Chris

Why is it we can be held constantly and hawthorn players can stand beside our man on the mark! We are playing like crud but bloody hell umpires.

That free to Hawthorn happened to three melbourne players within the previous 2 minutes of play. FFS umpires!

Couldn’t happen to a better ducker poppy!

We are clearly held to a different standard by the umps

What is it with the hawks players getting told to be behind when next to us in he mark yet no reversal of the free!

Tidy up the very last line of defence to get the ball over the line and things will look much better.

Tidy up the very last line of defence to get the ball over the line and things will look much better.

Made no genuine attempt apparently! Not sure what you can do with both arms pinned by multiple players!

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.

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.

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.

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)

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

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

Because no one can force him to.

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.