Roast Things that Irk and Pet Peeves

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Marking contest on the corridor and 90% of them end up boundary throw ins due to being spoiled. This is more deliberate than a guy accidentally shanking a kick out of bounds. Yet is never paid.

One day I think we will see a last touch rule between the two 50 arcs. Don’t they already do this in SA league?
That is last possession rule provided the last touch wasn’t something like a spoil.
 
I was a huge Menzel fan, and I'm happy to declare I rate Ollie even higher, based on current output, pedigree and potential. Menzel was a rare talent, could have been the next SJ, but we saw what happened.
OH has that innate footy nous that Menz displayed - think Menz on Swan when he outbodied him, took the ball and rebounded back in to F50.

OH has that same kind of footy smarts - and like Menz can look out of position but then reach back and take the mark. Both of them have done the same thing like that - its just that internal footy quality and ability to do those things. Tom Atkins will bust his arse every play of every game and not be able to do it regardless of the effort he puts into it.

I think those that dont rate OH will, over time, turn that corner.

Go Catters
 
Ollie hits me as being a cross between the two. His forward craft and goal smarts remind me a lot more of SJ, but he's much better overhead than Stevie was.

He's not as physically strong as Menzel, though. Menzel just had sheer strength and power for his size, even at age 19. I refer you to:

Great minds.... without seeing your post I had replied using the exact same example. See above.

Well done.

GO Catters
 

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I see a bit of Russell Robertson in Oliver Henry
 
One thing which does annoy me - maybe im exaggerating ( like most supporters do )

But the 1st kick of the game ( or if not very early on ) - there is a rushed kick out of the centre - Geelongs way - the ball might not be spinning properly - so i suppose it makes it a tad harder to mark - but it could be Rohan - or Cameron - or O Henry - or even Hawkins - the defender doesnt punch the ball away - the Geel bloke just drops it . And when the ball is going up the other end - you are thinking to yourself - why couldnt he have just held onto that mark - and we would be having a shot on goal

Even last weeks game - early on - Cameron had 5-6 juggles of that chest mark and dropped it
 
The bounce - completely unnecessary in a sport that cloaks to be professional. Only arguements I see for keeping it are tradition and being unique but they shouldn't override have a fair contest.

Holding the man when the ball is knocked out - if you aren't going to pay incorrect disposal, then dont penalize the tackler who doesn't know the ball came loose and is just completing the tackle.

In the back frees in tackles - majority of these frees are simply because the player getting tracked falls forward, dragging the tackler into their back.

Ruck frees - nobody has the slightest clue what the rules are so just let them have at it

Time wasting - grab a player who marked it despite not being in the contest. 50. Stop a player getting up to take their kick. 50. Actually penalise these time wasting tactics and it's amazing how more open the game can be if the defending team aren't able to buy more time to get back

666 infringements - no more warnings, just give a free

Ruck nominations - who's brain dead idea was this. Just pay a free if a 3rd player contests. Don't waste time waiting for 2 players to put their hands up
 
The bounce - completely unnecessary in a sport that cloaks to be professional. Only arguements I see for keeping it are tradition and being unique but they shouldn't override have a fair contest.

Holding the man when the ball is knocked out - if you aren't going to pay incorrect disposal, then dont penalize the tackler who doesn't know the ball came loose and is just completing the tackle.

In the back frees in tackles - majority of these frees are simply because the player getting tracked falls forward, dragging the tackler into their back.

Ruck frees - nobody has the slightest clue what the rules are so just let them have at it

Time wasting - grab a player who marked it despite not being in the contest. 50. Stop a player getting up to take their kick. 50. Actually penalise these time wasting tactics and it's amazing how more open the game can be if the defending team aren't able to buy more time to get back

666 infringements - no more warnings, just give a free

Ruck nominations - who's brain dead idea was this. Just pay a free if a 3rd player contests. Don't waste time waiting for 2 players to put their hands up
Get The Todd on the rules committee! 😍
 

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I will add posters constantly potting the same young players week in week out, or only turning up on the board to pot someone.
And, I should add, twisting themselves backwards to suit that narrative.

"Tom Stewart and Sam De Koning have dropped marks that they would have swallowed whole last year! This is clearly the fault of Esava Ratugolea!".

Yeah, or the obvious explanation that one of them is getting older and the other had his face broken.
 
Or the afl can buy it from them and publish it

I think it would be worth it from the afl to pay out a full year of champion data and just publish it free as a one off. See what media it generates. Could drive some conversations and build the fan base. Might get some people to pay up for champion data the next year too
Sadly I was one who was prepared to pay for it, they used to publish the AFL Prospectus as a book, i have all bar the 1st issue in 2007 and the one for 2014. But when i went to buy 2021's, and i know Covid probably damaged a lot of businesses, the book was no longer published. No online stuff would ever replicate the book, i still have them, and it's just interesting to read especially as a player's career progressed (or not)!

Another peeve of mine is how clubs, and i am probably meaning GWS and Freo, who dance around like they've won the Flag when beating us at K.P. And Dwayne's commentary of 'Tiny Dancer' or whatever it was who kicked the sealer for GWS......still damn annoyed now.
 
I have a whole bunch:

Deliberate not being paid when players blatantly and intentionally walk it out of bounds - This happens ALL THE TIME and is by far my biggest rule interpretation based pet hate in footy. We've all seen it a million times: being corralled by the opposition near the boundary with nowhere to go, a player will pretend that their "momentum" carried over the boundary line, acting as if they could do nothing to stop their feet from moving out of play. Commentators claim that the players disguise this cleverly, but I would ask how something can possibly be "well-disguised" if every single person watching it happens knows that the deliberate OOB is taking place? It's ridiculous and should be a free kick every single time. Meanwhile, the umpires WILL call deliberate for a scrambled kick out of a pack that only only goes over the line because it bounces at right angles in a manner that's beyond the kicker's control.

Our current logo - I won't go into too much depth about it, since everyone's already said it in the logo thread, but we had one of the best-looking logos ever in the 80s and 90s and for some reason we got rid of it in favour of a significantly tackier design that actively detracts from the aesthetic appeal of our merch. I pretty much only buy retro Cats merch for this reason.

AFL matches having a "host" for some unknown reason - Why do we need to put up with Nathan Templeton (or whichever interchangeable presenter it might be) yelling inane drivel at us throughout the 20 minute half time break? Why has this become the accepted status quo? This isn't Sportsman's Night at the local footy club. We don't need an MC to keep the event on track. Just let us entertain ourselves ffs. I'm sick of having a talk twice as loud as I usually would just to be heard over the host's unnecessary recap of events we just saw or their latest lame, futile attempt at crowd participation that everyone ignores.

The Itchy Feet Band - The most baffling home game institution ever. At a time when retro traditions are being discarded, the fact that club chooses to retain THIS tradition of all things is absolutely inexplicable. If the idea is that it's supposed to help the atmosphere at the stadium, then I can only assume the people who think that are all completely deaf or completely mad. Having to listen to a cacophony of tuneless brass music-adjacent noises is no one's idea of a good time.

Dance Cam/Kiss Cam/Oblivious Cam - Get this American s**t out of our matchday experience routine. I've said it before: I would happily pay a higher membership fee to not have to put up with these insufferable, unfunny, obnoxious gimmicks.

The pathetic coping from Non-Port supporters about Never Tear Us Apart - Although AFL matches can rival any sport around the world for atmosphere, we don't have many rehearsed/organised crowd participation traditions in the AFL. There's very few chants or songs, and most of those that do exist are almost impossibly lame. Never Tear Us Apart is an example of a new crowd participation tradition that generates absolutely amazing atmosphere. This isn't even a debatable point. It just objectively does. To have a whole supporter base unified in song pre-game is brilliant and is the sort of thing everyone would love to be involved in if it were their club who had the ritual. The fact that some non-Port fans criticise NTUS - one of the only legitimately good rehearsed/organised crowd participation rituals in the AFL - while NOT criticising the repetitive, cringeworthy chants that supporters of other teams engage in (can't say I've ever heard a word against the ubiquitous and near-impossibly lame "[TEAM NAME] clap clap clap, [TEAM NAME] clap clap clap) is embarrassing and smacks of bitter jealousy.

The push to Americanise the game - No, we don't need a mid-season trade period. No, we don't need a "Wildcard Round." No, we don't need endless media access to the players at every point of the game. We don't need any of this stuff. The way American sports do things isn't inherently better just because America is a bigger country with bigger cultural reach. NFL ******* sucks compared to the AFL. We have the better sport with better traditions. How about we keep it that way instead of actively working to make our superior sport and superior sporting culture more akin to the inferior sport and the inferior sporting culture?

General sanitisation of the game and overall softness - AFL's a physical sport with risk associated with it. Accidents and injuries are going to happen. At a certain point people have to accept that. There's a general trend over the past decade or so of gradually legislating bumps and certain types of tackles out of the game under the guise of protecting the players - which of course ignores the fact that players are consenting participants who are willing to accept the level of risk they take - and as consequence the game is getting softer and less viscerally entertaining to watch. The physicality of the sport is a HUGE part of AFL's appeal and there is no bigger lie than the idea that we lose nothing by diminishing that aspect of the game.

Anyone who constantly uses "the media" as a catch-all pejorative and/or anyone who has a baked-in hatred towards all journalists - This is one of those rare pet peeves that applies to both people's engagement with politics and people's engagement with sport. A large part of the general public are complete morons in terms of the reflexive distrust and contempt their harbour towards the media. This isn't to say that there aren't all sorts of areas in which journalists can be criticised, by the way, just that the overall attitude of automatic disrespect and distrust that some people have is idiotic.
 
General sanitisation of the game and overall softness - AFL's a physical sport with risk associated with it. Accidents and injuries are going to happen. At a certain point people have to accept that. There's a general trend over the past decade or so of gradually legislating bumps and certain types of tackles out of the game under the guise of protecting the players - which of course ignores the fact that players are consenting participants who are willing to accept the level of risk they take - and as consequence the game is getting softer and less viscerally entertaining to watch. The physicality of the sport is a HUGE part of AFL's appeal and there is no bigger lie than the idea that we lose nothing by diminishing that aspect of the game.
This is a really tricky one for me.

If we were "just" talking about broken bones, sure. Busted knees and shoulders, sure. Arthritis, sure. But we've just started to realise that we're talking about brain health, and that changes things.

It also changes things in terms of the concept of "consenting participants who are willing to accept the level of risk they take" - because we don't yet know the consequences of those risks. We know, to some degree, what the risks are of a broken leg. But CTE? We are still pretty much in the dark on that.
 
And, I should add, twisting themselves backwards to suit that narrative.

"Tom Stewart and Sam De Koning have dropped marks that they would have swallowed whole last year! This is clearly the fault of Esava Ratugolea!".

Yeah, or the obvious explanation that one of them is getting older and the other had his face broken.

My personal favourite example of this was a final against Port Adelaide, when Allir Allir effortlessly and comprehensively outmarked Gary Rohan (who he was thrashing).

Who got blamed on here? Not Rohan of course. The guy who dared to kick it towards a forward. Jake Kolodjashnij.

Yeah, I wasn't surprised either.
 
The pathetic coping from Non-Port supporters about Never Tear Us Apart - Although AFL matches can rival any sport around the world for atmosphere, we don't have many rehearsed/organised crowd participation traditions in the AFL. There's very few chants or songs, and most of those that do exist are almost impossibly lame. Never Tear Us Apart is an example of a new crowd participation tradition that generates absolutely amazing atmosphere. This isn't even a debatable point. It just objectively does. To have a whole supporter base unified in song pre-game is brilliant and is the sort of thing everyone would love to be involved in if it were their club who had the ritual. The fact that some non-Port fans criticise NTUS - one of the only legitimately good rehearsed/organised crowd participation rituals in the AFL - while NOT criticising the repetitive, cringeworthy chants that supporters of other teams engage in (can't say I've ever heard a word against the ubiquitous and near-impossibly lame "[TEAM NAME] clap clap clap, [TEAM NAME] clap clap clap) is embarrassing and smacks of bitter jealousy.

Couldn't agree more. The reason it works for Port is because it wasn't manufactured. It just happened. The greatest example in world sports that I know of - Liverpool fans singing "You'll Never Walk Alone" is exactly the same, it was spontaneous, and because the crowd decided they liked it, and Port fans did too, it works, and it's unique to them, and fantastic.

The push to Americanise the game - No, we don't need a mid-season trade period. No, we don't need a "Wildcard Round." No, we don't need endless media access to the players at every point of the game. We don't need any of this stuff. The way American sports do things isn't inherently better just because America is a bigger country with bigger cultural reach. NFL ******* sucks compared to the AFL. We have the better sport with better traditions. How about we keep it that way instead of actively working to make our superior sport and superior sporting culture more akin to the inferior sport and the inferior sporting culture?

Oh boy, this could run for 1000 pages easily just on that one sentence in bold. Where to begin. It's so cringeworthy it's beyond pathetic. It's a curious part of the makeup of a lot of Australian sports fans and/or most administrators - neverending, bottomless insecurity. They simply don't get that footy is a great game in its own right. The best footy players here are just as good at their job as is every higher paid athlete in the US (especially ) and Europe. They aren't superior athletes, they aren't automatically better because the market is much bigger and therefore so is their income. I've lived there twice and tried to sample the local sports and they are just utter s**t by comparison. The worst thing is that one desire by sports administrators and networks here infiltrates everything - half time entertainment, hosts at the grounds, you name it. Not one aspect of it improves footy. And it just screams "we're so insecure we're desperate to copy everything you do no matter how stupid".


General sanitisation of the game and overall softness - AFL's a physical sport with risk associated with it. Accidents and injuries are going to happen. At a certain point people have to accept that. There's a general trend over the past decade or so of gradually legislating bumps and certain types of tackles out of the game under the guise of protecting the players - which of course ignores the fact that players are consenting participants who are willing to accept the level of risk they take - and as consequence the game is getting softer and less viscerally entertaining to watch. The physicality of the sport is a HUGE part of AFL's appeal and there is no bigger lie than the idea that we lose nothing by diminishing that aspect of the game.

Again, brilliant take and spot on. You have to credit the brainwashing capabilities of the AFL. Push propaganda relentlessly enough, and most fans are too stupid to think for themselves. It's exactly what you say, footy can still be plenty physical without the thuggery of previous eras. And contrary to mythology, it was frowned upon even then and universally decried as far back as the late 1980s. Simple sentence - you can't have a contact sport without contact. And if you have contact, you'll have injuries. If you can't accept that don't play it, or don't follow it.
 
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I hate it when reporters outside the ground before the game ask supporters wearing club colours who is going to win, and they give the obvious answer. Even worse is when the report ends, the orchestrated chorus of supporters scream out in support of their team.
 
I hate it when reporters outside the ground before the game ask supporters wearing club colours who is going to win, and they give the obvious answer. Even worse is when the report ends, the orchestrated chorus of supporters scream out in support of their team.
"newsflash, Geelong nuffbag thinks Geelong is going to win. Back to you, BT"
 
After tonight I've got some new ones

Hitting the post - if the ball hits the post and still crosses the line between the posts, the relevant score applies. Anything that makes the game simpler for umpires is a good thing and keeping things in the sport where the only argument for is tradition, is stupid

Review all scores - if play needs to be stop and be reset to fix an error, so be it
 
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