The first couple of frees to Daicos on Saturday night, which Ross Lyon suggested were iffy, appeared tantamount to a recognition from the AFL football department that they reviewed the King’s Birthday match and decided “we don’t like that. We missed frees for holding, and we want to let the players play”.

Ed Langdon’s forklift – stand behind Daicos with straight arms to stop him moving in either direction – and hanging on and blocking was largely allowed on the public holiday. He won the day. There was less latitude on Saturday night. And more intent from Collingwood not to leave Daicos on his own.

The kneeing to the back of the legs? And the blocks and hits? They are like the hits forwards used to cop from behind that were once commonplace.

If the umpires pay some frees – even if coaches consider them iffy – they will quickly stop.

Mac Andrew heard the call to play on and took off. He was standing the mark, Jesse Hogan lining up for goal and the play-on call was clearly heard. Andrew surged over the mark.

Problem was, it wasn’t the umpire who called play on. Reportedly, it was a teammate of Andrew’s trying to panic Hogan’s kick. Instead, their call panicked Andrew into giving away a 50-metre penalty and an easy goal.

Points to the player for cheek and invention.

Sunday’s game in western Sydney was a weird one for umpiring. Callum Brown was allowed to run around on the mark while being loudly (there was very little crowd, so every word was clear) called three times to stand. He kept moving, but no 50-metre penalty was forthcoming.

Later, Sam Clohesy speared a kick to Sam Flanders, who marked a ball clearly touched off the boot and was tackled. Umpire Robert Findlay paid the mark, then pleasingly issued a rare about-face and overturned his own decision after being corrected by a colleague and ordered a ball-up. Good umpiring.

The Bulldogs predictably dismissed Richmond, as they have most non-contenders this year. There were excuses for their competitive losses to finals contenders earlier in the year when Sam Darcy and Marcus Bontempelli only briefly played together.

Next, they face Sydney at the SCG – who are not the team they were in the first half the season. It’s a chance for the Dogs to consolidate their top-eight spot, and mount a realistic tilt at the top four.

Their scope to get better is in Aaron Naughton. He’s doing his job after an interrupted pre-season, but can do so much more than the eight touches and a goal he produced on Sunday.

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