The heart beats true

Agreed. We have a percentage of 140 after 15 games, and we didn’t have one of those meaningless 100 point wins over North or the Eagles. I guess people have to complain about something? Our forward line is doing its job. Most importantly it suits our game plan - that sees us on top with a big percentage.

From AFL site… ’Melbourne has also given important forward Tom McDonald renewed hope of returning this season, reducing the timeframe on his return to "eight to 10 weeks" as he recovers from a foot problem.’

I feel like we need to put this in the thread title to save you from having to mention it every 3 pages.

Rory Lobb certainly put him under some pressure today. If LJ pushes Lobb out of Freo that will put Luke under a lot of pressure to perform straight away.

I think Noble is a good coach with an enormous amount of football knowledge. He’s very well respected in the industry (which is slightly different to Neeld who hadn’t work in as many diverse environments). He’s clearly trying to teach them how to do thinks the right way, and the players aren’t responding in any way. He’ll be gone in the next few weeks, get a job as a head of football somewhere next year and wonder why it was all so hard.

Honestly, this is so heartwarming. It’s easy to forget in the context of billion dollar tv deals and million dollar contracts that these are just people, with families. It means so much to them, and only means more as they get further into life and realise how lucky they’ve been to be involved in the way they are.

AFL is rubbish if Melbourne aren’t playing.

This poor bloke is doing the team thing every week and getting no love for it. Really surprised by those having a crack at him.

I was very happy with the win because we overcame a lot. The umpiring was very one sided. I think I read we got 3 free kicks in total after quarter time. In the last 3 quarters of the match for every free we got the Crows got over 5. Having said all of that we absolutely demolished them around the ground in the 3rd quarter - and didn’t put them away. Bedford and Spargo missed absolute sitters. We are an experienced team, and we’d only have ourselves to blame if we didn’t get the job done. You know you’re going to get one sided umpires in Adelaide, it’s what makes the win more important. They showed last years last quarter before last nights game and it was laughably biased umpiring.

Brilliant. That should be the descriptor in the TV guide.

I don’t blame the umpire closest to this incident because his view was clearly obstructed by other players. What I don’t get is why any of the other 2 umpires on the ground didn’t step in. At others grounds they would.

Collingwood have had so many tight games go their way. To put it into perspective they are 6th on the ladder - but 11th for percentage.

I think a lot of demons fans don’t understand how we are asking Ben Brown to play. At North he played as a leading forward in a team that played a lot of games at Marvel - where it’s less contests and easier for dry ball skills. For us he’s trying to compete in the air almost 100% of the time - as it suits our midfield game style. He’s in the team to kick 2 goals from the 4 opportunities he’s going to get a week. At North, when he was firing, he was getting 10 opportunities because of the way they played, and tried to isolate him. He’s an important part of the team - specifically around aerial contests in the forward 50 and keeping players like Andrews and Stewart honest.

That was a great win given the outs and the way we had to find a way. That’s a tough ground to win at. Proud of the boys.

Langdon didn’t tell him to keep going. Not his fault. He didn’t know what was behind him.

We aren’t competitive in the air aside from our defenders. Have to change out game plan a bit - as long down the line is killing us.

Gotta feel for the umpires here. They’ve done everything they could do, but it just wasn’t quite enough.

The umpires getting very involved here

Club said Gawn will be back. I’ll take the All Australian ruckman back. We can fit him in.

If St Kilda make the finals all they will trouble is their own supporters. They are so frustrating to watch.

Everyone relax will ya. We don’t have a ruckman for one game against a bottom 4 team. Half the comp plays without one every week.

I assumed the conspiracy theory would be the clubs been told about Luke’s future and are shelving him.

I think a few things about Lobb to the Dogs: 1.Why wouldn’t they be trying to bring in a defender first? They have no good back men and it’s a massive list issue. 2. What does it say about JUH and Darcy (and let’s not forget Schache was the next big hope) if Lobb is playing for 3 years in front of them? The Bulldogs remind me of that kid in high school that knows he’s not much to look at. They are so flattered any ones keen that they fall in love with out asking who, why or how.

David King has made a career out of making simple things seem complicated. If he never spoke about football again no one would ever notice. He offers nothing, except to fill time pretending stats tell a story, and saying the word ‘brand’.

The emergency list is interesting. I guess the club has figured on interstate travel it’s more important for younger players to get game time and learn structures at Casey than jump on a plane and essentially do nothing. And they might be rewarding Mitch Brown for his game last week, and Melksham for keeping May sharp? Hunt the sub i’d think.