AFL 2024 round nine LIVE updates: Geelong Cats, Port Adelaide Power battle in Geelong

Neither side has made a late change. Oisin Mullin (Cats) and Francis Evans (Power) are the subs.

The emergence on Friday of fresh allegations of harassment against former North Melbourne player Tarryn Thomas has clarified what lies at the nub of this whole saga, and it is not about when and where Thomas plays AFL football again. If these latest allegations prove true, that conversation is over.

Return to play should not be a reward for good behaviour, by which we mean the minimum standard of behaviour expected of the rest of us, a civil standard that authorities civil and sporting have spent the last couple of months imploring all of us not to walk past when breached.

Playing AFL footy is a privilege Thomas once had, and was being held in reserve for him, and he has now foregone. Jimmy Bartel grew up with domestic violence and went on to win a Brownlow Medal, and on this, he is adamant. “At some stage, the privilege has got to run out,” he said on Footy Classified recently.

“Forgiveness, try again, try again, is not working. At some stage, we’ve got to go in a different direction,” Bartel said. “Throw your arms around him, support him, educate him – but you don’t have to do that at AFL level.”

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