Skuit

Can we play Declan Keilty? I've lost track of the rules/where we're at with LTIs etc.

It's the height, stupid! Not just the height, but the body-shape/size and experience of that height. Omac is our tallest defender and is a comparative featherweight. Weideman is our tallest forward (I will refuse to acknowledge Watts' actual height until he stops refusing to expose his ribs). Meanwhile, our first ruck is 192cm, and we have to rob scant height from our forward and back-lines as coverage. We get rightly criticized when we bomb it long, but other teams can do it with more confidence. Which means we have to possess more and find other avenues to goal, which means harder running and more turnovers. Ditto, coming out of defense. If we had the opportunity, we would have likely selected both Majak Daw and Brayden Preuss yesterday. Speaks volumes.

Salem was on the angry pills yesterday and I kinda liked it. Obviously has to channel the aggression better and remain effective but I hope he keeps it up.

Could be as much as $10 each if he learns how to spoil.

There was a period in the AFL where tripping was an automatic report. Tripping by leg though - which I always found a bit strange, as there's more often an element of reflex. Tripping by hand - not slipping in the tackle but actually grabbing someone by the ankles - should undoubtedly be a 50m penalty along with other 'professional' frees. Yet, unlike not throwing the ball back perfectly to your opponent, tripping is wildly dangerous.

This is a stupid idea but . . . there's talk here of scheduling inequities and talk here of reducing tanking incentives. Why not combine the two somehow? If lower teams are fighting for Friday night qualification for example you can be sure it won't be the admin pushing for under-performance.

We never seem to get reward for our tackling either, so many HTB decisions, often consecutive, that don't go to us each week. It's infuriating. Tackle, drop ball, play on, tackle, drop ball, play on, tackle, drag it in, ball-up. But I think the umpiring was about standard for the season, although skewed against this week. The difference: there seemed to be decisions being made not on merit but as judgement statements. We were pushing the line a lot, then obvious ones wouldn't be called. Like, we started the niggle, then we deserve a gut-punch. Like, Bugg is baiting them, so it's okay to dump him after the fact. Like, we're harassing Higgens, so if he's on the ground, it must be that we stepped over the line (the ump wasn't even watching when he went blew against Frost). The common factor: that one [censored], who every time I see run out at the start of a game, I know we'll be up against it. Every single game. He doesn't like us, for whatever reason, and his prejudice shines through. It's not a conspiracy, it just is. God forbid, we make a GF or even final and he's officiating - a genuine likelihood, and one I'd like us to have a quiet word to HQ about, even if it means putting together a video package.

Okay. You seem to have a fairly balanced perspective. Nice chatting.

Thought we looked a bit tired this week as we draw toward the break. But unfortunately we're maybe flagging a week too early. And we've got a rested Gold Coast in the desert off a six-day turn-around. Yet a win here is pretty important so that we can reset into the bye with a bit of confidence in our record. Fresh legs needed - Harmes, Stretch, ANB and Kennedy should all get a serious look in - but it's the players with less games under their belt this season who are at the moment the greater under-performers - Kent, Wagner, Weids, Omac, and maybe Bugg. We don't have the fringe-types currently in the guts. Then, I somewhat recall Roos put his hand up for the loss as a selector after not making changes for the corresponding game last year. Controversial, but could we unexpectedly see some of our young stars given a rest to make room - the likes of Hunt, Petracca, Oliver, Salem? If CP5 has a niggle still, it might be worthwhile giving him and extended break. Ditto Tyson and/or Viney. Jones is lacking a bit of the drive we saw early in the season as well.

I just watched now. Interesting comments, as he was relating what was spoken about in the brief post-match review. 'Individuals who weren't on their game early'. Then he goes on to say, 'as a team, we weren't cracking in around the contest' - so - 'the ball was coming in really quickly', and that North 'had a lot of run off half-back that really broke us apart'. Is that Goody pointing the finger at out forwards? I think so. But they were well off it for the whole day though, and didn't do what we need them to do to execute our game-plan as a whole. Beside them, Hunt stood out as starting off quite flat before working into it a bit, and I don't think it was a stretch when watching him to think that he was still feeling the effects of last week. For me, we were just a bit collectively tired and slow in the first rather than it noticeably being an individual player thing, and the Roos were spreading well and had a early focus on intercepting our ball movement.

Ding. Do you think North were rubbish today? Sincerely? Freo, Hawthorn and Richmond were all rubbish when we lost to them. But North's performance today? Rubbish teams can play good games. Many here would cite us against Adelaide as an example.

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?