Tuesday's Questions and Answers (08.09.2026)

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

There is so much NFL on ESPN right now.

Monday Night Football, plus pregame and postgame. NFL Live, NFL Primetime. Everything you need to stay on top of every game, every week.

Mark Duffield (0:14)

Unbelievable.

SPEAKER_1 (0:16)

And now, NFL Network is on the ESPN app. More football, more coverage, more ways to watch. Football's on all season long on ESPN and streaming on the ESPN app.

Mark Duffield (0:35)

It's time for some questions and some answers this morning. 487 736 736 Is the text line still time? If you want to send a message through or ask us a question, share your thoughts and questions with us before the end of the show. Paul Heath.

SPEAKER_3 (0:50)

Duff Frosty has one here. He says, Well, I agree with you, Ree, the brutal treatment players get when they're given their marching orders. It is not done in public.

Clarkson's public execution was disrespectful and appalling. No wonder the Roos are where they are, says Frosty.

Mark Duffield (1:05)

Yeah, look, I understand your point, Frosty.

But again, I'm going to double down on what I say. Don't get the violins out for coaches. Coaches are brutal, ruthless people. You have to be to do the job. And when your time comes, you have to accept it because you've been doing that to players over the course of your career. Now, I suspect that if you asked Todd Viney and Sonja Hood if they had their time again, would they word things a little bit differently at the press conference? They probably would. But it's annoying to hear people in the media say they should have just lied.

SPEAKER_3 (1:39)

Yeah, that's really strange.

Mark Duffield (1:40)

That's actually came out of Nick Revolts' mouth. Yeah. They should have just lied.

SPEAKER_3 (1:45)

That brings everything else that you say into doubt, if that's your belief.

Mark Duffield (1:48)

You can't just lie. And also, when you're making a marginal call on a coach like this was, nine wins, 14 losses, they had improved. The question was, had they improved enough, and did they feel they were improving quickly enough for Clark Ode to retain his job? You have to be pretty clear on your reasons for doing it. Now, I think they mangled their words a bit, and their words were harsh, and they were brutal, and potentially unnecessarily so.

But, yeah, don't turn Alastair Clarkson into Bambi.

He's a brilliant coach, he's been a brilliant coach, he's coached Premierships four times, he's been lauded, and rightly so, for the job he did at Hawthorne, which was a ground-up rebuild, and he took them all the way, and he kept them there for a long period of time. That is a magnificent coaching performance. But the form of the North Melbourne Kangaroos has been only slightly, but slightly underwhelming for where we think they should be at. And he is a brutal, ruthless person, as most good coaches are.

So...

SPEAKER_3 (2:53)

Your thoughts on the story and the reporting of it, with him dropping off his North Melbourne gear at a local Vinny's in Melbourne?

Mark Duffield (3:01)

Ah, whatever.

SPEAKER_3 (3:03)

Yeah.

Mark Duffield (3:03)

Like, it's kind of like, however Alistair needs to get through this, let him do it. That's fine. That's his right. If you want to make a big deal of it, you can. And if you don't want to make any deal of it at all, then do that as well. But yeah, that's not the crux of the issue.

SPEAKER_3 (3:19)

Do we really need to know about that happening?

Mark Duffield (3:21)

Oh, well.

SPEAKER_3 (3:23)

Is it in the interest?

Mark Duffield (3:24)

We know about everything.

So it's hard to pick and choose what we do and don't know about. You know, social media posts become the triggers for massive news stories now. You know, there was one this morning, I heard Scotty and Goss talking about Tim English's partner.

SPEAKER_3 (3:39)

Oh, yeah.

Mark Duffield (3:40)

And dog days are over, which may mean a lot, and it may mean very little.

SPEAKER_3 (3:44)

I was just talking about a dog.

Mark Duffield (3:46)

But it became a story.

SPEAKER_3 (3:47)

Yeah.

Mark Duffield (3:48)

It's a great song, that one.

SPEAKER_3 (3:49)

Yeah, it is. It's a nice one. Taki from Rivet and saying, Good morning, Duff and Ada. Should Todd Vining from North Melbourne also fall on his sword with the Clarko sacking?

Mark Duffield (3:58)

So this is an interesting one, because often fans and even media figures get very punitive when it comes to these big changes that happen at footy clubs. You don't want to unravel the club because someone who was someone's friend suddenly pulls the trigger on them and sacks them.