weird that you would go and look it up. I think you need to admit that.

I don't like flopping for free kicks. Ginni and Watson did it a bit at the start of last year. They really haven't done it since about the midpoint of last year but everyone is still hung up on when they did do it. I didn't like it when they did it and I hated it when Selwood did it.

People hate the personality of Watson and Ginnivan. You mentioned Moore - nobody cares when this guy gets high free kicks cos he's a ripping bloke and no-fuss most of the time. All the talk is about Watson because people are either reacting to media hype or just flat out hate the guy. Same with Ginni. But it's no longer about him milking frees - because most of the frees he gets are from moving too fast for people to tackle him properly.

If you want to talk about bias then let's have a talk about bias. The fact you're digging up posts from 15 years ago shows you're so blinded by your own bias that you're not looking at this objectively. Very determined to prove a point instead of looking at the situation for what it is now.

They were from 2018 and 2019... So not all that long ago.

And I just want to say, nobody is discounting that Moore and Watson are very good players, Im certainly not at least. They're absolute guns.

I just think it's an embarrassment to the game and should be a prohibited action. Have said the same whether it's about Hawks players, Pies players or my own Carlton players for many many years.

Zac Fisher used to do the same for us and now Jesse Motlop has picked up the tradition. It's weak and pathetic.

I just think like myself calling out Motflop each game when he does it, Hawthorn fans should be doing the same for their own. Your supporter base has completely bought into the flopping antics of a few small forwards and spend every week defending an action that everybody knows is bad for the game.

It was cheating when the captain of ur arch rival was doing it, it's still cheating now ur own favorite players are doing it. Just call a spade a spade.

 

[CrowToon]

They were from 2018 and 2019... So not all that long ago.

And I just want to say, nobody is discounting that Moore and Watson are very good players, Im certainly not at least. They're absolute guns.

I just think it's an embarrassment to the game and should be a prohibited action. Have said the same whether it's about Hawks players, Pies players or my own Carlton players for many many years.

Zac Fisher used to do the same for us and now Jesse Motlop has picked up the tradition. It's weak and pathetic.

I just think, like myself calling out Motflop each game when he does it, Hawthorn fans should be doing the same for their own. Your supporter base has completely bought into the flopping antics of a few small forwards and spend every week defending an action that everybody knows is bad for the game. Just call a spade a spade.

It was cheating when the captain of ur arch rival was doing it, it's still cheating now ur own favorite players are doing it.

Lachie Murphy was keen on it when he used to get a game. Its so weird that supporters can't seem to recognise it in their own players. Its like they are scared the AFL will see their admission as if its on behalf of their club and take away the 4 points.

Same as winning on a dodgy free kick. It's possible to both celebrate a victory and acknowledge the good fortune.

Weird bunch are Hawks fans