binman

This is a narrative everyone should push back on. ATAGI was created by the federal government to provide health advice to government. Of course their advice is purely from a health perspective. That is their area of expertise and their terms of refence set by the government. The government choose to accept the ATAGI advice. Or not. In making that decision they should consider a range of factors (and get expert advice as required) - human behavior, economic implications, impact on their plan for the vaccine roll, sociological behavior, messaging etc etc It is not ATAGI who have installed completely unnecessary fear in the community by demonising AstraZeneca. The members of ATAGI must be livid that they have been thrown under the bus. The real question who is pushing this false narrative and who benefits from the scapegoating of ATAGI?

I read that as the Lambada version. That does sound fun actually. Though given the Lamada is a two person dance (originating in Brazil) it would be hard to maintain appropriate social distance. Perhaps that makes it super transmissible. And epsilon just sounds cool.

Those losses to teams outside the 8 are really starting to haunt us.

Sorry, LF that simply is not true. Hindsight was not required, nor was a crystal ball Anyone with access to the internet knew what was coming well ahead of May. April/May was the PEAK of Delta in India. It has been been there since October 2020 and began to surge out of control at the beginning of March 2021. So its impact, and the risk it posed, was clear at a minimum five months ago. Five months. Why didn't they accelerate the quarantine roll out then? It took the current crisis in NSW for them to find some urgency. But lets say the federal government only became aware of the impending tsunami in May. It is now August. And it was only a few days ago that they advised a sharp, fast lock down is the best approach to manage delta. A full month after NSW failed to lock down immediately, when all available evidence suggested they simply had to. The lack of federal advice or pressure to lock down hard and fast gave NSW cover to delay their lockdown. And no one could now argue that decision was the wrong one. The horse has now bolted. And here we are.

I'm trying very hard sticking to the rules in this thread and not making political posts. But can I just say this post, which makes a lot of excellent and very valid points does not, in my view, show the other side of the story. These points are the story. And all relate to political failings of one sort or another. Which is not to under sell the incredible complexity of the issues. Mistakes are inevitable in a crisis such as this. And state governments, including in Victoria, have made their share of errors that have contributed to the situation we are in. As have individuals of course. But the fact remains that the federal government is responsible for both the root cause of the issues we face and the solutions to those issues - the quarantine and vaccination programs. One of the key failings relates to this point: 'Delta mutation: Its arrival and age group targets surprised everyone. It made early vaccination plans to do older folks first somewhat redundant. Younger folk needs have increased demand.' This is not the case. And the federal government should not get away with their messaging it is. The delta is a game changer narrative needs to be challenged All the talk of following the expert advice rings hollow. For one thing, epidemiologists warned at the start of the pandemic of the risk of mutating strains that are more contagious. It is how viruses work. We should have been prepared for the inevitability of a variant like delta. For example by making sure our quarantine system was robust (we had Howard Springs as perfect model to replicate) and making sure the vaccination program was fit for purpose to respond to such an inevitability Secondly, the delta variant first emerged in India in OCTOBER last year. The danger it represented was apparent by the end of last year and it peaked in May of this year. The horror it wrought was there for the whole world to see. So it arrival, impact, infectiousness and impact on younger people was anything but a surprise. Australia has a big Indian community. Australians were coming home from India. It was always coming here. We had advance warning of a tsunami coming towards us. And seemingly made no attempt to prepare for it. This is not an attempt at political point scoring. We live in a democracy and i fully respect that collectively we elected the current federal government to lead us. I support good public policy. I want my federal government to implement good policy. I want my federal government to succeed. And they are best placed to do so by reviewing any failings and addressing them. I don't see much evince that this is happening.

Or even petty. As you say Taylor didn't engage Hawkins in any strength battles. Which was smart. And I thought a big factor in them hanging on in the last is Taylor ran off Hawkins at every opportunity. Meant they got the ball moving quickly, stopped the cats setting up a wall to trap inside 50 and got important territory. The key of course is pressure, or else Hawkins gets the delivery he wants/needs. If we bring that petty can play Hawkins the same way as Taylor

Don't get me wrong Hawkins is a really good player and has had just about his nest season this year. The best set shot for goal in the AFL. But I've always thought he is overrated. When he is getting beaten his body language is appalling. Throws up his hands if teamates kick poorly to him. And like many cats, whinges to the umpires. All on display last night. But my main knock on him is he is too one dimensional. He gets up the ground a bit more than he used to, but really still plays like an old school full forward. Yes he gets tbe occasional goal from an inside 50 ruck contest but in the main he needs a leading lane or a clean one on one contest to kick goals. The big issue is that if teams take these options away he not only doesn't kick goals, he offers bugger all else. The giants got back hard to block leading lanes but crucially did not allow the cats to transition quickly after intercepting half back. And they didn't allow them to chip it around and xontrol the temp until they could execute a set play where they switch and orchestrate a pass to a leading Hawkins. This was a function of their pressure. And the cats not applying enough pressure (which means they get fewer intercept marks in their back half). And for the same reason tbey didn't give Hawkins many one on one opportunities. And in particular the ones he always wants/needs/is looking for - a one on one wrestle, which he wins with his strength. And whe did have one, the pressure the giants were applying on the last kick inside 50 meant it wasn't kicked perfectly to his advantage. So he couldn't wrestle Taylor. When he did get a one in on one, Taylor read it brilliantly and reacted so much more quickly than Hawkins, who looked flat footed. He looks a gun Taylor. Clean hands, reads it well, reacts quickly and decisively and makes good decisions. I think petty has those traits to, and is also a gun.

Good teams don't get beaten by the giants. Apparently.

I'm double AZ dosed. But keen to try the full range of options.

I was very much joking. I had already entered the first stage of grief

I thought this thread was talking about the dees and our fortunes. Did demonland crash? I didn't realize. At all.

Bollocks

Exactly. Both with perfect turf, with proper drainage. And let's not over egg the pudding on the importance of training on a ground with the exact dimensions of the g. Let's consider the winners of the last 5 flags. Tigers x 3. Dogs. Eagles. I assume the Eagles have a g size training ground (though not sure), but the tigers and dogs don't. Not even close. Punt road and written oval are probably no bigger that goshs is currently.

Pre season is the time to experiment. Three weeks out from a finals campaign is not. If we beat West Coast, we will have beaten every team in the top 8. So we know we have a game plan, systems, set up and structure that works against the best teams, and therefore in finals. Why on earth would they want to change any part of tjhat system tat this satge of the season? And i don't understand what the issue is with predictability, or why we would want to charge players role to be less predictable. I suspect we will introduce some minor tactical tweaks and set plays in the finals to create some new looks or disrupt opposition planning. But given their focus on the importance of each player playing their assigned role, and how hard player must work to make their role second nature, i can't see the logic of changing anyone's role at this stage of the season

Gus has been really important on the wing this season. It is a hard position to play that involves a lot of defensive spread and and pressure acts that can go unnoticed (although not by the coaches). And he has had to work hard to learn how to play the role so well. Defensively has improved out of sight. He gets involved in a lot of contests, and importantly many of them in the the back half. Interestingly he is averaging 7.2 contested possession a game this season, which is only marginally less than his career average of 8. By way of comparison Salem averages 5.5 contested possession a game this season. And I reckon his marking is increasingly important in stopping teams transition. The other thing is that Gus is not not in Tracc's league as a mid. Few are. Apart from his brilliance, tracc is possibly the strongest mid in the AFL and the best and getting a possession off when being tackled and fighting his way through tackles. He is worth two mids. This is key to our set up of allowing the opposition an extra at the contest and having our extra behind the ball. We would lose too may clearances if tracc played less time as a mid and more time up forward. And so would struggle to implement our preferred set up. Which in turn would impact on our ability to win intercepts in the back half.

Not being social media savvy, i had no idea what tl;dr stood for. So googled it. This was the second definition listed: Generally speaking, you should only use TLDR when summarizing a piece of text, whether you're the author or commenter. Using the phrase TLDR without offering a useful summary for the content can come off as intentionally rude (but of course, that may be your intention).2 Aug 2019 You learn something new every day. But I'm confused. Should you have not asked TL:DL of key points? As in: too long, did not listen. In any case here is a summary of the key points: FIITWOMMDYAFAHAL As in: fantastic interview - in the immortal words of of Molly Meldrum, do yourself a favour and have a listen.

At least the UV and pollen count won't be an issue

I'm not sure when that photo is from. Doubt tomo went over so must be from last week

My favourite: I wish Simmo was my weed dealer when I was broke in high school - the amount of tic I could have built up...

I don't condone the act at all. It was a terrible look But objectively the precedent has been well and truly set - the penalty for infringements is almost always related to how badly, or not as the case may be, the player that has been hit, punched, etc is actually hurt. For example, even though it was only deemed careless, Fritter was very lucky to escape with only a week after clocking North Melbourne’s Tom Powell with his elbow (and luckier still to have that week overturned). The reason he only got one week was that it was assessed as medium impact, presumably because Powell did not require a concussion test and came back on (which was amazing, coz he looked understandably rattled by the hit). If he is concussed Powell, Fritter probably gets 3 weeks I think it is stupid, but the fact remains that potential to cause serious injury does not seem to be factored into how many weeks, if any, a player cops when found guilty of incident. So as you say feedback from Sam Collins is relevant. But perhaps even more relevant is the medical report. Did Jack actually cause any injury? Was Collins hampered afterwards? Did he even need to come from the ground? I'm not sure what the answer to those questions are, but lets say it is no to all three. If so, surely he cops a fine, not a suspension. That said Judd was charged with misconduct for his chicken wing tackle on Leigh Adams and copped four weeks. So there is some precedent there - but Judd partially dislocated Adam's shoulder.

Not great by Jack. But its not just the media jumping on jack, even dees fans seem to be coming for him. I wonder if that is because so many fans seem ambivalent about him and/or that he is perhaps not the easiest bloke to warm to. I reckon if it was Oliver in the gun he'd be facing fewer hanging judges.

Ironically those 3 losses might matter (the draw and two poitns from the hawks is likely to end up being as good as a win). In a positive sense. Because if we had won those three games we would have likely finished top of tbe ladder. As montagna pointed out on first crack on fox, only one flag in the last 10 years has been won by the team finishing top of the ladder (I think it was the hawks in 2013). And 8 of those flags have been won by a team playing in the second qualifying final. That's to say a team finishing 2nd or 3rd. Perhaps it reflects how well a team has timed its physical preparation, and or the tweaking of its game plan (ie the top team has peaked and 2nd and 3rd are still on the up). Or perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the top team plays the fourth team, in a game that is more likely a mismatch. So maybe not a great preparation for a cut throat preliminary ie an easy win, two week break into a team that has had a competitive, hard fought win (or wins in the tigers case last year). And perhaps the prefinals bye is a factor, as it means the team finishing top that wins its first final comes into the prelim having only played one easy game in four weeks Or a combination of all of the above. Whatever the reasons, that stat is starting to look more a trend than a statistical anomaly.

Maybe. But lets face it goody has a fair bit credibility when it comes opt such assessments, given he is in fifth year as a senior AFL coach. And the team he coaches is currently sitting third on the ladder after 20 rounds and having its best season in more than 55 years. So if he values the pressure Viney and Harmes applies more than their disposal, i guess i'll defer to his expertise.

It used be that you needed a live pass to access the replays and AFL stats pro on the AFL website. Not anymore. All are open now.