DeeSpencer

I’d argue it’s absolutely a passion project and he’s hardly employed by ESPN. A monthly article in season and a few extra either side of the draft won’t be paying him enough to really study the draft pool. Even watching a few games a week doesn’t get close to what recruiters do in full time jobs. He’s a passionate amateur draft fan with a little insight and adds a small bit to a very limited conversation. Certainly not worth getting hung up on his opinions.

Numerous reports had the Giants desperate to take Jackson and therefore likely to pass on matching the bid if we had made it. I like Knightmare. Sure, he’s a bit ornery at times. And his writing and videos could do with major reformatting. Of course he makes mistakes and the occasional short cut. But when traditional media is ever declining at least he gives it a go.

Jackson is a remarkable athlete and also capable of playing a role for which he was the standout option very early on really. Being able to hold up in the ruck in year and even more so in year 2 meant he was just about a lock in the side and could play quiet games. Further to that if the draft is a Bell curve then JVR at pick 19 is really miles from Jackson at pick 3 and somewhere between Weid, Pickett and Bowey, Laurie, Spargo, Sparrow, Rivers, JJ and even Petty. Of all those players he might remind me most of a key forward version of Sparrow. Athletic, decent build, likely to have a crack, but with a fair amount of development work to really contribute and find a role behind a number of strong team mates. But there's a range of options from Bowey's flag in 7 games to someone like Spargo. Making a real difference in year 1 as a skinny kid but taking unitl year 4 to really put it together consistently.

Some of it truly is awful though. I'm with our esteemed posters who I think have better taste than footballers, most in their early to mid 20's. If I were the coach I'd have to have a skip button or the ability to mix in a few oldies just for my own sanity. Of course it's mostly for the players though so if you're going to create a player driven culture you have to deal with some of it!

Introduced in 2008 as a borrowed tradition. https://www.afl.com.au/news/103916/golden-reminder Fine for the club to stick it on jumpers for sale to make a few bucks. But lets not wear it. It's ugly. It's pointless. And it's looking backwards to 2021 rather than the new season ahead. Sorry AFL, keep it for yourself.

6.5% of Victorians aged 20-29 have had covid in the last 14 days. And with the shortage of tests that’s probably closer or more than 10% in that age range.

Heath’s the best small defender in the side and one of the best in the comp, she’s a lock. Its Tarrant and Brown who will make way if the other tall defenders are right to go. I can’t remember if Mithen came back on. And I also think if it gets to the pointy end of the comp they’ll probably drop Caris and find someone else to do 5 minutes a quarter in the ruck. They’ll want to play her now though to take the load off Pearce and get some experience in to her. There’s likely to be multiple changes a week unfortunately. The backline held up without 2 of their best 5, hopefully the other lines can do the same if tested.

I don’t fully agree. A lot of teams have bigger bodies in the midfield than us, and we’ve got quick forwards as well as talls. I like that we try to move the ball quickly. Which means handballs as well as kicks. But it’s one handball until you’re out and then run and kick. Certainly too much handballing tonight, mostly because many of them were ineffective. Better handballs should mean less of them.

That wasn’t pretty. But take the points. Paxy rested a bit and down back. Hanks forward a lot. So we didn’t overdo our prime movers and gave Zanker, West and some others a good run. Fitzsimon was busy. Bannan on the wing is good for her development. Backline definitely missed Goldy and Colvin too. The back up talls aren’t much chop. And my opinion on Birch probably doesn’t line up with most of the forums. Forward line was far too Harris conscious in the 2nd quarter. Should’ve gone to other options and iced the game. Kicking was mostly good. Handball game was sloppy. Missed a lot of chances to put team mates in to space. Defensive work rate and tackling were both strong. Thought the attack on ground balls was probably just a bit off. A few players just trying to spin out with the ball compared to bodying it. But that’s not unusual early on.

The speed at which covid is spreading in Victoria - at least 30k cases per day being registered, most likely far more - would have just about everyone exposed within 100 days and then a wind down. A number of our players will have had it by now with more exposed as they resume training. Players who are double to triple vaxxed and then tested positive will likely have incredible protection over the season. So much so that you’d make a good case not to repeat test and quarantine them. But we are in the time of variants. Which means you can’t make a bold declaration on the best course of action for covid. My guess is we’ll see ongoing testing and quarantining well in to the season and a fair bit of disruption.

The year in which he played almost exclusively on the wing? Gus had a very good year but there were still plenty of examples of him getting caught flat footed in congestion. The wingers role off the back of stoppages and then on the outside/defensive side of play allowed him to see the game unfold and react. Nothing about his 2021 season suggested he should be moving back on ball any time soon.

I'm not a Dunstan fan at all, similarly I wasn't a huge Ben Brown fan either. I was worried about his body and I thought it was going to be very difficult to change his game. For half a season I felt I was right, but with a top up mini preseason and maybe a bit of a humbling effect of going to Casey Brown came back in a far better player. I don't think it was getting up the ground that was the big thing for him, it was more making big improvements in his contesting work - particularly when out of position - and sharpening up his defensive efforts. It's a good point that Dunstan has surely been recruited to be a different player than he was. He was also chopped from a non finalist and there wasn't a single team that wanted him enough to promise a starting role. So much so that he chose the games best on ball brigade rather than a lowly side. That tells me he's more than willing to make significant improvements to his game.

Unless Rivers has a huge preseason I doubt we’ll see him on the wing any time soon. And Brayshaw’s lack of defensive pressure and change of direction has just about sealed his midfield fate unless that drastically changes. Without a heap of injuries you’d be releasing him to Casey

The premiership package: we know all about that one. The jumbo package: May plays the lockdown pocket, Petty full back, Tomlinson CHB/oversize flanker, Lever intercepts. We lose speed and run but can own the air The versatile zone package: 3 talls as last year, Rivers, Salem and 2 of Hunt, Hibberd, J Smith. By playing a lot of 187-190 flankers we can switch opponents at will. The speed package: 3 talls, Salem, Rivers, Bowey, Hunt/ D Smith. Plenty of run and pressure at ground level We’ll see how he adapts to year 2 but Bowey’s certainly a lock if he plays the same way. He’s good enough defensively to take a man but of course it’s the balance of his game that’s most impressive. Rivers probably played better when Bowey came in, he had more of a defensive responsibility and did the job. Long term I think he’ll want to come up the ground. I doubt he’ll want to be known as the lockdown guy. That leaves the one lockdown spot. It’s Hibbo from J Smith from D Smith currently. But Hunt could target this spot. It’s not his natural role. But it wasn’t Hibbo’s natural role until he adapted to it either.

Some combination of Coleman/Brownlows/hall of fame/captaincy and 250 games without winning a flag. Can’t quite get the exact thread.

If his demons career works out Taj will never be that tanned again in his life.

Hotel Quarantine was the state governments biggest stuff up. But it should be noted that quarantine was a federal responsibility until Scotty agreed to let the states take over because he had no plan and no interest in a plan. No plan for economic stimulus until Labor gave him one. No plan for stimulus in 2021. No plan for the vaccines. No plan for rapid tests. Every state also had leaks from hotel quarantine. It was a highly flawed system tackling a once in 100 year pandemic. And as bad as the leaks from quarantine were the states test and trace was awful too. Our leaks became an out break. And the deaths. They came because it got in to aged care and spread from nurses going from home to home. Why - because aged care nurses are causal employees with multiple jobs, because the feds like cheap foreign labour rather than paying professional full time jobs. The health minister got the lemonade and more ownership should’ve been taken from Andrew’s and other senior members. I don’t like Andrew’s. I have a moderate respect for him. I think most of his cabinet stink. Stink nearly as bad as the awful liberal state mps. I’ll still take the guy who’s actually made seriously difficult decisions and fought for Victorian lives and Victorian jobs/businesses with extra support packages rather than Scomo who forgot we existed until he needed a hair cut a few months ago.

Without Victoria bringing in harsh restrictions to contain the spread and drive numbers down it inevitably would’ve escaped at least to neighbouring states if not more. It did escape to a Sydney hotel, but in small enough numbers to be held up. NSW stuffed around with their lockdown and suddenly covid was in Victoria (multiple times), QLD, NT, SA and New Zealand. (Side note; It’s why other states were pleading with NSW to enforce a ring of steel around Sydney. Of course they refused but then sent an army of cops in to West Sydney, because they care about some people’s liberties more than others.) Until Delta covid zero was absolutely achievable because we achieved it. The smaller states achieved it the whole way through. And as a nation from October 2020 until June 2021 there was all but zero covid with no extended lockdowns. For 8 months the country was overwhelmingly covid free and prospering. If the Dees finish 17th in 2022 will you suddenly say the 2021 flag didn’t exist because we were bad either year before and after? I’m not saying the state government hasn’t made some howlers and the feds been even worse. But you have to evaluate each strategy in regards to the aims, the variants and the vaccine status. Bemoaning lockdowns for 5 cases and not 17k is very simplistic and ignores all the other changing factors.

Apart from the fact Australia held back the tide for over a year. With Victoria crushing an outbreak that allowed every other state to go about their lives as normal whilst the majority of the world suffered huge loss of life and far bigger economic impact. And that QLD, SA, NT and Tassie (and maybe one day WA) got all the way through to 80-90% vaccinated thus saving thousands of lives before opening up. Small minds will conveniently edit history in their favour. Covid zero was a fantastic policy for the original strain pre vaccination. Might've even worked for Delta too but NSW decided they'd mess around and enforce half measures.

We lost Vanders and Jones from our midfield depth and he's not better than anyone in the premiership 22. He's been recruited to fit somewhere between the 18-30 on the list and time will tell where that is. I remain somewhat skeptical of him as a pick up but with the covid situation as it is it looks very sensible.

Omicron might be our ticket out but it's going to be a very bumpy ride the next few months. We'll know in the next week or so whether 10,000+ cases a day in Sydney is going to mean our hospitals are ok or in big trouble. Todays announcement on close contacts and testing rules pretty much means they can no longer restrict Omicron on test/trace/isolate so they aren't going to try to do that nearly as much given the impact on the community is too great. The end result might be needing to bring in measures at various times to reduce the stress on the hospital system. Fair to say that won't go down very well.

With Fritsch and a resting ruck - especially given that will increasingly be Gawn as he ages rather than Jackson - I just can't see the 2 big boys working in the same side unless Weid makes huge athletic improvements. Sometimes Tommy gets on the tram tracks and can't turn but he still has the tank to run up the ground and double back like a half forward flanker. For Brown and Weid to work together I think we'd have to move Fritsch around a lot more rather than his goal kicking role and we'd probably be looking at Gawn dropping his forward 50 minutes right down too. It would probably even need Ben Brown to get his tank and agility right up to take his share of the hit up CHF minutes too. Which is entirely possible, Brown can certainly do that. But then you're putting miles on to that dodgy knee of his and dragging him from the goals too.

My question is: What's changed? Physical gifts: He had an interrupted preseason last year and is clearly motivated this year. So there's a chance he's stronger and fitter. The added physical tools then lead to better performance that then builds confidence and away he goes. Role in the side: He's been asked to play as the deeper target and crash packs - the Ben Brown role, but he doesn't have Brown's reach and often finds himself out of position and buffeted by strong key defenders. With more fitness he's a chance to play as a lead up CHF - the Tom McDonald role. But Tom is a freak really, there's very few who can run like he does and no matter how fit Sam gets he might not be able to do that. His best footy has also come as the back up ruck allowing him to get involved around the ground and get touches - the Luke Jackson role. There's a chance his game starts to come together and he takes his opportunity as a key forward, but overall I think if he's only made solid but unspectacular gains over summer I'm not sure it will be enough. So I favour the idea of a new role entirely and move him to the backline for summer and half a year. Worse case scenario it doesn't work at all and he goes back to being handy key forward depth. Best case scenario is he either excels down back or it rounds out his game by getting him more involved with the ball on the deck, more comfortable with marking situations and more confident to impact games. Then he goes back to the forward line with more tricks in his bag and confidence.

I remember in mid year game against Brisbane Tommy Sparrow cleverly put his frame in Daniel Rich's way to create space for a team mate. Rich went down like shot, got the free kick and Sparrow was sighted for a bump. He got a reprimand. According to the press release a 1 week suspension will now 'usually apply' in this scenario. And it's nonsense. Part of being an AFL footballer is knowing how to protect yourself. Now that all the onus will be on the player bumping the knowledge of how to look after yourself becomes less and less important, which has every chance to result in more accidents than before. No one wants to see the violence and thuggery of the 70's, 80's and beyond but preventative measures have to be applied to both sides. The same thing is happening with sling tackles. Players are so keen to draw free kicks they are willing to get slung. They aren't worried about getting a concussion if they can get a free kick.

If he's playing at Berwick and the family is still in the South East why would he be Essendon NGA and not Melbourne NGA? In general I don't care much for the NGA's. Clubs put in a fraction of their total footy budget - a little bit of time for a coach, some gym time, a bit of extra work for the support staff. Clubs really should just be happy they are contributing to growing the game with diversity rather than need a draft advantage. The junior clubs are the ones really responsible for developing players and it should stay that way. Kids should be allowed to grow up being kids and come through the system at their own pace. The way I see it the NGA is really just a safeguard to make sure junior clubs are encouraging spaces for diversity and multicultural kids aren't at a disadvantage.