John Crow Batty

The first MFC footballers I met were Rod Grinter and Earl Spaulding at a pub. A friend and I had a doubles pool game with them. Both amiable and friendly guys. Grinter looked a lot slimmer in real life but his hands were enormous. I guess not news to Terry Wallace.

The three missed penalty players were also the youngest and inexperienced in the team. Sako is only 19. What was the England manager thinking? Like they has already mentally conceded defeat and looking for scapegoats. The experienced players should have been given the responsibility of the majority of the first 5 penalty shots.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/57800431 The three players who missed penalties for England who happen to be of African heritage are now receiving a torrent of racist abuse on social media from English supporters. Not unexpected.

It’s not the bookies it’s the punters. They prefer boy bands over hard rock. Bookies like to see the money go on losers.

Tomorrow predicted to be extremely wet and windy in Perth. Will suit North better. WC can’t play in the wet aside from their current putrid form. North are a huge chance.

It’s like playing whack a mole for the last two spots in the 8.

The upside is he has played 5 seasons less than Weid.

A paint colour chart with some misspellings.

Middle of the road sides picking up the pace to win a finals spot. Essendon, GWS, Saints and Freo all looking solid. And we still can’t write off Richmond or WC. All will be competitive against the top sides for remainder of the season. No slacking off by us I hope. Swans will be pumped to beat the dogs. They don’t want to be battling with the hunting pack.

Wrong, that was a fair dinkum penalty, Neil threw his whole body low to take the ball but also collected Grossi legs forcing him to tumble over Neil. Not much different to the current AFL free kick rule of going low to take out an opponent legs even if going for the ball. It was a dumb clumsy desperate challenge that deserved a penalty. Neil should have remained on his feet if he was going to challenge. It was a painful to accept but a just decision.

Salem brief is to deliver the ball forward from a high risk part of the ground. Every kick he takes has an element of danger because he’s exiting hostile territory and often under extreme pressure. Only the best ball users have this role and is impossible to be a 100% perfect. It’s a matter of percentages. Even Daniel Rich arguably the best kicker from defence has a few clangers every game to go with his usual 20 or so sublime deliveries upfield.

A Port supporter asked where Mark Williams was and suggested he should be hired to replace Hinkley. No other Port supporters who replied knew where he was.

BB is only averaging .75 free kicks a game. Career average is 1.39. Totally unacceptable and he needs to sort this out.

When Brown had touches, presence or impacted the play most of it was positive although adding little to real time scoring. However this added to perceived pressure on the Port defenders structure and forcing them to lock down on him harder thus allowing relief for the other forwards.

Port fans look like a brutish lot but their bark is usually worse than their bite. In general they are better behaved than many clubs. Still every club has moronic fans.

Still looks rusty but most of his touches were good and clever. Played like a player with two interrupted seasons under his belt. He is a target that key defenders will have to give a lot of respect to. Once he starts to clunk marks again I expect to see a lot of goals.

I thought Viney played quite well this week. Skill still so so but had 10 tackles, heaps of pressure acts and was an excellent nuisance foil tripping up ports inside ball movement.

Port Adelaide - Flat track bullies.

Not surprising [censored] England’s supporters are doing stupid things again. Some moron was shining a green laser on the Danish goal keepers face during the penalty shot by Kane as well as during the play that caused the penalty. Green laser is very powerful and can cause irreparable eye damage. That moron supporter should be locked up for 10 years after a jolly good flogging.

This will be the ‘I told you so’ game in the post game thread. Expect some humble wisdom from these types. Those who believe we are backsliding. Those who believe we are on track again. Those who believe BB should have been playing since last week. Those who believe BB should never have played. ……….and that just for starters.

I’m not as worried about our form or the Port big guns as much as I am about the umpires. They are the real threat. Our recent results over there confirm this.

I had the privilege to watching him dismantle our solid lead in the last quarter of round 9 in 2019 at Optus Oval. Even the WC supporters around me acknowledged he won the game for them.

It’s all business out there. No need for too many niceties and platitudes. Get the job done. Players have little time to take their drinks, focus and reset. The players and trainers understand it. If an awkward moment happens I’m sure it’s sorted out after the game.

Needed some soft games to get back into form and completely injury free. Throwing him in the deep end that requires 100% intensity doesn’t help. He’s still NQR.

Its bizarre Brown didn’t play after kicking 5 last week. Goodwin has a knack of being stubborn and keep doing the same things over and over again even if they are not working. Brown is definitely in his bad books for some reason but now will be forced to play him this week. Another game with the current forward line not working will see serious questions being about his judgement. Yesterday even if Brown played as statue up forward he would have improved our forward line structure considering GWS were down a key defender after a few minutes.