Webber

The stats show that the Perth and Adelaide teams get a free kick bonanza against interstate teams. It's an embarrassment to the AFL, particularly in light of the umps not being 'full-time' professionals like the players. I don't think today's were any worse than usual, it's just that a win was at stake, which is recently oh so rare. So just the usual 3-4 goal a game SA and WA umpire bias factor today, making the victory that much more special. And the worst decision?........Bail's 'non-mark' I'd say.

How long since we've won in Perth or Adelaide? A MASSIVE win, umps are worth 3-4 goals a game to the home side in these cities, given their one-sided interpretation of holding the ball and blindness to other obvious infringements against the visitors. Makes the current situation of non full time umps in this competition a continuing embarrassment. Great work, Dees!

Funny how often I've seen the 'best game ever' applied to Matt Jones. I reckon he's the most underrated/forgotten man in this current list. Thankfully the decision makers at the club know his worth, and he will be finishing top 5 in the b n f again thus far. He is a good decision maker, has very good disposal, despite the blind bleatings on here to the contrary, and gets a fair bit of it. What I really like though, is his performance in the contest, either through traffic or one on one, where he often makes light work of much higher profile opponents. He will however, never get the recognition he deserves on here, and I'm b******d if I know why.

Setting standards.....all good.

Benefit of the doubt? It's rarely given to any players on here, and very very begrudgingly.

I reckon that's true. Good teams with a recent history of success, and built in on field leadership can make a coach's life much easier. It's the coaches who drag teams from the depths and construct success that are the most impressive......Alistair Clarkson, and probably at the moment, Ken Hinkley.

As I have deanox. We move on.

ray, you and Moonshadow are in complete and utter ignorance of the privacy details of my anecdote and yet you continue to ply your presumptions with a pedantry which is too often seen on here. You overstate your objections ("we all do") and claim the moral high ground when in fact you're in quicksand. There is no mistake, nor offence, nor breach. If you are not 'comfortable' then that is YOUR issue, not mine.

Have you imagined for a second that said details, in fact the anecdote entire and with much greater detail, has been made public, and to a much greater readership (actually listenership) than that on here, by the footballer at the heart of the anecdote? (No names!) Do you know the person, and how he feels about the anecdote, and it's public reiteration? Unless you can answer yes to these questions, your objections, your spectacularly condescending and preachy posting of Vic Health Records Act, are an exercise in pure grandstanding at the very least. Your imputations of offence and unprofessionalism could not be more misplaced.

I guess after 25 years in a profession, maybe it's just too crazy still to think I might have some idea. Lucky I've got the moral arbiters on demonland to keep me on my toes

Haha, unfortunately, many of them were seemingly indestructible...

I guess it's not the time to spill the real truth on Dermie's broken 'johnson' episode then?

You're barking up the wrong tree, Moonshadow. You can take it from me that AC couldn't give a rats a*** about me telling an anecdote from his fascinating injury file. Maybe it's time you got another hobby.

Without getting too detailed BB, the midfoot is critical to the 'rigid lever' that the foot must become to allow power in push off, thus for running and jumping. It also must have the flexibility to allow deformation of the foot during weightbearing prior to push off. The navicular is the keystone of the arch which forms the rigid lever. If it's suspect, the whole transfer of power is inhibited. If JT's nav heals without issues of blood supply being affected, there's no reason he can't make a full recovery, and that would include complete power capabilities. If the midfoot was unstable either biomechanically or as a conscious lack of trust in it, he would certainly present with those symptoms, but there are a bunch of other pathologies that could give the same symptoms.

Foremost in my thoughts, Oneday.

"On the evidence they had at the time, it was the wrong one". Did you mean to write that? If they HAD evidence 'at the time' of a navicular fracture, they would have acted as they have now. They didn't, isn't that obvious? I'm defending the application of reason to this situation. Some want to hear it, some don't. ;-)

50% is way underestimated Nutbean. As an example of player complicity in the process, when HFC's Andy Collins was at his and the club's 90's glory years, I had seen him on a Thursday with follow up on some injury I don't remember. He mentioned in passing that he'd got a knock to his chest in his last game, but by the time I saw him, soreness had gone. So, move on, no issue, doesn't need treatment. AC was notoriously a hardnut. I bullied him into getting an X-ray. The results hadn't arrived by selection time. I checked with Andy, he said he had the X-ray, and the radiologist said no probs, but didn't know what had happened to the report. Anyway, no symptoms (according to Andy). He played, came back next week with more soreness, another X-ray, showed a rib crack. He never had the X-ray, as was desperate to play that week particularly. I

Given that missed opportunities are always possible in our business, why fuel the fire that in this situation it may be the case, based on no knowledge of JT's management?

Again Master, what makes you think they weren't looking at the 'overall picture'?!! Sometimes, the answers and reasons elude EVERYBODY, because of the limitations of science, which you rightly acknowledge. The alternative management is that JT presents with 'niggling discomfort' (a constant for AFL footballers), and some drop in physical performance, which the Med staff ( all of them, in consultation with each other) can't find an answer for (because the answers aren't always there), so decide just to rest him completely from football. Would you be happy with that? Or might you be complaining that JT isn't playing, but nobody knows what's wrong with him?

At the elite level particularly, pain is not always the presenting symptom when things aren't what they were (speed, kicking distance). There are biomechanical factors which, when in dysfunction, will cause diminished function, but not pain.

Then you can explain firstly what you mean by 'pure Physio principles', as I've not heard of them, and why you imagine the physios at MFC don't have advanced post grad knowledge of and experience with the sporting foot? Your comments imply that there is an essential absence of understanding of foot pathology, diagnosis and management at the MFC. Or maybe you're suggesting that orthopaedics is an imperfect science.

Absolutely deanox. Lots he can work on. Unfortunately running is the core of footy, and that's a slow road back.

You're onto it Nutbean. There's a misunderstanding on here that the 'absolute' exists for diagnosis, and treatment. It's not a perfect science, by some enormous margin. The imperfections of diagnostic testing are frustrating, be it MR, bone scan, X-ray, ultrasound, etc. Without evidence provided by the above, you're dealing with 'subjective' symptoms, and some objective evidence, e.g. Loss of power/speed, of which there can be a multitude of causes. Many bone pathologies need to reach a threshold of significance to become detectable to any of the battery of tests we can throw at them. Prior to that, you're dealing with possibilities only, for which there is no management plan. I'm relieved for JT, and clearly so is he, that he has a definitive pathology now, for which there is a DEFINITIVE management plan, and for which the outcomes are mostly completely successful. There ARE exceptions, such as Egan and Croad. Egan's I don't know about, but Croad's became well known in the industry as being remarkable for the extent of midfoot damage he suffered. His career was over the moment he came to grief. Navicular fractures are not uncommon, and NOT isolated to the MFC, nor more prevalent at the MFC.

As one of them myself Nasher, I'm finding that very hard to believe.

TGR, what exactly is your knowledge of physiotherapy, be it undergraduate, and postgraduate study and treatment of foot pathologies? What are you imagining when you say we think we can apply 'pure Physio principles' to the foot? Your statements are vague and clearly uninformed. And don't reply with anecdotal, singular first hand experience or second hand waffle. Give me some reason to think you're not just spinning nonsense.