RalphiusMaximus

Par for the course for this club sadly.

I want a flag. That'd be nice. Also, I want to see Jack Watts get suspended for striking.

Guess that's why they didn't nominate him. Lucky for us from the sound of things.

These lists from Champion are inherently biased towards older lists. They base their rankings on the team's performance over the past three seasons. Many of our first side don't even have data from three seasons to put up, and certainly not impressive numbers in the firsts. This doesn't mean that they aren't a better group than sides like Collingwood. It's just that those sides are packed full of veterans with big numbers in the past to increase their ranking.

I'm amazed that anyone at the club though this camp was a good idea in the first place. You don't see Barcelona FC sending their players on a punishing "torture" camp to bond as a team. I'm pretty sure none of the NFL sides do it. Do Rugby teams? I wouldn't know, but it seems to me to be something entirely limited to the AFL. Maybe our coaches should take a leaf from some of the bigger, more professional sports around the world and focus on fitness and skills rather than bonding through shared adversity.

Very interesting to see his comments on the camp. It sounds like it was the loss of condition rather than injuries that worried most. THat's a fair point. For the kids who are struggling to get up to playing weight, going on camp and dropping 3-4kg is a terrible result.

Dom Tyson Dom’s improvement in leadership, during the first five or six weeks of training, was really noticeable. He’s again working in the midfield group, but he’s really starting to drive his teammates and build some standards around how we go about our training. Dom has 90 AFL games to his name and is set to enter his seventh AFL season – his fifth at Melbourne.

So basically it's a chance to give some kids who will struggle to make seniors a run on the big grounds and play in front of cameras and maybe an audience. I'd be pretty annoyed if we played any of our front-line mids in there. It's not worth the risk, especially at the speed this is going to be played. They're asking for injuries.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Tommy Mac will top our goal kicking this year. He's strong, durable and mobile and Hogan will be taking the best defenders each week. I don't know if that really counts as a breakout year since he's been our best tall defender for years, but it's a new position for him.

The Ninja appears to have been paired with Hunt. I guess that tells us how they want him to play. I really hope he makes it, because having both of them in the side will be awesome to watch.

Collingwood had this sort of system in place under Malthouse. It made for very fast options as they were all on exactly the same page and knew exactly where the play was going to go. Using the kickout example, their frequent play was kick to a marking player on the HBF near the 50 line. Option A for that player was to give a quick hand pass to the runner going past. If that runner was covered or not in position, option B was switch to the opposite flank. That all sounds very simple, but they were so well-drilled in these options that they happened almost without thought. That meant that they moved the ball faster than their opponents could react. The marking player knew before he took the ball that there was a runner coming past. If the runner wasn't viable, he knew exactly where the outlet player was on the far side of the ground, meaning he could play on and kick without having to look around for the option. I really liked that system. It was maybe a little rigid, but it let them get a hell of a lot out of a side that really wasn't that talented.

I like the comment on Frost today. He, OMac and Lever are working well together. Sounds like they plan on playing all three of them.

We need a new couples name for the three of them. I'm leaning towards Dabblewood.

I agree with him. They finished well above us and they recruited some serious talent. They're going to give it a serious shake in 2018.

Good catch. That Brisbane game suddenly looks a lot more challenging.

I'm ashamed to admit that it hadn't occurred to me.

Nineteen pages on this? Seriously? A journalist wrote an article about something that a guy who is paid to generate discussion on the radio said. Neither of them has spoken to anyone at the club. Neither of them have any idea of what actually happened or who it was in the playing group who raised the issue. It's basically a journalist trying to quote a professional gossip as a source. He'd be better writing for Women's Weekly. This is an absolute non-issue.

So was there any training this week in place of the camp?

I have no intention of attacking you, but I do suggest watching a few games. It's a pretty good standard and improving.

They just can't help themselves. There are a bunch of petty nobodies in AFL house who feel the need to justify their employment by constantly messing with rules that don't need changing. The sooner they have a cleanout of unnecessary personnel the better off the game will be. Maybe they could use the extra cash to employ a real tribunal or train the umpires better.

That is a really friendly draw for us. Playing the Crows at home should give us a solid chance against them. If we knock them over then it could very well be a top of the table clash in round 6 against Carlton (I really rate Carlton this season).

The problem with back injuries is they tend to never fully heal. It then becomes a matter of managing them to prevent flare-ups rather than fixing them entirely. This means putting a lot of work into the core to provide extra support around the site of the injury and occasionally backing off to let it settle down when it shows signs of being a problem. As long as they are monitoring it and managing his loads it should be ok.

They need to hire actual legal experts who have some vague notion of how to apply precedents and evidentiary standards. Preferably people with absolutely no connection to any club. That way we may actually see consistent and unbiased decisions.

" Staging will now attract a fine for a first offence. " Funny. They've never had the guts to charge someone under the existing staging rules. Is this change to encourage reports as it's a less significant penalty than previously?

I question the value of these boot camp things. Spending a week working the players to exhaustion does nothing for their long-term conditioning. Better to keep going with a structured plan designed to have them peaking for round one. As for team-building, there are any number of options they can take that don't run the risk of injury. Play Laser Tag or something.