titan_uranus

The myth is that he has toughness that others don't have or that the side lacks. We don't need him running around throwing his weight at opposition players. We're now a top 4 side, not a challenger trying to rough up the best. Harmes' ball use last night was bad, I agree. The question is whether Harmes is worthy of that spot or whether someone else could do better. If we are looking at someone else, I'd offer Jones (once he's fit again), Sparrow and Melksham as players who can do more with the time on the ground that we're giving Harmes, all before I'd offer vandenBerg.

AFL TV commentary is at an all time low. Former AFL players get paid presumably decent bucks to sit in front of a screen (rarely these days are they actually at the ground) and say a whole bunch of stuff that is either incorrect, unhelpful, meaningless, annoying or stupid. There are precious few play-by-play commentators who are any good. Jason Bennett is, IMO, the hands down best in the business, but Channel 7 criminally underuse him. Nigel Carmody's good. On Fox, Adam Papalia is their best, Huddo's OK and Brenton Speed is quite good too, but again he and Papalia get underused. There pretty much aren't any other good play-play-play commentators. Some of the rest are disgustingly bad - BT and McLachlan on 7 and Eddie, Dwayne and Mark Howard on Fox all make the viewing experience markedly worse. There aren't many good special commentators going around: 7's got Hodge, Leppitsch, Daisy Pearce and Bartel in its stable. But despite having those people ready to go, it continually rolls out Wayne Carey, Matthew Richardson, Jobe Watson and Cameron Ling. Richo's the worst special commentator on TV and that's saying something. Adds zero value, everything he says is either a cliche, meaningless or unnecessary. Wayne Carey's not very bright, Cameron Ling's downright annoying, and Jobe thinks he's being smart but in reality says not much. Fox has almost no good special commentators. David King is OTT on the stats and hyperbole, Garry starts sentences but doesn't always know how to finish them, Dunstall and Brown are OK but pretty one-note, Healy's past it and Jordan Lewis is the better version of Jobe Watson. Nick Riewoldt and Nick Dal Santo aren't bad. But the worst, hands down, is Dermott. The stuff he says is embarrassingly stupid. The fact that Fox pay him to sit in front of a TV and say the things he says is an indictment on the industry. tl;dr - I detest most AFL TV commentators.

That may be true, but Demonland myth number 28 is that vandenBerg brings some mythical level of "toughness" that only he can provide. We're not lacking for toughness. vandenBerg should not be getting a game unless he's learnt how to be involved on offence, and that requires an ability to get the ball and then an ability to use it. Contrary to your post, I don't think "sometimes" is the correct answer to the question "is his ball use a worry". The answer to that question is "regularly", and that is a major drawback for a player who doesn't get a lot of it and who otherwise doesn't do much other than lay tackles and bump.

I chuckled. "Fern frond" and "miniature poodle" were lol-worthy.

Squad wise, I'd expect to see Gawn, Petracca, Oliver, May, Lever and Salem. Unless Fritsch, TMac, Pickett or Langdon fly home over the final six games I don't think they'll make the squad. As to the 22, if the season ended now I'd have Gawn, May, Lever and Salem in it, and then probably one of Petracca and Oliver - whilst both are deserving, there are a stack of midfielders in AA form this year and it wouldn't surprise me at all if Oliver misses out (given the media love Trac).

Yep, this was our 5th Thursday night game - none of them have been ANZAC Eve, actually. Previous Thursday night games: Round 1 1997 vs North Melbourne (win) Round 6 2011 vs West Coast (loss) Round 4 2019 vs Sydney (win) Round 9 2020 vs Port (loss)

Here's one for our next game. We haven't won two games against Hawthorn in the same season since 1994. 10 times since we've played them twice in one season and lost at least once. (Meanwhile we've won our last four against Hawthorn, going back to the 2018 SF. It took us 13 years to win our previous four games against Hawthorn!).

Brisbane's game was moved from the Gabba to Metricon, which helps St Kilda. Geelong often drop a rubbish game, although they already did in Round 1 to Adelaide. Still, I can see arguments for any of these three sides to pull of an upset. Any help us, but St Kilda helps us most - get Brisbane the [censored] away from top 2, please.

Of all the umpiring we've seen this year I didn't think last night's was anywhere near the worst. Yes they made some errors but if you're expecting flawless umpiring you're watching the wrong sport. The 50m penalty for Pickett against Jonas in the second quarter was a decision that, had the shoe been on the other foot, Demonland would have erupted over.

Fair point re: the behinds. Yes, it's only one game so it's too early to draw conclusions, but analysing each goal the way you have to conclude Brown had no impact in any of them is shallow. It's very easy to say we won because of our defence and a few players starring but we all know our defence isn't enough each week or we'd be 16-0. This week we looked better in our forward half than we did last week and whilst Brown clearly is not the one and only reason we looked better, it's equally too simplistic and shallow to conclude that because he wasn't in the video grabs you've watched that he had no positive impact. But only time can tell if he's going to make a long-term difference.

Straight away I know your analysis is incorrect because you've got Brown down for no involvement in any goal, but he had three score involvements. But it's a shallow analysis that doesn't dig deep enough. For example: This week: TMac 86% TOG (Brown 75%). Last week: TMac 97% TOG. Maybe TMac's ability to rest helped him star?

I noticed the palms/touches too. I'm sure he had a big message from the coaches to be mindful of getting it front and centre and the moment he felt he wasn't going to mark it, he did his best to make sure that's where it went. It's hard to tell whether the kicks over his head were bad kicks or bad judgment from Brown. It happened a lot. With our recent kicking woes I'm inclined to think it was the kicking more than anything, but not necessarily. You're absolutely right to distinguish between causation and correlation, but you're assuming Brown being in the side did not help TMac and Pickett star. It's only one sample size, so we need to see more, but against a side with Jonas, Aliir, Clurey, McKenzie and Burton, I'm inclined to accept that another marking forward helped take pressure of TMac. Also define "big impact" re: Sparrow vs Essendon - in that game Sparrow had 11 touches for 126 metres gained, 10 pressure acts, and 1 score involvement (presumably his own goal) from 50% TOG.

Yep. Both Viney and Harmes struggled offensively, but IMO Viney was superior defensively. Do we need both to be defensive? If not, then Harmes' position is in jeopardy to be replaced with someone else who offers something difference, given Harmes' mistakes (e.g. Sparrow/Melksham/Jones). I'm not necessarily in favour of a change but if we are going to make a change Harmes is the player whose role IMO can be switched around.

I only recall one Motlop one, but it was blatant AF, so blatant I reckon the players around the contest stopped waiting for a whistle. Here is the rule on "incorrect disposal" 18.6.3 Free Kicks - Holding the Ball: Incorrect Disposal. Where a Player in Possession of the Football has not had Prior Opportunity, a field Umpire shall award a Free Kick if that Player elects to Incorrectly Dispose of the football when Legally Tackled. For the avoidance of doubt, a Player does not elect to Incorrectly Dispose of the football when: (a) the Player genuinely attempts to Correctly Dispose of the football; (b) the Legal Tackle causes the football to be dislodged from the Player’s possession. If you haven't had prior opportunity, it's not a free kick if you "genuinely attempt to correctly dispose of the ball" or it it comes out as a result of the tackle. The grey area IMO is the "genuine attempt" - neither Boak nor Dixon had prior opportunity, but did they "genuinely attempt" to dispose of the ball? If not, then it was HTB. If so, then there was no HTB free and both were then correctly awarded a free for being held too long.

Pressure act stat is up on the AFL website. Viney our best again with 33 (Drew the overall leader on 34). Harmes 26, Oliver 25, Petracca 21 and Pickett 20 our top 5.

Langdon would have to put in about 6 bad games in a row to ever feature in the being dropped discussion, such are the credits he has in the bank. Fritsch was hardly bad - he was a factor in a far more dynamic forward line than last week.

Melbourne - we're not pretenders

Bulldogs and Brisbane yes, Swans no. Swans played well that night but this game was on hostile opposition territory and we won all four quarters and won by 6 goals. This is top 3, with Sydney and Richmond rounding out the top 5.

To be fair to Viney, Wines did have 33 but only 5 clearances (Oliver 11, Boak 8, Petracca 7 by comparison) and only 375 metres gained (we had six players with more than that).

Viney was better today than the last two weeks in getting and using the ball. Still missed some targets but he was at least lowering the eyes and looking to hit lead up targets. Harmes, though. Not a great game IMO.

Maybe the best part of the win is it means Dr D is 0-3 for his predictions of how the Essendon, GWS and Port games would play out.

Now's probably not the time for it but if anyone's in the gun IMO it's Harmes.

6 - Petracca 5 - Oliver 4 - TMac 3 - Gawn 2 - May 1 - Salem

Pickett 4 tackles inside 50, Brown, Jordon and McDonald all 3. Love that.

@A F Viney 88% TOG tonight.