titan_uranus

All hell should now break loose.

That's a ridiculous comment. The current proposal isn't to extend the State of Emergency for 12 months, but to provide the government with ability to do so. And regardless, the existence of a State of Emergency doesn't mean life can't get back to "normal". Indeed, the government's argument is that it needs the State of Emergency to allow life to get back to a safe normal by providing the ongoing power to require masks to be worn or density limits in places like stadiums.

Yes there is - 17 games and 1 bye means 18 rounds.

I believe we're talking about the one in the clip in this article: https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-2020-melbourne-western-bulldogs-loss-christian-petracca-fox-footy-garry-lyon-afl-ladder/news-story/38ccaf7a995af7ffe59d01d770fc8ca3 Looks to me like the tap was probably always going to go to Petracca and he wasn't going to be tackled by Liberatore quickly enough to prevent him running forward and kicking it. It's always tough dissecting individual plays like this, but IMO it was a poor choice from Petracca.

Most of the time it's not in the tackler's control. The player getting tackled will sometimes get their hand up to take the brunt, or sometimes their shoulder will take it, or their head will take it but not on the temple, etc. All of which can be matters of centimetres' difference. The issue we should all have is with the action. If you pin an arm and sling a player into the ground you should be suspended. If we're trying to eradicate that tackle, then we shouldn't care about the outcome of it. I can see why ANB should get more weeks than Dahlhaus: both get suspended for committing the same offence, but ANB's penalty is greater because he created a more severe injury than Dahlhaus did. Makes sense (we can query whether 1 week vs 4 weeks is the right difference but the mere fact ANB got more weeks is easy to justify). Where all hell will break loose is if Dahlhaus, who is challenging at the Tribunal, gets off altogether (or reduced down to a fine).

Not sure about Collingwood yet. If they lose to Carlton this week, their final three games are against Brisbane, Port and Gold Coast. Without their injured stars, they'll be hard-pressed to beat Brisbane (in Brisbane) or Port and that just gets them to 9.5. Makes their game vs Carlton this weekend an absolutely critical match for both sides. If Carlton lose, and assuming they also lose to Brisbane in the final round, they'll need to win their other three games just to get to 9 wins. That requires a win over the Giants: hard to read them but on current form, given that game is next week, you'd back Carlton in. As you've mentioned though, Carlton still have their Adelaide game to come which will help them with percentage. If GWS loses to Fremantle this week, then their final round game vs St Kilda becomes huge, but assuming they lose to St Kilda too, like Carlton they'll need to win all three remaining games to get to . The Carlton-Collingwood game is critical. If Carlton win, Collingwood's path to 9.5 becomes really tough, and puts us in a good spot to finish the year ahead of them even with only 9 wins. But it will then give Carlton a good chance to get to 10. That's a very long way of saying that if we beat St Kilda this weekend we'll be in with a good chance, but if we lose it's almost curtains for us.

You see the irony/hypocrisy here, don't you?

Lends support to the argument in favour of getting Viney into the forward half. I would argue Harmes also would be an improvement on our forward line.

It was his offensive drive on the weekend that stood out to me. One of his opponents was Larkey vs North, which would account for the three goals BRFE mentioned. Not sure who his other opponents have been. For the same reason I wasn't happy dropping OMac to begin with, I'm comfortable with Tomlinson in the side: I think our back half is solid and developing well. To the extent we conceded goals too easily on the weekend, I put that down largely to the way in which we set up in the forward half of the ground. A combination of Harris Andrews, Luke Ryan and Steven May wouldn't have made a difference to stopping some of the Dogs' scoring chains. (I still think we can get more out of Tomlinson though).

Well written, @3183 Dee. I agree that the way we play is a sustainable brand of football, with one caveat: we're yet to prove that our current list can sustain it for four quarters and/or for long enough within a season to make finals, win finals, and win a flag. When we speak about the importance of forward half pressure, we look to the same players who fail to deliver the requisite level of pressure consistently: I'd suggest Pickett and vandenBerg, and ANB when he plays, generally do well with pressure acts (where can that stat be found, does anyone know?) but players like Fritsch, Hannan, Melksham, Spargo, Hunt, Jones, ANB, previously Garlett and Kent, have all been inconsistent. None of them bring the same output on a weekly basis when it comes to defensive pressure. Some weeks they are up and about, chasing every defender, tackling hard, repeat efforts. Other weeks they look disinterested, or too slow to impact the contest, or too weak to stick tackles, or a combination of all of those. And of course, of the three I've mentioned who are more consistent pressure-wise, vandenBerg commits far too many turnovers/clangers and ANB's a poor kick and doesn't get enough of the ball. So the question for me is whether we're capable of raising the consistency across the forward half of the ground to a level which can prevent the lapses we see within games (e.g. first quarter vs West Coast, second quarter vs Brisbane, third quarter vs Bulldogs). If we can, the rest of the way we play means we can challenge. If we can't, we'll never get there.

That's the spirit! Since criticising the selections for the Adelaide game, you've posted twice before this: once complaining about our AFLW trade period, and once complaining about our trade in of Kolodjashnij. Then we lose, and you're back again complaining about our Rising Star nominated first year player. It's posters like you that make this place so difficult to deal with sometimes.

That was a shocking game. But it wasn't the last time we played St Kilda. We played them again in Round 19 at Marvel. We were close to them all game, led them at QT and HT and only 4 points down at 3QT, but lost by 19. Was a real chance to have won a game late in the season.

1. So the 16 clubs other than Adelaide who all fail to win the premiership this year will be poor sides like Adelaide? 2. What's that got to do with the winless Adelaide? 3. This is your best comparison between us and Adelaide? 4. What's that go to do with the winless Adelaide? And without hindsight, which were the good players we gave away? Sure, go on if you've got some better reasoning than this.

You can't continue to annoy the entire board but then complain when people call you out. Each week you bump threads out of nowhere, many of which are your threads to begin with, almost always after losses.

Excellent stuff. Can't stop laughing. As to your "analysis" of the recruiting: what has any of that got to do with your horrendous argument that we're like Adelaide?

All year I've felt that St Kilda are a step behind the truly good sides. They play footy which IMO won't hold up in finals. It's too risky and fluky to try absorbing opposition inside 50s and relying on accuracy in front of goal to ensure you outscore your opponent. Still, they're playing finals and we're no better than 50/50 to join them, and the way they play is a recipe for disaster for us. I'm sure attitude is a problem for us. Whether it's a lack of confidence (self-confidence or confidence in teammates) or arrogance and bathwater drinking, I'm yet to be convinced that our players approach each week with the mindset that I'm sure Geelong, West Coast and Richmond bring weekly.

If this is your best attempt at analysis, I'd consider trying to follow a different sport.

There are a number of reasons why we are likely to lose to St Kilda. This sort of analysis isn't one of them. We lost to Brisbane by 4 points. Like St Kilda, we had fewer scoring shots but were relatively more accurate and kept ourselves in the game. Like today, if Brisbane had kicked straight, the margin would have been bigger.

Not really. They prefer to keep it uncontested. It got tight late through Brisbane appearing to run out of puff and having wasted their third quarter dominance. St Kilda rely on an open forward line and uncontested play. When it works it looks great. But they have an unhealthy and unsustainable (in the long-term) reliance on goalkicking accuracy. There's no coincidence IMO that when they're inaccurate this year they've lost (7.12 against North, 5.7 against Collingwood, 4.10 against Geelong). The way we play is capable of beating them but not if we're loose defensively and not if we don't capitalise on our inside 50s.

That game played out like you'd expect our game to next week. Brisbane getting a stack of it inside 50 and a stack of shots on goal, but failing to take their chances. St Kilda keeping their forward half open and using speed and run to make the most of it. If we're going to go down the same road, goalkicking accuracy is critical.

So do you think May is playing poorly?

Having a different thought doesn't make you correct or insightful. Suggesting Goodwin should make positional changes might carry some merit if your suggested changes made sense. You are suggesting moving one of our absolute best and in-form players out of his role just to try to get TMac back in form. It's ludicrous. If you wanted to suggest swapping TMac for Tomlinson, that might be an arguable idea. I would be against it because TMac hasn't played defence for three years. And given his poor mobility, we can't really have him trying to follow an opposition key forward. He'll get lost and beaten on repeat leads. Sometimes, there is a majority view on something because the majority view is clearly correct. Moving May out of the backline is not a good idea, and hence is why you're on your own.

It's not hyperbole. He's absolutely dominating. It's not worthwhile, it's not a suggestion worth trying, it's ridiculous.

The three keys IMO are getting on top in the middle, being efficient in our forward 50, and pressuring them in our back half before they get out. If they get on top in the middle, we won't score enough to win. If we waste our chances forward of centre and turn it over, they'll destroy us on transition. And if we don't pressure them from their kick ins, they'll waltz out of the backline like the Dogs. We're capable of winning this, but in all likelihood we won't be able to do all of this at once. Hunt, Bedford and Jones all in, but Harmes out. Who's taking Harmes' rotation in the back half? If you're going to drop Harmes and Spargo, I'd suggest only two of these three forwards come in, and Rivers gets the other spot.

100% agree. We know. Doesn't mean you're right. Congratulations @Biffen, despite competition from the likes of olisik, Elegt and Pickett2Jackson, somehow you have come up with the worst post of 2020. You are advocating taking May, approaching AA form and clearly one of our stand out performers all year, and moving him to the forward line, to replace him with TMac who has no mobility and hasn't played defence for three years. Absolute, A-grade, carp.