RalphiusMaximus

That's a really bad place to be in the water. Lots of Great White Sharks hanging around near Seal Rocks.

Honestly, I think we'd benefit from a bit of Mick Malthouse. Maybe get him to consult? My reasoning here is that his great strength as a coach was in having his team insanely well-drilled and disciplined. Every player on the ground knew exactly where they had to be at any given moment. Have a look at the kick-outs they did at Collingwood under him. There was a designated player to mark the ball. There was a runner going past them for the handball. If that wasn't on they knew to instantly wheel and hit the switch kick where there was a teammate waiting for the uncontested mark. Compare that to our play. We throw numbers at the ball and then bash it forwards and hope that weight of numbers will win the day. How often do we see our players get to half-foward and then not know what to do next? Imagine if we could get that quick contested ball out and the players know exactly where their teammates are going to be and what they need to do with the ball next.

This. I won't be hurt by the lost cash. Better for the club to have it given their fragile finances.

I liked Nathan Carroll. He was undersized and fought like hell against the big forwards. HE was also a legitimate Dumbass off the field. What's not to love?

Realistically, the biggest problem with this virus that makes it worse than the regular flu is that it's more contagious. That means that the number of people infected grows at a far faster rate. Current estimates (last I checked) are that around 5% of people infected will need hospital care, possibly Intensive Care. As of a few days ago we have around 2230 intensive care beds in Australia. That means 50,000 is the magic number. Once we get to there, people are unable to get into the care they need and they die from inability to access adequate medical care. You will also see people being denied ICU access for other things such as Heart attacks because the spaces are all occupied with people unable to breath, thus there will be a lot of secondary fatalities not directly attributed to Corona. The advantage of delaying measures is that it buys more time to prepare, meaning that we can create more spots for those patients and keep more of them alive.

Do we get a priority pick for finishing the season on 0 wins?

The missing ingredient is a decent plan for the forward line. We have no discernible structure and still persist with the blind bomb forward which is inevitably gobbled up by the defence who are set up to capitalise on it while our own forwards are either up on the wings being "mobile" or all flying for the same mark and crashing into each other. We don't need a Tony Lockett or Buddy Franklin up there, the players we have would be perfectly adequate if they were working as a unit and had even average delivery.

The Pies have a strong side. The only real weakness, apart from them only having the second-best ruck in the league, is their lack of a real tall forward. Not that we have on either, but if you had to pick a weakness I'd be looking there. Great medium/small forwards, but Cox isn't the answer for the FF spot.

To be fair, he is a pure inside mid. When he played that role he came third in the brownlow. Last year they tried him all over the park in every role we needed shoring up and his game really suffered for it. If he plays in the centre square all year he'll be great value.

Do you mean four number 1 picks? I still find it hilarious that the blues have four on their list and another they traded away, but people still think WE got too many top picks.

No crowd of Feral Bogan Perthites is a good start. Has to be worth a dozen frees and a few goals.

It should be really interesting to see what happens to West Coast and their magical free kick differential over in Perth. Maybe without the feral crowd the umpires will be willing to call a fair game.

The real edge Jones has in being a good set shot at goal. Our team is littered with players you wouldn't back from 30m directly in front. Having a guy who you can back from pretty much anywhere in the 50 is very much needed. One of the things that really separates the top sides from the rest is that they don't waste the easy chances.

Well, the one area we really need cover in is the ruck. If Gawn gets sick we're stuffed, so I'd be looking at bringing in a backup just in case. I'm sure there are a couple of ex-AFL rucks floating around who could nullify the contest and give our mids an even chance.

Looks like they are sticking to the traditional gameplan. Get it forward and then stuff up the scoring opportunity any way you can.

Still wondering what he did wrong with that bizarre call against him when he spoiled the ball over the line.

Speculative rookie pick?

That got done really quickly. I would take that as a sign that he never even considered going elsewhere. I would also guess that the club put a pretty good offer on the table right from the start.

The point hit the post too, so could easily have been 4 straight. He's completely overhauled his kicking style on the set shots. Low ball drop and a much lower trajectory kick. I think he spent a few hours on that over the break. Things I noted in particular: Kossie right at the beginning of the game was involved in our back pocket chasing and tackling. The ball then went to our forward line on the opposite corner of the ground, where remarkably Kossie chased several players through a handball chain before forcing the stoppage (can't remember if he tackled the guy in play or over the line). It took me a while to realise that he's been on the opposite side of the ground for the beginning of that passage. Great work ethic from the little guy. Lever took three great defensive marks early to steady us down. His kicking wasn't great though. Oliver seems to be hesitating and it caused issues a few times. I'm wondering if his instructions run counter to his natural game? Jackson struggled and he's not taking the ball first grab yet. He did show a few little flashes of awesome though. He had one spectacular moment in the ruck where he timed his leap just right and rode on top of the other guy. Weed fought really hard. The ruck was always going to be a problem today and he managed to neutralise a number of contests and even win some. Langdon is going to be gold for us on the wing. He ran all day and crossed contests at speed to be the receiver. Very solid game. Didn't notice Tomlinson as much. I did notice Sparrow in the second half and he looks like he's going to be pretty decent. Good pace and a great build. There were a lot of fumbling players out there for us too. A few more games to get the pace and touch back and we should see another step up in quality as those little issues go away.

Ump pays a Mark even though he dropped it. Score to Adelaide.

Half time and the umps have stepped up to have a real influence. Certainly in contention for BOG for the Crows. For Melbourne, Kossie had a Moment but missed the goal at the end. Langdon continues to impress. Sadly our kicking ability continues to hurt us badly. Lots of turnovers at HB and the traditional bomb into the f50.

Decent first quarter. We're still bombing to the hotspot, so obviously Goodwin hasn't figured it out yet. Brown looks pretty decent. Langdon can move. Pickett has great pace and pressure, but needs to get some ball too. Spargo ignored the obvious handball, u-turned into trouble and gave a crap blind pass that went out of bounds. Lever has already taken some outstanding defensive marks, but also had a disgraceful clanger kick out of defence.

Stunning day out here.

Today's random question. Do they sell tickets to the grandstand or clubrooms at Casey? I'm taking my octogenarian father along to the game and it's a bit much to ask him to stand up for two hours to watch it all.