John Crow Batty

Masterclass of centre bounce clearances by Oliver and Petracca. 18 to 9 is 2021 stuff….um!

Goodwin’s biggest failure was recruiting too many players outside the first round draft to become spare parts rather than to be developed into future regulars. Hence the same favoured players played every week irrespective of form. Look at the difference to who we recruited after he left.

2025 MRP results. 390 charges. Average per club 21.6. Collingwood 9. 36 suspensions. Average 2 per club. Collingwood 1. 345 fines. Average 19 per club. Collingwood 7. 9 charges dismissed. 0.5 per club. Collingwood 1. https://www.zerohanger.com/2025-afl-suspensions-mro-and-tribunal-tracker/

All the post game media I have seen or heard so far this week is all about Carlton’s capitulation and nothing much of our comeback to win. What’s really impressive is our spirit shown so far in two practice games and over three rounds. Even in our loss despite a poor start against Freo we fought the game out and then last Sunday was enormous. I’m pleased that media keep us under the radar. Most pundits think we are still a bottom four side with Matthew Lloyd calling us weak. Reality so far is we are much better than that but a lot more improvement needed. I hope GC will be slurping the bathwater this week.

Looks like we are back to “ learnings”

Has not played a seniors game this season. Is not on their injury list. Looks like spare parts will be his lot. I am a little dirty on him. Jumped ship when we were struggling to go to the club he supported.

These are the kind of poor teams that frequently embarrassed us. Happens all too often.

Brings mongrel to his game only when he plays against his brother.

The AFL should have forced Geelong to standardise their ground dimensions to be in line with other AFL approved playing surfaces when Kardinia park was redeveloped. Is currently the extreme outlier to every other AFL ground in the country with its enormous length, narrow width, ruler straight outer wing and deep tight pockets. This gives the home side an enormous unfair advantage. Geelongs winning percentage is 84% at home where a normal home ground should be nowhere near that extreme.

I found this interesting chart on teams playing Geelong at Geelong. Looks quite damning and the big drawing Melbourne based clubs have a hard time finding their way to sleepy hollow. The corruption of the draw is sickening.

We were mugged twice at the start of the game and after half time with Freo’s frenetic game that put early and later distance points on the board to leave us too far behind to catch up when they eased up. We were just not prepared. We approached the game with too much confidence this week. Lacking a gorilla forward will also give us grief plenty of times this season. Most players tried had but team work lost shape.

Very impressed with JVR’s laser guided boot today. Every goal dead straight and two from outside 50 as well. That was almost Darren Bennet like.

Langford twice just jogging and not chasing.

So true. Arguably the top 8 “darling” teams got the gig in Round 0. All the northern expansion teams and the VIC powerhouses.