AFL Live: Red-hot Bulldogs look to put a dagger into Melbourne’s season

The Dogs have lift-off. Key forward Aaron Naughton has marked and booted the opening goal of the night.

The Bulldogs are piling on the early pressure with four inside 50s. They really could have four goals already. Laitham Vandermeer hit a low skimmer that hit the post. Cody Weightman has kicked two behinds.

Five minutes in, the Dogs lead by nine points.

Ball bounced, and we’re off.

Max Gawn tackles Tim English in the ruck. Dees defender Steven May lines up on hot Doggie Jamarra Ugle-Hagan. This will test the young pup.

Milestone man Adam Treloar called the toss of the coin for Footscray at the start of the game, and lost to big Maxy Gawn. Hopefully, the rest of his 250th match ends in a better result.

Geelong coach Chris Scott says the Cats have backed Tyson Stengle to play well on Saturday, insisting the club will not treat their players “like kids” after off-field indiscretions.

Stengle, 25, was found unresponsive at a local bar in the early hours of Sunday morning, and was taken to a nearby hospital. But the All Australian had returned to training by Monday, the Cats on Thursday confirming his selection to play against Adelaide – his former club – at GMHBA Stadium.

“It’s hard for me to be completely across how he’s feeling from a health perspective,” Scott said. “That’s why as a coach I need to have a lot of faith in our medical staff. They’re supremely confident that he’s in good shape.”

Scott said the incident “wasn’t a huge issue” and the club’s primary concern had been Stengle’s health.

“Internally, we’ve had some conversations about it,” the Geelong coach said. “We fully acknowledge as a club that we’re going to have little hiccups here and there. We accept that there are going to be issues that pop up every now and again.

“First and foremost we think about the well-being of our players. We have a role to help educate them but we don’t treat them like kids. We certainly don’t take a punitive approach where we are seeking to punish every little misstep.

“It wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t a huge issue either in our minds. It was one of those things that’s going to happen every now and again.“

Scott said Stengle, who was axed by the Crows in 2021 because of off-field issues, had not been given a warning.

“That would imply we’re threatening a course of action, and we’re not,” Scott said. “I don’t believe that that’s the culture we are trying to build here. We don’t treat them like school kids, if anything we kind of work for those guys. We’re here to try and create an environment where our players can thrive.

“It’s not an authoritarian regime where the coaches warn that if you behave badly that you’ll get turfed out.

“I don’t think they need to be reminded that this is a competition, and that if you don’t perform or if there’s a pattern of behaviour, there’s long-term consequences. To isolate this situation with Tyson would be unfair.“

Read Kane Cornes’ column on Stengle here.

The AFL have confirmed major changes to the father-son and academy bidding points system – but they will not be introduced until next year.

Clubs can also trade future picks two years in advance from 2025, while midseason trading of picks using national draft selections will come in from 2026 as part of a suite of changes governing player movement and list management approved by the AFL Commission on Friday.

The decision to wait until next year to implement the overhauled bidding system is a win for Brisbane and Carlton, who had traded out players and picks to facilitate the recruiting of father-son/academy prospects Levi Ashcroft, Sam Marshall (Brisbane) and twins Ben and Lucas Camporeale (Carlton). Other clubs had also argued strongly against 11th-hour changes for this year.

The cornerstone of the new system is the reevaluation of the draft value index so that only the first three rounds – or the first 54 picks – are assigned a points value. Previously, picks down to No.73 had a points value.

The value of each pick after No.1 has also been reduced, with greater reductions for later picks. For example, the worth of pick 37 – the first pick of the third round – has slid from 483 points to 297, while pick 54 will go from 220 points to just 14.

The new system is designed so that clubs cannot use a bunch of late picks to match an early bid for a player. The Western Bulldogs used picks 29, 33, 41, 42, 52 and 54 to bid for Next Generation Academy player Jamarra Ugle-Hagan at No.1 in 2020.

The points discount for father/son and academy prospects has been reduced, from 20 per cent to 10.
From 2025, the selections used by the Bulldogs in 2020 would be worth only 1339 points, which means they would still need to find the equivalent of pick eight to have taken Ugle-Hagan at No.1.

“A strong theme following our consultation period was ensuring a fairer price was paid for access to talent concessions,” the league’s football boss Laura Kane said.

“We believe that by amending the DVI to have less picks with points attached and fewer points overall, it will see Clubs paying fairer value for talent at the draft.“

As expected, clubs can again access their NGA players regardless of when a bid comes. Dubbed the ‘Jamarra rule’, clubs had no access to NGA talent inside the top 40 after rule changes in 2020.

The trading of future picks two years in advance is conditional on clubs using two first-round selections every four years, board approval for the trading of any first-round pick, and second- and third-round picks to trade a first-round pick.

The so-called secret herbs and spices used to assign free agency compensation will now also take into account contract length, capped at five years. Rookie-listed players can now stay on a club’s list for five years, as an incentive for clubs who draft those who take longer to develop, such as rucks or key position players.

Collingwood captain Scott Pendlebury doesn’t feel like he’s slowing down the game when he has the footy. “It’s normal for me. It’s how I play,” he says.

“It’s not a conscious thing that I’ve added to my game. I don’t feel like I’m doing it. I’m sort of just trying to find the right decision.” Yet, he is aware that he isn’t hurried. “I don’t feel like I ever have to rush. But I put that down to doing a lot of work at training.”

Many great sportspeople can’t explain their artistry. “You can’t explain what it’s like to score a goal to someone who’s never done it,” said the late George Best, the notorious Northern Irish soccer genius.

While Pendlebury can’t account for the “time warp” effect, he offers this explanation: “More often than not, I’m trying to release someone into time and space to make a really good decision. There’s no point me selling candy [see below] and baulking people and giving it to somebody who’s hot.“

Read the full story here.

At the start of this season it appeared as though Adam Treloar’s headline grabbing days were over.

An excellent career seemed to be tailing off towards, if not obscurity, then a supporting role with a low profile club having been forced out of Collingwood at the end of 2020.

But Treloar bounced back. Playing his 250th match at Marvel Stadium on Friday night, he stopped carrying the world on his shoulders like Atlas and began to enjoy football.

He devoted himself to recovery, becoming a more regular visitor to chiropractor Dr Hannah Weeks in Hampton.

Trips to the Regen Wellness Centre in the same suburb were in his diary too, as he settled into an oxygen pod for close to an hour at a time.

Treloar called such visits ‘little investments’ in his body and the saying healthy body, healthy mind began to play out practically.

Having battled soft tissue injuries through much of the back half of his career he needed to restore confidence that where his mind went his body would follow. Treloar now says he “can run as well as I have ever run”.

Read the full story here.