titan_uranus

Haven't heard it but I suspect what he's saying is not that Trac isn't capable of playing that well, but that he won't play near-permanent forward each week, so that's why he won't "play like that".

Essendon nearly lost to them last week. They're the media's current darlings. Sydney was behind them for half the game in Gather Round. They're the undisputed number 1 seed right now. If Yeo and/or Waterman play, they are a much stronger side. I don't accept that if we don't "win this easily" we "have some way bigger issues".

Tom Morris on radio this morning said Turner may have a calf issue. Going to be interesting if he and JVR are both out at once.

How we replace JVR will be interesting. Do we go with a tall (options seem to be Brown, Fullarton, Schache...?) or do we go with someone smaller (Tholstrup, Laurie)? Either way, you'd expect Turner/Petty will be doing all of the second ruck work.

The Bulldogs are 11th but have outscored their opponents by 25% more than Essendon, who are 3rd.

Did you mean Essendon? Because Sydney is far and away the competition's number 1 seed right now, mainly because they have the league's best record against good sides. They've beaten the sides currently sitting 3rd, 4th, 5th and 8th, plus 9th and 10th. No other top 8 side has that many wins against fellow contenders, nor are any of them undefeated against fellow contenders.

Did you read Demonland last night?

The best I'll accept is that it's a mix of both but the way in which people suggested it was nothing to do with missing players was ridiculous. They may still have defensive weaknesses but they aren't the same if they have Kemp and McGovern instead of Young and Williams. On a side note, I had Carlton fans sitting around me who spent the whole game expecting us to run them down and the final 10 minutes convinced we'd lose. There must be a CFCSS which is worse than MCFSS!

Have you been watching West Coast lately? Their recent form at home includes a win over a top 8 side (Fremantle), a close loss to a top 8 side (Essendon), and a win over Richmond. Prior to that run, they led Sydney away from home for a half and lost by 26. A 10+ goal margin is far too high of a bar. Right now, West Coast in Perth is not a walk in the park.

As much as your posts often take the extreme view of things, there's definitely merit to your views on Fritsch. Last night he showed the poor parts of his game too often: lazy/soft when it hits the deck, and playing from behind far too often. He was pushed up into the middle at one point in the second quarter (IIRC), which I thought was interesting. IMO he has more than enough runs on the board to guard against being dropped but that doesn't mean we can't call out the poor parts of his game and you'd hope/expect the FD see it and are working on it.

I agree that the response after quarter time was more than encouraging given how on top they were. There aren't that many sides in the competition this year who are capable of coming back from 37 points down when Walsh, Cripps and Weitering are playing as well as they were. But there are problems we have to address. One of them is our first quarters. We're 4-5 in first quarters, but over the last six weeks it has felt like we've struggled to get going on the scoreboard early: 3.2.20 vs Port was pretty good but they were 4.1.25 2.0.12 vs Adelaide against 2.5.17 2.0.12 vs Brisbane against 4.2.26 2.3.15 vs Richmond against 1.3.9 3.2.20 vs Geelong against 2.4.16 0.0.0 vs Carlton against 5.0.30 2-4 in that period. Admittedly not an easy fixture run but equally one of the two wins was against Richmond. Last night the only blowout loss but accuracy was a big part of that. Regardless, it just feels like we're too slow to get started and give ourselves more work to do in the middle of the game than we'd like.

Do you seriously think this? The middle two quarters were intense and even. If we didn't turn up until three quarter time, do you really think the game would have been as close as it was? I have to stop myself from OTT posting about this but ask Carlton supporters for their views on Young and you'll get a strong majority telling you he's a real problem. Williams was struggling defensively too. Replacing them with McGovern and Kemp was enormous for them structurally. Daniel Hoyne on radio wanted people to believe it was a system problem, not personnel. In a not-uncommon occurrence, he is wrong.

https://www.afl.com.au/news/1125436 More wins than losses for sides on 5 day breaks so far this year. This also says clubs can have up to 3 5 day breaks, which I wasn’t aware of. If we cop a third, when others so far haven’t had any…

First time this has happened all year. We’ve been losing the inside 50 count most weeks to date.

Classic case of causation vs correlation. Are we actually losing because of the timeslot? Or because the opponents were Sydney (away), Brisbane and Carlton, three sides we match up on poorly? And one game was humid and another rained?

If he contacted the head it has to be a week, same principle as Pickett v Adelaide. Low actual contact upgraded to medium on potential to injure. If he didn’t contact the head then it‘s nothing.

I agree with your interpretation of the stat but there’s no doubt we had some really bad misses (Petty as you say, but Fritsch before that and Chandler too) that cruelled our chances. That can be true despite what you day about xScore.

So frustrating given they took a goal off us in the final last year. This time inconclusive, last time conclusive. There’s no doubt the dangerous tackle free was wrong. I don’t think Kemp staged, I just think his knee stuck in the turf. Either way, the tackle was fine and it was either holding the ball or play on.

Is there any evidence floating around that May touched it? Has anyone gone back and looked at the footage? Sometimes people talk about it on Twitter/etc afterwards but I haven’t seen anything yet. At the ground you couldn’t see on the screen but it’s rare for a player to be that animated about a touch without actually touching it.

There won’t be any more Thursday night games in the rest of the fixture so the need for 5-day breaks will be reduced. I have a bit of a problem with some clubs getting two of them whilst others get zero. But unless the short break was a factor in our poor start I don’t think it was relevant otherwise. We ran the game out much better than they did.

Huh? Our percentage is 121.%. It’s top 4 (only Sydney, Geelong and GWS are better). Carlton’s is 109% by comparison.

That’s not really what tonight’s expected score says though. Our score was pretty much bang on expected. So whilst we missed easy shots, we also nailed harder ones. They were +20 though, which means they kicked above expectation. A bit incongruous because of our bad misses but tonight was more about them not missing almost any shots. That 6.0.36 start could have been 4.2.26 and the game would have felt different.

Williams is part of the reason they’ve struggled to defend recently. Not sure he’s best 22. But Fogarty and Marchbank might be. Still, they got peak Weitering, Walsh and Cripps, Curnow found 2 goals on May, it rained, and they kicked straight all night. It’s a super effort to be as close as we were despite all that, but equally a reminder that they play so well against us.

6 - Petracca 5 - ANB 4 - Langdon 3 - May 2 - Rivers 1 - Windsor

Not sure Turner is the answer but not sure we have any better options available. Ditto Billings. Probably no change at this stage.