Earl Hood

Sorry he does have a tank now because we are playing him in the midfield this year. And you don’t necessarily need more tank to be on the outside than on the inside! You need to know where to run to, have some speed and have good disposal to be an outsider, Tracc has all of that.

But remember we had a kick on the siren to beat the Cats! This is a very odd season. If we get our act together we can compete with the best but then there is our worst!

Would be great to get a Rolls Royce outsider but they cost a lot even if you can poach one. Of our current players we have Langdon and we should be using Petracca in the outside role. I love Tracca in the middle but we have Oliver, Viney and Brayshaw who can play inside so how do we maximise Tracca on the outside? Does he play wing, then drift forward rather than play in the guts?

A free kick was brought back because a Geelong player blocked the Eagles player on the mark that allowed the Cats kicker to run around the mark. Hasn’t Hawthorn been doing just that for 10 years?

You may be right but Lyon to my knowledge was not on the board or employed in the FD, he was asked to provide a consulting role to advise on coach selection. Consultants advise, management ultimately wears the decision. By the way I can’t remember all the detail but I was comfortable with the Bailey appointment, I reckon he could coach but was under resourced and undermined by Schwab and I still believe the Neeld appointment was influenced by Schwab who wanted a newby he could control. No way he would have accepted a Sheedy appointment in my opinion. In short the problem was Schwab and his interference in the FD, specifically in coaching appointments and draft selections.

FFS he was asked for advice, that may have been rubbish but the buck stops with the decision makers at the club at the time. Schwab, the Board and Jimmy have to wear those decisions. To me when looking for the root cause for that disastrous period I always end up looking at Schwab, Connelly to some extent and unfortunately Jimmy who didn’t realise Schwab was a toxic influence on recruiting and football operations.

Why was Sparrow up against Boak at all? Boak has a habit of smashing much more experienced opponents than 3 gamers. The midfield was totally inept tonight just hard to work out what is going on. And Max gets 40 hit outs but what were they? More like I got my hand to the ball but don’t expect me to direct it anywhere.

6 Lever 5 May 4 Hibberd 3 Lockhart 2 Gawn 1 Petracca

Trouble is what is Max doing with his hit outs? His hit outs aren’t going to our guy’s advantage that often. Contrast the tap work of NicNat on the weekend and how he tapped to his teams advantage.

I wouldn’t be blaming Sparrow, the engine room of Gawn, Oliver, Viney, Petracca, and Harmes were next to useless as a group.

Did we have a winner anywhere on the ground? Can’t think of one. You could argue Gawn won the hit outs but to who? This is a season where all sides have been Jekyll and Hyde like in their performances, maybe this was our shocker. We could wear that if we had won the close ones against Brisbane and Geelong but we didn’t and now we look like dropping off the pace. Midfield went missing in action tonight.

I duck my head low and come up quickly oh yeah someone’s arm is there. Oh yes must be a free!

This season has been full of teams playingDoctor Jeckle and Mr Hyde football, winning well one week and looking hopeless the next. This week we are hopeless but the problem we have dropped 2 games by a few points when we were on song. So we can’t afford these downers. Intensity is near zero, team work zero.

Pathetic display but umpires are not helping some atrocious decisions, a number right in front of goal. Wish we could get a few of those within 30m.

Intensity meter just hit zero!

MFC intensity meter reading at about 1!

Haven’t shown up to play yet. Maybe second quarter?

Yes that was a fifty.

6 Viney 5 Oliver 4 Gawn 3 Petracca 2 May 1 Melksham

Agree I like the way Lockhart is going about it. Yes he makes mistakes but he takes the game on and the the way he moves sets up attacking counter attacks. The best thing is he seems to be getting better with every game and I hope he retains his willingness to attack.

With only a four day break the mandatory changes might be the newbies Jackson and Pickett, based not on form but on fitness and endurance. Bring in TMac and one of Sparrow or Jordan. Jetta might be up for a spell too, took a couple of hits tonight, so maybe Rivers comes in.

Yes that hurt and someone has said it was the field umpire who called for the review, not the goalie! Is that true, if so it’s criminal. I will have to watch the replay tomorrow when I have calmed down. So many squandered opportunities with missed set shots and then a number of [censored] umpiring decisions, I need to review again to understand.

We aren’t far off the mark but if you miss 6 set shots from 30 to 40m and within the 30 degree arc each side of the goal was it? Just not going to win games with that lack of accuracy. The same inaccuracies cost us 3 or 4 games last year, one of them was against Brisbane by the way, how do we fix this? It is so frustrating, key forwards should be able to kick straight.

Unfortunately for us that is where we win or lose. If we don’t dominate the midfield and especially the clearances we struggle as we don’t have dominant forwards or great rebounding halfbacks.

We did the same last year at the Gabba when we missed 4 or 5 set shots and let Hipwood off the leash for 15 minutes for 4 goals.