Dee-monic

We all know that Oliver, fit and firing, is a champion. It is simply a fact that he had a terrible game tonight in a midfield that was completely smashed by the opposition. Petracca, another champion, also had an off night. Obviously we all want to see Clarry back at his dominating best. But so far this season he has been a shadow of the player we know he can be, and if he does not regain form he would not be worth the money he is on. Again, that's simply a fact in the brutal world of football. I would be delighted if he produces man-of-the-match performances for the rest of the season.

The ratings on SEN's website. Sadly, they are pretty accurate. Max Gawn - A Well on top in the ruck all night, but the Dees struggled to make anything of it. Still, the skipper gave it his all. Trent Rivers - B+ One of the few who tried to inject some speed and run into the game for the Dees. Jake Lever - B Held up well despite the avalanche of entries. Kicked a rare goal late. Tom McDonald - B 17 disposals and 8 marks shows he was a factor in their attempts to move the footy, even on a rough night. Tom Sparrow - B- Ed Langdon - B- Steven May B- Brisbane did their best to keep him quiet and deep inside defensive 50, but he still had a few intercepts and took the game on with corridor kicks. Jack Viney - B- Brisbane kept the game uncontested and wide - not ideal for the inside bull Viney who had minimal impact. Blake Howes - C+ Kade Chandler - C+ Trying to run and make things happen, but didn't have a whole heap of help. Judd McVee C+ Caleb Windsor - C Ran hard and tried to make things happen all night. Is going to develop into a very handy wingman. Alex Neal-Bullen - C Koltyn Tholstrup - C- Provided some energy on debut. Taj Woewodin - C- Subbed into the game early in the first quarter, but struggled to find the footy. Jack Billings - C- Jacob van Rooyen - D+ Showed some signs in the fourth term after a rough night. Bayley Fritsch - D Ice cold after an early goal. Second week in a row he's been well beaten - though last week he got off the chain and kicked three in a 10-minute burst. Clayton Oliver - D After a very quiet first half, Oliver spent some time at half back as the Dees tried to get him involved. Well off his best from previous years. Christian Petracca - D Maybe his worst performance in a long time, unfortunately. Minimal impact in the first half and a few desperation plays in the second half that didn't come off. He'll bounce back. Harrison Petty - F Didn't touch the footy through three-and-a-half quarters... Not that the ball came his way particularly often. Tried to 'tag' Harris Andrews, but wasn't a factor. Ben Brown - F Ben Brown has not had a disposal in five of his last eight quarters of footy. Christian Salem - N/A Suffered a hamstring injury early in the first quarter and was subbed out.

The 22-point margin was the most misleading statistic of the night. For most of the game it looked like men against boys. For three quarters our handling and kicking were sloppy, defensive pressure in midfield was non-existent, and delivery to the forward line was rare. Brisbane could hardly have believed the amount of time and space they were gifted to mount their attacks. With Bowey still out and Salem facing a stint on the sidelines, there are now serious questions about our depth. Sadly, Windsor found it hard to cope with the pressure tonight and Tholstrup is clearly far from AFL-ready. Pickett's pace and guile were badly missed, and Woewoedin is certainly not an adequate replacement for Brayshaw. Worst of all, Oliver is a country mile away from the player we know he can be. On his display tonight you would probably put him on the trade table. Goodwin will have to do some serious thinking about the midfield mix.

I'm tempted to give Salem six for escaping the slaughter, but here goes on a night to forget: 6 Gawn - the leader no one followed. 5 Lever - worked overtime under constant pressure due to non-existent midfield. 4 McDonald - slow but reliable. 3 Chandler - worked hard throughout. 2 Rivers - good in bursts. 1 Langdon - often had to lend a hand in defence.

May: prevented an avalanche. McVee: struggled under pressure. Lever: never in control. Howes: looked rather bewildered. McDonald: dependable but slow. Langdon: few attacking chances. Petracca: a serious off-day. Billings: below VFL standard. Neal-Bullen: always on fringes. Rivers: occasional good bursts. Windsor: couldn’t find space. Oliver: time to trade? Sparrow: lumbered around ineffectively. Gawn: giant among wreckage. Viney: struggled for impact. Tholstrup: nowhere near ready. Van Rooyen: mark dropping specialist. Chandler: always works hard. Fritsch: Lonely and lazy. Brown: no fighting spirit. Petty: seldom looked interested. Salem: bad luck strikes.

Forward line: do we have one? Midfield: laughably slow and cumbersome. Defence: Chaotic. Goody will need to produce a miracle from here. I'm not holding my breath.

This is worse than a bad day at the office. We are being smashed in every aspect of the game. It is becoming seriously embarrassing.

Umpires copping the blame for a shambolic first quarter. Wrong. It's the woeful under-performance of most of our players. Oliver, van Rooyen, Petty, Windsor and Brown might as well have stayed on holiday in Adelaide.

My hope: Kozzie will get off with a fine on the basis that the impact was low. My prediction: He won't, even if impact was minimal. The reason: the AFL wants to send a strong message that running towards an opponent and leaving the ground to attempt a spoil or smother now carries the risk of automatic suspension if the opponent's head is struck, even inadvertently. With hugely significant legal cases in the pipeline regarding head injuries, the AFL is now firmly in "protect the head" mode. Coaches will all be looking at the decision carefully, with a view to reining in their Maynard-type bruisers if Kozzie loses the appeal.

The more often I watch the replay, the more convinced I become that Kozzie has a reasonable case. Unlike Maynard on Gus, he had no forward momentum, his intention was clearly to smother, and there was little movement of his arm before the collision with Soligo. Given that Soligo played on without any ill-effects, it is hard to justify a verdict of medium impact, which surely must involve a significant upgrade on low impact. A free kick to Soligo should have been the end of the matter.

Umpires, like players, make mistakes because they are subject to human fallibility. In cricket, for example, the number of lbw decisions overturned on review shows that many such rulings in the pre-camera era must have been wrong. While every effort should be made to improve umpiring standards, I would rather live with the risk of error than have constant stoppages for video officials to pore over multiple replays of on-field incidents. Umpiring a fast-paced game in which physical aggression is the norm is not a gig for the faint-hearted. In the end, bad decisions usually even out over the course of a season.

This is true, but on the other hand he is actually letting the team down with silly and needless actions that mean he will now have missed two games out of six this season. Given that he adds an irreplaceable X-factor to our attack, Goodwin needs to have a serious chat with him. It was a marginal call whether to grade the impact as low or medium, but I doubt if there is enough mitigating evidence to take it to the tribunal. I hope I'm wrong.

Positives: no fresh injuries and another interstate win. Negatives: goalkicking accuracy (Fritsch apart) a bit below par and last-quarter fadeout. Special award: Steven May for playing through the pain. We could have lost without him. Pleasing prospects: * Chandler rapidly proving we were right to let Bedford go instead of him. * McVee another young gun looking the part. * Windsor handling a steep learning curve with aplomb. * TMac showing he still has fuel in the tank.

The usual suspects to the forefront this week: 6 Petracca - power and precision. 5 Gawn - our Mr Everywhere. 4 May - gutsy performance. 3 McVee - cool under pressure. 2 Fritsch - on target when it was needed. 1 Lever - at his best when partnered with May.

Probably too soon, given that he could expect plenty of knees and elbows aimed at inflicting more damage.