Watson11

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!

I hope he has predicted us to miss the 8 again, like he did last year.

I’m surprised you didn’t list Gary Rohan above Fritsch. You have listed a few players who go missing in finals. Finals should be weighted way higher. Fritsch kicked 12 goals across 3 finals in 2021. J Cameron has kicked 21 goals in 12 finals. Daniher 8 goals in 4 finals. Naughton 10 goals in 6 finals. Papley 15 goals in 8 finals. Toby Greene 20 goals in 11 finals. Even Hawkins is only 48 goals in 29 finals.

@binman, re the Kossie play. I took a screen grab of the point that Langdon kicked it. It was the right kick as worst case it should have been over the boundary on our half forward line, and Daniel did well to cover Kossie's shorter lead. The only problem was Tmacs poor running pattern and his subsequent feeble effort that turned this play from 95% our advantage into a loss (we didn't actually get a stoppage and the dogs won the ball). If TMac had run more laterally, then the kick goes behind him to his advantage where he can protect space with body contact if needed. I don't like Tex but this example is almost a carbon copy and shows how a forward should do it Tex versus Dogs It's also unfair to critique Daisy or any special comments person for not predicting our comeback. The examples you provided (Port and cats ) are where we absorbed pressure and won, but we also had games where we absorbed pressure, came back, and lost (GWS and the Dogs games round 20). You just never know at the time. Even her "need to show dare:" comment was fair enough. At the specific time, we were stuck in our defence and had only had 2 inside 50s in the prior 15 minutes of the 3rd qtr. Yes our defence in that period was unbelievable and held up, but the script was still up in the air as to whether we were going to repeat the Geelong effort or repeat the GWS/Dogs efforts.

Mongrelpunt’s assessment of champion data which is spot on. https://themongrelpunt.com/afl-season-2022/2022/02/15/mediocre-data-the-elite-list-bombs-again/

Jake Melksham may be in his last year and will also free up some $$ at the end of 2022. We extended him to the end of 2022 after his excellent 2018 season where he was top 10 B&F and kicked 30+ goals. He would be on good money.

Training yesterday. He has never been fitter. Will have his best season this year.