deanox

But harsh, he has played 182 AFL games. On 30 players in VFL/AFL history have played more games for the MFC than Tomlinson has played in his career. Sure he hasn't been a superstar, but I reckon a player like Cam Pederson was a journeyman with 80 games over 8 years. Tomlinson has been a solid AFL player over the journey, it's just that he is behind in the pecking for his position at Melbourne.

Nailed it JNM. Jefferson is a long term prospect with plenty of talent, not a short term fix to any problems we are currently having. He gains nothing by being outbodied at AFL level by stronger, more experiidefenders. At VFL level he can learn his craft and gain a lot of confidence. A taste to reward him might come this year, but if not a 2025 debut is on the cards with a view to being an integral part of the forward line from 2026 onwards.

I actually think @BoBo helped me out here with their detailed post. I hadn't looked at this incident as close as they obviously have and just assumed it was a solar plexus hit. In general, I think that striking someone off the ball shouldn't be allowed. The Pendles example is quite good. If you can hit someone in the solar plexus and have them drop, giving you or a team mate a free run at a stoppage, then I think that should be suspended, not a fine for low impact. It's a deliberate striking action and isn't part of football and should be discouraged. Oliver cops then all the time. It's gross and we shouldnt be teaching kids "hawhaw its just a little love tap to make him earn it". In the Maynard type situation, yeah I'm being sarcastic because I know the AFL will never deal with it properly. Realistically he either did strike him with enough force to incapacitate (which is not a football act) or Maynard is staging. Which is it? Well the AFL decided it was the former, so surely that strike - that doubled Maynard over - should be punished appropriately? But instead they are trying to sit on the fence and give the easy decision - a small fine that won't be challenged. The whole thing is a farce, from AFL house to the media and commentary.

I hate Maynard as much as anyone, but this absolutely shouldnt be staying and absolutely should be a suspension for striking. If the strike is able to temporarily incapacitate the player then it isn't low inpact. If striking someone like that can give me an advantage in play, by taking my opponent out, or by disadvantaging them in physical exertion and contests for the next 3-5 minutes, then it should be suspended.

Jesus. This selection was not about ready made depth. Kentfield was overlooked in the ND and rookie draft last year, and after exposed form in the first half of this year we have given him a shot at development. Imagine if we drafted a very late, key position prospect in the rookie draft last year. We would expect them to have 2-3 years development before they are AFL ready. He is 1.5 years plus about 70 draft picks behind Jefferson for example.

This is one of two things. Either Maynard is staging for a free kick, OR the strike has sufficient medium/high impact that justifies Maynard going down in which case it is a suspension. The AFL can't sit on the fence between those options.

For me Sestan is all about his fitness capacity, because he needs to be able to cover ground AND have burst speed to play his role. So I reckon an extension for Sestan is about whether they thing another preseason is what he needs, rather than pure talent.

Yeah I agree, I reckon this was the right call. But if he wasn't complaining or getting checked my medicos,the situation of "call him of the ground and sub for JJ" could draw scrutiny in the way I suggested it. I also agree other clubs were rotting it during the year. All I'm saying is that maybe there were legitimate factors that, inside our clubs football department, established a process for how/when to use the sub while complying with the rules, and maybe they were followed to the letter on grand final day so as not to risk anything. That level of integrity and risk aversion on our big day might not be consistently how other clubs might have done it, nor with how some of us might have done it. But that doesn't mean claims that "Goodwin treated JJ poorly by not getting him on" are fair.

While I've always felt the same, it has occurred to me that the club wanted to leave nothing to chance. The sub then was strictly medical. Could you have imagined the potential uproar if we had made a non medical sub and been called out on it? There may have been a decision to just simply not risk a cloud on the premiership. It sucks. It sucks for JJ. But it also might not have been a lack of desire to get him on.

Petty is 24, Kozzie is 23. JVR, Windsor, Rivers and Tholstrup all have potential to be top flight players. We are missing an under 25 centre circle mid star (unless Tholstrup morphs into that, but I suspect he'll be more like Petracca as a mid/forward). But that's not unreasonable, we haven't wanted to spend capital on that area of the list when we've have Clarry, Viney, Oliver holding those positions down. Imagine if we'd drafted more young inside mids who couldn't get a game so left instead of drafting Windsor, Tholstrup, Jefferson, JVR, Bowey, Laurie, Luke Jackson (who left but gave us Jefferson and Windsor) or Pickett, or trading for Lever or May. That's every first round pick since we drafted Clayton Oliver in 2015... Also the only one out of that batch who I think it a bust is Laurie.

Yeah but we all know the situation he was in, and the lack of preseason he had, and the finger issue he's had. So it isn't a surprise that he is lacking condition and touch. It was a horrid period and tbh it's a wonder he's out there. Maybe he shouldn't be out there, but he is still one of our best performers this year. If the option is him or Laurie, I know which one I'm selecting this week.

I think he quietly became the second fastest player ever to 5000 disposals as well against St Kilda a few weeks ago too (behind Tom Mitchell).

One thing I saw on the weekend was his genuine joy and celebration when Petty kicked that goal. It was over the top joy and celebration and spoke to me of a player (Oliver) who genuinely cared about his teammate (Petty) who he knew had been struggling for form. It wasn't about the game situation it was about Petty. That's an important aspect of buying in to the team. And it's good to see that while his form is down. Maybe he does move on to get a fresh start but I hope he stays and returns to his best. It's been a joy to watch him so far in his career.

Yeah of course, I wasn't saying it was the only one, I was saying from a risk assessment perspective, maybe it's a tolerable risk as part of contact football? Firstly, there are probably less organ injuries than concussions (I am guessing). Second, my understanding is that most organ injuries are identified and treated with full recovery and no lasting effects. Contrast that the brain injuries which are cumulative, hidden, difficult to diagnose or define the "how bad is it" line, and chronic, with no full recovery expected. So based on those assumptions, I could see why tolerance for brain injuries and concussions would be lower than tolerance for internal organ injuries. Finally, concussion related injuries are based almost solely around 1 thing: contact to the head. And as there is rarely acceptable contact to the head, it's easy to introduce an effective control that is a blanket ban on such contact. But internal and organ related injuries are associated with all sorts of other impacts and contacts that usually aren't a lasting problem. It's very hard to implement controls which prevent them, while also allowing competing in a contact sport. So potentially consequence is not as high for body contact as it is for head injury, and secondly, likelihood seems a bit lower too (thousands of body hits for every organ damage vs 10s of head contact for every concussion). So the overall risk is likely to be lower.

Counter point to this is that the has been thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of marking contests in football throughout the years and few few that have resulted in an injury this bad, let alone something as bad as a permanent spinal injury. There are inherent risks in playing a contact sport. I think we are all comfortable that brain injury due to concussion is something we need to minimise as much as possible. We've identified that regular head hits makes the risk of CTE way too high and we have a lot of past players suffering. But we don't truly have a zero tolerance because if we did we would say "no contact, no species (hit your head on ground), no tackling, etc). We are just comfortable to reduce it as low as reasonably practical. So is a 0.001% chance of this kind of injury (knee to back, spleen) occuring, is that an acceptable risk? It probably is a low enough risk, but if we see a trend in them increasing then action may be required.

Sometimes, in specialist areas like this (and like vaccines, and other medical advice, etc) we need to trust that maybe, just maybe, reading about something in a newspaper doesn't make us qualified to comment on whether it was best practice or not.

But what you are saying isn't true. There are concussion assessment protocols. Do you know what they are? Have you got access to them? Even if you've heard the name of the assessment/testing protocol would you know what they mean or whether they are suitable? My guess is the answer to everything above is No. And if you happen to answer yes because you have specific medical training, then you probably know that the general public would be not able to interpret them. In Petracca's case there were protocols for assessment. The medical team has followed them. They have determined low risk of internal injury, most likely rib damage. What is the name of the tests or procedures they follows? I don't know. You don't know. We're not doctors. Releasing the details of the test procedure is not useful. Doctors are fallible, and their procedures can be fallible, and I agree that it is reasonable to suggest the independence of the AFL is sometimes questionable. But that doesn't mean they should open the books to the general public for this critique. The general public have no knowledge about this and will interpret it badly whatever is released. If Petracca wants to question the professional practice of the medical staff, he can (although he has publicly already praised them). But there proceedures were signed off by an oversight medical panel (via the AFL). Do you really think that a process that is signed off by two sets of medical practitioners independently is going to fail a test for malpractice?

It's a fine line because we do need to allow people to contest the mark, and it is difficult to judge whether an incident like this is accidental/incidental contact or if raising the knee is intended to have a physical impact (not suggesting injury intended, just meaning bump with the point of the knee to disrupt the opposition players mark). One thing I'd note is that Moore went up one fist just to spoil. So the knee in the back wasn't part of taking the mark just part of disrupting Petracca's attempt. If we moved this rule anywhere I'd consider taking spoiling attempts out of the "contesting the mark" definition, and placing them in the "unrealistic attemp" basket. So yes you can attempt to spoil, but you don't get the same protections from in the back etc as if you were attempting to mark. Difficult to police but it might stop players using physical collision body on body as the means of spoiling.

Yeah they did and they have learnt and got better. And they will keep learning. But a general supporter in the stands with no medical knowledge is not going to be able to make improvements on the doctors processes or assess whether the right thing happened. The medical community will do that as a profession. Not everyone needs to have a say on everything, especially when the topic is so specialist, and has already been signed off by independent medical review.

The club and doctors don't need to provide a public explanation of the medical risk management procedures they followed (which is what you are I playing when you say open and transparent ). The public wouldn't understand those procedures anyway. The club doctors have been open and transparent with the only people who have the expertise and authority to review them - the AFL medical team. And they ticked off the club doctors approach. That should be story over. Asking for risk management proceuto be public laid out so a lay person who doesn't understand them can critique them isn't helpful.

Are you a doctor or a risk management specialist? Then your opinion on whether you think it was handled correctly or not is probably irrelevant, because you don't have the expertise to make that assessment. The doctors did the assessment. Petracca passed at first, and subsequently failed and the doctors withdrew him. The process our club doctors followed was review by the AFL medical team and ticked off as the appropriate process. Anything else is people with no actual knowledge making judgement calls on what they saw fro. The stands, and not relevant.

I'm not convinced were making the 8, but this week is very different to what we've seen the last few...

19 shots from 37 i50s vs 17 from 35...

Question for anyone who watched the game: Was the difference in performance more about the quality of the opposition, or any noticeable change in approach to the game (I don't want to go as far as saying game plan)?

Is that a skill or a size issue? Not many players these days are true contested marking beasts. And I think we've seen that it is ok for a tall forward to be a rangy type who runs hard, marks the ball up the ground and gathers possessions around the ground more than one out. The real key though is that when they are in the wrestle situation they need to at least halve the contest).