Mark Duffield - The Editorial (Rant Edition) (08.06.2026)

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:30)
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**Mark Duffield** (1:00)
Made in WA, for WA. This is Mornings with Mark Duffield on SENWA.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:06)
Come on!

**Mark Duffield** (1:09)
Hello everybody. Welcome to the SENWA radio studio. We're out here at Optus Stadium on this Monday morning in Perth. We're here thanks to Beaumont Homes. Quality built to be loved forever. It's gonna be some thunderstorms and showers in our city today, building to a top of 23 degrees. Made in WA for WA. This is Mornings with Mark Duffield on SENWA.
Gonna have a big show for you today. We're gonna talk West Coast and Fremantle with Scotty Waters. He'll be joining me on the show very soon. Gonna touch base with Will Faulkner also later on the show about AFL matters in general. But first, it's time for a bit of a rant, I think. Carlton beat Essendon by five points in a thriller at the MCG last night, which means two things. Josh Fraser's four wins from four matches as an interim coach in the AFL puts him in uncharted territory, and surely must give the Blues some pause for thought on whether he should at least be part of their coach selection process.
The stuff up with the countdown clock in the last minute of the game will leave the door open for conspiracy theorists on just what happened when the clock jumped from 44 seconds left to just 19 seconds left as Zach Reid lined up for his first goal in AFL footy to put the battling bombers within a kick. And what had happened was that the clock had frozen as the bombers took the ball down the ground. So while this was another unedifying moment for an AFL administration, which could travel quite a long way, if only unedifying moments earn frequent flyer points, but it wasn't a scandal.
It's another door left open, which I want to talk about and rant a little about. I think the AFL needs to close it. And frankly, it is quite staggering that it hasn't been closed before now. So Carlton's Harry Mackay marks the ball at 55 metres with just over a minute left on the clock, indicates he is shooting for goal, is allowed to take more than 30 seconds by the umpires, and effectively kills the game. Now this is the greatest rort in footy.
The notion that a player gets the right to say, I can make the distance from here, and then the AFL, if he, sorry, the umpire, if he thinks he is half a chance, then lets him, and then the player doesn't actually even have to shoot. Harry McKay didn't shoot. He kicked to the hotspot. So if the ball is marked outside the 50 metre arc, or if a free kick is awarded outside of the 50 metre arc, the player with the ball should not have the right to say, I'm shooting and take 30 seconds. He can shoot, but he can shoot in the seven seconds that a player is normally allowed anywhere else on the ground. Further, even if the mark is taken inside the 50, if he says he is shooting, he has to shoot. If he does anything else other than shoot and he doesn't score, the opposition should get the ball back. So Harry McKay worked the rules of the game beautifully as they are currently interpreted. He was able to win the match for his team without doing a damn thing, just standing there and watching the clock. Essendon, who had shown great endeavour to jump to an early lead and then great spirit to fight back when Carlton seized control of the game, probably didn't deserve the win given they had barely scored after half time. But this is not the way we want teams winning and losing. And quite frankly, again, it is quite staggering that the AFL hasn't moved to shut down this rort before now.
Incidentally, one thing to come out of the game for Essendon. So, Zach Reid, the injury-prone tall defender, he's 202 centimetres tall. He's the brother of West Coast archer, and he's one of three top 10 picks from the 2020 draft. So there was Archie Perkins, Nick Cox and Zach Reid. They're all now 24, none of whom is yet to pay a big dividend for the Bombers. But Zach Reid showed a hell of a lot last night. So that pack mark that led to his first goal was a towering effort. This was Reid's just his 32nd AFL match in his sixth season of AFL footy, and that is the result of a series of soft tissue injuries that have limited his impact on several seasons and prevented him from playing AFL at all in 2023