2016 AFL Season Discussion

Well; the end of an era, and perhaps the start of a new one.

After all the carry on tonight, can't half tell that the "controversy" was never about Geelong not getting their game at Simmonds, it was about some Dogs fans not being able to get a seat at an away game.

Yeesh

Also Clarkson's presser was a bit... odd. Yeah Hawks made a lot of tackles but that's because they were always second to the pill at the contest, clamping a tackle with no prior rather than winning the ball themselves. Dogs were their usual manic ferocious self, with their crazy ability to move the ball in a slick chain of handballs. Rarely were they run down or caught napping (Cordy excluded). You can't arbitrarily claim 20 holding the ball calls from 104 tackles when that simply isn't what happened in the game. Not saying the umps were 100% accurate (any backwards over the head handball is a throw in my book by Libba got away with it), but they're were only a handful of questionable calls (ruck free to McEvoy, high free to McLean, come to mind)

Congratulations to the remarkable, never-say-die Western Bulldogs. They were magnificent last night. Jeepers, any Dogs supporter who is not a member of the club.....these young pups are going to take you on a very exciting ride over the next few years.

To my Hawks: I simply say thank you. As Dermott said in the post-match coverage last night, every supporter begins the season hoping that their team can win a premiership. The run of four straight Grand Finals and three successive premierships is not meant to happen in the eighteen-team competition.

On a positive note, I can now watch my first Grand Final since 2011 without cowering behind the arm chair!!

If that's a Bulldogs-Giants prelim...
That will be HUGE

WHAT AN UNBELIEVABLE GAME!

Congrats to the doggies hope they and the Bont pull through in the GF....Would be a great story

Crap what a game

For people who say that "sport doesn't matter", I simply ask you to watch the scenes following tonight's game. Few things draw us closer together in our increasingly fractured and divided society than our love of sport and our own club or team. Grown men and women - old men and old women for that matter! - crying tears of joy and hugging each other in sheer, unbridled excitement.

That was as good a final as I have seen, probably the most thrilling (from a neutral point of view) since the 2009 Grand Final to be honest. What about those bloody never-say-die Bulldogs?! Defeating West Coast (away), Hawthorn and then Greater Western Sydney (away) to reach the big dance. All from seventh position, the first team to do so since the inception of the final eight.

Up there with the 2013 prelim between Hawks and Geelong, what a classic. Great effort by the dogs. Every fan except Swans fans will be behind them this week, just sad Bob Murphy couldn't be there for the big one. Here's a question, in the history of this final 8 system, has the grand final ever been played between 2 teams who had to play every week of the finals? Both teams who won first week and got the week off lost. Might have something to do with the bye before finals in my opinion. I say scrap that bye week, if you win enough games to earn the right to rest players I say good luck to ya.

So here's my thoughts on the GF while they're fresh.

Let me start by saying it was a highly entertaining game, tough and fiercely contest, I thoroughly enjoyed watching (most of) it.

But it had problems... well one that immediately comes to mind; the umpires.

That had to be one poorly umpired game. I'm not one to believe free kick counts have to be balanced, and I'm not one to blame a loss on a bad call or two when so many moments can dictate the game within the four quarters, but the Swans couldn't buy a decision their way today. They were torched by so many non-calls it was maddening, and I'd argue it lead to the Hannebery injury, when two previous contacts below the knee were let go (and in the first instance, paid the other way). And at the end of the day it does show up in the stats with the Dogs winning the count 20-8. Which by the way equals the record for the lowest free kick count in an AFL Grand Final (North Melbourne with 8 in 1996).

Also felt like some of Liberatore's handballing was highly questionably. Manages to consistently "flick" the ball 20 feet in the air from the bottom of a pack with little range of motion.

And this in turn makes it harder to judge the game as a free kick can let a team move the ball down field, while a play-on or ball up keeps it trapped where it is.

But what the Dogs did do well, and have done all Finals Series is suffocate their opposition with pressure. Swans weren't allowed their customary fast start, they beat them at the contest, and they contained (an albeit hobbled) Franklin. Everyone largely contributed with Hamling and Boyd crashing packs to pluck marks to control the momentum.

(here I'll make special mention of Hamling; delisted at Geelong having never played a senior game in 3 years, now an AFL Grand Final winner. I had his guernsey #'d DPS... forget who I sold it to)

Swans on the other hand had some notable absentees. With Franklin clearly hindered and getting double teamed, Rohan and Tippet needed to stand up and provide options to create space. They did neither. The midfield was valiant, especially Kennedy, but they struggled to get clean ball and move it forward, missing targets and turning it over. There were also some early whiffs at goal that proved costly.

So at the end of the day the better team won in an highly entertaining, slightly unsatisfying, Grand Final.

Picken was totally robbed of the Norm Smith btw. Wouldn't have even had JJ top 5 on ground. This obsession with total disposals needs to die.

Lazlow said:

So here's my thoughts on the GF while they're fresh.

Let me start by saying it was a highly entertaining game, tough and fiercely contest, I thoroughly enjoyed watching (most of) it.

But it had problems... well one that immediately comes to mind; the umpires.

That had to be one poorly umpired game. I'm not one to believe free kick counts have to be balanced, and I'm not one to blame a loss on a bad call or two when so many moments can dictate the game within the four quarters, but the Swans couldn't buy a decision their way today. They were torched by so many non-calls it was maddening, and I'd argue it lead to the Hannebery injury, when two previous contacts below the knee were let go (and in the first instance, paid the other way). And at the end of the day it does show up in the stats with the Dogs winning the count 20-8. Which by the way equals the record for the lowest free kick count in an AFL Grand Final (North Melbourne with 8 in 1996).

Also felt like some of Liberatore's handballing was highly questionably. Manages to consistently "flick" the ball 20 feet in the air from the bottom of a pack with little range of motion.

And this in turn makes it harder to judge the game as a free kick can let a team move the ball down field, while a play-on or ball up keeps it trapped where it is.

But what the Dogs did do well, and have done all Finals Series is suffocate their opposition with pressure. Swans weren't allowed their customary fast start, they beat them at the contest, and they contained (an albeit hobbled) Franklin. Everyone largely contributed with Hamling and Boyd crashing packs to pluck marks to control the momentum.

(here I'll make special mention of Hamling; delisted at Geelong having never played a senior game in 3 years, now an AFL Grand Final winner. I had his guernsey #'d DPS... forget who I sold it to)

Swans on the other hand had some notable absentees. With Franklin clearly hindered and getting double teamed, Rohan and Tippet needed to stand up and provide options to create space. They did neither. The midfield was valiant, especially Kennedy, but they struggled to get clean ball and move it forward, missing targets and turning it over. There were also some early whiffs at goal that proved costly.

So at the end of the day the better team won in an highly entertaining, slightly unsatisfying, Grand Final.

Picken was totally robbed of the Norm Smith btw. Wouldn't have even had JJ top 5 on ground. This obsession with total disposals needs to die.

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You're kidding right?
JJ was a great choice.

What a GF. Entertaining on both sides of the ball, despite what I believe is some bias towards the Bulldogs as for umpiring.

I should note that I live in Murrumbeena, VIC, which just happens to be the home of this year's Grand Final Sprint winner (I live 500m from the footy ground where the winner plays).
I can't remember the guys name who won, but 'Beena is proud.

Let's hope for a Tigers victory next year!

Congratulations Western Bulldogs. Terrific Finals series.

I thought JJ turned the ball over far too much in the first half. Picken was my pick and actually thought he had it in the bag at the end of the game. Was an awesome game, loved every minute of it. Was even bagged out for wearing a Bulldogs jumper even though I'm a Hawks man. Just have to add something, famous line from Buddy when he left the Hawks, 'I want to win more premierships'. Well Bud, probably should have stayed at the Hawks mate lol.

There is no "I" in "team", but there is a "WE" in "Western Bulldogs".



Luke Beveridge: "This is yours mate, you deserve this more than anyone".

These are the moments that represent what sport should be. What it must be. Why we love it.

As a swans fan that attended yesterday I want to start by saying congratulations to the bulldogs, they were the better team on the day.

Like Kennedy said this loss was harder than 2014, with that we knew it was all over at half time, yesterday there was hope until the final 10 minutes.

Yes the umpiring was awful, from a swans perspective but I doubt it actually impacted on the final result.

On grand final day the umpires should not be noticed and they were.

Most of the same players that had shockers in 2014 had shockers yesterday as well, Rohan and Lloyd come to mind. One that played well after a poor 2014 was Rampe.

Will be interesting to see how the bulldogs go next year as the hunter will now be the hunted.

The one plus I can take from yesterday, there were 16 other teams not there.

Rampe and Grundy were phenomenal down back

Interesting point people are bringing up today; how does Cloke go next year at the Dogs with the emergence of Boyd and the return of Crameri?

Rampe is a Star for the Swans down Back. The problem Sydney have is they don't have a very good foward line. They have the best "points conceded" record for a reason. So they don't have to out score there opponents by much. To be honest it's a one man foward line. Only Buddy got 30 or more goals this season. Top 5 were: Buddy 81, Papley 29, Heeney 28, Parker25, Rohan 25.
I knew the Doggies would win if they could stop there foward line. Big if , but they did and they won. 8 out the 10 Sydney goals came from mids and backs.
I thought the Doggies would win but If Buddy kicked a bag then different story. I don't know how much pain Buddy was in (if any) when he landed awkwardly on his teammates foot early in the match. My guess is he did play with pain because he went down the players race at one stage.
Close game right until the last 6 or so minutes.
Fantastic season. 2017 will be even better.

Oh if only this could shit Eddie up...

Greater Western Sydney lost access to more than $1.1 million extra salary cap space over the next two years as part of the AFL's new competitive balance policy.

The Giants' total player payments have been reduced two years ahead of the schedule laid out when the newest club's draft and salary cap concessions were announced in 2009, contributing to a list squeeze this year.

The removal of the extra money is not a kneejerk response to the Giants' success this year, but formed part of the new competitive balance policy announced in mid-2014.

While the AFL did not clarify that the Giants would sacrifice the additional money, the league said then that it intended for all clubs to be operating from an equal salary cap by 2017.

GWS was originally meant to have access to an additional $400,000-$640,000 in 2017 to help with player retention, as well as an extra $200,000-$520,000 in 2018.

The club was also supposed to have a senior list of 40-44 players in 2017, and 38-42 in 2018.

Instead the Giants will go into 2017 with a primary list of 40 players, and have to spread their cap over two more players than the 17 other clubs.

Under the original plan, the club was due to fall in line with other teams in 2019.

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Link

So after all that Ling Jong is staying with the Dogs

Also looks like Vickery is headed to the Hawks unless Richmond match the offer. He's been a dud for the Tigers let's see if Clarkson can get any use out of him.

Lazlow said:

So after all that Ling Jong is staying with the Dogs

Also looks like Vickery is headed to the Hawks unless Richmond match the offer. He's been a dud for the Tigers let's see if Clarkson can get any use out of him.

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Our compensation for him is a pick in the mid 20s or late 30s of the draft, depending on how much the Hawks will pay him.

Personally I would've been happy with just a couple of Halal Snack Packs for him

Tom Mitchell expected to request a trade to Hawthorn

Ģibbs has requested a trade to Adelaide

Wells has rejected North's offer and looks headed for the Pies