RalphiusMaximus

I haven't seen much of Casey this year, but he just didn't seem to do much today. Maybe I wasn't paying attention at the right times? I saw one nice centre break from him. Still, to me he seems to have stagnated a bit and there are a lot of players ahead of him on our list.

Just got to that on the stream. Awesome play from Baker. If only he could do that more often we'd see him in the seniors every week.

Fourth game and first six goals for the club.

Hard to see those two getting another contract sadly. I think they've been well and truly left behind.

I'm watching on Kayo

Ellison is interesting. Only 20, probably a little undersized to play as a KPF at AFL level, but could develop into a utility type maybe. I suspect he'd need to work on his speed to make that fly.

Interesting watching this. Casey is dominating, but I don't see anyone really knocking down the door to get into the senior side. Probably VandenBerg and Melksham the closest.

I don't think we're pretenders. I think the team are a little prone to drinking bathwater though. The Adelaide loss in particular it was very clear that they hadn't turned up to play that day. They waltzed out onto the field thinking that the Crows were going to roll over for them. Collingwood had a similar vibe and we saw it again this week. Players trying for the spectacular play rather than the best one. Not watching the ball into their hands, trying for the pinpoint 50m pass into the center square, trying to take mark of the year instead of spoiling over the boundary. I don't think it's quite sunk in for them that every single team in the competition is made up of professional players and the difference between the top and bottom just isn't that great. If you give 80% on the day, you're going to get jumped no matter who you're playing. They need to get back into the mindset they had at the start of the year, play disciplined football, take good options and work for each other.

If Brown kicks three goals, is that a success? That seems to be his thing, 2-3 goals a match. He doesn't provide as much around the ground as other options, but we know that he will hit those few goals semi-reliably every game. I would think his fitness and lack of defensive game were the big reasons for him being dropped. Can we afford to let him be a stay-at-home FF while the rest of the side zones?

Great move. Not only in dropping a large chunk of cash into the club for the "future fund," but getting rid of the gambling revenue. Being pokie-free is a good look for the club.

Just thinking back to before the season when my Richmond-supporting mate was telling me about how he couldn't see any side that would seriously challenge them for another flag this year... ?

I loved this one: I think that sums thins up pretty well to be honest.

I just wish Oliver would sort out his goalkicking. It's the only aspect of his game that's missing.

Just watching the replay. The Swans' first clearance of the second quarter has just leapt out at me as a blatant and obvious throw in full view of the presiding umpire. This is getting beyond a joke.

Noooooooo! He's clearly going to leave for West Coast!

Just for reference, here's Aiden Bonar flattening Fritsch behind play in the first quarter. Deliberate head high contact which left the player stunned and in need of a trainer. Not even mentioned in the MRO's report for the round. Nth Melb v Melbourne _ Match Centre _ Kayo Sports — Mozilla Firefox 2021-05-03 22-51-47.mp4

I just had to put this here. Sometimes it awesome to be wrong, right?

Sitting in front of my computer...

Had a look at the replay on Kayo. The biggest conclusion we can draw is that North are in real trouble. The lack of any sort of depth is strongly reminiscent of us at our worst half a dozen years ago. They have nothing in their key positions, but that's ok because they have almost nothing in the middle as well and most of that is nearing the end of their careers. For our side, congratulations on whoever it was talking up Deakyn Smith during the off-season. He looks to be a very nice prospect. Give him a year or two to build his body and I could see him in the senior side. Sparrow delivers beautifully to the forwards and seems to work well with the Weed, who is of course dominating at VFL level. I get why they put Brown in for this week, but Weed is very stiff to be left out. Really though, there's to much you can take out of a game like that. They were that bad and we were professional and well-organised and took them apart.

He was at the ground. They interviewed him at half time.

Great news. I love that the club are getting these deals done early and with a minimum of drama. We're not hearing about players putting off talks until the end of the season or looking at their options. Already the media are turning their attention to the players who are out of contract at the end of 2022, because we've given them nothing to speculate on this year. Great position for the club to be in.

He played a really good game on the weekend. He used to be a bit flashy, dropping out for long periods. He seems to have moved past that, at least based on that game. He showed real presence and leadership in the middle and kept at it all game.

... Be pretty happy. You know the last time we won the first six games of the season was something like 1965, right? Edit: Or was that the first seven games? I think that team won like eight in a row anyway.

Don't forget his antics last year. Got a week suspension for a deliberate elbow to the head of an opponent, appealed and had it downgraded to careless and a fine. Played the next match, elbowed someone in the head and got a week again. Once again the AFL is demonstrating to the world that they have NFI how to run a league and their self-proclaimed integrity as an absolute joke.