titan_uranus

Yeah, we know, you don't like Sparrow. Just on stats, in 2023 compared to 2022 he's averaging more kicks and disposals, double the goals, more tackles, a higher DE%, fewer clangers, more score involvements and more metres gained.

This is the Guidelines on dangerous tackle offences: This appears like it can only be the last one - slung into the ground with excessive force. The AFL is hot on these this year. This one doesn’t leap out at me like others do. I assume he’d fail at the Tribunal but I really, really struggle to accept that this deserves a week whilst Meek was charged with kneeing for the second time and gets a fine, or Caldwell gets a fine for an intentional gut punch to Daicos on ANZAC Day. But here we are.

Can’t see him pin an arm, Day gets them both up. Presumably done for the slinging motion but that’s not what the dangerous tackle suspensions have focused on so far this year IIRC, they’ve all been dump/drives or pinned arms.

Vision too poor to see if he pins an arm. If he does, we’re probably toast. But if not then this seems over the top.

On centre bounces, yesterday there were 24 of them (Grundy 14 and Gawn 10, ruck-wise). For our mids, Oliver was at 18 of them but Trac and Viney only 14. The rest were Sparrow 10, Pickett 7, Brayshaw 6 and Jordon 3. For a random comparison, in Round 10 last year (the last of our 10-game winning streak), there were 26 centre bounces - Trac did 22, Oliver 21, Dunstan (playing for Viney) 19. Only two other mids went in there - Sparrow 15 and ANB 1.

Agreed. We have used the first 9 weeks of this year to integrate new players all over the ground, including at stoppage (more Grundy, Rivers, Pickett and ANB and less of the same Gawn, Trac, Oliver, Viney combo). That means it's OK in my book to be down in clearances given we're continuing to score.

Adelaide's currently leading St Kilda 31-7 so let's assume Adelaide wins and passes Carlton into 8th. The top 8's record to Round 9 vs the top 8: Collingwood - 4-1 Port Adelaide - 3-2 Adelaide - 2-2 Brisbane - 2-2 Geelong - 1-1 Melbourne - 1-1 St Kilda - 1-3 Bulldogs - 1-3 So only Collingwood and Port have winning records against the top 8. Like Geelong, we've only had 2 opportunities and have split them 1-1. But interstate travel-wise, we've had 4 road trips to date, compared to St Kilda's 2, Geelong's 2, Collingwood's 2, the Dogs' 3, Adelaide's 3 and Port's 4. That's right, only Brisbane in the top 8 has had more games out of their home state than us. And we have a 5th next week, whilst Brisbane are at home, meaning that through 10 rounds we'll have done the equal-most travel of all top 8 sides, inclusive of three interstate sides. None of this means we're certainties to romp it home after next week but it's important context.

This is a hugely underrated point on here IMO. Yesterday May and Lever played 100% TOG and Hibberd 93%. But no one else did more than 88%, including Langdon, who in 2021-22 was a regular 95% TOG player. Oliver was 87%, Gawn 86%, Viney 80% and Petracca was BOG despite just 77%. This, IMO, is one of the many ways we are approaching 2023 in a tweaked fashion that gives us good reason to believe our platform is stronger going into the winter than it was last year.

Agree with the spirit of your post entirely. Just on your last line though, I would qualify it by saying the hardest part of the H&A season in terms of travel/venues/breaks is behind us after this week. But in terms of opposition, it begins this week. Ou next 8 games are Port Adelaide (away off a six day break), Fremantle (we lost to them last year and they may have turned a corner in the last few weeks), Carlton (off a six day break), Collingwood, Geelong (in Geelong), GWS, St Kilda and Adelaide. GWS is the only one of those sides who isn't currently considered a challenger for at least 8th (assuming they don't beat Collingwood today that is).

I doubt we add another tall forward. If Petty isn’t fit, I’m not sure who gets his spot. Goodwin mid-week didn’t sound too positive re Brown. TMac was an emergency tonight but isn’t in form. Schache was most recently in the side but struggled. Smith’s unpredictable and unreliable.

These sorts of wins are what should set our H&A season up. If you’re expecting flawless football and 100-point wins you’re not thinking right. We are winning games by comfortable margins while actively experimenting - we are trying new things forward of the ball with personnel and structure and we are learning how to score from sources other than stoppage. Imagine what happens when we settle. Yes, we need to show that we can produce good football against Port (and Collingwood, and Brisbane, and Geelong), but to be banking wins whilst developing in front of our eyes is precisely what we should all be demanding from this part of our fixture. Not 100-point wins.

Great news; this was, IMO undoubtedly, the right result.

The GWS game in Alice Springs is going to be on the Sunday, I'm pretty sure. Week after is St Kilda, the week after that is Brisbane. You'd expect the AFL will want our Brisbane game on the Friday night which means the St Kilda game should be on the Saturday, for back-to-back six-day breaks. I reckon the Adelaide game will be a Sunday, Richmond and North Melbourne Saturdays, then Carlton a Friday night or Saturday night.

You're essentially making my point, just in a different way - this system is flawed too. Why rule out a third of the comp for the last 6 weeks of the season? Are they all just going to stop playing? Or are we going to have a third of the matches every single week as dead rubbers between sides whose off-seasons have already started? Meanwhile the first 17 rounds won't be consistent - some sides will, for example, get Brisbane or Adelaide on the road, others will get them at home. Is it fair to cut off the side in 7th who might miss out to 6th by percentage if 7th, for example, copped Brisbane, Adelaide, Port Adelaide and Geelong away, whereas 6th's road trips were to West Coast, GWS, Gold Coast and Fremantle?

The critical issue is the Tribunal's elevation of the foreseeability of harm above the reasonable action of the player. This is a contact sport. Suspending players who engage in reasonable football actions simply because it is foreseeable that the action might cause injury is antithetical to the sport. It is also, I expect we'll argue tonight, an error of law because the AFL's Laws of the Game make it clear that players should be entitled to reasonably contest the ball. Once it is accepted that JVR reasonably looked at Ballard for the purpose of contesting the ball, and reasonably attempted to spoil, it should not matter that it was foreseeable he might hit Ballard in the head.

Lost in the JVR focus this week was Goodwin's comments during his presser yesterday about team selection. He said, clearly, we're keeping Petty forward. The FD like what they see there. Similarly, they're not quite happy with Brown and have him working on things at VFL level. Goodwin didn't want to comment on who gets JVR's spot if the appeal fails but I suspect it won't be Brown; probably Smith, knowing how the FD think. Regardless of Brown's form, I don't like Petty forward and IMO I think we're barking up the wrong tree there, but the FD have a view and it's going to be persisted with. Hibberd sounds like he's coming straight back in, probably for Turner I'd imagine, and then it's hard to know if Spargo gets his spot back.

What made Round 1 the "best time" to get the Dogs? Sydney in Round 3 were as close to full strength as they've been all year.

Really interested to hear that it seems Smith is now in front of Brown in the selection order. Brown went from two of his better games for us, ever, to an innocuous back injury, to completely out of form and now apparently not really that close to selection. A really disappointing two months for him. I've never been a Smith fan. I'm still not. We can't trust his body and I'm not sure he's smart enough to play forward. But I'm happy to be proven wrong - he was starting to prove me wrong in the first month last year as a defender before he got injured.

You know they're on the bottom of the ladder with one win (vs North) and a percentage of 61.6%? They are below West Coast who have about 25 fit players, half of whom should be nowhere near AFL selection.

Want to actually give that a crack? Yes, the current system is flawed, but I am yet to hear of another system that isn't also flawed in some other way. Aside from a 34-game season, there is no magical answer to this question and there are only flawed options. Waiting until everyone's played 17 games to get the top, middle and bottom 6 and then fixturing based off that has major issues - why bust a gut to finish 6th by Round 17 when you could "tank", finish 7th and get a massively easier fixture? It's also hard enough for fans to not have dates/times locked in if you're not even going to schedule opponents, let alone venues, until, what, a week out? Yes, it's nuts that we get North twice this year. But we were also given Sydney (runner up), Brisbane (preliminary finalist), Richmond (finalist) and Carlton (expected finalist) twice. We also have the most interstate travel of any Victorian side other than the two who sell home games to Tasmania. We also have to go to Geelong. We've also had a number of short breaks so far (next week into Port Adelaide will be our fourth 5 or 6 day break so far, I'd wager that's as much as anyone's had this year).

The other possible error of law is the Tribunal's reliance on law 18.5, which as far as I can tell talks about free kicks. I can't see that it sets the boundaries for reportable offences. But I agree with you. The Tribunal found: JVR's objective was to spoil It was reasonable for him to look at Ballard and the drop of the ball and assess the situation Those two things IMO mean his actions were reasonable, and the contact was incidental to his reasonable objective. I find it nearly impossible, as you do, to reconcile the above two points with the Tribunal's further finding about the inevitability of a forceful blow to the head. I'm livid with this decision. I think it's genuinely legally unsound. I think it's incredibly harsh that JVR misses two weeks whilst Lynch's charge was thrown out and Fogarty didn't even get cited. It's yet another example of the system being broken.

Last year we averaged 1.1 clearances more than our opponents each game. That came entirely from stoppage clearances, we were even on centre clearances. This year we average 1.8 clearances less than our opponents each game. That again comes almost entirely from stoppage clearances, which are -1.9 (centre clearances are +0.1). I looked a bit further and found that then stoppage clearance numbers are down this year - our opponents this year are averaging fewer of them per game than they did last year. The issue is that we are too, and proportionately more. We're playing a game with fewer stoppages because our ball movement is more direct and aggressive. We're also prioritising stoppages less because we're setting up in a way to score of turnover (I'd love to find the data on scores from turnovers so that I could compare but I am confident that our proportion of scores from turnovers in 2023 is up on 2022).

You know that Goodwin is 50% of these votes, right?

Also, it's foolhardy to compare the Cripps decision. Cripps got off on a legal technicality. Not because it was ultimately decided that his action was OK.

Correct call from the club to appeal. It seems the only things in the AFL's favour are: The vision which suggests JVR took his eyes off the ball; and The need for a stretcher and what I assume will be a minor injury from which Ballard has recovered (as opposed to no injury at all). There is not, and cannot be, a blanket rule that taking your eyes off the ball means your actions become a reportable offence. The onus on every player is to exercise a duty of care to other players. In some instances, the duty of care requires you to look at the player before you contact them. We cannot say that players must lock eyes on the ball in all instances. Here, in attempting to spoil, JVR checks the ball's flight, then looks at Ballard to try to spoil his marking attempt. As others have already argued, it is eminently arguable that he was trying his best to look out for Ballard, rather than the opposite. So, taking your eyes off the ball might be evidence of a reportable offence in circumstances where, for example, you're at a stoppage and you strike your opponent (the player might defend themselves by saying they were trying to get separation but if you're not looking at the ball it's more likely you're trying to strike your opponent). But in this instance I can't accept that makes JVR guilty of an offence. The stretcher showing up we can hopefully deal with to say that either the contact ended up being minor enough to fall below a reportable offence or, as a back-up argument, was only "low" (which would be a fine), or even more alternative was only "medium" (one week). But I'd like to not get to that point.