Speaker 1: Another AFL mess has the league and its umpires at odds.
Speaker 1: Who said what to whom in Perth that led to
Speaker 1: misinformation and questions of integrity.
Speaker 2: The Suns ready themselves for one of the most important
Speaker 2: games in their history, prime time special occasion, vaunted opponent.
Speaker 1: And reflecting on the indigenous champions in their care Simo
Speaker 1: and Horse with their stories of some of the greats
Speaker 1: of the game.
Speaker 2: We talked about his step into it, embrace all.
Speaker 1: Of it in the room and Rent it's unedifying for
Speaker 1: a senior coach to do that. They're on the side
Speaker 1: of Cautia with the brain tape, the man on they
Speaker 1: played the best footy I've ever seen at the start
Speaker 1: of the season, and in president left the couple order said,
Speaker 1: of course they do.
Speaker 3: Is the stuff that legends are made of. What is
Speaker 3: holding them ball?
Speaker 2: I don't think I could answer it clearly right now
Speaker 2: that I can do.
Speaker 3: Something wrong, you know, and I need the game and
Speaker 3: the boards.
Speaker 2: Actually the fans, lover and with no fans, no through
Speaker 2: sixty year old?
Speaker 1: What is it about umpiring in Perth all day? Gads,
Speaker 1: I've had this nagging sense of whispers in the sky.
Speaker 2: I don't know what The Statute of Limitations is for that,
Speaker 2: because I was involved in that, Jared.
Speaker 3: I was at the cold face of the whispers in
Speaker 3: the sky, the fateful Plaine trip, coming back from perse
Speaker 3: and cured to v Frio.
Speaker 2: And here we are again with another story that's emanating
Speaker 2: out of Perth.
Speaker 1: Six days, three statements, still going, staggering.
Speaker 2: It, going to put a full stop to it. I
Speaker 2: feel like you, well, I've given you your head tonight.
Speaker 2: I think you're going to do us proud.
Speaker 1: All right, here's what we have lined up for you.
Speaker 1: Simmer and Horse, Adam Simpson and John Longmeyer Horses. You've
Speaker 1: never seen him before. I want to distance myself from.
Speaker 3: This, right from the eye. I want to get right
Speaker 3: in the middle of it.
Speaker 1: Tony Armstrong is with us and the teams for Gold
Speaker 1: Coast and Hawthorne, and there's plenty of story to tell there.
Speaker 1: And then First Crack Preview immediately following us, Ben Dixon,
Speaker 1: David King, Lee Montagne, the strategies at Players. We look
Speaker 1: towards round ten Wednesday D Day thanks to Ozzie Broadband
Speaker 1: gas who is it?
Speaker 3: D Day four?
Speaker 2: Give me this one Friday night against the Blues at home.
Speaker 2: They're three and six precariously placed. They haven't got a
Speaker 2: whole lot coming back to your ship. There's a lot
Speaker 2: in the wings. Then they've got Melbourne, Adelaide and Richmond
Speaker 2: before the bye.
Speaker 3: So this is D Day for this great footy club.
Speaker 3: We've been competing at the top end for a long
Speaker 3: long time.
Speaker 2: Coming off a Grand Final, they don't want to be
Speaker 2: another statistic if a Grand finalist that got badly beaten
Speaker 2: and weren't able to back it up and play finals
Speaker 2: for the the next year. And that is where it's
Speaker 2: heading at the moment. They can do something about it
Speaker 2: on Friday night.
Speaker 3: What about you give me the blues.
Speaker 1: I'll take the other side of that coin because it
Speaker 1: is a D Day encounter. They've won four out of five.
Speaker 1: The salvage mission is on there scrapping their way to
Speaker 1: get square with the Ledger Mart the SCG they have
Speaker 1: played out since nineteen ninety three. They have won twice,
Speaker 1: so they're two and seven across more than thirty years
Speaker 1: and there have been some fearful hidings along the way.
Speaker 1: They went there this corresponding game last year and got
Speaker 1: beaten by fifty two points and conceded seventeen goals.
Speaker 3: There is no excuse, not with the.
Speaker 1: Way Carlton's defense is now populated, and not with the
Speaker 1: makeshift nature of Sydney's attack. Get busy, take them down,
Speaker 1: win in foreign territory, square the ledger and build some momentum.
Speaker 2: They concede seven een goals against the worst scoring team
Speaker 2: in the competition.
Speaker 3: Right now, they're in all sorts. It's stacked.
Speaker 1: It's been Friday night.
Speaker 3: You're in charge. I am, I'm holding the ford here.
Speaker 2: I'll we'll do the great pregame and then the big core,
Speaker 2: which will be fantastic.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get into it. Top of the agenda
Speaker 1: the AFL's third attempt to try to clear up what
Speaker 1: happened in Perth around the Lockey Schultz concussion. Six days,
Speaker 1: three statements. It opened a chasm between the league and
Speaker 1: its umpires and has raised questions of leadership, decision making
Speaker 1: and integrity.
Speaker 4: It hasn't changed too much from our perspective. Obviously a
Speaker 4: little bit surprised with some of the internal communications, but
Speaker 4: from our perspective, it doesn't really change our position, which
Speaker 4: was we felt like on the night that the play
Speaker 4: should have been stopped. But I think everyone's in general
Speaker 4: agreement with that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, ye did you play.
Speaker 4: We're going to watch you go that go.
Speaker 3: We're okay where okay, right, understand you watch it.
Speaker 1: Felt like out here in the moment that like someone's
Speaker 1: in a state like that and we're still running around
Speaker 1: chasing a footy.
Speaker 3: It's didn't feel right. It's up the other end of
Speaker 3: the ground.
Speaker 4: I think, you know, there's there's reason to sort of
Speaker 4: let play go. But but as soon as you know
Speaker 4: there's any chance of the play coming near the injured player,
Speaker 4: you stop the game.
Speaker 3: Be kind of just helping it. Balls coming to.
Speaker 1: If they struct I understand, but that's not where he struck,
Speaker 1: had the ball, he had the ball.
Speaker 3: He's hacked the yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they can't.
Speaker 5: I think there's been times where it hasn't quite been
Speaker 5: you know, we had an, as you said, our incident
Speaker 5: the week before which we can talk I can comment
Speaker 5: on a little bit more. But you know, I think
Speaker 5: there's some there's some issues going on at the moment
Speaker 5: that I'm sure the AFIL would much rather be gone better.
Speaker 1: It is the sort of story that erodes public faith
Speaker 1: in an administration, and it has.
Speaker 3: Warts all over it.
Speaker 1: If I was going to take a stab at it, Gaz,
Speaker 1: I would lay it out like this, I reckon an
Speaker 1: AFL's stafferrang the umpires coach. In the post game. There
Speaker 1: were crossed wires, which meant that the subsequent clarification that
Speaker 1: was issued was wrong. The AFL never checks its vision
Speaker 1: and audio Channel seven does. The AFL says the umpires
Speaker 1: misled them. The umpires had never been asked. The umpires
Speaker 1: are labeled lies on TV, and there's a university lecture
Speaker 1: in how it all gets resolved from here. So the
Speaker 1: third statement has come from Laura can just a short
Speaker 1: time ago. Our process in determining what happened Thursday night
Speaker 1: fails and for that we take full responsibility. Today we
Speaker 1: have determined there was a miscommunication from members of the
Speaker 1: umpiring department, not the field umpires, which formed the basis
Speaker 1: of our initial public statement on Friday. Those team members
Speaker 1: have been counseled and reminded of the importance of ensuring
Speaker 1: our process is fully followed regarding these types of incidents,
Speaker 1: and in this instance it was not. I have asked
Speaker 1: the GM of Football Performance, Josh Marny, to review these
Speaker 1: processes to ensure the right information is communicated and to
Speaker 1: ensure this does not happen again. Everyone including our umpires,
Speaker 1: are aligned in ensuring the health and safety of players
Speaker 1: continues to be the utmost priority in the AFL. Has
Speaker 1: been in regular contacts with the AFLA today. This is
Speaker 1: bumbling of the highest order and it is chastening for
Speaker 1: the administration of the biggest sport in the land.
Speaker 3: We'll take a stab that the way you set it
Speaker 3: out is exactly how it happened.
Speaker 2: So the umpires are the ones that have been wrong
Speaker 2: in this most grievously. Now they're the ones who have
Speaker 2: got the biggest issue. As you say, they've been labeled liars.
Speaker 2: They've been set up for a full game suspension when
Speaker 2: in fact what they're accused of doing didn't happen. Now,
Speaker 2: there are other components that we can get into about
Speaker 2: whether or not the game should have been stopped, but
Speaker 2: right now that's the biggest issue on the chain of
Speaker 2: communication and how it works at AFL level is in disarray.
Speaker 3: Disarray.
Speaker 1: It takes your breath away, really, and think about there
Speaker 1: are four umpires involved. Simon Meredith is the most decorated
Speaker 1: of them and I can only imagine how he has
Speaker 1: felt across the period of these six days, never asked.
Speaker 2: He was never asked in this whole process. A man
Speaker 2: who's umpired five hundred games of football was never asked.
Speaker 2: I think that's enough right there. It tells you how
Speaker 2: badly this.
Speaker 3: Has been handled.
Speaker 1: And then the second part is the AFL never checked
Speaker 1: its own vision and audio, which is so this is
Speaker 1: they didn't do their work last week, they didn't do
Speaker 1: their work this week.
Speaker 2: It's amazing on the back of a week that they
Speaker 2: had that. You then think and again, yeah, we can
Speaker 2: talk about hindsight, but these are organizations that are employed
Speaker 2: to do this job and not make these mistakes.
Speaker 3: Here it so a week down.
Speaker 2: The track after they had this issue, can't have a
Speaker 2: listen to tape just won't take long.
Speaker 3: We've got the audio there, we'll find out.
Speaker 2: We'll be able to definitively say Paul Marsh saying here
Speaker 2: that they're equally disappointed that if AFL fad approach with
Speaker 2: review a serious on field incident, but acknowledge that they've
Speaker 2: taken responsibility.
Speaker 3: Also talked about the safety of the player. I agree
Speaker 3: with him on that the.
Speaker 2: Game should have stopped at the earliest convenience and anyone
Speaker 2: that takes issue with that. He says, oh, the balls
Speaker 2: up the other endit. This was a serious brain injury, Jared.
Speaker 2: This is not a saw no, or a sore ankle,
Speaker 2: or we've stopped the games in the past because players
Speaker 2: are out of breath. So when his hand is stuck
Speaker 2: in the motion that it was and then you hear
Speaker 2: that umpire say ooh when he falls back down, then
Speaker 2: you know you're dealing with a really serious issue. So
Speaker 2: just stop the game in mind, and I spoke to
Speaker 2: a medic coach today, won't say who.
Speaker 3: Obviously he had to come off on the stretcher.
Speaker 2: This is an area that I'm not so I went
Speaker 2: and deliberately spoke to someone else and his comment to
Speaker 2: me was, of the fifty thousand people in that stadium,
Speaker 2: the one person who was least in a position determine
Speaker 2: whether he ran off the ground was Lockie Shieltz. So
Speaker 2: there's learnings in that as well. And I know it's
Speaker 2: a I saw the doctors trying to stop him and
Speaker 2: he was pretty headstrong. If that's a neck injury, then
Speaker 2: he stays down. It doesn't matter if he wants to
Speaker 2: get up. During you stay down and you do not
Speaker 2: move that's that has to be the messaging there.
Speaker 3: But anyway that's.
Speaker 1: Getting away from that pisoute the tightening of that principle
Speaker 1: will serve the game well. So it didn't instantly occur
Speaker 1: to me that I didn't I thought the depiction that
Speaker 1: play has been allowed to go on dangerously, that didn't
Speaker 1: ring true to me.
Speaker 3: But to hear you explain it like that, it doesn't
Speaker 3: even have to be dangerously like this was. We have
Speaker 3: to show it again. This is when you see that
Speaker 3: arm motion.
Speaker 2: And then he got up and went down to the
Speaker 2: ground again, and the doctors were doing their best to
Speaker 2: stop the game. Okay, if everyone says, oh, he's okay,
Speaker 2: he's okay, all right, what harm's done.
Speaker 3: It's a brain injury.
Speaker 2: Stopped the game for however long, get him off the
Speaker 2: ground started again, and so hopefully there's some learnings from
Speaker 2: that as well. But in terms of where this goes,
Speaker 2: the umpire's relationship with the AFL is strained anyway.
Speaker 3: I think it's fair to say, and this is not
Speaker 3: going to help.
Speaker 1: How damaging to the leadership of the AFL. Do you think,
Speaker 1: particularly in the public's eyes, to have two weeks in
Speaker 1: a row episodes that have taken all week to resolve,
Speaker 1: or it looked like initially the judgmental of the process
Speaker 1: was wrong.
Speaker 3: I think the public's.
Speaker 2: The fault position is to doubt the AFL anyway, which
Speaker 2: which is a really difficult position for them. No one
Speaker 2: barracks for the so they're coming from behind, and the
Speaker 2: last two weeks have put them even further behind you.
Speaker 2: And you're a better place to talk about the machinations
Speaker 2: of what goes on and AFL house. You know they
Speaker 2: are trying to get an extra football head to get
Speaker 2: into that department, like we're talking the garlic or a
Speaker 2: Tom Harley or an a meat Bains type.
Speaker 3: And when you see this thing unfiled, then you're not surprised.
Speaker 1: This is still the betting down period of a new
Speaker 1: administration and it is an unflattering picture which they should
Speaker 1: be now chronically aware of. I think to have these
Speaker 1: episodes happen two weeks in a row, there's not strong
Speaker 1: leadership from the top that that's not This chief executive's
Speaker 1: long suit is not that is. I think the industry
Speaker 1: could use some of that at the moment, and then
Speaker 1: the decision making internally and the layers to that is
Speaker 1: pretty well laid bare in an episode like this, and
Speaker 1: it's hard to it's hard to put that back together
Speaker 1: in a short period of time.
Speaker 2: So I can understand the coaching fraternity lack of confidence
Speaker 2: permeate throughout the rest of the competition.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, I think that's very clear.
Speaker 1: And because of the relationship is the AFL dictates a
Speaker 1: lot to the clubs and that creates a natural tension.
Speaker 1: When the AFL is mismanaged in such a way, the
Speaker 1: resentment is it's forceful.
Speaker 2: And how critical is the appointment of the the role
Speaker 2: or the title that they've advertised it as, but it
Speaker 2: is the Simon Garlic, Tom Harley and meet. How critical
Speaker 2: is it that appointment gets money?
Speaker 3: It is critical.
Speaker 1: But the two key planks are in place, the leader
Speaker 1: of the organization and the leader of the football department.
Speaker 1: They are in place and have been for a period
Speaker 1: of time. Now it's their authority to fully establish an exercise.
Speaker 1: A two ice might come in and it might end
Speaker 1: up being the public face of it, but it sits
Speaker 1: with Andrew Dllon and Laura Kine right now to show
Speaker 1: that they are capable of running the organization, the sport
Speaker 1: and that they have a vision for it and a
Speaker 1: competence to deliver against that vision. That's what's missing. I
Speaker 1: think at the moment.
Speaker 3: Have they failed the game in the past two weeks? Definitely?
Speaker 2: And does your confidence now waiver in their ability to
Speaker 2: lead in the manner.
Speaker 1: That you I think they have to get going?
Speaker 3: Is what is it going to be on your watch?
Speaker 3: Do you think they can get there? You have you
Speaker 3: got the confidence that they can get to that level.
Speaker 1: They will have to do significantly better than what we
Speaker 1: have seen from them so far. So this is the
Speaker 1: moment I reckon if you get to it, this is
Speaker 1: the team that is at This is a team that
Speaker 1: it's three and six. Are you going to amount to
Speaker 1: anything or not? If you want to boil into the
Speaker 1: football terms and there's no there's now no room for misstep.
Speaker 1: We are screaming out for leadership, actual strong leadership, and
Speaker 1: not just actions, but the words to.
Speaker 5: Go with that.
Speaker 3: At the moment interesting time, they are.
Speaker 1: They are The Willi Reoli story has one phase to go,
Speaker 1: and that's the return to play and we are all
Speaker 1: hopeful that that will be Saturday. Today. He was Ken
Speaker 1: Hinkley today.
Speaker 5: His foot is not an issue. We've just got to
Speaker 5: make sure that he's emotionally in the right spot, which
Speaker 5: it looks it looks really really positive in that space
Speaker 5: because he's had a pretty good week.
Speaker 3: How is he emotionally?
Speaker 5: As I said, he seems like he's in a pretty
Speaker 5: good spot. He's had a lot of support from our
Speaker 5: footy club and I think he certainly appreciates it. He's
Speaker 5: had probably a lot of support from the community now,
Speaker 5: which certainly also helps.
Speaker 1: When do you know, like if he's fully boak out
Speaker 1: like you know where he said at the moment, seems
Speaker 1: like you're how do you puty know for it?
Speaker 5: We'll see him, We'll watch him, We'll see how he
Speaker 5: trains and will make sure he's okay. But when he's smiling,
Speaker 5: he's pretty good when he's smiling, and last week he
Speaker 5: smile very often.
Speaker 1: See will he really smile back on the footy field
Speaker 1: with an ounce of luck Luke Jackson. So this story
Speaker 1: has been through a couple of different iterations. When the
Speaker 1: Victorian media first raised the prospects of the return to Melbourne,
Speaker 1: it's got nothing to do with Fremantle and nothing to
Speaker 1: do with his footy.
Speaker 3: It's about his private life. It was scoffed that in
Speaker 3: the West, Samar he dismissed, Yes, And now.
Speaker 1: Today been reported as a matter of fact in the
Speaker 1: West is that Luke Jackson will request to trade back
Speaker 1: to Melbourne at the end of the year. For Jackson,
Speaker 1: he's lived a year wherever one assumed he was leaving
Speaker 1: Melbourne going to Freemantle, and how he is now going
Speaker 1: to live another year out wherever one assumes that he's
Speaker 1: going to leave Freemantle and come back to Melbourne.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a bit to deal with, isn't it. So
Speaker 3: who knows what's going on outside of the football world.
Speaker 3: That's for you.
Speaker 2: For those that want to comment on this or have
Speaker 2: got opinion on it, then we've got no comprehension of
Speaker 2: the issues, the personal issues, So I'll put that on
Speaker 2: the table. From Melbourne point of view, Yeah, well he
Speaker 2: would be perfect to come back to the football club
Speaker 2: to compliment a list that is in a situation where
Speaker 2: the best player and captain and megastar is getting older
Speaker 2: and older, and he's already demonstrated that he fits into
Speaker 2: that group.
Speaker 3: Really well, they've got a premiership on board. If it
Speaker 3: meant getting cozy pick it, I'm not doing the deal. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: that's one non negotion.
Speaker 2: That's where I see I can do that because I'm
Speaker 2: not a list manager, and I want to be a
Speaker 2: greedy Mailbourn supporter and I want both playing.
Speaker 3: But if it come down to it, you know, if freer.
Speaker 2: Supporters, if you throw and stuff at that says saying, well,
Speaker 2: well you on Cozie picking. I'm saying Cozy Piket's contracted
Speaker 2: for two more years beyond this year and is heading
Speaker 2: towards the top ten player in the comp in my opinion,
Speaker 2: don't get rid of him, but also go after Luke
Speaker 2: Jackson you can, and see if you can management.
Speaker 1: There's tension between those two teams anyway, So that is
Speaker 1: going to ramp up tomorrow night. What a ripper start
Speaker 1: to the round. This is perfect that Sir Doug Nichols
Speaker 1: round starts in dar On. It's third versus fourth, so
Speaker 1: special occasion, prime time, immense consequence, and the teams have
Speaker 1: a tale to tell. So the Sons didn't make as
Speaker 1: many changes as maybe was forecast. Moil and Swallow are
Speaker 1: in for Graham and Rogers, but the Hawks have they
Speaker 1: took their score early, so there are five changes here.
Speaker 1: Barris was already rested on the way and Reeves Scrimshaw
Speaker 1: Deer plays his first game for the year and the
Speaker 1: top end and McKay is a welcome return while Impy's
Speaker 1: away on personal leave. Gunst and Meek Bruce and Hustwait
Speaker 1: has been dropped.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Lloyd Meek, he's had a fantastic season and
Speaker 2: so Reees gets an opportunity. The interesting one is Kelsha
Speaker 2: year Man that we've had in here recently. I think
Speaker 2: he's got something really special about him and he'll compliment
Speaker 2: what they've got in their forward half. I think it's
Speaker 2: a bit of a hole in their whole setup. You know,
Speaker 2: maybe a child has done a really good job, but
Speaker 2: to have dear come in, he just does stuff a
Speaker 2: little bit different. So this is fantastic. This will be
Speaker 2: compulsory viewing sit down. We suspect the goal. Okay, so
Speaker 2: they gave us enough last week to suggest that yep,
Speaker 2: we can get ready for them perhaps making their first
Speaker 2: finals appearance. They can rub a stamp it tomorrow night
Speaker 2: against this really good Hawthorne side.
Speaker 3: Who are I don't think.
Speaker 2: They're at the absolute best at the moment either, and
Speaker 2: I reckon Sam Mitchell would be seeing this as an
Speaker 2: opportunity on Thursday night to go up there and just
Speaker 2: give them one on the nose, a team that hasn't
Speaker 2: lost for the last seven times at Darwin.
Speaker 3: That would appeal to Sam Mitchell.
Speaker 1: Sarah Jones leads out team on Fox Footy. Here it tomorrow, nice.
Speaker 1: Let's bring in the ex coaches Shelley, Adam Simpson and
Speaker 1: John Longmire, stories of indigenous champions of the past that
Speaker 1: they have coached, and then they're going to make us
Speaker 1: just that little bit smarter week on week.
Speaker 4: The cold in.
Speaker 3: Say yeah, I'm in Ingria. BLA can eat the pall
Speaker 3: out run. I want it all because