John Crow Batty

He did alright in the finals and GF as I recall despite being so so early in the season last year. He’s here for the duration this season.

That’s assuming other clubs were interested in him at the time. Delisted players hitting 30 years old usually don’t have too many offers.

Mitch Brown must be one of the longest travelled journeyman ever. Drafted in 2008 but only played 79 games for 3 clubs. Very few players remain from that vintage in the league. Amazing.

There were 77 free kicks paid that game. 39 to Fitzroy and 38 to Adelaide. Unbelievable.

Both Weid and Mitch battled hard. They played their roles perfectly.

Suns robbed of a couple of holding the ball frees at the death within scoring range.

Demons 94, umpires 65.

Lots more opposition coaches now coaching from interchange bench copying Goodwin and Fagan who were the only ones doing it last season. Today both Rutten and Longmuir coaching from the bench as was Beveridge the other day. Must be a trend to think it might be advantageous since Melbourne and Brisbane are top of the ladder.

Great game between two middle of the road clubs. Richmond clueless on how to ice the game.

As I have said before, Hibbo is only noticed after he matches up with a big name player like Franklin, Martin or Cameron and renders them impotent. When he plays against lesser lights his efforts go under the radar because his work is usually just boringly efficient. The only decline I see is that his kicking skills are not as good as they once were but he has compensated in other ways.

I still believe 800k a season is way overs for him. More like 799k ATM.

Gardiner out is big as well. He is their second tall key defender.

Even with Gawns dominance we have been cleaned up all too often from centre clearances by the opposition. Advantage taps are an irrelevant stat. Most of the time it means giving the opposition heads up to who to tackle and target and seize initiative.

Next few games we will see if he’s worth 800k or not.

118 games for us. 259 goals and 1299 touches. 131 games for them, 224 goals and 1577 touches. Not by a big margin but he played his best footy for us.

There will be a few lower ranked clubs that will want to atone for their poor seasons. Surprise results will come.

Darcy is a genuine A grader but he is their Joel Smith in regards to injuries.

The way he performs in the next 3 games will give a clearer indication to his likely intentions and whether we remain committed to keeping him or not.

We have seen Blues, Swans and Saints lose to clubs outside the 8 this round. As we saw last season many top 8 clubs dropped games to lower sides in second half in particular to those that still have a chance of making finals. Ladder predictor will become less predictable as we enter the latter stage of season.

Dogga, now that he is not a support ruck will have tremendous pressure to perform and we will see if he is the real deal or not. As I said before, he’s been towed along nicely in Max’s slipstream all his career so far. Let’s see how he stands up. I hope he succeeds but he would also have to improve on his output so far this season.

Now reported out 3-5 weeks. No surgery required. To wear a moon boot for a week. We’ll see.

With maybe Max out with injury it will be good to see how good he is on his own. So far he’s been travelling in Max’s slipstream under little pressure.

Syndesmosis scam for Max…..Ugh! https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/syndesmosis-scan-demons-ankle-fears-for-gawn-20220614-p5atli.html

Opposition talls whether around the ground or up forward have been killing us the last three rounds. Cameron, Mihochek and Cox today. Last week Reid and McDonald. Before that Darcy, Taberner and Lobb have been killing us with goals and contested marks.