deejammin'

Grainger-Barrass was marked as “managed” in their outs while others were marked omitted, I’d assume that means they think he is best 22 but he is a bit sore or lacking fitness. As you say, Hawks are up and down, their up has been good, I hope we get their down, last quarter against Sydney ideally, for a whole game, I’d love to pay them back for all those thrashings!

It’s easy to forget we were without Lever, Petty, Rivers and Salem(for 3.5 quarters) round 1. Lever, Petty, Salem round 2 and 3. That’s 3-4 players in the same part of the ground. In some ways that should be more difficult to cover than one back, one mid, one forward/ruck and one small forward, as important as they are. We’ve covered incredibly well this year, I’d say the only team truly close to our best 22 was round 5 against GWS, and we all saw how that went. Hopefully we just get the W this week, go 2 games clear plus percentage in the top two and get our best 22 back for St Kilda.

Shiel’s is a good in. Otherwise it’s not the same side that looked so good against the cats. CJ, Mitchell Lewis, Ward, Phillips, Reeves, Grainger-Barass all out of that team. Outs not as talented as our ours, but significant nonetheless.

Petty didn’t train Wednesday so it’s not surprising he also has it. I hope Joel has a cracker. Still a very good side. Hopefully no more illness and a big win. 🤞🤞🤞

The rain may make this more interesting than it would otherwise be. I think there’s two likely scenarios: Standard structure: out: Jackson, Kozzie, Sparrow, Smith in: TMac, Bedford, Viney, Lever, Melksham(sub) Going ‘small’ for the wet: Out: Jackson, Kozzie, Sparrow, Smith In: Melksham, Bedford, Viney, Lever, TMac(sub) In scenario two Gawn and Weideman would ruck with Gawn playing far more ruck than usual, Melksham and Petracca to play the third forward role, Bedford the small forward role. Still have TMac in case a big man goes down. This might be a better option if we get the 35mm some are predicting although if I was betting I’d say we go with our standard structure.

I think I’ve solved the mystery, last week there was a poster of Jack Viney and Shai Bolton to promote the game. Jack out with COVID. This week it’s Kozzie and Sicily…. Need to stop putting blokes on these COVID ridden posters!!

I spy with my little eye: Dunstan, Gawn, Oliver, Smith, May, Baker, Fritsch, Langdon, Melksham, Hunt, Van Rooyen, Harmes, Chandler, Lever, Turner, McVee, Weideman, Hibberd, Rivers, Daw, M Brown, TMac, ANB And interestingly Bedford (picture 19 of 22). Yze said Viney returns tomorrow. Of our best 22 candidates I can’t see Trac (please god no!), B Brown (unlikely, just had it), Jackson, Bowey (Demonland I can’t see him which photo?), Petty, JJ, Sparrow, Kozzie, Spargo, Brayshaw, Tomlinson. I hope it’s our VFL boys (no offence guys), worrying if Bedford has it as it looks like he was there… EDIT: while I was writing Jackson was confirmed.

Good luck to Adem, he inspires great confidence, hope none of our players have got COVID from Goodwin and we go in with a near full team (only Salem out of best 22 atm with Viney and Lever back in). How does not one reporter ask the sentimental question about how it feels to senior coach the club you played for, I think it’s pretty special, hasn’t happened many times for the MFC, last one was Barassi? No instead 15 questions about what Goodwin will do at home 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️ Go Oooooze smash those Hawks!!

It’s also important to note the ladder can be quite distorted after 6 weeks depending on who’s played whom, injuries etc. Even last year, a year where the ladder stayed relatively stable, Brisbane were 8th in round 6 having just made their way back into the 8 after early season losses, Freo were 6th, Richmond were 7th, Essendon 12th, GWS 13th, Bulldogs first. In fact no team actually sat where they finished the season inside the eight. The four changed by one team, the eight by two. I would argue this year is even tighter than last, there’s about 6 teams outside the eight that with luck with injuries and hitting their best form could make it. There’s also a number of teams who are vulnerable, Carlton, Hawthorn, Collingwood etc. Also, Melbourne has literally beaten every team in the league except Collingwood over the last year, touching up GWS means the only teams we aren’t currently reigning victors against in the last game are Hawthorn (draw) and Collingwood (please, please beat them this year!). Our early season run is like gold, it’s possible every other place within the eight could change again, with the possible exception of us and the Roos every team looks like they could be upset or upset any other any given week. If we can lock away a 3-game break inside the four over the next three weeks we can just sit back and watch the dogfight, it’s going to be epic!

And he played the first 6 games of 2021 in the twos working on his game and then took his chance when Tomlinson (who was in career best form and had cemented his place in the side) went down with his ACL. Joel is a handy player with many great attributes, but right now he gives away more easy goals and makes more suspect decisions than our best 3 KPD. It’s nothing personal, it’s not whipping boy stuff, but the mistakes he made this weekend made it easy to replace him with Lever, if he wanted to put genuine pressure on Petty/Lever/May/Rivers/Hunt then he needed not to Handball the ball straight to the opposition full forward 30 metres out for no apparent reason…

I certainly hope so. I’m not shouting the font changed when I quoted stats, sorry for that. Last year is the quintessential example of why it’s unlikely Clarry will win. MFC had an all time team record for Brownlow votes with 96; Clayton Oliver - 31, Christian Petracca - 23 Max Gawn - 16, Tom McDonald - 8 Jake Lever - 5, Jack Viney - 3 Luke Jackson - 3, Bailey Fritsch - 3 Kysaiah Pickett - 2, Steven May - 1 Christian Salem - 1 Port had 91: Ollie Wines - 36, Travis Boak - 25 Karl Amon - 11, Aliir Aliir - 7 Dan Houston - 5, Charlie Dixon - 3 Connor Rozee - 1, Zak Butters - 1 Mitch Georgiades - 1, Robbie Gray - 1 Only two Port players got 3 votes for a game to take votes off Wines, that was Boak five times and Amon once. Every other time they won Wines got three, there was no competition for him. Melbourne on the other hand had multiple 3s for Trac (5), Gawn (3) Jackson(1). All taking votes off Oliver which cost him the award. They also got more twos and pushed Oliver down to one or none (Lever x2, McDonald x3, Gawn x2, Trac x3) Oliver and Trac were both better than Wines last year, as was Bont, they were all hurt by playing in deeper teams. It’s still a great honour to win a Brownlow, Wines had a great season but the award is flawed in that it doesn’t represent the best players in the competition as effectively any time your teammates play well, you get punished, even if your overall performance was clearly leagues best. If I had to guess, Rnds 1 Trac, Rnd 2 Trac or Jackson gets 3, Rnd 3 Oliver gets 3, 4 Gawn gets 3, 5 Oliver or Trac, 6 Oliver. Oliver is going well but A Brayshaw, Cripps and Steele will top their teams votes in every game and would probably be beating him right now, only because he plays for a better, deeper team.

Interesting manipulation of the facts there. The game changes so quickly all the players you list played over a decade ago, a different era for football and the award, in the last ten years only one premier has won the Brownlow, Dustin Martin in 2017, the one exception to the trend I argue 100% stacks up. Sam Mitchell shared the Brownlow in a GF losing side with Trent Cotchin who did not make finals, 3!made prelims, one elimination final and four more missed finals entirely, the clear majority. I would argue only three times in the past decade the Brownlow represented the best player in a great team, Martin, Dangerfield and Mitchell, 8.5 other times the best teams took votes off each other and a good/great player from a lowly side won it. Here’s the facts: 2021 Ollie Wines Prelim loss 2020 Lachie Neale prelim loss 2019 Nathan Fyfe Did not make finals 2018 Tom Mitchell Elimination final loss 2017 Dustin Martin GF winner and Norm Smith medalist 2016 Dangerfield Prelim final loss 2015 Nat Fyfe did not play finals 2014 Matt Priddis did not play finals 2013 Gary Ablett Jnr Did not play finals 2012 Sam Mitchell (GF loss) Trent Cotchin did not play finals Next time you want to lecture someone on the facts try using relevant, recent stats not relics of a bygone football era.

Makes finishing top two all the more important. Freo, Sydney and Brisbane potentially rounding out top 4 all of a sudden a home final means so much more.

Why isn’t CJ playing for the hawks in this game? COVID? Injured? I missed that.

Also why does Brereton commentate Hawks games? He’s painful at the best of times but extra painful in Hawthorn games.

Geez the Hawks are snipers. I hope we can belt them early so we can protect our players from dangerous hits to the head.

Sorry mate, Hawthorn lost to Geelong in round 5 in 2014 (Geelong 15.16.106 def Hawthorn 12.15.87). The last reigning premiership team to go 6-0 to start a season was Collingwood in 2011, they lost round 7. Only 3 reigning premiership teams apart from us have started 6-0 in the modern afl era (post 1990). Collingwood 2011 (lost at 6-0), Geelong 2008 (8-0) and West Coast 2007 (6-0), ominously none went back to back so if we do better than them next week we’ll hopefully become the first premiership team to start 6-0 + and win a back to back premiership. I’ve covered all this in the records we can be proud of thread. Edit: if you are referring to the Hawks of 2013 they weren’t the reigning premiers that year, Sydney were.

No, May’s handball was smothered in a good pressure act from a Richmond player. Smith handballed the ball straight to Lynch when he had multiple options and time to kick. Joel does some good things but also has some panicked moments and costs goals. He is replaced by the reigning AA back in Lever, as many have said he’d be playing regular footy at a lesser team, but compared to May, Petty and Lever he’s not there yet and goes out.

Ins: Lever, Viney Outs: Smith, Bedford (Dunstan to sub) Its easy to underestimate how good we’ve been without Lever these first 4/6 weeks. The conventional wisdom last year was that if you can stop Lever, either by making him accountable with a dangerous forward, or by tagging him (see Schache in the GF) then you go a long way to stopping MFC. Smith and Tomlinson have battled manfully to cover him but the reality is with Petty going to a whole new level this year they will be replaced by Lever anytime the three (Lever, May, Petty) are available. Dunstan very stiff but Viney has been exceptional this year, has added great ball use and goal kicking to his incredible contested stuff and while Dunstan was good Viney’s exceptional tackling puts the fear of god in our opposition in a way few players do. May has a corkie, but given he can play with half a hamstring I’d hate the be the medical staffer who tried to get him to have a week off. Interested in what happened to Harmes, hope he’s ok, if he’s hurt some kind of reshuffle with Dunstan staying in is the go. Rivers looks sore/out of form, with Brayshaw absolutely starting at HB I wonder if a move to the wing/midfield beckons for Riv in the future. His kicking through the middle would be an absolute asset and getting some touches might help his confidence. Only if Harmes is injured or JJ dropped off though. What a great dilemma to have.

I think you need to take Goody’s press conferences with a grain of salt. He’s honest but there’s no way he comes out and pots a confidence player like Smith after an easy win. Smith had some shockers tonight, coughed up the handball for Lynch’s goal, missed easy targets for terrible turnovers and repeatedly jumped into Gawny, May, Rivers and Petty when they had the mark covered. He’s an able backup and has some nice attributes, but he’s out for Lever as sure as day follows night. Brownlows go to the best player in a team with very few or no other great players. Do you honestly believe Wines was better than Clarry, Trac, Bont and co last year? No, he only had a Boak competing with him for votes so every time they won he got 2 or 3. Clarry is competing with Trac, Gawn, May, Jackson, Langdon for votes. He gets three tonight but each of the others takes 3 off him all of the previous 5 rounds. The problem with the Brownlow is it’s the antithesis of good footy. It rewards one-man teams, whereas a strong, unselfish team(although we went away from that up front last night) takes votes off each other, splitting it so none of them win. It’s a dumb award. All in all last night was frustrating, there was the obvious, the goalkicking, but also our field kicking was off, we kept hand balling one too many times into pressure, kicking forward to no-one, fumbling, dropping the ball, turning it over in our back half, all of it was very uncharacteristic. The good is we still won and would’ve won by a huge margin but for ANB x2 easy set shots, Spargo missing a snap he’d kick 99/100, Fritsch and Ed shanking lockable ones, Petracca, Harmes and Kozzie going for glory when there was a simple pass, BBB missing set shots he usually kicks. The bad was that was our worst performance this year, but we still won. The ugly was Lynch’s gimme goal for HTM that should’ve been HTB, he tried to kick in a tackle and missed, the same decision had already been accurately given 3 times to that point but then the umps had a mare and the HTB decisions disappeared from then on, sometimes to our advantage, sometimes not, how does Bowey not get HTB for his brilliant tackle? Time to turn is prior!!! On to next week, hopefully we’ve got our kicking boots on, I’m hoping we can end this mini Hawks resurgence and get back to having the media can Kennett and Mitchell for last years trade period and the Clarkson debacle.

Both in the first quarter! First ten minutes the former last ten, the latter. 😬😬

Interesting. Selection is tough at the moment. Tomlinson vs Smith is tough but clearly Smith is a little ahead for the FD at the moment. His marking has been better than Thommo and his athleticism makes him more versatile. TMac vs Brown vs Weid has finally changed. It’s very interesting to see the Weid /Brown combination, this is the one we’ve seen the least of with Tommy keeping his spot all of last year. I think it could work, Weid is a good athlete, clunks marks and generally plays better when not the number 1 target, Brown plays his best running long leading patterns and taking the number 1 defender. I hope they both have a day out. Tommy is stiff but he hasn’t turned it on yet this year. Dunstan is coming in for the exact reason he was brought to the club, one of our contested beasts goes down, he comes in. If he plays his role we’ll be fine, he doesn’t need to be Viney (who has been in career best form) he just needs to play his role at stoppage and get the ball to Clarry, Trac, Ed and co. If he brings his best it could put more pressure on some of the younger mids when Viney comes back as his best is very good. Should be interesting. Please [censored] those Tigers! Go Dees!

Exactly. After so much arm wringing about protecting umpires at lower leagues they will now have to deal with countless young footballers flopping around for frees or kicking each other with studs. If the AFL has such a direct impact on the lower leagues as the dissent rule is currently claiming then surely we need to stamp out violence and unsportsmanlike behaviour in the AFL also?

Unbelievable! Harry Mackay’s (deserved a fine) but was so much milder than that! Trent Cotchin has also gotten away with intentionally kicking Taylor Walker with the studs of his boots. Taylor Walker was on radio saying if he or Toby Greene did that it would be 4 weeks but for Trent ‘protected species’ Cotchin it’s only a fine. The MRP is a joke, a protectionist, uneven, totally unfair joke.

Bloody Adelaide, a clean sweep would’ve been even better. I hope Port pilfers their entire list so they can experience an iota of what Victorian AFLW clubs have. A Victorian club making the grand final with access to 1/8 of the states talent (soon to be 1/10 in a comp where players rarely move interstate) is remarkable compared to Adelaide having 100% of a football state. If the AFL were serious about an even AFLW comp they would’ve brought Port, WC and to a lesser extent Sydney in before expanding all the Vic clubs, but they never do the logical fair thing for AFLW unfortunately. Anyway rant over, remarkable year for the club nonetheless.