titan_uranus

Regrettably seems my mail was correct. If we didn't take Preuss with us to Adelaide, despite knowing Gawn was in danger of not being able to play either/both games, that's horrendous IMO. What's worse is it means TMac will get back in, presumably with Jackson playing Gawn's role and TMac playing Jackson's. Disastrous result: Jackson might not be fit enough to play 1st ruck, and his opponent is a top 5 ruckman this season, and TMac's horribly out of form. Fingers crossed we have Preuss available and we can put him in Gawn's spot. Structurally much better result. Viney out should mean Brayshaw and Harmes spend more time in the middle. I'd put Harmes on Higgins and bring Rivers in to play Harmes' defensive role. Jetta to replace Lockhart if Lockhart's injured. Pickett for ANB, maybe Hannan for Benell too, so could see 4-5 changes.

Champion Data has updated its future fixture rankings. We've had the third hardest fixture to date (in terms of opponents played) and continue to have the easiest remaining fixture: https://twitter.com/championdata/status/1291936545163763713?s=20

No we'll be playing three games in that time, not four. There are 18 rounds. Every club has a bye during one of them. Ours was in Round 3. That means for every other round we play one game. It will be the same from here to the end of the season for West Coast, Fremantle, Carlton and Hawthorn, all of whom have their bye this round and therefore are also 9-game teams like us. There is prejudice to us, and that's that our bye was in Round 3, a completely useless time to have it given the long break between Rounds 1 and 2. Whereas all other clubs get a week off during the compressed fixture to rest. But we're not going to have to play an extra game on top of the rest.

I reckon 99% of North supporters will be confident about this week. I would be too, if I were them. They've only lost to us once in the last 14 years. They play a pretty poor quality of football but have really only put in two absolute shockers: vs the Dogs in Round 5 (kicking only 5 goals) and vs Richmond in Round 7 (only 2 goals). In three of their last four games they've pushed Essendon and Carlton, and belted Adelaide. That form line reads like a mid-table side more so than a cellar dweller, although I'd be concerned that they're yet to play Port, Brisbane, West Coast and Geelong. Countering that, they've only played at 4 venues in their first 10 matches (Marvel, Giants, Metricon, Gabba) and they haven't left Queensland since the Victorian exodus in the first week of July. Conversely, we've played at 7 venues in our first 9 games, and in the same time that they've been based in Queensland, we've played in three different states.

I don't disagree. Suggesting Richmond stuffed up has a significant element of hindsight to it. The point I'm making is that all clubs make "tough decisions" and sometimes the players they let go end up doing better elsewhere. It's not just us.

The game in hand thing is starting to become less important. With Carlton, Hawthorn, Fremantle and West Coast having a bye this weekend, we no longer have a game in hand over any of them. In terms of ladder position, the North game is critical. Will be our 5th win and that would help us level out with GC, Essendon and the Dogs (assuming Essendon loses to GWS, then GC beats Essendon and the Dogs lose to Brisbane). If that all happens, our subsequent fortnight becomes huge for our season if we have any desire to play finals: Collingwood and the Dogs will be thereabouts in that lower half of the top 8. Lose to North and none of this really matters of course.

I don't know, sorry. I don't even know what the injury is.

I agree that we should be refraining from calling ANB a "destroyer" or anything similar. I would suggest that any anger/vitriol should be directed towards players like Tom Lynch (both of them), for off-the-ball strikes. Part of the problem is the HTB rule. The OTT focus on it recently has led to players feeling compelled to dispose of it. So Hamill felt like he had to get boot to ball and his focus was on disposing of it, not protecting himself. ANB didn't need to drag him to ground, or spin him, and that's where the issue will be IMO. If you're pinning someone's arm, that's fine, but you then have to be mindful that they may not be able to protect their head if you choose to take them to ground.

I have it on reasonable authority that Gawn and Viney won't play this week due to injury. I also understand a couple of others are carrying injuries and may not get up in time. Take this with whatever grain of salt you'd like.

Just a reminder to those on here who think we're the only club to let good players go (if you still subscribe to that theory). Richmond let Butler go and kept Rioli, who's struggling to get a game.

Agree with this too. I think ANB should be suspended (and Burgoyne should have been too), but when we talk about "needing to stamp these things out", what Lynch did needs stamping out far more than ANB.

Agre 100%. Hearing Eddie, King and Brereton last night going on about how important it is to stamp out taunting but then seeing "stars" like Lynch get away with dog acts like that is ridiculous.

I'm biased because I absolutely detest St Kilda, but I reckon they're the worst top 2 side I've ever seen. They rely on goals out the back, extreme accuracy (which history says doesn't last) and unforced errors from their opponents. Sure, credit to them for winning and likely going 7-3 after tonight, but I reckon they're going to get found out later in the year.

Isn't the key difference here that Hamill spent the entire game on the bench with concussion, whereas Burgoyne's two targets weren't injured? In other words, yet again, the AFL is focusing on the outcome not the action. IMO the failure isn't ANB being suspended - don't pin someone's arm and then sling them into the ground. The failure is Burgoyne escaping without suspension, twice.

We will have had 7 home games by the end of Round 13 (i.e. 7-5), so we can only have 1 or 2 home games max for the rest of the season. I wouldn't mind going up to Alice and being the "away" team for a game or two as well though, given we'll know the ground better than most teams.

I haven't seen a second of the game, but the stats show Collingwood is +68 in disposals, +8 free kicks, +22 in CPs, +8 in clearances and +24 in inside 50s, for a three point lead. Sydney's had 15 inside 50s for 5.1. Are the Pies trying to model themselves on us?

Does anyone know what Bennell and Sparrow got their fines for? Lockhart's must have been the jumper punch. Walker got a fine for striking Gawn (good riddance) and Murphy got a week for rough conduct on Viney, what was that?

St Kilda really has had it easy compared to others. I'd love to see them get sent to Perth to play West Coast but by the end of Round 13 St Kilda will have played 8 away games to only 5 home games. The AFL could feasibly give them four home games for the rest of the year. West Coast also by Round 13 will have played 8 home games and so only one more game in Perth for them to come.

Yep, I agree. What Lynch does here should be called out just as much as what vandenBerg did. Teams repeatedly go after Max with cheap off the ball shots and I'm glad Goodwin is drawing attention to it publicly.

The same player ratings which have Steven May in the bottom half of players on the ground, when he was arguably second best behind Oliver? Does the measure of a defender playing Tomlinson's role come from player rating points? You say you don't want to wait for Tomlinson to fail. That's fair, but unfortunately for OMac we're in the same boat. He hasn't done enough to warrant having the faith that he won't fail in the coming weeks any more so than Tomlinson. I wasn't in favour of dropping him for the Adelaide game, but I'd be more than comfortable backing Tomlinson in again vs North.

Presumably Pickett gets ANB's spot. if vandenBerg is injured, I'd get Hannan back in, as I don't think he should have been dropped. I'm not sold, at all, on Jones and wouldn't be against bringing someone fresh into the side to help with the four day break. Yeah OK we get it, you don't like Tomlinson. But much to your dismay, he was actually good last night, and I'm not sure Oscar will do any better on the "big aerial threats" of Larkey, Walker or Daw than Tomlinson will. Tomlinson was asked to play a role, he played it well (no idea how you can be so confident that the reasons for moving him are limited to getting UPs and kicking from the backline - maybe it was just to play Oscar's role without the clangers?), and he deserves to hold his spot for at least one more week.

Started in the centre square at the opening bounce, I believe. Had no impact, at all, in the first half. Terrible half. Improved markedly as the game went on, and that's obviously a good thing, but we must keep in mind our opponent was pathetic. Needs to back that up next week, and longer term. Hopefully he gets some confidence from how he finished the game.

6 - Oliver 5 - May 4 - Viney 3 - Lever 2 - Petracca 1 - Jackson

He fumbled a lot tonight but his positioning and run is critical. He does so much good work for us. He can improve on the fumbles, and by jeepers I'd like him to kick a bloody goal next time he gets a shot, but you're a long way off it if you think he should be dropped.

We won all four quarters, and the fourth quarter was obviously everything we wanted at three quarter time. Gawn wasn't dominant at all but we worked into the stoppages/clearances as we went. But we have to bear in ind that our opponent is a basket case, and we had two extra days break. I'm loathe to read too much into that fourth quarter. So rather than team performance, there were some individual efforts that were super impressive. Oliver was incredible, and the key change he made to burst away from stoppages and get some distance from Adelaide's mids was really important and just what he needed to do. Viney stood up when we needed. Jackson showed a tonne of promise. He and Weideman worked well together, I thought. Lever and May were exceptional in the first half when we were making mistakes and Adelaide had pressure on. Hibberd was also good, Lockhart played his role, and I didn't notice Tomlinson which is probably a good thing. Still passengers galore though: ANB, Jones, Bennell, Sparrow, vandenBerg. Salem struggled, Brayshaw only came into it as Adelaide faded. As I said, I'm loathe to read too much into this. North will be a sterner challenge than Adelaide was, and I dearly hope we don't think tonight has fixed our problems. Finally, looks like vandenBerg is injured?