Lucifers Hero

He is still experimenting but whatever plan he comes up with he has a limited/aging/injury prone list and I reckon he knows it. I think he is coming to terms with his team's inability to change game plans at the drop of a hat. He spent big with top draft picks to get Mitchell and O'Meara but both have been dogged by serious injuries and they may never be as good as they once were. He had one first round pick in recent years, used it on Burton (?) and traded him against his will for Wingard. This all says he is trying to take a shortcut to the next flag. Not sure that patience nor player development are his strong suits at this stage of his career so the next few years will be interesting for them. Maybe Lewis was right and he should hand over the reins to S. Mitchell. Anyway, I reckon we will win.

More testing = more cases = less idea where cases were infected = Chairman Dan has NFI what to do! Its out of control, now.

Not sure if inter racism is a phrase... I was meaning from one ethnic/cultural group to another. Wasn't trying to down play down racism toward indigenous Australians in any way at all. I feel all forms of racism need to be condemned.

I tend to think that it is almost impossible to eradicate racism in this world which in its most grotesque form is 'ethnic cleansing' by despot governments eg Hitler, Sadam Hussein and currently China and Myanmar to name a few. But we live in a democratic and civilised society and must do everything to stamp out racism whether it is toward our indigenous Australians or to other ethnic groups who have arrived in more recent or not so recent times. That means inter-race racism also needs to stop. Back on topic, as a nation we have a lot of work to do to help right past wrongs toward our indigenous Australians. Every little bit counts.

I'm not too worried about Mitchell and O'Meara. Mitchell is nothing like the player pre-injury and O'Meara seems to have had some injury issues of late. And they need to worry about who is going to shut down our midfields who are all good form at the moment. I really think our midfield is better than theirs. Their most damaging player at the moment is 'Silk'.

As they say: He who laughs last laughs best! We beat them when it counted - 2nd semi at the G later that year.

We would not have taken King for the very reason we used pick #6 for May: we thought we had our tall forwards in Weideman and TMac. Judging from other threads the person we wanted in that draft was Butters taken at pick 12 by Port. So King vs May isn't a remotely credible discussion.

Probably not well but not for the reason you allude. He is in deep water over his flippant 'hiccup' reference to De Goey's sexual assault charge. Grovellingly apologetic this morning and rightly so.

Ridiculous idea!! ?

No-one cares I didn't even watch the game, just saw the result.

Teams that have a game plan tailored to their Home ground may struggle for success this year. In partaicular Cats, Bulldogs, Tigers. Cats will be playing on larger grounds, Bulldogs will have damper, slippery conditions and Tigers bank on MCG wins so can (and do) drop a few games at other grounds. In some respects this season has become more of a level playing field for Vic teams.

Good to see Cats lose last night! (I will conveniently ignore it was the Pies that beat them). Scott is a very smart coach but their game plan is tailored to Kardinia Park so they don't get all those 'easy' Home game wins vs lowly teams which usually guarantees them finals. And their wins so far are lacklustre, except Lions. LOL, Cats will be on the receiving end of boos at the parochial and hostile 'Boo Stadium' for the next two weeks. Some of their own medicine! Would be very happy if they don't make finals. Scowls will replace the smug smirks!

Agreed. Master tactician. Master coach. Nearly always out coaches our box. I'm just not sure this Hawks team can execute his tactics.

Hawks have named Ceglar in their starting 22 but "AFL.com.au understands Ceglar – who has led the ruck for the Hawks this season – broke his toe early in last week's loss to Collingwood and will miss at least one week". Ceglar's broken toe. Clarkson playing mind games! Either Ceglar's injury report was a furphy or a late change coming up! We should thrash their team. They are old or have players with recent injury issues. They played short kick/mark, ring-a-ring-a-rosey in their back 50 last week like Cats vs us. But unlike Geelong they didn't try to attack because they can't run/chase. Too slow! And do they have any recognised forwards other than Gunston? Big question is will they come out all guns blazing after the blowtorch they received this week? If we show last weeks composure and move the ball quickly we will win. We have a much better team.

Maybe if games get back to Sydney. Can't see Qld letting any Vics in for a long time. Even before this spike they wanted at least 14 consecutive days of zero cases to open the border to Vics. I would say there is buckley's chance of Vic ever meeting that requirement.

Some clubs are currently at Noosa. So it looks likely to be along the coast somewhere. I guess it doesn't matter a lot as everyone is largely restricted to their hub venue except for a few allowed activities.

The team flies out on Monday to the Qld hub.

"Upcoming byes won't be at the same time and are likely to be scattered across three or four weeks but Melbourne and Essendon won't have one". aflpa-boss-presents-contract-ultimatum-to-afl-on-fixture I don't mind that. Normally players would take a bit of a holiday etc. during the bye. But now they are stuck in the AFL 'bubble' effectively in lockdown at their respective hubs. They have and will have plenty of downtime between training and games for r and r. For those with a bye, 10-14 days without structured work is a lot of time for golf etc As long as there is no flight involved for the Ess game or at either end of the game we should be fine. What I wouldn't like to see is the Alice game to before or after it.

You may have missed a key word in my post: "threaten". I didn't say Adelaide did match the Geelong offer. I said they threatened to match: "ADELAIDE CEO Andrew Fagan has all but confirmed the Crows will match any offer made for restricted free agent Patrick Dangerfield, ensuring the club gets the best possible deal". crows-set-to-match-any-offer-for-dangerfield If Ess are faced with a comp pick around #40 I have little doubt they will also threaten to match to get a better deal.

That is like saying we would have won by a greater margin if: Lever and May hadn't spoilt each for the mark GCS wouldn't have got the goal out the back (2nd qtr I think). Max hadn't tapped the ball into Rankine's lap in the last he wouldn't have got his third goal. Max didn't turn the ball over with a OOB around their 50m arc King wouldn't have received the kick-in to run into an easy goal. So Max's mishaps directly cost us two goals. Not criticising him; he was mighty. Just saying lots of players make mistakes; some directly cost us goals and some don't. I could pull various other examples that cost us a 'much greater margin'. Every week there are moments that cost us a game or the margin. Not yourself, but others on here have questioned Petracca's coaches votes on the basis of his mishaps. If coaches used that in their assessment then Max would not have got 5/4 as he directly cost us two goals and had a few other clangers.

For the relatively low salary he will command they are likely to get a 2nd round pick comp. With all the academy players this year and finals that is likely to be around pick 40 +/- (unless the AFL pull a swifty ala Ablett). No way Ess will accept that pick - bad optics with members etc. So I reckon they will threaten to match thus forcing a trade ala Adelaide with Dangerfield. Last year they wanted a top 10 pick plus a player (Heeney or the like) from Sydney. They won't demand that this year but they will make life hard for the bidding club. Members will demand it. On all counts it is caveat emptor!

Not sure post game comments are a good guide to voting. Petracca may have butchered the ball but his impact on the game and the result was huge. Glad to see he featured well in the votes as many on here didn't give him much credit for what he did do and focused on what he didn't do.

Apparently Hardwick contacted Longmire straight after the rant to apologize. That didn't go down too well either...the genie was out of the bottle. unnecessary-and-unwarranted-horse-hits-back-at-dimma-comments Poor form for Hardwick to blame Longmire for their crappy game when it was in his own control to change it.

Jones has been loyal, stoic and a stalwart for us during our darkest days. But there were others who stayed loyal and worked hard to keep us going: Gawn, Jetta, TMc and others who we have chosen to move on were there for 186, for the Neeld years etc. Everyone loves Jonesy but I can't see that the club owes him and not sure what sacrifices he has made that others haven't. Sorry if that is unpopular thinking. His one game this year was a shocker. I for one do not want to see us miss finals this year or next, to get someone to a personal milestone if that person is a millstone in the 13 games to get there. Mahoney and Goodwin have made tough decisions on fan favourites and they will with Jonesy if the need arises. The angst with Jr was he was blindsided and it was done brutally. Most people new it was time. I trust Mahoney and Goodwin to have had and to continue to have those discussions with Jonesy so when the end comes it will sit comfortably with everyone.

Coaches votes: 9 Max Gawn (MELB) 7 Christian Petracca (MELB) 4 Jack Viney (MELB) 4 Charlie Ballard (GCFC) 4 Izak Rankine (GCFC) 2 Clayton Oliver (MELB) Looks pretty fair to me. Vote split looks like: Max: 5/4 Christian: 5/2 * Viney 3/1 * Ballard 3/1 * Rankine 4/0 Oliver 2/0 Whoever gave Petracca 5 gave Oliver 2 or from the other view whoever gave Petracca 2 gave Oliver zip. * Votes could be switched between the three players. On the Leaderboard best placed Demons are Petracca at 11 th spot (20 votes) and Brayshaw at 13 (19 votes). Overall leader Neale (40 votes). At this rate Petracca may win his first B&F. Edit: had the wrong Brayshaw. Thanks for tip @Bring-Back-Powell