titan_uranus

Richmond are witches hats out there.

GWS was excellent last week vs Geelong but hard to read much into this. 

Just now, P-man said:

It was a hell of a system they built. Sadly it’s resulted in a heap of no name plodders being dual or triple premiership players.. 

To be fair, if you're a Richmond fan, does it matter? You've had a great run, three flags and an era to always remember.

Now let's hope they completely fall apart and spend years wallowing down the ladder.

Remember when people were complaining about "we gave up Hogan/pick 6/Ben King for May"?

Ah dear.

Just now, Jibroni said:

Hence I see nothing wrong with "managing" a couple of players this weekend. 

 

 

Certainly if there's no pre-finals bye, one of my concerns about resting players (missing every second week for five weeks potentially, through to the prelim) isn't a concern anymore.

If there's no pre-finals bye, does that mean a Sunday final in week 1? Or three finals on the Saturday? If not, they'll have to do a Thursday night, but that won't work unless Bulldogs v Port is a repeat match up in the first final and they're both on a six-day break. Otherwise they'll be sending at least one, if not two, sides into that game off a five-day break.

From our perspective we'll have already had two consecutive six-day breaks so you'd hope we're on the Saturday in week 1, so that we don't have a third straight six-day break.

4 minutes ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

Geelong V Melbourne almost a certainty a to be Saturday night.

Back to back 6 day breaks.

If we finish top 2, Pert wants the qualifying final at the MCG, even in front of nobody.

Tom Browne at half time was "reporting" (by his standards anyway) that he thinks the AFL is going to scrap the pre-finals bye.

Imagine if we get the Friday night final in week 1. Three consecutive six-day breaks.

Surely not.

1 minute ago, DubDee said:

The Stand rule is rubbish. Man the mark and you can move if you like - UNLESS the umpire calls Stand. If you hear that you can’t move. If you hear him say play on you can move. 

ridiculous that the rule is based on the ability of a player to hear the ump. Could be trouble on GF day

That's not the rule at all.

1 minute ago, monoccular said:

Regardless of outcome and who gets it - this statue on the mark rule is just so absolutely counterintuitive.   
I know some like it but a 50 penalty for running backwards or a step sideways is just such an overkill. 

This might have been fair to say in Round 1.

But it's Round 22. No excuses. Stand on the mark, don't move. It's not hard.

2 minutes ago, demon3165 said:

Would have him on the list before Viney.

This is seriously a poor comment.

GWS is missing Greene, Green, Coniglio, Davis, Daniels, Finlayson, Hill and Reid (along with some season-ending injuries to Flynn, Keeffe and Buckley).

They could be a handful come finals. If they beat Carlton next week that puts them in prime position for 7th and potentially a final vs Sydney, the best draw possible for them.

They look good, but I'm sure a lot of it is due to Richmond being just absolutely pathetic.

18 minutes ago, rjay said:

Just because he kicked some goals in a practice match doesn't make him a forward.

He's not a forwards a....hole

I'm with 'Polly',  no way...and if he does get a game this week it will be in the back half which is where he has been playing with Casey.

...and he won't want to stuff up with May and Lever running that show.

That may be absolutely right, rjay, but the way he's played in the backline in previous years does not lend any confidence that he'd be capable of playing in our backline at AFL level.

It may be that in training this year he has developed a level of predictability and maturity in his play, so that he isn't always flying at every contest and peeling off his man at precisely the wrong moment. If that's the case, and he's capable of slotting into a defensive position if we have a player out, then that's all well and good.

But based on what he's shown at AFL level previously, I don't think it's unfair for some of us to suggest he might be better suited to the forward line.

It's one of those very rare weeks where the top 9 on the ladder play the bottom 9 on the ladder.

6 hours ago, Macca said:

'Say No To Racism'

But I find it rather ironic that on another thread that is often running side by side with this one involves the vilification & abuse of a white man

No one has come to his defence and even his family & children are being brought into the argument (by default)

Sadly, many of you won't even know what I'm talking about such are the blinkered views of the mob

I'm for fairness all round but people can't pick and choose in that area.  Otherwise, hypocrisy reigns supreme

@Lord Nev @WalkingCivilWarI reckon @Macca was referring to the Dean Margetts thread.

I have to say I'm surprised. We know we want to play TMac, Brown and Jackson in the finals, but despite TMac being unavailable we're preparing for finals with a different looking forward line.

I accept Weideman may not be in form, but structurally I would have thought we want to keep rolling with the two key forwards (without wet weather anyway) for as much of the season as possible.

Of course, rewarding the players who went over to Perth and got the W last week isn't a bad outcome.

Interesting decision.

I'm all for depth. We haven't had injuries this year and if the club thinks Smith is capable of filling a gap in the forward line, or (shudder) the back line, then fair enough.

But I'm not a fan and I'm not convinced he's good enough to play AFL level football with any consistency. Certainly not in the backline, where his Frost-like unpredictability goes against everything we've strived for this year.

1 hour ago, hardtack said:

I have a feeling that he might be the one getting the nod this Sunday.

No dice. Emergency, along with Bedford, vandenBerg and Weideman.

Final team announced.

In: Hibberd

Out: Hunt, vandenBerg

So no Weideman.

Meanwhile Greene getting a week just tops off the shambles that is the MRO/Tribunal system.

• Dangerfield in the 2020 GF - not suspended
• Astbury in Round 1 - not suspended
• Daniher in Round 1 - not suspended
• Hawkins on May - not suspended
• Fritsch vs North - not suspended
• Shuey on Mills - not suspended
• Buddy Franklin - not suspended
• Greene - suspended for a week

If your argument against Greene is "if you're going to raise your arm/elbow you suffer the consequences if you hit someone in the head", all of the above players should have received a week.

Don't tell me "oh but some of those guys were fined". If you want evidence that fines don't operate as deterrent, look no further than Selwood, who has been fined three times already this year.

3 hours ago, CYB said:

This club frustrates me. Just heard Lungmuir sticking up for Brayshaw saying he’s not happy with the consistency and yet there is nothing being done that I’m aware of to bring any exposure this. Nothing.

You want our club to get in the media and pot Yeo?

Have you ever seen a club mount a campaign against a player from another club?

1 hour ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

Unless 50,000 tickets go to corporates, I wouldn’t be surprised if the game is open up to the general public at Optus after members have been catered for.

Normally in a grand final each club gets about a 15-17% allocation of club members. So at the very least that’s about 9,000 MFC members that will be catered for. But  here’s the thing - how many MFC members reside in Perth to go toward that 9,000. And with the border closures, how many more are coming from interstate to get to that 9,000.

Then throw in the oppositions 9,000 allocation and you’d have much the same scenario.

Furthermore, 40% of the GF allocation go to AFL and MCC members, which obviously won’t be happening at a Perth GF.

So I’d say the tickets will go to the general public.

If two big enough clubs make it into an Adelaide or Perth GF, [censored] the general public, tickets should be allocated to the two clubs' members 50/50% and only opened up more broadly if/when the clubs don't use them all up.

Make this the fans' GF. 

7 hours ago, jnrmac said:

Is there a statistics page of frees?

ie A breakdown of what the frees were for?

That would be the frst step in analysing it...

Yep, agree. I'm sure this data exists, but I've never seen it made available publicly.

Separate to any discussion about bias/the Bulldogs, I'd be keen to know what sorts of errors we are making more often than other clubs. 

4 hours ago, Jumping Jack Clennett said:

I think the fallacy in the reasoning above about the Bulldogs is apparent when the number of possessions is taken into account.

The Bulldogs often have a large differential greatly in their favour, even when the opposition has more possessions.So the man with the ball in the opposition is being penalised. They must be far better tacklers than any other side.

That's my point: they may well be, and if they are, it stands to reason they'd get more free kicks.

Tackling properly is a skill, like kicking and marking. It isn't silly at all to suggest one side might do it better than another, and that should be borne out in a higher free kick count.

Also, how quiet is this teams thread?

Surely a sign that Demonalnders have breathed a sigh of relief knowing we can't slip out of the top 4?

So the four ins join Jackson, vandenBerg, Jordon and Sparrow on the bench.

Jackson's not going anywhere so vandenBerg, Jordon and Sparrow are likely to be the candidates to make way for Weideman, which IMO is the move we should make, get back to our preferred forward line mix ready for TMac's return.

I'd go Weid for vandenBerg along with Hibberd for Hunt, with one of Jordon/Sparrow the sub.

1 hour ago, Demonstone said:

You can clearly see the top of Sparrow's jumper and his throat.  Nothing to get upset about here, folks.

You can't clearly see anything from that photo, certainly not any more "clearly" than whatever was visible in the Viney footage.

Be that as it may, without video footage it's hard to compare the two. 

1 hour ago, Red and Blue realist said:

Shouldn't have gone to Perth, one of the rare mistakes the FD has made this year.

I'd bring in Weid and Smith this week, with AVB and Hunt going out, with JJ back to the sub role, just to give Sparrow 1 more week of full game time and then plan to swap them over next week. 

1 hour ago, Redleg said:

Agree. Don't think the flights would have helped a bloke with a sore back. Also treatment might have been easier and better at home, plus sleeping in your own bed.

If he is that sore that he is missing two games, then he obviously had a moderate back problem.

 A poor decision given the circumstances.

1 hour ago, Red and Blue realist said:

Hopefully it shows they are confident it is just a minor issue, but sitting on a plane for 7 hours, playing then jumping on a plane for 4 more hours the next day and I'm surprised there weren't a few more injuries. The club must have thought their medical guys were better equipped to take care of him over there? And maybe he's closer to being right than they are letting on, but now we have top 4 guaranteed they are being super cautious. 

I don't think this is fair.

For starters, the flights to/from Queensland aren't relevant - he didn't have the back problem until the GC match on the Sunday.

We had to fly to Perth the next day so unless his back was so obviously bad that it couldn't possibly have recovered in a week, why wouldn't we take him over and do his rehab over there? 

Sounds very hindsight-y to be now arguing that, because it still isn't right, we never should have taken him over.

11 minutes ago, Webber said:

Just a sneaky wonder if Joel Smith might get the Hunt gig. If Tmac doesn’t get up, and Weid is played for Sunday’s drier day, who comes out? Melksham? Not likely. Sparrow? 

5 minutes ago, Fat Tony said:

Smith was one of the players who flew to Perth, so it would not be that big a surprise.

Yes but Hibberd also flew to Perth, so it's not as if he's far away from the 22 either.