titan_uranus

The [censored] returns. First post since the season began. Fifth post since we were behind in the Grand Final. Honestly, the worst thing about a loss is seeing people like olisik return.

Fremantle's best is very good. They were two players off their best 22 and they played the best football they've played since 2015. We can't beat good sides, let alone sides flying like Fremantle today, when we had as much go wrong as we did today. No Salem, Langdon, McDonald or Harmes. No May after 15 minutes. If you were at the game you'll have seen Petracca was wholly devoid of energy. It doesn't surprise to hear Goodwin suggest he was sick. Petty was injured and popped painkillers to run out the game. And Lever's been carrying something for weeks. The replacements were almost all really poor. Melksham was just terrible, Dunstan not much better, Bedford isn't good or fit enough (not sure which) to play four quarters, and Weideman was both shocking and lacking in all confidence. We tried to cover Langdon with Spargo on a wing. It didn't work twice - it meant we were exposed on that wing, and we lacked Spargo's pressure inside 50. Brown had a nightmare but to be fair to him, we kept kicking the ball on his head and he was double-teamed for most of the game because we had no other marking options. And then our inaccuracy hit us again. Fritsch and Weideman missed shots they should have kicked and we honestly should have been 7 or 8 goals up at half time. Game could and I suspect would have played out much differently had Fritsch's set shot goal in the third restored a 6 or 7 goal margin, rather than a 3 goal margin. We still generated enough opportunity to keep ourselves in the game but when we needed a goal to get the crowd going and to give us some confidence, Trac missed his snap in the third and then Spargo missed his early fourth quarter shot. May going down is a disaster, compounded by Petty being injured (and I reckon Lever being injured too). And then double-compounded by having no McDonald who could have covered infinitely better than Weideman. We haven't missed Hibberd all year but we could have used his height today: Bowey, Rivers, Hunt and Brayshaw aren't tall enough to help cover tall forwards and it showed. We should see a handful of changes next week. There is a lot we need to improve to be sure of restoring our form.

Not hugely surprising, which we've come to expect these days. Baker, sadly, has never shown enough form at even VFL level to suggest he's ready to become a consistent AFL player, and his AFL opportunities, although limited, have never really been good enough. Well done to Melksham on 200. I'm not sure how many more there will be once Salem, Langdon and Harmes get fit, but here's hoping he puts in a stunner for his milestone.

Fair reason why Geelong might still be a more solid side than Carlton, but the gap just isn't wide enough to have the worst Geelong model scoring just as high as the best Carlton model.

Yes they did - Fremantle, in Round 6. At the time Fremantle were flying. And they gave Carlton a right old touch up, with Carlton only capable of scoring 9.8.62, their equal lowest score of the year and lowest number of scoring shots. Point taken though, they haven't beaten anyone with a particularly good defence.

He's the loosest of cannons. He cannot control himself when he gets emotional. Like in the Round 1 press conference. One he gets riled up he has an anger management issue and cannot rein himself in.

I love stats, data and analysis, but there is a real problem with what's going on right now if even the worst assessment of Geelong right now is higher than the best assessment of Carlton right now.

You're kidding, right? If anything, two weeks was light for that.

Yes I received it and took part in the survey. I encourage everyone who has even a remote interest in these sorts of things to do this. There was significant debate on here during the recent Board election about a host of issues that this survey addresses, such as the tenure of directors, the way in which elections take place, and the role of sub-committees at the club. Now is your chance to be involved in the club's future.

These two posts should be stuck to the top of this thread and rolled out every time someone says "but Carlton are so attacking". Carlton's best is good enough to beat us. Their one-wood is contested ball and if they dominate in the middle, and get good supply into Curnow and McKay, they are hard to stop. But if they don't dominated contested ball, they fall back to the pack. Like the Dogs, they can't win if their midfield isn't dominant. It doesn't matter how good Curnow and McKay are, Carlton's wins come off the back of supreme midfield dominance, and in the games where they've built a lead and then had it eroded, each one has turned on them ceding dominance in the middle.

He's an injury to TMac, Brown, Jackson or Gawn away from moving back into the seniors. He re-signed last year knowing that was going to be his lot. Why, now, would he change his mind? At any rate, unless he gives up on us and wants out, there is no way in hell I'd be pushing him out for a so-called "ham sandwich".

I have no sympathy for the select North supporters who belittled us for 12 years. But overall this is not a good situation. it doesn't benefit anyone to have one of the 18 clubs fall apart, and it feels like North is falling apart right now. Moving the club to Tasmania runs a significant risk of leading to the Tasmanian venture failing. Tasmanians want and deserve their own team, not the remnants of a broken Victorian club. So North needs to be "fixed". If 2013 Melbourne can be fixed, I suspect 2022 North Melbourne can be fixed.

Their last two games were terrible. But their performances vs Carlton and Geelong are enough to worry any side, including us. We will, as we always do, be planning for their best, because their best remains top 4 quality, albeit it's disappeared in the last fortnight.

Most footy pundits think we don't blow teams away or score a lot. But I also think most footy pundits don't appreciate that our percentage is 161%, with only one other club in the comp within 35% of us. And I also think most footy pundits don't appreciate that we've scored the third most points of all clubs.

I agree with the general premise of your post. I tend to view this and other issues (e.g. our low inside 50 retention rate) as positives - room for improvement despite us being 10-0 and 161%. On the bolded bit, Petracca really does stand out for inaccuracy, but as you say, he's not on his own. This is a list of all of our players who have kicked more behinds than goals, ranked by accuracy: Oliver: 1.5 (16.6%) ANB: 2.7 (22.2%) Sparrow: 2.4 (33.3%) Melksham: 1.2 (33.3%) Petracca: 9.17 (34.6%) Spargo: 5.7 (41.6%) Melksham's only played two games so taking him out and focusing on the best 22, Petracca's only our 4th worst shot on goal so far this year. But obviously his volume of shots makes him stand out above everyone else.

Weitering deserves to be in the conversation with May for the league's best key defender currently. The media unfortunately seem to have forgotten about May in the discussion.

I actually think now is the time to focus heavily on umpiring. Not to have a crack at the umpires themselves, but to put the issue as squarely in the AFL's focus as possible., Umpiring is becoming increasingly inconsistent. Fans and players are increasingly unsure as to why decisions are paid. Rules are being interpreted and applied differently from week to week. Like the MRO/Tribunal process, the AFL needs a proper review of its rules and how they are applied. Umpiring needs to be reviewed and overhauled, the standard needs to be lifted, and certain rules need to either be dispensed with or modified to make the game cleaner and easier to umpire.

Six weeks? Source?

Couldn't agree more. All this provides is a description of what we can see in the footage and then "it was the view of the Match Review Officer that [player's] actions did not constitute a reportable offence".

Will you keep yourself accountable for being wrong about us losing to St Kilda? Will you come back on here and keep yourself accountable if we don't lose 7-8 of the last 12 games, as you've said we will? I felt like I said this far too often from 2014-19: being negative/pessimistic is easy. Most clubs don't win the flag, so you can set the bar there and most of the time, you'll be able to say you were "right" all along. But of course, if we do well, no one cares about you, and like Dr D and olisik and others before you, you'll disappear. And just on the fixture point, two of the sides you keep banging on about as likely to get the better of us are Brisbane and Carlton. Brisbane's played two top 8 sides for a 1-1 record, Carlton's played three top 8 sides for a 2-1 record, and as you've pointed out we've played two top 8 sides (but of course you omitted to mention that we're 2-0 and not seriously challenged in either game).

Yeah nah not sure about this bump and these posts. Viney does that to an opposition player and we'd be celebrating it.

I doubt Salem is ready this week. I'm fairly confident he's been tracking at the "lower" end of the club's estimates for the last month and I'm pretty sure he'll need at least one more week.

I hope you realise now, having seen Brisbane lose to Hawthorn and Fremantle lose to Collingwood, just how ridiculous this post was. But if not, here are some more reasons: GWS beat West Coast by 52. We beat them by 74. GWS played them home. We played them at Optus GWS conceded 86 points to them. We conceded 38 If "miles off" means being 10-0 with a percentage of 161%, two games clear of second, three games and 35% clear of fourth, and with just one side within 35% of us, then your expectations are horridly skewed.

Remember last year, when we lost to Adelaide in Round 10, and had Brisbane and the Dogs in the next fortnight, and everyone said "you'll see, we're not good enough", and then we beat them both convincingly? "Inability to play 4 qtrs of footy" - we won all four quarters today and we lead the competition for quarters won, having won 31 of the 40 we've played. Next best is Richmond on 27. Fremantle could win all four quarters tomorrow and they'd get to 28. "Fairly soft draw" - we've beaten 5th and 8th, as well as 9th and 10th. Carlton's beaten 7th and 8th, as well as 9th and 10th. Brisbane's beaten 7th...and 10th...

They certainly won't get 8,000 through the gates against GWS next week. They play St Kilda, away, not GWS.