John Crow Batty

One of the handful of defenders that has kept Buddy scoreless in a game during his career. Time for a repeat.

https://twitter.com/RalphyHeraldSun/status/1561300780799655936?s=20&t=Tmb5qkPolaN79e-lVRTWJw

They could be removed but it could take a couple of months more for his foot to settle down and normalise without the hardware support.

When his first action is to deliberately stick his knees into someone’s guts with force it’s reportable. Just as bad as dropping knees to a player on the ground. Sooner or later if players are allowed to continue with this tactic we will see players with injuries like broken ribs, punctured lungs, internal bleeding, ruptured spleen, kidney damage or worse. I hate to see a new generation of kids doing this because they learned it from watching AFL.

They played two seasons together with us including the 1997 wooden spoon season and 1996. We were quite ordinary then. They go back a long way including some rough times before success.

I have been saying much the same for a long time. As well the balance is way out of whack with too many same types and no role players who do the unheralded stuff.

In a good space to have them. They sound cocky.

When brought back into the side to plug a hole he’s always done a good job ……….until he gets injured again. Playing a block of uninterrupted games has been his issue. Worth keeping on for spare parts.

History has shown that Tmac usually takes a long time to return to peak form after an injury. He needs a block of uninterrupted games to reach his best. Arguably the biggest stumbling block in his career. And diabolically once he reaches a patch of his best form he gets injured again. Not worth risking unless there are injuries to cover.

Like the media they can influence actions and outcomes. But they prefer to keep a low profile because they don’t want to rock the boat.

If we add Fritsch’s 5th goal in the last quarter it was 5 goals in under 3 minutes of play.

I am pleased Petty accepted Zorko’s apology and moved on. There are bigger fish to fry with finals upon us and we don’t need distractions.

Attending last years GF in Perth as a Melbourne supporter was like transcending into an alternate reality. Never witnessed as much crowd balance in our favour in a big game when I lived in Melbourne.

But we managed to get to where we want to be. Top two. Max Gawn said it was almost like finals nearly every game since our Clayton’s bye.

Obviously the Blues player Durdin? cant do his maths. They only needed a point for a draw to make finals. He picked the worst of 3 options. The low risk as well as best option play was to kick deep to the goal square. He ignored a couple of moderate risk kicks to players inside 50 but went for the defensive kick to the pocket where there was no Carlton player there because they were not expecting it to go there. Huge misstep.

The way Collingwood win is getting beyond creepy. They just can’t miss at the death. Some powerful voodoo and witchcraft going on there.

Missed the game live due to an important function. Ended up watching the game at 1am. Slept and dog tired most of Saturday and had an early night. I thought a thorough demolition of Brisbane was a pipe dream on their home turf but we did it. We certainly are a side that won’t be intimidated. Looking forward to finals.

Every time I read Essendon and Hird mentioned in the same sentence I start singing to myself the classic blues song, “ST JAMES INFIRMARY BLUES”. Why do I do this? Folks, I'm goin' down to St. James Infirmary, See my baby there; She's stretched out on a long, white table, She's so sweet, so cold, so fair. Let her go, let her go, God bless her, Wherever she may be, She will search this wide world over, But she'll never find another sweet man like me. Now, when I die, bury me in my straight-leg britches, Put on a box-back coat and a stetson hat, Put a twenty-dollar gold piece on my watch chain, So you can let all the boys know I died standing pat. An' give me six crap shooting pall bearers, Let a chorus girl sing me a song. Put a red hot jazz band at the top of my head So we can raise Hallelujah as we go along. Folks, now that you have heard my story, Say, boy, hand me over another shot of that booze; If anyone should ask you, Tell 'em I've got those St. James Infirmary blues.

At least Clarkson knows that if he goes to North, it’s a club that’s bottomed out and malleable to his wishes. The Bombers are still plagued by internal fighting and he no doubt will be plunged into ongoing culture war.

That’s because they expected a kick to the pocket or front of square by Gawn and positioned to go there. The Carlton defenders were all out of position as Gawn’s kick had more deep penetration to the fat side of the goal square and had to scramble back to where Melksham and Langdon were.

There should be a rule for removing stupid click bait thread titles.

I go all in with a Joel Selwood.

I hate it as now he is being presented by commentators as a victim when he is a serial provocateur.

Brown got more involved in the last quarter and contributed. Fritsch has a bad night but laid almost a team high 8 tackles which is great work when not getting the ball.

I thought Melksham was finished and especially so after he punched May. That punch relaunched his career.