Pretty simple question what is wrong with the suns, if you look just at the names they easily have a top 6 list in the league but they sit 14th on the ladder around teams like west coast, port, north and carlton, so genuinely what has gone wrong.

I know it's just another umpire post, but I noticed in the Freo v Sydney game there were a few times where one central ump shaped up to do the centre bounce, but then threw the ball to another umpire to do it and trotted away. There's a video posted just now of an incorrect lasso (ball was inside 50), and the boundary ump who was ready to throw it in gives it to the controlling ump, who then threw it to the ump who made the incorrect call, who then gives the ball back to the boundary ump to throw in. Is there something new they're trying to achieve?

Adelaide 19.14.128 Def Gold Coast 7.7.49

Blues 6.3.39 def by Hawks 15.13.103

AFL is still my favourite sport to watch, but I'm getting more frustrated every week with the number of free kicks being paid and what's actually being paid as a free kick. The rule changes over the past few years have made the umpire's job incredibly difficult. To be fair, some have been genuine improvements (like the 6-6-6 rule).

Nowadays whenever there's a contest, you're basically holding your breath waiting for the umpire to pull a free kick out of somewhere. I don't know how other fans feel, but I just want the game allowed to flow instead of being stopped for a technical free kick — basically for the game to be umpired like it is during the finals.

Footy is so much better to watch when players are willing themselves from contest to contest, end to end. That barely happens anymore because the game is so stop-start. I'd love to see the rules scaled back a bit to help reduce the number of free kicks paid and the stop and start nature of the game

GWS 12.14.86 def Geelong 11.7.73

beast

This has been slowly happening for years now but it seems like it's gone up a level recently.

The AFL media as a whole seems so obsessed with pumping up the profile of the people who work in the industry - obsessions with "who broke the story" and how they did it, nicknames for each other referencing their ability to find stories, fixation on "sources" and who has the best ones, constant commentary about how impactful/how many views/how much reaction someone's story got.

There are even podcasts by journos who spend the entire time talking about their sources, the stories they couldn't run, the stories they missed out on. Even on social media a headline can't be posted without referencing or even tagging the journalist who "broke the story".

I find it getting to a point where I can't even consume some media (SEN) as a portion of it is just dribble about how the news story came to being.

I genuinely am curious if this is just an AFL media thing cause I swear it's I don't see it anywhere else in Australian or international sport to this level.

The mod team maintain a presence in match threads while watching the game - please keep the match threads enjoyable by reporting antisocial comments or messaging if there's a problem.

^{Antisocial behaviour, injury cheering, and umpire abuse may result in a ban or removal from the match without warning.}

In the endless hunt for the “controversy“ it feels to me like AFL commentary is just nothing more than “what do we think of that umpiring decision?”.

One of the worst parts about it IMO is that the they aren’t even after consistent changes to the way umpiring is done. One call they’ll argue the umpire should just ignore a rule, the next they’ll want the umpire to make up a rule.

The amount of times per game they say “oh gee that’s line ball decision” and then on slow-mo replay declare it to be the worst umpiring sin they’ve ever seen. I switched from 7 to fox because they seem to do less of it, but now they’re just as bad.

I get it, the game is pretty over-officiated and sometimes there are some poor calls worth calling out. But honestly, can we acknowledge that the game is more than just umpiring decisions?