Adam The God

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.

That shirt front was in the last. If you're going to have a ping, at least know what you're talking about.

Nah, I've always hated them. They've always beaten up on us in my 31 year lifetime and half my family are Geelong. And on the bigscreen at the ground, they kept replaying Scott's carry on and all the Geelong supporters were cheering and laughing. They're all a bunch of muppets.

Dangerfield is an ugly looking gronkazoid. I hope his career takes a nosedive. ?? That felt good. What a muppet he is. How was his dive over the boundary line at one stage too?

He just should have kicked it. A simple snap on his wrong foot. He didn't even get close. We were right behind that and my recollection was he did actually have someone close to him. But maybe I'm simply failing to remember correctly?

I have a feeling JKH will get one final game next week to see if he makes it. Laid some tackles, got more involved and got more of the footy than he has in the past, but doesn't win 1v1s and [censored] himself in clutch moments. He's not good enough, but he'll get one more game to prove himself IMO. Tyson might make way for Hannan or VDB though, otherwise, I'd go the same team again. Make them repay the supporters and club for falling this week.

I did notice the lack of security there as well. Bizarre. Imagine if Geelong had lost? Probably more chaos.

Seems an incongruously defensive move from a coach who seemed to think Gawn needed to be saved during our momentum surge at the start of the last. We needed Gawn out there to kill the game. Have a rest when we're 7-8 goals up and Geelong have themselves, put the cue in the rack.

We were close to that. Got out just in time by the looks of it. I had a few usuals that wanted to knock my block off, but the 6 foot 6ness continues to help me.