Lucifers Hero

In the Game Day thread I posted that Goodwin teared up when Fristch kicked the goal and seeing that confirms it. He may be cool as a cucumber in his press conf but that was raw emotion from him. That was a game to instill huge belief for the players and the coaches. Very happy for Goodwin, the team, the club and us supporters.

Fair comment.

I wonder if boy wonder, Cripps, gets off for the tackle that rammed Swallow's head into the ground and he didn't come back on. But Cripps is in the running for the Brownlow and the AFL would love to see him win it so the MRO may well weasel word an excuse to get him off. Can't believe Carlton beat GCS who beat Sydney last week. It is a very strange game, this aussie rules!

Very gracious of you dd36

WOW! Lewis just said Oliver reminds him of Simon Black. Huge compliment.

I don't think we are weak in recent last quarters. Both Geelong and Adelaide have recently had 10 day breaks. Whereas we have had 7 day breaks after a Darwin game a few weeks ago. Huge effort to almost hold on last week Adelaide should have been much fresher than us and we had a few walking wounded tonight eg Hogan and Harmes. A mammoth effort for the team to hold on. Very proud of the lads.

Emotional singing of our great song - everyone in.

Had to laugh at Oscar doing up his shoe lace to run down the clock- learnt from last week!

Eddie always dangerous - where was our goalkeeper/sweeper!! Bring Max back on!!

Am really enjoying the praise Oliver is getting. His brilliance cannot be ignored, not even by the most biased commentator. 7 goals 4 in that quarter. Go dees!

You are right doc. I don't condone playing injured players but we need him out there just to take a key defender even if he doesn't have an impact.

Maybe we should cut Jesse some slack. He got a bad knock in the back last week. Remember he missed a whole year with a bad back. He was also ill during the week.

Not really. Jeffy kept going and going. It was his repeat efforts that got the ball to Fristch.

Were there some moist eyes from Goodwin, just then? Big game for him and the club so some emotion is understandable if there were. We have come back well and that goal from Fristch was a beauty.

And he wears #25...

Walker has accepted a week for hit on Thouy. Gibbs is challenging the one week suspension for a hit that felled Joel Selwood behind play. Crows play GWS this week so that should put kill off any hope the Crows had of making finals. As an aside, Gus relieved he didn't get penalised for his friendly hi-5 with Razor! Edit: 'Big Fez' has correctly advised Crows play Brisbane.

As if we hadn't had enough evidence that 'running out a foot/toe injury' is extremely risky. To re-cap: Clark, Trengove, Vandenberg, Viney, T Mcdonald. After all that we risk Billy Stretch. Beggars belief.

I think he was having problems vs Port - after the game the camera panned to the rooms and Jack appeared in real discomfort taking his boot off and there was a trainer already there with an ice pack for him. That could be the normal process for him after every game but at the time I wondered if he was having problems again. One would think that if he noticed it was worse leading into the Freo/Darwin game we would have rested him for the game or at least the last quarter/half and not trained last week - just to be cautions. Sensible injury risk management to my mind...

Yes, Jack needs to learn that we are not a one man team and missing finals games might just do it. And that is quite likely: Gus and Oliver are doing a superb job in the midfield. We have Tyson who like Viney can get the ball and has a dominant left side (might also be their weakness). And Vand who might get a call up in a few weeks to add a bit more muscle around the ball. So with everyone doing a bit extra (like on Saturday) we can cover his absence as our midfield success is based on the communication and the 'connection' between Max and whoever he is going to tap the ball to. If Viney is there he gets tapped the ball in his direction. If he isn't there it gets tapped to someone else. I actually wonder if not having Viney helps. It gives Gus and Oliver more say in what happens at center bounces and I reckon they have better footy smarts than young Jack.

Here is the latest view of the run home for the top 10 teams. This week I have included Lions as one of the teams opponents will need to show extra respect. The Port loss to Freo shows there are absolutely no gimmies. I reckon we can make the top 4!! Yes the pressure is on us to win enough games but there is equal pressure on Magpies and Swans who also have a nasty draw. They each might easily drop 3 or 4 of the last 6. The most likely to drop from the top 4 is Magpies?. They play 4 of the winning teams from the weekend and the other 2 lost by a kick. Demons and the Giants are in the box seat to pinch their top 4 spot. My confidence comes from our 3rd qtr on Saturday. Reading Oliver and Brayshaw comments on their talk around the ground and with Max before center bounces and watching how they played was inspired. I reckon that quarter was galvanising for the team. We have played our most consistent and our best footy over the last month with two small losses and two huge wins. That consistency also gives me confidence in what we can do. Last year 15 games made it to top 4. This year 14 plus a good percentage may do the trick. Yes, one week at a time but I now dare to dream!

Oliver: "Melbourne star Clayton Oliver says he and Angus Brayshaw can help fill some of the leadership void left by Jack Viney...[Angus and I] try just get the boys going and say what we need to say.” https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/demon-driver-oliver-gets-more-vocal-in-viney-s-absence-20180715-p4zrnj.html Shows how much our youth is maturing to be ready and willing to take on the extra responsibility. We will miss JV no end but we are in a better position to cover him this year than last. We have Gus in and everyone has another year of development behind them. Hopefully, Jack will be back soon.

Two 8-point games today could really shuffle the top 8 deck. Pies vs WCE and North vs Syd. Would love to see the tables turn a bit and have Richmond face an i/state First final, then a Home Semi and potentially an i/state Prelim. Its the only way to avoid all their finals being at the G. So barracking for WCE today. Then hoping Syd win and keep North a game behind us to give us a tiny amount of breathing space now that Cats and Hawks lost this week.

Not sure about the tone of that post... Ok, so I used the wrong acronym. Should be DOB not OOBF. No reason to get narky about it. I'm sure you knew what I was referring to - there was only one smiling high 5 between Gus and Razor. Were you not watching.

We were clinical in the second half. And we didn't run out of legs which is something as bulldogs play a fast game. The end to end play that Oliver had three possessions in the chain that ended in a Petracca goal was the play of the day. It was good to see that we stopped competing with ourselves on the ground and in the air especially i50. Our forward lead patterns and movement were the best I've seen us play. For the record, Jesse had no trouble at all kicking a goal from outside 50! And, we scored 8 goals from 10 inside 50's in the 3rd. One for the record books! I got a real chuckle from Gus' 'accidental' DOB (not paid by Razor) when they had a laugh and a high five! Edit: Corrected OOBF to DOB

True their injury list is a problem but I suspect they wouldn't make much difference. The bigger problem is they traded away their better players: Betts, Garlett, Waite, Gibbs, Robinson, Touey, Henderson and I'm sure there are others. It was very deliberate to get picks for SOS to take to the draft so they now have a bunch of talented kids who are suffering. Tyson would take a lot of the load off Cripps. He would be really good for them. I have to say I really admire Cripps. Reportedly he is playing with a number of injuries. He is playing so well that he is regularly BOG and second on the Coaches vote table.