Lucifers Hero

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.

I had discounted the probability of Port beating Bulldogs as their recent form, while winning hasn't been really convincing. But then again neither have the Bulldogs last two losses. Very glad that game is before ours so that we know the result. As an aside, this is one time a 6 day break might help us. We have had our 5 day break so the AFL can't schedule our game on Friday night to be before the Port/Bulldogs game.

Not a lot of incentive for Adelaide to win and go from draft pick 2 to pick 4 or 5 and push out later round picks. Walker did most of the damage last time and he is out. Lever and co won't fall for the same trap again - he will make sure we 'block the corridor'! Keep their small fwds under control and we will win. And hopefully, we have learnt how to defend a lead in the last minutes of a game. Hawthorn gave a masterclass in that yesterday.

Bulldogs lost two winnable games: Essendon and Hawks so it opened the door for Port to go top 2. But Port aren't there yet. If we beat the Crows, their top 2 chance is all but gone.

Update for J. Smith one year extension, As the club is in list management mode, I wouldn't be surprised to see a flurry of contract renewals in the next month or so. Hopefully, some of the 2022 OOC players sign early extensions especially Jackson and Petty.

That is because none of the potential finalists have the G as their home ground (unless Richmond make it). Other clubs know the advantage we would have at the G. Having said that it would be awful to not have a crowd especially for the GF. Imagine the players doing a lap of honour to piped faux crowd noises. Shivering at the thought.

As that was part of your response to a post by me, I would like to say I'm definitely not one of those . There are several posts earlier in this thread where I said I was willing to go into quarantine in another state, travel to SA for a few weeks prior to entering WA. Its been 20 years since we made a GF. Who knows if we will even play in one next year or the year after. It could be another 20 years before we play in one. And, I have vivid memories of 2018 prelim then crashing in 2019. I don't expect a crash to happen again but I'm not relying on future years for a GF appearance I will do almost anything to get to a Demon 2021 GF regardless of where it is.

Projecting your experience onto Petracca's 'family elders' and by implication other Italian immigrants was not appropriate.

This almost makes me cry. I am Australian born of Italian parents who grew up in an anglo part of Melbourne. I can't talk to their 'copping it of course' (your words) but I never, ever heard parents or family denigrate any other group, anglo or otherwise. There was a great deal of mutual respect in the community. Most of the racism came from school and the schoolyard which sadly is when the damage is inflicted on the very young and the wounds and scars reside to be triggered in the years to come. Not sure where you get your information from. Best not to generalise.

Do you mean by his family elders or to his family elders. Not being pedantic but they are quite different. Its hard to imagine family elders showing racism to their own kind.