Lucifers Hero

Oliver undoes his good work by his poor disposal. These two stats for 2020 are telling: Ranked 4th in Total Turnovers Ranked 2nd in Total Clangers He is great to watch, a ball magnet, clearance machine and as brave as they come. But if his i5o's bounce out again, his disposals don't reach team mates and he doesn't kick goals then I'm still of the view that his impact is limited. And, I'm beginning to think he is a poor decision maker. I think he is a victim of the 'see ball, get ball' indroctrination he has had for 5 years. He is still a kid and his flaws can be ironed out. But he needs someone to teach him to open his eyes and stay calm when he gets the ball.

Quaffers! Hardly befitting refreshments at The Manor, being as it is near the heartland of some fabulous Shiraz country?.

Absolutely they should name and shame them all! Very sorry to hear about your friend hope he recovers soon.

Of course it is. But my posts were about the media naming and shaming of individuals who broke the rules and spread the virus in Qld but not doing so for individuals from the hotel quarantines who spread it in Victoria. Your point opens a whole different and nasty can of worms. As @La Dee-vina Comediaposted above they need to name and shame "all idiots and not just those with the least power and influence".

AFL WILL HAVE ‘NO ALTERNATIVE’ BUT TO GIVE GF TO QUEENSLAND. The figurative odds of Queensland hosting the 2020 AFL Grand Final have seemingly shortened, with the league reportedly putting in “logistical plans” to host this year’s showpiece game in the northern state. With the MCG increasingly unlikely to be able to host this year’s game due to a coronavirus spike in Melbourne, 7 News Perth’s Ryan Daniels reported the AFL had made accommodation and venue bookings until the end of October. Daniels reported on 7 News Perth that Western Australia had “not been included in any such plans” around accommodation and bookings, suggesting: “Optus Stadium now appears certain to miss out hosting Australian sport’s marquee event.” updates-covid19-protocol-breach-gold-coast-richmond-carlton-grand-final Also in that article: — North Melbourne’s alleged breach concerns a group of partners that attended a football game. Questions that must be asked: How did they get from Hub to venue? Who let them into the venue? The relevant players must have known; they should be be suspended.

Our plan assumes Max will win the hitout so we take attacking positions at stoppages but we have no plan B to defend or block the exits if the ball goes to ground. Without a plan to counter the op dominance on ground ball gets at stoppages it will be Sunday all over again: win hitouts, lose clearances. Various teams beat us this way. Port is one of them. Would really like to see some of our mids on the defensive side of their op. Port had +1 at stoppages vs Lions and were beating them (except on the scoreboard) until Lions astutely evened the numbers at the stoppages to stop the exits.

Ok but then they should out the hotel quarantine security guard(s) who started it all. The government knows who he/she/they were so a fair chance the media do.

With virus spot fires popping up all over Sydney, landed in Brisbane and hub families taking their protocols lightly one wonders if we will even get thru the season. Qld Premier is facing an election in Oct so will go heavy handed on any risk ala closing borders to Sydney and totally blindsiding her counterpart. She is in a 'take-no-prisoners' mood. Even if we get thu the season, the AFL may need to truncate the Finals series if it can't get the teams in/out of states with closed/semi-closed borders. So I wouldn't be surprised if it abandons the traditional 8 teams/5 week finals structure. We need to get up the ladder fast just in case!

I'm all for the legal process taking its course and deal out punishment if appropriate. However, I deplore Ch 9 for naming them and now their photos are on main stream media. The soicial media abuse they will now receive is unimaginable. Their naming is the equivalent of the media outing the quarantine security guard(s) who caught the virus, transmitted it to families which has now spread all over the state. Lots of angry people here in Melb and if his/her name was released we could see lynching mobs come back. Irresponsible and dangerous by Ch 9. Back on topic. With the virus now spreading around Brisbane and families in the hubs treating their protocols lightly one wonders if we will even get thru the season. Lets hope we get up the ladder quickly in case the AFL abandon the traditional 8 teams/5 week structure. We need to be up there to get a look in.

That aside, my concerns about a new structure disrupting team balance and cohesion are still valid. Chopping and changing a fwd structure every few weeks is unsettling and risky. From what I recall of the pre-season training reports and pre-season games, 3 talls didn't come into the conversation, unless it involved Max resting fwd. If we were 5/2 instead of 3/4 I wouldn't be so concerned. We would be well on our way to making finals. So experiment away, I say. As this is virtually our last hoorah to ensure we get to finals, not 9th and not miss on % imv it is not the time to be taking these sort of risks. But I do hope it pays off.

Like others I'm a bit concerned by the 3 talls. Yesterday Goodwin said (paraphrasing) re the fwd line: "...3 talls is something we have never looked...we may try it at some stage...never know you test and learn..." Experimenting, again! Vs Geelong and Richmond we experimented with a one-tall structure. I was surprised as it was a high risk plan when it hadn't been trained and we hadn't banked many wins. This year the fwd structure has had: 2 talls for 2 games (with several months between games) 1 tall for 2 games 2 talls for 3 games 3 talls this week That is a lot of chopping and changing. Generally settled line ups give teammates predictability and confidence in the i50 and going i50. Our i50 understanding and fwd/midfield cohesion is improving but still embryonic and quite fragile. Our midfield was just starting to find fwds in good positions. To experiment with a never-tried-before 3tall structure without having trained it nor banked many wins is again a very high risk plan. I just hope each fwd understand their own role and each others roles and don't get in each others way. And hope the unselfishness they have played with over recent weeks continues.

Silly me! Read the team list too quickly. Glad that he is in again.

Not good news for Jones to not hold his spot. Sadly, he may not get too many chances.

Delighted to hear that! The official word. "Melbourne will now be the designated 'home' team. Melbourne play at Adelaide Oval in round 10 and will remain in Adelaide for the four days leading into the round 11 match vs North Melbourne". afl-moves-roos-dees-clash

Good question! Yes that would help.

Yeah, we aren't a club with any leverage. I recall when this block of games was released Goodwin said they would look at staying in Adelaide a few days and go straight to Hobart for the North game. That idea didn't age well. iirc in an interview before the Lions game someone (Ben maybe) said they travelled to GC and stayed in a hotel the night before the game. That game was at 6.10. Presumably we will have to lay over in Brisbane to catch the early morning flight, twice in 5 days. Madness. Overall, staying in Adelaide vs returning to Maroochydore is close to cost neutral so to me there is no sensible reason for not staying. It is no improvement on travel and disruption from it not being in Hobart.

That is insane as our hub is a few hours from the airport so it makes for a very long day, especially as we have done that trip a few days earlier for the Crows game,, whereas North will be fresh from the previous game in Qld.

That just seems daft! Why fly both teams to Adelaide... We sure are being messed about and not getting any breaks at all. I guess we will stay in Adelaide after the Crows game. No point flying back to Qld and a long road trip to Maroochydore and do the same in reverse a few days later for the North game.

GWS and Syd are scheduled to play each other in Perth at Optus in round 12. GWS then play Freo and Eagles. Syd play Freo. Syd could play another team there from the next group to hub in WA or return to the east coast. Given that Syd has played Eagles and is going over to play the NSW Derby and Freo the AFL could do the same to us. They could send Ess to play Eagles but that is unlikely as they seem to get a dream run from the AFL. The fairest thing to do is to send teams yet to play both Freo and Eagles: North, Bulldogs, Richmond and Saints, especially as they have hubbed in Qld from the start and had precious little travel/disruption. This might be my MFCSS but we can't rule out a horror stretch in rounds 13 to 16.

Sydney and GWS evacuating to a Qld hub tomorrow. Will then hub in Perth for a few weeks. Its hard to see the smaller states relaxing the border quarantine requirements so it looks like all bar SA and WA clubs will hub the rest of the season in Qld. AFL will there work cut out to fit in NT games, Tassie games and Cairns games into the last 6 rounds still to schedule.

Is there a link to The Age votes? Cheers.

According to the 'Rich List' thread Gus is ranked @ 86th in the AFL on $600,000 - $650,000. No indication of Harmes but I would be surprised if it wasn't $500k+ p.a. That is very good coin when the AFL average is about $370k.

I get all that but a new contract for 2 years would make more sense if we simply wanted to track Viney's and Petracca's improvement. I was delighted with the 4 and 5 year contracts. But 4 and 5 year contracts on very good coin are for key players not for players to be treated as 'journeymen' or 'spares'.

This is part of the mystery for me: We renewed Brayshaw's contract in July 2018 for four years to 2022, before our run home, before finals and before the Brownlow. So he earnt it before the hype. We renewed Harmes' contract late last year for 5 years to 2024. We also knew that Peracca was building his midfield time. Rhetorical question is why would we give them long term contracts then keep them as 'spares' when we had adequate 'spares' in Jordan and Sparrow on the list. Both Harmes and Brayshaw have been played all over the shop in 2019 and 2020. Hardly ideal for finding form or bedding down a role in the team. Neither looked at all happy on Sunday. Nothing against Jones but why would select/play him when either Brayshaw or Harmes are sitting on the bench?

What isn't very clear is what his new role is. Sometimes he is on the wing, sometimes in the middle. If only playing 65% game time and being moved around he has little chance to settle into any role. I agree about giving Petracca a chop out. He played 95%, a huge workload all credit to him for lifting the team in the last qtr. Game time for mids and wings: Jones (81%), Oliver (88%), Langdon (90%) and Viney (82%. Harmes could have done a shutdown job on any of the midfielders or wingmen. Both he and Brayshaw could have relieved any of those mids/wings. Interestingly, like Brayshaw, Harmes also played 65% (his game time has been trending down for 4-5 weeks). Given that we have a game in a few days one would think the coaches would have spread the work load a bit more. Something odd is happening with which players get game time and which don't. All a bit of a mystery.