The heart beats true

I love changing the name for the round. That’s such a good idea. Hope cheer squad gets behind it with the chant.

So the 2 biggest ‘weaknesses’ from the weekend were May dragged up the ground, and forward defensive pressure wasn’t as strong? Petty solves one problem, ANB and Kozzie solve the other. No need to mention that we won pretty easily but ran out of puff in the last because apparently there’s a virus going round that meant one quarter of our team was out.

Watching the Essendon Bulldogs game with interest. No team gets more frees than the Dogs, and no team consistently feels like they are on the wrong side of umpiring decisions like Essendon supporters. Channel 7 should have promoted this as the ‘cue the boo’ clash.

This is one of the more poignant things I’ve read on here. I often think the same thing, but was unable to articulate it. There’s definitely an historic lens to it.

I really liked that we won. I thought we looked very tired in the last quarter, which makes sense given the week. I sat with a lot of Melbourne supporters in an area I don’t normally sit in and I thought that on the whole they acted like a bunch of belligerent teenagers. If I have to hear one more person yell ‘man up’ at the best defensive zone in the history of the game I’m going to throw up. Sometimes at the footy I feel like people need to be reminded it’s not 1994, and we don’t win by ‘going in harder’. Would it kill people to learn the modern game?

Interesting to note that on yesterday’s team ANB was the last player listed on the bench. Am I reading into this, or did the club suspect something? 🤔

I suspect ANB isn’t showing any symptoms at all given he trained. About 20% of the people I’ve known who tested positive had no symptoms. I got sick but bounced back quickly - but even my gym sessions were at 60-80% for the first week or so back. It definitely makes it hard for elite athletes and I’d expect all involved to be down in output for 2 weeks following. Also, and this is one for the track watchers - Wondering if post Christmas any of these lads were away from Melbourne when the first wave struck? There’s a lot of SA and WA boys out.

I think you missed my point. English, English, English! 🤣

Tim English is easily the best young talent in the league. He’s absolutely worth multiple first round picks. Eagles should chase him super hard. He’s a generational talent that could change the game forever.

I hope the Americans aren’t watching. The streaming offer just lost a zero.

The Telstra ad that starts with footage of Jack Viney as the siren sounds and we win the Premiership is the greatest commercial ever made. I absolutely loathe Telstra, but I love seeing that. Also, tonight’s game is garbage, so it’s nice to see what a real footballer looks like.

I hope Dogga is watching. It’s enough to make him sign on for us for another 10 years.

Yeah that’s ugly (excellent home video work by you by the way). I can’t see the umpires letting that happen again. Surely they’ll be shown that footage and told that’s an issue. The way he takes himself off the ground and drives with his head is super dangerous.

I’m excited for Bedford. I think he deserves a shot at it. From all reports he’s doing a lot right. If the ins are Lever, Viney and Bedford we still need a ruck back up. Weed has been doing a bit at Casey. Let’s hope he steps up. The weather suggests a lot of ground ball so Dunstan might be in his element. Opportunities abound for guys keen to prove their worth.

I’m not that pessimistic about it all. As long as Dwayne Russell isn’t involved I’m happy to fork over my hard earned to watch games I can’t get to.

Completely agree. I can not understand why the AFLPA allows any footage from the rooms during the game. Seeing a doctor having a private conversation with a patient is no place for ‘entertainment’. It’s atrocious.

I think this is spot on. As supporters we need to have an expectation that teams want to be incredibly defensive against us. If they don’t play that way they get sliced open like GWS last week. We are far, far from an ugly team - but we are going to get in a lot of scraps this year because on paper it’s the only way teams can stay in games. Every press conference this year Goodwin talks about patience. He knows it, the players know it, and we just need to remember it.

I love that we’ve completely stolen the Anzac Day tradition and made it much, much better. The night game is much more symbolic on camera - and so it’s the lasting media image of the round. It also doesn’t hurt that both Collingwood and Essendon are irrelevant. The pregame was amazing last night. I love that the teams sneak on to the crowd in the cover of darkness. It was all so well done. Great acoustics at the G too.

Tonight was my 9 year old nieces first game of footy. I almost sent her home at half time for fear that Children and Family Services would be called. It was ugly, and then we flexed for 10 minutes and it was over, and then it was a terribly boring last quarter. Strange game. And then after it was all over the crowd was again very subdued - like everyone expects us to win.

This annoys me so much too. He may as well say ‘kicking in the direction of my butlers pantry’.

If by poor man’s Dan Hanneberry you mean that he actually gets on the park and doesn’t just take 800k a year to sit in the stands, then yes - he gets paid a lot less, for a lot more.

Imagine putting in a poor performance for us with Salem, Viney, Lever, TMac, Hibberd, Tomlinson, Melksham, Bedford, Chandler, Majak, and Mitch Brown ready to come in. In all seriousness that is half of an AFL quality side ready to go.

These numbers are out. Richmond should have one more ‘free kick’ courtesy of Cotchin. In all seriousness had there been better vision of that incident, and had it been Alex Neal Bullen kicking Joel Selwood, ANB would have been rubbed out for 6 weeks. Do the media do anything any more? Clearly not report on incidence in the actual games.

This entire thing is a classic example of how the AFL ignores it’s stakeholders. They sent out a memo to clubs after round 3, but did absolutely nothing to inform the millions of people who watch the game about how the rule was going to be adjudicated. It seems incredibly arrogant. Seeing a smug Scott brother explain to us that we should have known it was going to be like this only makes it much, much worse.

I think, as others have mentioned, it should just be a stringent return to the ‘abuse’ ruling. Players putting their hands out in confusion feels like an overreaction - but any player uttering anything to the umpire is an instant 50. It often feels like things go too far before they settle at a place that the AFL community learns to live with. I think we are in that stage, but it’ll calm down.