The Corridor

Difficult to take Hardwick's comment seriously. They've lost 3 in a row despite apparently knowing how to beat us. If they can just run a game for longer than 12 quarters maybe they'll execute enough though. Really, tonight should not have been so close but for some (or many) dubious decisions.

The teams they play twice are: - Sydney - Brisbane - Geelong - Bulldogs - Hawthorn - West Coast Make of that what you will. Great viewing today!

Three positions in three rounds. Super.

Wish the lights had gone out in the first quarter so we could have regrouped then. Hard to take much from the game when the team was clearly rocked by the injury. The spurt at the end of the first quarter killed the game. Not the first time a sports team has struggled to cope with a potentially serious in-game injury to a key player. It happens, they're human, just like we were all in a state of worry on our couches after the injury. Very glad we were able to salvage some crucial percentage.

The Fritsch 2021 elbow we managed to get reversed from one week to none at the Tribunal. But I can remember us far more often not taking arguable cases to the Tribunal.

Not surprised we did not take it to the Tribunal as we tend to accept penalties regardless of inconsistency with other decisions or having an arguable case. I would have preferred we take up the case as it is certainly arguable as has been well covered in this thread, and there is little to lose in doing so. Frustrating to have had a few of these 'example' suspensions over the years at the club.

Nothing better than two wins for the Dees on one weekend!

The relative decisions on Franklin and Kozzie are hard to stomach. In Franklin's incident, actual realised harm occurred (concussion), and yet it is punished less severely than the potential of that exact harm occurring in Kozzie's case. Needless to say it is unhelpful to have further unnecessary greyness added in, which has the potential to be abused in the cases like the Franklin versus Kozzie incident. It also seems that the MRO has looked at the impact level of the primary contact with the shoulder, and applied the same to the secondary contact with Smith's head which followed. If the impact was actually high to the head, or if the primary contact to the shoulder of this hit actually had that much potential to cause injury he would have been certainly concussed and would not have immediately risen to his feet. I think most of us would not justify the nature of the hit. But the application of the rules is important and shouldn't be made up to fit the narrative.

Watching this one at the ground, it's always a shock to see a late bump and the optics/outrage factor probably relates to this just not being something you see much, even though the incident had zero consequences. Re the Cripps incident - he got two at the tribunal prior to the unfathomable appeal reversal. To my eyes the Cripps incident was far worse than Kozzie's, even watching in realtime last year - he elected to jump, was always high and over the top of ah chee, used his arm to go directly at the head and never contested the ball, and succeeded in knocking ah chee out. Kozzie's in comparison was late and not in contest, but much lower on the body and was rising up into it, lower impact, zero consequences for the opponent. He will probably get at least as many weeks as Cripps' original 2 weeks because that is what the afl does, but comparing the two it is hard to fathom how that could be the case for mine. Kozzie often straddles the line with late bumps and has had countless downfield frees against for bumps, usually to the side and pretty innocuous. The front-on nature of this one was rough and he will hopefully tighten up and pick his spots as his pressure game is good enough to include bruising bumps in more in-play circumstances. He maintained great pressure the rest of the game while reining it back in.

https://www.afl.com.au/news/847827/grand-final-teams-heartache-for-swans-tall-find-out-whos-in Teams are out. McDonald dropped for McLean. Reid and Holmes named at this stage.

Agree. Clearly hampered by injury all year since the round 1 injury. Don't understand why he was playing instead of Bowey the last couple of weeks, really, as he was visibly unable to physically perform to his usual level and it hurt us. In terms of trading him, if you were ever going to trade him, right now might be the worst time in his career to look to do so in terms of value.

It is hard to ignore just how damaging in-game injuries have been in games against top sides this year. - First Sydney game - Steven May not playing (concussion), but in-game Harry Petty sustained injuries in Q1 & Q2 - First Collingwood game - Steven May not playing; in-game, Harry Petty off for a period for concussion protocol, Daniel Turner concussed and subbed for a mid, Max Gawn back injury off for 20mins and unable to be subbed so played hampered - Geelong game - Clayton Oliver fractured thumb when game was in the balance, hampered for the remainder of the game - Sydney final - Christian Petracca hairline fracture of fibula and corky in Q1, and played out the game severely hampered leaving us effectively a man down in a pressure game due to not being subbed. Clearly multiple things contributed to these losses, but the above certainly did not help when each game was close late. Use of the sub, and versatility of the selected sub, are areas we will hopefully improve in the future. Anyway, there are many reasons to be optimistic about the remainder of the finals, and if we win against Brisbane then the weekly news/supporter cycle will look different than this week.

Speed of hands? They blatantly throw it with impunity. Macrae is a shocker for it, as is libba when he plays.

The disappointing: - The corridor kicks from D50 which we seem to be looking to more lately are a dangerous field position to implement this. We should also not have field kicks like Gawn centering the ball with a floater leading to direct turnover goals. - I was confused that we allowed Tracc to play out the game when he was clearly hampered from the injury in the first quarter. Good on him for battling to play out the game, and you want your players putting their hand up to play on. But we really needed to make the sub to give ourselves a chance and not be one down due to how hobbled he was while battling through bravely. - The Dees crowd in my area was embarrassing (I was not near the cheer squad, which sounded like they were doing a great job fwiw). Felt very odd for making noise in my area. May as well have been at an Enya concert, you would hardly know it was a final. Yes, there was often not a lot to cheer for, but we really do not get the home ground advantage other teams do. I would have no qualms playing against Melbourne at the G as an opposition player, which is not what you want. Of course we celebrate goals, who doesn't? There needs to be some noise and atmosphere outside of that. This was the first final in Melbourne after missing out on a premiership, but there was a nervous energy rather than one of excitement - You cannot blame May for getting sucked in and in the same breath acknowledge that the 50m penalty was an absolutely embarrassing call by the umpire and in no way a free kick. Cannot fault May for the incident at all. Can certainly fault the umpire and Buddy for that tone-changing momentum swing. May continued to torch him for the rest of the game. Only a couple of errors, albeit costly with the corridor kick. - Brayshaw in the middle continues to make our midfield worse in my view. He adds nothing that others do not already do better, he turns it over at a high rate, and him being there makes us worse in other positions ie HBF or wing where he is much better suited. Unfortunately depending on how Tracc goes with his injuries he may stay there, but if we have any option to move him back to positions that help the team as a whole then I hope we make the change. - While Hickey does tend to do well against Gawn historically, going into the game it looked like ruck was an area that we should have a big advantage in and needed to capitalise on that with Dogga and Gawn. Instead we got torched in that area all night. Even when winning taps they were usually to Sydney's advantage and often damaging against us. Ruck work in defensive 50 was problematic too with the areas we hit it to and let it be hit to - Lack of direct quick kicks from centre clearances with 6-6-6 on a dewy night and handballing it around five times only to get swamped was costly all night. Their pressure game was excellent and we played right into it The positives: - Proud of the team for earning the double chance in a difficult season, and we now get to play a team we match up much better against. Still have an excellent chance at earning our way through to the prelim - May and Clarry the two best players on the ground and really stood up as we have come to expect. How fortunate are we to have Clarry?? Will be a joy to watch him for many years to come - Sydney is a good team and we match up poorly with them, and regardless of who wins the games are always tightly contest pressure affairs. We struggled to play on our terms and struggled with pressure and allowed too much spread, but the game was not the total debacle it seems and the frustration of losing an automatic prelim appearance is understandably frustrating and probably feeding into the negativity going around. Only really Collingwood do we match up similarly poorly against of teams in the 8. Match ups are hugely important especially at this time of year. We should look better the next couple of weeks if we can progress through, and hopefully will get another shot at Sydney and be able to make some adjustments before that - We won the premiership last year and for that I am forever thankful and whatever happens next week will cheer the team off as thanks for that now that we have an opportunity to attend finals in Melbourne

Geelong playing a mid table team twice (West Coast, 9th) as compared to us playing a top bracket team twice (Brisbane, 4th) looking at those differences in our schedules noted. But it is worse than this, in that Brisbane was widely expected to stay in the top 4, while West Coast were widely expected to fall (just as one example of expectations from journalists entering the season: https://www.afl.com.au/news/717215/crystal-ball-our-predictions-for-the-2022-afl-season-are-in). The issue of certain teams rarely/never traveling to GMHBA is another matter, and serves to reinforce systemic inequality in fixtures. If the justification for this is that big teams should play Geelong at the MCG for financial reasons, then this will inevitably just reinforce the dynamic of the strong/rich getting stronger/richer. It is embarrassing to have a professional sporting fixture that is so inequitable year after year.

Agree with this. The mix in the middle has not been as good with him taking trac's time, and we look less balanced like in past years when he was predominantly a mid. I feel we maximise our overall team performance by playing him off hbf or wing. He clearly racks up touches in the middle and can read it well, but turns it over regularly or otherwise often puts it in a bad positions for others - whereas from hbf or wing I feel he usually uses the ball very well. The midfield time splits are a good problem to have though!

LIVE BLOG: Cripps appeals ban, latest news - https://www.afl.com.au/news/817748

Interested to see if anyone is willing to defend yet another lopsided pro-bulldogs umpiring performance tonight.

Disappointing loss. More disappointing to lose playing so predictably. As many have said throughout the season, there are serious problems with this game plan. There have been games when the players have been rehearsing their torpedoes in the warmups - that is just laughable. Our game plan prioritises blind F50 entries. How many times did we bomb it straight to Aliir Aliir? This would not have been a shock to Longmire either. What a dream matchup for them to have Aliir Aliir on AVB for so much time. As usual, very slow to react. Players mentally fragile still - how else can you explain the inaccuracy today? Could have easily won today if we had kicked straight, and certainly should have easily won given they were 2 down for almost the whole game. As happens all too often, Jones one of our worst in a big game. Shades of the Collingwood game last year in which he was a net negative. Does not work hard defensively. Lacks composure. The bomb straight to an unmarked Sydney player inside F50 with about 10 minutes to go was a good example. Still, the game plan values the contest rather than composure and precision, so I'm not sure if there will be many complaints internally. Good to see Frost back in the team recently, as he was the obvious inclusion after the Lever injury and it took some time for this to be seen internally. Difficult to see how things will improve enough for us to win a GF with this game plan and our inability to stop a team that gets on a run. Second quarter yet another example of the tide turning against us yet we do not change a thing.

As others have said, little change to some of the major issues from 2017: - Single quarter drop-off effectively cost us the game (q2) and Goodwin unable to see this and arrest the problem. Difficult to stomach winning significant periods of the game but losing it ultimately due to allowing a team to run all over us for a quarter with next to no defensive pressure. - No system of forward entry. Bomb and hope. Jones' bomb to a 2 on 1 was a classic example. In fact, Goodwin seems to have doubled down on this as evidenced by his 'bring back the torp' campaign. Geelong the opposite in that regard and reaped the benefits of their hard work - Poor field kicking in general, which does not seem to be a priority - Another game lost at the selection table, as called by many before the game had started. If a significant portion of the supporter base can see that the Wagner selection was costly, why can't the coaching staff? I don't care that we are not part of the inner sanctum and don't know what they value - at the end of the day, you need to be effective with the ball and in contests, and today we were killed by Wagner and Maynard unfortunately and had superior options available Defensive set up was also costly. Played into their hands and had Lever stuck on direct opponents he was losing to in one outs far away from other contests Some serious issues to work on which unfortunately should have been sorted out over the offseason. Not great signs.