Earl Hood

I just happened to be looking at the AFL.com site and they have the top 5 leading players in 7 categories so far this season. Oliver is No 1 in 2 categories and top 5 in 2 others! He doesn’t register in the goals & marks. So the stats are telling us he is still very competitive at AFL level.

Under 15s blunders in the last line by the Giants there twice in 2 minutes! But it’s caused by a total lack of movement of players to provide targets upfield.

Yep our much vaunted young ones need more work. Windsor, Lindsay, Culley, Langford all struggled tonight. Tholstrup battled on. Work to do, but we should see improvement when we get back to the G.

Reality check. We have work to do. It could have been a lot worse, we kept at it so we are fit enough.

Oscar Baker good play and good luck to him.

Some really soft 50’s dished out there. Free kicks 27 to 16. Hawks well looked after by the Umps.

Swans have totally run out of puff.

Que?

When I arrived at training the drill happening in front of me was quite interesting. There were about 20 involved in 2 sides utilising less than half of the ground. Basically the sides had to move the ball in traffic by hand or foot to a coach at each end. If you were in space you looked for handball or occasionally a kicking target but the interesting aspect was the obvious instruction to when in congestion, not to take possession but to slap the ball forward or to an outside teammate. So I saw a lot of slapping the ball when it’s on the ground and a lot of palming the ball to a team mate if it was in the air in a contest. It worked a treat in a training drill. I will be watching Saturday to see if they use this technique to clear congestion to our advantage. These tactics I think work if the inside ball getters know there will always a runner on the outside to receive. Hopefully King is developing this system and the confidence for players to keep doing it.

Langdon leaving training early after running laps. He was in the drills earlier. Suspect he has felt something is not right.

Round 20 2023 vs Richmond. He kicked most of them at the city end and I was sitting in level 3 Ponsford to watch a masterclass in forward marking and set shot goal kicking. I really thought we finally had the key forward we needed but he was injured a few games later and then Melky went down in the final home and away. And that was about it for our premiership chances.

Yes.

I can remember saying we should have done exactly that against GWS game 1 last year and copping some blowback that you always back yourself for the shot etc. We were 3 points up and AJ had taken a contested 40m out on an angle with 2 minutes on the clock. AJ took the shot and missed and GWS ran the ball down the other end for a goal. I didnt blame AJ I blamed our system. So great to see that tactic today.

You are probably right. But I have turned over to the Women’s soccer, more of a midfield battle happening there.

Yawn this game style we are seeing now is starting to resemble basketball too much. The mid ground battles for yardage, a turnover or stoppage and ball up have all but disappeared, it’s just running the ball from end to end for shots at goal. Not particularly enjoying watching others play so it will be interesting to see us in action on Sunday.

Based on the little footy I have watched so far, the games anre all about rapid ball movement and players who can run and run and keep running! So early on at least the “speed/endurance athletes” are going to get a run, Sharp and Tholstrup come to mind.

Can anyone explain Melbourne Storm’s success, given they are also stuck in the dysfunctional AAMI facility. They train on the horrible surface that we used to use under Bailey.

Can someone explain the benefits of all under one roof mantra? I know it sounds good but what will be the tangible benefits, what were the burning problems? Macca has emphasised the better playing surface and the better viewing areas. Given our coaches have locked the gates during training at Casey for years I am not sure anyone will be necessarily getting a welcome at Waverley training.

I agree that backline is too tall and slow from what we have seen of the 2026 games so far but going through the list of fit players who are in full training there aren’t too many options. Sharp & Laurie are the only 2 you could add to that 23.

So any actual detail on training times at Gosch’s this week? Nothing on the official web site that I can see. Is it just me or does the Club treat their fans somewhat differently than the President Steven Smith’s message to fans today emphasising how important we are to the club?

One of the great mysteries of the last 3 seasons for me was that Goodwin kept lamenting our lack of forward connection after losses but never did much about it. He continually watched Oliver, Viney, Tracc, Max and later Langdon all just belt the ball forward but never wanted to really do anything about that at the selection table. Were those midfielders ever actually instructed to not kick long and high? I’m not sure. If he had dropped a few of them, they would have quickly responded I believe. And they were all capable of executing better.

Seeing those highlights, what a player for us! All the best.

Regarding games called off, that bought back memories of my first season playing seniors suburban footy, early 70’s Eastern Suburban Churches C grade I think. I think our enforcer over-reacted to a rather zealous tackle, snotted the culprit and suddenly everyone was involved, fists flying everywhere, except me, I put a bear hug on my 30 something barrel chested opponent, arms full of Tatts and got tossed unceremoniously into a puddle before he ran into the fray. I remember the young umpire in his 20’s tried to intervene but copped one to the head and promptly evacuated to his car and drove off. Our trainer was decked and a few players flattened. When the dust/mud settled we all realised we didn’t have an umpire - game abandoned! It ended up in court as our opponents needed the 4 points to play finals and pleaded the right to play. Can’t remember the court outcome. Great intro to seniors footy and realising it was part the joy of playing footy and part identifying the local violent psycho in a footy Guernsey to steer clear of.

Maybe May?

What’s going on with the umpiring? That’s about 4 in a row very soft frees to the Tigers. Looks like you can’t take a mark from behind without giving away a free for in the back or something.