deanox

In the OP out says the article states northeastern corner, but the image shown in the next post is the northwestern corner... Can someone clarify?

I reckon we play Adelaide oval nett than the G right now.

4 umpires on field is incompatible with the current approach to officiating the game. The current approach is to not pay most infringements and instead let the play flow. Adding a 4th umpire means that more minor infringements are picked up when they probably weren't that bad but looked bad from angle. It adds a different interpretation to the group. Additional umpires work in sports where lots of technical calls are made (tennis for example). If they wanted to change the umpiring approach to paying all infringements quickly them a 4th umpire works. Even if they want to go harder at some free kicks like holding the man at stoppages, or having an umpire deep at each end to make sure the forward isn't infringed and then make sure the player stays on their line after a mark, maybe.

Kruse didn't have the best night tonight. Sainsbury and Milligan were great. Gutsy effort which we lost by millimetres. Heartbreaking in context. I'm not a big soccer fan but it is great watching the structure in defense and the way they try and work through it. When done well, and with an attacking intent, it looks great in football too.

His dominance has been obvious. The umpires treatment of him in favour of Grundy on Monday was a big part of why we struggled. 1st, Grundy initiated a lot of grappling, with the free typically paid against Gawn (Grundy 5 frees for, 1 against, Gawn 1 free for, 4 against). 2nd, regularly the umpires "threw the ball up quick" even though Gawn (our ruck) was the last to get up from the pack i.e. they were throwing the ball up before Gawn had stood up which meant he was at a disadvantage positionally. Personally, I believe these two issues contributed to Collingwoods dominance at first possession and clearances.

They are looking at the wrong rules. Start paying holding the man against the third player into a tackle (a teammate of the ball carrier who "wraps up" the tackler). This is already illegal, was never part of the game and is a major cause of increasing stoppages. Pay more shepherding from marking contests. It has always been illegal to block or prevent someone contesting a mark. Players have mastered the art of this. Stop it and we go back to old fashion marking contests, not uncontested marks for the defenders. No rule changes needed, just enforce the ones we have.

That's crazy. Free kicks were 10-3 their way at quarter time. And that doesn't consider the ones that should have been paid like their throw in the goal square.

Definite and obvious: Out Pedo In Weid. This should help fix our forward structures. We probably need another tall defender for PA's talls. Smith is fine for shorter forward lines (until Oscar went off injured) but PA play Ryder plus Westhoff and and Dixon (both 200cm) so Frost/Petty need to come in for a defender, probably Vince. On form I'd like to bring Tyson into the team but he has to play inside mid. The only way I can see this working is moving Jones to a flank and dropping Vince/Harmes/ANB. Finally, considering bringing one of Hannan/Spargo/Petracca for Garlett. Just to change it up and give us a spark. All have had good moments, but none have been dominate, and a different mix could be beneficial. Given I don't think 4 changes is necessary after 6/7 wins, I think: In: Weid, Petty/Frost Out: Pedo, Vince With the option of Garlett in for a small forward as a 3rd option.

Honestly I felt this was about the set up and the ruck contest. Before the dogs we were dominating out of the middle by winning the ball from the tap. Today we constantly seemed out of position when the ball dropped, but worse one of Collingwoods mids dropped halfway out of the contest once the ball went to the "far side" meaning they always had a player outside ours (if we won the first ball this "outside" player shut us in so we couldn't get the clearance, and if they won they could get it out that bit easier). We were too close into the pack today, a bit more like last year, less space. I think we lacked Brayshaw's outside link today. Unsure if this is our set up problem or the way Collingwood made us play.

Agree 100%. You could see the frustration in Max as well. A number of times Grundy initiated holding of Max's jumper but the holding free would go against Max. No idea why.

@bing181 Yeah he played well but Collingwood seriously exploited his lack of pace by dragging him deep and his kicking from HB is much better than from deep. @Demonised Agreed, this set up their win by negating our strength. Gawn got the wrong end of the umpiring stick today and it cost us. @olisik Agree 100%. We need to adapt our game to this quickly. Now that we have had 6 weeks of successfully implementing our preferred game style, we can be sure that losing today requires actual tactical changes, and isn't just poor implementation. @Clintosaurus I think we would have been deliberately testing our prefered, successfully implemented game plan and trying to win our way.

Adding to this: - Over the last 6 weeks we really clicked, playing football the way we want to. It has been great to get some consistency going with our game plan. - The opposition was not the best, which is (in part) what allowed us to transfer our plan from training to game day - Today we got found out tactically by a strong side who had been planning on beating us (there was a great post above about Collingwood manning up our anchor with a fast player, as one example) - we now get to analyse how they did that and implement improvements and counters (better now than finals) Also, we need to work out of we actually struggle at the G, or if it's coincidence.

A charmed umpire run in the first gave them a start, but Grundy beat Gawn in the ruck and we lost the clearances. Jones had a shocker, and the rest of the mids didn't lift. They had our structures covered and when we got it they consistently chopped off our usual avenues tho goal; worse they smashed us on the rebound, running harder the other way while we we're caught out of position. Finally, with Oscar off in the last quarter, they exploited our lack of height in defence. Pedo gave us nothing with only 3 marks; worse I think he cost us structure and disrupted Hogan's game. He won't play next week. Tyson is a chance given we struggled in the middle but I don't know who you drop. Everytime we play bad Lewis looks slow and Vince looks sloppy but they play well in our wins so not sure if you drop them.

Oscar injured?

Yeah I do. A lot was made of Alex and Georgia's commitment to their religion and the possibility of him quiting football to play a more activity role in ministry was discussed. He raised the topic publicly in interviews and speeches, this isn't anything I dug up from his private life. Imo in general the media considers religious people to be upstanding with good morals, but rightly judges them against these morals when they transgress, especially when in a position of authority or leadership (ie a politician or a community leader, and I note Rance is neither). I don't understand your statement "For you to suggest he is unchristian and should use his religion to change repeals any impartiality on your part.". I see no lack of impartiality, please highlight it if it exists. I think my comment is pretty clear: I'm not anti religion, but I view his on-field behavior as going against Christian teachings, and therefore I hope he can learn from those and improve his behaviour and actions. Continuous cheating (diving) and cheap aggressive acts (kneeing and punching to the back of the head) are characteristically "unchristian". I appreciate that you seem to think TB's hit was worse based on force. I think the lack of provocation and the intentional nature of ARs act makes it worse.

You took a number of shots at me, dismissing me out of hand as being "on drugs". But you have provided no actual statements of your own to contribute, other than disagreeing with me. Why don't you try putting something worthwhile out there to counter my statements?

Cool story bro. I've given a pretty good examples and justification for my thoughts, but you've given nothing but insults. Why not give some examples of more cowardly acts? Why not debate my points about why Rance was worse?

I am particularly keen to know which of my statements toy actually disagree with?

And there we have what? His religious private life is part of the reason he gets lauded as being a great player and a good person, but his on field actions including punching, kneeing, diving and a lot of whinging/complaining are all very "unchristian" behaviours. They are hypocritical in fact. I hope he uses his religion as a way to try and better himself, and improve the behaviours but the implication that because he practices a religion he is a good person is rubbish.

Two reasons in my opinion: 1) the AFL are toofocused on "outcome" of an act not the act itself. Bugg was penalised because he happened to knock him out, regardless of his intent or the actual consequence/ risk. See the NikNat suspension as an example of this. 2) Bugg was a no name that everyone hates anyway: he was seen as a low skilled pest. Rance is a golden boy of the media and the AFL. Apparently clean cut, he gets the "Brock Turner" defence of being a "great" guy, lauded for his football ability and thus given the benefit of the doubt that "this was just frustration" and not typical behavior.

It was an elbow, to the back of the head, to a guy lying on the ground unable to defend himself. It is the single most cowardly thing I have ever seen happen on an AFL field. It had potential to cause serious harm (in the vein of Phil Hughes). It was an act perpetrated purely because he lost a contest, and had nothing to do with any physical provocation at all. Dirty act of the highest order.

Looking at the fixture i feel this is a really important game. Like, yeah we are due for a loss but next round pls? Of the 11 games left, we play 4 bottom-6 sides, who we should beat. That's 12 wins, and we'll need 15 at least (maybe 16) for top 4. We also play: - 3 top-5 sides, and 2 of those are interstate (WCE and Geelong). - 4 mid-tier sides, with 2 interstate (Adelaide and Port). So we need to beat Collingwood, Sydney and GWS at the G if we want to be a top 4 chance. That allows us to lose all 4 interstate games, but we'd probably want to pinch one anyway. Also Collingwood are playing well, so this is a real test. This is the only finals contender we play at a neutral ground (i.e. neither team traveling) so will tell us a lot. If we win this, unless we have an unexpected late season fadeout (form, fitness, injuries, whatever) then I think we're capable of beating anyone, especially in Melbourne, which bodes well if we can hold a top 4 spot. Bigger game than I'd realised.

I'm thinking that you can't hold them forever, as promotion will await!

Mate, watch the footage of the Bugg hit and it's clear he didn't mean it. Mills was hitting him to the body from behind and he threw one back and both were unlucky with where it landed. Bugg had nothing to gain from knocking him out, there was no aggro at all. He didn't even realise he'd knocked him putt till he turned back around. The footage is entirely consistent with his statement in the article: "Callum Mills hit me from behind again and I went to hit him back. I can honestly say I went to hit him to the chest … " Bugg's action was nowhere neat as bad as Rance's, who made a conscious and cowardly choice to elbow a layer in the back of the head, while prone, simply because he lost the contest. Nothing about Rance's act was accidental, there was no provocation.

I know there is a "football department cap" but I hope that if we truly believe that people like Jennings, McCartney, Taylor, Rawlings, Matthews et al are the reason for our emergence and growth that we throw a bit of coin their way and try and tie them up together for another 2 or so years so that we can achieve success as a group. Success and premiership have to mean something for the coaching/support staff too, if we can keep the best of them together for longer (before they seek other opportunities) we'll be in a great position.