DeeSpencer

The first and most obvious tweak that’s desperately needed is to allow the man on the mark to move laterally on set shots at goal. Forwards not kicking over the mark is just downright embarrassing. If a forward gets 30 seconds then the defender should get to move side to side. After that the umpires just need to be more alert to players not going back over the man on the mark. If they don’t make a legitimate effort to go back behind the mark it should be play on. The thing I dislike is that the mark used to be a reward for slow play if needed, where quick play ons should’ve been encourage for their risk/reward. Good teams/players rarely stopped and went back behind the mark. I wonder if the umps had purely decided to start paying 50’s every time the man on the mark deliberately went 3m over the mark if it would’ve had the same result. The umps spend all the time saying stand now that they used to use on moving the man on the mark back 3m.

It was the right option just missed the kick, and Birch could’ve done much better to halve it. Birch is very irritating. Excellent at zoning back to fill up space. But then if she’s under pressure she plays for free kicks. Pretty much the AFLW Dylan Grimes. Her own kicking and decision making is ordinary too. The message went out for Lampard to take the kick outs for a reason.

Viney would’ve fetched us a mid 2nd round pick or if we were really luck an end of first round pick. So at best 25ish, and possibly 35 in a draft that was basically a guess after the top picks. I’m sure the club considered moving Viney but to take a loss on a vice captain when you’ve got a decent list would’ve been a huge call. There’s been trade rumours with Gus over the last 2 years. What team was going to give a good pick for a guy without a position, with a history of concussions, a lisfranc injury and on 700k for 2 more years? I’m sure we tried to package him off to Freo but look at their midfield, why would they bother? Gus’ value was most likely the same as Tom Phillips. Ie. close to nothing. Unfortunately players who have career best seasons then struggle as the game shifts away from their style end up with little value. He’s already in the Tyson zone, he has been since the end of 2019. It’s better off trying to develop his game back up.

That’s exactly what happened in the Adelaide game. Brown went off. Kelly then got concussed. And the sub that came on Hinge popped a shoulder then had to play through it. Meant it was 4 v 3 fit players on the bench, rather than 4 v 2, probably kept the Crows in the game. So that’s the positives v the negatives

There's 2 reasons why I don't care about this: 1. Why give St Kilda any inside information any earlier than necessary 2. If Harmes has the surgery they then get a decent prognosis and can report that with more accuracy. And it is another news story and more clicks on the website. It's crappy content but whatever.

Fitness, match fitness - these new draftees haven't played a consistent block of footy for 18 months, then there's a matter of throwing in a tiny defender right away before he's really proven himself at VFL level. It's a lot to ask. As far as I can tell 6 Victorian first year kids made their debuts on the weekend. Berry, Sharp, Bruhn, Cox, Henry, Lazzaro (sub). 5 of those are country kids who likely had less strict lockdowns last year as well. That's probably not a coincidence.

In fairness to Marinoff the only footage I’ve seen of that incident looks like a pure accident with a player not knowing how to protect themselves. I didn’t see a reportable offence. This one is different because Freo didn’t even argue it was a bad tackle, they just wanted the tribunal to ignore clear potential for injury.

Teams don’t need affiliations to be strong, but they do need experienced VFL players and ideally ex AFL players. Port always have plenty of both of those. From what I can see NB have Paul Ahern and Kieran Collins as former AFL players. Unless they’ve got a few more up their sleeve they might be more like the Frankston and Coburg’s than the Willy and Ports. Which is a shame. I still don’t understand how Carlton are saving money by splitting the alliance. Seems to me it will cost them the same amount and they won’t have the existing additional supporter and volunteer base (no matter how small).

Gus with a foot injury at training so might not be an issue

Agree with you it’s not ideal and we should’ve done more over summer (though less convinced on Phillips). But I think Gus’ transition speed kills us more on ball than the wing. If he doesn’t get his hands on it at centre clearances opposition mids spring right past him. Remember we had 2 off the back of the square covering in 2018. We could use Pickett at bounces then swap Gus in from half forward. But then we’re back to who’s playing on the wing? Can’t have Baker. Vanders is similar problems as Gus with the ball (only worse) but a better defensive player. Jordon maybe? Bowey maybe?

Stevo's on the case

She got up holding her neck/shoulder and the medical report confirms ongoing physio. So, it some ways yes but the tribunal deemed that low impact. We all know it's outcome based but when that occurs it means the system is broken. The potential for serious injury here has been completely ignored even though it was considered for Zac Williams in the preseason. And Zac Williams bump was far less likely to actually cause a serious injury.

Hunt's more likely to impact with counter attack runs from the backline at Marvel than the G I think. And against Freo than the Saints. His main issue on the weekend was ground balls, which is a shame because he should be better by now, but if he can find a bit of touch and composure over the ball he'll sort that out. The Saints pressure worries me about him but it worries me about our whole side! And Freo's small forwards were decent with pressure too.

Might be the worst tackle I've ever seen really. The initial tug of the back of the jumper is what they call a horse collar in the NFL. It takes your legs out from under you. Then she finishes it off by flipping her on her neck.

It seems they've used 7 defenders across the last few weeks. FB: Colvin Birch HB: Heath Goldy Lampard Int:Tarrant/ Magee The thing that makes Goldy such a force is that she can play tall or small and rebound. Being so strong allows one of the other defenders - generally Birch but sometimes Lampard or Tarrant to drop back a kick behind play and take easy intercepts. I don't know if they'll go tall with Downie or if they'll trust Tarrant and Magee to play greater roles and bring in Emonson who was struggling defensively but is a beautiful kick and good attacking player.

Turns out the Dangerfield decision isn't the most contentious of the night. Bowers from Freo just got off a horrendous tackle on Eden Zanker. Open season on the Demons??

Well I'm with Danger's lawyer, the Oxford and Macquarie dictionaries and Siri on agreeing this wasn't the definition of severe. I would've graded it as high. But the AFL are scared stiff on concussions right now so severe it is. Actually credit to Danger and his lawyer that they gave up the silly self defence angle.

Hopefully he’s fitter and stronger so can always find a little more of the ball and stay engaged but overall his good outweighed his bad when he played last year. This year he’s probably at least break even with opponents for fitness, should be competitive for strength (relative to size) and whilst not full experienced he shouldn’t be overawed. He’s playing a tough team role and he relies on team mates doing their job to get him the ball. That’s true of every half forward but especially one without a lot of height or elite pace. If he has a quiet day in terms of stats it’s just as likely the rest of the sides fault as it is his.

2 players who enjoy aggression and rightly so. May’s crossed the line before, Kozzie’s game is built on getting to that line, hunting down opponents and crunching them. Danger’s overwhelmingly a ball player. It’s silly to compare a bump that wasn’t even deliberately high to a king hit off the ball. If he wanted to hammer him he would’ve used his shoulder not his own head. Yeah it was aggressive and fast, it’s AFL footy, it’s always aggressive and fast.

Worse unless we got an A grade outside player. Oliver’s not a match winner yet but he is an A grader. His last season was B+. His 2018 was close to A+. He doesn’t have to be Petracca but he can be more Lachie Neale and find more kicks, goals and forward handballs.

In fairness to BW it’s fine to be critical of certain stats. That doesn’t mean it’s being critical of his game. There’s more people complaining about Oliver getting criticised in this thread than there is actual criticism.

He had 15 contested possessions though. So 80% efficiency on 43% of touches contested is great. Similar 301 MG on 10 kicks 25 handballs is completely fine. Should he have kicked more? Maybe once or twice, I’d like to see him get towards a 1:1 ratio and also see him get more handball receives from team mates rather than the other way around. But it was a treat to watch him live, he does some special things.

That’s bad news about Harmes if true. I’d have moved him to the wing for the Brad Hill job and then Viney in. Do we take a risk and give James Jordon a run with job on Hill? Lacks the speed but will run all day. Or do we trust our system to hold up and just rotate the wingers - including Langdon who knows his game well? The Saints counter attack really quickly from half back and hit the goal square. That’s there 2 main ingredients to success that we have to be planning for.

You must really hate Pickett and May if you think this about Danger.