RalphiusMaximus

OK, so that's over. TMac's kicking was every bit as bad as advertised. Pedersen is doing a great job as the waaaaay undersized ruck, getting in the way, pretending to be a spare midfielder and generally making a nuisance of himself. Oliver is a freak. We have a whole bunch of quick young mids and flankers in the squad now. Far more than I thought. Some of them even have skills as well. How good a pick was Hunt? The kid is going to be something special one of these days. If we kick like that against the Hawks they'll slaughter us.

BIG faceplant into the fence from McGrath. He really could have hurt himself doing that. Also a really nice contested mark for Watts to kick another goal.

Mitch Hannan has a hell of a vertical leap. Very nice trait to have.

Now that same bloody umpire has declared that holding the ball in one hand and punching it with the other is not in fact a legal handpass. At least when a Melbourne player does it. Pretty sure he's leading the worst on ground stakes.

NICE contested grab by Oliver, then sets up Petracca for an easy goal. Geez that kid is good.

Not sure which one it was, but one of the commentators near the end of the second just predicted that it would all come good in the second half and we'd see free-flowing, high-scoring football. The man has supernatural powers. I have to say that Tyson is playing a much better game than I expected given the comments I've read. He's finding space and not doing stupid things with the ball. Should have nailed that set shot, but overall he's playing much better than he has been in other games.

I'm see what people have been talking about with TMac's game in the second. He's butchering those kicks and as the commentators said, putting his teammates under unnecessary pressure. If Joe could kick straight this would have been the end of the game for us.

Watts probably should have had three goals in the first quarter. He was just grabbed over the shoulder to prevent him jumping into the pack, again right in front of the goals. Whether you pay high contact or holding, he should have had something from that.

Evidence that it may be ineptitude rather than bias as Bernie drags a ball back in directly in front of the Bombers' goal and gets away with it.

Next point of note. The Bombers' second goal came after the Ump at that end missed Nev getting hit high in a tackle. Not just over the shoulder but a square whack on the jaw. Loved the goal from Jack though. He seems to be backing his pace a bit more and taking those 50m shots. Good to see.

I've just started watching the replay. Halfway through the first quarter and the first thing to really stand out for me is the umpire at the Bombers' end. Twice we should have had 50m penalties paid, even the notoriously credulous commentary team are in disbelief. Also a very nice pack mark to Mitch Hannan that wasn't paid, although I don't know if that was the same ump. All three incidents commented upon by the commentary team who normally stretch reality to breaking point trying to justify anything the umps do as per AFL houses instructions. Also, Watts made a very nice tackle on Bellchambers (I think) right in front of our goal which really should have been paid given he had clear prior opportunity and simply dropped the ball on the ground. We've seen far harsher calls paid this year for incorrect disposal when tackled.

Awesome news for Nev. Peeved I can't be there to cheer him on.

Without a real ruck we're going to struggle in all of these. Losing the hitouts makes our midfield work harder to compensate, so they will tire more quickly and fall away in the last quarter. We'll really struggle to hold these sides. It's basically going to be back to turning the ball over on our half back line and trying to score on the rebound.

Looks like two forced changes next week. Is it worth riskicg Mitch King? He's still recovering from an ACL. Maybe a surprise debut for Filipovic? Probably time for Pedersen to come in I think.

We played the second half with half a bench. Ran out of steam and were overrun. I would have liked to see smarter football in the last, but the reality is that they were cooked and Richmond ran them off their feet.

Not be surprised. We've had the wood on them the last few years, but their midfield isn't crumbling under pressure like they used to. It's going to be a really tough game.

I don't know what the outcome of this will be or how heavy a hit it was, but having seen the footage on the news the guy who hit him should never play the game again. No pretence of playing the ball, he saw that Gus was looking the other direction, ran in and blindsided him with an elbow to the head. If he'd done it outside a pub he'd be looking at spending the next few years in prison. I see no reason for him to get off lightly just because he did it on a sporting field.

We're one of the four.

Now we just need west coast to win at the 'G...

The Umpires must have shares in NMFC. This is some absolutely disgraceful work right now.

It seems to be a common theme at VFL level that teams try to take Brayshaw out early in the game because they can't beat him fairly. Good to see Bugg playing well though.

I'd like him to stick around for another year or so as he is still a class player. That being said, we've reached the point where we have the depth to cover his loss should he decide he needs to go home. If he does leave us, all we can do is think him for joining a club in such a shocking state and helping to build us up to the point where we are considered a legitimate contender. I wish him well regardless.

I had us losing to StKilda and Geelong, so while the route differs this is still the place I expected us to be.

We can't say for certain that it cost us the win, and as your quote would show if you hadn't cherry-picked, I freely acknowledge that there were other factors. However as I said these were two moments where the opportunity was there and if either one of them had shown better composure we could have won the game. Their poor judgement during a pivotal period cost us the opportunity to win the game.

Obviously we lost for a number of reasons and it's probably unfair to highlight one or two players, but I'm going to do it anyway. Right at the end, we were in a dominant position. We were attacking, Freo were tired and we were only three points down. All it needed was a little composure and patience to work the ball around and find a target who was in a position to kick that last goal and we were there. So what happened? 1. Bloody Bernie Vince breaks out of a pack and kicks a blind long-bomb for an uncontested mark to their spare defender. 2. James Harmes decides he's going to be a hero and kick a goal from 60+ rather than take the easy lateral kick to the man in space. Now I know that there were any number of issues leading us to this point, but right then we had a chance to win the game, and these two lacked the composure and common sense to do the right thing and it cost us the win. I really hope they get called on it during the review process, especially Harmes.