Lucifers Hero

Its a real shame we aren't playing in Alice in the Indigenous round especially as we didn't get to play a game there at all last year. iirc we are usually one of the Saturday night bookends for that week/fortnight. It would make sense for us to play the round 11 game vs Freo in Alice and play the later season vs Port game at the G instead of Alice. Not a big change as we usually play a WA or SA teams in Alice; just change the venue no need to change dates. The Alice folk would love to see a 1st vs 3rd game. A real shame for all.

Regarding a successor; take your pick: The highly regarded AFL boss is understood to be keen to play a part in nominating his successor. Contenders within the AFL include football boss Andrew Dillon and fellow executive Travis Auld. Richmond chief Brendon Gale, who interviewed for the role eight years ago, is also in the running and a heavy favourite among the clubs although the AFL Commission is expected to conduct a thorough search. gillon-mclachlan-to-leave-afl-ceo-role It looks like the Clubs favour Gale but the Commission favours...? What is the bet an AFL person gets it. McLachlan should stay out of it.

Compare the above English decision a few weeks ago, to the Ryder one. Ryder was more stationary than English. He was unlucky there was concussion. The English bump had equally as much if not more 'potential to cause damage' as the Ryder bump but the MRO chose to ignore the potential in that case. If they penalised the potential for damage there would be fewer English/Ryder cases and fewer concussions. Either potential to cause damage is an issue or they stop pretending that it is as they almost never take it into account when deciding sanctions. Walk the Talk or stop the spin! As someone else mentioned English hit Nankervis full on in the face giving him a blood nose in a ruck contest. No penalty. No MRO sanction. Yet other ruckman and particularly Max, get a free against for putting out an arm out at chest height to stop the op ruckman putting a knee in their chest. Umpires and MRO really need to be more consistent.

In comparing BB and Ryder penalties: Jonathan Brown pleaded with AFL general manager of football Brad Scott to reassess the penalties handed out in the VFL...“It’s an action in an elite competition, Scotty, fix that up. Fix that up.” afl-greats-staggered-by-pair-of-contrasting-bans J.Brown showing his ignorance as BB's action in the VFL was assessed by AFL MRO rules and is ignoring that high impact (Ryder) with concussion is judged more severely than low impact (Brown). Just look at the Tim English hit on Blakey a few weeks ago. Much worse action than Ryder but got off without even a fine. That is the question they should be asking the MRO to justify.

He doesn't understand or is deliberately ignoring the AFL's MRO classification rules and just trying to create controversy and clickbait. It was graded as deliberate, low impact, high contact. AFL rules say two weeks down to 1 for early plea. Looking at clearer vision the guy was running, against the flight of the ball, directly at BB with his left arm up readying to make contact with bb's chest, throat or jaw. BB was running with and watching the flight of the ball so his elbow/forearm looks like a reflex to the guy's extended arm but being on the run and so tall he got the guy in the head. No excuse but it it isn't as bad as the media is making.

Thank you. I actually like going to night games. My comments were primarily about attendances and gate takings of day vs night games in the current environment. I'll leave the discussion at that.

Please don't swear at me. Below 20,000 was when we were losing and playing local losing, franchise or interstate clubs. WE are no longer that club. I wasn't complaining about night games or FTA games. I said success is a catch 22: night games can benefit sponsors but cost us gate revenue if fans can't go for a variety of reasons. So not sure what your angst is about. Do you really think we will get more people (ie higher gate revenue) to the GWS game this week because it is on a Saturday night right in the middle of a long weekend in the middle of school holidays? Gate revenue is huge for us and we need crowds at our Home games.

Looks like he hit him with the elbow or the forearm, behind play when unsuspecting. I think we will accept the one week.

Thanks. Dumb caption not relevant to the story. Just confuses the whole thing. Have taken the photo still out of my post to avoid creating further confusion.

Thanks. Based on the AFL 'calculator' it looks like it was rated: Careless, Medium Impact, High Contact. If it was rated as Careless, Low Impact, High Contact it would just be a fine. If the guy just bounced up it is hard to see how it was rated 'Medium'. I would think the VFL would have to rate incidents on AFL rules, especially for AFL listed players. Edit: Just saw the report: It was classed as intentional conduct with low impact and high contact for a two-match ban which can be reduced to a one-game sanction. https://www.afl.com.au/news/740734/from-h-s-protocols-to-vfl-ban-flag-demon-s-return-on-hold-again.

Did the other guy leave the field or was concussed?

Difficult to appeal the BB suspension because if the two weeks is upheld he misses vs Tigers on ANZAC Eve. If he accepts the one week he just misses the Giants game. Still flabbergasted! Any vision floating around.

WOW. Most uncharacteristic of Ben. How did this escape the keen eyes of our DL Casey followers! Sam gets another go.

Coaches split: 5/5 Gawn 4/3 May 4/1 Viney 3/1 or 2/2 Harmes or Jordon. I like it when a player gets votes from both coaches as seems better validation of their performance.

Very slim pickings this week. From bf: ...and please be gentle Demons. Maybe I'll break out the rum instead of gin 3 new umps .... please Apart from cloning Tom Green a few times, there's probably not much we can do that would make a difference. I don't care what the game plan is I just want to see us score 100+ points. I wouldn't care if we list by 10 goals doing so. It is better than watching the rubbish they are dishing up at the moment. With Ash we recruited a line breaking half back and we have turned him into a tagging mode who doesn’t know what to with it when he gets [it}. Watching him get on the wing in a canter in space and get run down and tackled is infuriating. Looks like VFL HQ is getting ready to stitch-up Preuss again as a scapegoat to cover up, and deflect attention away from, the umpiring crime scene. ...its onwards to the MCG against the Demons. Oh dear god please stand up and make a game of it. Don't blame them for wanting 3 new umps! Each week ops supporters dread playing the Demons. Never much optimism from them. Only occasionally is there some hope, albeit futile. It feels good to be feared by them.

I know it is hypothetical but why would we 'rest' Max, our captain, when he has just played his best game for the year. He would do a big dummy spit at the thought. Max gets plenty of rest when he goes forward or back to let Jackson take the ruck. We are all about building physical resilience in players, not resting them.

Until mid 2018. Since then he has played defence in a 'break glass in an emergency' situation. Can't see him going back to defence as we have better options there.

Success is a bit of a catch-22 for time slots: Prime Time, night FTA great for sponsors and fans to watch on tv. Perhaps not so good for gate revenue as families and those averse to crowded public transport/covid risk/no mcg parking are less likely to attend.

Defensive mistakes are interesting. To me the key thing is where they happen. If it happens around the d50 mt mark and/or in the corridor and it is an immediate turnover it will hurt us as the opp can almost immediately score. But if they are on the wings they won't hurt as much as a turnover will take the ops longer to get the ball back into scoring range by which time our defences have time to click in. If it is becomes a stoppage it is a chance for us to attack. Hunts mistakes are usually to the wing albeit at times OOTF but that still gives our defenders time to set up.

'Cos they are running out of whipping boys... ...and they notice his 'mistakes'. In focusing on 'mistakes' they ignore that all players make mistakes/have turnovers and ignore that Goodwin has repeatedly said we don't aim to be perfect, which tells me the odd error a player makes won't affect their selection or otherwise. It is difficult to tell on tv but I think Hunt could be playing the lockdown small defender role that Jetta used to play. It looks like Bowey and Brayshaw have had the more attacking small defender roles. If those observations are correct we aren't going to see Hunt in the highlight reels. imv, he isn't given enough credit for what he adds to the team. I'm with you Hunt stays.

Welcome back! Well done. The random stirrers on here aren't worth the angst. I just let them wallow in their negativity and by-pass their posts. To respond to their posts is like

At least it will, (hopefully) get the Bulldogs off the Prime Time/FTA screens. In the first 9 rounds they have had 8 FTA games: 6 stand alone Prime Time, 1 Saturday night game and 1 Sunday afternoon game. I doubt any other team has had anything like that level of FTA saturation, not even last year's Premiers...😐

That didn't age well 😐 A Giant's appeal may be on the cards.

Not sure why this is even said as the parts of my post you omitted in the 'quote' talked to the lack of defence, pressure and waltzing the ball out of the middle and end to end goals. I thought those points made it obvious there was a breakdown in defence all over the ground and not just the back 6 (in the Hawks/Saints game up to half time; stopped watching after that). And not sure the observations required any special language or a special lens on 'what works'. Simply put there was a lack of effort to put on pressure, across the board and lack of structure to defend the op's ball movement. I don't read the 'tactics/game plans' thread so haven't delved into 'gengenpressing' and the like. I have a simple view of a club's defensive system: minimizing i50 and keep the opp score to 60-70 pts (like we do) which require 18 players to defend and pressure in line with team structures and roles. When a club can consistently achieve those 2 goals and win games then I will respect their defensive systems regardless of the methods they use to achieve thm which could and probably would be different to ours because of different game plans and different personnel.

A goal fest at Marvel in the first half. Neither Ess nor Crows showing much sign of defence or pressure. Both teams waltzing it out of the middle or end to end.