chookrat

1 hour ago, BDA said:

What's hard about navigating it?

you get off at the train station, walk a few hundred meters to the track, enter through one of the numerous entry points, walk across the track (or perhaps there'll be a tunnel running underneath, not sure) to get to the training ovals. Simples.

It seems overly complex, there is also a bike track so risk of the players getting hit by bikes and horsies, or horsies riding bikes.

34 minutes ago, 58er said:

Reasons ? Why? 

I don't trust horsies.

I wouldn't be too stressed. I reckon we've been loading and will be cherry ripe for Anzac Eve after the bye.

1 hour ago, Demonland said:

 

I've got alot of time for Leigh Montana and his analysis of teams and how they will match up. If only the networks could find other ex players who are articulate and can provide insights instead of the boof heads they bring in.

1 minute ago, Roost it far said:

I should be going to the meeting today but things have come up and I won't be able to attend. Hopefully the 7 dog walkers show themselves and we can move on.

They might get held up shouting at clouds on their way to the meeting

18 minutes ago, Young Blood said:

As much as I absolutely detest the man, I don't think Maynards action was premeditated before he left the air. He jumped to spoil/smother. Its once he was in the air he decided to turn his body and make full contact with his shoulder with the intention to hurt the player (Gus). I know its a lost cause but it still baffles me as to why old vision of the hundreds of times a similar situation occurred where the player in the air simply put their arms out to brace/push off the kicker was not enough to influence the decision. This is the duty of care we're talking about, not a thug taking advantage of a player in a vulnerable position.

Unfortunately while the impact is so different, the act is somewhat similar with Kozz. Leaves his feet to intercept/spoil the handball then decides in that split second to clip the players head with elbow. It was a split second but unnecessary. This part was not a football act.

Any other year he gets off. But not this year 😪

Good summary Young Blood. For what its worth the rule change re provisions for spoils under rough conduct are working as intended. The Fogarty 1 week suspension and Kossie facing 1 week, or a fine if we can argue low impact shows the change is working as intended.

Had this change being made last year then Van Rooyen probably would have faced 2 weeks and Maynard 3 - 5 weeks with the difference being the Impact grading of High v Severe.

Finally there is no point comparing the Fogarty incident to Pickett. The whole point of the grading system to grade incidents against the criteria on their own merit and that clubs can then elect to challenge the gradings. While taking into account the 'potential' for injury provides some grey area I think it provides for a more appropriate outcome by factoring in the action when grading an incident.

1 hour ago, hardtack said:

Would you say the same about those criticising Maynard? After all, he was attempting to smother the ball. Yes, I think he got off far too easy, but his action did bring about rule changes which unfortunately have seen Kossie receive a suspension.

I think that if the player chooses to launch himself with both feet off the ground and the smother is successful without making contact with the opponent’s head, then fair enough…but if the player mis-times the smother and in bracing himself, makes contact with the head, then he’s in trouble.
 

The problem with the Maynard incident was that the spoil was carelessly executed and he made no effort to minimise impact to Brayshaw after he had committed the spoil. In comparison Kossie deliberately pulls back from the bump to minimise impact to Soligo.

The rule change this year re spoils, following the Maynard and Van Rooyen incidents last year, means that they are covered under rough conduct and players have a duty of care to other players when executing a spoil.

I'm a supporter of gradings taking into account potential to cause injury as it weighs not only the outcome but also the action. In this case I think we can successfully argue low impact on both actual and potential injury on account of Kossie's decision to pull back from the bump.

4 hours ago, jnrmac said:

Soligo has also come out and said it was nothing

I read this as not only meaning the actual impact was light but also that Kossie played fairly and did show duty of care, e.g he could have lined me up but consciously decided to pull back from full contact.

4 hours ago, leave it to deever said:

If it's medium he should have got more than a week. It wasn't.

It was graded High Contact, Careless, Medium Impact which = 1 week. Low impact = a fine.

10 hours ago, Dee Viney Intervention said:

Thankfully we rolled the dice on Steven May playing against the Crows as he is one of our best and important players. I hope we roll the dice again and challenge the grading of impact, get it down to a fine and then tell Kossie to rein it in a bit. A big game at the G against the Lions, you want your best available. Come on Dees, roll the dice don’t roll over.

I reckon we have a good chance of having it downgraded as it looks like Pickett pulls back a bit before impact resulting in pretty light contact. It is clear that the actual impact was low and also argue potential for injury is low due to Pickett pulling back from the bump. That Pickett made the decision to pull back from forceful contact is exactly what the AFL is looking to achieve and thus a low impact grading is available and appropriate.

I reckon it will be looked at and we might need to argue the case but that it will ultimately be graded as low impact.  The action started as a smother and finished with a brace with the shoulder contact being pretty light.  We might also argue the other player ran into Kossie and therefore the contact was reasonable. 

14 hours ago, jane02 said:

My husband cracked his vertebrae a few years ago and had to wear a brace for six months. It was very painful and certainly limited his movement. I know each case is different ( and my husband is much older than Maysie and not an athlete) but you have to tread carefully and allow healing to occur slowly.

Jane, that would not have been an enjoyable 6 months. While all injuries are different it is often the case with back injuries that muscular imbalances and dysfunctional movement patterns become the main issue after the initial acute injury.  The physios will make sure that Maysie is keeping his trunk mobile and exercising with a level that is tolerable so that he is ready to play.

While I'm sure he will be in pain the players and club medicos understand that pain is just feedback and nothing to worry about. This is a problem I see with general medicine that doctors tell civilians to avoid pain and prescribe pain medication rather than work through it in a sensible manner.

I'd be surprised if May misses more than three weeks and hopefully he is back for the Brisbane match. He can always wear a guard to help protect the ribs. As for the cracked vertebrae while it sounds serious it might not pact him in any way. I'm not to stressed as we have plenty of depth and will ensure we keep evolving.

7 hours ago, Demonland said:

Coin Toss Ladder for those keeping score

Teams that won the coin toss in Round 1 went 6-3

It makes sense that we are above Brisbane, them being an interstate team and us being Victorian and all.

2 hours ago, Gawndy the Great said:

His demeanour in the Sydney presser was very eye catching. He looked panicky and desperate. If they go 0-3 then statistically they won’t win it. top 4 becomes almost out of reach and finals is even 50/50. Just look at the cats from last year.

Saints match up very well and I think are in with a real shot to cause a major upset. They move the ball very well and are one of the harder sides to score against. 

I don't get the argument that you cannot win the flag if you lose the first 3 matches on the basis that it hasn't happened before. There are 23 games in the season and between 16 and 17 wins gets a top 4 finish and probable home finals. Whats to say a team cannot lose the first 3 games and win 17 of the remaining 20 to finish top 2?

Like others here have said the environment Watts was drafted into was not professional and the expectations the club put on him were unfair on a young player. This said there are others who succeeded in the same environment and Jack was given every opportunity to do well under Roos and Goodwin. The impression I get from his media appearances is he really lacks confidence in himself as a person which makes it really difficult to thrive in adversity.

3 hours ago, Dee*ceiving said:

Shortening matches would actually make sesnse EO. Games seem to be going longer than ever these days with the number of score reviews and other nonsense. One would think ticket prices and TV deal money would still increase if matches were 10% shorter, especially if there's an extra 9 games on the TV. 

18 minute qtrs plus time on? What's the down side? 

Is it a recipe for more injuries driven by less player fatigue hence greater volume and ferocity of impacts or possibly even the opposite? 

Rather than shortening the matches the AFL could pause play within quarters to show more betting ads to kids.

I'm comfortable with an April start and 18 matches when Tassie join. Appreciate this won't happen due to tv rights and revenue but any changes that make the season longer take away from the game.

I wonder whether Kate Roffey's comment re being more like Collingwood is to do with their memberships increasing due to off field discretions while ours seem to have dropped. I'm not too concerned as the numbers will bounce back if our on field form warrants it.

8 minutes ago, Dee Zephyr said:

It was strange Kev, won’t say he couldn’t move he just didn’t move at all really. Maybe he had a good main session and this was just a chill session for him. 

Could it be a matter of managing him to be able to play games where during the week its pretty much some skills work and light work on the track. I recall that Nick Reiwaldt barely trained with the main group during season in the second half of his career due to his knee and we probably only need Ben to play half a dozen games with Petty and Fullarton becoming available.

2 hours ago, kev martin said:

Rehab  is out early. A beautiful Saturday morning, though plenty of dew on the paddock 

Verrall doing hard sprints along the boundary. 

McAdam individual program and has started, ball work, change of direction drills, and easy kicking and handball.

Melky, carrying weights as he changes direction. 

Hunter continues his running program. Melky has joined him for some runs through the middle. Hunter is struggling to keep up with him (will need a block of conditioning).

Captain's run cannot be far off.

Love hearing about Melksham's progress. He epitomizes courage and sacrifice. When on holidays in the Sunshine Coast after our finals exit last year my wife was on the beach with our two youngest and they started playing with Jake's kids and my wife got chatting with Jake's partner and they were super nice. On or off the field he is so important to our team and would love for him to hold up the cup in September.

3 minutes ago, The Jackson FIX said:

Re. Brayshaw’s payout;

”Fellow AFL 360 co-host Mark Robinson called for the funds to be taken from inside Melbourne’s salary cap.”

And then he goes on to qualify that with;

“My gut feel is if you sign someone to a long-term deal – I don’t want to be flippant about this but unless someone passes or literally can’t play football beyond circumstances it should go in the cap.”

ummm is being forced to medically retire pretty much exactly “can’t play football beyond circumstances”?

 

the Slobinator really Knows how to push my buttons.

 

 

I think in a round about way Robbo is actually arguing the case for Gus's contract to be paid outside of the cap.

We could head this off by relocating our Training and Admin facilities to Moggs Creek.

In seriousness I cannot see how Geelong would come up with the 2 x early first round picks to satisfy any trade and thats if Clarry wanted to leave Melbourne and go there. I think this sort of rubbish reporting will only intensify depending on how our season progresses.

The muppets in the Media such as Dermie tend to forget that we've had substantial periods in the past 3 seasons where our forward line has functioned well. Even last year in towards the back end of the season our forward line was working very well with Jake Melksham, JVR, a hobbling Fritta along with Kossie and Trac as our key target at stages. Continuity has been our biggest issue which is the same problem other clubs who pay $$$ for marque key forwards, e.g. Richmond with Lynch, who are always injured and cant string games together.

10 hours ago, Skuit said:

Maybe you should write the club a letter?Things can sometimes be overlooked in organisations with a lot of cogs, so it's possible the 'improve the forward line' memo just got lost in someone's inbox tray. 

It could be as simple as Goody pulling a couple of the forwards to the side and say "Boys, we need you to kick more goals.". I winder if the club has tried this or if they are instead to focussed on creating stoppages on our forward 50.

24 minutes ago, demoncat said:

Credit to Carlton - those are the types of wins that Premiership teams look back on as season defining moments that show just how much belief they had in themselves 

And to be honest the last time I remember a Dees game like that was Round 23 2021 against Geelong 

Don’t get me wrong - I still think we can win a flag this and could have won last year if not for our fwd line injuries 

But jeez sometimes teams just have that intangible aura around them that just propels them to victory - Collingwood had it last year and perhaps the Blues will have it this year

Our final round v Sydney last year had similarities to the Geelong 2021 match.  I think an objective position of our past 2 years is that we were good enough to win enough games to finish top 4 but had too many banged up players and limped into finals (2022) and injuries to key personnel (2023) which meant we were probably a 1 to 2 goal worse side than if we had Petty or Melksham and a fit Fritta going into finals.

Sydney beat us on Thursday night because they are a very good disciplined side and we didn't handle the slippery ball well around stoppage and were able to take our strength away from us and then us it to their advantage.

I also wouldn't be surprised if changes to our game style where we move the ball more aggressively take a bit of time to bed in and while we still win the majority of our games that our best form is through the second half of the season.

On 04/03/2024 at 08:43, george_on_the_outer said:

How hard is it to put the numbers up?

Our ever reliable comms. team still has last years figures on the website.

Personally I like that we've almost closed up shop re comms and instead simply focusing on our footy. I can guarantee that none of our supporters will remember spelling players names incorrectly, putting up the wrong pictures, not providing updates on practice matches and generally not doing social media if we win ag least 4 of our first 6 matches. Actions speak louder than words.