Webber

@skort, where or what the *#,&% is Cambodge?

@Timothy Reddan-A'Blew also an outstanding handle.

Really want to know the origin of yours, @Engorged Onion…...aroused cooking or something springs to mind! Mine I’m sad to say is my surname, just seemed appropriate to the internet. Boring.

We finished second on the ladder with the hardest draw, have a ‘seconds’ team who dominated the competition, have just recruited the 2nd best ruckman in the league, and a B&F winner at a recent Premiership club. Up to our necks in it. Outside of injuries, the burden of expectation is our biggest hurdle to winning 1 or 2 more in the next 3-4 years.

Lachie Hunter is an outstanding footballer. If he gets his behaviour sorted, it’s an enormous win. The only point I can see with Schache is as a replacement for Mitch Brown. He’s not reliable AFL standard. Back-up only.

Yep.Three pure goal kickers all at 192cm would do it.

It isn’t, it’s an inflammatory irritation of the bone to fascial (connective tissue) attachment. https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjsgqbBurT6AhVdS2wGHRUzAZcQFnoECAsQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.physio-pedia.com%2FPlantar_Fasciitis&usg=AOvVaw1c5pYz2Y6hlA-lDHZ9bqit

You had plantar fasciitis, rpfc. It’s a nasty sucker. Better now?

Wasn’t aware that he had been diagnosed with plantaris tear, but it doesn’t cause foot pain, nor (after being treated or removed) should it affect strength-power function in push-off for running or jumping, other than relating to pain. If he had persistent soleus-gastroc issues, then that would explain it better. Plantaris is undoubtedly a niggle muscle, but not much more other than acutely.

Didn’t see that particular thing, but it appears (with provided hindsight) a lot of the players were ‘playing injured’ this season, to the extent that it limited their output, and progressively. The maxim of questions regarding playing ‘through injury’ is ultimately pretty simple- can I perform, to what level, and how will I be affected during the game? The deal-breaker question, at least before finals, is - will this get progressively worse if I keep playing? If that falls closer to the ‘no’ side, and the former is considered acceptable diminishment (a very squishy, subjective judgement), then A - graders in particular will keep playing - Max with his NQR ankle, Lever with ? plantar fasciitis, Salem with knee, Tracc being crook mid-season, and so on. As has been prosecuted on here, the club might have misjudged the need to ‘rest and rotate’ during the season, at least before we got to our must win last few rounds. This ‘misjudgement’ seems worse because of the all-conquering Casey season. Doubtless they’ll look to a new approach next season. For Geelong, it was so much easier, because what turned out to be an easy fixture fell into their home-ground gifted lap.

No idea. It’s the question that’s sensible, the answer I suspect is more complex.

For all of you who reckon it’s about game plan, tactics, method, personnel, unwarranted faith in certain players, etc, please explain why our first halves from round 11 onward were premiership standard, and our second halves for the same period, 16th in the AFL. It’s just not logical to blame things that are proven to work for 2 quarters, which if applied equally for the other 2 quarters, would have put us in the Grand Final no doubt. There’s only ONE sensible question to be answered. Just one. Why were our first halves so gruesomely unsustainable from round 11 onwards?

That’s how it would appear. But can it be that simple? I’m inclined to think it can’t be, because if so, it’d be one of the greatest failures of fundamental preparation I can recall. Mental fatigue a factor maybe. Goody suggested as much. Either way, it’s just a staggering stat.

Two associated salient facts that beg for explanation - 1. On a ladder of ‘second half only’ results from Round 11, we came 16th, above only North and West Coast. This is frankly staggering considering how obvious and contrary it is to fact 2. 2. Ladder of first halves for same Rounds, top 4. Which confirms the following. Firstly, many of the factors people are blaming for our season demise are simply not a problem in the first half of those games - skill, pressure, forward connection, etc. Secondly, something went drastically and horribly awry in our planning and processes for the second half of the season to be a bottom 3 performer in second halves of games. Anyone any theories? And I’d beware making statements about fact 1 that are contradicted by fact 2.

Well at least we’ve got the death of a monarch and our longest serving head of state to distract us. Too soon? (Long live the King!)

Cos he’s our best contested mark, and by a looooong way.

Sadly, our second half of the year has to be seen as a massive capitulation, and that game was the perfect capper. A team we smacked twice this year, badly undermanned, and they made us look like utter amateurs in that second half. Can’t win at our home ground, get easily rolled in our second halves, and when oppositions come hard with the pressure, we go belly up, retreating into our slow methodical attacking strategy with a massive attack of the panics down back. None of the fast, rolling waves of possession, just fumbly, horrible rubbish that gets easily turned over. Dunno how it happened, but it’s absolutely there for all to see. Shattered for the boys, cos I reckon they’ve got no idea how it happened either. Here’s the other thing, and I’ll definitely sound like a smartarse saying it, but HARRY PETTY IS A FORWARD. I’ve been saying it for 4 years. You don’t waste great marking competitive beasts like him down back. Next year, peeps!

What a disgraceful umpiring performance. A mockery

Getting comically bad now.

Yep. Sad to watch. A mere shadow of who they were. Like a training drill now.

That’s a trend. Oppo forward 50 pressure and we crumble. Very predictable.

Good God, this is agony. Watching this absolutely great premiership bunch fumble and hobble their way to a straight sets exit.

I have a horrible feeling we’re just gonna try and hold this 22 point margin, and not go hard and fast to really seal the deal. I’m not sure we can ramp it up anyway, as our second halves have a habit of proving. Lions a big chance from here….

To be blunt, America’s sporting culture has nothing to do with ours, particularly considering both codes are solely nationalised. The AFL is a behemoth that has expanded the national game with more teams and continued to be the financial envy of all our other sporting codes. Things may change, and fixturing needs to sorted out, but there should and will be both a Tassie team and a NT team in the future. Every team that’s been added since the VFL 12 has been met with the ‘too many teams’ cry, and each time it relies on the bizarre assumption that there must a ‘perfect’ number’ into perpetuity.

Great casting again boys. Optimism rules…..at least for now! Just to be a pedant, a hairline or any other kind of fracture of the fibula has nothing to do with ‘shin splints’. The fibula IS a weight-bearing bone, though much less than the tibia, and how much depends on foot/ankle angulation.