Collingwood’s clash with St Kilda to boost the AFL gather round; GWS Giants coach Adam Kingsley defends Stephen Coniglio for deviated free kick; Hawthorn forward Mitch Lewis is dealing with more knee problems

They play Brisbane Lions at Gabba on Thursday night, St Kilda in Adelaide on Anzac Day, Essendon on Anzac Day and Adelaide in Adelaide meaning they only play once in Melbourne in April.

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Because the Gather Round creates an extra game in the season, teams in their home state still play the same number of games as they did in previous years when the season was 22 rounds.

Collingwood and St Kilda is the second event in the Gather Round doubleheader, starting with Geelong and West Coast at the Adelaide Oval. The AFL intentionally timed the match with the higher draw of each doubleheader second in hopes that a crowd would build up throughout the afternoon.

The AFL has sold over 170,000 tickets for the round so far, with more than 60,000 people expected to drive down the highway to the football fest.

“Complete nonsense”: Coach defends Coniglio for complaints about serial whining

Vince Rugari

Greater Western Sydney manager Adam Kingsley has launched an impassioned defense of Stephen Coniglio, calling claims the star midfielder is a serial plaintiff with referees “complete rubbish”.

Coniglio was pinged for disagreement after questioning a free-kick not given to the Giants against Carlton on Saturday – a pivotal moment that gave the Blues not only a goal but momentum in the final quarter of the 10-point defeat of the Giants brought .

The severe punishment for the 29-year-old’s very lenient response has sparked widespread confusion over the dissent rule introduced by the AFL last year to tackle referee abuse – and eventually enforced fairly, Kingsley once said A mid-season rebalance was made to curb only overly ostentatious actions and to accept a degree of emotion from players in the heat of battle.

However, Kingsley questioned the implications made to the club by chief referee Dan Richardson in his carefully worded statement on Monday and in subsequent reports by the AFL that the Coniglio free-kick was awarded following a spate of complaints from him to officials.

Kingsley suggested the AFL should have simply admitted a mistake was made rather than positioning Coniglio as a repeat offender.

“The rhetoric was a reaction to numerous events. Well, I can tell you, that’s just complete rubbish,” he said.

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“That is not the case at all. So anyone who wants to attack the decision from this perspective is completely wrong.

“If you watch ‘Cogs,’ you’re dealing with one of the most respectful people in the AFL. I think he’s just going ahead and moving on to his next assignment, and Essendon this week. He’s moved on. I’ve moved on What happened, happened.”

Richardson’s testimony didn’t make it clear whether the AFL thought the decision against Coniglio was right or wrong, effectively acknowledging that dissent is unevenly assessed by umpires who hold differing views, saying the league “can’t train human reactions.” ‘ – although the rule encourages players to regulate their own human responses.

Speaking of AFL 360 On Tuesday night, Richmond star Jack Riewoldt said “nobody has any idea anymore” what constitutes dissent and what the threshold of acceptable dissent is. Kingsley’s former Port Adelaide teammate, Kane Cornes, pointed to Nine’s Sunday Footy Show other similar or worse cases of disagreement over the weekend, which went unpunished, saying he was “embarrassed for the game”.

When asked if he understood the rule now and how it would be enforced, Kingsley paused for a long time before saying, “Yes and no.

“The more we discuss this, the more lenient we become about what is and isn’t [dissent]I think it just clouds the referees’ decisions and it makes it incredibly difficult for these guys to referee the game.

“We know that refereeing a game is already difficult. So why are we making it even harder? The rule is the rule whether or not a mistake was made over the weekend – well in our opinion it was, let’s just admit it and move on.

“If you look back over the last year, I think everyone realized that it was over-monitored and so we pulled it back a bit and I thought we made really heavy adjustments at that stage… [that’s] where it needs to be, and I felt like it was circumvented really well in that space, in that time frame.

“I think the rule itself is absolutely the right rule. I think it had a positive effect on the game. So let’s just apply it like we’ve been doing so far.”

Lewis rested at least until lap eight

Jon Pierik

Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell has revealed that key forward Mitch Lewis will be sidelined for longer than initially thought.

Lewis, 24, was out for another week or two as he recovers from an anterior cruciate ligament sprain, but it emerged on Wednesday that Lewis also has a problem with his other knee.

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“His knee, where he had his ACL sprain, is doing well and in good position, but his other knee is causing him a bit of trouble which he probably has around [round] seven or eight at best now,” Mitchell said.

Lewis was initially injured during a game simulation at La Trobe University in January.

His absence and Jacob Koschitzke’s poor form have meant the Hawks have had to go with a patchwork forward line. Lewis scored 37 goals in 15 games last year but missed the last three rounds of last season with a knee injury, the same knee he injured in January.

Mitchell said he hopes small forward Chad Wingard (Wade) returns this week.

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The Hawks go into their Easter Monday clash against incumbent Prime Minister Geelong buoyed by their disgruntled win over North Melbourne in Launceston. The Cats are winless after three rounds, with skipper Patrick Dangerfield admitting their confidence had taken a hit.

However, four-time Premiership player Mitchell, a key player in the recent fierce rivalry between the clubs, refused to take on any casualties from the Cats.

“I don’t know if I would say they’re in a bit of a fight. You’ve been here before. They were always a team that could react. They’re a quality team and they’re better than the way they play,” Mitchell said.

The Hawks won by 12 points when the clubs met in last year’s equivalent game. While the Hawks remained in 13th place and the Cats claimed a breakthrough flag, Mitchell said his team could still take confidence from that fifth-round result when Dylan Moore scored four goals.

“When they played in the grand final and were so dominant for most of the year, knowing we’d beat them was a source of confidence to say, ‘Okay, they’re the best team in the competition and they’ve got 16 games behind them a row or something like that, and we’d been beating them all year,” Mitchell said.

“[But] that wasn’t in their best form, they had started a bit slow last year. We’re going to look at something we did last year, but both teams have changed a lot in that time.”

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