What a pathetic soft game "football" has become

[mad saint guy]

A little off-topic but I'm sure Andy and Adrian are both just wetting themselves at the prospect of 11 of those wonderful 6,000-strong crowds every year.

[iwantmeseats]

What a joke Mcgzrath getting reported for running into Goddard who - PURPOSEFULLY PUT HIS HEAD IN THAT POSITION SO MCGRATH HAD NO OPTION.

Absolutely!! Simply staggering, and really really disturbing thats actually a report! Also disturbing in a slightly lesser way its a free kick, its akin to ducking to me. Though Im prett sure if a player ducks in the tackle and there is a even a hint of incidental contact, there will be a free. Very disturbing.

[joffaboy]

rry I didnt see how you adrressed they hit harder than ever apart from you saying it is soft. They run harder they hit harder blinkered people like you will never see it because you want the old hit behind the play or shirtfronts when not expecting it. no courage in that rubbish. If you drop your head these days in going for a mark it is on about 5 shows back in your day many more did it but it wasnt shown. Dont believe me watch watch some footage in your early 30's are back in the 1970's.

Oh dear. I was right you CANT read and it is not an act.

Oh dear

Oh dear

Oh dear.

So tell me plugger66 what netball bib do you put on with your skirt when you play this non contact sport?

Staged for any free kicks lately? Barged your head into a tackler so you get the ball?

Dishounourable and a soft mockery of the game perpetuated by drones who are so blinkered and really so limited in their thought patterns they cant tell the difference between a shirtfront and a hit behind play and a tough and fair tackle.

Really just repeating yourself is not a way to win an argument plugger66. You may think it is fun to bait people and troll but it just shows you as a silly person.

OH BTW show me where I said I wantred to see shirtfronts and illegal hits behing play.

Qutote me from this thread.

if you cant you will look very very foolish.

Happy netballing with the other staging barging pansies

[SaintDippa]

Agree 100% Joffa. If see one more player roll into a tackle and fall forward I'll spew.
McGrath is in trouble under the bs 'duty of care principle'. #18 played it like a pro. Head over the ball moving like one of those clowns you drop ping-pong balls down. Bang, engage the contact, get the free. Cr4p.

[aussierules0k]

[plugger66]

rry I didnt see how you adrressed they hit harder than ever apart from you saying it is soft. They run harder they hit harder blinkered people like you will never see it because you want the old hit behind the play or shirtfronts when not expecting it. no courage in that rubbish. If you drop your head these days in going for a mark it is on about 5 shows back in your day many more did it but it wasnt shown. Dont believe me watch watch some footage in your early 30's are back in the 1970's.

Oh dear. I was right you CANT read and it is not an act.

Oh dear

Oh dear

Oh dear.

So tell me plugger66 what netball bib do you put on with your skirt when you play this non contact sport?

Staged for any free kicks lately? Barged your head into a tackler so you get the ball?

Dishounourable and a soft mockery of the game perpetuated by drones who are so blinkered and really so limited in their thought patterns they cant tell the difference between a shirtfront and a hit behind play and a tough and fair tackle.

Really just repeating yourself is not a way to win an argument plugger66. You may think it is fun to bait people and troll but it just shows you as a silly person.

OH BTW show me where I said I wantred to see shirtfronts and illegal hits behing play.

Qutote me from this thread.

if you cant you will look very very foolish.

Happy netballing with the other staging barging pansies

So players have only staged for free kicks in the last 5 years. I think not. As I have said previously and will say it again just like you go on and on about the level 2 thing, the game is very hard because they run harder than ever so when they are hit fairly it can really hurt. Just one day go and sit near the fence and then tell me the game is soft. So some frees are soft since when does that make the game soft.

Now lets see how soft you are or will you show a bit of ticker and go up to some current day Saints players and tell them they now play a soft game. Come on Howde dode you can do it.

[groupie1]

I don't think it's the rules but the interpretation/over-complexity.

Example: goals kicked outside 50 are 9 points.
Goddard's was kicked from outside 50 but only 6 points
Explanation: the mark was inside 50.

my thought: just make the f****** rule the f****** rule and stop trying to nuance it.

the protect the head debacle. Some smart arse had the idea to abuse the rule, and now all players duck into tackles to try to extricate a 'protect the head' free kick. Only way to solve it is do away with the protect the head rule, or make a rule against ducking the head.

the rule's intent was to protect the player trying to pick the ball up off the ground from being injured in the head given his head was down low.


So why not make it: in possession of the ball, normal old style tackle rules apply (round the neck, too high etc)

not in posession of the ball - other players must protect the head

And there i go making things properly too complex!!!!!!!!!!!

aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

how about everyone where a helmet and we don't worry about heads

[HarveysDeciple]

apparently the days of Baldock and Bartlett are back...you can handball the footy to yourself when your about to be tackled and draw a soft holding the man free kick.....how many times did that happen tonight, terrible.

[Lachy384]

i only caught the second half
but heyne looked like he could win the ball.. though his disposal was suspect at times
geary impressed
BJ looked a class (or 2) above

[samoht]

In ground level contests, in which players are likely to bend down to pick up a loose ball - maybe tacklers should be smart and think about other options other than going for a bump and risk hitting opponents in the head.

[samoht]

apparently the days of Baldock and Bartlett are back...you can handball the footy to yourself when your about to be tackled and draw a soft holding the man free kick.....how many times did that happen tonight, terrible.

Now here's where I agree !

That should be deliberately dropping the ball.

[joffaboy]

So players have only staged for free kicks in the last 5 years. I think not.

It has become more and more prevelent. And again you make things up. I have never once mentioned a timeframe. You pathetically make things up to fit your party line AFL defence.

As I have said previously and will say it again just like you go on and on about the level 2 thing, the game is very hard because they run harder than ever so when they are hit fairly it can really hurt. Just one day go and sit near the fence and then tell me the game is soft.

What has Level 2 got anything to do with this thread? You seem very confused.

But while you brought it up. It is something that is true and factual - unlike your lies about me wanting shirtfronts and thugish hits behind play.

Found those quotes yet or are you too ashamed because you kow you lied?

So some frees are soft since when does that make the game soft.

Has turned it into a game for pussyfoot stagers and bargers - but you seem to like that.

Now lets see how soft you are or will you show a bit of ticker and go up to some current day Saints players and tell them they now play a soft game. Come on Howde dode you can do it.

What are they going to do? Beat me up? Fair dinkum your way of infantile arguments is really something to behold.

You like the pussyfoot ghey game your masters Anderson and Demetriou has foistered upon us with their pathetic knee jerk rule changes and intrepretations made by halfwittted inconsistant useless umpires who are at all times protected from even the slightest of critisism.

The AFl and people like you who slavishly and drone like support them has sanitised the game so much that a decent hip and shoulder (like Maxwells) is taken out of the game.

Goddard purposely runs around the ball so Mcgrath- running at full pace cant help but hit him high. Not only is McGrath reported but poor old bj - so injured and dazed by the abject thuggery - gets up and snaps a blinder

As for getting up to the fence. I get on the fence occasionally - it is not tougher now than 10 years ago. Actually it is much much softer because the halfwit umpires who think they are more important than the players pull up a contact for the merest and softest of contact.

But if you like netball posing as football as you seem to. Fine. Just dont try and BS the rest of us that this game is tough and hard.

It is as soft as butter.

Still waiting on the quotes where I said Iwanted shirtfronts and hits behind play like you stated I did. Found them yet?

[bigred]

The game is just far too sanitized and over umpired.

I've been saying this for a few years now...

I'm not saying the game needs thugs or kinghits and such, but there is no doubting that a lot of the physicality of the game has been removed.

Sure, the game is rediculously fast now, but at what cost.

This preseason comp is a joke.

[saint66au]

In ground level contests, in which players are likely to bend down to pick up a loose ball - maybe tacklers should be smart and think about other options other than going for a bump and risk hitting opponents in the head.

...or maybe even be first to the footy. hard to give away a free for a a high tackle when its your head over the ball

Yes the umps were soft as hell on high tackles last night, but it was made worse by us being continally 2nd to the footy

[st.byron]

Jesus this NAB Cup with its pissweak girlie rules is absolute garbage.

Back too afraid to rush a point - all a player has to do is barge at an opponent when they have the ball with their head down and they get awarded a free kick.

It is really s.hite. It is soft and it is another reason that the new "clean" corporate football under the Anderson/Demetriou rules has lost its soul and supporters aree losing interest.

I am only watching tonight because the Saints are playing. Couldn't watch last night and wont watch any other of these games.

Really sad that the once great football has been so homoginised and made beige

Another reason why my passion for football is waning.

Have to agree with JB's sentiments here. I watched the first quarter and a half and then turned it off. What a load of ultra-defensive, chip it sideways and backwards, tiggy touchwood, over-umpired shite that was.
Players too scared to risk a contest in case they lose possession. So around the boundary they go and it finishes up with a throw-in or turnover wide out on the wing or the HFF. The opposition gets possession and run it easily off half-back until they run into the flood of players running back into defence. So around the boundary they go. Boring as bat s*** to watch.
Travis Johnstone ducks his head into a Luke Ball tackle whilst Luke Ball is facing him and gets a free shot at goal. Not blaming the umpires but the direction the game is being driven by its masters.
I'm losing passion for the game. Am quite likely going to move back to Melb in the next two or three months and if that's the kind of boring, mediocre, tiggy touchwood shyte we're going to get this year, then I feel ambivalent about going to watch it. It's just so bloody frustrating and dull, I'd rather do something else than watch that.

[Sobraz]

I am 25, and footy has changed dramatically in my lifetime, let alone someone my fathers vintage... If it wasnt for the saints, id have no passion for the game...

This is what upsets me most about the game.... My old man, as passionate saint man as any, is very quickly being turned off the game by the generic, robot like method it is played in and the way it is umpired accordingly...

His yearning is NOT to see the thugish, behind the play brutality that plugger66 cant seem to distinguish from a contest, but a fair, hard contest at the ball, both in the air and on the ground, that isnt determined by the men in rainbow colors... This does not exist anymore...

Whether it is the umpires not being up to the level, or the rules governing the game being out of touch, im not sure, but there are some deep issues revolving our once great game, and it is very sad...

Watching the 1991 (??) semi final against the cats on dvd the other day (which we lost), really indicates how crap the game is today...

not queationing the players' courage or commitment, its the package that its delivered in that is stuffed....

[st.byron]

Yep agree Sobraz. The contests have been taken out of the game, both by the possession at all costs style of play and by the way the rules have changed. I used to love watching genuine contests between players like Ablett and Silvagni, Carey and Jakovich, Plugger and all the guys he terrorised. When the ball was moving towards a contest there was the expectation that we might see something special. Now, every time it goes to a contest I'm hoping that the umpires don't intervene and that the players are allowed to have a genuine tussle. The fact that I'm conscious of the potential for a tiggy touchwood free kick every time there's a contest is sad.
Another indicator of the level that my interest has dropped is the amount of non-Saints game I watch. I used to watch lots of footy, irrespective of who was playing. Now, unless it's a Saints game or a final, I'm not really interested.

[Mr Magic]

Just curious.
Do you think Hawks and Cats fans think that AFL footy is boring, uninspiring and all the other adjectives that have been used?

Are we vieiwng it the way it's being described because we haven't tasted the ultimate success?

If we won the premiership would anybody care how the game is being played, what the rules are/aren't, how the game is umpired, who's in charge, etc?

[st.byron]

Just curious.
Do you think Hawks and Cats fans think that AFL footy is boring, uninspiring and all the other adjectives that have been used?

Are we vieiwng it the way it's being described because we haven't tasted the ultimate success?

If we won the premiership would anybody care how the game is being played, what the rules are/aren't, how the game is umpired, who's in charge, etc?

Interesting question Magic. I'd probably be singing the praises of the mighty Sainters and revelling in the first premiership that I could really enjoy.
Having said that, the general direction of the game and the way it's being played and officiated is IMO less entertaining and exciting than it used to be.
Sanitised, homogenised, defensive, boring. These words apply to other teams as well as the Saints. Am just less interested in watching a game that has become over-officiated and dull.

[barks4eva]

I am 25, and footy has changed dramatically in my lifetime, let alone someone my fathers vintage... If it wasnt for the saints, id have no passion for the game...

This is what upsets me most about the game.... My old man, as passionate saint man as any, is very quickly being turned off the game by the generic, robot like method it is played in and the way it is umpired accordingly...

His yearning is NOT to see the thugish, behind the play brutality that plugger66 cant seem to distinguish from a contest, but a fair, hard contest at the ball, both in the air and on the ground, that isnt determined by the men in rainbow colors... This does not exist anymore...

Whether it is the umpires not being up to the level, or the rules governing the game being out of touch, im not sure, but there are some deep issues revolving our once great game, and it is very sad...

Watching the 1991 (??) semi final against the cats on dvd the other day (which we lost), really indicates how crap the game is today...

not queationing the players' courage or commitment, its the package that its delivered in that is stuffed....

Totally agree!

Things started going pear shaped when Demetriou took over!

And all the stupid clash jumpers mean teams rarely compete in their traditional jumpers anymore!

Example when we play Carlton, the away team wears predominantly white, as if there is even a clash to begin with

The whole clash strip agenda of the AFL under Demetriou is complete nonsense and totally unnecessary!

The spectacle has been compromised and destroyed to some degree, before the game has even kicked off!

Then once the siren goes, you have these green cabbages or whatever other color they happen to be wearing,

noting Demetriou once instructed umpires to wear yellow with dark shorts in a game involving Hawthorn who were wearing brown shors, FAIR DINKUM

the very same person, who gave himself a $780,000 annual pay rise, at the very same time he was buying his new mansion in Toorak, because apparently according to his lackeys and greaseballers, his services are so sought after that we the AFL cannot afford him being lured elsewhere

Perleeeeeeeeze, spare me, would be rolled gold comedy and make for a nice stand up routine, if it wasn't at the expense of this so called game that we once knew and used to love,

but I digress, back to the dumbpires, who in most instance lack a total feel for the game, the free kick awarded against Luke Ball when neanderthal man ducked his head, is a classic case in point!

No feel for the game whatsoever!

But in fairness to the cabbages, in many instances they are simply policing rules brought in by the laterally challenged numbnuts on the fools committee!

All in all it's a dog's breakfast of over umpiring, new rules, new licences, clash jumpers, farcical tribunal decisions, etc...etc... and is it any wonder that the game is losing it's soul!

When I go to the football I want to see both teams in their traditional jumpers without any of this clash nonsense ( it's purely a figment of someone's imagination ) and the umpires fair dinkum put the whistle away, if it wasn't for the fact that most of them already have a carrot up their arse, I'd suggest as to where they could stick them and they should only get involved to pay free kick's when they are blatantly obvious!

[duckduckduckgoose]

A little off-topic but I'm sure Andy and Adrian are both just wetting themselves at the prospect of 11 of those wonderful 6,000-strong crowds every year.

dont forget thats a 6000 crowd for an established 20 year club!
it could be a very embarassing first few years for GC17.

And as for all the whinging about the umpires and rules etc, I'm more concerned with the fact that our backline still have no answers to small opposition forwards- that Harding kid beat us last nite, not the AFL CEO.

[plugger66]

So players have only staged for free kicks in the last 5 years. I think not.

It has become more and more prevelent. And again you make things up. I have never once mentioned a timeframe. You pathetically make things up to fit your party line AFL defence.

As I have said previously and will say it again just like you go on and on about the level 2 thing, the game is very hard because they run harder than ever so when they are hit fairly it can really hurt. Just one day go and sit near the fence and then tell me the game is soft.

What has Level 2 got anything to do with this thread? You seem very confused.

But while you brought it up. It is something that is true and factual - unlike your lies about me wanting shirtfronts and thugish hits behind play.

Found those quotes yet or are you too ashamed because you kow you lied?

So some frees are soft since when does that make the game soft.

Has turned it into a game for pussyfoot stagers and bargers - but you seem to like that.

Now lets see how soft you are or will you show a bit of ticker and go up to some current day Saints players and tell them they now play a soft game. Come on Howde dode you can do it.

What are they going to do? Beat me up? Fair dinkum your way of infantile arguments is really something to behold.

You like the pussyfoot ghey game your masters Anderson and Demetriou has foistered upon us with their pathetic knee jerk rule changes and intrepretations made by halfwittted inconsistant useless umpires who are at all times protected from even the slightest of critisism.

The AFl and people like you who slavishly and drone like support them has sanitised the game so much that a decent hip and shoulder (like Maxwells) is taken out of the game.

Goddard purposely runs around the ball so Mcgrath- running at full pace cant help but hit him high. Not only is McGrath reported but poor old bj - so injured and dazed by the abject thuggery - gets up and snaps a blinder

As for getting up to the fence. I get on the fence occasionally - it is not tougher now than 10 years ago. Actually it is much much softer because the halfwit umpires who think they are more important than the players pull up a contact for the merest and softest of contact.

But if you like netball posing as football as you seem to. Fine. Just dont try and BS the rest of us that this game is tough and hard.

It is as soft as butter.

Still waiting on the quotes where I said Iwanted shirtfronts and hits behind play like you stated I did. Found them yet?

Maybe you arent smart enough to realise you said a timeframe. Didnt you say AD and AA are wrecking the game and how long have they been in power. Get it. As for umpires paying soft frees go watch a game in late 60's early 70's and there were sometimes over 100 frees paid and even though games could be rough, most frees were paid for the softest things you could wish to see so games know are not over umpired anywhere near as much as back then.

[Sobraz]

No feel for the game whatsoever!

But in fairness to the cabbages, in many instances they are simply policing rules brought in by the laterally challenged numbnuts on the fools committee!

All in all it's a dog's breakfast of over umpiring, new rules, new licences, clash jumpers, farcical tribunal decisions, etc...etc... and is it any wonder that the game is losing it's soul!

Thats an interesting point... Is it the umpires that are that bad (and getting worse), or is it the rule changes they have to interperate and implement?!!.. Its chicken and egg stuff..

Clearly there are issues with either the rules, or the interpretation... Coaches now are clearly instructing their players to exploit such 'loopholes', i.e. ducking into players front on, or just collapsing over the ball to force a 'push/hands in the back'.... Three or four in the last qtr alone last night stand out....

It is so frustrating as a spectator.. Irrespective if the saints are playing or not, over-officiating perdantic rules is becomming a blight on the game...

As for clash jumpers, that is a whole other can of worms that never needed to be opened... Its so infuriating where A.A. and A.D. have steered our game...

[rodgerfox]

For once I'd just like to see a contest or two without a whistle being blown.

But alas, I won't.

Which is why I watched the cricket instead of the footy on Friday night.


And which is why footy barely interests me these days.

[Saints Premiers 2008]

For once I'd just like to see a contest or two without a whistle being blown.

But alas, I won't.

Which is why I watched the cricket instead of the footy on Friday night.


And which is why footy barely interests me these days.

agreed, less umpires less whistle blowling

even though its great getting goals from free kicks in our forward 50 it just takes out a contest that makes this game a helluva lot more interesting