mauriesy

The way I see it is that with our age profile we are in or approaching a 5-6 year premiership window. While we now have an experienced core group, this weekend we still had the 3rd youngest team for the round, and for many weeks we have had seven high-potential players who are 21 or under (Spargo, Sparrow, Jackson, Rivers, Jordon, Pickett and Petty), most of whom haven't yet played 20 games. We also have good, recent first-round draft picks like Bowey and Laurie coming up. The team has far exceeded my expectations for this year. We may not get to the GF, and may not be premiers. It will be great if we make it and it won't be surprising given our season so far. We'll give it a great shot, but on the downside having so many players 21 or under in a GF, or a finals series, this year is statistically against us. But watch out for 2022 to 2026, especially when vaccinations manage Covid-19 better and the seasons are hopefully back to more "normal". I'm neither optimistic nor pessimistic, but I think realistic.

I'm not panicking. I'm watching all of you panic. It's more entertaining.

Yes. They could come from the clouds.

Like Melbourne a few years ago they need a top-quality full-back like May, one or preferably two bull mid-fielders to help Walsh, a quality forward to complement McKay, and a mindset that highlights buy-in and effort, not comfort. And tell players like Murphy and Betts that time's up.

Actually, TMac is contracted to the end of 2022.

Currently raining in Sydney. Forecast for tomorrow: Partly cloudy. High (80%) chance of showers along the coastal fringe, medium (60%) chance elsewhere. Winds west to southwesterly 15 to 20 km/h tending south to southwesterly 15 to 25 km/h during the day.

Not sure if the players are going to give Covid to the crowd, or the crowd are going to give it to the players! ?

The last two outbreaks in Victoria came from SA quarantine and Sydney's northern beaches. I'm not sure what the Victorian government can do when a contact of Wollert man (who came from SA) travels to numerous places around Melbourne for a week with symptoms and doesn't get tested. Get vaccinated. It's the only way of dramatically reducing the risk of severe disease or dying, and it does help lower transmission, if not completely.

We've already beaten Debusseys this year 85-60 in round 4. This thread is starting to un-Ravel. Once Britten, twice shy.

You watch the Sunday Footy Show? Gave up ages ago. They could halve the length of that show and stop wasting my time if they just stuck to match reports and genuine football discussion and analysis, rather than all the egotistic banter, self-promotion, useless quizzes and other irrelevant chat.

A very minor issue. To quote the article: "It was reported the Demons were told weeks ago by the AFL that their predominantly red guernsey was too similar to the Bulldogs’ predominantly blue guernsey. " Everyone who is whingeing now needs to harden up. We won in our traditional guernsey. We'll wear the indigenous one next week, I suspect the Lions will wear prefominantly white.

One week with #negativelingers. ?

To use a Melbourne analogy, waiting 6 months for the Pfizer jab over the AZ is like refusing, when the bushfire is coming, to evacuate in a Land Rover because you want to wait for a Range Rover.

The roll-out is very poor, but if we all sit around and wait until October or beyond for non-AZ, we'll get more cases, maybe a severe third wave, go continually in and out of lockdown (and we'll never get unhindered football!). You've only got to look at the case rates in the UK, Europe and the USA now to see how dramatic the reduction is following high vaccination rates. They're 5-10% of what they were (with the UK using mostly AZ). Or look at poorly vaccinated India.

There are precedents for enforcing health or social policy. Some aboriginal settlements have a "no school, no pool" policy. You can't enrol your kids in any kindergarten or school now without certain vaccination certificates. I don't see it as unreasonable that people couldn't attend crowded places (including football) without being vaccinated. The difficulty is working out the system and identification to control it.

All AFL teams have been given strict restrictions. There's no limit on trravel into and out of the state, and they'll get permission to go anywhere.

I had the first AZ vaccination last Sunday. Just a very mild headache for a day afterwards. The clotting risk is lower as you get older, for 70-year-olds it's about 2 per million. Less than the chance of a car accident on the way to the clinic. Sometime, events will be limited to fully vaccinated people. That's an incentive to get it.

So we've beaten three of these and haven't played the other two. ?

So Jackson back, but a week or two more off for Viney.

You mean "exorcise".

Regardless of individual games or examples, there are three areas that are inconsistently adjudicated: holding the ball, throwing and whether a kick travels 15 metres.

Does Goodwin get any credit for bringing in Yze and Williams?

Seems to me a disposal efficiency somewhere above 70% and a couple of critical errors per game is league average or better. But some on here think only 100% DE and zero CE is acceptable, even in a game that was very high pressure, with showers and a slippery ball that was not conducive to great skiils or totally avoiding errors. Can we give some leeway from perfection without perjoratives such as "putrid" and "atrocious"?

I don't think much increased pressure and a more solid defensive structure is "fluff".

Good player that Jawdyn.