Macca

Apart from his dash, elusiveness and lovely kicking skills (to position) he has a great ability to get the vital punch/spoil in Positions himself beautifully on the right shoulder for that spoil And then the run on gather after the spoil? This bloke is a beauty! As Nasher said above, a natural defender

Petracca has adapted well to his forward/midfield role but IIRC, he spent the 2019 season as our best forward playing as a High Half Forward In the off-season (2019) the story was that he wanted more midfield minutes The other part of Petracca forward is that Brayshaw gets his attacking midfielder's role back - slotted straight back in too (on Friday he also played the double role of tagging Neale) And when Oliver returns Gus will stay in his current role you'd imagine ... with Sparrow & Jordon rotating through to help out Oliver & Viney If we can get our KPF's firing, we are cooking with gas

I reckon we have to wait and see what unfolds ... although, your changes could well come to fruition Back a couple of months ago I was projecting JVR to be a mainstay CHF by this stage of the season so I'm still holding out hope that he can nail down that role As for Brown, it's all about his legs and whether he can get back to decent form A predicted dry Sunday afternoon could see JVR & Brown get amongst it Adelaide are a dangerous opponent but if we can deliver the ball well to our 2 KPF's, we can get them both into some sort of form Wouldn't it be grand if the 2 of them were to snag 6 or 7 goals as a pair? Grundy probably plays at least 1 game at Casey? But I'm guessing, deevs

You're twisting my words again ... if anything above frivolous is asking for trouble, then zero tolerance could be applied So don't ask for trouble is what I was saying back then. All the way up to outright abuse Besides which, there was a lot of grey overhanging what was going on They've now got it about right but the players have pulled their heads in too

What shouldn't be forgotten was that he went into bat for minority groups and those groups that were vilified. That stuff was admirable

It is wrong My attitude to dissent was that frivolous acts should not be punished but obvious dissent should be punished. And everything inbetween needs to be judged correctly So get your facts straight and stop twisting my words Try as you might, you'll never catch me out. I'm nothing but consistent with my views on all things umpiring

You might be right but who would watch it? (Bruise-free AFLX type footy)

I'm happy that they have found a happy balance with regards to dissent And was advocating as much when the dissent issue raised it's ugly head last year There's a line that can't be crossed and its an arbitrary one Again, players need to behave themselves ... they are well paid professionals so they need to act like pro's Right across the board, umpires need to be respected. It's not just the domain of males anymore I reckon it's great that we now have female players and female umpires The males will have to behave themselves By the way, I set a great example to others ... if we all toned it down, there would be no issue You should be right behind my way of thinking (and actions) Accept the impires decision and get on with it

What? About female umpires being abused & threatened? You should be leading the charge against that type of abuse 1000 times

I say it to a lot people ... go and umpire if you think you can do it properly Good money but even at junior level, you'll get abused. It's a toxic environment I read recently where a 14yo female umpire had been abused and threatened by a 6'2" male. Try google for the story Now if it wasn't footy, should that male be charged with an offence? I say yes whether it's at the footy or not On this site, an AFL female umpire was called a B and a M by 2 posters here Is that somehow ok? I'm starting to sound like Stuie here but his heart was in the right place (apart from all the facepalms!)

Thank you It's not an easy thing to do but I've always enjoyed taking on a minority view when outnumbered! haha My frustration with footy has always been that we never seemed to have enough good players Thankfully, the clubs mindset is to always improve a good list. No sitting back And you know what, you do that and the luck can start going your way Possibly Pick 4 from Freo? We can now get another star midfielder through the draft (as well as trade for a gun forward with our other picks) Peaches & Cream

Be the best team? Let's just imagine for a minute that the Daniher decision was horribly wrong ... that May does not even touch Daniher at all. A clear wrong decision But here's the thing, because of our list of talent and because we have a really good team, we were/are able to overcome adversity and win the game But if we are an ordinary outfit, we're probably going to lose anyway (as we did for more than 40 seasons from 1964) So it's not true that we were a poor side for 57 years ... that's an exaggeration So take the umpires out of it

We've had these discussions before but full time umpires and clearly defined rules with way less grey areas would help enormously But how do we arrive at clearly defined rules unless we make the game easier to umpire? And to make things easier we need to play 14 or 15 a side ... but who wants to watch bruise-free football? AFLX was farcical but that boring version of footy showed us how the game can be umpired without much controversy Doubt we'll ever see it again So unfortunately, I don't see much changing at all but with all the flopping & staging, I can see things getting worse And the error rate is aleady at 2 or 3 out of 10 (that includes non decisions when there could be a decision) So I see what everyone else sees but have a different reaction because I just see it all as a clusterxxxx Be the best team and play to your best and then you win ... take the umps out of it as Smith probably did (way back when)

I could not watch footy if the umpires did my head in. I'd find another sport to watch I played a lot of sport (albeit as a hack) but I never once crossed swords with an umpire ... 50 seasons worth over 30 years Was taught from an early age to play to your best and respect the umpires. Lots of success too So as a spectator, I'm no different. I'm not perfect by any means but sport isn't life & death to me

Believe me, punters blame jockeys when their hard-earned is involved. Trainers get blamed and even racetracks ("They run the wrong way up in Sydney" ... heard that a lot) We talk through our hip-pockets and footy supporters are heavily invested too. And lets face it, a lot of us are bad losers Even on the other game threads the umpires cop it left right and centre. Hip pocket? Probably For instance, the Cats & Pies are hated here so when the frees go their way, the thread erupts

No, I just don't view sport that way I bet on the horses and there's no conspiracy theories in the sport of kings either Problem gamblers blame jockeys ... never done it

If you and I were umpiring and say 2 others here, we'd all see any incident differently For instance, I do not like soft high contact free kicks so I may not pay many. Those who play for free kicks wouldn't get much joy from me either And you know what, I'm betting you'd be different and the other 2 would be different again Why? Because we aren't robots and we all have different personalities and views So you won't get consistency and besides all that, the rules are nearly all grey anyway

Re the 2016 GF, I thought that the Doggies took advantage of the then rules & interpretations. They did nothing illegal as I reckon they just played to the whistle As for the May incident, Daniher may well have accentuated the contact but from my vantage point (forward pocket 40 metres away) I saw a hefty shove from May My first reaction was ... "Why do that May?" Now, you and others can see things differently but I urge people to look at the replay ... 3 minutes into the last quarterI And our players accentuate contact as well ... Kozzie, Spargo, Clarrie, ANB etc I'll say it again, aim to be a good team that plays well and is well coached ... do that and you will win So if you're not a good team, you leave yourself open to being beaten by the grey area rules, umpire interpretations and the like In other words, take as much doubt out as possible. Be a 5 goal better team

Ha ha! Gotta be in game decisions but you're close And I'm fully aware of that Brownlow scandal ... has there been any other documented incidents? Mind you, in the games history, an umpire or 2 has probably been paid off. I wouldn't rule that out But day to day, match to match with each group of supporters crying fowl in a similar way as if there's some sort of giant conspiracy? I don't think so As previously stated, what must be taken into account is how difficult a sport Aussie rules is to umpire ... daylight to the next hardest sport? Basketball? Soccer? To me it's nothing personal, I just allow umpires to make numerous errors And if we are the better team and we play well, we'll win The match against the Crows with that deliberate out of bounds at the end? We put in a 4 or 5 out of 10 performance as a team that day and that was the main reason we lost

You're possibly right but we had to something ... our KPF's aren't firing and Max forward wasn't working either So do nothing and it's probably more of the same or do something and maybe we'll get a positive result. Maybe I reckon the MC came to the realisation that our forward line marking strength was negligible and we weren't a dominant force in the ruck either We could have reversed roles (Gawn/Grundy) but we've chosen a different pathway It could be that either Brown or JVR fires then one makes way for Grundy who comes in and competes hard ... and right now, that's a better result than neither of our KPF's firing Not forgetting that Grundy is a proper ruckman

Ha ha! You know, if there was any real proof that the umpires cheat, I'd be up for a small fortune right now Millions of $$$$'s down the gurgler! The Kew residence would be on the market (I'd have to move to Burwood boarding with dc) Come on, come at me! Show me the proof and I'll show you the money Jerry Maguire style

I agree and I reckon we made the right move in giving Brown & JVR a chance to prove themselves as a pair and as individuals But by doing that, there wasn't a spot for Grundy (for now) ... he gets to get a rest from being first ruck in the seniors whilst hopefully playing well as a forward at a lower level It's a bold experiment but it might work If we can somehow sort it all out before the finals, we'll be doing well

So there you go putting words in my mouth again I never said anything of the sort Give it up, you might have most of this site on your side but your logic skills are negligible You'll go to your grave bitter and twisted about the umpiring of our great sport. In a way, I feel sorry for you but it's your own fault Brainwashed from a young age with a chip on your shoulder (about umpires) the size of Mars Have you ever played any competitive sport and if so, did you spend your whole time arguing with officials? Try umpiring the sport yourself and put your money where your mouth is It's people like you who drive intelligent people away from this site with your incessant whinging about umpiring decisions By the way, there's at least 30 prominent posters on this site who have never whinged about umpiring decisions But they are quiet about it as they do not want to engage with people like you Wake up to yourself or better still, pipe down and behave yourself

Clint is a good guy D/stone. He just doesn't like umpires haha And that's the point isn't it? ... we are allowed to have different views and there's nothing wrong with trying to disprove a different view Siding with the umps on this site (or any fan site) is just not the done thing. But why can't it be a thing? I've long felt that the reason we were such a poor side for so long had nothing to do with umpiring decisions ... talent & good coaching wins games of football 350-400+ possessions and you lose? You've had enough of the ball to win when you get it that many times

I agree but my point is that Clarrie not playing has allowed us to move the chess pieces around I'm not for one minute rejoicing in the fact that Oliver is out. Just noting that we've had to adjust and get on with it In real terms we have adjusted in a positive way and kudos to the MC for finding a way to cover his absence Of course when Clarrie returns, we're a better team