John Crow Batty

Shocked to hear. R.I.P Legendary Australian cricketer Shane Warne has died aged 52

Hard to get into the groove after 5 months of wallowing in GF glory. Nothing wrong being reminded they are mere mortals again. Party time over. Still the midfield need to be embarrassed for their effort.

In Western Australia they call it AFL a lot. Seen lots of local clubs put signs at sporting grounds advertising for players to play AFL and they call themselves “AFL” clubs rather than Australian Rules Football clubs. Then again, many out west and east consider Western Australia as a seperate country.

Although Gawn had little direct impact during our 3rd quarter blitz, him going forward disconnected the Bulldogs defence. Easton Wood was so spooked by Gawn being forward that he left Fritsch unmarked allowing him a free attack on the deep ball by Petracca for his third goal. The next play Bulldogs defence was stretched badly trying to cover our three deep forwards allowed Brown a clean unmolested mark.

Contested possessions 2021. Oliver, Ist with 434. Petracca, 3rd with 349. Bontempelli, 12th with 291.

I like him on the beach. Hate him on the football field.

I don’t care all about this and that free kick. Even action in a game influence the next action and so on. The roll of the dice, how the cards fell and dispensation of karma was so sweet. We won the premiership.

Good player but not irreplaceable and I won’t lose any sleep over him if he leaves. If he goes for greener pastures then no hard feelings. He will always be one of our breakout premiership players. If he stays then it’s great. It’s the price to pay for being a premiership side with an excess of talent and the inevitable salary cap squeeze. Some have to move on.

RDB

Good luck to the boy. Flag-winning Demon to go under the knife

Scott knew his ageing team was shot and was perhaps having thought bubbles on how to engineer an advantage if the game was postponed so that a refreshed Geelong and “ the opposition” had to face off on equal terms with “the opposition”having the possible disadvantage of not playing a game for 3 weeks. It would have been a radical precedent to postpone a game because a few players had a tummy bug. Never happened before.

Anyone rewatching round 21, 2018 should understand why Hogan played his last game for us that day.

Our highest scores were the GF, PF, Round 20 and Round 22 shared with round 5. We scored heavily towards the end of the season.

I’d say 3 strikes you’re out. The last was the worst finals capitulation by any team that I could remember.

That PF loss was far worse than ours in 2018. They were at home, rested, in top form and everything was to their advantage unlike us. It was a capitulation of the worst order. Hinkley should have been sacked.

The womens game is improving albeit slowly. Far more athletic girls playing than a few years ago. Then there were a lot of enthusiastic plodders. The competition won’t fully mature for another decade when the 6-8 year olds that are now taking up the game come of age. Even the mens game took decades to fully mature. There were grossly overweight players playing up until the 1970’s. Who remembers Mick Nolan?

We won our second flag last century in the year of the tiger. Might win our second this century in year of the tiger.

At 3/4 time in the GF, Oliver looked like he was about to collapse. I dispute that he fakes getting hurt. He cops plenty of savage hits but always gets up even if it’s up to an 8 count. He has remarkable toughness. Reminds me of Rod Grinter who copped heaps but always got up.

I rewatched all the finals and the preceding games since our last defeat and it is obvious to me the inclusion of Bowey and Ben Brown were the last pieces of the puzzle required that made us a premiership side. Bowey’s clean disposal and clever decision making over Hunts spectacular but often error ridden play made our defence “no weakness” and Browns contesting and ever present danger freed up our forwards and midfield to score heavily which we couldn’t do previously.

The notorious 1976 grand final where Cook locked horns with Allan Harper. Never thought Cook would get up.

There has always been a resident clown in footy broadcasting to please the shallow end of the gene pool. To everyone else they are annoying but they create attention and that’s all that matters. Love or hate them is the strategy.

Yeah, two top ten picks and a prime steak not steak knives minimum.

I was really upset when For’N Twenty discontinued their fantastic Cornish pasties. Always had one or two at a game. Disappeared about two decades ago I believe.

The the AFL can then truly claim to be an international competition.

We haven’t won the first game after a premiership for 57 years..