Nasher

While technically true, I’d say that game doesn’t count. Brown was hardly going at that stage, and was actually dropped after it.

I was impressed too, they look polished across the ground. Definitely a top 4 contender in my view.

Oh dear, West Coast. Oh dear.

West Coast/Port game terrible so far. Hard to believe these sides have been strong in recent years, with no significant personnel change (acknowledging West Coast have been massively disrupted this year). Slow ball movement and terrible skills. Should be a nil-all draw.

Tex: We know the way we want to play, and it's starting to come to tuition now. hahahah

Lol. Disgruntled VFL fan?

My son plays in under 10s team and I see very little arguing with the umpires at that age. Basically none. That’s because arguing with the umpire isn’t human nature, it’s human conditioning.

I’m excited now. Excited for Weid as I’ve been a backer, and this will be the first time he’s had the chance to properly operate in tandem with Brown. Looking forward to seeing what Dunstan brings. Hopefully he causes a very hard decision to be made when Viney is back next week.

If that were the case, whichever of TMac or Weideman were the nominal "playing if Jackson isn't" would be on the extended bench with Jackson. In the "field 18 all play" scenario, they're all playing irrespective of if Jackson does, so I ruled that out as an explanation.

Thanks Captain!

Indeed - even in yesterday’s presser, when specifically asked the question whether all three could play in the same forward line, he said “the short answer is we won’t”. There’s no room for TMac back with Smith in, they won’t play him on the wing, but all three are named on the field. Goody is playing funny buggers. One of the three is injured or otherwise unavailable which won’t be revealed until the final teams are out. It’s the only way I can make sense of the selections as they are.

If Useless AFL Stats keep this up, they’ll have to drop the first word of their name.

It’s probably a combination of out of sight, out of mind and wanting avoid making a difficult choice and needing to disappoint someone. Early on I tried to convince myself of a scenario where BBB doesn’t get picked for those exact reasons, but now that the dust has settled it’s clear to me that he’s the best of the three and must come in. Who goes out is down to a coin toss though. Tough choice, glad I’m not the one making it.

The clear options to me are: Drop Hunt for Salem, or put Brayshaw back to the wing and drop Jordon for Salem. I favour the first, but reluctantly. Like the forwards conundrum, it involves dropping a player who has done enough to keep his spot. I really like Brayshaw at half back and I think Jordon has made the wing his own. I feel bad for Hunt, but competition is currently very tight. I don’t see Bowey or Rivers going out either, but it might be a possibility. I can’t see Hibberd being a factor unless injuries start to mount; in my view he is now behind all the players currently in the side as well as Salem. Tomlinson is backup for flag 3 talls. I have no doubt he’ll play here and there throughout the season and do a fine job.

Nobody has said players aren’t allowed to be emotional. That’s a strawman argument. The reason players can’t control their frustration is because they’ve been conditioned that they don’t have to. I’m betting by round 15, players have magically figured the secret and will pull off the impossible (according to you), and won’t be arguing with the umpires at all. There was one moment early in the game that was picked up on the mic. Trac gave away a (soft) free and just said to the umpire, “can you watch it?”, to which the umpire said “I’ll watch it”. I suppose Trac should have just flapped his wings and stomped his foot.

In all seriousness, this is a legitimate question that should be asked. If the goal is to change the culture of the sport regarding treatment of umpires from the top down, then senior coaches are just as responsible as the players. Chris Scott should be heavily fined every time he gets busted doing this.

I love that he’s added goal kicking to his repertoire. I wonder if that’s been something he specifically set out to add to his game, or if it’s just panned out that way?

To be honest dazz I reckon it’s more likely that we were all desperately hanging out for our next big thing and got carried away in how we rated him. No doubt the off-field distractions didn’t help, but I think it’s probably true that he just is what he is: a decent but not great tall forward.

It’s because he’s got long hair and enjoys it when he kicks goals. Footballers must be homogeneous and humble.

Tom looks like that all the time. Getting carried away with celebrations has never been his thing.

My reading was, competition is tight and we haven’t decided yet. Brown will come in for one of them, but I don’t know how you’d decide which. I thought Weid looked more dangerous aerially, but TMac was crucially involved in a lot of scoring passages. I thought both were good. It’ll probably be Weid but I can see reason in all the possible options.

The Viney crumb goal in the third should have been a Weid grab from 25 out. He got the perfect block on his opponent from Sparrow and went in to the space, but the kick from TMac went across him. Weid did a lot of unrewarded work tonight I thought. Side note, I’m really liking the wide camera angles we’re getting from the broadcasters this year. You can actually see what’s going on.

We are SO hard to score against. The poster to Hogan is the only of the 0.5 that should have been a goal, the rest were rushed or low percentage/difficult shots. It’s great to watch.