sue

Based on my experience of trying to lght fires, there's often plenty of smoke with no sign of fire.

Thanks, but keeping oppo guessing can make sense even for a few hours because they have to finalise their team at the same time as we do.

Do club's make a fuss about players who have played for another club in the AFL? Or only for a kid getting his first game in the big time? In any case, why give that info to the opposition given our current ruck situation.

If those saying a player can't get properly fit during the actual season are correct (I don't doubt they are), then the obvious question is why did the club play him early in the season. WOuldn't it be better to put him on a pre-season regime during early rounds to prepare him for playing late in the season. I can only guess that was because of lack of alternative players or helping with personal issues he might have had.

Given the umpires have a 9m marking in fornt of the goal square yet frequenly allow the kicker-in to run more than twice that before kicking the ball without penalty, I doubt the 50m lines would be helping them elsewhere.

The 'we should have won more cups because we had the best list' argument looks to me like self-flagellation. OK, if a club has a list 10 times better than any other club, they should be mortified that they only won one cup. But no club has ever been in that position. Even if a club has a genius coach and an arguably better list than any other club, so many things have to go right to win multiple times that all you can be is disappointed if you don't. Rending garments in grief serves no purpose. Self-flagellation is ridiculous.

Generally Kayo works OK but a few times it has frozen and nothing can be done until I reload Kayo in the browser I am using (on a Mac). Nothing else is putting pressure on my Wifi at the time. A problem at their end I am pretty sure.

I think the rain forcing centre square throwups must or should have been a great advantage to Draper. The bad bounces are so random it takes away some of his natural advantages.

What will you say if we win? What will you say if we lose and it is clear the ruck wasn't the issue. Why bother making these sort of statements?

@WhereDemonsDare did use the word 'hampered', not destroyed. He didn't say we'd have won every game nor never lose by more than 20 points. But surely being 2 good players, one structurally important) out of the list all year is going to hurt. No team wants to go into a season with such a truncated list. (Of course, it might not hurt if by some miracle we didn't have any injuries that naturally occur from time to time, but as you said, they are unavoidable and we did have them).

History buffs: Has there ever been a team in the top 4 so late in the season with a percentage below 100?

I don't follow what King says so I won't get into a discussion about how good his opinions are or whether he makes controversial comments based on very little just to get attention as a lot of commentators seem to do. I hope he does little of that. But presumably you do realise that it is possible to disagree with someone else without being snarky and dismissing their (somewhat misquoted) opinions as 'comedy'.

A lot of furious hindsight being thrown around here about poor selection decisions in the past, the basis of which we don't know. For example, Schache was an unused sub for 2023 semifinal. On the face of it seemed madness. But do we have all the facts that guided the selection committee? Maybe there was someone in the team who had a serious injury concern about whether they could run out the game. Club felt they were good enough to take the risk of playing him and Schache was insurance for that player. But it turned out he was not needed, so in hindsight a different player would have been a better sub. Not saying there was and it wasn't a bungle, just saying we never know all the facts so we should temper our outrage. Our cupboard is rather bare - how many teams could lose 3.5 of their best players and be confident of winning by putting in players who have not impressed at VFL level. And Essendon are full of confidence (hopefully over full). If we lose we'll need deeper analysis of why, rather than just putting it down to selection mistakes.

Sadly (for me and for Casey ) I’ve seen too many VFL games and I’ve not noticed any ruck there doing much to suggest they’d perform at AFL level.

But if that’s the truth then sending that signal may be the right thing to do (or just confirming what is already expressed internally )

Your point? That people do disagree? Personally, I haven't made up my mind (probably because I can't be bothered - there are plenty of other MRO decisions which are so blatantly wrong/biased that I don't have the energy to engage with this one).

all true, but there are too many pessimists on here who are unrealistic in their pessimism.

No, that is realism. Because we do play 2 such teams and we are missing the Captain. It's pessimism to say we haven't got a hope of winning a single clearance and just as well play Billings in the ruck.

The best hope is that he will bend over backwards to get Heeney off and then would find it difficult to explain why Melks' was worse. But I probably underestimate his talents as a contortionist.

At least we don't have to fear him missing games in 2025 with appendicitis.

Nah, I reckon they don't barrack for any team but enjoy pouring cold water on every team on the supporter forums.

Just to prove I don’t only whinge when we lose : that insufficient intent given against the WCE player who belted the ball forward was absolutely stupid. He was clearly trying to get it to 2 teammates all on their own 30m away. Came off his fist slightly off and went 20m and went out. Good grief

That's an interesting idea about HTB. If they made the rule 'if you take posession of the ball and are tackled you have to get rid of the ball legally in a reasonable time' and forgot about prior opportunity altogether, then the only 'vague' thing would be 'reasonable time'. It would reduce ball ups resulting from players taking the ball knowing they will be immediately tackled and lead to more tapping the ball to advantage etc. A more open game might result. Doubtless there would some downide to the idea but worthh considering.

Same for me. I'm embarrassed at the number of times I have had to say "ridiculous free (or missed free), but since I'm barracking against X, I can't complain".

spot on