Earl Hood

What was that free for against Hibberd?

Mind boggling stuff. The one where McHenry runs 50 meters away from the contested area to charge straight into Max right in front of the non officiating umpire was extraordinary. Max goes to ground not expecting the hit, umpire does nothing. Cornes said the umpire saw it but ignored it. To me it’s a reportable offence and the MRP should have picked it up. Never knew you could just run around cannoning into players off the contest whenever you felt like it.

No Eastern Suburban Churches Footy League. It was a huge league in the 70’s but disappeared years ago.

Played a lot of suburban footy in my time I do not remember that sort of behaviour at any time. Grabbing genitals would have got you a punch in the head as I remember it. Now I do remember being in the showers after training and the captain coach coming up to me to talk about selection only to find he was pissing on my leg! Boys will be boys I suppose!

Why is Pruess on the list if you don’t play him this week when Max is down, Pruess is available and you are facing an inform physical monster in Goldie? I suppose we are going to sacrifice TMac physically against Goldie, not sure why.

Hold on how many games are there in four weeks these days?

6 Oliver 5 Viney 4 May 3 Petracca 2 Jackson 1 Weideman

What is the High tackle rule? Is it contact above the ankles? This is doing my head in. That must about 6 high tackle frees to the Crows so far and none of them were dangerously head high in any way. Then we have had numerous in the backs that were nothing of the sort.

Holding the ball rule has anyone know what it is anymore?

Petracca?

WTF is going on with the umpires? In the backs not there, dangerous tackles, maybe but then you have to pay the others. What was that late reversal about?

Brodie Smith a late withdrawal.

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.