deespicable me

Went along mainly to watch Moniz-Wakefield and Van Rooyen. They are a good team, Casey. Good mix of Casey players, especially Jimmy Munro who never takes a backwards step and was close to BOG and the Captain Mitch White who was also in the votes, and AFL elder back-up players in Majak Daw and Mitch Brown. Majak didn't have much of an opponent so ran riot in the ruck and around the ground. Also the AFL youngsters are a very good bunch and are developing well at this level. Just on that Laurie and Rosman in their second years have really improved from last year. Laurie was injured for a fair chunk but is having a good season and is almost ready for AFL duties although he probably won't get a go for a while. Rosman is the other who can definitely come up to AFL level. He can play tall enough to mind a mid range forward, or a third tall in the backline, he has fast closing speed and some of his spoils were excellent. He probably isn't far behind Joel Smith, which means there is a chance he could be brought up in the next 12 months. Deserves a go at AFL level. Moniz-Wakefield is showing great promise for a first year player. He is quick and has a good kick and wins a lot of one on ones. Not much defensive side to his game just yet but has great offensive weapons. Will be good to see him develop, but is another who will have to bide his time as he sits behind Bedford and Chandler in the pecking order. That doesn't matter though this year as he isn't ready for AFL just yet. Van Rooyen though is definitely in my eyes the pick of the bunch. He has the most upside and can possibly even rise to the heights of becoming a great centre half forward. The first time I saw him I was a bit underwhelmed, down at Willy Oval a few weeks ago. He looked ok but had very little influence on the game and flew in packs where he didn't look likely. But yesterday he showed a lot taking six good marks and kicking a the goal of the day. Four of his six marks were from leading up the ground and taken on the wing. They were mostly uncontested but that was because of his speed to put distance on his opponent and they were still good marks, taken high and at pace. His kicking is a thing of beauty, he is balanced and can kick over 50 metres easy. One of his marks was from a kick out and a good pack mark. His goal was similar to a young David Schwartz, where he picked up the ball swung around and put it through from 50 metres. It was all class. He is tall enough and big enough for his age and with natural growth over the next couple of years will get to over 100 kg and good strength. He again didn't do much close to goals as he gets jostled out of position and has a lot to learn in this area but once he got out on the lead and up the ground he came into his own where he could time his run. Already blessed with riches, the recruiting team would be very excited by all the new kids, but Van Rooyen is the ace in the pack.

With Covid it depends how sick you get. I know they are fit athletes and in most cases it is nothing more than an inconvenience where the time out doesn't justify the level of sickness, but some of the players, not necessarily ours, will get next level sick and develop a cough that may take a bit of time to clear. People here talk about Covid like it is a week off and back to full output and while we certainly have seen that with Viney (warrior spirit) I will be very happy to see each of those players, fit and healthy and back out there. It's just not a given.

It may be that they adjust the bench to always include a tall. That way you probably don't need to see Brown, Weeds and TMac in the forward line together. TMac could really have to swing on Sunday night, potentially giving a chop out in the back line, forward line and even ruck.

I would like Weed to stay in. I thought his game against the Giants was one of his best for the club yet. He presented well and took marks and was involved in the spoil down to Spargo, to ANB for a goal among other things. He doesn't deserve to be dropped and needs consistent game time to see how far his upside is. Having said that Tarrant will be too strong for him, so .......

Okay. So I'll give you an analogy. A bad one I'll admit but something akin to what you're saying. Son comes into the room and poops on the floor. Father says "son, that was wrong, I'm going to rub your nose in it to teach you a lesson!" Son says "no Father, don't tell me what is and isn't wrong, I'm now going to rub your nose in it" See. Now we've got a situation where umpires are doing doo doos all over the place, then whenever a player says maybe you should stop defecating all over the place the umpire says "no, Don't tell me I'm stinking it up! Now I'm going to rub your nose in it so as to teach you a lesson." Clearly the game has turned to sh*t.

Come on, it wasn't even a free. Then 50. No-one wants to see that. That was bad umpiring. And everyone is meant to sit in their seats and shut up.

Not sure about that. The threads that pot players are most popular

Last night was truly terrible umpiring. So biased. My favorite was when Keefe got a 50 for a late jump into his back (which was there) and he got taken from the half back flank to 25 metres out. It had to be 80 metres. It was so far I thought he got given 2 x 50 metres but I don't think so. I think it set a new world record! "Longest fitty eva" Well done that umpire.

I agree with all supporting comments with regards to Max. He has made a bit of a pledge to try and play off in a Grand Final and hopefully the ultimate success, on the MCG. He is only interested in the 4 points. We are 2 for 2, maximum of 8 points. That is his focus. We will have to go through tough times yet this season one would assume and Max will be there for us. He is the best Captain in the league and one of the major reasons I believe we can go back to back. He is much loved by his players, his coach and us. In Max we trust.

I like the idea of having a mix of full-time through to part-time umpires. There isn't a problem and in fact a need for full-time umpires given we now have AFLW. Also admin staff at schools get paid a package for the year but get all school holidays some maybe 13 weeks off or something. And I 100% agree with your second point.

I agree with most of what you say, especially the inconsistency around the subjective question of intent. But I don't agree that the umpiring standard is pretty good. I believe it is poor and with good coaching and getting a more consistent interpretation of rules it would improve markedly. The problem is demanding too much time of umpires off field in teaching them properly when they are not full - time employees. If they were full -time they could be held more accountable, we could have more analysis of their decision-making process and stop with the constant re-affirmation of some of their hopelessly poor decisions. In many ways they are responsible for the look of the game. 47 frees on Wednesday night were paid. That's a big stat. And its total control of the ball for 10 seconds before play on is called. A good team like the dogs can take that scenario and before the opposition gets a chance to intercept or bring the ball back into a disputed situation again they have scored. That was exactly what happened on Wednesday night when Petracca was called for holding the ball in the first quarter. Now your mate with his twitter account might say that was a technically correct decision, but theres no way that rule was interpreted as harshly on any dogs player for the rest of the night or practically any player across the weekend. Good teams overcome bad umpiring, and Melbourne are a good team so I shouldn't get too annoyed, we are in a position to create our own destiny, but I am struggling to watch other games because of the random nature of umpiring. We underestimate the impact bad decisions can have on a game. The AFL need to publicly acknowledge there is a problem and take steps to improve the standard.

An ex AFL umpire? I'm not sure if he is sponsored or not as I haven't seen the twitter account but I like how you and another poster shared his tweets with an example of one in support and one that he thought wrong. I didn't mean to belittle your post. I just think there is enough press out there suggesting the game doesn't have a problem. As to technology and your slightly sarcastic comment about trying to introduce it to a game as fast and chaotic as AFL, it is hard to do but maybe it's not too big a stretch to have technology helping with distances, ie 15 metres of marks and 50 metre penalties. But let me ask you. Do you think the game is adjudicated well enough or do you believe it could and should be improved? Do you think the umpiring is consistent across each game and across the league?

That's pretty easy to see. The AFL/Umpiring Dept are under a bit of pressure to not be seen as the worst umpired sport in the world. It's not an excuse to say it's such a hard sport to umpire, umpires are just human and make mistakes just like the players, or it's just part of the game and we have to accept it. 2022's version is suggesting everyone including the players should stop arguing and just move on. It's propoganda. All other sports have for the large part embraced technology and made changes to improve their sport and any frustration around the umpiring of their sport. Take tennis for example. The days of McEnroe are consigned to the past. The 3 challenges per set and Hawk-eye technology has settled it all down. But what is important is this. The governing body of tennis recognised there was a problem and worked to create a solution. Job well done. Everyone, from players to audience see the system as fair and don't question decisions. Also the release of pressure on umpires has been enormous. Rather than admit there is a problem and asking the public to bear with the AFL while they try and fix it we are fed lies. Which just makes me angrier. But I love your nom de plume "La Dee-vina Comedia" as that's what the game probably is and me trying to get an improved version of umpiring is like asking them to change the ball from oval to round.

It's just propaganda. Keep telling lies and over a period of time people will either believe it or give up complaining because they're sick of untruths constantly being projected over the top of the truth.

I much prefer the players not being allowed to argue the point with the umpires. You can see they want to and it's hard for them to stop themselves but as a result a lot of bad decisions just slip through and the public aren't as inclined to boo and carry on. But they have to improve the standard of umpiring. As for Cody Weightman, he saw Smith coming at him, so actually made a conscious effort to go for the free rather than the mark. When Smith baulked and ran past, beside, under him, Weightman was already bracing for contact. I thought he may have been burrowed from behind but it was all his own actions. Squib. No free. And Naughton is a great player but the free against TMac where they were all going for the ball and Naughton who was out of position just flew off to the side, was staging. They should be doing revues after each game and picking these things up and notifying the Dogs that those actions won't be tolerated and they are going to stop rewarding those acts. But they don't. The footballing public are on to Weightman, even the Dogs supporters see it, but the umpiring department seem blind to his constant actions of going for the free rather than the ball.

I'm happy enough it's not season ending. If we are good enough to be in the top 4 or 6 when he returns then get him cherry ripe for the second half of the season. I know we have too many back-men out at the moment but I think Hunt, Tomlinson, Joel Smith get a chance to play and prove themselves and Brayshaw and Tom McD were great in defence on Wednesday night meaning Bedford gets his chance up the field. In a sense theres no use having great depth unless you get to use it and develop it. Having said all that does anyone know the timeframe for Petty, Rivers and Lever to return?

The only award the journos have a say in is the Rising Star. Is that right? Is it a panel or heaps of AFL hangers-on voting on it? Either way if they think Daicos will be Rising star then he only has to be somewhere nearly as good as any other eligible player and he will win. Their sycophantic ways are embarrassing. You can just hear the commentary every time he touches the ball. And they know it's Collingwood so only injury can stop the fools.

I think Collingwood might win it this year............. Ha ha .............

I thought it was good for us. With the proviso we take the lessons and prepare for the season. Carlton were good. Their midfield with Walsh back will be scary good. Their backline with Oscar (who played well and kept having small jokes with the Melbourne boys) and Williams and Saad were getting free way too easy. They had us on toast. Yet in the second half we tightened things up. Our backline started holding with second stringers, we tightened up on Saad and somehow we got back into the contest. Max was enourmous. Our midfield is the worry, but with our best backline in (especially May and Salem) we can hold a side when our midfield is beaten and slowly get on top. Was the loss we needed. No injuries. Well orchestrated MFC.

It's definitely a trend then. Teams [censored] themselves when they have to play us.

The sooner we move on from this game the better. Inflated egos and hollywood highlights....oh my god the horror!!

I love how they knew they needed to get better at contested ball in the middle and how they've gone about it. Daisy to the forward line, Paxman about 70% outside now and with Mithen, Hanks and West doing all the in and under grunt work, we are a seriously good contested ball team. West adds so much, she's great, just get the ball going our way. Libby Birch is a great back player and the speed of Goldrick in defence and Bannan on the wing is okay. Zanker is good to watch, she can be seriously good (the pick up on the run in the last then off to Harris for the soft free) but she also does a lot wrong. Her development is important to the team, she is nowhere near the finished product yet. I think our forward line is good around Harris, Daisy and Hore, but one more target would be good. Adelaide's defence was super and they shut us down very well, we will need to develop other avenues to goal to seriously challenge them. I think if we keep improving like the mens team did in 2021 we can win it. The big difference is I always thought the mens team's best was the best in the league but I don't think the girls are the best team in it yet. Hopefully they get to finals and have a good series. Go girls.

Don't want to rain on your parade Picket as it's nice to be on the receiving end of a good trade. We've had our share of bad ones, but I think this was a win/win sort of trade. Ben Brown was going nowhere anymore at North and had become Mr Flopsy as he was double teamed all the time and found it an easier option to try for a free than go for the footy. It's great he got the chance to revitalise his career, there were many doubters, especially from oppo clubs, but he got fitter and embraced change and the team ethos and got his reward. As did we. North though have two really good forwards that have developed well in Larkey and Zurhaar. That may not have happened if they had of hung onto Brown. I think they are winners from the trade too.

The thing I like about this list is Luke Dunstan is at 26. Second Saint on the list behind Brad Couch. I heard it said Ratten didn't like Dunstans turn-overs and the big knock on him was his disposal, but considering the company he is in on that list he is a pretty good ball winner and fits in well with our territory gained football. Looks like he is a really good pick up.

He looks fitter Turner. He's a fitter Turner