Hatchman

I was alive on planet earth for 45 years before I saw a flag. And I never, ever thought I would live to see it. Publish your headlines and be damned.

Recent off field shenanigans with more potent revelations (likely) to come, would suggest that all is not well behind the scenes and it that we do not have a strong enough culture, from end-to-end, that is essential to winning a flag let alone making it to top four. Our window was 2021, 2022 and 2023. It's going to be a long cold winter, thankfully I live in the Northern Hemisphere

The Window was 2020 - 2022 It's now firmly

I come from a big Melbourne family on my mothers side My uncle bought me a Demons jumper with Robbie Flowers number on the back when I was born. I was the first grandchild in my mothers family so there was never going to be any doubt I'd be a Demons supporter - my dad wisely did not protest

Marty was a serviceable player and I also thought he was stiff to get delisted. He's there for defensive depth and we still need that

As fate would have it I was at the G when Port played us the first year Jack was playing for the Power and his family were sitting right behind us. In the last quarter we had some friendly banter with them as they were all in Port gear and we were playing terrible and went on to lose. The whole time I didn't know it was Jacks family until the siren went and his dad asked me if I knew who he was! Really nice bloke, as were his family. I shook their hands, wished them well and let them know that I hope Jack does well at Port because we all knew the Demons were not a great club and he clearly had a tough time there. I truly hope Jack is in a better place. We were a terrible club back then and neither he nor the other players deserved what Connolly, Neeld and Schwab had done to the place

The AFL is a for-profit business It will always act in it's own interests to ensure that it maximises profits, therefore keeping things fair and equitable for all clubs has its limits I'm still amazed that the Tassie team actually got up, but the cynic in me believes it was a concession made for some good public relations points and nothing more than that. As a business, a Tasmanian team makes no sense compared to another team in NSW.

And just to make matters worse for me, the San Francisco Giants just fired their coach! 2023 can go to hell!

I live in California, so glad I am not in Melbourne right now. The AFL engineered the umpiring and tribunal and got what they wanted. That was not a kick to advantage. At all. The harder reality is we were good enough to win it this year. And we failed.

Always.

It drives me nuts seeing a player, well within range, not run in a straight line from the mark to the centre of the goal line. It's what we were taught from a young age, run straight at your target. Running in an arc is only acceptable in two cases 1) Your name is Lance Franklin 2) You are kicking beyond your normal range so you need distance and ideally the ball as it travels will swing out but then back in. Incredibly hard to do for almost all players. However running in an arc is more accurate than a torpedo kick The reality is no matter how much coaching you can have not all players are good at set shots. Max is not good at this and never will be

The same coach that got us a flag in 2021? 😀

Nailed it. That's all we need

We can't hide from it, our goal kicking is just terrible. Like last week we weren't beaten by a better team, we just could not get the goals. We did not deserve to win that game. This was not our season, there is no way we would have beaten the Lions to make it. I wish Carlton the best, we know what it is like to be down for so long. I never say much about the umpiring but it was disgusting. The AFL has to improve the standard of umpiring, it is just not good enough.

We do but, it would be a very Melbourne thing to achieve a record like that!

Just woke up overseas and saw he got off This is insane

Incredible backline player that hardly ever got beaten 1:1 with blazing speed and a laser beam of a foot. The image of him running with the cup will live with me forever. Thanks Hibbo, another brilliant player from the Mornington Peninsula nursery of talent

He's in deep do-do AFL is going to make a statement on this, ruled as Careless, High Contact and Severe Impact. That's three games minimum but could be more. I knew they were going to take a tough stance on this. Its a test of Laura's leadership and they have to eradciate players getting knocked out like this. Football incident or not, it's not just a bad look, it will cost them dearly in court cases by ex players. If you watch the final moments of the video you can see Maynard bunch up and turn into Brayshaw, that's the definitive moment and why he will not play again this year. If he had of turned the other way he may have had a chance to glance Gus's head and not knock him out. Or he could have brought his arms down and angled them into Brayshaws body so that the initial force of the impact was deflected. The Filth will appeal and argue it down. If they get it down to High Impact it's two weeks so no GF. No way they will get it down to Medium impact. He's done.

If the MRO deems it "Careless" (which they might as I don't believe Maynard intentionaly meant to hit him), it will be graded as "High Contact" with "High Impact" (as a best case) and that carries a two match suspension automatically. There is no way in hell they could get that downgraded on appeal. Worst case for Maynard it could be deemed "Severe Impact" as Brayshaw was momentarily knocked out and that's an automatic 3 matches PLUS a trip to the tribunal. Judge for yourself: https://resources.afl.com.au/afl/document/2023/03/01/9c9bdc05-2377-4ffb-a8a0-885835edcaf1/2023-AFL-Tribunal-Guidelines.pdf While they will argue he was going for a smother and try and pass it off as a "football incident", leaping at a player in this way at full speed and hitting them high like that in the head is just unforgivable in our current world where the AFL is (quite rightly) very concerned about CTE class actions that will at some point be coming. That and the fact we lost a player 5 minutes into the game which gave them a significant advantage Unfortunately for Maynard I can't see how he will be playing in a GF if Collingwood gets there. This case is bigger than denying a kid a chance to play in a premiership team. Van Rooyen will get at least one week for his cheap shot (Intentional, HIgh Contact, Low Impct), but I could see how it might be two weeks as well if they deem it Medium Impact - which they very well might

Jordan in for Brayshaw Grundy in for JVR (who will get at least one week for the cheap hit). I'm expecting Grundy will alternate with Tmac in the forward line. Spargo as the sub in-place of Laurie (who played poorly) No changes to the backline, they did very well. Only way Turner is getting a game is if Hibberd is injured.

If we had of kicked straight we would have won. That's it. We beat them in almost every stat.

Such a great win, the girls look fit and lethal, huge upsides out of this

So calm under pressure, its extraordinary for someone of his age to be so chill in a game.

Possibly unpopular opinion but I think the only player that needs a rest is VIney. He has busted his backside for the last few weeks and looked visibily sore in the last quarter. If Jack looks sore he's probably carrying something that any other footballer/human would require a stay in an ICU ward. Tomlinson was great in the first half but faded in the last quarter - I'd take Hibberd over him BBB did great work off the ball all night, I thought he played very well.