Thanks for your company this morning, and on to round nine we go. Next weekend looks absolutely loaded already, so make sure to return to the Round-Up this time next week so we can go through it all again. Until then, keep an eye on abc.net.au/sport for all your latest news and analysis from the AFL and beyond.

Hope to see you again soon.

Don't there will be too much sympathy extended the Eagles' way. Also worth noting they didn't finish last in 2022, and somehow still aren't even last on the ladder this year. If they continue to fall in a heap and are left behind by Hawthorn and North Melbourne they may make the case, but I don't know how successful they'd be.

That may be a step too far. But lets agree that if they do win the premiership this year, that game will be left out of the commemorative Bluray box set.

Hard to argue. It's Charlie or Toby Greene as of right now I'd say.

My advice would be not to throw an elbow into an opponent's back directly in front of an umpire in the last quarter of a close game. Was a massive price to pay for a pretty minor, dumb act, but that's the risk you take. Discipline under pressure is a skill.

It's always going to be a very difficult one to police, not least in a situation like this. It wasn't immediately clear what had caused Ridley's injury until replays showed Junior Rioli had clipped him, so should we be relying on replays and going back to old incidents?

Was Rioli's act even worthy of a send of, or just the resulting concussion to Ridley? (I genuinely don't know the answer to that yet, and will be interested to see what the MRO say about it later today.)

They have the defensive game to challenge and beat almost anyone. But they will need to find attacking improvment if they are to truly take it to the likes of Collingwood, Melbourne and Geelong in the finals.

The ace in the pack is Max King, whose return is imminent. If he can come back and return to something resembling his best form, then it becomes much harder to make a case against them.

The easy answer is they absolutely should be. I still firmly believe that is one of the most talented and balanced lists in the competition. But they are not maximising their assets at this point in time, especially going forward. Whether that is a coaching thing or an execution thing for the players remains to be seen.

Those three contracts you've mentioned are certainly ones the Blues will be keen to see the back of.

So as we speak, news has come through that Melbourne will challenge Jacob van Rooyen's two-week suspension at the tribunal.

It's a very interesting case, because the act had serious consequences for Charlie Ballard but in isolation wasn't particularly egregious from the player himself. He would be a loss for the Demons though, his ability to compete in the air is pretty remarkable for a young key forward.

I'm not sure how many people watched the first half of the North Melbourne-St Kilda game because it clashed with the second half of Collingwood-Sydney. But my goodness, it was as ugly as it gets.

That was a winnable game for North Melbourne in the end. It might not look it going by the final score, but if they had had anything about themselves in the first half they could have been a red hot chance. Instead we got... that. And let's never speak of it again.