nutbean

I agree but follow the MRP's thinking ( or lack thereof) - the head is the head. Whilst I agree with the general idea that the head must be protected, there must be recognition that the game is physical and played at 100 miles an hour.

It was mentioned before but i love the way he jumps into the tackler so he is elevated and it is impossible to pin his arms and this move means he has taken the tackler out of the play but still allows him to release the handball. He needs to be careful as leaving the ground into an opponent can have repercussions but I have seen him execute this 3 or 4 times and each time he has done it to perfection. I have not necessarily agreed with commentary that big 18 years old's have AFL ready bodies. A large looking frame can mask the reality that they lack the toning and indeed strength of a more mature footballer (as Viney pointed out about Petracca) - apparently no one has told this to Oliver as he already has no issue using his body as a weapon. I think he will be scarily strong with a couple of seasons and preseasons under his belt.

What got me on the Trenners incident (and now Oliver's) is that it was ok right up until the time he did the tackle and from that day on it wasn't. It seems to me the AFL plays catch up. "that was bad and we'll suspend you and from here on in anyone who does it gets suspended". I have no problem with what Oliver did being paraded to all clubs and say " if you sling , irrespective of hands free or not, irrespective of injury or not - then there is a danger of injury and we will cite these incidents".From today on - not acceptable. However unless the clubs have already been informed of this then this is a precedent setting suspension. ( the sad part is , that I knew it would be looked at and possible of a suspension fine as the AFL has a history of suspending first and setting the ground rules around the action second)

couldn't agree more - and seeing certain incidents over and over in slo mo moves us further away from the fact the game is played at a frenzied pace and decision are made in fractions of seconds and can go horribly wrong.

Because every season the AFL's seems to be tightening their stance on tackling and injuries. They looked at if a player was hurt and acted accordingly. Now they are looking at "Could a player have got hurt". The slinging motion happens quite quickly - whether the hands are free or not there is a risk of damage if the hands don't get in the right position to break the fall. Is anyone under any illusion that had Young hit his head Oliver would have got rubbed out ? The AFL are now taking it one step further - the sling could have hurt. I think it is pretty simple - just don't sling - whether the hands are free or not. (BTW I don't agree with the interpretations at all - it is a physical game and players will get hurt. Whilst I don't want any player getting hurt, my mind is telling me that the amount of players that get head injuries from a tackle are minuscule. The head bump i absolutely get - but tackling causing head injuries ? I still believe more knee injuries are caused in tackles than head injuries)

In fact there is the contradiction - I want to tackler to pin the arms so the tackled opponent cannot get the ball away and even better if you can bring them to ground as that hopefully takes them out of the contest - the AFL do not want the arms pinned and player brought to ground as they cant protect themselves - there's the dilemma. Whilst I agree with your sentiment - you rarely get concussed in a tackle if you are not brought to ground - the AFL wants head injuries and concussions out of the game. Make no mistake players brought to the ground with force with no real chance of protecting themselves will get looked at.

The AFL wants to encourage more and more kids to play the game - they are trying to remove anything that results in head injuries/concussions and the most obvious area is tackling. I think the way it is heading is any tackle where the player can't protect himself from hard contact with the ground will more or less be rubbed out ( and yes there will be inconsistencies) . Oliver swung Young around - there was force in the tackle - he could have been hurt. Had he bounced and hit his head he would have been suspended. The new tackling technique will be to pin the arms so the ball drops but not bring them to ground. The old message of make a tackle "hurt" is a thing of the past - the AFL wants you to tackle to make your opponent drop the ball and nothing more. The real inconsistency to me is the tackle on Tyson - tackle and fall backwards. Too many times you see the tackled player get his leg caught and hyper-extend. I held my breath when Tyson went over backwards, leg trapped and grasped his knee. It seems that this is ok because it is the knee not the head.

As said earlier - they are targeting this sort of slinging tackle so I was not surprised. If it caused damaged it would have been weeks. Check back on his highlight reel - he does a few of these tackles in the TAC and I am pretty sure that the coaches will be onto him about it. I love the fierce desire to tackle - i just dont want him rubbed out.

you are welcome - can you please knit two as i would dearly love one as well....

You can disagree with the direction of the AFL and slinging but unless you havent been watching for the last two years - it is pretty simple - the tackle Oliver did, had it resulted in an injury to Young would have cost him a suspension. You can suggest "we are in trouble" all you like - the reality is the reality. It's been mentioned before in his TAC highlights that it was evident that he sometimes slings in his tackles. He doesn't need to stop tackling but he does need to improve his technique or he will get rubbed out. ( as much it would hurt , I prefer a footballer with a desire to tackle that may on occasion earn the wrath of the MRP rather than a footballer who has no appetite for the physical aspect of the game)

I critiqued him a week or so ago and my only small knock on him was his tackling technique. I applaud his desire to tackle but he needs to rid himself of the "sling" - no matter how innocuous a sling tackle may be , if the opponent bumps his head on the ground, you are looking at a suspension. His tackle was borderline. on a positive note, he does not look at all out of place in the heat of the centre square.

I'm an MCC member and have no knowledge whatsoever...

Not guilty .....

I just watched all the clips again so I will give it a go. reads the play extremely well - gets to where the ball is Exceptional evasive skills in close - the "jink" he does is really sublime Very strong through the hips so he is able to stand up in tackles. This strength more often than not allowed him to shrug tackles Very strong overhead for his size good decision maker but I doubt a highlight would show him constantly turning the ball over His handpassing was very good - his kicking looks ugly but seemed to find its mark. A positive and a negative - he likes to tackle but quite a few times he slung his opponent in the tackle and we know with slinging that it is a very fineline between ok and suspension.

If the hype on here about the players we drafted in the past had become a reality we would be looking at a four-peat this year not Hawthorn.

Like Brayshaw - he either earns a gig straight up or he doesn't. Being a first year player should not exclude you playing round one if your form warrants it. The difference now is we don't need to gift 1st year high draft pick players games just because they were high draft picks.

I am not sure about straight into the guts - and I am not a believer in rushing players but if you put your hand up - you put your hand up - whether you are 1st year player or not. Brayshaw certainly earned his place in the team from the get-go. I think the difference is that they wont be played immediately just because they are a high draft pick - also Roos and co manage them well by giving them a break during season as he did with both Hogan and Brayshaw.

Whispering Jack is better than Clayton Oliver

Went to a great gig yesterday - Billy Miller has released a new album called "Australia" - love the album ( hate the title ). He played the album start to finish yesterday and was ably backed up by Bill McDonald, Johnny Annis, James Black, Rebecca Barnard and his son, Eddie. He wrote a couple of songs with Paul Kelly ( in a rain delay of the cricket !) so Paul Kelly was also on stage with him and sang. The second set was him doing some of his stuff from yesteryear including stuff from "The Spaniards" - he had Mick Peeling singing with him. ( also saw John Butler Trio on Saturday night - the man is a genius)

I have seen John Fogarty a few times of recent and he gives great concert - he still sounds the same as he did in the 70's

Again, revisionism at its very best. It is just another player that went later in the draft that turned out much better than our pick.

Picket, if you love Wines then set him free, if he comes back and plays for the Dees then he is yours, if he stays at Port then he never was......

Jimmy was not the flavor of the month - he was definitely the more fancied selection by the experts What I have learned from numerous drafts is that the experts are pretty good at identifying the top draft picks but trying to identify them in order of how they will turn out is nothing more than guesswork - if you go through the top 10 from every draft, they have generally identified the top talent but not one draft would not have a complete reordering - there will always be picks that in retrospect should go higher and others that should be lower and picks that are a complete bust and smokey's that no one really identified - how in in the name of all that is good did Fyfe get through to the selection he did. We were lucky that last year we had picks 2 and 3 - who here is willing to bet who will turn out better ? Petracca or Brayshaw ? We are fortunate we did not have to make that choice. But if we only had pick 2 and not pick 3 as well and picked Petracca - we would be upset if Brayshaw turned out better.

Seriously ? Just type in Jimmy Toumpas and go to the earliest threads and there are umpteen references to Toumpas going in the top three and not making it to our pick - Even Jack Viney in an interview asked who he would take and he nominated Toumpas but further elaborated that he didnt think he would be available at our pick. ( I cannot find the interview but Hannibal refers to the same interview in Nov 2012 - " I heard Viney (Jack) interviewed a few weeks back and he was asked which other player in the draft do you really rate and would love to go to Melbourne and he nominated Toumpas".) So much talk of Toumpas hopefully "Sliding" to our pick. Even enjoying the conspiracy theories of us overpaying for Hogan in exchange for GWS letting Toumpas slide to our pick. Ill set you a challenge - you provide one shred of evidence that Wines was higher rated prior to the draft than Toumpas and was the "obvious" choice and I will then provide double the amount for Toumpas being rated higher than Wines. (FYI - in the first minute of searching I have two from July and September of the draft year).

Actually blantantly right. Newspapers are working off information from recruiters and TAC watchers. Until you provide one shred of evidence that Wines was rated by anyone ahead of Toumpas then your comment referring to "blatantly wrong" is blatantly wrong. Did we get it wrong in hindsight ? no argument. Your comment " Without question Toumpas was in that correct range and the debate between the two was valid at that point in time" is correct but the debate at the time was one sided - At that time it was envisaged that Toumpas would be selected higher than Wines and that is exactly what transpired. I will watch with interest how Parish goes because before any more rewriting of history happens, I will also state that Parish was more highly fancied that Oliver so I expect there to be much hand wringing if Parish ends up a much better footballer than Oliver. However I don't get angry over who we could have had - it is a pointless exercise.