RalphiusMaximus

Bidding war on Tom Lynch.

Of that interchange, I'd go Brayshaw, Tyson, Melksham and Hannan. I don't see a real need for Frost unless we're worried about Hawkins tossing OMac around.

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2018-03-22/teams-superstar-cat-misses-round-one Teams are in.

Great news and very much deserved after the pre-season he put in. Looking forward to seeing him in person.

We've been granted a priority pick at the beginning of the upcoming draft.

I just watched the highlights. He kicked some very nice goals, but I note that his traditional issues were still on show. He still can't take a mark cleanly in his hands which will hurt him during the regular season and he got a couple of pretty soft frees as well. Still, a good effort from him.

A couple of points I want to raise. Petracca is a beast. At one point he had two saints laying on his back with the ball trapped under his torso. He pushed up the weight of three people then held them off the ground with one arm while he punched the ball out with the other. The kid is absurdly powerful Hannan looked good as a mid. He has a low accurate kick that sliced through traffic and hit targets consistently. Used it to set up multiple forward thrusts. This as much as his work as a small forward will keep him in the side.

That's what the team has earned with so many failures. They haven't earned any faith yet.

I agree with him. Have a look at our draw. If we're anything at all like we were last season, we're going to drop some important games and be borderline for the eight.

Wow. What are they going to give Cameron, Shiel and Whitfield? Assume Kelly is gone.

The folk at AFL house are great lovers of Irony.

I actually think their prediction is fairly good. I'd have the Swans and WC higher and probably Essendon a bit lower, but it's not far off what I'd expect.

I was quite happy with that game. It was against a team of babies that are desperately positioning themselves for a tilt at a priority pick this year, but we showed a lot of depth with spare players all over the field and a multitude of scoring options. We did exactly as we should have and thrashed them.

I think we need to face the fact that this team just can't kick. Against some opponents our ball-winning will get us over the line, but that disgraceful lack of ball-skills is killing us tonight.

This is beyond awful.

I see that Port have four ex-demons in their side.

Umpires' High Performance Manager? If they want high performing umpires they need to spend less time in the gym and more time studying the rules and watching game footage.

That was a damn good win against quality opposition. Our midfield and HB line absolutely spanked them and the skills were way better than last week. Mifsud had a big impact up forward as well, even though she didn't show up so much in the stats. She'll only be more dangerous in the next few weeks once she knocks the rust off. I think we have a really dangerous forward line starting to take shape which is a bit of a surprise to me. There really isn't any area where we are lacking provided we can keep this team on the park.

It's going to be a very interesting game. We need to dominate the midfield I think, because they have the better forwards.

So you're saying that upper management will spruik the idea to the media and tell everyone how successful it is while in reality nobody else takes it up and we are loudly mocked by the other clubs?

I don'd disagree with this in theory, but practically there are issues. This would be another hard to quantify rule leaving everything up to the interpretation of the umpires and/or MRP. They are already notoriously inconsistent with their rulings. How could you realistically expect them to apply this rule in a fair and even-handed manner? Do you think you'd ever see a WC player cited in a home game? Or a Hawthorn or Geelong player cited at all? It would turn into another way to let the AFL's darlings walk all over the other teams while penalising anyone who dared to retaliate.

Honestly, as good as it is to have a win I wasn't impressed with our side. We won because we have harder ball-winners and Cranston had a big final quarter, but we were badly outplayed. GWS had far better skills. We only had a couple of players who could hit targets by foot while they were consistently hitting mid-range passes and maintaining possession. Last season we played a high-possession game. If we want to continue with that style this year the skills need to improve drastically.

I'm working that day

I have us 2-3. Carlton to be the big improvers. They've added midfield quality and now have two top quality forwards. I suspect they'll be there at the GF, with either us or Adelaide as opponents.