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Every post a loser as AFL duds fans with pointless score review system | Jonathan Horn

When the AFL can negotiate a billion dollar TV deal but can’t tell us whether a goal is a goal, fans get dudded and players ask: what’s the point?As far as the AFL is concerned, every problem can be solved. Everything can be measured, conquered, spun and sold. Everything can be ameliorated with a snappy press conference, a diversionary thought bubble or a long lunch.It doesn’t always work like that, of course. The game itself operates in the grey zone. The way it’s funded and administered is built on conflicts of interest, on give and take, on taking a progressive stance one minute and cosying up to the likes of Lachlan Murdoch the next. On any given day, the governing...

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AFL must lead debate on tackle crackdown before outrage industry does

The recent spate of suspensions for dangerous tackles may be the least understood and worst explained change in the history of the sport“If we keep going at this rate, there’ll be no tackling by the end of 2024-25”, Brian Taylor squawked on Friday night. “When you play this game, surely you sign up for a dangerous game. You’re not a tiler, laying tiles in a safe environment. It is a dangerous, physically brutal, one-on-one sport, and that is the most appealing thing about it.” “I give up on that one,” Matthew Richardson said. “I’ve just got no idea,” Luke Hodge added.It was in response to Jarrod Berry being reported for dangerous tackling, which was swiftly and predictably thrown out. It...

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