Lord Travis

Was at the ground and lost my sh*t at the Salem one. From what I saw, Salem was rugby tackled over the boundary line when he didn't even have the ball. His head hit the hard turf towards the fence so he was dazed. I feared he may have suffered another concussion but luckily he was ok. The umpire then called a free and advantage to North? After Salem was spear tackled without the ball?! Half the players stopped because it was an obvious free kick to Salem, who was winded and might not have been able to take the free kick due to the dangerous tackle he had just received. Ball then fired up the other end and North score. Madness. A blatantly wrong decision that effected the outcome of the game. The Hibberd deliberate out of bounds call was also ridiculous. He attempted to handball it while under pressure, the ball was hit over the line off the North players arm. Deliberate out of bounds called. It didn't even go out of bounds from a Melbourne player! Umpire nearby says nothing, umpire 50 metres away over-rules him and calls deliberate. How the [censored] that works I'll never understand. As if the umpire 5 metres away who saw it clearly doesn't say to the one 50 metres away 'actually the ball came off a North player and was in a pressure situation. We should ball it in. Also, you're a stupid bald c*nt with the umpiring skills of a dropped cumquat'. Then there was the illegal hits. Oliver was clocked in the jaw with no repercussions. Early in the second quarter Ziebell was going so hard at his guts while on the ground that I thought he was trying to give him a caesarean. Vince copped a smack in the jaw. He also copped a firm hit to the guts right infront of an umpire, who did nothing. Not even a free kick. The hit was hard enough the Bernie was vomiting on the bench moments later. The North player (think it was Higgins) who hit him should get suspended for 3+ weeks. If Lewis and Hogan got suspended for hits, then those North hits deserve equal penalty. Ofcourse they'll be ignored because it's all a crock of sh*t and the MRP are soft bias flogs who aren't held accountable by anyone. I'm not blaming the umpiring for the loss. If we were good enough from the opening bounce we would've won. The umpiring however was some of the worst I've ever seen and I hope the club query them about it. Things like the Hibberd one need clarification as otherwise players in pressure situations near the boundary line know the have to clear it towards the centre, as if it goes out of bounds, even from an opposition players contact, you'll be pinged for deliberate. The rule changes are ruining the game, and poor umpiring is effecting the results of matches.

US losing to bottom 4 teams has propped up them up the ladder where they shouldn't be. It shouldn't be that close. Agree, even if you are 5% off then you can be beaten. The players need to rock up and just try. They have shown they are capable. These losses are down to them not giving required effort. Unacceptable. I hope the coaches can do somethingto change the players mentality or we'll be stuck in this rut forever.

No excuses for the losses. All teams suffer injuries. The Bulldogs managed to win a flag with bad injuries last year. Until the players are able to put in the required effort without an external motivating factor then we will foreve live in the bottom half of the ladder. It astounds me to these professional footballers can't motivate themselves to put in the effort for two hours a week. We've lost to two bottom 4 sides in 3 weeks now. No team who does that deserves to play finals. The players need to grow up, give a damn, and have some self respect. If I reckoned up to work and didn't do my job half the time, not only would I get sacked, but I'd feel like a guilty money stealing loser.

OP needs a ban. We need to make the 8 first and not get ahead of ourselves!

We're playing poorly today and the umpires are horrendous. Can't see us winning this one and its gut wrenching seeing us lose to these dirty campaigners agains.

If Oliver is struggling to win ball in the second half due to extra attention, I'd love to see him focus of just tackling and burying some of their players. Rack up 10+ tackles and make them hurt. Viney, jones, Tyson etc and more than capable of picking up slack around the ball.

He's ok. Just copped a lot of physical attention, often unfairly and off the ball, but he's ok.

Fire and and get the job done Dees. Time to end this losing streak against the Kangas. They're a rubbish team, dominate them as such and claim the 4 points.

He's worth that, but we have bigger needs. If I was going to trade a first rounder I'd spend it on a key position player like Steven May, rather than a small runner like Jones.

Dogs and Saints losing gives us an opportunity tomorrow to jump into the 8. If we account for North, Freo will probably beat Carlton, so we will likely finish the weekend 7th on the ladder. Let's hope the boys bring the same work ethic and intensity they did last week against Adelaide. Fire up Dees!

Zac Jones having another good game to continue his great year. He's become Sydneys main attacking weapon off half back. He's got decent pace and the same aggressive attitude as his older brother. Would be a good addition to our team but would cost a first rounder so not going to happen.

Looks like the Swans are back. Winning lots of ball and competing strongly again like we're used to. They'll knock over a few teams and move up the ladder now, not enough for finals though obviously unless they go absolutely berserk. Shame we didn't play them already when they were playing poorly.

I would lose it. I've talked a lot of sh*t in my time, but that is the kind of thing that would finally tip me over the edge! The idea that a team who has not been good enough all season to make finals, can have a good week or two right at the end and take the finals place of a team that has learnt if over the course of a full season of pathetic. A team should be rewarded for playing well over a full season, not 1-2 weeks. Imagine if Melbourne finished 7th, then played off in a "wildcard" match against 10th. Imagine 10th is West Coast and we have to fly to WA to play them. Under the current more fair system and fixture that is already in place, and we would've been scheduled to play Brisbane who are 17th in Melbourne. During that match we suffer injuries such as Hogan and Gawn going down, leaving us 2 men down on the bench, and then had an umpire makes an incorrect or debatable decision at the end of a game that gives West Coast the win. Due to that loss we could potentially go from 7th and playing finals, to out of the 8 and not playing finals. It's a sh*t idea used to generate hype and creates an unfair fixture. We need to keep the game the way it is and stop copying other sports to generate hype at the expense of a fair system. It's already unbalanced to favour certain teams/areas, we shouldn't tip the scales even further. I don't want it to degenerate into Baseketball (as fun as that movie is).

Gold! The idea that Viney can be intimated by anyone is humerous in itself, let alone some plodder who is so slow he'd struggle to get within 10 metres of him in the first place! God I hope we finally smash North. Such an average nothing club and we need a percentage boost for our race to finals.

Ridiculous Oliver didn't win goal of the week. It was a deliberate kick completely in control with no from bouncing to help it through. Goal of the year thus far, let alone goal of the week. Suppose the AFL needed something positive to come out of the China match so they give air time to the Westhoff goal. That China match was one of the most boring rubbish games of football I've forced myself to sit through.

Stop changing the f*cking game! It would be stupid for a team that's been rubbish nearly all year to fire up for 2-3 weeks and be given a token entry into finals ahead of a team that earnt it by playing better all year. Stop changing the game. The rules changes for the most part make it worse every year. The game is becoming softer and more of the rules are now open to interpretation. The umpires have more effect on games than they should because of this. We don't need wildcards added to f things up even more!

It'd be great to get him back soon, but don't rush him. Worst thing they can do is rush him. Getting him and hopefully Hogan back fit and healthy in the second half of the year will be huge for us as a team and a club.

Gotta make the 8 first. We've lost games we should win this year already, we need to stop this trend. If we do and we start winning games we should then yep we'll make the 8 and be in with a chance.

So the clangers list is essentially a list of the best players in the league from what I can see? The more disposals a player gets, the higher their clanger count due to weight of numbers. This shows further that stats are often irrelevant. That game against West Coast in WA last year was proof of this to me. We won literally every stat convincingly, yet managed to lose the game.

100% this. Full backs and defenders that switch the ball across the ground under no pressure have the highest disposal efficiency. I know I'd prefer the ball in the hands of Jordan Lewis than Oscar or Frosty if I wanted an effective kick going forward.

No change this week. Reward the team for a good team effort and get them to build consistency together.

Horrible news in such a challenging time for a young man after losing his father to cancer recently. They have caught it early so he has the best chance possible to beat it and be healthy again. Best wishes to Jesse and his close ones in this hard time.

Guthrie got off. Not even a fine. Apparently it was 'reasonable' to shove an umpire aside, yet Bernie blindsided and being backed into by one was 'careless conduct' and warrants a fine. Ridiculous!

Drag him along every week! May he bring us a premiership?!

The hip must have been limiting him until the past few weeks. His first month was ordinary. He didn't have the speed to get out of congestion, wasn't getting to as many contests, wasn't showing his trademark aggression and intensity. It would have been nice to see him try to lead more vocally during this period and organise players around stoppages etc. He just went completely into his shell and barely gave a yelp. In the Essendon game he was doing some odd looking hip stretches in between quarters and while waiting for centre bounces etc. The hip was clearly limiting him, but his burst of speed and general intensity has now returned. Now that he is able to perform the way he wants out there his voice has also returned, laying into opposition players and organising players at stoppages. Great news for Jack and the team if he can stay healthy and in good form for the remainder of the season.