Jaded No More

Dogs kicking goals from nothing. Getting all the free kicks. Using the ball much better in the wet.

I’m sorry to say this but they look a lot better than us

Dogs are doing it better when they have the ball. Using it a lot better.

Trac: “now watch me go Bont”

Opportunities in front of goal wasted

Of course Bont kicks straight. Our goal kicking will continue to hurt us.

Goal kicking again ????

Free kick dogs has begun

Pissing down rain

Waiting for this game to start brings the same anxiety as waiting for the daily Victorian Covid update.

Because we needed another reason to call him that.

Gold Coast tried hard. Shame.

So the government found 50,000 Pfizers lying around to give NSW? How curious.

Drugs are bad kids.

I definitely don’t want us to lose. But I also don’t think that if we lose a close hard fought game it’s the end of the world.

Putting in a good performance but losing a close one tonight could be more beneficial come finals should we meet the Dogs, than winning.

NSW health minister needs a swift roundhouse to the face. Stop telling us how amazing NSW is and how disappointing it is that the rest of Australia isn’t coming to help you when you’re refusing to help yourself with an actual lockdown.

I swear to god I’m losing the will to live watching this opening ceremony. And then the other option is watching Port vs Pies. Life is so hard.

I always knew my cheering was the key factor in our success.

They want Pfizer because like everyone else in the country they want to vaccinate the under 40s, who are the most active in the community and bring about the most geographical spread. Well guess what, I've been in 6 months of lockdown in Victoria and I deserve my share of the Pfizer as much as anyone in NSW, SA, Tassie or QLD. They have just opened up Pfizer eligibility to pregnant women. Finally! My friend is 37 weeks pregnant, very high risk pregnancy and has been in and out of hospital for months. They refused to give her Pfizer until today. If she gets to miss out, then so does Bob in NSW who wants to go to Prada tomorrow.

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.