Chapter 1: What extraordinary circumstances prompted this emergency pod?
I said I wouldn't do this unless there was extraordinary circumstances. We have extraordinary circumstances. Nick, I need you to say what you just said again. Repeat it.
I said I want to see a tattoo on you. So Thursday night, if the pies get up, you get a tattoo. But if the blues get up, I'm willing to shave my head.
That's... Done. I want to see that beautiful hair fall off your head. Hey, you can get whatever you want on me. I'm happy to do that. Any tattoo you want, anything on my skin. Done. All right. I'll see you Thursday. Good luck, my friend. See ya.
I swear, I realise it's the 100th game. There's been more terrifying in my life, so that feels... What's the worst that can happen?
Go.
Emergency pod. You can hear it. There it is. We only pull these out when something big has happened. Oh, yeah. We have two big things that we need to talk about. So I walked out of the pod yesterday, and you can go listen to the round preview, which is still there. Walked out of the pod with the pending Zach Butters case, and then on the walk home, the most remarkable...
Best thing has happened about the game tomorrow. Nick Dacos making a bet with us. So let's talk about Zach Butters first. Bet with you. I'm not getting a shitty tattoo. As a community, we're in it together. I think we should. I think we should all get a tattoo. All right.
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Chapter 2: What bet did Nick Dacos make ahead of his 100th game?
That could be a thing. Let's talk about Zach Butters' thing first. This is just, he was always going to get fined. But it doesn't sit well still with me, whether he said it or not. Nick Foote said that he's adamant, he said, and 100% heard him say, how much are they paying you? Then Zach Butters said, no, I said, sure, that's a free kick. We have no audio, but we have Zach Butters. Then we had...
Ollie Wines also said that's not what he said. And then for some reason, Ben Rutten got involved. Not sure why Ben Rutten was even talking. Yeah, where was he? Not sure. He was definitely in a box somewhere very high up, so wouldn't have heard it. And then we had no microphone audio that we couldn't use. We had three people that testified and agreed with Zach that he wouldn't say that.
And then Nick Foote just saying, no, he definitely said it. I heard it. Nick Foote was very quick with his evidence. Came in, came out. Zach Butters was a bit longer. I just don't know how we found Zach Butters guilty. They have to now take it to a further hearing. They're going to appeal it. So they're appealing? Yep. $10,000. So Koshy said, yep, we're going? Yeah.
They're going to pay $10,000 for it? It's $10,000 to appeal it. So $10,000 to save $1,500? Well, everyone's saying, I get this totally, is that it's worth more than that because Zach Butters is your captain. Yep. And if they're calling your captain a liar- You have to pay that to get him off. But it doesn't make any sense.
Chapter 3: What happened with Zach Butters during the hearing?
There's no evidence here to have picked a side. The easiest thing would have been to just, why couldn't they have sat there and gone, you know what? There's no audio here. I don't believe anyone. I think what they need to do is ask Ben Rutten if there was anyone else in his corporate box that heard it as well. And maybe like, is it Skylander from the boys? He has that supersonic hearing.
Maybe they could see like, all right, confirmed. He didn't say it. Case closed. Yeah.
Chapter 4: What were the reactions to Zach Butters' fine and the evidence presented?
Homelander. Homelander. What did I say? Skylander. Skylander. No. You're thinking of a distant skyline. Yeah, probably because Guinea got his Nissan stolen. Potentially, something like that. But it doesn't make any sense. I don't know why. It's more flattening. I think what the big thing is here, yes, this is on the pile of stuff that has annoyed us footy fans.
And maybe there's a little bit of it, is that it feels like the league keep doing things just to not piss us off intentionally, but... They just make it hard to support the best game in the world. So opening round was one. Hated it for years. Head in the sand. Can't listen to it. Not this thing. Not this thing. And then now they have to fix it.
Then we also had prices just at the footy in general. Ticketing early. You couldn't get tickets to get into the game even though you were members. Then we have the wildcard weekend. Double headers on a Friday. And now this. Just not getting the best outcomes in general that make the most sense is what I think we're frustrated at. Yeah, just to play devil's advocate here.
I mean, Zach Butters probably doesn't care about the money. No, clearly not. His integrity is on the line here that he's been called a liar. But to fight for foot and the AFL in this regard, if they weren't there backing up their umpires, then they lose a whole umpire community. I get that as well. They probably looked at it as like a battle they're going to lose.
It's a lose-lose, but they probably have to stick up for their people, like their umpires, because otherwise if Nick Foote doesn't get the support, what umpire down the road is going to get the support in the future? And they're saying local level umpires as well.
We spoke to Greg Swan on the weekend and he said, admittedly, we find it just hard to get umpires through the door because it's so hard now to officiate with new rules we add on and all these other things and the rep they have. And also with that point, They just, as you said, they just had to. Because remember the Lockie Schultz incident last year?
The weird thing when Lockie Schultz got knocked out and then they said that the umpires didn't hear him, so that's why they didn't stop the play. But then the audio got leaked and then the AFL had to come out and say, oh, no, they heard. They just didn't see that that was happening.
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Chapter 5: How does the tribunal's decision impact the integrity of the game?
And the umpires turned around and said, this is bullshit. You never support us. You keep throwing on this bus. And then the umpires were going to sue the media for talking about it. So they had two of this one. Their backs up against the wall as it stands. The second that whistle blows, everyone hates the umpires. You get a free kick one way or another, no one is happy with the decision.
So the umpires can never please anyone. They can't. And then this happens.
Chapter 6: What are the implications of the appeal process for Zach Butters?
They sort of need the backing of the AFL to feel like they're protected. It feels like we're more conscious of just protecting the umpires because they have to than they are finding the truth of what happened. And the truth is both could have been wrong. Or like Nick Foote, it feels like Nick Foote just heard it wrong. Zach Butters is adamant he didn't say it.
So there could be a thing where I just heard him wrong. Yeah, it happens all the time. Like you said, which one the other day and you didn't even know. And I took the piss out of you. You weren't happy, but like that happened. Like I heard what I heard and you thought you said what you said. And I could have fined you $1,500. But I didn't. I did not let it go. You start fighting me for that.
I'm going to start fighting you for every little slip up I have with speaking. I could have, but I didn't. So I don't know. I don't know. It's just, it's not great. They said they found Zach guilty for abusive, insulting, threatening, or obscene language towards or in relation to an umpire. Just pick one. I know what they're trying to do there. Just cover all bases there.
Because we're not really sure what he did. So then they fined him $1,500. And then they said, without even explaining it further, the AFL came out and said, the charge has been upheld and he'll be fined $1,500. Reasons will be provided on Wednesday. Hey, nah, you don't get to take the night off to think about it. Give us the reasons now.
Yeah, we're all thinking about it flat out, so you have to stay in there. We're angry. You don't get to say, oh, I'm tired now, go on to bed. No, no, no. No one's gone to bed until we get some answers of why. So they're going to appeal for sure. And Nick Foote cannot umpire. If he umpires in Adelaide or a poor Adelaide game, that won't put him on any games in Adelaide. He's not umpiring those.
He needs to just stay at Morpheville this weekend. Yeah. Yeah, he does. Cover the races there. So he's now in the worst spot. I don't get it. I don't get it. The AFL-PA said that the misunderstanding about what was said on the field should have been resolved in the aftermath of the match, not referred to the tribunal.
Tribunal determined not to accept all the evidence consistent with Zach's version of events, including testimony of Zach's teammates, Ollie Wines, nor have sufficient doubt when upholding a charge is deeply concerning. In the offseason, we made it clear to the AFL that we would closely monitor the tribunal's decisions during the 2026 playoffs. given concerns raised by players in recent seasons.
It's important that all participants in the game, but mostly important that the players have confidence in the disciplinary system to which they're subjected. So that's big. And that's totally fair enough as well. So I hope they appeal it. I'm not sure where the appeal would go. Like where does it go now from, oh no, we still believe. Does it go to the High Court of Australia? It could.
Take it as far as you can get. I want foot in prison. That's what I want. What if Butters is lying? Chuck him in prison. I don't want to be in a prison. It's just frustrating. You just can't. You cannot base off no evidence. Go guilty. It should just be wipe the snake clean. Like, hey, sorry. You think you said this. You think you said this. We're not getting any further. Let's just cut it clean.
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Chapter 7: How does this situation affect the players and umpires involved?
You just know he's going to do something nasty this weekend. He's going to really earn a fine this weekend. Yeah, if they're fining him for that, you may as well earn it. Who do they have? Oh, they have Hawthorne. Oh, he's going to go crazy against Hawthorne. He's going to be throwing elbows. The amount of sledging he's going to be throwing around. He might walk off the field with a 50k fine.
What can you say about any of the Hawks players? They're all literally perfect, is what everyone says. No, no one says that. And then the reason why we're doing the emergency pod, Nick Dagos. This is huge. This is big. It was already a big game. It feels bigger now. Anna is filthy. Anna's upstairs. Filthy, fuming, disgusting with it. I thought she didn't have her coffee this morning.
I was done with it. I haven't spoken to her this morning. She's that flat with me. Took separate cars to get here. Said I would never do this again unless, as I said last night, there was a set of extraordinary circumstances that I had to come out of retirement from doing this kind of bit. But when Nick Dacos calls you. Come out of retirement from these bets is so stupid.
When Nick Dacos calls you out of nowhere, you pick up that FaceTime wherever you are. And he says, big game this weekend. I know it is. Congrats, 100 games. Pretty big. Pretty cool you're on FaceTime terms, by the way. Yeah. We just check in every now and then. He goes, what's the line for it? Sorry. Four points, I think, would be enough.
You're very good at football, so maybe we just take it easy. And we're very bad at football, so let's just... Everyone calm down a bit. He said, no, we need more on the game than that. And he said, if Colin would lose, he'll shave his head. If Colin lose, he wants a tattoo of anything on my body. And that was in. And so you're going full Collingwood long sleeve. He can do anything he wants. Yeah.
He baited me good time. He should. A lot of people have said that it's actually a lose-lose for me because with the shaved head, which he looks great with, with the AI thing we put up, it's just the second coming of Gary Ablett. We've created Gary Ablett 2.0. Do you reckon he's going to shave this part even more? Like grow the outside a bit? It has to, yeah. Make sure it's a front fade. Yeah.
That's frightening that Nick Dacos and us now have a bet for tomorrow night. How are you feeling about that? Now that there's more online and now we know Nick Dacos in his 100th is thinking about how he can ruin my body with ink. Well, the thing was, I was super confident in Carlton for them to win by like at least like 10 to 14.
But having Nick Dacos come to you and say, like, I'm fucking ready for this bet. What do you want to put on it? Obviously, they've had some mad team meeting last week when they just behind closed doors and they just resolved every issue there is. Collingwood might smoke you guys by 40. So he's running around, say the dying moments of the game, and he's had 35 already.
You can look at the game and go, he's going so much harder because he doesn't want to shave his head and wants to put something on my body. He might kick the game winner and then have like a tattoo selly or something. I'm so frightened. If he goes at you and like rubs his head or something to the camera, that's going to be sick.
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