RalphiusMaximus

Gunfight at the Adelaide Corral tonight. They're having a great shootout.

Earlier this week a Facebook post was shared around about a kid named Lachy who'd injured his neck playing for Seaford: When I saw this, I sent the link on to the club page, while a number of others contacted players or their family members directly. I got a reply today from the club saying that they had looked after young Lachy, so I went and had another look at the original thread. No less than ten players took the time to get in touch and have a chat. Cam Pedersen got on the thread and asked for a mailing address so he could organise some signed merchandise. How awesome is this club?

4-6 weeks? We'll never see him again!

Bug came up from that bleeding. Why wasn't Wood cited by the MRP? He was clearly hit in the face hard enough to draw blood.

Of all the cases discussed here, his is the only one where it is a clearly deliberate act. He punched someone. I don't care if it was to the ribs or the head, punching your opponent is nothing to do with the game. There is no grey area in this. It's not like he accidentally swung his fist while bracing for impact. He chose to strike someone. Striking should always be a suspension.

To be fair, Danger has a history of playing up head injuries. If he didn't make a big song and dance about his heavy concussion, there was almost certainly nothing in it.

Look what we did to #3 :D

Reiwoldt should have been given a week. Selwood 1-2 weeks. I have no problem with Franklin getting off, he didn't hit the head. Daisy I'm torn on. Not much in it, but the MRP admitted that he ran past the ball. They've always said if you run past the ball and hit someone high they'd suspend you. Didn't see the Shuey one.

But today it's a happy one.

That was awesome. We just blanketed them. Nev was our lowest possession winner with 13, and he was his usual dependable self. You'd be hard-pressed to find a player who didn't contribute. Great to see the AFL website has our top three as Salem, McDonald, McDonald. :D Oscar seems to have clicked after half-time last week and just carried on this week. He's winning the aerial contests and nailing attacking kicks.

Horrible news. I really thought he could make a contribution this year and push for an upgrade. He's had shocking luck this year.

The Messiah Pose.

Funny. I thought most of the poor calls went against us. Frost being pinged for HTB when he clearly got a handpass off in the first quarter was a biggie. Then they refused to pay any HTB for us for most of the game. Watts should have had two of them right in front of the goals in the second half, but both were inexplicably called play on instead. Watts was also fairly blatantly taken out of a couple of marking contests so the third man could take the ball. Basically, a normal game for him. Still, umpiring aside. that second half was special. It was great to see Oliver take the responsibility to kick the ball himself more often rather than giving the short hand pass. 15 kicks and 11 hand balls is far more what we want to see from him as his game improves. The fact that 16 of them were contested as well is pretty nice too. Tyson had a really nice game as well. Even with his lack of pace, when he's on he seems to be able to find just enough space. Oscar was great in the second half. Once he started attacking the ball he showed exactly how good he could be. One thing I have to say is that this constant chipping to the "hot spot" has to stop. The best possible result is a score. Constantly putting the ball to the top of the square in a completely predictable fashion only helps the defence and lets them structure up to take the ball away again. We'd be far better off simply taking the shot and getting some sort of a score for our effort, especially when we don't have any big forwards to take the contested mark at the end of it.

What can we say about that second quarter? The three men in white really stood up for Collingwood in that term.

I caught the end of this game after work. One thing I noticed was The Weed refusing to take shots on goal. He took a mark about 45m out directly in front and later another mark on the boundary. In both cases he went for the pass and turned the ball over. Is that usual for him? If so, they need to iron it out of his game ASAP. Both of those should have been scores and it's his job to take the responsibility to kick them.

He's certainly worth a look for a later pick. I wouldn't go looking to pry him loose but if he's looking for a new home it would be worth making an offer.

I agree with your dad. I also had a look at the rest of the season, and I think a solid case can be mounted for only winning three more games based on the way we've handled ourselves for the first half. There are a stack of games we should win, but the kids just seem to switch off when they go in as favorites. They need to get past that and not assume they are going to win against the sides we should be beating before we'll actually get up and beat them consistently. Unless they get their [censored] together and play properly week in week out we're going to fall well short.

Complete tangent here, but Boomer Harvey had 50+ touches and 9 goals a week ago in whatever league he's playing in now. Apparently he can still play a bit.

Pretty sure they see him as a project swingman in the Pedersen mold. If he can develop into that sort of player hell be handy.

The thing is, it's all very well to talk about the size of defenders right now and Lever is right in the middle of the field (and taller than I thought), but it doesn't address the issue. A few weeks ago BEN BROWN tore us apart. Now he's an ok player, but he's no Wayne Carey. In round six, Joe Danniher kicked six straight points before his one goal. That could easily have been a seven goal haul to win them the game. Darcy Moore isn't there yet, but he's a mobile 201cms. GWS have Patton at a shortish 198cm and Lobb floating in at 207. Port have Dixon and the Hoff at 2m+ and Ryder chipping in at just shy of 2m. Boyd at the Doggies is 2m. Even Brisbane have Schache (for now) at 199 and Hipwood at 202. These guys stretch their arms up and we have nobody short of Max Gawn who has a chance of getting a fist to the ball. We need to get pro-active and try to find a solution. Maybe that means grabbing an American Basketball reject and training them to spoil or converting a spare ruck (like we have one).

Jake's a bloody good player, but he's an upgrade rather than filling a hole in our side. I'd prefer to see us chasing someone with a few more inches to them who can go with the 2m forwards that seem to have sprouted all over the league.

Best game so far: I think Adelaide is winning this one pretty handily. If we've lost a few we should have won, this is one we should have lost. Clearly the best performance of the year. Worst game so far: North Melbourne. Even lacking a real ruck, we should have had them. They have been a rabble this year and we once again found a way to let them beat us. Most improved player: Trying to think of an alternative, but you're all right. Oliver is looking like an absolute freak of a player. A player who needs to lift: Tyson and OMac are the names that leap to mind. Dom is in the top ten for poor disposal in the league, and Oscar is young but he's getting thrashed by the big forwards. Who is currently leading the Bluey?: Jones. He's still the most consistent mid we have. I think Oliver is going to be judged fairly harshly because of his handball numbers. Best recruit: Very hard to pick between Hibberd and Lewis. I love the leadership Lewis has shown, but I think Hibberd has to edge him out. I even saw him hit a pass on his right foot yesterday. Will we make the finals?: I don't think we will. We have a pretty hard back end to the season and we've dropped several games we really needed in the bank if we wanted to make finals. Looking at that draw and the way we've played so far this season, I can see us finishing on eight wins quite easily. If this team wants to play finals this year they have to eliminate the crap they showed in the first half yesterday and win the 50-50 games against decent sides.

It would be awesome to get Tayla back at the Dees. I suspect Brisbane would want one of our forwards and possibly a pick in trade which could hurt, but she has so much upside and if we could sign her to a nice long contract it would be gold.

Looking at the VFL game of the week. Young Buzza doesn't look bad. I don't think he has much in the way of pace, but he's well built and kicking a few. One of the Geelong mids just ran in from the pocket, sidestepped a defender and then missed from dead in front. Quality.