Lucifers Hero

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.

Deleted. Repetitive Post

Do they explain how the voting works? Is it on stats? Given that Petracca has had several BOG and 2nd BOG from multiple coaches it is a surprise he isn't in the top 3. Worse, he is missing altogether ?

If it was Selwood or his cohorts he puts his hands in the air, prances around or deliberately falls over. Free kick. HTM paid this year: Source: plea-for-cripps-to-be-protected This in fact shows that Cripps is getting more protection than other players so Carlton shouldn't be bleating too much. Oliver and Pendlebury are getting the second most protection. Lots of big names who get mauled and not there so getting no protection at all. Its interesting to see that in nearly all the pics of the op post, the Lion mids are on the outside of ours - they corralled us in, making it nigh impossible to get the ball out or close their exits. And in those pics our wing men were usually several meters behind their op who was on their own goal side. imv the 'corralling' and positioning of their wingmen (more than the scragging) is what stopped us getting clearances. Simply put, they were smarter. Disappointingly, neither our captain nor our vice captain changed tactics. Don't get me wrong, they worked harder but that isn't the same as being smarter. I get why everyone is frustrated but it is the same for all teams, it won't go away and umpires won't enforce the rule as it stops a 'free flowing game' - the Holy Grail the AFL aspires to. There are many rules umpires are rarely enforcing eg running a few meters past the point of the mark; blocking a forward so team mate can take an intercept mark, not returning the ball immediately to a player etc etc. The rule non-enforcement that really gets me is 'throwing the ball' for which commentators have found new descriptions: ball came free in the tackle, flick passing, scooping and the comical 'fresh airy handball'. Hello, 'fresh airy handball' can only be a throw. Commentators are complicit in covering up for umpires. Anyway, we got the raw end of the deal on Sunday but it didn't cost us the game.

Mc Stay gets 2 weeks for bump on Jetta, rightly so.

True. Just goes to show stats impress fans but don't necessarily impress coaches. Oliver topped most of the stats for us but failed to get a coaches vote. I guess Petracca having 9 score involvements in 14 total scoring shots is very impressive. He would have to be odds on for the Bluey.

All teams do this including us. The better teams do it better than us. Usually if Viney and Oliver are being scragged one of the other mids isn't, can take Max's hitouts and attack. Max talked about this a few weeks ago. That week it was Petracca that was able to get free. It won't change unless someone makes the umpires aware of it. No reason that Max, as captain can't highlight it to the umpires at the end of a quarter.

Coaches votes: Looks like: 5/5 Neal 4/3 Bailey 4/3 Petracca 2/2 Viney 1 Lyons 1 McCluggage Very even assessment this week. tbh this week I thought Viney had a better game than Petracca. It would be interesting to know what they look at. Anyone notice Zac Bailey and why he polled so well. Petracca now 2nd on the leader Board (37) to Neal (50) having played one less game. Max still at 11th Tonights game Cats vs Freo still to be voted on.

Yeah, it is tricky as to when to attack from stoppages. My thinking is that since it is a tactic that is often employed against us, especially by the better teams, I would expect coaches to have a set play plan to counter. Also, given that our capt and vice are in the thick of the stoppages they should be aware of what is happening and take it upon themselves to change the dynamics of the stoppages. Sometimes they need defensive set up options.