Earl Hood

Thoughts post match: why did the AFL change the ruck dual rules? They have gone full circle in 35 years. They brought in the dividing line to stop ruckman wrestling each other. Then the limiting circle to limit the run up ( which curtailed Jeff White’s dominance) and now we have reverted to wrestling again that allows big muscle bound brutes negate probably the best tap ruckman the game has seen. Please explain AFL! I thought the free kick for a faked handball to get the player on the mark to move was removed last year, but it’s back it seems. Regarding Oliver time for a spell at Casey. He is a liability. Let’s run the kids through there for the rest of the season. Let’s play Fritta up the ground for a few games. He has mobility and skills and needs to get involved in the play. continue playing the kids, the season is shot I think. Let’s work out who is part of future, now. Fitness - I have serious doubts about our stamina, ability to run out games.

That’s 2 goals to the umpires

Needs time at Casey. Goodwin has to make the call. We are playing more than a man short because he is a liability.

Umpiring is absolutely diabolical! I mean I thought if you take possession and take on a tackler and get stripped of the ball its incorrect disposal. Not tonight.

Agree he is one of our better skilled players!

Oliver having a blinder, zero possessions, given away 2 frees and a 70m penalty.

70m penalty?

The cupboard is bare, that’s why.

Moore’s was no accident!

Forget footy. He needs the rest of the year to recover and get his body right. My worry is the injury, the operation and painful recovery have been so traumatic that we may not see the same player again. Injuries of this severity can have lasting effects. And my despair at this catastrophe might be somewhat alleviated if I thought for a moment there would be some likelihood of revenge in the last round. But it wouldn’t even register with our coaching team. If it was up to me , next game, Moore would be fair game if he happened to find himself, oddly for him sitting under a high ball. Free license to drive your knee straight into his back or side just as he did so blatantly and with zero repercussions!

The umpires seem determined to cause a hometown riot. They seem hellbent on finding every minuscule holding/ blocking free for Sydney they can conjure up.

I am not convinced about Moore’s intent in this case and there is no way to prove anything. From the vision he flexes his knee not to gain a ride on someone’s back and gain height for a mark, the knee was driven straight into the players side. And he was attempting to reach over the pack to get a fist on the ball so a flexed knee would actually hinder how far you can reach, so the quite exaggerated knee flex looked wrong to me. It’s a wonder injuries of this nature don’t occur on a regular basis given the situation of a player caught under the ball with 195 cm monsters coming from behind to spoil happens numerous times every game.

I thought I remembered that Lonergan was running back with the flight of the ball as Millar was running toward the ball to mark.

He certainly flexed his knee forward unnecessarily as he jumped from behind, no duty of care at all. It’s a wonder it doesn’t happen more often.

It’s odd. Watching Clarrie today he was getting possessions but he is just immediately handballing or kicking blindly, mostly to our disadvantage. I understand someone having a poor preseason would be short of a gallop, not getting to contests etc. Today he was getting his hands on it but his decision making, poise, extraordinary peripheral vision that once allowed him to fire out a handball to a target in heavy traffic, has evaporated! I always thought for a midfielder, that ability to work in heavy traffic was a skill you don’t loose overnight, even if you lack fitness or loose a yard in pace.

I am not convinced on this idea of the shots at goal. The Pies slotted a number of “hope for” goals from 50m and on the boundary but basically slotted everything they should have from 35m. They actually kicked to the left hand pocket a number of times to find a marking target who then converted. Alternatively we missed numerous shots from 35 that we should have slotted and zero that you might hope for. As bad as we were, if we kicked what we should have, we would have been much closer but not to say we could have won as the Pies would have just ramped up the pressure if it was close. They had us covered all day.

There aren’t that many kids to play. The list is looking bog ordinary.

Good article but I was [censored] about the Grundy question and response. Oh gee we were great for being so brave to try it but gee it didn’t work, I mean what can one do? Well my response if I were Pert would be “we are paying you the big $ make it work!” We gifted this years likely AA ruck to a fellow contender and have left ourselves with basically zero backup for a 32 year old great ruckman. And that doesn’t include our inconceivable decisions not to play him in the finals that probably cost us at least one win. But you know gee it just didn’t come together, let’s move on.

Given Casey plays this arvo, everyone training this morning will be in the team plus an emergency or 2. Just let us know who is or isn’t there from last weeks 23 please.

On SEN this morning Buckley’s analysis of our performance included the observations that in the aftermatch warm down he noted that body shapes of some players indicate they aren’t as fit as they should be and in general the team looked gassed during the game. He also believed such a poor performance and the demeanour of the players, lack of fight etc. tells him there must be off field issues at play.

I was there, it was bad but understandable, we had a shizen side playing one of great sides of any era on their own dung heap. I am not sure this isn’t worse!

186?

Wasn’t there a rule change about how long you can hold a ball in a tackle?

What are we doing?

I think they are being serious. Verral and Fullerton were made to look amateurish by the Coburg ruckman. When he wasn’t physically pushing them out of the contest to win the centre taps, he was grabbing it out of the air to handball to his mids or running forward to mark and kick goals. Then he got injured. On that performance we don’t have a back up for Max.