RalphiusMaximus

could be wrong, but it looked like a broken foot to me. I can't see him playing next week with that.

Hibberd, Melksham and Lewis are almost certain to miss. You would think Kielty is out in favour of Preuss as well. Given West Coasts tall forwards, I wonder if we might see Petty come back in. He was emergency today and has been playing well. Given Spargo was sitting out today as an emergency as well, I suspect he comes in. That leaves one. ANB seems likely as the player with runs on the board, but I would really like to see them take a risk and give Baker a shot. He's more risk/reward. He can hit the scoreboard, but won't do the grinding work and assists that ANB provides.

Was it in a yard down the road?

His yips will get sorted out, but his contested work is as good as anyone in our team. As I said last week, he makes scores happen (for us, not them).

He may have some concussion concerns. He belted his head on the ground at one point and then spend almost ten minutes on the bench while Dec rucked.

That may well have been the worst game of the year.

Trac was huge. My only issue with him is that he keeps looking to dish rather than taking the instinctive shot. His goal-scoring instincts have been trained out of him.

I'm going to be a bit controversial here. 6. Frost - He is thriving playing the spare defender. 5. Oliver - 15 tackles! Imagine if his disposal was better. 4. Petracca - Was an absolute beast in tight spaces. We need him to take instinctive shots though. 3. Melksham - Huge first quarter. 2. Fritsch - Belongs on the wing. He won some contests he had no right to and kept us attacking 1. T McDonald - Our most effective forward, and he did it only playing half a game!

I'd take him back if he wanted to come. I still remember the quality of his kicking when he and the other new draftees arrived at the club. The four of them were doing some kick to kick and his targets never had to move to mark the ball. It was always in front of their eyes.

? https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-18/former-hawthorn-afl-recruit-dayle-garlett-jailed-more-four-years/6787426

Very harsh on Petracca. Also very soft on Keilty.

I thought he was great. He had a direct assist for our first goal and brought the ball down in Hunt's direction against two opponents to score our second. There was another assist that should have been a goal and a number of times where he either won the ball or crashed in and allowed others to do so. He's not getting huge disposal numbers and his set shot was horrible, but he had a big impact.

Interesting discussion. For my money I will say this: Being disabled or mentally ill is not a free pass to do anything you like with no consequences (very much like the "economy" really isn't a universal justification for anything our politicians want to do, no matter how much they might wish otherwise). He is still perfectly capable of behaving in an acceptable manner in public. Being a mindless drunk thug is likewise not a free pass to do anything you like with no consequences. He is also still perfectly capable of behaving in an acceptable manner in public. Violence should only ever be employed to protect people. I don't think either of them are blameless, but I will never know the whole story, so I can't really judge.

6 - Harmes. Even with the two 50m penalties, he shut down the Rolls Royce and has 31 disposals and a goal of his own. 5 - Gawn. Dominated the ruck against a good opponent and his contested marking and defensive positioning were superb. 4 - Oliver. Was a bit messy in the first half, but once again he came on strong and dominated in the second half. 3 - Petracca. He made scores happen. His ability to impact a contest and get the ball to a teammate is phenomenal. If he could kick set shots as well he'd be dominating. 2 - Frost. Relished being the free defender. He was able to use his pace and power to full advantage. I think he's well ahead of Oscar at this point. 1 - Salem - Continues his great year. Could easily have been higher.

Only one pick sadly.

I think we really need a kicking coach. Someone mentioned trying to get Yze back to fill the role, and I think this game showed us just how badly it is needed. One of the things that the top sides all have in common is that they don't miss the basic shots on goal. We need to be much, much better at this skill if we want to consistently match the top teams.

I just want to get this off my chest. A Handball is where the ball is held in one hand and propelled the other hand's closed fist. That's quite important. It has to be propelled by the fist. I am sick to death of seeing players brush the ball across their knuckles as they throw it and getting away with it. I don't care that it's made contact with their fist, it's still a throw. This is one of the fundamental skills of the game. Why is it adjudicated so badly?

I just got around to watching the replay. I have to say I am very pleasantly surprised. Not by the win, but by the manner in which we won. What we saw here was many of the things we have been asking for implemented and actually working. I'm fairly certain I saw four Shepherds by Melbourne players at various points. One of them was unintentional, but that's still three better than in any match previously under Goodwin. We saw players staying out of the contest so there was an outlet when we won the ball. We defended a bit further back so that we weren't leaving a great gaping void for the opposition to run into and also creating a bit more space in our forward line. We had crumbers at marking contests. While I still saw far too many bombs to the hot spot, in general we were a bit more discerning in our f50 entries. Honestly, if our players could kick basic set shots like the other teams, we would have won by five goals or more. Points of particular note: The umpiring. Contrary to Eddy's effusive praise, I felt that the umpiring was monumentally poor. In particular the adjudication of Holding the Ball and Holding the Man was blatantly uneven. We had several holding the man frees denied close to the goals, while the Hawks were paid constantly, often when they actually had the ball at the time they were tackled. Of particular note were Garlett being pulled back when trying to crumb in the forward pocket and Hunt being held on the wing to prevent him getting a return handball and running into space. Then there was Stretch trying to run on to the bouncing ball with nothing between him and the goals... I really like the look of Lockhart. He made a few mistakes, but he just looks like he belongs. I think we'll have a pretty good player on our hands in a year or two when he bulks up a little more. Fritsch needs to play wing and forward. Enough of this crap playing him in defence. Jones needs to be in the guts. Let the younger faster players do the outside running. Petracca may not be hitting the scoreboard directly, but he makes scores happen. I think his contribution is being badly underrated. He was indirectly responsible for our first two goals and a bunch of other scores during the match. How good is Gawn's positioning? He reads the play so well and always seems to get himself in the right space to cut off attacks. How badly is Gawn treated by the Umpires? I don't think there is another player in the competition who gets fouled as often without calls. He was repeatedly bullrushed out of marking contests without a peep from the umpires. They are alway squick to pay frees against him, but give him no protection at all. Harmes giving away those dumb 50s was shameful, especially the second one. What's more shameful is that there were at least two obvious 50s NOT paid to us. The one in the last where the Hawks kicked the ball away was as obvious as they get. Better still was that the resulting kick into 50 saw Gawn once again taken out of the marking contest with a no call, then a Hawks player throw the ball through for a point. No calls on any of them. At one point they showed a little graphic of where our goals and points had been scored (I think it was in Q3). At that point there were nine points that could/should have been goals. There were more in the last. If we kicked straight, we won by a mile.

He did that for a bet, because he kneaded the dough.

Tell him he's dreaming!

We have a recruitment zone as well. All we need to do is use it.

Maybe he's saying that's what Freo will want for him?

Actually, I wonder what it would take to get Ratten back as our midfield coach?

I would love to see this happen. Get Yze in as a specialist kicking coach and Brad Green as Forward Line coach. Green was always very smart about his movement and getting out on hard leads. I have no doubt he could teach our current forwards how to work together and lead properly while Yze taught our mids how to hit them on the chest.

Obviously we're going to end up with a solid first round pick. We need to grab someone with pace and skill. Having seen him against Casey I agree with Rowell if we manage to finish last. For trading and other, obviously I'd love Coniglio and/or Martin. I've said that many times and I maintain that they would both be great additions. Sadly I don't see us getting either of them. GWS will re-sign Coniglio and Martin is going to wind up a Hawk (I have no evidence to base this on, but I've seen Clarkson having a chat to Martin on the sidelines more than once during Hawks/Suns games). I'd also like to throw Tim O'Brien into the ring. We've seen what he can do when he ripped us apart last year. He's been patchy and can't force his way into the Hawks' senior side, but he runs all day and takes contested marks. We need both of those attributes. I'm betting we could get him fairly cheaply from the Hawks if he said he wanted to jump. Funny you should say that. Nathan Freeman is playing for Frankston this year in the hopes of re-starting his career. He's been getting some very big numbers down there (Aside from last weekend). He's an inside mid who has a bit of pace and a very nice boot. Former top ten pick who spent time in Collingwood's system. I'd spend a rookie spot on him in a heartbeat if he manages to stay healthy through the season.