Nairobi_Demon

I have to admit, I couldn’t believe Binman’s 47 point win tip and was very skeptical. Not that we wouldn’t win, but by such a large margin. Hats off to you @binman. You had the analysis and the belief!

Indeed we did. A come back and a smashing all in one game 😁

We’re having a family friendly viewing with big screen projector and BBQ in Nairobi 🇰🇪 BBQ at 11.30am with game set to start at 12.15 local time. If there’s anyone out there who’d like to join, get in touch.

Hi boys - I think you’ve uploaded last week’s podcast to apple podcasts. The blurb is correct (see below), but when I play the episode it repeats last week’s episode.

The other thing I noticed during our game last week, and went back to watch on BB’s vision to confirm, is that the umpire didn’t make an effort to inform the players it was touched. Normally they yell out “touched” multiple times. From what I can hear, the umpire only said it once just after the ball was kicked (and thus furtherest from Brown). There was no effort to repeat it. Even after he marked it and started to walk back for his kick, there’s no repeat call from the umpire but only noise from players and the crowd that it was touched. You’d almost think the umpire was happy for him to get snagged for holding the ball

Will be interesting to watch these passages of play once the ProVision is online: Dogs back to dominating the free kick count, 22 to 14 today.

Definitely protection. These are our 4 most important players I reckon.

So many top efforts it’s hard to know where to start: Rivers, Kossie, ANB... You could almost list the whole team. I was particularly impressed with Sparrow’s game and I thought Langdon was back to his first half season form where he gets all the way up into the forward line and hits the score board. First time he has kicked a goal since round 13. I wonder whether they’ve been saving this part of his game for finals. My only concern is TMac. He’s never been fast but he seemed particularly slow today and lacked awareness of what was happening around him. I’d back him in but gee I hope he can find some of his form from earlier in the season.

In other words, no decisions taken yet. With Jones, JJ, Hibberd and Melksham listed as emergencies it’s likely we won’t know the actual team until tomorrow or even Saturday

Great stuff as always

I suspect this challenge is being under estimated. Now the supply has been sorted, Australia is following the trend of other countries and hitting all the low hanging fruit of those who can’t wait for their vaccines. But it’s likely to slow down This article also makes some interesting observations about highly vaccinated countries/regions and the continued need for social restrictions: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/24/why-is-covid-surging-in-highly-vaccinated-israel-and-what-can-australia-learn-from-it?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

I was wondering about this and found this online:

I just re-watched the last ~15min of Q2. A few observations: - Hawkins first two goals (in that 15min period) were critical and I think started to give the Cats some confidence after a gruelling 45min of football. Both goals were probably on May who didn’t seem to read the ball’s flight allowing Hawkins to get in a better position. - The subsequent run of goals from the centre seemed driven by their pace. Dangerfield was key. The first goal was probably on Harmes and to some degree Gawn. Harmes started next to Dangerfield on their offensive side but lost him. Dangerfield subsequently just waltzed past Gawn and ran almost up to 50m arc. - Clarry started next to Dangerfield at the next bounce, also their offensive side. Cats got a bit lucky getting this ball out of the centre but then they just waltzed forward. It seemed like our backs were just not set up. Can’t see on TV but maybe their forwards had dragged our backs out of position. Rivers seemed to have slipped over or perhaps was pushed off the ball, which opened up the space for Dangerfield. Bowey also got sucked toward Dangerfield, opening up the space behind him. - the third goal out of the centre could have been a Cats set play in terms of how their forwards worked together. Hawkins kept May out of the contest, and Cameron grappled with Smith effectively blocking Lever and creating a space for Rohan to get across for the mark. At the centre bounce, Dangerfield was again on their offensive side this time Viney was on him. But Oliver and Harmes both got sucked into focusing on Dangerfield, which then allowed Selwood and their #9 (I think) to clear the ball with pace. Some overall observations: - their pace was key - not clear who was on dangerfield, and we got sucked towards him a few times (did Dangerfield have a tag?) - Cats were quite clever at blocking our pathways to create space for the ball carrier - May was not at his best in this period I also wondered whether the extra space between the goal square and the 50m arc threw us off a bit. GMHBA is longer than the MCG by 10m so there must be an extra 5m on either side of the goal square. They exploited that space.

Just realised I posted this in the wrong thread, will repost it in the postgame thread. Whoops 😆

I just re-watched the last ~15min of Q2. A few observations: - Hawkins first two goals (in that 15min period) were critical and I think started to give the Cats some confidence after a gruelling 45min of football. Both goals were probably on May who didn’t seem to read the ball’s flight allowing Hawkins to get in a better position. - The subsequent run of goals from the centre seemed driven by their pace. Dangerfield was key. The first goal was probably on Harmes and to some degree Gawn. Harmes started next to Dangerfield on their offensive side but lost him. Dangerfield subsequently just waltzed past Gawn and ran almost up to 50m arc. - Clarry started next to Dangerfield at the next bounce, also their offensive side. Cats got a bit lucky getting this ball out of the centre but then they just waltzed forward. It seemed like our backs were just not set up. Can’t see on TV but maybe their forwards had dragged our backs out of position. Rivers seemed to have slipped over or perhaps was pushed off the ball, which opened up the space for Dangerfield. Bowey also got sucked toward Dangerfield, opening up the space behind him. - the third goal out of the centre could have been a Cats set play in terms of how their forwards worked together. Hawkins kept May out of the contest, and Cameron grappled with Smith effectively blocking Lever and creating a space for Rohan to get across for the mark. At the centre bounce, Dangerfield was again on their offensive side this time Viney was on him. But Oliver and Harmes both got sucked into focusing on Dangerfield, which then allow Selwood and their #9 (I think) to clear the ball with pace. Some overall observations: - their pace was key - not clear who was on dangerfield, and we got sucked towards him a few times (did Dangerfield have a tag?) - Cats were quite clever at blocking our pathways to create space for the ball carrier - May was not at his best in this period I also wondered whether the extra space between the goal square and the 50m arc threw us off a bit. GMHBA is longer than the MCG by 10m so there must be an extra 5m on either side of the goal square. They exploited that space.

Our worst quarter of the season

Good question. I think your hypothesis above has legs. Above I suggested the hypothesis in bold: And LD has hypothesised that it relates to us: In some ways we can test these hypotheses next week. If the umpires revert to favouring the dogs then it’s an indication that it’s either hypothesis 1 or 3. That they wanted another interstate team in the top 4 and not that they were trying to correct their biased umpiring earlier in the year. 😆

A win for me today would be no injuries.

I’ve watched bits and pieces of the Dogs games the last two weeks, and one thing I noticed is that they didn’t seem to be getting a helping hand from the umpires like they did in the game against us. And it makes a big difference. Today, for example, the free kick count was 23-15 in favour of Port. And last week it was 14-11 in favour of the Hawks. Our game was 25-11 to them! Perhaps the umpires have noticed the talk about their huge free kick advantage and are trying to balance it out (a little) before season ends. They’re other reasons why they’re down and losing, but I think this has contributed.

As did I BBP. It seems clear that yesterday’s numbers were largely a result of 13 day tests of those that went into isolation at the beginning of this current outbreak. But today’s numbers are driven by a new cycle of infections. I suspect Melburnians went into last weekend thinking the city was getting on top it. And if you were looking at the numbers and the iso % late last week, you can understand why. See the highlighted section in this graph on the 11-13 August. That prompted a spike in population movement as shown in this graph, a trend in behaviour that is common across all lockdowns, i.e. movement begins to pick up towards the end of lockdown. Thus these are new infections that have been out and about this week, seeding a new cycle of infections that will take at least two weeks to bring under control. Sadly I think this means finals in Melbourne are unlikely 🙁

The AFL should save the bye for the week between the preliminary finals and the grand final. That way they’ll know the teams in the GF and have two weeks to put in place contingency measures to allow supporters to attend, including pre-game PCR and antigen testing.

If Victorians can travel to WA for a final with a PCR and vaccination, then surely one could apply the same criteria to a game at the ‘G? You can only attend if you have a PCR test taken within say 72 hours (and/or a rapid antigen test at the gate; otherwise almost all PCR testing capacity would need to be allocated for footy goers) and a full vaccination certificate. Sure, those under 40 who can only now access AZ would probably miss out (given time gap between doses), but they’ve got 30+ years to wait for the next MFC premiership 😁

While I’m excited about Bowey like everyone else, I still think Hibberd has a role to play if we need an experienced shutdown defender. He’s had a solid season overall and I just don’t think Bowey has sufficient experience to come in for finals off two games, one of which was a walk in the park.

Let me guess, umpire #26?

Very unhappy with the Monday night game - middle of the work day for me given the time difference which means I can’t watch live 😫