6 figures to the recruiter for finding the existing 2ic. What a joke
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AFL missed the trick this weekend with no games being played here in Melbourne. AAMI Park has a very very healthy crowd for the Storm opener.
Storm lead 56:6!
Round O shenanigans designed to draw attention away from NRL ends up giving a free kick to NRL. Hilarious really…
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You’ll find the NRL’s blocking tactics of the AFL up north are notorious. They even hold their fixture release back now till after the afl’s for this reason. It’s weird the afl never do it back and continually give them free air. The current admin is asleep at the wheel though.
When you get paid as much as these Rsoles do for doing not much, you can sleep anywhere and as much as you want.
FOAD SWMNBN for beating up and pushing the AFL to fine Alex Pearce for liking a Kneecap post on Gaza on his social media account.
ADD
On his twitter account, Pearce previously posted an article from the Rage on Gaza. I don’t suppose she can hit on her employer
Martin Flanagan on twitter is worth following on this issue.
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Does anyone know when the rest of the fixture will be announced? I’m keen to get over for a game but need to book flights soon. So frustrating that the AFL hold it off for so long.
It may not be that far away. They started “leaking” the AFLW draw this week, and have said its further release depends on the unannounced AFLM. They have hinted towards a double-header or two.
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Now the AFL censors are going to censure Rioli with a one match suspension. When it was agreed within the club beforehand that he wouldn’t be playing.
Slapped with a wet bus ticket. AFL is running scared. I’m just not sure why.
Brownie points to Brad Scott for going public in saying that Essendon didn’t have an ongoing problem with Rioli’s post about an Essendon player after Rioli apologised and deleted. Sorted between the clubs without any need for the AFL to intervene.
Geelong did the same and that’s part of the issue. By Geelong and Essendon sorting this out internally with Port this has been allowed to continue and now the Dogs are also doing the same. Port has let this go on for far too long and Rioli has a long history of poor decisions and bad behaviour and yet Port allow it to continue
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Port bringing the game into disrepute
All the AFL ever cares about after money: optics.
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Except in this case the optics are terrible…
They have fkd this one up beyond normal AFL fk up levels.
Honestly. Suspension for a month. This isn’t on, we are making it clear. In four-five weeks Rioli comes back and most people will have moved on.
But no. The AFL are trying to play chess when there are uno cards on the table.
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Geez Dillon and Kane have been really disappointing. I actually knew a bit of Dillon before he was appointed and rated his knowledge, but he’s the typical 2ic that gets promoted beyond his means.
He’s so indecisive and is still super awkward when interviewed, imagine him trying to talk to rich and powerful people trying to get funding for the game, sponsorship etc.
He cannot make a decision and the only times he has been decisive is the ridiculous over the top fines and suspensions (hinkley, giants mad Monday, on field sledging, 3 week tackle suspensions) for trivial or accidental incidents, whilst turning the other cheek to more intentional or more dangerous occurrences (balta, rioli post game threats etc).
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Dillon now saying that players have to report threats to the AFL before it hits the threats. I guess that means it will be Roberts who gets suspended.
So the umps handled it perfectly the Kane through them under the bus either because someone somewhere was ignorant or strangely decided to lie. the AFL will close ranks around Kane no doubt but honestly i’m pretty sick of the ministry of truth being run over there.
‘Got to be a huge inquest’: Buckley calls for investigation over AFL’s umpires statement
By Andrew Wu and Brittany Busch
Updated May 14, 2025 — 11.29amfirst published at 10.17am
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The AFL Players Association has called for protocols around on-field player safety to be tightened after the botched handling of Lachie Schultz’s concussion last Thursday night.
The AFL’s football boss Laura Kane took responsibility for the Schultz situation after it emerged on Tuesday night that umpires were aware the Collingwood player was lying injured on Optus Stadium, despite the AFL initially saying umpires had told the league they hadn’t seen him.
Lachie Schultz of the Magpies collapses in the hands of medical staff.Credit: Getty Images
But former Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley said the on-field incident was a red herring, and after hearing the tapes thought the umpires handled the situation “perfectly”.
He said the focus should instead be on investigating who was responsible for the AFL making a false statement.
The audio of the umpires’ on-field discussion was played on Seven’s The Agenda Setters on Tuesday night in an embarrassing situation for the league.
“There’s got to be a huge inquest and time spent on this, and really open and transparent communication of what has occurred,” Buckley told SEN on Wednesday. “It’s not acceptable.”
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How the umpires handled Schultz concussion
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“If Laura Kane has been informed [the umpires did not see Schultz] and she’s gone with it … trusting the person that has informed her, well then it needs to go down the chain to find out who came to this conclusion without doing the work [of checking the tapes] and they need to be counselled.
“There’s going to be some people with egg on their faces. So go and get all that information. And whoever’s going to have egg on their face, make sure that the egg lands where it should, and then communicate that and accept responsibility for it.”
Buckley said he was angry at the lack of transparency and sceptical at the suggestion the umpires had not told the truth.
“I can’t see how four blokes could conspire to lie to their bosses after having handled the situation well,” he said.
“I’m angry. I’m agitated … It might be a bit of PTSD, when you get in a team or an organisation and mistruths are spoken or ownership isn’t taken at different levels, it throws everything into the shadows. It throws everything into disrepute.”
Essendon coach and former AFL football operations boss Brad Scott said injuries were usually handled well, and he empathised with both the AFL and the umpires in making difficult decisions.
“I understand the interest around this one, but my view is it’s fairly isolated,” he said, pointing to when play was stopped for Lewis Hayes on Saturday when the debutant injured his ACL against Sydney.
“The AFL have got a very tough job. They’ll make some mistakes – they’ll get some right, they’ll get some wrong, and even when they get them right, a fair percentage of the population won’t agree with them anyway. I’ll leave it for others to sort of judge there.”
He would not be drawn on whether the scrutiny the AFL had come under was justified.
“I just don’t want to spend a lot of time adding my view to it. My job is to coach the Essendon Football Club.”
Scott said it was not necessary to automatically stop the game because of an injury if the ball was up the other end of the ground, only if a player was at risk.
Schultz walked off the field last week with the help of Collingwood staff, and has since entered concussion protocols.
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AFL 2025
Umpires misled AFL over not stopping play after Schultz clash
His situation comes after several instances in the past 12 months of controversial handling of player injuries, scenarios players’ union boss Paul Marsh said could be avoided with clearer procedures.
Melbourne star Christian Petracca came back onto the field despite suffering what were later found to be life-threatening internal injuries on King’s Birthday last year. Geelong forward Jeremy Cameron stayed on the field despite later being diagnosed with concussion, while more recently play continued with Essendon’s Harry Jones stricken on the boundary line with a gruesome dislocated ankle.
“It is now clear that the umpires noticed Lachie Schultz’s injury and had the opportunity to stop the play to ensure he left the field safely,” Marsh said in a statement released to this masthead.
“What this highlights to us is that the process of dealing with vital health and safety issues on the field is unclear, and there are many recent examples of the industry needing to better prepare everyone for when these situations occur.
“Equally, we are disappointed that the AFL failed to appropriately review a serious on-field incident but acknowledge that they have taken responsibility for this.
“We welcome the opportunity to work with the industry to continually strengthen health and safety protocols for our members.”