John Crow Batty

Best for people to stay indoors tonight. There may be magpie mayhem. Cops in for a tough night. https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/collingwood-fans-arrested-as-they-leave-the-mcg-20180929-p506v7.html

iy agree.

Pies are tiring.

WC playing like us last week.

Shame too many fans do.

Something happened during or right after the Swans game. He was at his sooky worst then. And the not so satisfactorily explained season ending injury and his disappearance from plain sight is suspicious. If Freo are interested in him then they perhaps are not concerned too much about his injury.

Good to see the Hogan circus finally leave town.

The game will be tough to watch. A good time to do some household jobs I have been putting off for a long time. I might just go for the Magpies to win because last Saturday at halftime my mother in law who lives in Perth called me just to remind me how well WC were playing and lauding their beautiful kicking. Like she never calls me direct unless she normally wants something so obviously a naked example of rubbing it in. I will be more than happy to offer my sympathies if they lose. The only small positive I can wish for.

Being off the park for nearly 2 seasons it is tough to rate him after only a handful of games back. Can he become a more refined and accomplished player and what do the Swans see in him? Is it them chasing him or mutual attraction? I suspect they are mainly interested in his toughness and he did kick three goals against them recently amongst some good contested footy. And life may be be easier for him up north. Sad he may want to leave after the clubs patience during his long injury breaks and then quickly cementing a regular spot on his return.

Every time I hear something about Hogan, Brendon Fevola crosses my mind. It’s like an ear worm that won’t go away. And Fevola hasn’t played for a long long time.

What’s the use of having endurance players who are permanently chasing 5 metres behind their opponent, getting caught with the ball and lay only one tackle between them? It was obvious Tyson and Jones were an identified liability against the WC outside run.

We need a decent chop out for Gawn also. He gets shagged out at seasons end and if he goes down there’s no reasonable replacement. No way to plan to win a flag with a tired ruckman or no replacement.

I am sure there were mental scars from our past two Collingwood drubbings persisting. Seeing Collingwood do the same to Richmond and then next day having to backup a win at the toughest road trip in the business after a hard four weeks and in 26 degree heat was too much. They were facing two extreme challenges. One the Perth hothouse and then the mental scarring of the Collingwood losses and their red hot form if they got through. They flamed out and gave up. The GF hype got too much and didn’t want to face up to the pies again. I can’t see any other reasonable explanation for this inexplicable performance.

Either he is playing injured or Father Time has caught up with him. Similar performances in the first couple of rounds of 2019 will be the end of his career. And he ain’t no wingman. He is gifted someone else’s spot to fit him in.

We didn’t turn against the filth on arguably our biggest game of 2017, R23 and our big marquee game of 2018, QB and in red hot form after winning six in a row. Seeing them demolish Richmond like they did to us twice would have been disturbing. They saw the bone pointed at them.

You don’t think the players watched Friday nights game and some of them might have exclaimed “[censored]” or “holy shyte? The job suddenly became too hard.

Too worried about Collingwood. Sometime between Friday and game time the focus shifted.

Teams usually have vice captains for those kind of scenarios. A tried and tested method of the ages.

Certain players? It was a collective capitulation. The flaky leadership failed to prevent it.

Has anyone at the club the courage to give Jones a tap on the shoulder?

A theory I am entertaining is that the players were spooked by the Collingwood/Richmond game. They were expecting a Richmond win and Collingwoods stunning performance brought back dark thoughts. Mental demons from Round 23 and QB reappeared. They saw the headlights coming and checked out before the game. I had a hard time getting to sleep after that game thinking about this scenario occurring.

I was worried about him and Tyson before the game. Both painfully slow.

We played the first quarter like we expecting no pressure but came big time causing fumbles and turnovers big time.

Jones is finished. Best he retires to Casey.