RalphiusMaximus

A couple of weeks ago Goodwin came up with a very apt description when he said Oliver is one of those players who get faster the closer they get to the ball. He tends to just cruise around, but he accelerates through packs to either burst out or tackle whoever got to the ball ahead of him.

Joeboy - Strangely negative analysis OMac - Makes terrible decisions Melksham - Better than anticipated They said it's a dislocated shoulder, although you have to wonder looking at the footage. Can't have been too serious given he used a pushup motion to get back up and then swung his shoulder around a bit, presumably to loosen it up. Maybe it was that move that popped it the rest of the way out? Anyway, if that's the case they'll probably rest him for a month or so and strap him up for the rest of the season. Depends on how accurate the reports are.

Pretty sure I know why Jack's pre-season was off. He's been moonlighting as a musician.

I did. Did we get one HTB in our favour?

The guy has skills and freak factor. That was a great debut.

I may have underrated our side. The degree of control we showed today was amazing. Absolutely thrilled.

Carlton to have five no. 1 picks on the park next year?

Well, that went about how I expected. Carlton were a nice soft side for the Tiggers to beat up first up. No defence to speak of, just lots of run and carry from both sides. Martin played like a beast and I like how Rioli is developing, but really they didn't show that much against a rabble like Carlton. Richmond drop their bundle when you put physical pressure on them, so we should have their measure comfortably.

I'm in.

I really hope everyone else is closer with their ladders than I. In mine we only just scraped into the 8 and Geelong end up on top due to a relatively friendly draw. I had us being knocked out in the first week of finals. I also have a Geelong/GWS GF. Not liking the look of that.

We need to remember that this is only the beginning. As with the standard of play, the pay will creep upwards as we see more teams and more players getting involved. Right now all they are trying to do is get the league established.

Their talls don't all play tall. They got us last year by forcing the overlap in the midfield and getting a free man in the goalsquare. Their talls kicked goals, but it was on the back of superior movement and uncontested ball rather than taking contested marks. We need mobile defenders and better defensive cohesion to prevent that free man in the 50 that they always seem to be able to manufacture. It's not worth worrying about their ability to take marks.

OK, I admit I may have sold Brisbane a little short. They've been bloody good all season and I suspect the game against us was their worst showing by a pretty fair margin. Actual Ladder at the end of the season: Brisbane - I'm seriously impressed with this outfit. Way better than I thought they'd be, very quick through the midfield and their forwards have held up well. Seriously who had heard the name Kate McCarthy at the start of the season? Adelaide - Exactly as expected. They are a really solid side with pretty much every base covered. Sarah Perkins has been the surprise of the season with her goal tally and growing cult following. I heard she was the last player picked for their list. Nice bit of recruiting and a huge reward for her. Melbourne - We turned out better than I had expected and gave the top two a serious shake. If only we'd kicked another goal against GWS... I am seriously excited by our midfield though. Pearce, Paxman, O'Dea and even Mithen are looking like a hell of a good onball unit and we have some great runners as well. Mifsud finishing third in the goalkicking is nice as well. Carlton - Way better than I thought they'd be, largely on the back of Darcy Vescio and Bree Davey. I would never have picked Vescio to win the goalkicking, but she's a freak at ground level and they played to her strengths. Collingwood - My biggest disappointment of the season was Moana Hope. After what she showed in the exhibition game I thought she'd tear this season apart, but she barely gave a whimper. Admittedly she was often against multiple opponents, but you'd hope she could get on her bike and find some space. The Pies as a whole were exactly like a middle of the road side. They couldn't hold up against decent sides and won three against the bottom sides. Bulldogs - Another disappointing side. I rated them really highly, but they just couldn't kick scores. A few injuries didn't help, but I think they seriously underperformed and should have done a hell of a lot better. Fremantle - Had a shocking run with injuries to some key players, but even so they just didn't show us anything. They're athletic and fast at times, but no real skills and again struggled to score all season. Cowan didn't have as much of an impact as I had expected. GWS - Lost their marquee players before the season and never even looked like recovering. They're a rabble who, like their AFL counterparts, are going to be hoarding early draft picks for the nest few seasons to top up on talent. Their one win was sadly the one that kept us out of the GF, a three goals to one scramble during a hurricane where we kicked one goal nine to go down by a measly five points. Anyway, nothing to see here.

Would be better if he got the sort of delivery Jockovich had. Our mids have never learned how to hit up a leading target.

Pretty sure I saw that the tax department was after him a few years ago.

I've just been looking at the previous results. Collingwood have kicked scores of 32, 32 and 55 in their last three rounds for three wins. Adelaide have kicked 46, 30 and 32 for a win and two losses. Looking at that, a close game is likely, so even if Adelaide win it shouldn't raise their percentage much. Obviously, we hope that doesn't happen. That then means that we will need to break records to get our percentage up. a 60-0 score wouldn't be enough. 95-10 would probably do it (159.89%). 90-10 wouldn't be enough (157.06%). We REALLY need the Pies to win.

As poor as Freo have been this year, I don't think we can produce a big enough win to overtake Adelaide on percentage, so we need Collingwood to play out of their skins and knock them over for us. Then all that's left for us is to win.

I kind of disagree with the outnumbering bit. We did that a lot last year and got hurt by it. Their one player would dive into the middle of our four and just belt the ball into space rather than try to take possession. Then they have three extra outside players to run away with it.

You're going to a Saints home game?

I don't know where most clubs rated him, but the Doggies held a function during the offseason where their head recruiter was on the panel and a mate of mine asked what he thought of Oliver. He said Oliver is the sort of player they would have loved to recruit, but he had him as second round. Of course, they didn't have a first round pick, so this could have just been another way to suggest that they would have taken him with their first pick if he'd been available... Regardless, I'm pretty happy to have him in the side, especially now that he's kicking more. Last year I was a little worried that his kicking could be a weakness, but seeing him wheel around in traffic and belt a low hard pass to the wing/HF was just awesome. The kid's going to be a player.

So go and get the Tinea back Man! It's clearly the reason we've been losing!

I think we need to accept that we're going to lose this one. The Saints at Etihad is our worst possible opponent. There is no combination of opponent and venue we are as bad against, including Geelong in Geelong. I don't care what the bookies say, we're no chance.

So, we beat Freo and the Crows go down to the Pies and we're in the final. I don't like those odds, but the Pies are on a roll at the moment.

He's put a lot of work into his kicking. A few years ago he really was terrible. He struggled to get it past 30m or so and rarely hit his targets. Now he's got his range out to more like the 50m mark and his accuracy has improved dramatically. I think we can say he's at least as good a kick as TMac.

We should be fighting for one of the lower spots in the eight. I think any better than that is overly optimistic.