Axis of Bob

Of course they don't. It's a 3/4 practice match between the 30-40 players on AFL lists and whatever VFL players they could cobble together to fill out the numbers, being umpired by some assistant coaches and volunteers doing the goal and boundary umpiring. Nobody cares. I'm thankful that we can get a stream at all. I'm happy to listen to the commentary if they interview guys like Balme, who gave some interesting thoughts on the game and even how he thought we played.

Don't read the gameday thread. I accidentally did after a long offseason but immediately regretted it. It's an awful place purely designed for people to let off steam whilst not flooding the main board. You could almost call it Demonland 'quarantine'.

Good hit out. We looked pretty solid, structurally. Up forward, McDonald and Jackson contested pretty well against a really good defensive intercepting team. Plus we were solid in the air in defence, with Lever and May looking threatening in the air. Obviously we're trading some speed (Hunt, Rivers) in defence for defensive solidity, but given the pace of the game that seemed to be a risk worth taking at the moment. Up forward, having Chandler just made us look better. His speed and finishing gives a nice balance to our small forwards, with Spargo being clever and industrious and Kossie being

The Gameday thread is just as bad preseason.

That vision was just a player that forgot the rule. They moved sideways on the mark like they used to, but it's illegal now. If they truly thought that the player had played on then they would have run forward at the kicker rather than sideways behind the mark. There will be issues where players simply forget like this, because they are not used to the same rule. This footage doesn't mean that the rule works/doesn't work, just that some players are going to forget ... especially whilst it's being introduced.

Everyone here has condemned this before they have even seen it. I put it in the category of 'most people hate change'. There will be some implementation issues (and dire headlines capitalising on the fear of change), as there always are, but those will inevitably fade as it becomes normalised. I don't mind the rule at all. It'll annoy people (because change = scary and bad) but it will encourage less crowded defensive zones because it will force a defence to commit more players to defending short kicks. Short kicks (and maintaining possession) will now be far more valuable since the

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/18/we-were-told-go-your-hardest-examining-racism-at-collingwood-heres-what-we-found This is written by the report's authors. It gives a bit more background into their report and the thrust of it.

I actually found it to be a pretty weak article. It was trying too hard to make it a big thing but it was just regurgitating the same thing different ways ..... there's less funding across the game so there are fewer resources. It spent the first half just saying all the changes were bad, without actually outlining the changes. Once we got to them, the changes were pretty hard to identify. It's an incredibly difficult article to follow, and really poorly written. Essentially, from what I can gather, the headings reflect are: - Limited preseason: Preseason doesn't run in Jan because there

Yep. I find the most telling aspect of this is that there's no unifying reason why people decided they were booing Goodes. You would ask 5 people and get 5 different reasons: 'he pointed out the racists girl', 'he did a dance', 'he didn't deserve Australian of the year', 'he faked for free kicks', 'he's a dirty player (after he slid into a pack)', 'he's just an anchor' .... etc. It was around people being told an uncomfortable truth when he was Australian of the Year. Before that there was almost no talk about any football related misgivings but rather pretty widespread acknowledgme

How do you think their sales of sneakers in the US would go if the story was that they supported a racist football club in Australia? Especially after their advertising around Colin Kaepernick last year. Anti racism is part of Nike's brand. Collingwood sponsorship is chump change compared to the money they put into their brand.

He was excellent at turning around Collingwood and getting them to the top, but terrible when they were already at the top. The two roles need different skills and Eddie showed that he's a far better salesman than he is a manager, cc as shown by his time at Nine. Unfortunately he was the last one to realise it

Goals from number 1 ruckmen: English 8, McInerney 6, Goldstein 6, Naitanui 5, Darcy 5, Grundy 3, Sinclair 3, Lycett 2, Soldo 2, Gawn 1, Witts 0, O'Brien 0, Pittonet 0. Basically, no ruckman really kicks goals. The way they get goals is through mobility or when rucking int he forward line. The problem is that most ruckmen aren't quick enough to get to the position to do damage against a smaller opponent, so the only plays where they can get forward are in slow plays with the defence camped out in numbers inside 50. The odds of marking this kick are really, really, low. You're much bet

That's probably the worst of the lot. He's making out like he's also a victim of "this constant race debate". You're not a victim, you've just presided over a culture of systemic racism of which Lumumba was a prominent victim. I agree that Lumumba didn't stand up against the racism to be placated about "the constant race debate", he did it because the club culture was racist and he wanted concrete change to that culture. It's clear, based on this, that he was never going to be able to change the culture by working in house. He needed to create the race debate at the club, and the reason

The first line is to put media spin on a report about racism, which had as a key finding that the club too heavily focused on media spin when dealing with matters of racism. It's certainly not a great sign for their ability to deal with the issues presented in the report. Eddie doesn't get it.

I agree that it's a big change. Having an active person on the mark cuts down the angles you can kick on until it just ends up being sideways or long down the line. This should allow for teams to be able to chip pass their way up the ground more easily than they have been. There may well be less playing on from marks now, as a set mark against a set defence may not be as much of a dead end as it has been. This ease of chipping the ball may have one of two effects: 1- Teams pull their players back behind the ball more and defend inside 50 where they can compress the ground more,