John Crow Batty

Players used to be shorter but they were relatively naturally physically stronger for their size. Thats why Gordon Coventry and Bob Pratt could play key full forward roles despite being at the average midfielder size these days. Men in the old days were used to daily hard physical exertion and daily incidental exercise since they were children and not when they started gym work as teenagers as many do these days after relatively less physically challenging childhoods.

Demons 4, Adelaide Umpires 0.

The Eagles need to do a complete clean out of their off field coaching, administration and personnel. Thats where their major problems lie. Talks of assistance should not happen until they demonstrate they have made the hard decisions and demonstrated genuine efforts and hard yardage to restore their standing with the bountiful resources the club still possesses which make the majority of other clubs appear to be paupers in comparison. They also have good young talent to work with already and don’t deserve any extra assistance.

Umpire votes are cast at the end of games. Like at the end of any hard day at work, the last chore is done quickly so one can go home. I doubt much discussion and thought is given to the task. That’s the lot of Brownlow votes.

Flawed system that weights theoretical perfection and what ifs over the reality that in our game errors and chaos are a constant and ignores the rule that game play always resets after a score or stoppage. Kicking ten behinds in a row does not mean ten goals were missed. It only means a behind was scored after the last behind only.

There would be few umpires who have the guts to call out a player running off his line kicking after the siren. Consciously placing themselves to be heavily scrutinised and swamped with vituperation. Has it ever happened before?

I bet their spiritual home is Snowtown.

Certainly our gutsiest win for a long time. Only disappointment was conceding 89 points.

My wife dubbed Adelaide as the city of bad hair many years ago.

Yep we need a strong start. A close game at the death will see us get ripped off by the weak willed umpires succumbing to the feral fans. Happens to most close games in Adelaide. A fast start by us will shut them up.

Looking at the Sportsbet odds, Port at $1.46 and Demons $2.66 indicates punters see us as a significant underdog. I don’t recall odds like this since 2020.

Many fans hoped that scores were not too close at the end of games so that they could leave early in junk time and avoid the car park exit gridlock.

Becoming so predictable now. Big name player gets suspended. Tribunal hands out get out of jail free card.

Impressed with BBB’s mobility. Shades of 2021. At one stage in the third quarter he was deep in the back pocket hustling the ball over the boundary line. No one seemed to notice.

Can see why we let Harmes go. Too slow.

Actually that’s a good idea. Place the financial responsibility on the offenders club. Medical expenses, payouts, legal fees and every other associated costs.

That said, Fullarton replaced Grundy, let's see how he goes.” I have less confidence with Fullarron than with Schache as a back up ruckman. In three seasons, 19 games for 50 hit outs. Is this guy a ruckman?

If we won the clearance battle and won the game no one would have noticed Gawn getting monstered. It happens most games. Only seems an issue when we lose.

Viney, the good, the bad and the ugly. Forward line, the bad and the ugly. The rest just ugly.

JVR looks like his feet are stuck in quicksand

Relieved the season is finally starting. Took a long break from posting here. The ugliness of late last season and the post season for too many reasons was too depressing to even think about let alone writing about it. Looking forward to a spirited response from the boys to expunge all the negative stuff.

Just looking at it seems like we are more or less where we were at the end of last season with key outs and that was not a good space to be in.

The AFL needs to get up to date with all major world sports and implement an order off rule for serious violations. The pseudo legalistic AFL tribunal is an anachronism and time and time again we have seen high profile players from influential clubs get away with murder facilitated by legalistic mumbo jumbo. The system is set up to be scammed. This can be done by umpire consultation on field and off field with supplemented video evidence. The cynic in me believes the AFL only prefer the current system because it generates media attention to keep the game on the sports front pages just about every week.

Feel sad for Gus, wish him the best, he didn’t get justice for having his health and career ruined and I hope sues the effing [censored] out of the AFL.