Jaded No More

Everything helps. 5km versus 10km is a big different in radius. It means seeding from one LGA to another can stop. Also this idea of only hard locking down some LGAs and not others is not sustainable. We tired it during our second wave and it did SFA. Either everyone does it (I am not talking regional vs metro because that is different), or nobody does it. We made so many mistakes, and NSW literally sat and laughed at us. Less than two weeks ago Gladys literally sniggered when asked why she isn't employing Victorian tactics. She said we were not successful in supressing Delta, which is in fact 100% incorrect. We had just done it 4 weeks prior. Perhaps they have not lost the plot, but they have lost control. I know GPs in NSW who have people coming into their offices saying their household contacts are tier 1 but nobody has told them they also had to isolate, and oh their throat is a bit sore and their nose is runny. The mind absolutely boggles. And this is definitely not a political commentary. I am not a labour supporter, I never have been. I think all our leaders in this country have been really poor. It just shows you how underprepared we are for any type of emergency. We've lived a protected and charmed existence in this country for decades, and we are ill prepared to deal with any real problems at all levels of government. God help us if we are ever in an actual war.

Sounds about right if you believe the rumours that we have been doing a very hard block of training. This loading would be very difficult for young players particularly. Makes sense that Jackson and Rivers have both been well down. I still maintain that continuity of personnel and roles is the single most important thing you can do leading into finals. I rather carry Jackson for a few weeks if he's having a down patch, than tinker with a very important cog in our machine. We know we want him there come finals, so we need him to gain that experience and continue on with the plan around him and Gawn. Of course this doesn't apply to injuries. If someone is injured and needs a rest, of course you do that now and not wait until the injury gets worse. But if the issue is fatigue and a down patch that is completely normal for first and second year players, than so be it. Him and Rivers are important parts of our gameplan, as is Kosi, and all 3 will stay in the side unless they are injured. Much easier to carry a best 22 player who is down on form, than constantly bring in new faces and try to include them in a well drilled system perfected by the same 22 players for 18 weeks. Petty is a perfect example of this. When Tomlinson went down, he was the next in line logical replacement. We brought him in, and we have played him week in week out, despite some down form early on, because we knew how vital it was for him to gel with May and Lever. It's now paying off and we miss Tomlinson a lot less than I think most of us expected we will. Gawn and Jackson have a really good partnership. I would go as far as to say they are the best ruck duo in the competition right now. Even when Jackson is down, his ruckwork is solid and allows us to put Gawn where we need him on the field. This is vital and one of the key reasons to our success this year. Edit- I know you aren't having a go at Jackson and I am not having a go at you. Just wanted to pick that point up.

I have no doubt their 'health advice' was to go hard and fast early, and they ignored it. I am sure their CHO is not pleased with the measures they have taken, and she seems to have absolutely no control over Gladys or that [censored] of a health minister who is just a combative [censored]. Listening to their press conferences and then listening to ours is like night and day. Chaos versus calm. They need to employ someone like Jerone. Their contact tracing has lost the plot, they can't keep up with close contacts let alone second and third tiers, which is probably why everyday so many people are found sick in the community. We have mastered the art of isolating rings and rings of contacts. Of the 14 cases today only 3 (maybe 4 pending interviews) were out in the community. 2 are family members of the guy from AAMI park who was a tier 2 and then became a tier 1 (and again due to hard lockdown only very few exposure sites), and 1 who was only out briefly on a tram to get a test (which is not something you can really stop as people need to get tested and not everybody has a car). That is the extent of our 'community exposure', because we shut things down hard and fast. At over 100 cases a day, you lose complete control which is exactly where NSW is at now. It will take them months to get back to any sense of normality, and I hope Daniel Andrew's plan for a hard ring of steel is approved at national cabinet, because if they keep seeding this Delta strain all over Australia, we will all be in lockdown with them until next year!

The weather forecast says no.

Yep. They still refuse to put a 5km radius limit. They still refuse to define essential workers properly. They have done nothing to learn from Victoria. Every outbreak we've had except for this one, has had large concentration of cases in the North and West of Melbourne, where just like in Sydney, there is a large number of ethnic and immigrant communities. Why are they not deploying some of the tactics we have? Door knocking, street testing stations, engaging with community leaders to communicate the messages. For goodness sake we had to lock down commission housing towers. It doesn't get more challenging than that. Today they said we need to double our efforts in those areas. Today is too late. You have refused to learn from the vast mistakes we made in Victoria last year, instead of learning from what worked. And now the months and months of suffering that went on in our state, is going to happen completely unnecessarily in NSW. It also doesn't help that we still have horrible vaccination messaging and horrible supply issues. Now NSW wants to take the few Pfizer doses we have nation wide. Why should us Victorians who have been through 5 lockdowns, in fact we have spent 6 whole months in hard lockdown in this state over the last 18 years, why should we give up our doses because NSW were too proud to lockdown hard and early? It says a lot about the poor quality of leaders in this country across state and federal governments, that bloody Daniel Andrews is the best we got right now.

Gladys literally let slip that they will let the people of Sydney know what Aug, Sept and Oct will look like after the weekend. Old mate will be lucky to get out of lockdown before November. She sniggered at suggestions Victoria did a good job on classifications of essential workers. Well who is sniggering now? Your dumb political play has cost half this country their freedom and their livelihood.

The Dogs were always going to try something different this week. This is a dress rehearsal for finals. They lost against us once, it would be madness to try the exact same thing again in the H&A season and hope for a different result when we beat them quite comprehensively last time (if the loss was by under a goal you just back the same system and see if you can gain that extra inch). I think it's fair to say that the Dogs realised they lost this game because of our defensive set up. They are thinking they can stretch us and I assume they will have one of their talls play almost a tagging role on Lever, to try and draw him out of the contest. It may work, and if it does, it gives us plenty to think about ahead of finals, where we are likely to play Geelong who have a very potent forwardline. I hope the boys are gutted after last week. It was a horrible performance and a big missed opportunity. If we want to stay in the top 4 and indeed push for top 2 to ensure home finals (although Covid will likely make that irrelevant), these are the games we need to win. I am not confident we can do it twice, but let's see.

I hate that umpire! Why would you let such a poor quality umpire anywhere near the best game of the round? He has already given the Dogs 8 random frees and it’s not even game day yet.

Interesting calls all around. Don’t know that Vanders did much wrong and Harmes is in luke warm form at best. But he’s more attacking which we need as I think Viney makes us too defensive.

Covid baby boom is a real thing. Seems like people got really bored in the first lockdown and decided to pro-create. I bet they are really regretting that poor life choice in lockdown 5.0!

Mrs Gawn is due in November around Melbourne Cup time if I remember correctly from the podcast.; Not sure about Jones. Twins generally are delivered early via a pre-scheduled C-section. Far less likely to be a surprise or full term. My guess is they already have a roughly scheduled plan as do all multiple pregnancies which are always considered higher risk. Edit: I think Tmac has had a rough trot since his baby was born. Can understand why his form has been a bit up and down. Hope for his family's sake and our footy hopes that everything gets sorted out quickly.

I would be surprised if we beat the Dogs twice within the H&A season They will be really up and about for this game. It would have been a target on their schedule since they lost to us earlier in the year.

Another small piece of luck is that we did not need to travel this week, and Lever had his baby. I heard him on the Gus and Gawny podcast saying he will need to manage being at home for the birth if it happened while we were interstate. So lucky break there! Same with Tmac's newborn spending time in the hospital this week. If we were in a hub right now you would imagine he would fly home, and nobody would begrudge him that. No more babies due during the season, all safely out of the womb during byes and Victorian games. Well done everyone!

Ridiculous. Who says if we played them next week they wouldn’t lose a different key player to injury in the game prior? It makes 0 difference if we play each other this week or next. It’s just a crying shame that both of these top of the ladder games have gone ahead with no crowds this year.

Williams has said time and time again he doesn’t want to be a senior coach anymore. He is also not the right personality for a senior coach these days. He’s not people manager which is exactly what a senior coach is in modern footy. Yze is another story but I think Pies and Blues have too much pressure from members to go down an unknown path. I’m still backing Clarkson and Lyon for these two jobs.

No matter how hard, the AFL will and should keep pushing on. Save the bye for when we can’t find venues or get teams to grounds or field sides due to isolation orders or a Covid out break. If we could do it last year we can do it this year. Just keep going.

If we don't take advantage of this blessed and magical run of injuries in 2021, we are idiots. This sort of run is extremely unusual, and we will regret it if we don't capitalise on it. *Goes to knock on all available lockdown wood*

Another 7 days in Victoria

I’m not sure how you can compare playing in Darwin at short notice versus playing at the MCG, a ground where Geelong will be playing finals in a few short weeks, and a ground that is literally an hour drive away! It’s actually not a disadvantage to play at the G! It might seem like a simple thing to move venues, but it’s not. Even with no crowds ground staff would be booked, broadcasting would be planned, security etc. just because it’s happening all the time now doesn’t make it easy. It’s happening out of absolute necessity. Moving Geelong’s game is not a necessity. It’s just another headache the AFL has rightly chosen to ignore. Edit: it was apparently denied due to commercial signage and the MCC agreement the AFL has in place. As I said, it’s not that simple to move games. It’s only happening out of sheer necessity.

3-4 months

I am all for incentivising people to get vaccinated, but while our supply is so critically low, you simply can't punish people for the mistakes of the federal government. I am under 40. I don't think I should be punished because it is very hard for me to get access to any vaccine, even AZ, and I also shouldn't be punished for following the overwhelming health advice re: age, and I also shouldn't be punished for wanting to leave the AZ stocks we do have to people who are at higher risk than I am who are currently eligible for it and should rightly get it before I do.

It’s a joke that all Victorian clubs don’t have to play there like us. But that aside, you can’t just move venues at the drop of a hat. The AFL is dealing with so much trying to keep the season going. Geelong’s minor inconvenience is literally the last of anyone’s concerns. That they even bring it up right now shows what a complete bunch of arrogant self centered [censored] they are.

Why don’t they have timed tickets for entry? You buy your ticket and you have a 10-15 min window given to you to enter the ground. If you miss that time slot you need to wait until everyone else has been let in. It’s also a lot safer from a security point of view. Lots of big events overseas do it for safety measures. Not to mention they must enforce mask wearing at all times unless seated. Most people don’t bother with masks outside of the ground when in fact it’s the most crowded. And FFS open up the entire ground. Then you can skip every second bay or every second row and reduce transmission.

I really hope that our players are being told to limit their movements. Even once lockdown is lifted, and I know it’s hard because they deserve a life, but finals are so close. That sacrifice could make a massive difference. If we lose players to isolation or Covid it could cost us a flag.

It does seem unlikely. However a week is a long long time in this pandemic.