Chris

1 hour ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

An excellent, thought-provoking documentary. If people haven't seen it, I strongly recommend they do. While it's clearly football-related, it's the bigger picture about society, privilege and those that have a voice and how they use (or mis-use) it, that's most interesting.

And it's probably worth pointing out that while there are some people  mainly in the media - who come out of this badly, there are a few who deserve to be recognised for the positive roles they played. I'm not normally his greatest fan, but Mark Robinson was terrific as was Kelly Underwood. And possibly not properly noticed was Luke Darcy trying to stop Eddie McGuire from making a fool of himself. 

I can’t stand Robbo but to give him credit he was right on this one and was strong on it from the start. Well done Robbo

3 minutes ago, Earl Hood said:

It’s a win just! No thanks to the umpire who pulled that rediculous in the back free to the Dogs at the end, could have changed the result. 

And the too high a minute earlier. The two blokes umpiring were appalling. 

On 8/29/2018 at 12:04 AM, DeeSpencer said:

A necessary strict liability and harsh punishment for the Olympics, which happens every 4 years and has global implications. Olympians sign up and sacrifice for that to be the best in the world.

Sam Murray is a 20 year old kid who's about the 30th best player on the Pies list. Maybe the 400th best player in a sport that is played by just over half of one small country. He's worked hard to get drafted and get to a second club and get some opportunities to play. He's well rewarded for that in terms of money, but he's not representing his country and isn't on the global stage.

The AFL has had one major PED scandal in Essendon. They caught the club and instigators. And despite hardly overwhelming evidence and seemingly little intent they punished the players. Otherwise there's only been a handful of others who have flirted with PEDs.

There's no intent from Murray. There's no real damage done to results. There's no gold medal falsely awarded. He rightly suffers deep shame. Giving him any more than about 6 months is just using the harshness of the WADA code where it doesn't need to apply.

Some people on here seem to think that's good because they've seemingly never made a mistake. Some think drugs are the devil, probably the same people who drink 3 cups of coffee in the morning and a bottle of wine at night. Some are jealous of the money AFL Players make. Some just want to punish him for his stupidity. Not me. I'd give him 6 weeks just to [censored] of those on their high horses.

Gee, I am glad this opinion is slowly being weeded out. Just let them all off as they are poor little boys. BS. 

Have said from day 1 that the AFL is inept, especially with drugs in their sport. 

It seems they like to continually prove me right!

Was a bit of an audible boo on the telly. Not huge but to many people celebrating the win and the AFL didn't pump him up at all in the announcement. It was kind of ' AND THE NORM SMITH IS BEING PRESENTED BY james hird AND THE WINNER IS DUSTY' and then Hird was ussered away. 

On the ETC in general. It annoys me they are still in the league, it frustrates me they think the AFL did wrong by them when the AFL has bent over to protect them and continues to do so. I refused to watch them this year and saw one quarter of their game against us and that was it for the year. I will continue to not watch or go to games that they are involved in. 

36 minutes ago, binman said:

It seems clear that if he leaves he is coming home to Vic. Lucifer's Hero makes a good point about Lynch ending up staying at the Crows despite many saying him leaving was a fait accompli.  So despite the loud jungle drums it its not a done deal he is leaving the crows. But jeez if you putting a bet on it you'd land on him going.

If the last point is true surely the dees would be a more attractive option than either the dogs or pies (who seem to be the other key suitors)  given we are close to our premiership window. Dogs have had their flag and will struggle to get another any time soon. Who knows how far away the pies are but they have a fair bit of rebuilding to do and the situation with Buckley and the review wouldn't make a potential recruit very comfortable.

I agree with those that say we shouldn't be paying too much above market rate. and i doubt we will, so the pies might well out bid us. We have a range of other needs, in particular at least one more mid who is an elite user of the ball and a really good second ruck option as Gawn going down exposed our vulnerability in this area (king might come good, but seems a fair way away).

But in addition to his ability to play the intercept role really well and to fit into our system i like lever's ball use. Not sure if it is elite but not far off. Also goody values flexibility and i reckon Lever with his marking ability could thrive up forward when/if needed and perhaps also as an occasional ruckman. 

It wasn't so much Max going down that exposed us, it was Spencer! No idea how King is going but we also have Filipovic who is a few years off yet. If we can keep Spencer around until Filipovic is ready then we should be fine. The chances of loosing two ruckmen is pretty low, for it to happen twice would be astonishing. 

33 minutes ago, Bates Mate said:

doubt he met with MFC maybe his manager but I thought it was against the rules to meet in season

 

 

Depends who asks for the meeting. It may well only apply to free agents but if the player asks to meet with the club then there is no issue at any time. The rule bans the clubs from contacting the players (as in making first contact), it doesn't ban the player from talking to clubs.

18 minutes ago, Unleash Hell said:

You can't throw a blanket of statistics over you're arguement. How about the final qtr on Saturday? I havent looked at the stats but from my eye i reckon we lost clearances and got beaten up around the ball. So your point is moot if im right, stats are general you need to be specific. You cant point at a trend for the yr and apply it to one game because it may not actually refect what happened.

Goody and other media analysts have discussed this year how we play. If you can't discuss how the team plays and how that affects you're arguement it's a waste of time.

Its very easy to say we were out marked and exposed on Saturday... and we were , you're 100% spot on.

What ppl are trying to say is you can be a simpleton and focus on one area of the game or discuss the whloe situation not just the end result. 

For example did our turnovers creat their scoring opportunities or was it stoppages it was it just ben brown?

It's really up to u. Maybe you just have no undestanding and thats ok too 

 

Agreed. You can mount a very strong case that we were out marked on the weekend due more to the delivery coming in than the act of the defender. In reality both were at play but the defenders life gets so much harder when the delivery is coming in with little no no pressure, which is down the mids who had a very off day pressure wise. Clearances are a useless stat when looking at pressure as it is only the clearance, it doesn't show if the ball was then turned over and run down the other end with little or no pressure, and pressure is what makes the delivery bad and makes the back men be able to do their job better. 

Using the number of times a team scores per 50 entry is also useless unless you add the number of entries into 50. In reality the back 6 press up to around our half forward line, if they are working well with the mids and putting the pressure on the number of inside 50 for the opposition drop, but the may score easily if they actually get there. 

Just watched the final two minutes of the game again as I wanted to see a few of the mistakes mentioned in here. Four things stood out.

1: The free to Brown for in the back on the wing was soft, may not have made a huge difference though as they had the ball anyway.

2: Hunts sort pass was high risk high reward, it didn't come off as the pass itself was off line, had it been on line then who knows.

3: Who ever posted that OMac was too close to Jetta in the zone right at the end when they took the mark is spot on.

4: OMac (99% sure it was but apologies if it wasn't) did what I see many players do when taking a kick from an out on the full, but this one may have had dire consequences. Players seem not to realise that once they set foot inside the boundary again then it is play on. OMac never actually got to the outside of the boundary, took the ball that was thrown to him, and as soon as he wasn't moving to get to the outside of the boundary the ump correctly called play on. That left his kick rushed and short which fell into Daw's hands with Maxy and few others trying to make up the distance he lost.

I really can't believe how many AFL players I see that miss this basic understanding of the rules. If it is out on the full boys, get yourself over the boundary and don't step back in until you are ready to kick. I have similar rant about players being called to play on while over the boundary taking a kick and it not being deemed out of bounds, but I will leave the full version of that for another day.

I don't really agree that our defense is a huge issue, although I do readily concede that it can be improved.

Overall our defense has been fairly solid, where we are weak is against the big forwards, that is obvious, and is also for a few reasons.

1: TMac has barely been back all year, he has been in the ruck and forward due to injuries. Put TMac back with OMac and Frost (or even one in the VFL at times) ad things against the big boys would be different. Not completely solved but far better.

2: The games in which our big backs have struggled have been the games where our mids have boon off, which means the delivery int eh forward line is fast and generally pretty good. That is very hard to defend. In the games where our mids are pressuring the ball carrier our backs do a good enough job. Both Frost and OMac are young and will improve, unfortunately they have ad to this on the big stage, although that could stand them in good stead in future. 

The answer to our issue with big backs is to get another big back in there so we have some sort of depth. That could be TMac going back again or bringing in someone else. Currently we simply don't have the depth and if one of them was to go down we are stuffed. The other answer is the make sure the whole team is defending, when we do that we are fine, if the mids and forwards have an off day the backs are screwed.

I actually thought all our backline did a pretty good job on the weekend. Sideshow only got 4 (yes I said only, if we had been bad down there he would have had 10), teh other talls were basically unsighted, and our small backs did a good job (with the exception of Lewis' disposal)

8 minutes ago, ManDee said:

?

Obviously Norwood (redleg connection), and the other wood one might get when we play well.

28 minutes ago, ManDee said:

Essendon prove why they have no paperwork.

I bet they would blame someone else for putting the shredder in the wrong place too! Pick one of Dank, WADA, ASADA, the AFL, or simply that all the other clubs were doing it too.

11 minutes ago, Robbie57 said:

An interesting historical question which have more to do with cricket or just a lack of co-ordination when the grounds were first built. Perhaps the best question is why wasn't Etihad built to the same size as the MCG?

Etihad is probably narrower that the G due to the preexisting infrastructure around (the road and train), although both of those could have been worked around. 

30 minutes ago, deebug said:

It would be good to know why all grounds are different sizes?

Geography would play a big part. Given the age of many of the grounds it would have been determined by how much flat ground there was (or near enough to flat to be easily shaped).

On 9/16/2016 at 11:10 AM, Kumamoto_Ken said:

'Bounce it properly then'

Max to the peanut umpire who had a sook when he'd done a pathetic sideways bounce that he was trying to recall when Max smashed it away.

Ump had given him a dirty look and whined, 'what'd you do that for?'.

Nicholls was the ump and I am not sure he has given us a free since!

I said when we got Lewis that he will bring many things outside of his playing that we desperately need in terms of leadership and experience. I think he is bringing this. I also said in terms of his playing I hoped for a good first year (is on track, is not outstanding but is definitely good), and average second year, and a third year in and out of the team as the young ones overtake him. 

To me he is in the good bracket this year (just). I did expect him to be better but am happy with what he has brought so far (just). Hopefully he doesn't fall off a cliff form wise and he can keep playing through all of next year as well. 

15 minutes ago, stevethemanjordan said:

 

Apparently it does around here.

It's odd that a player who plays to the standard you expect from someone playing in that position gets his own congratulatory thread. I'm talking about basic spoiling in the air and hitting basic targets by both foot and hand. He showed that he was competent in the second half without staring or doing anything particularly special. I saw him take a good intercept mark. But I genuinely can't recall anything other than him not making mistakes in the second half? (After making quite a few in the first).

I mean, all it proves is that he has been under-performing .

Congratulations Oscar for not making any diabolical errors in the second-half.

If you are able to reproduce that effort, you may be considered a future star in the making on demonland.

I'm more than happy to discuss in detail what it was about his second-half that posters think was anything other than solid.

The thing I noticed, and liked, was that he seemed to start having confidence to crash packs. A few times he flew and made a real impact to bring the ball to ground/get it out of bounds. In the past I have noticed him either hesitating or not going hard enough to make a real impact. he seemed to really throw himself at it quite a bit. He was also more composed with the ball. You are right though in that he wasn't outstanding, he was just very good which is what he should always be and is working towards. The potential is there to see, Oscar just needs to really commit to throwing himself at it in order for the rewards to truly come. 

On 2017-6-9 at 4:52 PM, jnrmac said:

Ys they can. A court can force him but ho-one has taken him to court. I wonder why?

Going to court would take action from a player or the club, neither probably want the real answer. The AFL and ASADA are powerless to get him to talk. 

21 minutes ago, Cards13 said:

How has he not had to answer 1 question during the whole saga?

Because no one can force him to. 

4 minutes ago, Sir Why You Little said:

Bring it on...

let's hope Rohan Conolly is writing the story..

And Rita Panhani (sorry if spelling is wrong). As Rita doesn't bow to the AFL due to not having an accreditation hanging over her head she seems to be able to cut through the crap and tell it how it is.

17 minutes ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

But if Lovett-Murray is initiating the action, wouldn't the burden of proof, on the balance or probabilities, be on him to show that the supplements were damaging, not the other way around? 

May well be, but his first question may well be for Essendon to show what they actually gave him, the answer to that would be interesting, especially if a few key people end up under oath!

On 5/22/2017 at 1:53 PM, Luther said:

A mature back up ruck would be nice.

At least we have our tall defence 'covered', they just need to improve a bit.

We have one of those in Spencer. Maybe what you mean is a mature back up to our back up ruck!

What I would love to see is a bloody big sign outside the G (or even better, inside the G) stating 'Never forget the dons and Dank'.

Would be a nice touch as a tribute to our diggers as it plays on the sign in the primary school in Villers-Bretonneux which reads 'Never forget Australia'. This sign is in place as thanks to not only our diggers who took the town 99 years ago tomorrow, but also as thanks to the Victorian School children who raised money after the war to help rebuild their school in France. On an aside and sorry for the history lessen, the school children of Villers-Bretonneux in return raised money for the rebuilding of the schools lost in the Black Saturday bush fires, a truly special relationship forged in blood and tears that far too few know anything about. 

As a kid of the 80's I hate Hawthorn, always have and always will. They are my main rival, with the drug cheats not far behind. I am just hoping they drop off the face of the planet and we smash them for the next decade. 

22 minutes ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

I wonder how many clubs have won games, finals or premierships with players under the influence of illicit drugs?  Maybe even won premierships with players on one or two strikes.

Wasn't it Robbo who this week last year wrote an article about the high percentage of Collingwood players testing positive to illicit drugs.  I saw a table posted on DL before it was taken down (appropriately) by moderators that showed some very prominent teams' players being right up there and higher than Collingwood on that list.

And wasn't there a case where medical records were found strewn in an Ivanhoe street that implicated some neighbouring AFL players about 10 years ago?

And who was the Sydney player around that time that claimed illicit drug use was rife in the AFL.  Andy D canned him big time in the press and his reputation never recovered.  Just can't recall the players name but I think it was around the time Sydney won the GF.

I don't condone drug use at all.  But the bluster in the press about WCE 'tainted' premiership is just bluster.  It is naive to think it hasn't happened since. 

Unfortunately for WCE they have had some high profile, very tragic fallout from that era.  I would bet my bottom dollar they aren't the only team to have won a premiership with players taking illicit drugs.  The others have managed to fly under the radar.

I actually couldn't give a toss about illicit drug use and playing. The illicit drugs that are performance enhancing are banned by WADA, and the other do nothing for your performance.

The issue here is that the AFL spend a whole lot of money testing for illicit drugs, many of which are banned by WADA, but they don't share the results with ASADA. Basically the AFL could very well be hiding the use of illicit drugs which are performance enhancing under the guise that it is a 'societal issue'.

It is about time the AFl grew the hell up and expected from their athletes the same standard we expect from teenagers in every Olympic sport.