Source : the age
The AFL’s controversial new wildcard round — which keeps teams that finish as low as 10th on the ladder in contention for the premiership — has been derided by Geelong coach Chris Scott as something the league just made up and a cash-grab.
A forthright Scott, a two-time premiership coach and flag winner as a Brisbane Lions player, criticised the league after Geelong’s narrow loss to Hawthorn in front of nearly 85,000 fans at the MCG on Easter Monday.
In a drastic change to the AFL season structure, teams that finish as low as 10th on the ladder will now play finals, resulting in two extra “post-season” matches. The two added games will be held over what was the pre-finals bye weekend.
The team that finishes seventh on the ladder after the home-and-away campaign will play the team that finished 10th, while the team that finished eighth will play the ninth-placed team.
Carlton will appeal the one-match striking ban handed to Will Hayward, in a bid to have the recruit available for a crunch clash with Adelaide.
Hayward was suspended for striking North Melbourne young gun George Wardlaw in the Blues’ Good Friday defeat.
The former Swan, who joined Carlton as part of the blockbuster Charlie Curnow trade, hit Wardlaw late with a swinging arm to the midriff as he kicked North into attack.
It was considered intentional conduct, medium impact and body contact, which draws a one-game ban.
The Geelong coach spoke on Fox Footy.
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When asked his thoughts on the AFL’s wildcard round, Chris Scott said the below on Fox Footy.
“This is why I shouldn’t do this so close to the game, I speak my mind, which is good for you and bad for me generally,” he said.
“I tend to think they just made it up. Just to throw in a couple more finals for no good reason except cash probably.”
Scott joked his media manager was probably sweating as he finished the interview.
In separate post-match interview for written media, Scott reflected on Geelong’s defeat and said his team “wasn’t executing the way we can”, but noted the pressure from both sides was strong.
Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell was all smiles after his side’s euphoric win over Geelong, but admitted he was still taking it all in.
He told Fox Footy when the siren went, he wasn’t sure there had been a point because it had happened so quickly. The roar of the crowd was so loud that Mitchell struggled to hear players.
“Seeing the faces of the players after the game, that made for something special,” he said.
“It’s great to be a team sport, because there were a handful of players who said afterwards ‘I’m so relieved that we won because I wasn’t very good tonight’… when it’s all brought together by the collective, that’s the beauty of team sport.”
Geelong coach Chris Scott has spoken candidly in a post-match interview after the Cats’ nail-biting one-point loss.
“I didn’t think we played very well,” he told Fox Footy. “Fatigue makes cowards of us all, I wouldn’t use the words cowards, my description would be… neither team would take their chances.”
“Really high pressure, great intent, great effort, great spectacle, execution, I thought it was a low standard game from our end,” he continued.
Scott said he is pragmatic about losses and said there weren’t “massive errors” but said the team would review structural things.
Have your heart rates returned to normal?
If they have, then feel free to rewatch the final two minutes of that final quarter below.
