Steve Hocking | PUNT ROAD END | Richmond Tigers Forum
  • IMPORTANT // Please look after your loved ones, yourself and be kind to others. If you are feeling that the world is too hard to handle there is always help - I implore you not to hesitate in contacting one of these wonderful organisations Lifeline and Beyond Blue ... and I'm sure reaching out to our PRE community we will find a way to help. T.

Steve Hocking

Brodders17

Tiger Legend
Mar 21, 2008
17,666
11,708
I tried, but as you can see from my follow up post, it just didnt feel right, so i backed down pretty quickly.
Just to clarify, my backdown was from posting like you TBR. Sticking up for Hocking felt dirty, but i could line with that. But the fear of being put in the contrarian box, alongside yourself, and AngryAntman, was just too much for my soul to bare.
 
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Berwick boy

Tiger Superstar
Apr 27, 2004
2,147
1,581
Don't get me wrong, as I've said previously I'd get rid of the rule but because I don't feel it has any real influence on the game so it just creates an unnecessary burden on players and umpires.

As Roar and HR have said, it's more of an emotional and aesthetics argument rather than the actual impact on the game. We don't like the look and feel of the stand rule in the game but beyond that it is very hard to pinpoint what, if anything it does.

In fact if you look at the stats provided by our immortal stats guru, the scoring dip that started in 2018 was actually impacted by something this year. (I've butchered that graph but it is year by year from left 2021).
Can we have a cry emoji added for the great man…doesn’t seem right to just “like” his stuff at the moment. Even if it’s temporary.
 
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snags

Tiger Superstar
Oct 28, 2005
1,715
2,045
Straying very close to TBR territory there but I'll allow it.

Right now there are 18 footy departments working away at how they are going to approach the game in 2022. Not one of them gives a collective stuff how the game looks, what the scores are or who likes it or doesn't. They just want to win. Unquestionably they are the greatest influence on how the game changes, with daylight second.

The AFL and Hocking are easy targets, but when you really boil it down much of the criticism of them is pretty baseless. When you look at the game through history, most of the law changes have either been good ones or had very little impact. There's very few rule changes that have been demonstrably detrimental to the game.

Even something as maligned as the stand rule doesn't have the evidence to support the rhetoric opposing it. It's hard to find changes in the stats, scoring might not have gone up significantly but the downward trend over the past few seasons was stopped. It looks and sounds silly but beyond that you certainly can't make a sound argument at this point that is has damaged the game.
The clubs have the ability to change the way the game is played within the parameters of the rules. Changing the rules can have a significantly greater impact. It may not have effected certain stats but even blind Freddy can see the stand rule impacted the aesthetics of the game and hasn't delivered on why it was actually introduced. Get rid of it.
 
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pete and tys

Tiger Superstar
Feb 19, 2009
1,744
1,434
I am sure it has been posted many times before but is worth repeating over and over again..... I know of no other professional sport where an administrator brings in a rule specifically designed to counter the completely legitimate winning ways of team .
It is unbelievably disgraceful and amateurish but smacks of corruption and bias.
And furthermore, that administrator is closely linked to the nearest opposing side.
Absolutely incredible.
And how weak is the AFL sycophantic media...too scared to call it out.
 
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pete and tys

Tiger Superstar
Feb 19, 2009
1,744
1,434
PS.. watching Chelsea play. They do as we did...pressure the opposition into losing the ball resulting in turnovers.
So...will the EPL introduce a new rule to negate this?
No I don't think so. I really hate our cheap and c grade football admin in Australia. Embarassingly poor and corrupt.
 
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TOT70

I'm just a suburban boy
Jul 27, 2004
9,734
3,802
Melbourne
Far be it for me to be absolutely impartial on this, but our pressure game was falling over long before the stand rule was introduced. As far back as 2018, Buckley countered it be instructing his team to kick short and not play on, especially in defence. This gameplan was successful to a point but was also too difficult to maintain for a full game, particularly if you needed to score. By 2020 most teams had worked out the the last thing they should do was play on and invite pressure when playing us.

The introduction of the stand rule just added an extra dimension to this gameplan and made it easier to implement for longer. The rest is history.
 
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The Mole

Tiger Champion
Apr 1, 2003
2,883
3,053
And the problem with not playing on and slowing the game down is that scoring dries up.
 
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TOT70

I'm just a suburban boy
Jul 27, 2004
9,734
3,802
Melbourne
Truth be told, Richmond played some exhilarating football during their dynasty years. They won most of their finals a bit too easily for the AFL’s liking.
 
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TOT70

I'm just a suburban boy
Jul 27, 2004
9,734
3,802
Melbourne
Yeah, 666 didn’t help either.

What I find annoying is the AFL narrative that Richmond’s three Premierships were somehow not as good as Geelong’s or Hawthorn‘s or Brisbane’s. The implication seems to be that they only won them by damaging the game, hence the need to alter the rules.

This revision of history is totally unfair.

The sense of entitlement is strong at some other clubs.
 
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JimJessTorp

Barrels it!
May 20, 2009
3,660
3,929
An armchair in Sydney
*smile*!

Note: The above Swear filtered word (thanks @Mr T.) is not a four letter word! No indeed! This is an eight letter word with two syllables. First syllable rhymes with "farce" and the last syllable rhymes with "antiprotozoal" which refers to a drug used to treat protozoal infections which are transmitted from human to human through the blood-fecal route.

... I'll let you work through the relevance of the two rhymes. :flush
 
Jul 26, 2004
78,245
38,255
www.redbubble.com
'I can't believe that some idiot came up with that idea (stand rule) in the first place.' -Neil Balme on Sportsday SA today.

Absolutely nailed it as usual Neil.
 
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Dont Argue

Tiger Legend
Jun 26, 2018
5,777
12,388
It’s now official.
Balmy has renamed him “ the idiot who came up with that idea”
Can we change the thread title to reflect his correct name?
 
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Harry

Tiger Legend
Mar 2, 2003
24,451
11,856
LOL. Who's the bigger idiot that decided to keep the rule in for this year?
 
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