Lucifers Hero

Is everyone going home today and watch the GF again to get the good vibes back!

But they don'! Last year they had 11 days between rnd 13 and rnd 15 games. This year the break is 9 days.

All we need now is for the 5 second video of Hunt and Brayshaw having what looked like grumpy words in the Syd game, for the media to really go to town and declare: the wheels have fallen off!!

May gets the suspension for drinking while injured which is a big no, no. It was a repeat offence. No option but to suspend him. "Steven and Jake will also complete community service through one of the club's community partners to ensure they understand the responsibility and impact they have as role models within the community". Penalties look appropriate.

If he was going to drink while injured he should have just done it at home - ALONE!!

Another reason for the media to dig their boots in... ...we are now giving them the ammo! When it rains, it pours! Not good for May, with the bye coming up he will not have played for 4 weeks.

That is probably true but there are so many other facts staring us in the face, that we know have affected our players over the last month that I find attributing the losses to 'loading' a tenuous link. And what no-one has explained yet is why 'loading', at any time should lead to losses at all.

Fatigue could be due to illness, injury, post covid, step up to AFL when players missing. 5 players coming back from injury. Poor skills could be due to opp pressure and replacement players not having the skills or knowing the system as well as those replaced. For the fatigue of rounds 11 and 12 we would have had to start loading around weeks 9 and 10 which would be bizarre given that is when players had covid .

Adelaide: umpire made a mistake in the dying seconds of the game, admitted to by the AFL. Collingwood: Buckley's last game as coache so they were up and about. Every chance that in 2021 we started a 3 week training block pre the Coll game ie round 12 (where we are now in 2021) through the bye and to round 15. Partly in lieu of no game in the bye week. That would be consistent with what Max said post bye last year. I think it of it as a mini-preseason rather than something mysterious like 'loading'. Not directly related to your post but whether it is called 'loading', 'extra blocks of training, mini preseason or whatever no one has so far shown why that should or does cause losses. fwiw we did extra training during the first finals bye.

fwiw Brad Scott no longer has umpiring in his remit: "Lisa Lawry has been appointed to the newly created position of General Manager Umpiring within the Football Operations Department." https://www.afl.com.au/news/768093/afl-football-department-appoints-general-manager-umpiring Maybe this reflects the fiasco of Scott's introduction of the new 50m rules for 'dissent' and 'holding up play'. The former has been (secretly) modified and the latter seems to have completely disappeared. Scott confounded everyone with these rules then tried to dig himself out of the hole by having a '5 bob each way' saying the umpires should enforce the rules but it was their discretion to decide dissent.

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Regarding demon fan noise, to be fair vs Freo and Swans there was little to cheer about after half time in both games. There were a massive number of turnovers and we kicked 1 goal and 2 goals respectively after half time while Freo kicked 12 goal and the Swans 4 . There weren't even many 'exciting moments' in play. I love the noise when our handball chain gets going along the wing or when Kozzie gets anywhere near the ball or an opponent. Or when a 50/50 free goes our way. Or when a player gets 'out the back' or runs and bounces to an open goal. Chants peter out very quickly when after a few attempts the momentum is still with the opps. In both games dees fans went into their shell after half time. Its very hard to be energised when the momentum is all the other way.

In part it is because the MCG is so big the stadium looks empty with 35,000 people and it looks very empty when the top tiers have no-one in them and and we have very few AFL members so their stand is also empty. So the sound of 35,000 gets lost somewhat. In a smaller stadium 35,000 would look packed and be very loud. I'm not in anyway suggesting we play elsewhere, just adding a different slant.

Just 40% aged over 50 doesn't look representative of the posters on DL. I'm basing that on the number of posters who talk lovingly about grandchildren, recall our 50's and 60's glory years, anecdotes of players and games of the 70's etc Maybe there are a lot of older posters who haven't participated yet. Or 'younger' DL members with accounts that don't post regularly and have participated.

Relaxing the 'dissent' rule is a good thing https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/afl-softens-stance-on-dissent-penalties-as-crackdown-has-desired-effect-20220606-p5arjr.html But what are they thinking keeping it a secret: "...but at the meeting, umpires were also told that this change would not be communicated to players, clubs or fans". That is guaranteed to reduce AFL's credibility, if that was possible and create even more confusion for everyone on and off the field, when interpretation changes. The AFL couldn't simply admit the rule wasn't working. Instead they come up with some weasel-words: "...the AFL said it had recalibrated dissent and fine-tuned permissible behaviour to reach a common-sense level after the strict early-season crackdown." I still can't get over being expected to play a so called professional sport where some rules are kept secret. As an aside, it looks like 'common sense' is the flavour of the month!!! A shame they didn't apply it to themselves!

Good pick-up. Thanks. The splits aren't provided. I 'deduce' them.

Votes 10 Max Gawn (MELB) 6 Sam Reid (SYD) 4 Paddy McCartin (SYD) 4 Logan McDonald (SYD) 4 Callum Mills (SYD) 2 Jack Viney (MELB) Coaches split 5/5 - Gawn 4/2 - Reid 4/0, 3/1, 3/1 - McCartin, McDonald, Mills 2/0 Viney Leaderboard Only showing the top 5 as 6 teams had a bye Oliver still on top. Only Cripps has played one game less than the others. 63 Clayton Oliver MELB 58 Andrew Brayshaw FRE 58 Lachie Neale BL 53 Patrick Cripps CARL 52 Jeremy Cameron GEEL

All very good reasons. This gave me a good laugh: "Given the choice between a night on the couch with Brian Taylor and the gang, or (risk) having your head split open by a wind instrument, what would you choose? Actually, don’t answer that question".

The Freo and Brisbane examples are clutching at straws. Freo lost in round 9 and 10 which were played in very heavy, wet conditions and they didn't adjust their dry weather game plan. Note how well they played on a dry MCG and Optus since. Brisbane are at the tail end of 4 interstate trips in 6 weeks starting in round 7 to round 12: Sydney, Gabba, Adelaide, Melbourne, Gabba, Perth with flights home after each trip. A fair amount of disruption to training schedules etc and hardly a time to be 'loading'. 'Loading' as early as round 8 (to affect games in round 9 and 10) is rather early since their byes, like ours, aren't until round 14. imv our loss to Freo was entirely due to lack of personnel: May, Salem, Langdon, McDonald, Harmes. Having an injured Petty and ill Petracca mid match caused imbalances all over the ground. 7 of our top 10 players 'missing' and Freo exploited the weaknesses created. We weren't able to cover the gaps left. And we lost to a whole bunch of Sydney's brilliant tactics: separated their forwards to isolate our defenders so ours couldn't leave their man and intercept or help others. corralled us to the boundary and stifled our ball movement so instead of handballing in waves to running players we hand balled in circles until we turned it over. (They kicked 8 goals from turnovers we kicked zero whereas we normally kick 8-9 this way) without the boundary to enter our fwd 50 we resorted to bombing it long into the waiting hands of their backmen. closed the d50 exits. McCartin on Kozzie which enabled him to be the interceptor. double and triple teamed Brown. applied more pressure where it counted. 75 tackles to 58 tells a story. We may have counted some but weren't able to counter all the above. So yes, sometimes the obvious answer is the correct one and I've noted some very obvious objective reasons why the Freo, Lions and Demons have lost games in the last month. All in all, the cause and affect that losses are caused by loading is a bit tenuous. Now, I'm not saying loading doesn't exist just that it looks convenient and superficial to blame it for everyone's losses. I can see that loading might happen during a bye like a mini pre-season to make up for lack of a game but not in rounds 9 - 10 when many players are run down from covid, injured or ill. And I don't get why 'loading' should ipso facto result in losses. One would hope in such a tight season with competition for top 2 and top 4 red hot the 'loading' gurus would work out a way for it to not result in losses. Losses will come regardless of loading so we don't need to add to them.

While we have 60,000+ members it is worth noting that many are 3 game, armchair, country or interstate members who simply can't get to every Home game. And of course quite a lot would be kids or older folk. Would those groups add up to 10K - 15K. No idea. Clearly about 10 - 15K are 'new members' who have joined the ranks in the last few years and may not have a ritual of going to footy games live. So forgetting the issues with transport, tickets, covid, game time etc I feel it is a bit simplistic to say: where are our 60K members?

Lever isn't anywhere near what he was last year, with or without May. His intercept game is well down and it looks like other teams are making him accountable so he can't go and help others. So, not sure the leaving Tomlinson out to dry criticism is fair as Sydney did a brilliant job of isolating him and other defenders so they couldn't help each other. It is a tactic that will be tried again. We need to find ways to negate it.

LOL. Hope the AFL says: dropping the knees, ducking the head and diving are faking and should not be rewarded. In fact they should be penalised. tbh Ginnivan did deserve a couple of frees not paid. I laughed when McCrae said that 'Selwood had made a living out of it'. Sam Mitchell said the same of Puopolo. Hopefully, the umpires keep up the non paying of frees to the likes of Weightman and Ginnivan. Stop them while young so they don't grow into a Selwood type. Btw, I've noticed that Spargo and Kozzie aren't playing for frees so much lately.

A draw. Then they need an 'extra' win to pass us,

The umpires were right onto Weightman's tactics to milk frees and didn't pay him a couple. Today the umpires were right onto Ginnivan who also missed out on a few = some which were really there. Good to see them coming down on it especially young kids who make a habit of it.

I don't remember last year. But last night if we had played in front and tackled like Sydney (75 to 58) did perhaps we would have got more of the 50/50 frees. If they had kicked straight we would have been out of the game by 3/4 time, umpires notwithstanding.