Lucifers Hero

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.

MRO will probably say: Accidental, Low Impact, High = Fine at most. Preuss would say he didn't know where the player was behind him and the strike was part of his momentum while spinning around. Don't agree with it but suspect he will play next week.

We just need to win enough games to be 1st or 2nd at rnd 23. With the evenness of our rivals they can knock each other about trying to win enough games to make top 4 or top 8. So it could be a year where a lowish number of games are needed to be top 2. Perhaps as low as 15 wins possibly 16. We could be 13-0 after round 13. More likely 11-2 as we will likely drop a game or two. So wins needed for top 2 will be 3-5 from last 9 matches. Those 9 matches are: Lions @ MCG Adelaide @ AO Cats @ KP Port @ Alice Bulldogs @ Marvel Dockers @ Optus Pies @ MCG Carlton @ MCG Lions @ Gabba Lots of travel there and a few long-haul flights with 6 games vs possible top 8 teams. Short of our wheels falling off we are placing and pacing ourselves nicely to beat our rivals into a top 2 position regardless of where they finish. Bank wins before the bye!

On the other hand, Pert went on record yesterday of being very confident that Brayshaw is staying. Lewis probably knows that but is just fleshing out a story Ralph put out on Fox a bit earlier. Media people feeding each other's media.

Does Port have a fan forum other than fb?

It was good to see Petracca lay without any knee bandages.

For anyone hung up about big $$$ offers from other clubs, Pert said: “If you look at the last (year) and our really core group of players that have signed long-term deals, there is no doubt they have taken contracts (lower) to keep the group together and I admire them for it... ...I have no doubt these two players will be playing for us for a long period of time.” As an aside he also said a new contract for Goodwin is imminent.

Just read the 'Votes' thread. Who would have thought we would thrash a team with Oliver and Petracca getting only 1 vote each from the 'trillion'* possible from about 25 DL'ers. Have we ever won a game in recent times with neither among our best 6. It is like they were rested for the game but on the field. That must frighten the bejesus out of the rest of the comp. Take both champs out of the game and still be thrashed. Happy days for a team not reliant on any player(s): Us.

The Lions will destroy us playing like that...😐

Selwood is now a way from being their best. They got him to the record # of games as an AFL captain last week so now he gets a rest. He is their spiritual leader but not sure they will miss him. Its been a while since he has put in a really good game, let alone a match winning one. Scott learnt his lesson last year that his old team will run out of legs. He is in preservation mode for finals.

Kudos for noticing Tomlinson's game times.

That is why policy makers need to make them accountable. At least put the spotlight/blowtorch on them.