Lightning Stikes 🌩️ Water Bottles 🙅 Razor's Goodbye 👋

This week on The Mason Cox Podcast, Brayden and Mason reflect on Collingwood's season, preview the upcoming finals, discuss lightning delays, and talk about Razor Ray's final game.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, legends, welcome back to The Mason Cox Show. Big
episode today, Freo fans, we feel for you. A tough
way to end the season at Carlton. Congratulations. I guess
I'm not really too sure. We're going to talk about
that water bottle that was thrown against the Onpire. Seriously,
what is going on there. We're going to break that down. Lastly,
some retirees. Razor Ray the legend himself finishes up Dusty Martin,
one of the goats of the game. He's done. Also,

(00:28):
we're gonna break that down much much more so. Settle
in because we're starting now. All right, Legends, let's get
straight into this. There's a big, big episode coming out.
Without further ado, Welcome Breton car.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Get a ice speak. Coming to the end of the year.
Sad times, but yeah I did. There was a bit
of a roller coaster on Sunday because the games were
all important. The other the other couple of days they
would just big blowouts to the finals teams. But I'm
giving my cl this week. I'm jumping straight into it
because I'm giving it. I'm giving it to the Free

(01:05):
Men football because what the hell Saint Kilda come out
and did exactly what they had to do, which was
no easy feit that the run over the top of Carlton,
and they did it in the dying seconds with Jack
Higgins snapping it across his body. Big celebrations scenes all
the Carlton fans. I kept showing them crying in the

(01:26):
in the stands, heads down.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
The finals were done.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
It was like a twenty twenty two flashback where you
broke their hearts and all over again. They were having
all those traumatic experiences because alls that had to happen
for Carlton to get knocked out of the finals was
we go over to Perth and we watched Freo win
a home game against Port. Now we know Port's good.
We get around ken Hinckley. They're now second on the

(01:53):
ladder after the win. But come on, it was you know,
literally season on the line. Your whole year you've done.
You started back before Christmas, all the hard sessions, you
go away, you come back, you do all more hard
sessions in the sun, the heat, Perth heat forty five
degree days, extras.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
You're doing your two k time trials.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
You're skinnies, you're missing family and friends and sacrificing weekends.
No drinking, you're eating right, you're doing it all and
then you come up and you dish up that putridge.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
That was that football game.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
You know.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
I sent producer Harrow on the decks. I sent them
a message saying Rotchies reserves. They would have rocked up
and they at least would have had some ticker mace
because what they put out there. And I can look
down here and every Fremantle fan on the planet Earth
would be agreeing right now, nodding at the screen with
their headphones in because.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
That was putrid. Like one, pick up the ball.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Two you've got that many forwards in your team list
of Fords. Yeah, you got big Dick Tracy. He's out
at the moment and he's an important pillar, But you
got that many Fords. Collingwood would kill to have one
of those blokes up there, but come on, they got
forty of them up there.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
Hit one of them, just hit one of them. Hit
a lead.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Move the ball quick so you can get some action
going because they just took so long and port was
just you know, meandering back into D fifty, clog out
of it and then they rebound out of there. Sarong
got tagged out of the game, first game in forty
years that he hasn't had over twenty disposals, probably not
the game for it. Uh. And the moment that Hayden

(03:38):
Young came off with his corked calf or whatever the
hell he had, it was done. It was game over.
And they just did so many stupid things, little fifty
metal penalties and like, so.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
It's safe to say Fremantle Film of the Bag rather
than Port Adelaide won that game. They're having an absolute crack.

Speaker 3 (03:58):
Very evident thing.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
And this is like disgusting for me to say. I
can't say this because I don't play footy at any
level and it's terrible. But looking at the two midfields, yeah,
you look at Port and you go, there's some savage
blokes that just want to win games of footy out there.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
They got butters, they got.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Horny frank Like, they get in there, they rip the
ball out and they charge their team forward and it
just Freo didn't have that, which was very disappointing.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
But that's it.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
They're done, and I'm gonna this is probably a bit
for later, but they also cost themselves a draft pick slut.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
We'll talk about later. We'll get into that letter. I
feel like you're still very hot. You've you've come off
the top with absolute steam coming out of your ears.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
Hot because we give it a bit of energy that
it deserves.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
And I'm just angry on behalf of the Frio fans
because that was past tackle. You know, you know they
put up the little they put up the Fox Footy
precious stats.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
I don't know what that is, but they were in
the poor.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
Calculator is excellent one end and then there's free down
the other end in the poll on the red. So
you know, you think if the whole season's on the line,
you probably want.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
To be up in the green.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah, it makes sense anyway. Wow, Well, I'm going to
continue the grilling and my clanger of the week. Obviously
there's a bit of media you could say around this now.
In the Carlton versus Saint Kill the game, there was
a bit of a disgusting act as you could say,
that was done. A water bottle that was thrown at
a goal umpire, just absolutely ridiculous, weak, just weakest pissed,

(05:33):
you could say. Then they're going through the details now
trying to find the person on cameras and stuff that
did it. And try to ban them or whatever. The
you know, the retro band's going to be for that.
But that's just it's terrible as that from the beginning.
But that's just like, that's just like you're a terrible
human to be doing that stuff. Like these people are
not getting paid the big money to be there. They
absolutely love football. They take all the criticism everything on board.

(05:55):
And you're going to do that to someone Like if
it was a player, it be just as bad, don't
get me wrong, but I'd feel like there'd be a
lot more uproar around it. Yeah, but because it's an
ompire's as much. But it I mean, the guy was
bleeding on the back of his head. They had to
take him off and put them essentially put them on
ice for the rest of the game. And for something
that is so controllable, like you would think even the

(06:16):
people around him after they him or her whoever did it,
would be sitting there going, mate, what are you doing? Yeah,
and they'd be pointing them out, saying, get that fella
or girl out of this joint. That's not acceptable. And
you hold people to a higher standard, you really do.
And I just think that was something over the weekend
you saw and just said, man, that is just that's
not what being a footy fans about.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
We've talked about players overstepping the mark at times this
year when you know you might boo, but it brings
out the passion in you, and there's definitely a line
that you can cross, and I think throwing a bottle
at someone like you should be able to go anywhere
without being assaulted, but you should be able to go
to your workplace do your job without fear of being

(06:56):
assaulted by someone, especially with well, it's a weapon, it's
a projectile. So hopefully they tuck him down and there's
no way that they're not tracking down this.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
Person therest believe there are that many cameras and more. Boy,
if they haven't caught the person yet, I'm blown away.
You've got tickets of who's in what seats, you can
easily email them back. You know, everyone's got their email
attached to it. You've got all the camera angles, you've
got the people sitting around them, Like, I'm amazed they
haven't had the person ousted yet. It's incredible.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
They'll have face scanning technology, they'll be they'll get them
and it wouldn't surprise me if it's one of those
self report things where in the light of day you
come out and you go, I've made a big mistake.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
What do you do band for life?

Speaker 2 (07:34):
Yeah, you probably have to because life for sure. Yeah,
you can't like you can back someone in. Obviously everyone
gets a chance to be rehabilitated, but you probably lost
your privilege to be able to go and enjoy the
sport that other people are just there trying to enjoy.
We all do love the passion and is what makes
the sport what it is.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
But you can't cross the line.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
So that's just beyond stepping over over the line. Yeah,
just want to that's my Clanier of the week because
it's unacceptable if I'm being honest with you. And yeah,
I understand umpires. You can get passionate about calls they're
making things like that, but there's definitely a line there
of letting them be able to go to their job
do their job without being assaulted by people in the
crowd like those absurd to think that actually happened. So

(08:18):
cleaniar to you. But let's get to the results now,
let's get into the next stuff.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
Ridiculous and we like the results this week because off
the top Melbourne they went down to the mighty Magpies
fifty seven and one oh three. That's a big win
to finish off the season for Collingwood. Hawthorne footy club.
Oh my god. Now I saw a couple of players
out there from the Hawthorn team getting stuck into the
North team. And it's pretty easy when you can say
we were tipped to be down the bottom with yours

(08:42):
and look where we.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
Are seventy points.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
You got to be as a North fan where you know,
we're very conscious about sticking the boots in.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
We'll get that.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
We'll get into that later. Geelong got the job done
over West Coast. They're happy to knockoff. I reckon for
the year. It would be very annoying to fly all
the way over here, all the way down to Geelong,
then all the way back. So I feel a bit
sorry for the West Coast Eagles players. So have a
good break, recharge, go again, Richmond, knockoff you're done to
big retirees. At the end of that, we saw a dusty,

(09:13):
teary eyed Dustin Martin coming from the field.

Speaker 3 (09:15):
Which is grimes different to see.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
I loved seeing that a bit of the human side
come out and a bit of vulnerability as he walked
off the mcg.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
Scorecast, Like you know, obviously demos over there coaching and stuff.
There would have been people within that program that he
was connected with through his time at Richmond, so I
think emotional for him leaving Richmond, but also having those
kind of people like that were at the game that
he was competing the team was competing against, still be
involved as would have been a lot and.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
We saw another goodbye. Dyson Hepple got to say his
goodbye to all the loyal Brisbane Lions fans at the Gabba.

Speaker 3 (09:49):
That was good to see.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
Got chaired off eighty seven points to sixty seven.

Speaker 3 (09:54):
Real stinker. By the looks of the scoreboard.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
Brisbane could have absolutely dominated, but just decided to kick goals.
They just wanted to do it one point at a time,
which was great for all the spectators. Sydney v Adelaide,
Sydney getting the points there, you know Adelaide so so yeah,
very dangerous at times.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
Had a few upsets Adelaide. They upset a few people
along the way.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
And then a couple of stinkers along the way. So
Western Bulldogs GWS starting off the Super Sunday and that
was a wild game out of Ballarat windsor plenty. Western
Bulldogs got the job done, which locked them into finals
because we probably didn't you know, talk about that enough
that if they had lost that game, they were a
chance to miss the whole thing. So pretty well, but

(10:37):
they got the job done over GWS Carlton.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
Wow, Wow, Wow, we we're going to dive into.

Speaker 2 (10:45):
Events losing to Saint Kilda. I don't know how you
feel about making finals after a loss.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
Yeah, but it was a real deprestating and exciting day.
Or there's a lot of emotions on Sunday as a
Carlton fan. If you're out.

Speaker 3 (10:59):
And then free, oh my god, that's the worst.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
Anyway, let's jump straight into the big talking points, because
I do want to just we need to go back,
We need to acknowledge this, We need to do a
mini reflect on it, because it wasn't us to be fair.
There's a lot of people in the media, probably too
many people, and a lot of them don't know what
to say, so they just throw ship. Now this is coding.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
Educated podcasters obviously would never do such a thing. Brandon.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
See, well, if you're going to sling ship like I
sling shit at FREEO at the start of the podcast.
Do it in the last game so they can't come
out next week and win and make you look like
an idiot exactly.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
So they're done timing.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
I've got I've got six months of being right, So
that's how you do it.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
Improve me wrong.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
That's got to really anyway, everyone came out after three
coaches in particular, we got Chris Fagan, Kenny Hinckley and
we got bever Luke Beveridge. They were mid season, they
were all sacked. Everyone sacked him. You can't go on
after that last You can't go on after that last. Well,
it turns out every team sucked this year. They all

(12:06):
had patches. Even Sydney Swans that were so far ahead
had a terrible patch, a horrific patch. So that's whirred
those three coaches.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
They're in finals, aren't they.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
With a chance home final? But they sacked him midyear.
His fans were booing him off the field. They had
the sign as you entered Adelaide. I don't even know
if that was this year, because they want to sack
him every year. Talk about character building, resilience.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
Resilience, yes, resilience under pressure. Ken Henkley is your man.
Write a book, So write an absolute book. Do some talks,
because you could you hitimize it.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
He could go on and he could be the CEO
of a Forbes Top one hundred whatever company on the
planet Earth.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
He deals with pressure that well, it's sane.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Anyway, we were always going to give our Ken Henley
love every.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
Week he's he's up the tippy top because then you
have Bevo and Fags who you know, Fags Brisbane started
slow rolled back into it. They're still probably one of
the more informed teams in the camp. Start with the
big home final up there against Carlton and then Bev
well we know that, we know that he likes to

(13:26):
finish and have a run at the flag from the
bottom four of the eighth. It's just where he's comfortable
doing it from. Who needs the double chance when you
can just you know, defy the odds. So he's back
in finals as well, he's taken him to a couple,
he's won them a flag.

Speaker 3 (13:40):
Everyone needs to just chill with.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
Just we give some space where we need a little
next year. The media like everyone I say, we but
are we we sit down, We reflect we don't go
as hard week.

Speaker 1 (13:53):
To week because give it a feedback to the media, brod.

Speaker 3 (13:56):
We have looked stupid at times.

Speaker 2 (13:57):
Old of course not you were that you were overly
steadfast on Gold Coast.

Speaker 3 (14:04):
Put your hand up for that one. That's that's on you.

Speaker 2 (14:07):
But gws, I'm still here and I must be just
correct all the time.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
Anyway, question you halfway through that you had a little
spot there.

Speaker 3 (14:15):
You're going, oh much off the bad one. There's one
game off. I was one game off.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
It's about four weeks. I'd say.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
Now we go into the North Melbourne situation, because this
is the whole you've missed them. Stats were kicking them
while they're down. To kick them while they're down, they've
got to be down, but they're never up. North is
never up, so we can't kick them. Why they're up.
They've been down for five seasons in a row. Now,
if you're a North fan, are you putting up with this?
MAT's twenty twenty three wins, twenty twenty one four wins,

(14:42):
so they're on the way up. Building twenty twenty two
two wins. That's half as many wins twenty twenty three
to three wins. Twenty twenty four three wins, so they
actually went backwards in percentage this year. So they got
beaten worse more often this year than last.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
So that's you say that. But then I think like
in the beginning of the year, North like we were like, oh, dude,
North is putting up some numbers, like putting teams to
the sword because it used to be like two three
years ago. North was like, I mean, you look at
their scores and stuff. It was probably like a sixty
seventy point win from other teams like on average, and yeah,

(15:19):
I know over the weekend they got smashed. But like
at the beginning of the year, there's been a hope
for North, there was a bit of hope.

Speaker 3 (15:25):
That's a lot of leeway you're giving to a club.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
I did write it out that it was if you
combine all the points they got from all their wins
over the last five years, so you take their last
five years, you canbine all the wins.

Speaker 3 (15:39):
They would have finished fifth this year on percentage.

Speaker 1 (15:43):
Fifteen wins, you would be fifth.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
Fifth with five years years over the winds, you can
buy them all up, and they missed the top four
on percentage.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeez, that's rough.

Speaker 2 (15:54):
How do you sit there as a fan and you
just someone did something horrific?

Speaker 1 (15:59):
Still fan that? Sorry? Yeah, North Melbourne fan. Credit to you.
Credit to you for sticking with them. You know it's
not easy. I'm sure it's tough over the last few years.
Every team has to go through this, right, but yeah,
just credit to you.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
I mean, I know it's a disappointing point because everyone
says every team goes through it, but then you can
clearly identify a few teams that don't go through it,
like Sydney and Geelong, and you're like, they don't go
through it. But yeah, I get it because we've all
been there where it's like you've had a shitty week
at work and you just want to go home and
watch your team be good at foot.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
You want to have some kind of hope, and all.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
Through twenty twenty, all through the pandemic and then coming
out and still no good. But we can see the list,
the list should be getting better. So maybe it's a
mentals thing. Have a bit of a maybe a Bali
retreat by something over the off season and sparks some
I don't know, some juice coming kind of helps.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
Anyway, We'll move to the next thing. We've got, the
wild card round. There's been a lot of converse sation
around whether or not this should be something they implement
next year or further years. I mean, next year's probably
a bit soon, but there's a lot of people saying
it's a possibility. Now.

Speaker 3 (17:10):
Don't tune out.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
If you're listening to the podcast now and you've heard
every shock jock talk about this shitty topic, don't tune out,
don't switch podcast, stay with us, because we're gonna It's
just the counterpoint for me that everyone talks about it
promotes mediocrity. You know, the seasons made up of X
amount of games, and you've got to win those.

Speaker 3 (17:32):
First of all.

Speaker 2 (17:33):
You obviously have the counterpoints of when it was back
in the day early nineties, there wasn't as many finals,
like there wasn't as many finalists. They expanded, more teams,
more finals. They've expanded a couple times now once Tazzy
comes in, more teams, more finals would make the most sense,

(17:54):
or at least a chance to have more teams in there,
because if you're at the afl AFL house, you want
fans to have glimmers of hope, like you want your team,
even if they're finishing in the lower end of the
of the top eight or whatever, top ten, you want
them to experience finals. And if you're looking at North

(18:15):
and you're go on fight, you've gone years and years
without finals. One, why would anyone want a barrack for North?
How do they get new well or any team? But
how do they how do they get new followers? How
do they get new fans? If you've got to if
you have a kid and you're like, na, trust me North,
it's a great team.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
Like how do you support? They have no choice?

Speaker 2 (18:36):
You've got to be a great marketer to get your
kid to come across the North Melbourne. But like things
like that. But yeah, I just feel like one the
fixture isn't even in the first place. Now obviously, I
think that that's the biggest.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
Thing to fix, the.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
Biggest thing to fix. It's the easiest thing to manipulate
to kind of shape the top eight. If you look
at Carlton, Collingwood finished on this same amount of points,
the same amount of wins. Percentage was the difference seven
percent and Carleton makes the finals. They made a prelim
last year, so they should have skewed a heavier, a

(19:12):
harder fixture. But they got North twice, they got Richmond twice,
the two bottom teams, and then they got West Coast.
So there's five wins. They just go there, gift them
five wins, whereas Collingwood didn't get any double ups at
the bottom teams and they had the verse the top
teams twice. So like that's an easy way to manipulate it.
And when you talk about, oh, it's just promoting mediocrity,

(19:35):
if you look at that, Carlton's lost six of their
last nine games. The three wins that they had were
against North, Richmond and West Coast, and they're taken up
eighth slot after losing to Saints who aren't a top eighteen,
And you're like, oh, what's promoting mediocrity? Getting it done

(19:56):
early in the season and then absolutely like the ass
end falls out of it as you're coming home. All
the teams that have some momentum that finish ninth and
tenth have a little play in toil.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
Almost. It's always tough to gauge if a team is
going to be good before the season, right, I think
you obviously look at kind of where teams fall the
year before and you say, like, here's a mathematical thing
of saying, like, you know, Sydney doesn't play the eighteen team,
calling twice.

Speaker 3 (20:19):
A year twice this year one was going to be great.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah, But there's also the thing of like calling us
play twice, calling us to play Carlton twice. So I
get that side of it, because there is money and
financials that go into that. With the AFL looks at
and says okay, with biggest following biggest kind of attendance.
Also biggest people are going to watch on TV, like
there's CBAS and all this kind of stuff with television
rights along those lines too, So you have to be
able to fit all these things in. So it's not
as clear cut as just saying first doesn't play eighteen twice, Yeah,

(20:46):
second doesn't play seventeen twice. There's a bit more that
goes into it, just because of the way the AFL,
you know, financially wants to try to make as much
money as possible. And I get that, but as a
Collingwood player, I can't say that, you know, we haven't
been given unfortunate schedule because you look at Pertha traveling
every other week, you look at the Gold Coast and

(21:07):
I get that side of it, But going back to
Carlton and the six of the last nine they've lost
in the three they win, or essentially the bottom three teams,
I don't think you'd be as a Carlton fan going
I feel super confident going into finals. Baby, we lost
our last one and we thought we're out, and then
Freemantle fumbled it, and then we're back in and then

(21:28):
we've got a few injuries that will be sweet. Yeah.
I don't think there's many Carlton fans probably feeling that.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
Because the counter counterpoint is Freo doesn't deserve a second
chance out at either.

Speaker 1 (21:37):
Had a hard run at the very end of the
year too, though. Yeah. So yeah, it's it's an interesting one.
And this is I think that why the wild card
round keeps coming up is because you know, essentially from
Freyo was second on the ladder like four weeks ago. Yeah,
and then you look at it now they've fallen out
of the eight. So I think that whole situation of
two three right being so like two through really twelve

(21:58):
being so close, as many people go, oh man, like
AFL's probably gone sweet. We can engage the audience for
longer by putting another round in, right, Yeah, it might
be during the bye week. Yeah, you've got the bye week,
you put it in there. Does it probably disadvantage of
teams going in there because they don't have another break, Yes,
of course, but that's just part of the system. But
for them it's going, oh sweet, extra game, extra money,

(22:21):
extra viewership, keeps fans engaged for longer because they know
their team has a chance to make finals. There's all
these kind of benefits. The AFL looks at from a
financial standpoint, goes probably, yeah, okay, like if we can
do this and the players and the coaches and the
teams all ticket off, they'll probably do it. Yeah, it's silly.
I mean like we look at all the AFL decisions
and like you know, the AFL doesn't exist. They don't

(22:42):
make money. So if you're always going to assess something
like this that they know will make a financial impact,
they'll always assess it and probably are on the side
of doing it.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
Yeah, it does make sense. I feel like once it
Tassi comes in, it's a note brainer. You've got to
be doing it. Let's jump into the big winners because
we're getting hyped for finals.

Speaker 3 (22:57):
I mean, well, what kind of hype there.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
But the Bulldogs are Bulldogs, big winners over GWS got
them at the top of the big winners this week,
although GWS a lot of laid outs, a lot of
really important laid outs for them, so they'll hopefully get
those top backup to be more competitive for the first
week of finals.

Speaker 3 (23:18):
But let's jump in Bulldogs.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
Just talk about the wind, yeah mate, some of the
stuff I was watching over the weekend just kicking it
essentially out on the fall and just swinging and back
and going through. Yeah. Oh baler rat Fara. Don't get
me wrong. It's great to go to the country and play,
but you'd be hoping for better conditions than that.

Speaker 2 (23:34):
Especially when the season is on the line, like for
the Bulldogs and you.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
Know gv I top four. Yeah, looking at that.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
Positions and all of that stuff. To have it out
at ballerrat, I thought that was hindsight. Obviously they can
never tell like where all this is going to fall.
But yeah, it was a bit wild seeing blokes having
to There was a couple of old houses that you
can see in the background and you basically have to
kick it at the roof of the old house. On
the right for it to drift back through and get

(24:02):
blown through the goals. It was just wild to see
because like Jamara had a shot kicking into the breeze
like thirty out dead in front and it went out
of bounds on the full. After he kicked it to
the left of goals, it drifted that far across the
entire face of the goals.

Speaker 1 (24:19):
It just kind of looked at him was like, this
is ridiculous. I just rolled out to the next stay.
It just had this blank look of like, how in
the world am I playing in these conditions right now?

Speaker 2 (24:31):
Jesse Hogan kicked one and it went dead straight and
he was like, wait on, that's meant to where's the
wind now? He must have found some pocket. But anyway, Balls,
massive win for them. It gives them a well final spot. Yeah,
I was going to say it gives them a final spot,
which is great, but now they're playing at the MCG

(24:52):
in a home final against Hawthorne when it's Hawthorne's home
ground and they're not playing at Marvel but who knows who?

Speaker 3 (25:01):
Who knows? But anyway, let's jump into port.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
Massive win over Free are not only knocking Freo out
of finals but locking up top two for them, they
basically just had to not lose by five goals, so
they just the win was for a bit of momentum
and to just screw over Freer. But yeah, locks in
a top two spot for Port huge. Have you you
wouldn't have you played a home game against Port in

(25:27):
in finals in Adelaide though ever you're not in finals now,
but you would have in general in general played a
few games.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
I don't think we've ever played a post season finals
match against them in the last ten years.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
But like journal sis during the season, Yeah, of course,
how is it over there? How hostile is it? How's
the crowd?

Speaker 1 (25:48):
Because it's like these things have like people sit like
behind the bench and just horrible abuse and stuff, and
it's like whenever you warm up, so can you kind
of like run back and forth on the boundary to
like get the legs warm after you know, halftime or something.
If you're on the bench to start and people just
give it to you. They just hackle the living shit
out of here. It is insane and poor fans, are
you know? They give it to you. They don't hold back.

(26:10):
They don't hold back one bet. So I think you
look at the teams. I think Port Adelaide's kind of
one of the most abusive fan bases out there. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:19):
Well, they went wild in the showdown the other week,
so like if the.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
Whole like showing the teeth thing just rolled them up
and the like just fire in their eyes.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
I think a prelim final chance on the line home
game in Adelaide, the fans are going to bring it.

Speaker 3 (26:36):
Never tear us apart is going to be wild.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
It'd be a great atmosphere from March to the stadium
is going to be wild. Hopefully the sun's on point.
It's nice there. Does the breeze come through the stand
where there's no stand for there?

Speaker 1 (26:47):
Yeah? Yeah, the breeze is a bit unique because there's
like no stand behind and there's just a grasshill and
then there stands on the other side, so you get
a bit of a bit swirler at times. But yeah,
it's a great place to play well once it's a
small ground, so it's a big fellow. You don't like
to run around as much, so it's kind of nice
to be able to get to contest to contest with
killing yourself. But I love it, man, it's a great
atmosphere every time you go there and the crowd just

(27:09):
being so passionate just makes the atmosphere so much better.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
And we're going to see a little Ken Hinckley jig
over there maybe, So hopefully that's what we're all waiting for.
Hawthorne and Geelong, well they just boosted their morale heading
into the finals just by absolutely murdering their opponents on
the weekend.

Speaker 3 (27:27):
So just a little drive by just to say well done.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
Drive by to the teams at the bottom just really
just dig the dagger in.

Speaker 3 (27:35):
No, Well, this one's another drive shout out.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
To Tom Hawk did a little lap of honor over
there in julyong too, so I want to shout that
out back to it and Zach Tuoa. Yeah, so tough
see an International Fellows retire up one of the absolute
legends of the game and the Torp King. You almost
calm but him and Tom Hawk. You know, the last
game at the Geelong Stadium was pretty special, So shout
out to that. That was cool to see.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
It was nice because there was a moment where you
Tom Hawkins is getting interviewed postgame and he was mindful
that West Coast was lined up for the guard of Honors,
So he kind of cut his interview short so West
Coast could get off the field on field and then
he could go back out there and do a million laps.
But that was nice. He seems like just such a
nice person. He's one of those bogs that you want

(28:17):
him to talk about himself for a bit of reflection,
and he just keeps saying how good everyone else is it?

Speaker 3 (28:22):
Like, we get that that's not the time for this.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
Yeah, no one else is retiring you and Zach, so
we talk about.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
You guys, And then this one. I just chucked this
one in there. I don't know if I've mentioned I
don't like to kick North while they're down. But Richmond
lost their last game of the season to lock up
the number one draft pick.

Speaker 1 (28:43):
Why do you say North? Was that maybe possibly a
thing that did in the past with Harley reed, I
don't know.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
One they cost themselves Harley read two. They almost won
the spoon again by losing by as much as they did.
If Richmond had to beat the Suns at the g
not saying that they could have if they tried real hard.
But they lost locked in the number one draft pick,
and that's how it's done.

Speaker 1 (29:09):
Richmond wy I think it was zero point four percentage
difference and like all of a sudden, Northalberget's the first pick.
Sane Richmond's thinking long term love that.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
But now as a case study, if you look back
and it's like wins matter more than like number one
draft picks, We're a year on. North isn't any better,
probably technically worse with the percentage, and they don't have
the number one draft picks, so they kind of didn't
get anything. So next time, if you if you can

(29:40):
lose to win the number one draft pick, maybe just lose. Anyways,
after this, I don't think they were big fans of
ours anyway. Platforms subscribe just to hate on us, that's great.
And then Saint Kilda, what was just a big win.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
Just to win they didn't need to have, like didn't
do anything for the season, but just a real dagger
for Carlton fans like the oh, the emotion in their
faces is that game finished such a close one snap
over the shoulder by Higgins, just the one, the one
guy that you probably go, yeah, he's going to celebrate,
he's gonna let you know.

Speaker 2 (30:20):
Did that kick earlier in the game where he hit
it that hard. He just put everything into it, his
whole body like levitated off the ground and he still
managed to have the accuracy to put it through the middle.

Speaker 3 (30:33):
It's just great.

Speaker 2 (30:34):
I just wanted to give them a little bit of
love because a couple of weeks ago I was like, Oh,
they're winning these games on the run home. It must
be a bit frustrating as a fan that it's like, oh,
where was this earlier in the season to give us
a chance at finals? But like now, I think it's
at a point you'd flip flop it around. You've come
to terms with you're not making finals, and then you're
just happy that your team's kind of being competitive all

(30:55):
the way to the end. Ross talked about how it's
important for sponsors and members and all that to treat
it with the respect that it deserves.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
It also shows you have a good culture where people
just layover yeah you know.

Speaker 3 (31:05):
Yeah, absolutely, do not really have anything on the line.

Speaker 1 (31:07):
You say stuff it, I don't care, Like we're still
going to give our best.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
And yeah, it gives them confidence going into next year,
Like they beat you along the other week, then they
like they're beating these finals bound teams, so they're thereabouts.

Speaker 1 (31:18):
So it's very similar to us against Melbourne, like it
was very low possibility where ever going to make finals.
Were still put out a really good performance. So I
think it's a good sign your culture is in a
good place.

Speaker 3 (31:28):
Absolutely, let's jump into the big losers.

Speaker 1 (31:31):
Uh, free did you mention this one?

Speaker 2 (31:35):
It deserves five or six slots in this podcast. So
if you're a Freeo fan, this is that whole. This
is cathartic. We're doing it for you.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
You were going to get it out of our system
and then we're going to start fresh for next year.

Speaker 2 (31:48):
Because I love free As I've mentioned many times, my
housemate is a Freeo die hard. I was barracking as
hard as I could at the TV.

Speaker 3 (31:56):
Justin's a legend, legend, it's a it's a great place
over there.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
They just couldn't get the win, which is annoying. They
lost their last four to fumble finals. I went to
the Essendon game which started it all off, big five
goal lead, and they just couldn't get it done. It
really that last center clearance that they streamed out of
the middle and kicked the winning of the winning point
or whatever it was, that was just like, Yeah, you.

Speaker 3 (32:21):
Stopped that center clearance. It's all done.

Speaker 2 (32:25):
But yeah, they also cost themselves a draft pick slot
because losing, they dropped below Collingwood, and Collingwood is giving
them their first round pick, so they It might be
one of those ones that we look back and go
like there was a kick after the siren that Richmond
won and they ended up locking in Dustin Martin as

(32:45):
the draft pick. You never know how it rolls out.
It could be another one of those situations. But yeah,
pretty amazing fall from grace of Frio, who only four
weeks ago was.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
In that we feel for you right now.

Speaker 2 (33:03):
The pain now, Carlton, I was I'm a ring whether
to chuck them in the biggest winners or the biggest
losers because they have they had. They had a shock
and loss against the team outside the eighth when it
was all on the line for them. In their heads,
it was all on the line.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
The power make finals, like it was all up to them.

Speaker 3 (33:24):
And they'd had some injuries.

Speaker 2 (33:26):
They went across the West Coast and got a decent
win against West Coast who obviously haven't dished up much
in the past couple of weeks. But you know, yeah,
they went on to lose that game. They had all
the momentum, the crowd got back into it, they hit
the lead and then Higgins kicks the winner. A couple
of shock and things to look back on and reflect

(33:46):
for them. I'm sure you got the two weeks you've
got to rest, recover and get all your injured players
back or as many as you can to reload and
go again. McGovern out hamstring late and stuff like that.
It's it's, you know, it's you can't lump it all
on injuries because if you look back, it's it's like

(34:06):
I said, it's six of their last nine, so's they've
only had injuries for a couple of weeks.

Speaker 1 (34:12):
Important and finals looking good for.

Speaker 3 (34:14):
Them, Yeah they have.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
They probably have trips if you're looking at the top
eight at the moment. They have to go up to
the Gabba and versus Brisbane at the Gabbo week one
of finals in the elimination. So it's going to be
a massive game, hopefully big turnout. Hopefully the fans can
get up there, just see how confident they are that
they can beat Brisbane, to see how many go up there.
One last one, big losers Melbourne, just the game in general,

(34:40):
but you could just see it was they were just done.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
But even their club over the last two or three
weeks has copped quite a bit of criticism, and it's
like one of those things where obviously you haven't finished
on the top of the ladder, in the top eight,
but then you pile on all the speculation and everything
else that's going on and just kind of makes the
whole experiences in Melbourne fan just feel kind of gross. Yeah,
and yeah, just over the weekend, you just I Remember's
sitting there finishing the game, like looking at him, thinking like,

(35:04):
it's got to be tough. It's going to be a
tough position to be in at the moment. Obviously, you know,
they've been knocked out of finals quite a few times,
you know, and back to back kind of losses, and
people always pile on that, you know, and they did
win the premiership recently, so they've had success. But after
that premiership, there was all this expectation that they were
going to do it again and again and again, and
since then they just haven't been able to get back
to that point. So you feel for Melbourne fans, but yeah,

(35:28):
it's just kind of one of those things you have
to suss out everything over the off season and then
to go in with a fresh kind of attitude mindset
for the next year.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
It is footy there is.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
It reminded me a bit of like the twenty sixteen
seventeen times where like Collingwood would go to start the
season and it would feel like I don't know if
I was gonna say, I don't know if journals do
this on purpose, but they definitely do holding a story
till the eve of the season drop a big bombshell
that rattles a club. There was a couple of years
I feel like in a row where Collingwood went through

(35:58):
that and it starts to season off shaky, which is
the Clayton Oliva stuff over the whole off season for them,
and then it rolled into you know, the Petraka Spleen
injury and now the speculation around him wanting out a
fair few of their players exploring options. Yeah, it's just
a rough time to be a supporter when all of
that happens. And that's what I will say about calling

(36:21):
what I said it last week. They they hold onto
players like even in tough times, you guys are finishing
like second last in less obviously you screw up your
salary cap situation and then you have to you know,
offload a couple players want to stay there, so like, yeah,
it's it's a rough one for fans to sit back
and hear players from their club saying I want to

(36:41):
go somewhere else, I want to explore other options. I
think that's as deflating as anything. So yeah, horror run
for them this year, fourteenth But yeah, it's and then
the second lost, the second Collingwood.

Speaker 3 (36:55):
That doesn't help us to Stephen May.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
I don't know if you remember the comments, mate, Stephen
Mays said, we're a hell of a lot better team
than Collingwood. Can't believe Collingwood won the Grand Final.

Speaker 1 (37:02):
Well, guess what, I think you had a few drinks
before that comment.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
You both you're both not there this season, so we
can all look back and laugh at that as we
jump into the Collingwood game.

Speaker 3 (37:11):
Because you did beat Melbourne.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
Quite convincingly in the end, it must have been a
good feeling to get out there and finish the season
with the wa.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
It took a bit longer than expected. It took a
little bit longer and expect it. But the minute plush
looking up at the scoreboard, and I didn't know like
the clock would go that far up when it was
like sixty five minutes, So I was like, I've never
seen that before. Interesting, But yeah, now it's a great
way to end the season. Obviously you'd want to be
in the top eight and playing finals, but given the circumstances,

(37:39):
you know, and I think it was a bit of
a you go into that game knowing there's a low probability,
but to show up and still, you know, provide kind
of your best and be able to get that win
on the last game of the season was a good
way to wrap it up, I think in a sense
with the situation, with the circumstances that are.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
Yeah, and I think Fly said after Fly said a
few funny comments and press up, but he said, in
that last game, you did get to learn a fair
bit about your list. Like obviously played a lot of
kids Dan McStay Out, Sauna, Slate and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (38:10):
So yeah, a lot of.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
These kids came in, not kids, young men came in,
played you know, their early starts of their career. What
did you think that you learned from your list, not
only in that game but this year because you've had
a lot of injuries, a lot of ins and outs.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
There's been a lot of opportunity, I think for the
young guys this year, which has been awesome, and I
think they've really kind of showed how good they are
and that they can actually play at the level I
think obviously you want kind of the best players playing employee.
You know, we have a very experienced team, and some
of those people were injured throughout the year, and that's
just kind of part of it. But you look back
on the year as a whole and you kind of realize,
like we essentially tied two games where you know, you

(38:50):
score one point, like one behind, and one of those
games you win it and also can go the other way,
don't get me wrong, but one more point you essentially
in finals. Yeah, it's like such a close margin in
that sense. So that's one of the biggest lessons, I think.
But for us, it was a great way to be
able to get experience into some of our players given
the circumstances we had, and you know, you're pretty proud
of some of the guys that stepped up in the

(39:11):
moment and we're able to kind of provide on the big,
big stage.

Speaker 2 (39:14):
And He's good Ed Allen tell me a bit about him,
because it was he's a big boy. When I saw
him out there, I was like, he's one of the
he's one.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
Of the midfield. Yeah, pretty tall midfielder, and yeah's it's
a tough midfield to kind of crack into. So he's
he's definitely had to do his time in the VFL.
But over the weekend played really well and I think
showed different signs of yea his capabilities and what he
can bring to the table. So yeah, definitely look out
for him as one of those that's going to be
hopefully in our future playing games. And you know, at
the club long time.

Speaker 2 (39:41):
Speaking of tall, I saw you rubbed the top of
Darcy Cameron's head and I was like, jeez, you're you're.

Speaker 3 (39:47):
A lot taller than him. I was like, you are big.

Speaker 1 (39:50):
Yeah, Docy Cameron's probably three or four or two or
three interest sort of me.

Speaker 3 (39:56):
At least wild. I was like, this is free. Who's
this free?

Speaker 1 (40:01):
Big tree.

Speaker 3 (40:04):
Ruffled him on their head. Good on your champion, Good
on your little fellow.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
I was like, oh my god, this guy's anyway, let's
jump into some like intricacies about the game. I did
want to jump into Razor Ray's last game. We love Razor.
We had Razor on the pod, one of the all
time pods that we've done. Spoke with such eloquence and
articulation that it annoyed me that I was agreeing with an.

Speaker 3 (40:31):
Umpire as much as I did.

Speaker 2 (40:33):
It was just like when in Loaded, Locked and Loaded
to be like, why don't you just the one where
it was like, why don't you just umpire like the
Grand Final every week? And he broke it down the
reason as to why I'm an idiot, and I was like,
a son of a bitch.

Speaker 1 (40:47):
But if you haven't if you haven't heard that one,
look it up on the just you know, look it
up on the search bar. And he speaks really well.
And I think you'll leave that being more understanding of
what umpires have to go through and why they do
what they do. Very very interesting chat that I think
a lot of people can learn from.

Speaker 2 (41:04):
Yeah, and I hope he stays in umpiring in some
facet because he's definitely in it for one hundred percent
of the right reasons and wants the game to flourish
and all of that stuff.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
So, you know, I want to see as a role
for Razor Ray. I'm gonna put this out there to
the public right now. In the NFL, they have an
ex umpire or an ex referee that anytime there's a
questionable call or something that happens that's controversial, they go
to him say what's the facts, you know, what's the
ruling around us, what's going on? And that person just
gives it to him straight says this is the rule,
this is where it's at. This is the code ballbon

(41:37):
I say, go to Channel seven. Razorray be hired by them.
So anytime there's a questionable thing with the umpire, sorry,
the commentators aren't really sure what's going on, or maybe
it's a bit of a question mark. He goes, here's
the facts, bang, bang bang, this should be called this way. Yeah.
I think he'd be incredible for that position.

Speaker 3 (41:53):
It's a no brainer.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
And I but I figure it's so obvious to have
that person as a role that they mustn't be doing
it for a reason because at the moment the commentators
just guess the public is none the wiser, and it
leaves a negative opinion on some of these calls that
were correct but.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
Still opinionated there. Yeah, so like Ray could go and
do that Channel seven stuff and he could say, yeap,
this is the way it should be a judicated. Then
it's it's quite different on the field. So it's a
lot of responsibility to put your name out there and say, Okay,
I might be wrong, why I'm speaking on it, and
just know that the game sometimes is not going to
follow the rules or as might be swayed one way
because of an umpire's opinion on the day.

Speaker 2 (42:31):
Yeah, and it's just educating everyone. But to the rest of
stuff anyway, No, we got to get into the Razor Ray.

Speaker 3 (42:38):
Razorra retired.

Speaker 2 (42:40):
Amazing career, would have you know, umpired a million games,
done all the Grand Finals. He's done everything there is
to do. Good made of yours moments shared pregame or anything.
Did you talk to the big fella.

Speaker 1 (42:52):
Pregame post game? Yeah, Like it was cool to kind
of see him and I rocked up. I didn't know
he was actually umpiring. On the day you go in,
they've got like a sheet on the wall next to
the schedule and says like who's umpiring? You know the
four major umpires or however many there is, and Razors
on there. And I was like, oh wow, like this
this might be his last game. He'll over umpire. It's
kind of cool to be involved in that because he's
such an icon of the sport. I feel like, you know,
lover hate him. You know who he is, and he's

(43:14):
been able to copt criticism and everything else and be
a face of umpiring for a long time. So yeah,
going out there, you know, I was just kind of
like had a big smile on my face like he
always does, you know, and just said, all the best, man,
what an incredible journey, and I'm really excited about the
next chapter and stuff like that. And then after, you know,
you just say congratulations, and it's great to see everyone chair,
you know, cheer him off, and there's a few boos
in the crowd. I know that frustrating, So I should

(43:37):
be my clanger, to be honest.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
I saw him having some words as he was leaving
with his with his fans, yeah, and he was going
back and forth to someone in the crowd. It's like
you have to give them the benefit of the doubt
that they didn't know that it was his last game
or like even though he just walked through a guard
of honor. But at the same time who gives a
shit like I don't abuse people as they come from
the ground.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
Doesn't make any sick.

Speaker 1 (44:00):
But he's given so much to the game cops, so
much criticism and everything else, and he's still done it
with a smile. And I don't think there's many people
I could do what he's done. So I think you
have to give credit to a person like that, a
person that's dedicated a huge chunk of his life to
try and make the game better. And you know, it
was great to see both teams give him the respect
and you know, clap them off. And I asked him,

(44:21):
I said, do you want to be chaired off? It
just looks at me and he goes, no freaking chance,
I was. I had to ask. You know, you just
never know.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
Right you your life, you and gone would have been funny.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
Thing is so Ray. I can tell the story now
he's retired. So Ray back in the U S I
f L. You know, there was this kind of celebration
after it, you know, and I was like, right, job,
all shoulders, mate, I had a few beers. So there's
a photo of me and raise full on my shoulders
and raise all my shoulds. I gonna find this all
my shoulders. He's like, yeah, just go nuts. It was

(44:53):
so funny, man. But he's just an absolute character, an
absolute legend of the game. And yeah, I'm excited for
him to hopefully stay involved in some capacity.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
It reminds me of one of those cartoons where they
stack each other up, the two short blokes and they
put the trench coat over the top. It's it's never
been as tall, but yes, that's awesome. Congratulations raised a great,
great career, amazing career. And I always think that, like,
compared to the NRL's officials, like afl umpires remember everyone's

(45:25):
first name in the entire league and give them the
respect by calling them by their first name at all times,
whereas like, yeah, the NRL, it's like you only speak
to the captain and you don't even really say their names.

Speaker 3 (45:39):
It's quite wild, but it's very impressive.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
It's like he could be a barista in the future
because he'd remember everyone's names and orders.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
Coming back in, let's.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
Go into mortgages spare time.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
So you kind of glossed over the lightning delay, but
you had a lightning delay in your game, Yeah, what
was how did you know what was coming during the
game like it was getting pretty ominously.

Speaker 3 (46:04):
You could hear it through the broadcast.

Speaker 1 (46:05):
Well, yeah, it was. It kind of like started spinning
in like the fourth quarter, and you go, okay, and
then that at one point there was this big lightning
strike that kind of like lit up the sky. And
then you know with lightning, as soon as you see
the lightning, you kind of count. I think it's like
you count the seconds after to figure out how far
it is from you. Yeah, and it's maybe like one seconds,
like you know, five miles or something like that. So
you know, I saw the lightning. There was like lightning, bang, thunder,

(46:27):
and I was like, oh, that's pretty close. I was
like this I didn't expect, so I kind of in
that moment you saw it and you sitting there, I
was talking to one of the players something. I was
just like, oh, dude, like don't tell me we're going
to get a rain delay or like the game's going
to be suspended. We have to do this again like
another week or whatever. You don't know the rulings around it,
but I was just like okay. And then like you know, you,

(46:48):
I came off and it's maybe like ten minutes later
and I'm like, I guess we'll play through it, you know.
And then I'm sitting on the bench and one of
the AFL kind of official officials and stuff kind of
comes over and has a few words with flying It
kind of looks at me and looks at the rest
of all right, cool, we're gonna have to go in,
go into the sheds. And I was like, there's like
nine and a half minutes left the game at that
point was you know, pretty well done and dusted. You

(47:09):
don't ast say yeah, and you got to go in.
And we waited for the forty five minutes sitting there
and just going. The worst bit was like the food
was already down there for posts. See you're smelling KFC,
you know, you just sitting there. You smell the nuggets,
you smell the chicken wrap. You're looking forward to that,
you know. You know, you know there's beers in that cooler.

(47:30):
You know there's beers in the ASKI and you're sitting
there looking at it, going we've got nine and a
half minutes left, boys, let's smash through this and we
can enjoy the off season, all right. So yeah, you
get back up and I think we had like five
minutes to warm up. It's absurd, So we like such
a straight back out, you know, and then start playing
right away and fear.

Speaker 3 (47:47):
That you could do a soft tissue or something.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
Yeah, I mean, like I've had a bit of like
hamsterring awareness over the week and stuff like that. So
I was on the bench to start off, and like
I did a few extra runs and what not, just
to make sure that I kind of felt felt good
and didn't want to ping hamstring in the last nine
minutes of the season. So yeah, it was one of
those things. Yeah, it was. I felt like it was
quite rushed, but understandable given a Friday night game. Families
want to go home and stuff like that. But credit

(48:11):
to the fans and everything else. They stayed towards the end,
and it's great to see how many people were there
even after the you know, the hour delay or if
it was to stick around for the end of the season.
It was pretty cool. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
Well, I guess as a Carlton, as a Collingwood fan,
you're like, oh, we got fifty points up. Last game
of the year, Like women as I stick it out.
I think everyone probably wants to know last game of
your season were you planning beers. Are you thinking this
has pushed the plans back? What's the postgame salies?

Speaker 1 (48:40):
Yeah, I mean like we were still a chance for
you know, that last part of the season. But I think, yeah,
you finished the game, you go okay, chances that Carlton
loses by one hundred and fifty is probably not high. Plus,
Like there is the bye week after, so they can
do a beers. It's not irresponsible to many beers after
the game, right, So that's all kind of like set
up after the game to have a few in the
locker room and be able to share some friends and
family and things like that. So you know, the club

(49:02):
had a bit of a celebration on Saturday along that,
and yeah, that's just kind of how it plays out
over the end of the season. You just kind of
go okay, like this is all wrapped up, have a
few drinks, you know, get to celebrate what was and
you know, it's it's interesting because you look at a
team and you look at the staff and admin, the
physios and everything else. It's never the exact same every year,
so you know there's going to be changes. It's going

(49:24):
to be people that are in that room that won't
be there the next year and won't be part of
the next year's experience, And at some point in my
career that's going to be me, and I'm gonna be
one of those people that doesn't show up, you know,
for the next next year and going to be uncontracted,
you know. So I think the older that you get,
the more you realize that there's a lot of people
that come and go from the system, and you have
to really respect the fact that, you know, it's just

(49:44):
never going to be the same group of people every
single year. There's going to be different faces, and you know,
different people will come in and you get to have
an incredible experience and share life with them and you know,
hopefully make some lifelong friendships. But it's never the same
people every year, which is a bit of a sad
reality you have to understand at the end of the year.

Speaker 3 (50:01):
I never liked that last speech from the coach.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
Look around the room, boys, it'll never be the same, Like,
oh yeah, but don't say it. One or two blokes
that might still be there next year. The Decos Brothers,
don't know if you've heard of them, but pretty good
eighty disposals between them, but Nick is the one that
they're talking about Brownlow chance.

Speaker 3 (50:23):
Reckon he's a brown Law chance.

Speaker 1 (50:24):
Yeah, I'm hoping. I'm very tough him and Bonce of Pelly,
i'd say up there at the moment, come home. I'm
strong too. Yeah, I mean i'd love obviously I'm super biased.
You could say that one now it's early and then
early four months since of his career.

Speaker 3 (50:40):
Yeah, like he will.

Speaker 1 (50:41):
I would love for him to get one now. So
in the pressure for him to get ones off, you's
don't have to worry about the rest of his career.

Speaker 3 (50:46):
I feel like if he gets one now, he's going
to get like six of them.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
Yeah. Well that's a possibility too, of course. But you know,
whenever he goes through a whole season and doesn't miss
a game, you know, I think that's one of the
biggest things. If you have an injury or something like that,
you know, I obviously hurts your Brownlow chances. So for
him to have a whole season where he was healthy,
I think it's a good chance for him to win
a Brownlow. You look at most of the games, he's
definitely best on ground for a fair chunk of them, so.

Speaker 3 (51:07):
We would have won the last one if you didn't
get injured for it.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
Yeah, exactly, there's like three games you messing he would
have won the Brown there. So hopefully this year he
can win that and get to celebrate that. WHI would
be an awesome accomplishment in his life.

Speaker 3 (51:16):
So what happens now?

Speaker 2 (51:18):
We will do another podcast where we talk about the
future and good questions all of that stuff. But logistically,
what's what happens now? So exit meetings mad Monday.

Speaker 1 (51:29):
Yeah, exit meetings this morning and then going to a
wacky Wednesday is what we're doing.

Speaker 3 (51:33):
So exit meetings just happened so quick.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
I do well. I think like they kind of prep
it in the background, the docks and the physios and
the high performance stuff and stuff like that. You know,
they have to kind of be prepared so you can't
just like smash that all into two days and expect
you to be able to have all the programs ready.
So there is I guess a bit of foresight in
that sense. You go in there, you talk to the coach,
you talk to the doctors and stuff. You know, go

(51:55):
get scans. I've had probably four MRIs in the last
week or two just to make sure everything's all good
and there's no issues. And if you need to get injections,
get injections. You figure out your kind of recovery plan
if you need that. You look at kind of your
conditioning plan over the off season, your strength plan. There's
so many things you put into place because you know
you probably won't be back for me, like I won't

(52:16):
be back for almost two months. Yeah, so I'm going, okay,
if that's scenario, I need to have everything figured out
for the next two months scheduled properly to know when
if I leave. I don't need to have the club
physically there for me to do something.

Speaker 3 (52:28):
You have to do conditioning in the States, Oh of course.

Speaker 1 (52:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (52:30):
Yeah, you got to go back to state Wide and
go for a jog and hit the gym and stuff.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
Yeah, and go to the gym every single day pretty much,
and then go go run every other day.

Speaker 3 (52:39):
Wash it down.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
Do you think we just go on holiday just drink
piss for two weeks or two months?

Speaker 3 (52:43):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (52:43):
No, still professional athletes, If you did that, you would
come back so out of shape. There's no chance you'd
ever get a game.

Speaker 3 (52:49):
Yeah. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (52:50):
We can't be like everyone else. You just go you
see to put a few back.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
We have Ken Monster come through the student. Yeah, he
eats like bloody, what's the hungry jacks, big burger.

Speaker 3 (53:05):
The whopper. He just puts them away like it's different.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
I reckon the big boys over at the NRL. They
get to put on a bit of mass.

Speaker 1 (53:12):
Yeah, they put on a bit more mass. I think
we try to run it off.

Speaker 3 (53:15):
We need the protein.

Speaker 1 (53:18):
We did.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
Last thing we talked about the fly, I spoke about
how you'll just sit and you'll watch the finals and
let it burn. And yeah, you're actually going to watch
the finals, so you probably just skip that.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
Jeez. I don't know if I have access in Europe. Yeah,
I'm going to go over to Croatia for about seven days,
do a bit of the sailing thing. Is your family then, yeah,
the brothers are gonna come with me. So I'm going
to do Croatia and then we go over to Milan
or take a train up to Como, do that like
Coma for a few days, and then my brothers are
meeting me and the Dolomites in Italy. So we're going
to do a bit of hiking and some high altitude

(53:49):
training over there, which would be good. For about a
week and then we'll finish up at October first and
maybe at Barron Munich Stadium game.

Speaker 3 (53:56):
To do your conditioning well.

Speaker 1 (53:58):
I mean, we'll be doing a week of high before then,
so I think I'll be able to work it off.
And now I'll go back to Austin, go back to
see the family, spends a quality time with them, obviously
being gone from them for so long, and it'd be good.
It'd be good. I'll spend most more time in Austin,
Texas as my brother at his house, and you know,
I've got a good kind of training regime there that
I've done for over the last few years. So kind

(54:19):
of do that and go to the u S I
f L shout out to them, the brothers will play that,
do the national tournament there, which would be good fun,
and then just kind of support a f L international
and try to build the game over there.

Speaker 3 (54:28):
His Raser doing his last round of international football.

Speaker 1 (54:32):
I was furious. I don't think he is, was the man, like,
who's going to come? He's like, I don't know, man.
I was like, it's not going to be the same
without you.

Speaker 2 (54:39):
Celebrations that's good me and how horrow will probably head
back to Rachie. Yeah, same time for a weekend or whatever.
I went out, did the one thousand steps out of
Dandy Ung's basically. Yeah, well we get we're both getting hiking.
Get into it, jump into finals predictions before we wrap
it up.

Speaker 1 (54:59):
U v.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
Geelong in Adelaide, Western Bulldogs v. Hawthorne at the MCG,
Sydney v GWS it the SCG Brisbane Carlton at the Gabba.

Speaker 3 (55:09):
That kicks us all off. But who are you tipping?
We'll pick the tips.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
And then we'll just pick who we think is winning
the flag, and that's how we'll wrap it up.

Speaker 1 (55:18):
I've got Port versus John got to Port Adelaide. Incredible,
incredible team. I think honestly Port Adelaide is going to
win the whole thing. Yeah, and I would love to
see it because they've been up there for so long. They've
had their chances and they've just missed out or missed
out by kick here and there, whoever it is. This year,
they've got the momentum, they've got the team, they've got
a home final, they've got everything that's kind of falling

(55:39):
in place for him. If they can win this game
against Graelong. It's tough not to pick them for the
Grand Final winner.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
Yeah, well they Yeah, they're going to get a home
pre lim if they win this, and then good luck
going over there and beating them.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
So I've got who do you have in that game? Port? Yeah,
you go the Western Western Bulldogs versus Hawthorn. This is
an interesting one because it's the two informed teams are
not really been in finals over the last four or
five years, so young lest first experience doing it, very
hyped up, very motivated at the moment. Western Bulldogs experienced team,
have players that kind of played in the Grand Final

(56:12):
in twenty sixteen, and you'll rely on their kind of
wealth of knowledge through this little period. At the MCG
talked about that with the Bulldogs being a home game
for them, interesting little choice. I'm going to go, oh jeez,
it sounds crazy to say Hawthorn.

Speaker 3 (56:31):
Yeah, after all you just said all of that stuff.

Speaker 1 (56:34):
I think I just love the way they're playing right now. Yeah,
it's so good.

Speaker 2 (56:39):
They're so like they're undeniable at the moment. It'd be
interesting to see if they can just have them like
the belief that, like why not us, we can win this?
We can go all the way through and we can
just win it. I think I'm going to go the
Bulldogs just purely on half the stuff you said around,
Like you've got ads Chi Law who's done it, You've

(57:00):
got Bond who's done it. You've got Libo who's done
it like experience, and then the youth coming in the
forward line. Plus you got Lobb back who's like short
up their defense. But yeah, the forward line, if you
get only one of them has to kick off. We
saw Sam Darcy have seven the other week and it's
like you do that.

Speaker 3 (57:17):
Yeah, sorry, Luke, Luke.

Speaker 2 (57:21):
So I'm gonna go Weston Bulldogs Sydney GWS. I on
GWS s juicy, I love this one. I'm on GWS.
If they can get Toby Bedford back and Brett Daniels
back lock them in.

Speaker 1 (57:32):
Okay, but then Sydney's got a few backs too.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
Yeah, but I just like GWS is like in absolute form. Yeah,
they lost to the Bulldogs, but it was without those
two players who are super pivotal to how they play.
But they're killing them in terms of form. They've been
one of the most informed teams up there with Hawthorne.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
This is the thing if WS wins this game, grand
final for sure, form like, yeah, has to be right
because then they get the home final. Yeah, and then
from there they make the Grand Final.

Speaker 3 (58:03):
I'd say they play their home final SCG.

Speaker 1 (58:07):
Now it'd have to be in the suburbs of the Paddock.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
Oh, we don't want to they will they have time
stamp this time stamped it.

Speaker 3 (58:16):
You said it again, three.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
Point fifty Monday afternoon.

Speaker 3 (58:20):
Twenty sixth of August.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
Ah, yeah, the stadium called do we even know ng
G n G stadium? That's what they're going to play.
Sorry about the calling that has charged.

Speaker 3 (58:33):
It's changed a few times. It was spotless. Ah, so yeah,
are you going to.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
The showgrounds that's where they Yeah, you can get that out.

Speaker 2 (58:40):
Are you going just put a bleep just they know
what it is?

Speaker 3 (58:44):
Sydney or GWS.

Speaker 1 (58:45):
I'm gonna go to Sydney in this game at the
SEG purely home ground.

Speaker 3 (58:49):
But they've been the best team all year.

Speaker 1 (58:50):
They've been best team all year. They finished pretty strong.
I've just got this feeling a week of just refreshment
is going to do them wonders. And then they hit
this kind of last chunk with confidence. Yeah, especially if
they win this game, I don't see them not making
the Grand Final. I say, whoever wins this game is
making the Grand Final.

Speaker 2 (59:10):
They need to get some defense back up and running
because if they're kicking it up there to Toby Green
and Jesse Hogan, who's on absolute fire. Good luck Brisbane, Carlton, Brisbane.

Speaker 1 (59:21):
Sorry, Carlton fans, I think you can understand where we're
coming from. Six of the last nine, you've lost the three,
you've only won bottom three teams. Let's be realistic. Momentum
is probably not on your side.

Speaker 2 (59:33):
I'll tell you if they kick eleven goals twenty one again,
it's anyone's game because you can't be kicking that.

Speaker 1 (59:40):
Not the away game. I feel like Carlton, Look, I
think the fans are in the same boat. They're going Look,
obviously we're in the eight, we're open for the best,
but I wouldn't say the confidence is too high. Who
do you have in the Grand Final? Then?

Speaker 3 (59:52):
Yeah, obviously you go on Brisbane this one. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
And then I think Port GWS, which on paper doesn't
sound very advertising.

Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
That sounds like probably the worst situation the AFL could
have asked for. Out of all those eight teams as
far as audience.

Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, see I think I look at Geelong,
I haven't been that convinced by them all year. Hawthorne
would love to see it, but also I'm happy to
see that it's before their time. They had a big
run of flags. You can you can have a you
can have a build a year. Western Bulldogs would love
to see it. Ads like love watching ads play footy.

(01:00:30):
Sydney used to be a die hard Sydney fan wouldn't
mind it either, to be honest.

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
We'd love Brodie Grundy to get it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
Yeah, battle, It would be great to see Sydney get
up there get the win.

Speaker 3 (01:00:42):
For Kenny really.

Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
But Brisbane they're a good team, couldn't get it done
last year. They've had a run of finals. Imagine if
they did it from outside the top four after all that.

Speaker 3 (01:00:51):
They've been through. So it'll be great, it'll be It's
be interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
I reckon it's a competitive top eight in the end,
because I didn't think we're going to settle there.

Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
I think probably the two weakest teams on paper of
Geelong and Carlton, and watch that come back to bite
me because I love their baltimate great, just make it through.
It's just what Geelong does.

Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
It's got the experience Tom it comes back. Who knows
well to say Anyway, that's all we got for the year.
That's it for the year. We've got one more coming.
We got a fan question. We want to give back.
We want to give back to the fans because this is,
like I mean, this is what we do it, you know,
entertain people and to have them involved, to be able
to answer all the burning questions they've been thinking about

(01:01:32):
all year and give a bit of a wrap up
to the whole season. It's going to be fun next
week coming up.

Speaker 3 (01:01:37):
I love questions, they're the best.

Speaker 1 (01:01:39):
They sometimes it get a bit loose, to get a
bit sideways. Get more fans of that big fans. But
that is it for us as far as you know.
This episode so massive, massive, thank you for listening in
tuning into the whole thing. And I just want to say,
as always, follow us on social media, subscribe all that
good stuff, and thank you so much for being a
supporter of us, the podcast and everything we're doing. So

(01:02:00):
you're an absolute legend. Whoever's listening to this, I hope
you have an incredible day And sorry there's no footing
next week, say he lot Feace.