Did Adelaide escape with one of the wins of 2025?
With only 57 seconds remaining, Crows forward Riley Thilthorpe managed to kill a marking contest and knock the football over the boundary line.
But after ensuring the ball trickled across the white line, Thilthorpe toed the ball forward, and away from the boundary umpire, and almost deliberately time-wasting.
No free kick was paid against Adelaide, but it caught the eyes of Fox Footy commentators Jason Dunstall and Garry Lyon.
"That is a free kick to Collingwood every day of the week!"
The panel reacts to Riley Thilthorpe's brain fade going unpunished in the the final minute.#9AFLSFS | Watch on Nine & 9Now 🖥️ pic.twitter.com/qMXJ13zflS
— Footy on Nine (@FootyonNine) August 17, 2025
"I don't know how all the umpires missed this, this is time wasting ... he is looking at and he toes it off the ground. That is not by accident. There are umpires all around him, and they don't pay it," Dunstall said in commentary.
"I think it's the non-free of the year. Now, whether he is trying to kick it up to himself or not, that's irrelevant. If you kick the ball away at a critical time in the match ... you just have to say the umpire ... I won't say, he didn't blow the whistle."
Pies fans could also be slighted by multiple throws from Adelaide players at crucial times.Ben Keays appeared to get away with one that led to an Isaac Cumming goal, while key defender Mark Keane also managed to avoid the umpires' eyes.
The win secures a top-two finish for Adelaide, who, after finishing 15th last year, have dramatically turned the fortunes around for the West Lakes club.
As for Collingwood, their fifth loss in six weeks, it places them precariously in fourth place with a match-up against Melbourne on Friday.
Amusing – to use a euphemism……
What was the commentary regarding the monstrously one sided “umpiring’ during the first quarter?
Adelaide did very well to persevere through to the end. Such “umpiring” would have sent a younger side into a state of stagnation.
Tackles paid one-way only, marks not rewarded, “holding” ignored, ignored, ignored and then ignored, one player in particular “protected” even when the instigator-in-plain-sight directly in front of said “umpires”….
I understand that the afl is subject to Victorian Law – it is , in effect the vfl anyway – isn’t there a gambling commission that should investigate to see if “spot bets” are “facilitated” in any way?