binman

Ugh - seeimg the jeez roos schedule like that gave me a heeby jeeby flashback of being a team down the bottom with low membership numbers.

After not being Van ruin turned it up to 11 in the last

I reckon the bombers are a real show. I suspect they will look to go even more high octane than the pies. Dangerous because fast is in the pies' wheelhouse. But they are coming off two very physical games, including having to travel to the gabba and play in humidity. And their game last week against the saints was brutal. Added to that they have some big outs, including their best two rucks - giving the bombers an edge for talls.

Easy. Quite like all three teams - particularly the suns and giants.

That's gold. Opens up a whole new bunch of games to have an interst in - any game of a team just above them on the ladder.

Perhaps a bit last night. But he played high half forward in the bombers and swans games too from memory. And he doesn't seem, though I might be wrong, to be down in our d as much as Charlie is. It puts him near any contest we win from centre clearances and when on he is brilliant field kick, so any ball he wins just outside 50 should result in a scoring opportunity. On Charlie, we really missed him. I reckon it was a factor in our defensive problems and we missed his gut running and smart use of the footy. And of course we missed his role in the system. Kozzie might have covered it, perhaps in combo with others (eg sparrow), but they're not the real deal. Under rated player in terms of his importance.

I really try not to let poor umpiring get to me at the footy. Remind myself that it usually evens up. But it was flat out appalling last night. And we copped the really bad ones. None worse than the non 50 to nibbler. That scenario was EXACTLY the reason the 50 was brought in - ie player wants to release straight away (kick or handball) and his opponent stops him from doing so. If nibbler was able to give to langdon immediately we were away with mutiple free players ahead of the ball. You'd could argue that cost us two goals. Given a 50, nibbler kicked from 20 out dead in front. Yes, the handball to lamgers was sloppy, but he was just trying to do what rioli stopped him from doing. And then they score on the turnover. And ok, let's say the blocks they paid against us were there. W ell how the hell doesn't maxy get 5 such frees a game given the Amount of blatant scagging and blocking he cops EVERY marking contest. And don't get me started on the hits to the head he cops week I'm week out. So much for the head being sacrosanct. The conspiracy theory stuff with umpires is ridiculous. The issue is we have well paid amatuers, not tbe afl is engineering results. Thought experiment. Why is the grand final usually umpired super well? Because the best umpires are selected for the match. Its a multi billion dollar industry- EVERY game should umpired to that standard. We won that game. But could have lost because of umpiring error. Too much is at stake for such an important part of the game to be so hopeless.

Agree. I didn't think he had a great game tonight- not enough ground ball contests. But they seem to be playing him higher up the ground - almost a true half forward flanker rather than a crumbing forward pocket

May has not looked right in the last. few games.

It has been our Achilles heel down back since jetts' brilliant 2018. I tgought bowey was poor in the first half, after two average games. But terrific in the second half, and much better contest.

Oath.

Always rated him.

In coming weeks? In the lead up to King's birthday?

I'm assuming with a 9 day break fatigue won't be an issue. If we bring our elite pressure from minute one, which I am very confident we will, we will steam roll them. They can move petty forward because without lynch they have a very weak forward line. And can't do what the bomber's did and worry us with talls. Riewodlt might kick a couple of goals, but he's adding little otherwise in terms of impact. And much the same could be said about dusty. Max and brodie will monster Ryan. And their midfield is levels below ours. Their utilities are ok, but missing targets. They look much better down back. Bring the pressure, win contested ball, force and score from turnovers and win time in forward half. And take our chances. If that all happens, we win by 6 goals plus. If we don't bring the pressure, and they do, we lose. Dees by 54 points.

According to little d the woke mind virus had 1,632, 988 mutant variants.

That's great wheelo. . I looked at the dees bombers game and it's got the key stats to get a sense of the game and a good layout to review the info quickly. On time in forward half, combining inside 50 and metres gained differentials is a pretty good proxy I would have thought. Bombers ahead, albeit by not a huge amount, in both AND contested ball. That's the game right there The other stat it would be great to have is scores from turnovers. Any chance that stat could be added (conscious it might be another Champion data stat that is not available)?

Live, it looked really crude. He got sandwich and it was hard to see the head knock. Went down and incredibly no free. He was dazed when he got up but was still asking about the free. Assuming that was the incident, he stayed on for at least a few minutes longer.

Still makes me angry how we treated junior. (Good lord, if I heard anyone booing him I wouldn't have been able to help saying something.) Feels like a different club now.

Ironic boos for sauce - coming after hunter got booed and only tge one time. I won't be booing Jackson. I don't boo players. And I don't feel any angst towards him anyway. But in the theatre of booing Jackson is fair game. Unlike sauce, fits the bill - high draft pick, big investment by the club, leaves after the club has helped him develop for big coin.

Got the trifecta. Dogs to cover their line. Dogs to win by more than 39. Freo in disarray.

Go doggies 🐕

And the other relevant contextual info is the club's media team offer up people to be interviewed - as opposed to being a guest on a conversation hour type podcast format. This is an important distinction, because the expectation from the club and player is that it won't take more than 15-20 mins, is not onerous and follows an interview style structure. Staff and players participate because they are obligated to do so as part of their responsibility to do media. If players report back that interviews took too much time or were a hassle (eg having to organise a PC to video conference from, organise a decent mic and camera etc etc) the club would simply stop offering people to DL to be interviewed. Sometimes Andy might (and does) request to interview a particular person, but has no choice in who the club ulitmately offers. It would be great to always speak to natural story tellers and conversationalists like Maxy, but Andy gets who he gets. And even if he does snag a great story teller, he still only has 15-20 mins. That is one Gary Pert answer. And almost always the club randomly contacts Andy out of the blue and offers someone to be interviewed, hence the sporadic frequency of the interviews and mix of guests. Often only a couple of days’ notice is given and Andy might be given only a few options for the interview time. I'm guessing very few players would agree to doing an hour or so conversational style pod like the one Tmac did in the preseason (which is terrific by the way - but I’ll bet my bottom dollar the club did not organise that, but rather the pod went straight to tom, who they may well know.) Andy can’t go direct to players, even those DL sponsors, and ask if they want to do a pod. Well, he can, but the player would say speak to the media team, who may get their noses out of joint and stop offering players and staff up for interviews full stop. Another issue is the club also sets the platform for how the interview is actually done - they give Andy a mobile phone number to call at an agreed time. So, no podcast equipment at their end, no proper mike set up and no video conferencing tech (meaning the interviewer and interviewee can’t see each other). It also means no control of the physical environment at the interviewees end. Compare that scenario to the set up for guests on the Gus and Gawny podcast - the guest is with them in a room that has been optimised for sound quality etc (by the by, from the handful of their pods I’ve watched, they don't really engage their guests in a conversation - but rather, just ask a series of often silly questions). An example of the environmental challenges is during the Brodie Grundy interview he was doing some sort of building or gardening work whilst talking on the phone. It was quite annoying as you could hear all this really distracting background noise. Similarly, Selwyn Griffiths was walking when being interviewed so there was heaps of distracting background noises (eg traffic). To those challenges add the time restriction and the fact that Andy has usually not met the person. Given all these factors, it is all but impossible to build the kind of rapport needed for a quality conversational style interview. By the by, to be clear, it is brilliant the club put people forward to be interviwed and those they have have all been really fantastic, including the judster. They have so little time between games and the stakes are high so the club and the players and staff should be applauded for giving up their time and bringing such a great attititude.

Keeping the list together is a massive challenge for a club like the dees atm that is set up for a sustained period of success. The tigers did brilliantly at keeping that dominant team together, and bringing lynch in was a winner, but they still lost deledio, then later Ellis, higgins and Chol (and maybe another player?) Bedford's pace would be super helpful with the way the game is playing. So would have preferred we kept him. But don't begrudge him at all. Deserves to play full games. Bloody unlucky to be injured. And i wouldn't want to lose any of say JJ, Laurie and Chandler. Particularly JJ. But the math says there are going to be AFL standard players not getting a game, or enough games, who will leave to get them. I think the club has been really smart to lock so many of our top ten players on long term deals. Tracc, Clarry, Gus, Salem and Max are all locked in for the next six years. Gives them some flexibility with how they structure and spread payments. And it cuts down on contract negotiations, that always distract to some degree. That flexibility has no doubt helped them sort the Rivers deal, and have the salary cap space to offer kozzie a good deal. If in addition to all the signings noted above (and players like may, lever, viney mcvee, friiter, nibbler spargo and sparrow who are all squared away), koz signs, and we get jvr locked in for a few years, we have the foundation of a crazy good list for the next 4-5 years.

Great interview Andrew. Sounds a top young fella

Wheelo, any chance you can add time in forward half and total team metres gained to your brilliant stats? @WheeloRatings