DeeSpencer

I think more crude that deliberate. Brayshaw was running away from Hartlett. He couldn't dive straight in his back and I don't think he had the leverage or strength to halt his momentum and drag him down on his side. I think the lift was an attempt to get Brayshaw off balance to then tackle him but Brayshaw slipped out forward and Harlett ended up slamming the pair of them down on Brayshaw's knee.

For the amount that I rubbish McDonald I will admit his endurance is certainly a weapon that allows him to play high minutes and get up and down the ground. Dunn can mainly camp back which is fine and Jetta and Garland have both been working on fitness I believe. Which is important because they need to play a high percentage of game time whilst also contributing more rebound than last year.

90 rotations means you'll need heaps of on ground rotations. Every player has to be able to contribute to the midfield minutes and either spend time forward or back. Or in other words play 2 positions. I'd start the team like this (and the names aren't all that important): FB: Jetta Dunn Garland HB: ### McDonald #### C: ### #### #### HF: ### Hogan #### FF: #### #### #### Int: ##### #### #### #### Every player not named has to have 2 positions. So you probably want 3 more defenders who can also push up in to the midfield (ie. Salem, Bugg, Lumumba). 5 or 6 more forwards who can go in to the midfield - Garlett, Kent, Vanders, Watts etc. And the rest of the team midfielders who can go either one way, or even better both forward and back.

Good old Telstra giving something back for customers. Enjoy. What's that sound? Is it thousands calling up to cancel their foxtel subscriptions? https://www.telstra.com.au/tv-movies-music/sport/sports-offer-eoi

The AFL covers the costs of the matches, probably with help from the local governments, the local club involved and sponsors. That money comes from members buying their memberships, which are the lifeblood of clubs, which in turn are the reason the AFL exists. Plus the other stake holders then make the money back in food and merchandise sales. Ticketek can certainly be a business but I bet you they are pocketing that $5 on behalf of organising the tickets and then pocketing another $3.50 for the processing fee. I've asked the MCC before about reserve seating for games which is usually $15 and they assure me the ticketing company takes almost all of it. They are archaic businesses set up back when computers were the size of a room and printers cost a months wages. Big sporting leagues stick with them because they do free advertising and promotion and take away a hassle, but they are an absolute rort on fans. When you go to the movies you can book the ticket online and it's often covered in the price of the movie and you can print it out yourself. A small cost to reserve a ticket in this case is reasonable, but not $8.50, that's how much a preseason match should cost in total, not one that's meant to be free.

Sounds like more than just a straight medial strain, but still not huge damage. Best case scenario is round 1 after conservative management. Worst case (given nothing else goes wrong) he might need a clean out and have to miss a few early rounds. In which case the long term prognosis might not be great if he has to have too much cartilage shaved off. Then again, get him in the stem cell trial and it will heal up fine.

No but he's the only one the AFL clubs trust. Kind of silly. But they've picked their man so they stay with him.

Agree. The Hawks don't care much about contested marks inside 50, they value forward pressure and quick ball movement far more and Roughead and Gunston (who also go in to the midfield) get much more ball on the lead and roving than they do via contested marks. Part of that comes from the teams brilliant skills, but their skills are mainly from half back, Smith, Hill, Rioli, Puopolo are all known to just bomb the chaos ball inside 50 and it still works because all their forwards are quick (except maybe the resting ruck but Hale and McEvoy know to get out of the way) and smart as well. The question will be whether we are better off with Pedersen taking on average 1-2 marks inside 50 and probably kicking 1 extra goal a week as a marking target or Frost's speed. I think we need to see what Watts, Vanders and in time Petracca bring and work out what goes best with that mix.

They both deserve it. They are in the best 30 or so midfielders in the comp. Hogan is in the best 10 forwards. Not sure we've got any of the best 10 defenders. A few rucks get squeezed in somewhere as well and I'd probably have Goldy, Sandi and probably Nic Nat, maybe Jacobs. Mumford if fit. Gawn's challenge is to break free of the pack and in to that conversation. Half a season doesn't have him there yet but hopefully he can step up.

This first game seems to have "extras - true" http://live.cricket.com.au/#/1552/38906 This second one seems to have "extras - false" http://live.cricket.com.au/#/1513/38394 The same scorecard on cricinfo doesn't have true or false. http://www.espncricinfo.com/australia/engine/match/895955.html I think it's likely a cricket.com.au thing. Send them a tweet or email to find out.

I'm watching the replay of the 3rd quarter. The standout feature so far has been smart footy outside of the packs. Not always clean and perfect, but when we've got the ball players are running to space and moving the ball on, when we don't have the ball players are finding opponents and reading the play ahead of time to cover off each other. It's no longer mad chooks running around after the player with the ball. Play A will move up to pressure, player B will notice this and go cover the next player in the chain and so on and so on. Sounds simple, but it's a huge change from what we've been lacking and it comes about from having a group buy in to chase and pressure not just individuals. More overall speed certainly doesn't hurt either!

Dawes is a little smarter than Pedersen but he's far from a great reader of the play, he's not a good kick for goal at all and who knows what role he can play. Given he's not suited to being 2nd ruck and he won't be the focal point it's hard to say what role suits him. Anyway, we've been over this many times. I will say that Pedersen looks fitter than he ever has been at this time of year. He seemed to compete ok in the ruck contests he was involved in. Took a couple of nice grabs and slotted the goals. And didn't stuff up much else (one bad inside 50 kick that turned a near certain goal in to a lot of work for Vanders). He's got the lead on Frost as the 2nd forward/ruck at this stage.

He's exciting as a midfielder but I think Vanders is better as a half forward at this stage and the team is much better having him there. I think he and Watts make a nice combination for the 3rd and 4th taller options. Watts brings the skills and poise and doesn't play to his height, Vanders brings the hammer and can hopefully play above his height.

3 fines = a week off I believe

To simplify the system impact means both the result and the physical force (which they somehow use video to determine). So if I walked up and slapped you with an open hand and you were knocked out that would be high (or severe) impact. And if I king hit you Barry Hall style and you were ok that would probably still be high impact based on the force. Certainly though I think low impact is fair in this case. The only way to argue this one is to say it wasn't a reportable offense as Young contributed most of the sling. Which if it was the deciding factor of him missing a week I'd have a go at contesting.

I want both, the arms pinned and a player taken to ground. But I want the player taken to ground on their side and with their weight going through their hips. The grounds won't be so hard as to have many broken hips! It's the dangerous motions of getting a player to ground that causes the head injuries. So if the arms are pinned don't drive the player through the ground. Don't lift them and put them over horizontal and don't sling. Particularly don't do all 3 which Gibbs did to Robbie Gray last year! I still don't think the AFL have gone in to enough explanation about what tackling techniques they are banning. The definition on slinging and driving players in to the ground seems very much based on how it looks and not on technical points. If they explained it more everyone would get a reference point for what is a good hard tackle that can still result in injury but is legal and what is deemed dangerous.

It's not just what he does with the ball that annoys me but his defending just isn't that good. It's plateaued, which I think is on Jade Rawlings (and Tom). I really want to see more aerial dominance in his game. By that I mean strong marking when the situation is right and strong definitive punching of the ball when it's called for. Too often he runs in to contests with his first extended instead of making a strong leap and punch of the ball. Garland is the same. And he flies for marks when the situation calls for a safe punch. Robbie Gray got a goal on the weekend where he tried to mark instead of just clearing the ball with a strong punch. I'm not sure he can punch with his left fist either, which might be injury related. I can handle a few stuff ups with the ball in hand if he's owning CHB as he was in the first half of the year last year when he was like a wall.

You can't have tackling without bringing players to ground. The only way to stop someone like Ablett or Fyfe is to hit them hard enough with initial force to get them to ground, otherwise they'll get their arms free and get the ball out eventually. Not brining the player to the ground is cuddling not tackling. The AFL should focus on dangerous lifting tackles and dangerous pile driving tackles when a player has their arms locked up. Slinging is dangerous as well, but they'd want to be very careful when pinging someone like Oliver for a sling where the player with the ball really initiated the slinging motion, had his arms free and wasn't lifted. Having watched it yet again I can concede it wasn't the perfect tackle, but there were enough contributing factors that even if Young was injured I'd be angry if it came with a suspension. The focus shouldn't only be on the tackler, the player getting tackler has to know how to look after themselves as well and that goes for AFL players and kids. I'd tell Clarry to try and cut down the rotational slinging motion in his tackle, but to keep using his weight and the players own body weight to bring guys to ground.

I was impressed by the way he spread at speed, used the ball much more creatively by hand and mostly didn't waste it by foot. Not exactly shocked he got a lot of the footy with Gawn dominating so much. He'll definitely be in the leadership group and hopefully keeps elevating his game. The question for the coaches will be whether Bugg plays as a tagger or if they use Vince and Viney in that role for the right match ups at the right time again. Viney would be a good match up for Dylan Shiel who is one of the most damaging midfielders in the comp, but then again so would Bugg.

I think he's right in the picture to play wing. Probably battling for 2 spots with Stretch, Lumumba and Matt Jones. In congestion he's rubbish, hence the out on the fulls and holding the ball. He just can't escape pressure at all. But his work rate still gives us something that we need and there's not a lot of alternatives. Polec had 14 touches, Ebert had 15, after a fast start opposed to Matt Jones from what I could tell, Toumpas finished with 17 touches. Grimes will do the work to restrict those players been used as outlets and his run should create space for others as well.

Win games. The rest will sort itself out. We won't be winning many games without utilising his skill set and if we aren't winning games then it probably won't matter. Hogan seemed to sit pretty deep on the weekend. No doubt the club not trying to over tax him in the first hit out. He'll come up the ground and get involved more. He's going to have to deal with some poor delivery and I don't think that will bother him all that much as long as he gets his chances. He's always grinning when his mates Kent or Harmes get a goal and I think he has no problem with dishing the ball off when needed.

Just watched the replay. Yeah there's a bit of a slinging motion but Young attempts to stop and spin around Oliver who doesn't pin the arms, doesn't lift him and doesn't pile drive him. We're in trouble if that's a dangerous tackle because you're mostly penalising a bloke for being harder and stronger not for dangerous technique.

Would love to sign Cale Hooker as a free agent then trade McDonald out. That's a very unlikely result but we can dream.

Typical Watts good game. Lots of positives - some really nice kicks to team mates. Some clever positioning. Underrated clean pick ups hitting the ball at speed. And a few decent marks as well. Mixed in with the usual negatives - the one late brain fade and a couple of other strange moments with the ball and at least a couple of marking attempts where he went up one handed and protected himself instead of winning the contest. I'm all for him being clever with tapping the ball to team mates etc but if it clearly doesn't come off then it's bad play to not back himself to stand under it. He's got to get the balance right and at this stage I'd say go up two handed and attacking the ball and once he's mastered that he can try fancier things.

Need to see a replay but at this stage I can't believe his tackle would be anything more than a free kick. He didn't pin the arms and there wasn't a double movement. Any slinging aspect should be blamed on the player with the ball as much as the tackler. If you can't keep your balance, evade or dispose of the ball without getting hurt then don't get the ball!