Lucifers Hero

There was a cross to a clip, during one of the Football programs on Fox last night.

Touk Miller was too far behind at round 21 to catch Oliver. Bontempelli was probably ahead after round 20 but not polled well in the last few games. Hopefully he hadn't stockpiled votes in the early part of the year. Wines will go very close. Great year and no other consistent enough player (except Boak at times) to take votes from him. I reckon it will come down to the wire between Oliver and Wines with Bontempelli maybe sneaking up on them if being a media favourite influenced the umpires subconsciously. As an side, Gerard Healy has Oliver for the Brownlow and for the Norm Smith in a winning demons side!! Throw in the Rising Star to Jackson and we have the Trifecta!!

'The Countdown' has featured a few times of late. . https://www.afl.com.au/video/666764/hey-coach-make-this-rule-crystal-clear-name-a-medal-after-him?videoId=666764&modal=true&type=video&publishFrom=1629347831001

Reckon May would be rapt he didn't go to the Pies!! Would love to know what May said to Max. From the hugs it looked like they share a special brotherly love. We have various players as designated leaders but how good is it for our young team to have a few 'mature' heads in those two to look up to. The trust and belief would be sky high right now.

Max's leadership stood tall in so many ways. In the last quarter his actions said: Follow me lads. And they duly followed. Time and time again he willed them on. The 44 pt comeback and the mobbing of Max after the siren will galvanise the team for a long time to come. And send a few shock waves through the other finalists. I particularly liked that after the siren he was like a shepherd lovingly looking after his flock. He has been a very good captain. Saturday was his breakout game as a Leader.

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.