Watson11

and 5 score involvements. Those stats are only impressive if you ignore the fact Smith played most of the game inside directly opposed to Tracc or Oliver who had 21 score involvements between them.

Bevo must have given Smith 4. I wonder what the sequence of events was. Lost the plot while doing coaches votes and then lost it again at the presser, or vice versa.

I’m not watching WC v GC but quickly looked at stats on afl.com. They credit GC with 13 scoring shots from 19 inside 50s for 4.3. Is that a mistake or have they kicked 6 OOB?

They say defences wins flags. The stats for conceding scores from inside 50s so far: 1. Melbourne 35% Daylight 2. Richmond 50% 3. St Kilda 52% 4. Collingwood 53% 5. Carlton 58% 6. Bulldogs 60%

I agree statistics don't tell the truth. You need to put them in context. Smith had 33 disposals but I thought he had a poor game. I don't recall Harmes being on Smith at all, and if he did it would have been covering for someone else. Smith played as an inside mid most of the night against Tracc and Oliver, and frankly he was ripped apart. When he went outside he matched up on Jordon. Tracc/Oliver had 21 score involvements. The dogs had 16 scores total. Smith is the one who gets lost at stoppages, not Harmes. At stoppages Harmes primarily picked up Dunkley, but if he wasn't around he picked up Libba/Bont/Macrae.

The bolded statement is harsh. Défense - Harmes had the second most tackles for us, and 4th most pressure acts. He was nowhere near the play when the dogs scored goals. He was not defensively poor in my view. Disposal - His disposal efficiency was 82.4% which was 4th best on the night for us. Is that really putrid?

I used to think that as well but changed my mind when Smith played forward at the start of 2019. He kicked a few goals, but we were getting rebounded way too easily and Joel was regularly at fault. As a forward, learning the defensive structures is a lot tougher than as a defender. I remember one preseason game where Houlli had about 45 kicks.

Smith clearly is not competing with Lever, but with Hibberd, Hunt, Tomlinson etc. I’m a doubter on Smith, but dropping him right now would be a bad call. Other than the dodgy Weightman free kick he conceded, he was really good and needs 10 to 15 games of continuity to show what he is made of. He may become a really good versatile defender.

Really good article on abc. AFL 2022 preview This graph is why dogs may struggle this year and won’t win a flag until they sort it out. Their defence is hopeless one on one. Every team should be trying to move the ball inside 50 as quickly as possible. Last year, teams generally didn’t move it quickly enough against the dogs, but those who did (Richmond, Essendon, us) sliced them up.

I’m pretty sure he missed the mad minute. After Tracs goal he started making his way down to the ground for the 3/4 time huddle. He never would have imagined we would get another let alone 2.

I don’t think the dogs are soft. The dogs supporters were complaining how we just stood up in their tackles and could easily get handballs away. Their gripe is with the coaches, who seem way too obsessed with winning the free kick count, rather than teaching them how to tackle to hurt and not care if the odd free is given away.

We can agree to disagree. An interesting stat is in the 3rd qtr we kicked 0.1 from 3 inside 50s up to that stoppage, and 7.1 from 9 inside 50s after it. I don’t think there will ever be a performance like that in a GF again.

In the context of the previous 30 minutes, and especially the last 15 minutes, where we were only hanging on defensively, Viney does deserve credit. We got the first inside 50 of the third quarter, and then only had another 2 in the next 17 minutes. Viney took an offensive mindset and hit that stoppage pretty hard, and so the fact he fumbled is not that surprising. We probably had a bit of luck in that Bailey Smith also fumbled, but full credit to Viney for making something happen offensively after a long period of nothing happening for us.

She is also an extremely committed Catholic and the deputy chair of the Catholic parish council for Boulder-Kalgoorlie in WA. A Catholic Facebook group she is a member of was circulating all of the foetal cell line stuff and waiting for Novavax (my sister in law waited) despite the Catholic Church being ok with vaccines. I have no idea if Jack Darling waited for that reason but it is a possibility he would like to keep his religious views private.

Fair enough. I should have stated the cell lines are used in production. Some vaccines are manufactured using foetal cell lines. Others are tested for safety using foetal cell lines. None of the cell material remains in the final product. My understanding is Novavax did neither and is the only vaccine to be developed like that which is why some people waited for it. I would have no idea of Jack Darlings reasons for waiting.

I don’t want to start a religious debate on here (I’m not religious), but Novavax is the only vaccine that doesn’t contain human foetal material or wasn’t tested on a line of cells derived from a human foetus. Although I don’t share the same beliefs, it’s entirely possible that Jack didn’t sell his values down the river at all. It could be quite the total opposite. .

If the umps look up at the coaches box during cats games they’ll give up about 25 of them.

Just out of interest, do you think he is slow. I’m pretty sure he was 2.93s for the 20m at his draft combine, which is pretty quick. And I don’t recall seeing him beaten easily on the lead ever.

In the corresponding game last year.

Is going to happen a lot this year. Us flogging sides and then we hear they had gastro. It’s a surprise that it never happened when we were useless.

In fairness to Rivers he was probably worried Charlie Cameron was hiding behind Smith!

In our round 12 game Hibberd played on Cameron for 80% game time and while on him held him goalless. Cameron kicked 1 on Salem and 1 on Hunt (a junk time free kick). I was surprised Hibberd didn't get the job again in round 1 of the finals. @Baghdad Bob Smith was on the ground for all of Cameron's 5 goals. Three were mistakes by Smith. The other 2 you can give Smith the benefit of the doubt. Cameron's second was the Rivers handball. Not Smiths fault but definitely a disconnect as Smith was indecisive and had no awareness. You could tell Rivers had an "oh [censored]" moment half way through what should have been simple handball. For Cameron's 3rd, Smith picked up McCluggage who went forward, and Salem picked up Cameron. That goal looked bad for Smith as he was the closest to Cameron when he kicked the goal, but if you relook at it closely it was a lapse of the entire back 6 as Salem ran off Cameron and impacted the contest and no-one dropped back to stand the Lions most dangerous forward.

Charlie Cameron kicked 5 on Smith. He kicked 5 in a final against Geelong once, but beside that has kicked 17 goals in 11 finals. A couple of goals is about par, not 5 out of 9 team goals. The Lions game showed up Smiths weakness. Smith positioning was poor and Cameron continually got goal side of him. But Smith has not played many games, so can still learn, and has lots of upside.

Those were the days. In the 70s and 80’s you could win a Brownlow playing anywhere (ruck, full forward, back pocket, wing, half forward). None of those players would win if playing today. The medias obsession with pure stats has rubbed off on the umps.

You did say this “Greene’s had 30 and 3 in a grand final. Naughton had 9 marks and 2 goals against Port.” Greene has never kicked a goal in a GF. And Naughtons best finals performance you quoted was about the same as the 8 marks and 2 goals Fritsch kicked against Geelong in the prelim. Against Brisbane Fritsch kicked 4 including our first 2 goals of the 4th qtr, one from a huge contested grab. So it wasn’t just the GF. He also kicked 4 of our first 7 goals in the GF. He stood up big time, and did it all season when we needed it. Very underrated. You may not agree, but plenty of people think he is above many of the 10 forwards you quoted as in front of him. I think he will kick more goals in 2022 than nearly all of those you listed as top 50. Time will tell and we can bump this thread in 9 months time. By the way, Fritsch would have had a field day on May in the GF. Naughton just went into his shell and let May do as he pleased. May had a torn hamstring!