Earl Hood

Seems the Saturday Paper agrees with this hypothesise. Morrison set the whole thing up!

Just finished having a coffee down at Jan Juc with Cam Guthrie sitting opposite and boy was he carbohydrate loading, pancakes, maple syrup, ice cream, and then attacked his girlfriends fry up lunch as well. My wife kept whispering to me kick the chair out from under him! Very unsporting of her.

That Smith guy from the All Stars could be worth a look for a late mature aged recruit. He hasn’t done much tonight but they showed his highlights reel at the half time break, great aerial skills and he is obviously just having a bad night.

I thought it odd that Viney trained on his own the day before and didn’t at least do some limited drills with the squad on Thursday just to reacquaint himself with Max and the mids and ball movement etc. makes me wonder if he will be ready for Friday Night?

I am assuming we are hoping to go into next week with one change, Viney for Kent, hoping Tyson gets up. JKH was training on Thursday morning with the players who played against GWS. There were 19 players doing drills, missing were Kent, Tyson and VDB. Vince doing laps, Baker doing rehab. No Viney, no JSmith or Hannan. So after seeing the VFL selection I am surmising that they are going with one change

We have won most game stats this year, contested possessions, inside 50’s, quarters won, hit outs, hit outs to advantage, clearances? etc. we should be on top but we aren’t and that is due to the one quarter in a game we have lost often outstripping the 3 we won, losing 5 close ones because could have won with some intelligent play and more accurate goal kicking, some poor selections at times and deficient game plans, e.g. the back press too high, bombing the ball forward to a depleted forward setup because we have an extra one or two down back and on and on... The good news is we seem to have improved our one dimensional, often mindless attack at all costs game plan incredibly in the last 2 to 3 weeks. Now maybe we are in a position to reap the full rewards of our statistical domination in games. If we dominate hitouts and clearances and inside 50’s we will start to see that reflected on the score board. But we do need to convert in front of goal, that has cost us in several games this year. We must kick those set shot opportunities from 30 to 40 metres that we set up so regularly.

Bernie was running laps at training this morning so he might still think he is a chance!

Dropped by Gosches this morning, the boys were doing some light training, ball movement drills, then goal kicking practice from all angles. Max is very good from the boundary lines both sides. I didn’t see Frost kick a goal from any angle, better stay down back. Counted 19 players training, no Kent, Tyson or VDB? No Hannan, no JSmith, no Viney today, he trained yesterday. TMac moving well, not sure why VDB was missing. Thought a couple of fully fit next in line backup players might have been training with the 19. Melbourne Victory training next door, good to see Honda cruising around the pitch, looks very good with a ball at his feet. Oh and Vince was running laps even though he announced his retirement?

Interesting discussion with my neighbour this morning. I asked him if he was missing the cut and thrust of life in Canberra as he was a minister in both the Hawke and Keating Governments from 1983 to 1996. He put forward the proposition that in his opinion ScoMo may have encouraged Dutton to take on Turnbull so he could come in as the compromise “Jim Hacker” candidate with no blood on his hands, leaving Dutton as the fall guy holding the bloody knife. Who knows he could be right.

Que? Please explain!

Used to love Slamming Sammy Kekovich in the 70’s now I have another Slamming Sam. Did a great job today but has to be supported in the finals so he can play to his strengths.

6 Harmes 5 Gawn 4 Brayshaw 3 Petracca 2 Jones 1 Salem apolgies to so many, TMac, Frost, Oliver et al.

The improvement in footy IQ in the last 4 weeks or so has been amazing. We are now playing some tempo footy, moving forward but lowering the eyes and looking for options, thinking our way forward with possessions rather than just bang it forward at any cost, and at times just chipping the ball around to retain possession. Although we could get much better at this, retaining possession and soaking up time.

Give him time it is all building, he has all the required tools for an explosive half forward. The coaches need to instruct him to kick for goal when he gets the ball inside 50m in traffic and not look to pass off. I know he is trying to do the right thing but his little dinky passes trying to thread a needle fail most times. Just back yourself and kick it mate. I have faith that he could explode in the finals run.

Actually I think everything he has done tonight has been OK. All his disposals have been clean and have gone to a player in a better position. Not a game changing performance by any means but not woeful.

Wrecker can you please enlighten us poor lefties how Turnbull was a left wing enemy to the LNP, to the extent that the hard right has been willing to tear the party apart and cost them power. In the end all that has been achieved with Morrison in charge is the demise of an individual. Turnbull tried to get corporate tax cuts through, and put forward a very compromised NEG to reduce power prices that incorporated Tony Abbott’s agreed emissions targets. What’s so leftwing about that?

The latest is that the Honourable Jim Hacker has thrown his hat into the ring!

Interesting to listen to some of the conservative members and commentators when asked by Journos to explain why the party is being torn apart and likely to lose power, they state that the Libs needed to address the steady loose of their primary vote mostly to One Nation or other far right groups. Malcolm could not bring the so called broad church of the liberal party together. I am thinking the leaching of the Libs primary vote off to the more extreme right parties is the price they are paying for close to 20 years of xenophobic fear mongering that started with Johnny Howard’s Tampa scare campaign in 2001, re “ we will decide who comes to this country....” Since then we invaded Iraq, vilified Muslims, inferred that boat people were terrorists and somehow a threat to our borders as if they were invading and plundering pirates and on and on to recent scare campaigns on African Gangs rampaging through Melbourne. No wonder those people who believe this rubbish are now looking for extreme policies espoused by the Hansen’s and now Duttons of politics. I doubt the LNP can garner 50% of the vote with far right policies of fear and xenophobia, allowing Labour to occupy the middle ground and own the climate change debate. I maybe wrong. By the way is it a coincidence that Rupert flew into Canberra last week and these recent events and the coordinated attacks by Newscorp papers, Sky and 2GB?

Gee if only these things were so clean and managable. I don’t think it will be so predictable. Turnbull will be gone sooner rather than later. The Walloper who will vote for him outside Queensland?

You can add Kevin Sheedy to that list as well. According to Tom Haffey we told a young Sheeds at preseason that he wasn’t up to it and try somewhere else!

Re Warren Dean didn’t we loose him just prior to the 87 final series with a career ending knee injury. He tried to come back but the knee kept swelling up. My vague memory was of a very dynamic and rangy half forward who was mobile with good hands and could kick the ball a mile. I thought he was a big lose for the finals. I don’t think he played again for us.

Or jump!

6 Gawn 5 Brayshaw 4 Melk 3 Jones 2 Jetta 1 Oliver

Cheers?

Anything in the AFL is possible.