Adam The God

I have no idea where to put this and whether it's even worth putting out there, but I had a very funny dream last night. At least I thought so. It featured @Wiseblood as a terrorist/serial killer. Wise was running about the town murdering people. Why? I have no idea. As my wife left for work this morning, sleep-talking I was busy telling her that Wiseblood was going to get caught by the police and it was only a matter of time. He was a brutal man with no scruples apparently. Why the [censored] you were in my dream mate, I'll never know, but hey, at least someone's dreaming about you/your moniker. Thanks very much for apparently not murdering my dream-self too.

I love both players at their peak and they'll compliment each other. Gus may well make a really good leader in time too, but we'll agree to disagree on Viney as captain.

I guess what I'm saying is logic should have ruled out Hogan as tradebait. And I maintain that it's not a personnel issue (except the missing Lever and Hibberd), but a system error. I fear we put all our eggs in the one basket over the off season and built the system around one player (Lever). We tried to ensure everyone else in that system complimented him and so when he went down, it took us a few weeks to adjust and we've never quite recovered, especially with the injury to Hibberd, which has compounded the problem. Our midfield needs to get better at its defensive running for longer though and our half forwards and deep forwards need to work harder for longer too, and lock the ball inside our 'territory'. Forget going after an experienced KPB. It's not going to happen. Improve the system.

He's new to the role. He'll make a great captain in time IMO.

Jack is our Selwood. He just needs some continuity. Will be A grade if he can get on the park consistently.

What do you mean what if? I thought you were being positive this season. Your argument is nonsensical mate, based on what ifs. Deal with what's in front of us. We're in 7th position. Jesse has been an integral part of that and until the midway point of the season, our 23 year old KPF was in AA contention and now you want him traded because he might want to leave in a year's time? And how do we get a good KPB? We develop them and we certainly don't give away a good KPF (who are far rarer) in search of one. It's such a frustratingly narrow-minded and dated view of footy too, OD. Is one full back going to make a difference to our defensive system? Have you watched footy in the last decade? It's about system. Our system needs to get better. If an undersized (IMO ordinary) Josh Gibson can win multiple premierships, that tells you something about the power of modern defensive systems. I feel like I'm having a conversation with a really negative version of my father.

Getting rid of Jesse would make us worse, not better. No deal.

Jeepers, OD. Did you watch the first half of the season? Jesse was a key contributor and often dominant. He's going through a slight down patch, but still contributing. In key position terms he's still young too.

Smith has to play given there's no Hibberd. Our defensive set up (that doesn't work particularly well) relies on mobile, quick interceptors. Hibberd, Lever, Smith, Frost and even Hunt. Taking Smith out leaves us in real trouble for legspeed, with the exception of Frost. I'm not a fan, but he has to play. It'll be interesting to see if Clarry and Jesse play...

Great news. Well done, Gussy.

Cripps has just today signed an extension...

And after reading this thread earlier, I was put off reading Judd's article as it was considered by a few to be a puff piece. I read it yesterday and it was a measured, well written, logical and intelligent article. The only thing I didn't agree with was the Jones leadership bit, but generally it made sense. Saying that we're in year 5 of the Roos rebuild and therefore we should have loftier expectations is ridiculous. Year 1 of Roos' rebuild was partly still playing with a horrible list that still had the residue of the worst VFL/AFL list ever IMO. Year 2 we started to play those early draft picks. Year 3 and Clarry debuted. Year 4 saw Goodwin take the reigns fully and had we not been crippled by our poor drafting in the mid 2000s-2012ish, we would have had the sufficient experience to get us over the line into finals. Still, we were in every single game last year (bar probably the Sydney game at the 'G that we were never really in). That was without Gawn for much of the season and Viney, Jones and other important players were out for significant, crucial periods. In truth, we were ravaged by injuries. Just look at how Adelaide have dealt with that this year. Had we won 2-3 close games (that we would have with a little more experience - think the way we set up in the final moments against Freo at the 'G as an example), we'd have almost qualified for the top 4. As it was, we missed the 8 by the smallest margin ever. I'm now on record as saying I don't think we'll get there this year, but the newish adage in football is that progress is rarely linear. If you look at a number of premiership sides from the past decade or so, you'll notice that their development was never as linear as ours has been. Yes, that's partly because we're coming off such a low base, but it also shows how difficult it is to go from one of the worst lists in the competition, to one of the best, in such a small amount of time. It means we're left with a lack of experience and that the majority of our top talent is not yet sitting in that sweet spot of games experience. Only Gawn and the injury-riddled Viney have entered the sweet spot. If we can manage to make the finals this year, I reckon we can win the flag next year (we need some finals experience), if injuries and luck (which you always need) goes our way.

That's a scary stat, because Vince will be done at the end of 2018 and Lewis at the end of 2019, followed by Jones at the end of 2020.

If they lose Cripps, they're [censored]. Curnow is going to be a good player, but they need to get the ball to him. I actually think along with North and potentially the Bulldogs, Carlton are the club that could well fold in the next two decades, unless things improve. Bizarre given they've still won the most flags, but they're in real trouble. I hope West Coast get him.

Ironic that someone who gets offended and so draws a parallel for themselves between 'tough guy' and 'wife beater' should tell anyone else to get a grip. Interesting how you equate toxic masculinity with tough guy too. What does that even mean? Also, you've highlighted 'trigger' as if I've used it in a social way. I was referring to a hair trigger temper, but you seem like an angry little fella yourself, so I'll leave it there.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/world-cup-2018-england-matches-domestic-violence-surge-football-police-a8405871.html http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-22/spike-in-domestic-violence-during-state-of-origin,-study-finds/9895684 https://www.news.com.au/sport/nrl/origin/study-of-new-south-wales-domestic-violence-cases-reveals-spike-at-state-of-origin-time/news-story/da950e0bcef77e227c650f98478ced50 Some people have a massive problem and much of it is down to the toxic masculinity that is ingrained into our culture. We don't have to be stoning women to death in some parts of the Muslim world to be demonstrating an incredibly dangerous masculinity. Inter-partner violence, domestic violence, spousal rape etc are all big problems in our society. I know because my wife works in the space and I hear some [censored] horrible stories. I get whiteline fever at the footy and I get very angry. I've never hit anyone in my entire life, but I made a conscious effort at the start of this season to try and control my trigger response to Melbourne turnovers, bad umpiring and Melbourne losses. I'm not perfect and I still get incredibly angry, but I'm getting better and it also means I can move on quicker (this Geelong loss is taking longer than usual though!). I've been a feminist a long time and the sooner some men acknowledge their propensity for anger and trigger responses, the sooner we can start to eradicate this scummy, lowlife behaviour. The more we're in denial, as you seem to be, the longer it will continue. The world I want to live in isn't populated with boofhead gronks who want to get around beating up people, because they're too stupid to understand their own feelings.

Paging our man @Chook in Perth. Heard anything around the traps, mate?

I didn't notice this at the ground but someone else picked this up on Demonland; that must be JKH coming off with the runner. We may never know (it might have been coincidental - doubtful) but if they dragged JKH at such a crucial moment, that spells the end of his career. They simply didn't trust him.

I was at the ground and behind this kick. This play from Petracca seemed like the correct one. It was about territory and he kicked it towards Max and we managed to get the ball inside 50 and out for a reset. Jeffy's play a short time after lacked composure. Really he should have kicked the goal as he had more time, but once he missed, we gave them the chance. I'd have liked to think a Lewis would have done something different with that Jeffy play, but Vince's lack of composure moments later, was no better and our lack of defensive two way accountability knowing roughly how much time was left, contributed heavily to the loss. JKH's miss before all of this was simply not AFL standard either and exhibited yet another moment that was completely lacking in composure. It was a team choke. Make absolutely no mistake about it.

One good thing about last night was how many Melbourne people there were. I've been to pretty much all the games down at that shithole for years now and I can't remember seeing so many Melbourne people. We were also pretty loud. In fact, watching parts of the replay last night when I got home, I thought we sounded pretty loud when we kicked goals. I wouldn't be surprised if there were 5,000 of us in the 30,000 in attendance. Is that a positive or does that just mean there were more people in more pain?

Naaaah. Come on, mate. You're a silly boy.

You're one of my favourite posters, mate, but you're off on this one IMO. There's no way Frost has 7 kicked on him. He demonstrated in the small amount of time that his closing speed meant Hawkins couldn't get it out on the lead, like he had done on the slower Oscar. Yes, Frost is still positionally unaware sometimes and his positioning contributed to the Tuohy goal, but he showed on at least 2 or 3 occasions in the time that he was on Hawkins, that he was with him for speed. I would have made the move earlier in the night when we were getting no run off half back from Frost anyway. Allow Oscar to play on the younger opponent and play interceptor. His kicking is a lot better than Frost's as we know and that should have been the move.

Take your mind back to 2017 and Richmond. They were a team who had failed to win any finals in multiple attempts and then in Hardwick's 8th year in charge, things finally clicked and they won the flag. I'm not saying we'll win it this year and I'm not saying it'll take 8 years to do it either, but merely that it takes time. You don't start with an innate ability to win in clutch games. It's something that is learnt and as frustrating as that is, it does seem to be our reality right now.

Good call. But we do need more speed and ground level threat at the feet of Hogan, McDonald and even Melksham. Jeffy is one. Spargo is another but isn't quick. Petracca is more explosive than quick too. We need at least one more small, maybe even two. I suspect Kent will be kept on the list for this reason. Unless, Taylor and co think there are some speedy goal sneaks in the mould of the last few Rioli's up for grabs at the end of this season.

The problem for mine is that I think we can (and really should) beat every remaining team. The frustrating thing is we won't. Even the Eagles are very gettable without Niknat.