Grand Final (Australian Super Bowl) in ~5 hours in case anyone wants to watch it.

Some Aussie make a write up and post itt

I have been watchin a decent amount lately but still don't know much about teams and players

Without doing a massive write up they are 2 of 3 of the most successful teams in the last decade (both winning 2 premierships a piece). They played each other in the 2012 grand final which Sydney won, Hawthorn won last year and are going for back2back.

Lance Frankline was once this..

Is now apart of the Swans...

Lance Franklin who was drafted by the Hawks and is one of the games biggest names moved to Sydney this season on the biggest deal ever made in the AFL, there's a lot of controversy over this as Sydney receive an extra 9.8% of the salary cap due to "cost of living allowances" in Sydney as they also poached another really good forward the year before from another team.

There's a lot of good side stories involved with the game, they are the 2 best teams in the comp with Sydney expected to win.

I personally detest both teams and am hoping for no one to win.

+ 1



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Lol Sydney

bump for Australian handegg appreciation. Adelaide vs. Fremantle starting now on Fox Sports 2 for Americans.

With this thread being bumped, I am going to raise the Adam Goodes indigenous celebration that he did last night after kicking a goal as a topic of discussion as to whether it was acceptable or not. It should be remembered that this is the indigenous round.



My feeling is that it was a bit over the top, especially as it was aimed at the other team's fans. If he did it again in front of his own fans, I would have said fair enough.

The background is that he was Australian of the year last year and has had a history of being racially vilified when a 13 year old girl called him an ape from the crowd during a game and made him cry.

what makes that an "indigenous celebration"?

is he miming throwing a spear?

what's the "indigenous round"?

Goodes himself said it was an indigenous celebration and made reference to the 'dance' being inspired by a junior team he visited earlier in the year.

Yes

Indigenous Round is a week of games paying respects to aboriginal Australians in the same way that the NFL and other American leagues have throwback weeks, breast cancer awareness, military themed weeks etc... all the teams this week have worn jerseys with aboriginal art featured.

it's one of the lamer controversies to hit the afl in quite some time. gillon mclachlan has correctly come out and said it's fine (which he shouldn't even have to do but for the media trying to make a story out of nothing)

bundy5 confirmed racist along with everyone else who gave a crap about it

As I said, I wouldn't have had a problem with it if it wasn't directed at the Carlton fans only which btw they were sitting in a small pocket in the crowd. If he had done it equally in front of his own fans and even if it was again later on in the game, again I wouldn't have had a problem with it.

i see that point of view, but imo it is a bit rich to characterise the other incident as '13yo girl made him cry' and then getting precious about a 5 second gesture that is pretty much the same as any other sendoff to opposition fans that has happened 1000x before

people get mad because goodes is pretty unashamed about calling people out for any form of racism. he comes accross as unforgiving and a killjoy at times but his integrity can't be questioned, it almost gets ignored that he actually has a legitimate point

imo goodes wants it one way but it is the other, white imperialist lolaboriginal token corporate-PR gesture, way

thanks for the response.

my 1st impression was someone would need to try quite hard to find something offensive about that celebration, but i know nothing about Australian racial history/politics.

the Adeliade Fremantle game was a lot of fun to watch. the first 10 minutes or so looked like it was going to be an absolute blowout, Fremantle was just dominating buildup play and every ball into the 50m circle. after that it seemed like a low scoring, scrappy game.

i have no idea how difficult the technique is, but Betts curling free kick from a 15-degree angle was awesome. i feel like a 3 year old trying to talk about this game tho, i just dont know what things are called.

good idea to watch freo v adelaide. nat fyfe is the prohibitive brownlow (=mvp) favourite at the moment (other candidate for best player itl is currently injured), and dangerfield is a great player in his own right. dangerfield is a free agent and will probably move clubs at the end of the year too, or so the rumor mill says

the betts kick is hard, the technique is called 'checkside' or 'banana' and betts is one of the dudes who habitually kicks really tough goals


on the goodes thing, your first impression would be right. history is that basically aboriginals have been getting ****ed pretty hard since the moment whitey landed on shore. there are a bunch of really depressing stats about their current status in society (life expectancy way lower, super high incarceration rate, high alcoholism rate, high domestic violence rates the list goes on), and as a personal anecdote, 90%+ of the aboriginals i've seen in person have been homeless / v poor. as a comparison, americans i've spoken to said aboriginals seem quite a lot worse off than native americans

this post from the biggest afl forum sums up the worst side of the negative reactions to it pretty well, the rest of the negative reactions are anti-goodes because of a general ethos in afl of team>self, and goodes remarks/actions over the years have often caused a lot of 'disruptive' media coverage:

lol

the only player i know by name is Betts, and when i read the MVP plays for Fremantle i immediately pictured the huge forward with long blonde hair and springs in his boots. looks like that's Fyfe.

when he marked a ball early in the game at least 2 feet higher than the defender contesting him he made it look so easy i thought the game was going to be a blowout. the game seems to be a nightmare for defending in the 50m circle, a lot of fouls made me think "wtf can they do to stop them from catching it?"

what's the ball like? it looks like a football/volleyball hybrid. the drops looked really bad when i first started watching but that has to be quite hard to catch with your hands.

officially, the rules are you can't push in the back, "hold", or hack the other guys arms. in practice a small amount of those are allowed, and normally the defenders have a good bit of leeway for contact

the thing with freo v adel was that it was rainy. the ball is pretty slippery when wet because it's made of smooth leather, so those games generally favour wim over precision, and usually feature fewer contested marks, messier disposal etc. both teams were ~10% below their average for disposal efficiency that game

i think difficulty in taking a mark has more to do with the fact that so much contact is allowed by defenders in packs (usually). the way the ball rotates when kicked might contribute a bit but players get lolled at when they drop 'open' marks

To a typical American the haka just looks like a bunch of clowns acting like clowns. He feels bad about laughing at something so stupid.

The scary thing about Fyfe is that he's actually a midfielder but he's got the size/agility to basically dominate in any area of the ground.

who are the top 5 afl players in ppls opinions

fyfe
ablett
pendlebury
buddy
selwood

?

i think the contrast with player-types like Fyfe is one of the things that makes Betts so enjoyable to watch. he seems significantly undersized and not a freak athlete, and every ball in to the 50m circle (what's the correct term for that area btw?) he an underdog to make a mark.

from an American football perspective catching a punt with your hands on the run is quite the skill. i must be overestimating the difficulty b/ it looks like players are coached to use their hands even when they're wide open, rather than trapping it against the body like an American punt returner.

mcb are all those players attacked or midfielders? are there many dominant defenders?

Dangerfield over Buddy

fyfe - midfielder / forward
ablett- midfielder
pendlebury - midfielder
buddy franklin - forward
selwood - midfielder

the most important players are usually midfielders. defenders aren't often 'dominant', when forwards struggle it's generally due to a combo of individual defense, good team defense, and the overall team effort of restricting good 'supply' (this is stuff like stopping quick counterattacks and not turning it over in bad areas)

many of the most valuable defenders mostly valued for their counterattacking ability, and those guys are normally different from the guys who would guard a tall forward directly

the afl has a player rater that does a pretty good job of identifying the best players at each position based on stats: http://www.afl.com.au/afl-player-ratings

I honestly think Gray is better than Fyfe. Not a Port supporter but he is more damaging imo.

I have it

Gray
Fyfe
Ablett
Franklin
Pendlebury

Dangerfield/Cotchin/Sidebottom/Mitchell/Hodge/Dahlhaus/JPK close behind.