RalphiusMaximus

Don't forget that goal. I think Spencil's doing a great job. It's not often he'll be giving away that much size in the ruck, but he's competing and making Sandilands accountable around the ground.

I have to say, Frost is a massive improvement over OMac.

Did they call that a high tackle? I was wondering why it was given. Possibly that idiotic clause they added where if a players head hits the ground it's considered high? It looked like a clear HTB to me. He was tackled around the waist and spun more than 360 without even trying to offload the ball.

I just have to say this. That was some of the most one-sided umpiring I have ever seen today. As a neutral observer, I couldn't believe how bad the bias was. North had 21 players on the ground and still couldn't get the win.

Big Max just declared Spencil to be similar in style to Mumford as a ruck and said he'd do fine. Hope he's right. Also let us all know that Jones' nickname is Towball.

Coaches votes are in: GEELONG v MELBOURNE 8 Patrick Dangerfield (Geel) 8 Jayden Hunt (Melb) 6 Joel Selwood (Geel) 3 Mark Blicavs (Geel) 3 Nathan Jones (Melb) 2 Tom Hawkins (Geel) The numbers would have to break down as follows then: 4+4 5+3 5+1 3+0 2+1 2+0 I would guess then that the coaches rated them as follows: Goodwin: Hunt; Dangermouse; Jones; Bliclavs; Selwood Scott: Selwood; Dangermouse; Hunt; Hawkins; Bliclaves; Look about right?

There have been a few comments on the Watts Goal (which deserves the capital G). I just want to point out the defensive work he did to start that passage. He was the one who managed to get a hold on Dangerfield and hang on just enough to make him fumble a handball instead of bombing long. That in itself would have won him some points, but he continued to chase and harass up the field until the team defence forced a loose ball. To me that's as big a statement from him as the aggressive one-handed pickup, break away pace out of congestion and the goal itself.

That happened to my tipping account this week too

Indeed? I am worried about Freo. They look pretty good today. We'll have them at the 'G I guess, so that should be a help.

I suppose if there's one thing we can take away from today it's that the gameplan clearly works. It's able to survive the loss of Hogan and Lewis to suspension, and even the lack of a ruck for over half the game. With all that against us, we went toe to toe with one of the best sides of the last decade and by any reasonable measure we dominated for at least half of the match. That being said, I don't think I have ever had a worse experience watching a game. The screaming frustration as I watched us throw chance after chance away only to have Geelong's rare passages of play ALL result in goals was horrible. The Umpire's' apparent blindness to thrown balls while at the same time being overly harsh on incorrect disposal when being tackled and their unwillingness to pay HTB against Geelong players while pinging our s seemingly every second tackle. The natural hatred of Joel Selwood. Nasty stuff. Oh, and don't get me started on the insane high contact free to Selwood on Max..

MFC - Why? Why? Why?

Was that pass deliberate?

No, he's not coming to us. I did however get an interesting snippet. The guy who told me over a year ago that Richmond thought they had Prestia over the line is now saying that they are very heavily into Schache. We're talking a Boyd-like deal. This guy has been fairly accurate with his news in the past.

Plus we didn't have Hogan last time either

Interestingly, one of the media outlets today mentioned the actual MRP rules on how they assess an incident. The rules have been deliberately written to provide them with leeway in their interpretation so that they can make the judgement fit the penalty they want to give. They have essentially written their laws specifically to allow them to be inconsistent with their judgements and hand out different verdicts for the same acts.

I tend to agree that we don't need to go overly tall for this one. Could be an ideal time to see what Tim Smith can do, or add Kent back into the mix in place of Hogan. Vince is an automatic selection to replace Lewis.

Lewis got three because of his record. It could have been two if he hadn't been done so often as a Hawk. It's all their fault.

I tend to think that Nev is probably the least naturally talented of the AFL Jettas, but he is by far the most professional and hardest working. That's the reason he's so highly regarded within the club. He has the work ethic and discipline that his cousins lack.

So that was very nearly a repeat of last year. Carlton flooded back, crowded our forward 50 and managed to drag us down to their level. They also got away with murder from the umpires. I lost count of the number of clear one-handed throws their inside mids dished off. I'm very surprised to see that we won the free kick count. Also very happy to see that our three players with 30+ disposals were all youngsters. Just shows the quality and depth we've developed in the midfield that we can have our senior leaders taken out of the game and there's still enough there to get the job done. Lewis copped a hard tag and in his own words just tried to do the team things rather than win the ball himself (he openly admitted that he had no chance of outrunning his tagger, so didn't blow himself up trying). Awesome to see Salem play with such authority. It seems like we have a bunch of young mids who are now finding their feet at the level at about the same time. That's going to result in a more pronounced improvement in the team than I had anticipated, so I'm really looking forward to seeing what they can do for the rest of the year.

He needs to kick more often. His refusal to kick cost us repeatedly today. That little farce with Hogan where they just handballed to each other until they got caught was idiotic, as was his handball receive and run down the boundary ending in being tackled out of bounds for a HTB against. I don't know why he won't kick, because he's actually quite good at it. Whatever the reason, they need to get it sorted.

Nah. Geelong and West Coast are still on top.

I do hope Smith gets a shot at some stage this year though.

What the pies need is a good solid stopper in the backline. Someone like Lynden Dunn for instance...

He's great at winning the ball and his hands are good, I just hate that kicking style. Bloody Hell, compare it to that low hard pass from Pendles. If Treloar could kick like that he'd be awesome.

Treloar's kicking is going to be an issue for them. Not just that disgraceful OOTF shot on goal, but the up-and-under field kicking is really poor. He's repeatedly created pressure out of nothing because his kicks are so slow getting to their target.