Vipercrunch

Can’t help think that the result would have been very different if the umpiring hadn’t got Brisbane back into the game in the second quarter. Sydney was well on top at stage then the momentum swung 180.

Swans are getting absolutely rogered here by the umps. OMG

Hope so. Extremely silly thing to do.

The one that didn’t get tackled but still got a HTB paid against him? Terrible umpiring decision.

History shows Dangerfield would call a ambulance for a paper cut. There has been several times he has taken himself off the ground and out of the game because he felt the slightest twinge. Unlike our man Clarry who played out a game with a torn hammy.

Apologies if there is a thread for this already, but is anyone else really concerned where the game is going after the 3 week suspensions dished out tonight for Sicily and Mansell? I don’t like Mansell and am pretty ambivalent about Sicily, but I think both are incredibly stiff to get any punishment at all for those incidents. Mansell made a self preservation action at the very last moment to protect himself, and there is no way Sicily should be held responsible for that tackle. Accidents happen and the game seems to be getting itself lost trying to eliminate them.

It looked like Trac was pointing to the area of the ground that Cox stood over McVee giving him a mouthful after taking a mark in the 2nd quarter, so maybe Trac was reminding him of that ordinary moment.

Not sure why, perhaps it’s the last time we had a 10 day break and really needed a statement win, but I’m hoping for a similar performance to that of round 15 last season when we smashed the Lions at the G. It was one of our best performances of the year (up there with round 20 against Freo and round 23 again against the Lions) but unfortunately it was far better than the form we showed in the finals. Now, as we are passed the half way mark of the season, things really gets interesting and we get to see if we truly have learned the lessons from last season and can correctly get everything peaking when it matters. So I hope tomorrow is a statement game, but only a hint of what’s to come.

Expected scores currently is 72.5 to 61.6. Interesting.

The last 10 minutes has been appalling. It’s almost crisis time for the AFL.

Horrible quarter of footy this. Very poor skills.

If the headband didn’t come off it wouldn’t have been a free.

Another team playing poorly after a bye. Defies logic really but the numbers are really stacking up now.

Was it just my son and I that thought the Freo player threw himself at the ground to win the sling tackle free?

The good thing about stats is that they are unbiased. So many supporters make up their mind about a player very quickly and nothing will change their mind after that. They will forever view that player through the lens of that early prognosis.

I once new a Collingwood supporter who told me he refused to go to games against Richmond because their supporters were feral. I laughed and laughed. This guys had the perfect description for the Collingwood Football Club. A cancerous polyp on the anus of humanity.

This sort of loading perhaps?

It will only apply to some other teams we play. There is no way Carlton is in a loading phase right now. Very slight chance Freo was when we played them. Collingwood will be definitely loading, perhaps even harder than we are right now given our respective records. I will be hoping for a win this week, but will take very little away from the result as far as a form line for what may occur later in the year.

I'm with you Bystander. Depending on team balance, I think at least 3 of those Casey listed players would get in ahead of some MFC listed players.

I think the number of talls we play in our backline for any given game depends on the style of forward entries we suspect our opponents will use. Most teams have been preferring to prioritizse getting the ball to ground to negate our intercept marking, so more often than not this year we have only played 2 tall backs (typically May and Lever when both available). Carlton, with Curnow and McKay, were always going to try the aerial route which is why we went with 3 talls. I suspect Collingwood will be more inclined to be happy with messy entries and getting them to ground, so I think it will be back to just May and Lever. So for mine it will Tomlinson going out, replaced by Hibberd and with Gus and Rivers playing more minutes back than they have been recently to cover for Bowey. Our backline will contain 7 (May, Lever, Hibbo, Gus, Rivers, Salem and McVee) which is back to our premiership backline size. In: Oliver, Hibbo Out: Bowey, Tomlinson

You're kidding right? Sparrow has been fantastic since returning from his week suspension. No way he misses. Chandler, Spargo or Tomlinson are names off the top of my head that will miss before Sparrow does.

I would love to know why any useful analysis of chances of sucsess would make those assumptions. We spend an entire season to put the teams in order, so why do this sort of analysis with them as equal? 1st playing 4th at home clearly has a better than 50:50 chance of winning, as does 5th playing 8th. AFL.com only have records going back to 2012, but in 7 of those 11 seasons (64%), at least one team outside the top 4 has made the PF, so ladder position after the H&A is clearly not the be all and end all. Last year we finsihed 2nd but our fitness and form was way off and we went out in straight sets.

I see this as a reason to invest more heavily into the support structures around umpires and the pathways, not in making the umpires themselves full-time. Perhaps having more full time umpire coaches/mentors and analysts is the way to go.

I'm almost certainly alone with this, but I think a team with a talented list like ours can win the flag from outside the top 4 if they get their preparation right. I actually think with the current finals structure, there is very little difference finishing 4th to finishing 5th and 6th. Nailing the preparation fitness wise, being in form and having the right players available is more important than ladder position. I certainly won't be giving up hope of a flag if we don't make top 4.

Another way to improving umpiring standards would be to rip off the band-aid and finally get rid of the centre bounce. It really won’t be missed, I promise. It will no longer be a reason some umpires can’t umpire at the highest level. It will no longer cause anxiety for umpires who mess a few up. It will allow them to keep their heads up to see what’s going on. Reduce the radius of the centre circle by a metre or two and just throw the thing up.