Opinion AFL 2026 Round 7 - Weekend Wrap & Liked, Learnt, Hated

[GoPies1]

Liked
Pendles - absolute champion

Hated
That I am struggling to actually watch games.
YouTube continues to outplay Kayo
Footy administrators are killing my desire and the thought of another team diluting an already weak brand is strong.
How can a new team be approved prior to working out how the fixture would accommodate them and function is beyond belief, as an example.

Learned
The game is in an even deeper putrid state than I thought.
However my rusted on love of the Pies after nearly 50 years of following them is hard to break

 

[Osho]

If they can sack a KC, they can sack Leroy in the ARC video basement.

 

[B4Bear]

Liked: Hawthorn continue to defy the odds and triumph over adversity, this time beating the all mighty Gold Coast Suns

Learnt: Essendon continue to do Essendon things

Hated: Anzac round in general, leave it as one day on the calendar.

Absolutely regarding Anzac Day.

The AFL using the day to make money was inevitable.

 

[CarterS]

Worst umpired round of footy in a long time.

 

[SC_Power]

Absolutely regarding Anzac Day.

The AFL using the day to make money was inevitable.

Knowing the AFL and money, won’t be a surprise if they go the Indigenous Round path and make it two rounds so everyone gets the chance to host an Anzac themed game.

 

[voorhees]

LOVED- * pt.adel, big boys win
* GWS getting the points in a cracking game.


LEARNT- *so hard to put your finger on the Suns, up and down per week.
* S.A show down is going to be very interesting this week

HATED- the umpires in rich v dees, hands down some of the most one sided terrible display we have seen all year.
Awarded the dee's all night and gave the tigers absolutely nothing.

 

[MarcMaverick]

This round was also case of one step forward two steps back.
Last round was underrated, this round was complete dross.

 

[Orange crush]

LOVED- * pt.adel, big boys win
* GWS getting the points in a cracking game.


LEARNT- *so hard to put your finger on the Suns, up and down per week.
* S.A show down is going to be very interesting this week

HATED- the umpires in rich v dees, hands down some of the most one sided terrible display we have seen all year.
Awarded the dee's all night and gave the tigers absolutely nothing.

If North got stitched up like your guys were, then they could complain

 

[brutus76]

Liked - Old men Neale and Pendles showing the kids how it's done

Learnt - Lions are still bloody good even with half a dozen Premiership players still out - GOD WE'RE SO SHEITE

Hated - the umpires and the commentary are at the lowest levels ever - simplify the rules and get some new bodies to replace the old fossils in the booth

 

[Hawksboy72]

Liked: 6& 1 after 7 matches with basically a 1 man midfield. Pendles absolute Legend best pure footballer I've seen since the late great Robbie Flower.

Learnt: Weddle having a shocker of a season. We are probably still 2 or 3 short of being an absolute bonafidie premiership contender.

Hated: The Umpiring & The Arc...seriously..we have possibly the best sport in the world and its run by .

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

Learnt that Greg Swann is a ****ing moron if he thinks Ben Miller should let Max Gawn

11

Max Gawn

Age

34

Ht

209cm

Wt

110kg

Pos.

Ruck

Career

Season

Last 5

D

14.1

4star

K

7.4

3star

HB

6.7

4star

CL

2.8

4star

HO

35.3

5star

D

18.5

4star

K

11.5

4star

HB

7.0

4star

CL

3.5

4star

HO

29.2

5star

D

8.4

3star

K

3.6

2star

HB

4.8

4star

CL

1.0

3star

HO

15.6

5star

stroll into his forward 50 un-manned.

What an absolutely idiotic thing for someone who was supposedly going to “fix” the game, to believe.

Give him the boot already.

 

[Iamspock]

Learnt that Greg Swann is a ****ing moron if he thinks Ben Miller should let Max Gawn stroll into his forward 50 un-manned.

What an absolutely idiotic thing for someone who was supposedly going to “fix” the game, to believe.

Give him the boot already.

I can't believe that Swann kept a straight face when he said the clubs have said that the umpiring is the best it's ever been.....

 

[MarcMaverick]

Gregg Swann:

 

[MarcMaverick]

I can't believe that Swann kept a straight face when he said the clubs have said that the umpiring is the best it's ever been.....

 

[The_Game_1981]

Liked: Only Geelong let me down in the tipping.

Learned: The ray of hope earlier in the season that with two wins that the Eagles might have the ability to eek out a couple more wins against some of the lower ranked teams was a false dawn.

Hated: A 101 point loss against St Kilda, ST KILDA! Couldn't even give a decent account against a bottom 6 team

 

[JoondalupJ]

Liked
Pendles - absolute champion

Hated
That I am struggling to actually watch games.
YouTube continues to outplay Kayo
Footy administrators are killing my desire and the thought of another team diluting an already weak brand is strong.
How can a new team be approved prior to working out how the fixture would accommodate them and function is beyond belief, as an example.

Learned
The game is in an even deeper putrid state than I thought.
However my rusted on love of the Pies after nearly 50 years of following them is hard to break

You sound like me. And as for round 7? Look at last night round 8.
If a side deserved to lose my mob did.

Not just the kicking for goal, the fumbling, bad handpassing looking stumped and lost. Round the ground on TV it looked like Collingwood had my boys done over.
We're not that bad, but only luck got the draw. And the umpiring well that is the rot of too many new non understandable rules that are now becoming a plague to our Australian Rules elite sport.
Its anto contact now.
Like you, and I am an oldie, I 've followed and been a member for 30 yrs been mad for them Hawks all of my 75 years, so I have no where else to go either, but follow what is part of my culture, as corporate greed and ridiculous over kill of stupid penalties destroys it.
Expansion is a killer has degraded the game, and the top liners are few and far between.
The pool of players is diluted to hell.
Its not just me surely.

 

[peetoo]

The bottom teams of mid 2020s are that far ahead of those in the nineties for sure. Not sure I get the ‘talent dilution’ approach

 

[JoondalupJ]

The bottom teams of mid 2020s are that far ahead of those in the nineties for sure. Not sure I get the ‘talent dilution’ approach

Its quite simple. Dilution is when you add too much of one thing to a stretched pool of any kind of elite.

Its like putting tap water in a beer. The beer is fantastic, because its specialised its real.
Pour half a glass of water into that beer and it ain't beer.
Its like adding a lesser quality because you have too many breweries you've added, to make more "TV rights" oops money.
So to keep the "money" flowing you send the extras less quality hops.
Cause you can't find any goodies left.The farm yard is too small.

We had enough, with 16 teams almost too many.

We have eighteen now and an AFL that expanded because of TV money rights, "hops" is the product too many breweries is the degrading of the drink?

Its the same when you run out of elite or extreme talented players in a pool, in footy you get a mix of elite near elite and just make it.

If you have no good administration, you get over run by better recruiting smart running admins footy depts! .
But then you form teams with a handfull that would never have made it to the firsts, with 12 or 14 clubs.
Maybe even 16 clubs.
Because we don't have the human pool of people in our population who can play this game and win most of the time.

Look at Essendon and Carlton they appear to be floundering with faults that can only be determined by looking at how they look when they play?
OK but they fail somewhere, somehow in the term of four quarters.

Its why I say we have too many teams, we have a pool of players which most are up there, but we also have a percentage of those players mispicked or not hunted as recruits hard enough. Or trading nous

Or the egos of administrators that won't let a player go, who doesn't want to be there.
Thats why we have maybe "MAYBE" 6 teams that can win a flag and 12 that will be the also rans.
And another AFL bright spark introducing a wild card game, FOR WHAT......MORE MONEY.

Basically!!!!! We do not have the population to gather enough players in an elite pool to all be fairly competitive for 18 teams to all have a chance, over a ten year period to get close to a GF.
Let alone win one.
Look at the Saints, 60 years 1966 1 point..

Then you have the confusion of rules of weakening the contact and contest, umpires who make regular unfair decisions and a large group of national league football clubs that barely win a game.

Every team needs a back up crew, to bolster depth, if you recruit for Reserves and injuries as well as firsts teams you need nearly 70 to 90 players, teams are 23 players picked now, then reserves teams, then the teams your club bleeds off out of the VFL SANFL WAFL QLD NT SA TAS NSW, name it, they need more than double the player count for all the situations that develop each week for player numbers, AT THE ELITE LEVEL. They don't have enough most of them. Hence the lesser pool talent to fill 18 soon 19.

I remember Fitzroy grabbing two blokes out off a local Bulleen club to play seniors, that was a long time ago. Ran out of form or uninjured players.

Point being, is the pool knowing how big it gets, with not the population to field 18 elite teams.

It looks like what we see today.... 8 , 10, 12 teams that may not see a grand final for another 60 years.
Because it is so hard to play our game at that level and we have TOO MANY teams.

Watch the women's game fold if they keep adding teams?

And watch the AFL when Tassie arrives, and how do you fill league teams in the next five years men or girls, it creates lesser quality. We are the public and pay for this!!

That's what and how I see AFL rule fiddling and confusion, ruining a game that, no one else in the world can play it like here!

You almost have to grow up with it.

And even then per year having only about 1000 who can get anywhere near the level.

Thats what diluting an already overloaded league.

It sees the AFL fiddle with the games rules and makes it a confusing, castrated run around by yourself sport, because you can run likethe wind but maybe not pass confidently?

Where most stats are from being alone.

Only the real footballers who practice and train like mad are those that win the ball any which way.

Footballers, Heeney is one,a genius natural FOOTBALLER

Little Wizard is another real footballer. Sam Mitchell was one.

There are many who are, there are many many who are not over the last, 20 years.
Footy is not footy, We're losing it for what it was. The AFL expanding its bank account and autocracy!

And all the fancy pants so called skills are circus, not competition, the throwing. the rules for 50 m

The standing by to watch a runner, to back off when an opponent is running toward you,

The don't close check barely at all.

And have opponents running free down the ground all by themselves. AND MOST OF HOW TEAMS GET TO THE FORWARS LINE IS KEEPINGS OFF!

Just a last note re the 70's 80's 90's in my ravings.

Remember when Vander-Har and Peter Knights used to take speckies all bloody Saturday arvo against each other!

Or Peter Hudson would get mauled by Wes Lofts and still kick bags of goals.

I love the game still, the parts I understand ,its all I've got, the advancement in fitness and allowances by rules for not so skilled footballers, is killing its spirit!

So get your teeth into that. Soon it will not look like Australian rules football.

 

[Roylion]

I remember Fitzroy grabbing two blokes out off a local Bulleen club to play seniors, that was a long time ago. Ran out of form or uninjured players.

Who were these players? The Bulleen-Templetowe-Doncaster area was certainly in Fitzroy's recruiting zone and did supply players such as Richard Osborne, Gary Pert, Simon Hawking, Grant Lawrie, Duane Rowe and Shane Gilmore, amongst others.

 

[peetoo]

Its quite simple. Dilution is when you add too much of one thing to a stretched pool of any kind of elite.

Its like putting tap water in a beer. The beer is fantastic, because its specialised its real.
Pour half a glass of water into that beer and it ain't beer.
Its like adding a lesser quality because you have too many breweries you've added, to make more "TV rights" oops money.
So to keep the "money" flowing you send the extras less quality hops.
Cause you can't find any goodies left.The farm yard is too small.

We had enough, with 16 teams almost too many.

We have eighteen now and an AFL that expanded because of TV money rights, "hops" is the product too many breweries is the degrading of the drink?

Its the same when you run out of elite or extreme talented players in a pool, in footy you get a mix of elite near elite and just make it.

If you have no good administration, you get over run by better recruiting smart running admins footy depts! .
But then you form teams with a handfull that would never have made it to the firsts, with 12 or 14 clubs.
Maybe even 16 clubs.
Because we don't have the human pool of people in our population who can play this game and win most of the time.

Look at Essendon and Carlton they appear to be floundering with faults that can only be determined by looking at how they look when they play?
OK but they fail somewhere, somehow in the term of four quarters.

Its why I say we have too many teams, we have a pool of players which most are up there, but we also have a percentage of those players mispicked or not hunted as recruits hard enough. Or trading nous

Or the egos of administrators that won't let a player go, who doesn't want to be there.
Thats why we have maybe "MAYBE" 6 teams that can win a flag and 12 that will be the also rans.
And another AFL bright spark introducing a wild card game, FOR WHAT......MORE MONEY.

Basically!!!!! We do not have the population to gather enough players in an elite pool to all be fairly competitive for 18 teams to all have a chance, over a ten year period to get close to a GF.
Let alone win one.
Look at the Saints, 60 years 1966 1 point..

Then you have the confusion of rules of weakening the contact and contest, umpires who make regular unfair decisions and a large group of national league football clubs that barely win a game.

Every team needs a back up crew, to bolster depth, if you recruit for Reserves and injuries as well as firsts teams you need nearly 70 to 90 players, teams are 23 players picked now, then reserves teams, then the teams your club bleeds off out of the VFL SANFL WAFL QLD NT SA TAS NSW, name it, they need more than double the player count for all the situations that develop each week for player numbers, AT THE ELITE LEVEL. They don't have enough most of them. Hence the lesser pool talent to fill 18 soon 19.

I remember Fitzroy grabbing two blokes out off a local Bulleen club to play seniors, that was a long time ago. Ran out of form or uninjured players.

Point being, is the pool knowing how big it gets, with not the population to field 18 elite teams.

It looks like what we see today.... 8 , 10, 12 teams that may not see a grand final for another 60 years.
Because it is so hard to play our game at that level and we have TOO MANY teams.

Watch the women's game fold if they keep adding teams?

And watch the AFL when Tassie arrives, and how do you fill league teams in the next five years men or girls, it creates lesser quality. We are the public and pay for this!!

That's what and how I see AFL rule fiddling and confusion, ruining a game that, no one else in the world can play it like here!

You almost have to grow up with it.

And even then per year having only about 1000 who can get anywhere near the level.

Thats what diluting an already overloaded league.

It sees the AFL fiddle with the games rules and makes it a confusing, castrated run around by yourself sport, because you can run likethe wind but maybe not pass confidently?

Where most stats are from being alone.

Only the real footballers who practice and train like mad are those that win the ball any which way.

Footballers, Heeney is one,a genius natural FOOTBALLER

Little Wizard is another real footballer. Sam Mitchell was one.

There are many who are, there are many many who are not over the last, 20 years.
Footy is not footy, We're losing it for what it was. The AFL expanding its bank account and autocracy!

And all the fancy pants so called skills are circus, not competition, the throwing. the rules for 50 m

The standing by to watch a runner, to back off when an opponent is running toward you,

The don't close check barely at all.

And have opponents running free down the ground all by themselves. AND MOST OF HOW TEAMS GET TO THE FORWARS LINE IS KEEPINGS OFF!

Just a last note re the 70's 80's 90's in my ravings.

Remember when Vander-Har and Peter Knights used to take speckies all bloody Saturday arvo against each other!

Or Peter Hudson would get mauled by Wes Lofts and still kick bags of goals.

I love the game still, the parts I understand ,its all I've got, the advancement in fitness and allowances by rules for not so skilled footballers, is killing its spirit!

So get your teeth into that. Soon it will not look like Australian rules football.

Some of your points state that the ‘good old days’ was worse
Are you agreeing with me?

 

[MarcMaverick]

Who were these players? The Bulleen-Templetowe-Doncaster area was certainly in Fitzroy's recruiting zone and did supply players such as Richard Osborne, Gary Pert, Simon Hawking, Grant Lawrie, Duane Rowe and Shane Gilmore, amongst others.

My old stomping grounds.

 

[JoondalupJ]

Who were these players? The Bulleen-Templetowe-Doncaster area was certainly in Fitzroy's recruiting zone and did supply players such as Richard Osborne, Gary Pert, Simon Hawking, Grant Lawrie, Duane Rowe and Shane Gilmore, amongst others.

I think Newton and Renwick, were their names its a long time ago.
They both played for the Roys. Afterwards. I remember people talking about Fiztroy
running out of players, why I don't know, but they grabbed two blokes to fill in .

It wasa while before the moving of the Fitzroy FC to the north happened. I am a fossil.