John Crow Batty

???

Jones out. Time for an effing huge statement.

Very disappointed in our leaders again today. Viney tried hard but spends most of the time hatching the ball on the ground. Never does anything useful with it. Zero impact. Jones back to his pre cameo playing. Slow, fumbly and error prone. He is a huge liability and generally a non entity on the ground. Needs to be retired or needs to get a blighty to get him off the park for a long time. Lewis MIA, slow and creaky. Gawn, best useless tap out ruckman in the game. The others, who the farrrk are they?

Jones Viney, Lewis neck and neck for the fastest snails.

Preuss the Prooster.

McDonald back to defence. Cant get a kick up forward.

A regular media rocket up the khyber is de rigueur to ensure we don’t go the bathtub too often. She’s just reminding us and I hope the players take note. Far more appropriate than the treacle the media has been smothering us pre season.

Can’t bear to see the pies win tonight.

Quote of the year if not the decade. Donald Trump would be proud. From The Age today. Prominent Collingwood cheer squad member Joffa Corfe said on Thursday that the grand final incident was “news to me”. “In all my time in the Collingwood cheer squad, which is getting on to a long while, I’ve never heard any racism, nothing at all,” he said. “I’d be the first one to stand up and do something about it, and to hear that a cheer squad member was racist is really disappointing.”. https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/collingwood-fan-banned-after-racial-slur-during-grand-final-20190418-p51ffv.html

666 has not given a great advantage to sides that win the centre clearance. Rather it has hindered sides counter attacking from defence that lose the clearance. Many goals last season were scored this way. No spare man or overlap opportunities to rebound. Game gets bottled up between half back and the middle.

It always looks like a player is playing for the free when the ball is kicked to the top of their heads. Teammates don’t kick to advantage. That’s happened a lot with Melksham. He has to stand there and grapple with opponents that apply octopus interference. His threat makes him an obvious target for very close checking. He is never allowed space. Melksham has been unlucky to not get some very obvious frees. He could try to lead up and lose his marker a little more though.

Never had much reason to call the club. My membership is on auto renewal and card and stuff always arrive in a timely manner before the season start. Recently I called the club to change my details and adjust my membership as I am moving permanently to Perth next week. As the person who handles these things was out to lunch I was told she will call back. She did within about half an hour and everything was sorted out. She was personable and engaging to deal with. Moving interstate is quite a pain and I have spend many hours on the phone changing this and that. This was one of the easier tasks I had to do.

AFL and TV must love us now. Win or lose we guarantee heaps of goals in our games.

You are trying to invent a different sport.

666 for the entire match would make a mockery of the game. Impossible for the players to maintain positions and also for umpires to enforce. Can only work as it is now due to a long break in play to reset after a goal. Cannot work at normal stoppages. Will just slow the game down waiting for players to get to their positions. And it is debatable if it actually works to enhance scoring. If anything it appears to hinder sides clearing easily from defence more so.

Bottoms up to all.

Not surprising really. Many people these days live in one form of Disneyland or other.

Buddy looked like he was being stalked and harassed by a dog all game. Always looked hurried and put off his usual confident game. A reason for those atypical easy misses perhaps?

Looks ready made. Looked a little lost previous games but showed a lot last night. Doesn’t blink and back his judgement to good effect.

I really liked his delicate tap work in the forward line. Almost better than Gawn in that respect. And he won’t be shoved out of the way as sometimes happens with Gawn against a beefy opponent in the forward or back line. I don’t believe though he will have the mobility to cover the entire ground on a consistent basis. He is handy around the goals and if he didnt hurt his shoulder he could easily have had a bag of 4 or more goals. His brute strength will be huge asset for us around the goals. His teammates have to find a way to exploit it. If we don’t expect him to be everyman in the game he will be a weapon.

Jones was good for the most part. His goal smarts are still there and he lifted admirably after the first quarter. Looks like the well deserved criticism stung and got him into action. Question is why wasn’t he showing this form from the beginning of the season? Now he has to keep it up for the remainder of the season. We are not going to make the finals with a captain showing his 1,2 and 3 form on a regular basis. I don’t want to see him like a cricketer who has bad form in a test series then just before he gets dropped scores a century and get to play another whole test series where he fails again.

The one positive that came out of last week was that we played one quarter of really good footy. More like what we should be playing. Fast dominating and high scoring. Before it was only 10 or 15 minutes here or there. If we can up that to at least 3 quarters we should have a real chance.

If Christian is smart he should give every suspended marque miscreant a minimum of two weeks. That way they can be downgraded to one. They get let off far too often. Leniency can be given but still punished. Should help shut up the Eddies of this world.

Make him captain.

Question is whether it’s more important to go full tilt to turn the season around or keep Jones playing. He is currently a passenger and liability at this watershed moment and the club seems keen to keep manufacturing a position for him every week. He cant be hidden anymore. I just wish he dropped himself, give himself a dignified exit and save all the awkwardness.