binman

Not wanting to single you out jaded, but is a widely held view that, in my opinion does not hold up to scrutiny. The Northern beaches stated with a single transmission and very soon the much vaunted NSW contract tracing team were not able to keep up and lockdown was called for only days after the first case. By the end of the outbreak 151 cases were linked to the cluster and the lockdown had lasted 3 weeks. This despite it being relatively small population, a population that does not move around greater Sydney much, minimal exposure sites and a contained location with natural boundaries. And that lockdown happened over the XMAS period so businesses were smashed and families separated. As anyone who knows that part of Sydney, the NSW government was extremely lucky the outbreak was in the Northern beaches, not say the west of Sydney (which is geographically very similar to Melbourne). Our equivalent might have been an out break on the Morning Peninsula, which could be isolated in a matter of hours if needed. Our current outbreak (which largely came from leak from a SA hotel) is almost exactly the same in number, yet we are out of lockdown in two weeks. And we have huge population, hundreds of exposure sites, a highly transient population in terms of movement around the city and basically no natural boundaries. Really, by any measure Victoria's contract tracing and related responses (eg exposure sites) has been extraordinary in this current outbreak. It is worth noting that we had the Black Rock cluster that was related the Northern beaches outbreak and we only had a brief lockdown. WA had a lockdown as did SA, after very low numbers. The one in WA cost the dockers and eagles millions. People made fun of the restrictions SA put on the pies and cats going into their state, were amazed at the hard lock down WA applied, shocked in the hard line Qld have taken this time to travel from Victoria etc et. That is all examples of very risk averse state governments The NZ government has had a couple of snap lockdowns after very low numbers And the bleating from the Liberal party in Victoria is completely hollow, becuase they would have made exactly the same decision to lockdown if in government. The problem is that as a country we have decided to implement an elimination strategy. Not a suppression strategy, an elimination strategy. I'm amazed Andrews and co have not pointed this out previously, but finally Sutton did so on Tuesday As Sutton said, we can't 'grumble along with one or two cases a day' and live the life we have been living (full pubs, everyone back in the office, 50k at the footy, packed trains. Because the numbers would eventually explode. As they have in Taiwan, a country that is also taking an elimination strategy. In that scenario eventually restrictions have to come into place that as Bing points out has been a feature of much of the world whilst we go about our covid free lives. There is not one example in the world of a country that has been able to effectively implement a suppression strategy. We have called our strategy suppression but that is bollocks. Arguably there is no such thing as it eventually gets away from health authorities. The only two real strategies are elimination or stem the tide/minimise the impact. Even if they are not pure lockdown like we had last year (which in an case lots of countries have had of course), if there are enough restrictions it doesn't look much different. We can't have our cake and eat it too. Enjoy the benefits of no covid in our community and put up with the risk of lockdowns. Or accept living with covid and risk not living covid free (eg masks everywhere, all the time, no live sport etc etc). We have collectively chosen the former. And so have to accept lockdown are likely to occur. Of course the big problem is that it is dead obvious that a key plank of the elimination strategy should have been a war time like focus on national vaccination program with a super ambitious goal to say to vaccinate 80% of the population by Easter, or 1 July 2021 or some such. Call a national holiday to celebrate, once achieved. Which of course would have been hard, but not having covid in the community and all the testing infrastructure in place gave us a huge opportunity other countries haven't. Yesterday Seattle became the first major city in America to fully vaccinate 70% of residents 12 and up against COVID-19. Fully vaccinate - so two shots for everyone over the age of 12. Seattle is not much smaller than Melbourne for Pete's sake! I'll save my anger for the federal government.

Ditto. Welcome weg. It's great that so many new posters are jumping on board the demonland express. Love it Ditto on harmes too. Has been fantastic since he came back in. And whilst he is a good option to tag an opposition gun mid he doesn't need to tag. Didn't really tag lag, well not hard anyway, week against one of the gun midfields. And I reckon goody sees him as a key player. A best 22 lock for the rest of the year.

I watched the second half yesterday and remembered Georges comments on the podcast about zorko's non effort. Woeful. Gifted the goal. Sure, it's the end of the game but he is the captain. Really bad look

It doesn't seem very long ago that footy commentators were wondering if tracc could be our de goey. Gone straight past him

That will change once our lockdown ends. But talk is we only be able to go 25km from our homes. Sydney being a fair bit further might put the kibosh on going up.

Needs a giant kossie head. With hair that gets bigger every week

https://womens.afl/news/72705

Loved this: the Dreamons its funny, becuase its true. At least in terms of dreaming of a flag. In the other sense - ie dream on buddy - it did make reflect for some reason that we have had such a great season thus far, and we are so evidently the real deal, that the dream could be a reality this year. And that lions win was actually really important in terms of the dream becoming a reality because it gave us an incredible three game break from the teams all on 32 points, in particular the cats third on the ladder and Lions fourth. If we lose that game, Lions are on 36 points and we are on 40 points and top 2 becomes a little les likely. And the risk of playing the Lions at the Gabba (or perhaps Port at Adelaide Oval) more likely. The Port game in round 17 will have a similar importance. And possibly the Cats in the last round. Top two finish means our first final at the G and the chance of not having to leave the state, even if we lose the qualifying final. A big advantage 2018 had a dream on buddy vibe - we got a on a roll at the back end and tried to surf the emotion to a flag. Different vibe this year. A professional, serious vibe about us. And we will be able to use that vibe and the experience of 2018 and the pain of the preliminary to fuel our finals campaign this year

Oh now I get it. We were behind because we were losing clearances. I get it now. Here I was, thinking we were losing because we were not applying anywhere near enough pressure or doing nearly enough defensive running and spread. Sully me to think the clearnce numbers was a symptom not a cause I wonder if we should ask the AFL to restropectively give us the four points in games in 2020 where we smashed teams in clearances. And lost. Coz, it's such an important stat. Better not actually. They might take 4 points away from us in all the games we have lost the clearance differential this year. And won. Just win a clearance!!!@@@@@

It's called foorball, not handball!!@@@

The 'we need to fix our clearnces' posts are pretty depressing. Remind me if going to tbe footy in tbe 90s and fans yelling 'just kick it!!!!!'

A free every day of the week bb text book blocking. Bizarre none of the commentators said so. In fact they praised hippwood

Which interview dazzler?

Every one of those 'examples' he clearly handballs. Fair dinkum he is a .... up ...... Can't believe they pay him to comment on football How about looking at how tbe dogs move the ball

I watched the first half again last night And without the emotion the umpiring was still appalling. Add to above the illegal treatment Max gets. So glad we won so people can't day we can't say tbe umpires were bad because we didn't deserve to win! One thing I love is how our players never complain. Tbe lions were whinging all night. Had to laugh when tmac outmarked rich and rich claims tmac held his arm. Replied showed absolutely no hold.

Exactly. I hate missing a second of footbsll one is begins. And am completely focused on it. And given how many pages are on it in such a short space of time, I assume people can't read anyone's posts, other than the ladt two. Each to their own

The game day thread is a bizarre world. It should come with a health warning. Otherwise normally rational people (well, some) posting unfiltered thoughts straight from the pre frontal cortex

At 11-1, and a bye after the pies game, I would be happy for them to give langdon a week off and Salem too ( carrying a niggle). Would give both players a really good breK, langdon in particular. Tbey won't want to make too many changes, as much as anything to respect the mnd game. And he probably wouldn't want to not play, but giving maxy a mini break wouldn't be such a bad thing too. 3 week spell so he can get set for a big second half of the year. Id bring bowey in for Salem. Like for like and he gets a taste of afl, which might be important if he is needed at at a later point.

As I predicted would happen, we lost the centre square clearnces and won the around the ground stoppage clearnces.

So sorry for your loss DO. Puts things into perspective. As Tracc said on 360 the other night - it's just a game.

Indeed. I punt on footy, but as rule not on the dees unless there is real value (Weed kick the bloody goal!). And there is a little bit of value in this game - though i predict it won't last. Currently the lions are - just. 1.84 to us at 2.00. But objectively we should be favorite for this game. Don't get me wrong they represent real challenge, but they are yet to win outside of Qld and sure, they have won 7 straight, so are clearly in form. But we are 10-1 and at this point of the season the best side in the competition, having beaten three of the genuine flag contenders (four if you count the swans). We are the benchmark. They are the challengers. We travel well and this game doesn't represent a particular disruption. We were travelling anyway - and in some senses trip to Sydney is easier and less hassle than a trip to the Alice, particularly if there COVID restrictions in place. We play the ground well, having won there twice last year. The dimensions really suit us too, at least in terms of the defensive structure, as whilst it is a touch longer than the G it is only 128m wide (the g is 138 wide) and so the lions will find it super hard to transition and get through our zone (just as the dogs dis and the equally narrow marvel). We will block the corridor again, so that option will be taken away. They won't try and switch as much as the dogs as, one Langdon isn't playing, and two they are happy to go down the line and force a stoppage. However in doing so they will end up kicking to our talls a lot. Hopefully maxy can clunk his marks tonight. The other advantage we have - and it is one that we have over every other team atm - is that they will find it it much harder to negate our strength then we will theirs. They play much differently to the bulldogs (more deliberate, less frenetic, more patient transition) but like the dogs their key strength is their ability to score from stoppages. But their focus is much more on winning around the ground stoppage clearances, as opposed to centre square clearances, and scoring from them. If we can match them in that area they will struggle to score. And there is no reason we wont match them at around the ground stoppages. We have the best ruck in the AFL, whose strength is stoppages, and a gun midfield. And Harmes is back as everyone's favorite tagger. I expect he will go to Mcluggage. Or pehasp Zorko. Putting Rich under pressure when he kick will also be important, so Hunt and rivers coming up the contest will help. I'm predicting the clearances numbers will be the opposite to the dogs games ie we lose centre square clearances and break even or win around the ground stoppages. Their other obvious strength is their forward line - a fantastic balance of gun talls and mids. But we have tools to negate that set up that other teams don't. One, we will make it hard for them to actually get in there. Two, if on, we will apply enough pressure to make their inside 50 kicks messy. And three we have the best defence in the AFL. They will let Danaher push up the ground and May will have the strength to take Mcstay. Hibberd will do a job on Cameron and i reckon Petty has the athleticism to go with Hipgood. And Lever is in rare form so will be there to do what he does. They of course will look to negate our strength - which might mean for instance running a defensive forward on Lever and/or Salem. And they will do a better job than other teams of avoiding dump kicks into their forward line for us to intercept and bounce off half back. Even so, our post clearance pressure is the best in the AFL and we will win our share of ground balls inside their 50. But negating a defensive strength is less impactful than negating an offensive strength (even though we do score a bit from the back half). And running defensive forwards has a downside as it make is harder to score - as was the case for the Swans. For me the key to the game is how well we trap them in our forward half. And critical to that is forward half pressure and making sure any exit kick is under maximin pressure. Stopping Andrews taking intercept marks will also be important. If we trap in our forward half them well, and the width of the ground will help, and match them at round the ground stoppages i think we win. For all those reasons i have tipped us tonight to win by 27 points. Because that show much we win by. And that is also why i think the odds are skeweiff. Neale's inclusion gave them a bounce but the pools are pretty small at this point. The big punters will step in soon and i suspect we will either start a narrow or equal favourite. As we should. But all that is predicted on us bring our full heat. Because i have no doubt they will. And i expect them to be very physical, so it will be interesting to see how we respond. And to be clear, i won't be at all surprised if they win. Should be cracking game. Can't wait. Good thing i don't have to wait long. Just love these Friday night games! Go Redlegs

https://youtu.be/ryDOy3AosBw?t=9

Only on a phone. Suffers from situational height dysfunction

Is that a new hair style the kids are getting around in these day? Was going to get a hair cut soon. I'll ask my barber to give me a coastal fringe. Though, no matter what i ask him for it will look exactly the same.

Yeah, that would work actually. Good call. In addition to having the tank and making good decisions, nibbler role is very similar to langdons, in so far as it involves lots of defensive running between the arcs, much it near the boundary. In that scenario JJ stays in the middle and Captain Jack takes nibbler's role - a position he has played so is familiar with. Minimal change and captain Jack is not thrown to tbe wolves first up against a super midfield. Club house leader Kenty