John Crow Batty

He was trying to do something. On another day it might have worked.

Port playing junk footy for the second half. Saving themselves for us on the short break. Freo are just like us, blowing opportunities, butcher the ball inside 50 and kick too many points.

I suspect opposition sides think so. When any side from 2nd to 18th think they have a chance against us and play accordingly they must believe it. Again today we started passively and let the opposition dictate the shape of how the game played. I detect some arrogance and hubris in the way we play expecting our defence to win games no matter what the opposition does. The big problem is our scoring has dried up significantly. Only 25 goals scored in the past 3 games. We need a huge reset in our attacking game. We are starting to look like Ross Lyons Fremantle teams.

Tend to agree about Jacko. Playing like a second string ruckman as well as second string forward. Does some nice things and works very hard but his output is rarely damaging. In particular he has to do more when going forward. Despite his height he offers little to worry defenders in marking contests.

Extremely disappointed with Petracca and Oliver. These guys are supposed to 2 of the top half dozen midfielders and in the best dozen players on the game but they can’t win a clearance if their life depended on it after the bye. They are seriously looking like frauds and pretenders.

Never mind the crowd not turning up, what about the players?

3-3 last 6 rounds. Back to the pack and the opposition smelling blood.

Midfield bath water. Add Gawn poo, Oliver [censored], Petracca bum cheese……yummy!

Whoever thinks Brown shouldn’t be playing are right. Haven’t seen him get near the ball yet.

The umpiring fraternity teaching the bomber how to show respect.

Very few popular well supported Victorian clubs play down there. Their match ups with the cats get shifted to the MCG. I can’t recall the last time Collingwood played there. It’s all about bums on seats.

That’s true. There was an interesting example in the same game. Tmac gathered the ball and was facing the goals but too close to the goal line and deliberately turned away from the goal face to give his leg clearance away from the goal line and pop the ball over his head. He knew if tried to kick it when he first gathered the ball his foot would have crossed the line with the ball.

Yes, more akin to reading tea leaves, crystal ball gazing and joining bird dropping patterns.

Ha Ha I see why you have done there. Immobile translated to English means immobile and vice versa in Italian.

The deeper England get into the Euro finals the bigger the risk of mindless thuggery from their supporters win or lose.

The bomber fans were pumped up on Saturday. The match was going to be their coming out party for entering the 8. It was to be the confirmation of their charge to the flag by destroying the pretender Demons and extinguish the affront of us topping the ladder. One can’t blame them entirely though, the media propaganda pumping up their vital juices has been relentless for the past couple of weeks. They couldn’t handle the game not going to script.

We are also 10-0 against the next 12 teams below us.

Even the initial 50 metre penalty against Perkins was completely correct. Not only was he late getting on the mark after he was requested to stay out he lined up at least a metre on the wrong side. There were actually two clear infringements.

So you are convinced our season is in terminal decline then.

Mathew Richardson said we grind down the opposition at our own pace and they can’t keep matching us for the whole game. We don’t lose or win biggly. Other teams have had more inconsistencies between their worst and best. People like bright shiny things so they remember the high scoring one sided junk time games we don’t seem to participate in. Half the Bulldogs win over WC was played in junk time. The result reflected WC’s underdone players and tall marking forward line. The first half weather in Perth was terrible. Violent wind and rain that suited the contested ball winning game of the bulldogs. No home crowd support either. It was not as dominant a win as is being suggested.

We don’t have any players who have played over 200 games playing which can distort averages. Most of our stars are around the 100 -120 games played which bodes well for the future.

Despite being top of the ladder and having a 10-0 winning record against the next 12 teams below us it appears the local media pundits are not taking us very seriously. We hear comments alluding this is the most even season and anyone can win it. Two weeks ago the Richmond premiership machine was cranking up, then it was Geelong on the march and now the Bulldogs are clear favourites again. The bombers are charging up the ladder many say and are becoming a threat despite being out of the 8. Of course we haven’t proven anything yet and many of our wins have been hard fought but there is perception we are just a side show to the real contenders. Seems there is a trend to talk up all our Victorian rivals above us. Other interstate rivals don’t get much love either. Despite our continuing success we are still regarded as a Cinderella club in Victoria. Any other opinions?

So who does Hibberd wrap up in his spider web this week? Toby Green?

The Bomber fans are truly the psycho chickens of AFL supporters. In the bad old days Windy Hill was the most dangerous VFL/AFL ground to visit. It was scary and far worse than Victoria Park. Makes current WC fans look like reasoned intelligent persons.

As I said previously we need a dominating key forward. Tmac and Fritsch are solid contributors but not stand alone dominators at the pointy end. Only two goals from key forwards in the past two game is poor. Weid and BBB were supposed to be the prime key forwards but haven’t showed up and left a big hole. Get one of them playing to their potential we can think about upping scoreboard pressure. We could look to making Jackson a key target but have to look else where to assist Gawn in the ruck. I believe Petty with his hight and ability to contest a mark as an option also. But then we have cover his position.