John Crow Batty

Barrass late out for WC. The Jackson tank is in full swing.

What about Matt Eagles?

Draper is lining himself up for a suspension soon the way he plays.

That’s one improvement in his game. A couple of years ago he would have missed it.

The week before we were 16.4 at 3/4 time and 19.5 before finishing with a rushed behind to 19.6. Good accuracy comes and goes and is generally reliable as Melbourne weather for all clubs.

Umpires might be now taking note. No frees for him this round. In one instance in one of his well honed signature moves he was tackled from behind, flopped knees first forward, Adelaide player fell hard on his back and no free paid. Commentators were aghast why no free paid to wonder flopster. Not a good move telling the world he’s playing umpires for suckers.

Tigers must be annoyed now they lost him. Ah well!

Didn’t Oliver have 41 touches for over 800 metres gained this round?

It’s a winning formula that other clubs have not come to terms with. Every club these days tries to flood then pick or scramble their way out of defence to where we already have them covered. Weight of entries eventually grind them down.

Thats our regulation game plan. Been playing it since beginning of last season and usually works a charm. it’s part of Goodwin’s ‘win the contest mantra’. Kick it deep to the pockets in static play and when other teams flood the back line. This time the extra pressure from the tigers stumped us a bit but basically it made sure they couldn’t exit cleanly.

Another side that didn’t play their natural game against us. Slow the game down and chip the ball around.. Game conceded before the bounce. We have spooked just about every other side in the comp.

Tmac well down on career averages. 11 disposal a game this season to career average of near 16. He used to once average over 20 for a long time. And only four goals so far. Contested marks down as well. Needs a reset.

Last season Freo lost more games from clangers, inaccuracy and butchering the ball than any other club despite a solid game plan. Had their fair share of injuries also. They lost possibly a top four position as well as finals appearances because of this. This season so far they have cleaned up their game. They will be a force.

How times have changed. Last season Richmond beat St Kilda by 86 points in round 5 and were going to teach us a lesson in round 6 according to many pundits. Reviewing the replay the commentators were marvelling on Richmond’s power in the first 15 minutes of that game and saying we were playing a team on an other level above us. That game was one of my favourite replays to watch.

Do the betting agencies take wagers on the free kick counts? One could retire betting on dogs games.

I remember watching the sporting news on TV when Adelaide won their first flag. Adelaide players were training with the reporter in the foreground talking. This was during the finals series. The players in the down the ground vision moved beautifully like a synchronised school of fish. Convinced me they were going to be premiers then.

Tipping that umpire disrespect will kick the most goals this week.

Current All Australian selection is a joke. I have always said their should be two all Australian best 22 teams. That way appropriate match ups and outstanding role players can be recognised. Works like this, Team 1 selects a player say full back. Team 2 selects his opponent. Next position selections are reversed and so on until two power house teams are formed. Its great to see Langdon getting well deserved recognition now. He was doing this all last season.

He has declined in all areas of the game. Doesn’t move around as much as he used to and virtually zero forward presence or impact. I barely noticed him. Only goal from a soft free. Mitch Brown would offer far more in his place. Looks like he playing just to get paid.

Highly respected former senior umpire Darren Goldspink believes disrespect rules and associated penalties have backfired badly for AFL. https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/stricter-respect-rules-putting-more-pressure-on-umpires-goldspink-20220419-p5aeir.html

50 metre penalties will win the Coleman Medal this season.

We played 164 consecutive games between 1955 and 1963 without conceding more than a 100 points a game. There were higher streaks before then but all were before 1920 when scoring was significantly lower. I’m not sure but I suspect our current streak could be the longest in the AFL era.

We weren’t much chop when he had to decide between us and Geelong. After all their stocks looked better coming off a GF. We were still fumbling outside the 8. He thought they were the better prospect for another premiership.

I have said it before, if all umpires cannot be full time professionals then there should be at least one full time professional umpire for every game with the power to overturn any bad decisions by the others if blatantly obvious. Should reduce bad decisions significantly. Currently all umpires act like best buddies and unwilling to call out a bad decision by their mates. Having a master umpire should give that separation of roles, relationships and responsibilities.

It was clearly a push by Frost. He gave him an almighty shove with his left pinky finger under Hawkins right armpit.