Lucifers Hero

3 upsets so far: Ess d GWS. Nth d Pies. WBD d Power. Today might make it 4 upsets with a Dees d Lions! Glad we had only one change. Time to settle the team and get some synergy going among fwd, backs, middle and synergy with ball movement end to end. Optimistic that we can click today; if we do we win!

Very happy that WBD beat Pies and North beat Port. Only prob is we are yet to play WBD and North. No longer the 'easy' games they once seemed.

Good on Jesse for calling him out. He leaked so much Demons stuff, it was good that the club sent him packing. Comes across as somewhat sly and from a female viewpoint as 'creepy'.

Was thinking about playing in the coming weeks rather than contracts. Since you asked: Contract renewal order for me would be JKH, ANB, Stretch. For mine, they are all depth players and not regular 22's. But I would play JKH ahead of the 2 in the coming weeks. But Dunkley might get selected ahead of all three. He is more likely a future 22 and it will be a good test to have a few games this year.

Out of interest would you put Jay k-H in the seniors ahead of Alex N-B?

Over the last 5 weeks (when we have played better football) Max has played game time % of: 90, 91, 88, 86 and 94. Max has been BOG or in our best each week. If Max was playing 75-80% game time or not playing consistently well a strong case could be made for Preuss. While we would all like to see Preuss play, its hard to see how to fit him in especially as Tom Mc seems to be improving as a forward.

Yes, but I suspect it won't add to more than a few hundred +/- by end of July. I would guess 500 max taking it to about 52,250. A good result over the 45,300 last year but I would imagine the club will be disappointed it has fizzled out. But hopefully, it is more.

After nearly 4 weeks it is still 51,770. Unsurprisingly memberships dried up after our run of losses. Official cut off date is July 31. Unlikely to add more than a few hundred. So much hope to get to 55,000 but it has fizzled out.

This might interest: Why the AFL is bad for Aussie Rules. It is a long article from 'Roar', (an independent sports website) primarily about how the AFL is damaging aussie rules and its feeder community sport. Selected extracts: What is the AFL? The AFL is certainly not a sport; it’s a competition. The AFL is less an organisation that administers a football competition, more a media organisation that produces football content. None of [the] levers [to develop narratives] are open to scrutiny and decisions made often take precedence over quaint notions of procedural fairness and natural justice. The AFL can silence competing independent football narratives through cancelling the accreditation of journalists, which it sometimes threatens. An emerging perception that the AFL engineers results damages its brand and Australian football. The AFL finds problems and fixes them, only to make bigger problems that need fixing. LOL, so true!! There is a more in the article. No mainstream media outlet is going to print most of the above for fear of reprisals. One has to ask: How is the Commission allowing this, now that the conflicted Fitzpatrick is no longer the Chairman. The AFL treats the football public like gullible dummies knowing that everyone is powerless to do anything. Maybe Gill should be known as Comrade McLaughlin - he certainly acts like a dictator; a Machiavellian one at that.

Has the AFL introduced a new criteria: touched 'beyond reasonable doubt'? Score review Gil: "It was reviewed for 40 seconds, the vision using the Hawkeye system which people saw, and they had to make a decision about was that ball touched beyond reasonable doubt..."That's the standard to overturn the decision. To date I thought the 'standard to overturn' was some evidence of a touch, however slight. At least that is how it seems to have been implemented. A new AFL rule invented to justify the outcome they want: Nothing to see here, walk on... Edit: a bit more from Gil: Gil won't say if decision was right or wrong! "McLachlan said he had seen the vision but refused to give his own opinion on the call...When asked what the AFL interpretation of the legal concept "beyond reasonable doubt" was, McLachlan deflected". Gil has no idea how 'beyond reasonable doubt' is to be applied. Its just more grey; more guesswork; more room for subjective calls! Amateur hour.

The closest I could find is: GWS are fuming! But Fox Footy understands the club is privately fuming that officials blatantly ignored an AFL directive to spend more time getting review calls right...A private memo was sent to score reviewers two weeks ago reminding them they could take as much time as they needed to get decisions right. I suspect 'officials' there means the umpire who didn't wait. Garry Lyon: "We’ve got two systems in place; if an umpire says yeah, we can review it, then we might spend 45 seconds on it and take our time looking at it and use all the angles in the world. If there’s no review, you’ve got 20 seconds left before we bounce the ball". Because the the umpires ignored the 'touched' call there was less time for the mandatory review. It is easily fixed. Central umpire does not bounce the ball until he gets the all clear from the score reviewer. Did anyone notice which umpire hurriedly bounced the ball?

Giants may have missed some chances but it is no reason to not adjudicate the game fairly. Ess six goal final quarter was on the back of umpires shifting momentum for them at every opportunity. At one stage (half time or in the 3rd qtr?) frees were 15 v 9. At the end: 29 v 14. When umpires see a big diff in frees at 3/4 time they try to even them up in the last qtr even if only for 'the optics'. Absolutely none of that last night. The soft frees to Ess and the frees not paid to GWS were game changers. With 2 min to go the umpires hadn't got them over the line. Enter 'score review'!!! Well not quite. No umpire called for a review despite the pleas of 'touched'. The central umpire then bounced the ball before the mandatory 'score review' was completed!! Had the touched 'goal' (which equalled the score) been correctly called a point with GWS in control of the ball who knows if Ess would have made up the diff in the last 90 sec. Certainly looked like match fixing.

Shameful umpiring. They lack integrity in their work, then they demand respect! Hypocritical! Just as well their were no GWS supporters, otherwise they would have serious 'respect' booing. A thought: Maybe the AFL were 'compensating' Ess for the controversial umpiring in the ANZAC day game which they lost? Or to help them climb the ladder to keep prime time ratings up? Both?

Anointed by the AFL as this year's rising stars Ess were gifted umpteen money making, prime time, FTA time slots. Really want Ess to miss finals. GWS to smash them!

Good to see Selwood's knee-dropping, ducking protege, Rhys Mathieson has been dropped. That is a few 'head high' frees we won't 'give away'.

or the ugly boy... ...anyway they have Brett Ratten waiting in the wings.

Posters who thought some security guards at Marvel were on student visas are on the money: security-guards-banned-over-alleged-accreditation-fraud: "Some of Marvel Stadium’s controversial crowd controllers are among hundreds of security guards who have had their licences suspended as part of an alleged fraud...about 400 guards working across the security industry over allegations that “false, forged and/or fraudulently obtained documentation” was used to obtain their security licences." "Industry sources say many of the guards were on international student visas and required further references to obtain accreditation to work in the industry...Instead of doing that, they are said to have paid hundreds of dollars to a man police are now trying to locate who allegedly helped them falsify applications". Kennett's racial stereotyping comments were totally inappropriate but reading "It's become a joke really. You've got registered training organisations churning out graduates who can't even use a radio, let alone defuse a dangerous situation...“And a lot of the foreign blokes don't have any English [language skills], which makes it hard for them to deal with crowds," the source said" ...makes you wonder if he knew something was up. Regardless of ethnicity, it looks like training of security guards leaves a lot to be desired. Could be dangerous for all concerned if scuffles break out and get out of control. So much for the due diligence by the AFL and Marvel management into who they contract with.

David King's interesting insight into how-port-adelaide-picked-apart-geelongs-game-plan "...Geelong’s modus operandi had been for all the forwards to stay on the ground, with the exception of the marking target...the Cats’ smalls such as Gary Ablett and Gryan Miers were setting up around bigger marking targets like Tom Hawkins as if they were attending a stoppage...“We saw on the weekend Ken Hinkley say to his defenders, ‘one-on-one, no one leaves their man. You’re responsible to a role, you’ll stay on the ground and we’ll trust the guy in the contest". Simple roles with simple instructions. Hinkley caught the cats napping. We like to play 'our brand' but even when it works it often is not enough. There is a lot to be said for different tactics to counter opp strengths. Hinkley has been very good at that this year. Dismantled us, the cats and will do it to other unsuspecting coaches this year. This year 1 vs 1 defence has become the winning formula. We still play mostly a zone/team defence. Who knows how long it can continue as opps know how to counter that game plan. Looking fwd to see how we adjust our defence plan and any tricks Goodwin finds to dismantle other team's game plans.

On his SEN interview this morning Goodwin said Dunkley isn't far off selection. Could it be this week? Of last weeks 22, ANB and Hannan are at risk. Hannan likely to get more time to find form, having had a long lay off so ANB to miss out when Dunkley comes in. Hibberd ready to come back so should replace Wagner this week.

Usually more than 90%. Re match ups without a 'spare'. Defender goes off when a fwd goes off and/or Max drops back.

Good question, especially as we have Petty developing. At some stage we may need to trade out Frost, OMc or Petty. It will be for their benefit rather than what some think; that they aren't good enough. I doubt if any of them would be on the trade table for long. And we would get good trade value.

Who did we have in the twos more worthy? And who did we have once Frawley and Howe left? And who was there when Tom went fwd? Folks would prefer we left Frosty out there on his own? Time will tell how far Oscar can go. But when looking back lets look at the circumstances of his selection.

All the more credit to Oscar to help us get to a prelim. He shouldered quite a burden while being 'gifted games' especially when Tom went fwd. 'Gifted games' is really player development. Everyone needs to start somewhere and our defence was threadbare having lost Frawley and Howe. Oscar had to learn on the job; the hard way and in the spotlight. We played zone defence rather than 1vs1 which may explain the low rating, why we leak like a sieve and easy to score against. Not Oscar's fault the whole zone and team defence thing broke down. We recruited Lever as an interceptor. When Tom went fwd we needed a big bodied player. Oscar's body hasn't built fast enough (bulk has to be built slowly on a young body) so we got May. Neither recruit was because Oscar 'won't make it'. I'm delighted the club has taken the 4 weeks for Oscar to rest, build some bulk and some confidence. It is all about helping him become the best he can be. That is good for everyone.

Misson on Oscar: Key back Oscar McDonald will play VFL this weekend after undergoing a "mini pre-season". "We just feel he needed to reset physically and probably mentally, and he looks unbelievable now," Misson said. "He's done some great work in the gym, he looks strong, really fit, and he's done some really specific conditioning over and above all the footy work he's done. "We're really pleased with how he's approached it and we're quietly confident it's going to produce some really good results for Oscar." Just shows how missing a large part of preseason sets back the whole season. Hip surgery can't be easy to overcome for such a tall person. Good on Oscar for taking the program on board and putting all into it.

Joel Smith out for the season. As is Jeffy. New injuries in AFL: Keiltly 3-4 weeks (Ankle) Stretch (Foot) 2-3 weeks. No info as to whether it is the foot Stretch hurt late last year. Difficult situation for them as all are out of contract at EOS. As Lord Nev mentioned KK had another head knock. Hope he is ok. Happening far too often.