titan_uranus

They showed some behind the goals footage last night on Fox of Lever's positioning and reading of the play. Sometimes it can all be a bit much, particularly when Matthew Richardson is babbling on about anything as he was with Lever, but in this case I think it's all very much accurate. I think Lever's role in our back half and his leadership back there is critical to our success. A shout out also to May, Petty and Tomlinson though, as their ability to lock down on forwards this year has helped us keep Lever free.

Whilst I'm not against the game being at Manuka, I'm not sure about our "very good recent form". Yes, we beat GWS there, but we hadn't previously won there since 2012 (albeit that was only two consecutive losses). We barely play there so I'm not sure about our familiarity, really.

Sure. And at the end of the year when all's said and done, we can then look to improve our list.

We're past this now as a club. We don't lack physicality any more, and we're getting it from those who can bring other skills to the side.

It only works in limited situations where there is a triangle of teams who only play each other once for the rest of the season. You've picked one example but I'm not sure how many more there will be, particularly as teams start to play their 5 return games.

You can dislike her if you want, but don't make [censored] up, she reported heavily and insistently on the drugs saga. Daisy isn't a journalist, she's a commentator. Caro isn't a commentator, she's a journalist. They're both excellent at what they do. Caro doesn't "hate" MFC, she's open about being a Richmond fan but she attacks them when she should (e.g. the Shai Bolton nightclub incident, Hardwick's anti-Marvel comments, Hardwick's violence-related comments last year, Stack's nightclub incident last year). It's really remarkable how many MFC fans think that commentators "hate" us, or are out to get us, or actively want us to fail, or whatever.

Seriously why are we discussing the trade/draft period right now, when we're 10-1 at the halfway mark of the 2021 season? if there has ever been a season where we don't have to start thinking about the trade/draft period mid-year, it's this [censored] one!

We're not exactly devoid of marking options up the ground though: Gawn, TMac, Weideman, Jackson, Fritsch. May's our last line of defence. If we turn it over on the kick in, he's back in position to defend. If he's up the ground trying to receive the kick and we lose possession, he's out of position. It makes perfect sense.

Mate, he's given you two points in his previous post: the NT government pays for the game for marketing (i.e. it doesn't matter who shows up in the crowd, what matters is the broadcast showing off Alice Springs) and for entertainment for their own population, who wouldn't get to see AFL games in their own Territory unless the government paid for a game. And if @Rod Grinter Riot Squad is coming across as.a "know it all", that might just be because he's from Alice Springs, and actually knows what is happening in the NT.

Why "probably"? Possibly, sure. But if it was going to spiral, it was going to be the last few days, when people were still registering infections from pre-lockdown, before we'd noticed there was community spread going on. Testing rates across those days have been high, so we're getting as accurate a read on it as we can. Sure, it's possible it gets worse from here, but I don't know how you can argue it's probable. IMO, it's probable it flatlines and/or decreases from here, as the preceding infectious period for new cases now starts to run into the days we were already under restrictions, and then in lockdown.

Agree, I assume the delay is because the hope is we can get into the NT. Another day or two (max) might be the difference, if we get a decent run on numbers in Victoria. If not, then NSW.

If we win the flag this year I don't care what happens in the drafting/trading period.

You're entitled to be pessimistic given what's happened over the last 15 months. But this is pure pessimism. It isn't "clearly running away from contact tracers". If it were, we'd be seeing spiralling new case numbers. Testing rates are significantly up (over 45,000) but positives are flat at 4-5. That's not "running away" from us. And we went about 1 day earlier in February than we did this time. It's not that big of a difference.

Everyone said the 5-day lockdown in February was going to be extended. It wasn't.

I see a lot of people asking for us to have a plan B or something different. We already do. Sometimes Salem or Rivers takes the kick. And sometimes, and it happened on Friday, they shape to go left but then hit a target right. And sometimes May goes short to Salem in the pocket. We're the right level of predictable IMO.

This is a massive fortnight for us and it's going to cost us a lot of money. The NT game was going to net us $800,000, according to Pert, and in pre-lockdown conditions even with Collingwood struggling we'd have hoped to draw 60,000+ to Queen's Birthday. We are going to be hit as badly as any other club from this.

I really don't get this whole media/umpire/AFL hatred conspiracy theory stuff. We've had more media than most sides this year. Heaps of articles, podcast/video discussions. It's been way, way up on previous years. If we're not getting coverage on Sunday that might be because there were five games played yesterday and we got covered yesterday before any of them had been played.

Yes but why is he covering that ground? Does the FD want Brown to cover that ground as well, and he's not capable of it? Or do they not care if Weid covers that ground but he finds himself doing it to try to get his hands on the ball more? Either way I find it interesting. Doesn't change the fact that right now Weid's got the spot and he's not going to lose it back to Brown until Brown's form improves. But if Brown's form does improve, Weid's needs to improve.

It will be flipped to a Sydney home game, there is a return game later in the year that can be flipped to a Saints home game in the hope it will be at Marvel.

It's incredible that West Coast think it's OK for him to only be capable of playing 70% of a match. Each week he needs Allen to give him a chop out so he can get through a match. It's easy as to travel, although they're going to have to stay in Perth for Dreamtime this week. COVID-aside, they've already had five road games and only one to come, plus a trip to Geelong. Stacks of Marvel/MCG games, again COVID-aside. But it's not all easy as to opponents. They do, extremely fortunately, get to repeat against all three of the clear bottom three (North, Hawthorn, Collingwood). But they're still yet to play Richmond, us, Geelong and the Dogs, and they've also got GWS, Sydney, a possibly-now-half-decent Adelaide, plus the Gold Coast away. Assume they bank the wins against the bottom 3 - that gets them to 8 wins. They've got a good percentage so they may get in on 12. So they need four more from Richmond, us, Geelong, the Dogs, Adelaide, GWS, Sydney and Gold Coast. They're certainly thereabouts. As you say, the pressure is on West Coast and Sydney (theoretically Richmond but I just don't see them missing) to hold their spots.

It's not stupid. They want to keep playing games while they can. If you give everyone a bye next week you then have to play 9 games the week after and again after that. Using the byes over three weeks allows them to use some grounds repeatedly (e.g. SCG/Giants Stadium) to get through a week. The hope here is that by the end of the bye period Victoria will be closer to "normal" and games can continue down here.

100% Weid holds his spot over Brown this week. But Weid was for most of last night poor and in their three AFL games so far this year I've seen a lot more from Brown than I have from Weid. I'm in the camp, with @binman, of whose who think Weid should have been dropped after the Carlton game rather than Brown, and I don't think Weid has done much to hold his spot. He will hold it, but that's because Brown had a shocker at Casey and doesn't get a chance to do any better this week. On the second of the above posts, those stats are marginal and as last night's game showed us, they don't always tell the entire picture (the Dogs cleaning up many stats but on the park being much worse than us). From what I saw of the Carlton game (which was most but not all of it) there was very little between Brown and Weideman. On the former, I had a look into those stats earlier this week. What I found interesting was that Weid's stats shade Brown's in many categories, but not when it comes to inside 50. So, for example, Weid's averaging 4.3 marks per game to Brown's 3.3, but Brown averages 2.3 marks inside 50 to Weid's 1.7 Similarly, Weid averages 2 tackles to Brown's 0.7, but Brown averages 0.7 tackles inside 50 to Weid's 0.3 (i.e. that means in three games Brown's laid two tackles inside 50 whilst Weideman's laid just one). And on pressure acts, Weid averages 7 to Brown's 5.3, but forward half pressure acts Brown averages 4.3 to Weid's 4. Makes me think about whether Weid is being asked to play a different role to Brown, roaming up the ground more, or whether Weid gets higher up the ground to get more involved (possibly through struggling inside 50)?

If West Coast win all their Perth games from here they finish on 11. But their remaining Perth games include Richmond, the Dogs and us. So if they drop one of those home games, they'll need to find at least two, if not three, road wins, and that's just to make the finals, let alone top 4 which will be another 1-2 wins. Their road wins are Carlton (in Sydney), Sydney, Adelaide, Collingwood and Brisbane. Essentially that says to me if they drop the Carlton game next week they are in real trouble to even make the finals.