bing181

Dreading the news that someone is a late withdrawal ...

Tomlinson lucky IMV. Hope Joel Smith is only a contact and not a positive (same for Ben Brown).

... and retain the current list (Brayshaw and Jackson the two possible concerns).

If Brown is back, McDonald out. The days of Tom getting 20 possessions and bobbing up all over the ground seem well behind him, he just doesn't seem to have the mobility or presence of a season or so back. File under Melksham, except that McDonald still has a couple of seasons on his (new) contract.

For mine, Tomlinson has gone back to the "why did we trade for him?" player of a couple of seasons back, an almost player without any standout qualities. It's true he'd got it together at the beginning of last season, but he hasn't recaptured that form post-injury and doesn't seem to be improving either.

Brown won't come in, he's only out of quarantine on Thursday, and will have had a week without full training. Could be wrong, but I'd be surprised.

Anyone available comes in in the backline. Hopefully Lever, desperately need to get things a bit more organised down there, but suspect it'll be another week from comments on the footy show. Thursday will come around quickly.

He was better when he was just the small forward. He's now playing up the ground more, where all his energy is just wasted. He's a burst player, and the best place for that is around the goals.

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.