bing181

Desperately need Lever back in. Not just for the intercepts, but to organise and steady things down back. That Stringer goal where he just ran into an open space to mark would never have happened with Lever out there. Smith, Rivers and Hunt ... OK, but they need directing.

Sounds like Lever is still at least 2 weeks away as well: “Jake is still experiencing a bit of swelling and pain in his foot. We thought he might be playing as early as this week, but that won’t be the case. It looks like he’ll need at least need another week, which is disappointing, but we don’t want to risk anything there.”

Also, though perhaps in a lesser measure, Bernie Vince. I think people forget how lacking we were for senior players of any kind of quality across that period.

In part because of Max and what he brings, both as player and captain.

Says something when JVR, playing his first real game, does better than someone who's been in the system for 6 years. You would think that Weideman has been given every support and every chance, but he doesn't seem to have made much progress. OK, early in the year, but it's been early in the year for a number of years now without any of those years leading to him getting closer to becoming a reliable AFL footballer.

“The cord that tethers ability to success is both loose and elastic. It is easy to see fine qualities in successful books or to see unpublished manuscripts, inexpensive vodkas, or people struggling in any field as somehow lacking. It is easy to believe that ideas that worked were good ideas, that plans that succeeded were well designed, and that ideas and plans that did not were ill conceived. And it is easy to make heroes out of the most successful and to glance with disdain at the least. But ability does not guarantee achievement, nor is achievement proportional to ability. And so it is important to always keep in mind the other term in the equation—the role of chance.” ― Leonard Mlodinow, The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives

"I would like to apologise to everyone for my disgusting and disgraceful comments ... I am deeply ashamed of my behaviour". https://twitter.com/tommorris32/status/1504712826665185282?s=20&t=5sPphoUjfaYVFQ10u7AUQA

Re Lever etc, there were some interesting comments from May about talking and directing on-field. He said that he focuses on the 2 or 3 deep backs who are around him, while Lever and to a lesser extent Salem set up/direct the higher backs and mids dropping back to defend. Perhaps an argument for getting Lever back in ASAP, especially with Salem out.

Perhaps, and hope you're right. Equally though, Smith is 26 (albeit just), it's not as if he has most of his career in front of him.

If anyone's having trouble with the code, drop the club a line. It's a BS system in my opinion, and very flakey. My code never worked this year, but I got a message from WatchAFL saying that they were having problems with some codes/members. (presumably not just MFC). In the meantime they'd rolled over my subscription from last year so I'm good to go, but my code never worked. Amongst all that I lost the first 3 weeks of the women's AFL.

The self-belief in the team is palpable. Remarkable to see, mentally they're just so strong (collectively).

Existing Covid vaccines don't contain human foetal material. But I don't believe that had anything to do with Darling's objections in any case.

Yep, only 500+ per day dying now. All good.

To reply to my own question/comment: I never got the voucher to work, but one day when I went online it said I had a valid subscription. It seems that the vouchers didn't work for some users. Not going to go through this again next year though, will just do WatchAFL directly. Subscribing through the AFL/club has been flakey as all hell for me, and nothing changes from one year to the next.

Perhaps, but some not. What the hell was Viney thinking!

I don't believe for one minute that this won't hurt for the players. OK, makeshift backline, but it was sloppy, undisciplined and unfocused. Not good on any level (except the constant feeling that we could be/should be playing so much better).

Plus May. The other point that with May as the anchor, the other players back there have a reference point and can play and structure up accordingly - and do so week after week so they hone their systems. None of that on display today.

It reduces transmission. Info confirming this is available on the health.gov.au site ... if you'd bothered to (really) look. "a marked reduction of transmission following vaccination".

I'd go with Jurrah as well. We only had a glimpse of what he was capable of.

It has been fairly widely known for months, but he can only be stood down or whatever once the mandate came into force in WA - which was this week.

Just checking here for subscribers that: - people have received their codes - the codes work (!). Got mine yesterday, but showing "voucher not valid".

"vaccine effectiveness estimates against symptomatic Omicron infection of between 0% and 20% after two doses, and between 55% and 80% after a booster dose." https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/232698/omicron-largely-evades-immunity-from-past/ Only one study, but still. (agree about the shambles part.)

Perhaps. In theory, we should be on the decline by then. Against that, from what we've seen Covid is also seasonal and peaks over the winter months, so perhaps we'll start to get a new wave building through autumn. What might help though is booster shots - I assume that a lot of players would be ready for boosters by the time the season starts. Boosters really seem to have an impact, at least in keeping symptoms down and shortening infection period.

They are not flatlining, far from it. FJ just ignores facts when they don't fit his narrative (such as it is). (Graph below shows a 7-day rolling average, daily admissions figure is higher. And increasing.)

Hmm. While figures are lower than the worst periods from last year, with these massive case numbers there are starting to be a LOT of people in hospital and, worryingly, intensive care. e.g. in France, nearly 70% of the total number of intensive care beds are taken up by Covid patients, increasing by over 400 per day. And only going to get worse.