RalphiusMaximus

I am somewhat amused to see Scully decline to tackle in two consecutive contests that his running ability took him to. All the running in the world doesn't help if you squib once you get there. Bonus that he then had a free run and bounce through the middle and stuffed up the kick ?

Kobe needs a stepladder though...

The Hawks manage their cap really well. They are going to shed Roughead and maybe Smith at the end of the year which will free up plenty of cash to pay Martin.

I still say he's going to get to Hawthorn.

Oliver - Can't Handle Tag

Weideman was decent today. He should have had that last goal, but as others have said, he took the contested mark. That's better than most of our list already. If he plays like that for the rest of the season we'll be happy with his work.

I have to say this. Garlett is weak as [censored]. For all his speed and skill, he tries to run past contests and do a magic slight of hand tap to knock the ball clear rather than putting his body in. He misses goals because he's more worried about being tackled than taking an extra step to line the shot up. He dropped multiple marks tonight because he was looking for who was coming at him rather than watching the ball into his hands. I don't care how many scores he had, he doesn't do the basics right and he's afraid of contact. He has to go.

I'm laughing because the alternative is crying...

OMac is totally outmatched on Jenkins.

60+% conversion of inside 50's. This is what we need to see more of.

Perfect pass from Petracca for a Weed goal.

That was a legitimate free. The problem is that they wren't paying them to us.

A mark and two frees not paid to Melbourne right in front of their goal...

Wow that was poor defence. Should have marked, punched instead, missed the punch and let Betts have a freeby.

Petracca kicks a good goal then cancels it out with a really stupid 50m penalty. Typical.

Yup. Yup to all of this. Goodwin thinks more is better in every situation and our forward coach has NFI.

Undisciplined, don't train properly and only last a few seasons?

Great mark by Maine.

Probably, but it just struck me and I kind of look at it as in the same ballpark as the English Cricket Team and their special lozenges or Trav Cloke's sticky glove. There may not be a specific rule against it, but it's certainly not 100% legitimate.

Just looking at the beginning of the Sydney v Collingwood game. These players seem to have terribly shiny upper arms. Surely there's some sort of rule about not greasing up the players? It looks like every one of them has been slathered in Vaseline.

While Petracca is the worst set shot in the side, there are only a couple of players I actually have confidence in when it comes to these kicks in the entire side. One of those is Brayshaw, and the reason for that is that Jones took him on in his first couple of seasons and really worked on his set shots. They used to have set shot contests after every training session. You can clearly see the difference when comparing Gus to Petracca or Oliver. Neither of them have any confidence when kicking for goal and their technique is terrible. While a specialist kicking coach would be nice, it's possible that we can't fit one in under the soft cap. What they can do with the structure we have right now is set aside some time every session to work on it. Turn it into a competition. Challenge them to improve against their teammates. Even ask our better kicks to work with the worst ones on their technique. It won't be fixed overnight, but it's clearly an issue that needs to be worked on.

Also it would become a tactic to stop play and allow the defence to reset. A quick-thinking captain could spot a fast break about to happen and burn an appeal to stop the game.

I think you've missed the mark on a few of these this week Joeboy. Jones - Fumbling, bad decisions Garlett - Cheap goals, [censored]-weak Frost - Dominant bar one Petty - Showed real promise Baker - Some impressive glimpses.

The AFL needs to introduce some form of appeal process to allow captains to have decisions reviewed on the ground. That blatant throw in the goalsquare should never have been allowed to stand. Beyond that, WC are masters of blocking players out of the marking contest. One of the umps justified giving a goal to Kennedy by saying that if you block their run at the marking contest you need to contest the ball. I lost count of the number of times a WC player ran diagonally through the contest to take out one of ours and give his teammate an uncontested mark. Every one of them was a free according to the umpire's own words. We need something like the NFL system to appeal bad calls on the spot.

Best game of the year so far. Baker and Petty both showed us something. Now we just need someone to teach these players how to kick goals. None of the top sides miss basic shots the way we do.