Lucifers Hero

As if I needed to shed more tears 😢 That is beautiful. Love the Gawn and Petracca hug. Even more moving was the way Gawn reached out to May whose face was pure joy and hugged him tight. There is something special happening between them.

Scott took Dangerfield and Selwood off late in the last qtr. (I'm guessing to keep them fresh for next week as he said in his press conf he would have liked the pre-finals bye). It backfired. With 5 minutes to go they were both stuck on the bench. The ball was in our fwd line and I was yelling to keep the ball away from the i/change bench. Not sure when they got back on but they couldn't stop our momentum. It looked like Scott had packed up, preserved his 'stars' and readying for next week to be the 'Home' team. Instead they face Port in their cauldron!! Own goal!

Ollie Wines has had two excellent weeks so he could easily overtake Oliver in the Coaches Award. Bontempelli has had two poor weeks so unlikely to win. They may also cost him the Brownlow. I reckon Oliver needs to get at least 8 votes tonight to win it as he probably didn't get any last week. Shame he didn't kick any of those goals.

Agreed. As noted in an earlier post - they should bring it back to the G!!

The AFL had to jump thru hoops to get 'sterile corridors' set up with State CHO's. If Vic goes into total lockdown again what are the chances of those corridors being shut. I suspect the AFL will be madly working the phones with Premiers and it would not surprise to see the 8 finalists leave Vic before the weekend is over and go and hub somewhere they can still get into.

The old 'keep your friends close, but enemies closer' motto, eh!

Certainly that makes the risk of snap lockout of crowds at Optus much higher. Wouldn't it be ironic if all states banned crowds and the GF had to be played at an empty MCG!!

Fair points rjay. Would it have mattered who was on the National Cabinet as the State Premiers went there own separate ways almost immediately. Premiers from the same side couldn't/can't even agree with each other or adopt similar policies. It is every man/woman for themselves. If there was ever any goodwill it is long gone and I suspect having the Leader of the Federal Opposition in the National Cabinet would have made little difference. He is hardly someone that engenders confidence and leadership, either. Like you, it worries me that our choices are Albanese or Morrison. But if we had a good system of governance, in times of crisis it shouldn't matter. As it is, with States having the Constitutional power to go their own independent way, any PM of any side of politics is somewhat of a 'lame duck' at the mercy of Premiers and their much relied upon CHO.

Or when a country has a Federation where much of the power lies with States who can't even agree with each other, have media spats and are hell bent on doing their own thing. Our Federation is unique and it significantly determines how policy is made and implemented. rjay, You may well be aware of how our Federation and Federal/State constitutional power division affect policy making and implementation but I suspect many on here (and in the media) do not. It sickens and saddens me that in our country, a democracy, we have Australian troops at state borders and curfews during peacetime. How many countries in the world stop its own citizens moving freely within its own boundaries let alone use troops to enforce them? I back up @daisycutterthe blame game and bickering is counterproductive be it on this forum, the media or in politics. We are eating our own.

That doesn't sound like our Polly 🤔 This does

Can someone clarify what a 'mystery' case is. It isn't always clear in news reports nor the Premier's descriptions. Options: One that is not linked to a known cluster. One that is linked to a known cluster but they don't know how covid was transmitted. One that is not linked to a known cluster and they don't know how covid was transmitted. Both # 2 and # 3 ie transmission unknown. Each day we are told the number of 'mystery' cases for that day. Has anyone seen the total outstanding 'mystery' cases at any given time. Presumably some that are 'mystery' today aren't a few days later when all the checking is completed. I feel we (the public) would have a much clearer picture of local transmission status if we were given the running total as the number of 'mystery' cases seems to be the critical number that will determine easing of restrictions. And, getting a crowd to the footy! It would make more sense to me if the goal was zero mystery cases after 'X' days of checking (eg after 5 days) rather than zero daily 'mystery' cases.

Correct. It is our year to be the 'exception that proves the rule'

Road to a Flag. Interesting article. the-top-four-team-that-must-defy-history-to-win-the-flag Three key features: Winning Form: Winners of their round 23 game have won the flag in 8 of 10 years. Exceptions: Sydney in 2012 Bulldogs 2016. Pre - Finals Trend: "Closing the regular season with winning form has been a surer road to Grand Final glory, with seven of the past 10 premiers dropping none, or at the most one match, in the final five rounds". Settled Side Low injuries (which most finals teams have). Win this week and we are well placed regarding history on all three. As we know anything can happen but not allowing MFCSS into my thinking! Staying positive.

Oliver getting much needed goal kicking coaching from Stafford at training yesterday. Will he 'get it'? Would love to see him kick a few this week. If he does, it could just win him the coaches award (and maybe the Brownlow).

Looking at the injury lists, top 8 teams are in pretty good shape. https://www.afl.com.au/matches/injury-list Ignoring the 'Test' players for the top 4 contenders: Brisbane: Hipwood, Raynor out for the season. They have had time to rejig their line up/play to contend. Geelong: Stewart out for the season. Tuohy 1-2 weeks. Duncan 1-3 weeks. No prefinals bye hurts them. Can they stay in contention long enough to get the latter two back. Melbourne: Hunt 3-4 weeks. We will cover him. Hope we stay in contention long enough to get him back. Port: Jones 1-2 weeks, Hartlett 2-3 weeks. Can cover them. Bulldogs: Bruce an Mc Clean out for the season. Have other problems besides injuries. Ess, Syd, GWS are also in good shape re injuries.

I choose any ground where the opps have to endure at least the same quarantine requirements and flight times we do. The most onerous quarantine, in order are: WA, SA, Qld, Tas. The first 3 take players away from their families for 4 -10 days and over the last month our players have had enough of that with all the 1/state flights/quarantine they have endured. Tassie is straight FIFO so no quarantine before/after the game. Note even if we play Port in Vic our players and families still have to quarantine for 3/4 days before the game and iirc a few days after but not sure of the latter. Without detailing all the quarantine permutations, I'm going for Brisbane at GMHBA. Otherwise, any team in Tassie. Players need to have a say and it may be a time to conserve their energy and minimise possible family stress, especially with the onerous restrictions we currently have here.

A long bow by conspiracy theorists as almost no person in the media even had us in the 8 let alone sitting top @ round 22. As an aside, anyone else regularly checking the ladder to see it is really true that we are on top Such joy, with much promise to come.

I noticed it after it was too late to edit my post.

My observations: Our first crushing win. Our fwd line was excellent: While opps were paying close attention to Fritsch in the 1st qtr, Brown had 1 vs 1, got good separation and kicked 2.1. When opps paid more attention to him, Fritsch had 1 vs 1, got off the leash and kicked 7.0!! His separation from Kelly was helped by Kelly being almost concussed earlier in the game but that does not diminish his excellent leading and his goal kicking was brilliant. Fritsch isn't leading to the pockets. Most of his marks/kicks were a fair way from the boundary and closer to goal. Hence his accuracy. Delivery to the fwd line was vastly improved. Our final quarter defence was a masterclass in how to defend a lead. At one stage Lever was waving players to the boundary to ensure his kick to the pack would go out rather than come back. Not only did we keep the opp score down to 1.1 we managed to kick 4.1. Brilliant defence. We've learnt from poor 4th qtr defense vs Crows, Hawks and Eagles. Goodwin said before the game that what he wanted to see was improvement in our defensive mechanisms. He would have been rapt with the last quarter. We have now rested: Viney, TMac, Hibberd and May without missing a beat. Their replacements have enabled us to have a good look at alternative players/structures should the need arise. Our whole team clicked yesterday. Great rehearsal for the month ahead. Just wish I and the rest of DL's and fans could be there to see it.

AFL has had plenty of chances to play recent Vic games at the G but hasn't done so which makes me sceptical of Ch &'s reporting. Why now would be my question of Ch 7. Anyway, can't see Geelong agreeing to this. Unless they have a wink-wing, nudge-nudge agreement with the AFL to play Home finals at GMHBA.

Fox quoting Ralph /afl-2021-grand-final-venue-optus-stadium-victoria Article says (not attributed to anyone) "It’s unclear whether the bye would be moved to the week between the semi-finals and preliminary finals, to allow all teams to quarantine in Western Australia for seven day". Someone is 'spitballing'. Anyone with half a brain would see that means the two top 4 teams that win in the first week of finals would miss two weeks of play: the semi final week and the bye week. Can't see it happening that way.

It can go down as 'hamstring awareness' or some other vague 'injury'. With Walker out it makes sense for May to be out and with O'Brien out we are more than well covered for talls. I like that if players have a niggle they get a rest esp with no bye likely.

I think the issue is with/without crowds rather than crowd numbers. I was outlining how GMHBA or (Mars Stadium) could host finals with crowds even if Marvel and MCG cannot.

Thanks. I somehow lost the speadsheet I usually use so had to reconstruct the whole thing. Missed some small details. Will correct on next update.

Geelong region is not in lockdown so the government could allow some crowds there as they could at Ballarat if the Bulldogs get a home final and ask for it there, outside of metro melb. Both would be attractive to the AFL, especially if Port is one of the opponents and SA relax the restrictions to the border to Victoria in the next few weeks. The government allowed a small crowd at GMHBA vs Bulldogs when Melb was in lockdown. Fair chance that Bulldogs supporters live outside of metro melb (or snuck out). Very vote catching to allow finals in Geelong or Ballarat. Doubt the goverment gives two hoots about us. A possible senario: we finish top 2 and scheduled to play Geelong and no crowds in Melb. Lets choose Ballarat! and vice versa if we play Bulldogs, choose GMHBA!! So if we can't have Marvel or MCG lets not give the Vic team a Home ground advantage. Lets hope we finish top 2 and at least have some say in venue.