Skuit

Anyways. How sweet was that Frost connect on goal? Barely looked like he put anything into it and could have kicked it from a further ten back. Hunt, Watts and Petracca all got run-down hesitating in long range and I'd be happier if they just took the shot instinctively. The odds of finding someone clean in close in tight traffic vs. turning it over when we're exposed on the corridor counter or the odds of kicking a goal vs. being able to reset from a kick-in. They're also momentum goals if you nail them and force an oppo rethink. But it'll be pretty damn handy if all of Hunt, Frost, Hibberd and Salem can establish themselves as regular threats from around the arc coming off half-back. (Melksham's vids suggest he can do it as well but no evidence of it yet in the red and blue). Jones has been chiming in for one each week, and Pedo is capable from distance as well. A shame that Vince and Tyson have stormed out of the party.

This could be an exact quote of a Roos fan about their team if a couple of sliding doors moments in the final quarter tipped the game our way. You want an example of brutal? Watch the second quarter again. We bullied them. Absolutely a team tactic, and they had no answer. It follows on from our ruthless brutality at times last week, and there's probably a small clue as to its origins in that Granny video. Unfortunately we couldn't keep it up after the break. But we're young. And still learning how to physically dominate the opponent across an entire match.

195 is arbitrary, but you have to draw a line somewhere, and when you start getting below this height you're generally looking more at supporting forwards than the KPF's you can build a structure around (there will be exceptions up and down - Watts for one is more in that supporting category because he loses a foot by not marking above his head). But the players you cite being on the below side is my point. We've brought in Hullet, Smith, Hannan, (and Johnstone) into our forward line in the past couple years as support for just Hogan (195), Watts (196), Weids (195), and Pedersen (193), who wasn't evidently in the plans until we lost our ruck brigade. I can see what we're trying but I think we've erred. We're seriously lacking in big-bodied forward height, no two ways about it.

So . . . Does anyone know how the EPL fixture works in terms of equity? Do teams play each other a set number of times? Rivalry and big club exemptions?

On this: Brown wasn't seen as a pure ruckman prior to the draft. He had a clear forward-ruck profile. There were several clubs into him, but I think the draft opened up a bit and he ended up slipping when teams jumped at other options. It's right to question our club's recruiting strategy - not in the specific sense of Brown, he was still a punt at the time - but that we didn't look ahead to cover a big-bodied KPP deficiency, and more specifically, another forward-ruck when Clarke walked and Fitz didn't look quite there. Yes, they don't grow on trees, but that's why a punt in the bottom end of the draft is a reasonable option. Brown was the exact sort you should look at - mature/good body shape and steady improvement. He also strikes me as highly coachable and you can see how technically sound he is. We may have had more pressing deficiencies, but while we've stocked up in the middle and half-back, in the past year they'd identified half-forward as a target area rather than KPF. Never mind injuries etc., the 195cm+ KPFs on our list consist entirely of Hogan, Watts, Weideman. I understand we're drafting to the game-style we have in mind, but surely the club should have been able to foresee the potential issue here.

Was Nicholls last year as well. Umpires are human and will make errors. Umpires are human and will also have biases.

Are you sure? The exposure curse seems alive and well this season.

We didn't play too badly. A few players looked a bit tired and we didn't get enough out of our forward-line. Credit to North. Great contest.

No worries Trumbull. I'll let you in on my little secret - or at least the one that keeps me relatively sane. I don't think this particular match matters all that much in the wash. Win/lose - we'll come good with a run-on in the back-end - and if we don't, we don't really deserve to be in the mix anyway. My much dirtier secret - I've always had a bit of a soft-spot for Benny Brown. Happy for him to kick five, so long as it constitutes half of the Kangas' goals.

That's the spirit Ethan.

Here's a simple equation. Although we presently sit in 10th, if we beat every team currently below us on the ladder for the remainder of the season we finish with 12 wins and most likely make the finals. Matches to come are against 12th 13th (x2) 14th 15th 17th (x2) 18th. Throw in repeat results and we go 10-4 from here on out. Win tomorrow and repeat the formula and it's 11-3. It's interesting to view it with such objectivity. But I do hope the club shrinks are working overtime. * run the same formula on the Saints and they go 5-8

The AFL discussion and so then responses are all over the shop. This is apparently about H&A equity. Yet the AFL seem to be trying to solve perceived issues with late-season dead rubbers at the same time. In respect to their proposals, punters are then rightly questioning whether this simply all comes down to cash. If they want to expand (and dilute the quality of) the finals to ten teams, just do it. 9th and 10th join in. Simple. Expansion of finals numbers has happened many times before, and people may grizzle but they get on with it. It's this convoluted 'Wild-Card' business and how it undermines the H&A season that at heart has everyone's backs up. This was my proposal for an alternative finals system: Forgetting the wilder nominative aspect, it still resolves some peripheral issues and has in-built adaptability. The structural basis is a rolling first-week McIntyre extended over the entire course of the finals, with the two lowest-ranked losers eliminated each week and the ladder reordered. Can easily be expanded to 10 teams if that's what the AFL desires.

This was my exact hope when we drafted Cook. But alas.

Sam Reid as the speculated third defensive tall target?

As far as I understand, Jake Spencer is an unrestricted free agent.

The psychological issues the team face that are constantly raised are far more likely to be performance anxiety related than hubris. I highly doubt we win a big match and then think we're the best and don't have to try anymore. It's more that when you have every man and his dog saying that the Demons are incapable of backing it up, overcoming that frailty becomes the focus rather than just going out and playing our natural game. We're more concerned about potentially losing than winning. When players say things such as 'we haven't won two in a row in a while' it becomes clear their focus of attention has drifted off-centre.

Your ad lapidem horse-chuckle let's me know they've got to you too. What did they pay you Ted Fidge - or should I say, 'Gift Deed'?

Before I was a lunatic I didn't concern myself much with the financial ins and outs of the club other than red/black. Can someone briefly outline the for/against arguments for why the attendance receipts are divvied up the way they are? So I don't have to use my brain. The big clubs already have a pretty decent leg-up, and much of that is at the expense of other clubs rather than based on marketing investment etc.

I'm afraid the sinister tentacles run much deeper SWL. Gil undertook the Senior Executive Program at Stanford U at around the same time Rebekah Mercer was in attendance. Rebekah is the director of the Mercer Foundation (and was on the Trump transitional team) and daughter of Robert, the man credited with actively achieving the Brexit vote and having Trump elected to the White-House by way of the secret psych-based data-analysis system he developed, a notable feature of which deploys 'bots' and operatives to sway public opinion on social-networking sites . . .

Your username is suspiciously close to an anagram of Gil-Bot . . . In addition, you joined Demonland at the exact time of the commencement of the tanking investigation. A sensible thing for someone associated with the chief investigator to do in exploring potential leads. And, one of your only other three posts here was extolling the virtues of us playing an additional game in Darwin, as it would be 'good for the NT Tourism as well as for the MFC.' Lastly, another slip-up in the same fashion as the recent 'Rangie HSE' troll who never responded to my accusations of not being an actual Melbourne fan before finally thankfully disappearing: 'As Melbourne supporters you'd well know how it feels in August when all hope is shot'. Supporters of teams don't generally refer to their own team in a fully collective sense as 'they' and other supporters as 'you', but use the pronouns 'us' and 'we'. Confess now, or I will scour the other supporter-boards for a match in prose-style to unmask you as a social-media infiltrator in the employ of Gillon.

Time to get the ball rolling on impeachment proceedings.

In fairness, I think the poster meant 'it could be a bit dewy, (however) we should still be able to win it in the air'. In even greater fairness, if I was a North supporter I would be arguing all the exact same points. I've been concerned about our lack of height going into recent games. We know we're up against it with our ruck issues and worry about top-line ruckmen getting a hold of us. There is an expectation that Oliver will tagged soon enough and it remains to be seen if he can shake a hard one. And our form-line over the past fortnight is equivalent to theirs. Dees by 48 points.

With all the apples-oranges caveats - a close study of this data-map can offer some very valuable insights into the psychology of team-selection. https://interactive.twitter.com/premierleague/#?mode=team&teamId=all

There's a couple things slightly fishy about the appraisal of our list (although I'm a bit confused to which part is DD and which is the source). It's close, but a reasonably astute outsider could identify our needs, player limitations, and positional options. First, there's no mention of Frost among the KPD McDonald discussion. Maybe something that an outsider might have failed to pick up on? Second, we're probably capable of releasing Hunt up the ground without recruiting another HB - and if we did, we're not really bringing in extra pace - just shifting it around. I would imagine we'd want an additional outside runner as a marked priority.

And Zak - he was a slight draft bolter from memory, or better put - the Swans took the punt on him at 15. He's come on as they would have hoped - so what would they want from us in return now? Can't see us staying out of the first round two years running - even if we did pick up two first-rounders the year before, so a player? This is never a wise question to ask here, but who might that be? Or what are their specific needs?