Good morning, everyone. Welcome to this week’s Game Day thread for this year’s edition of the Queen’s Birthday clash against the once-were, many moons ago, arch rival Melbourne. Pleasingly, this little event fixture is our home game this season, for the first time in many years.
The teams:
Tip: Collingwood by 17 points.
Over to you…
He may not even last the year Rosco.
Herald-Sun reporting he was in Hawaii last week attending David Fox’s 50th birthday.
It’s only a matter of time.
Tragic to see how this once great mans game disintegrates by the week.
McGovern gets a week for a push inside the field of play – where the majority of damage done to the opposing player was caused by the chair the “behavioural officer” was was sitting on or the spikes on the digital advertising hoarding that the AFL cash in on.
Des Headland comes out in defence of Sidney Stack only to admit that the “brothers” have their own game going on and don’t tackle each other they way they would if it was a white man but that’s all acceptable.
And Kennet – who I hate with a passion – gets piled on for making a perfectly honest and rationale assessment of the greatest disgrace that the governing body has ever
inflicted on the people that actually pay their wages
He gets demonised by the same media that defends the rights of “new arrivals” to bring drums, horns and whistles into the same ground in cricket season and annoy the fuck out of anyone not born in the sub-continent and ruin their day, with total immunity.
And now we have umpires doing pointing to someone in the crowd they don’t like and asking them to be removed. And they get removed.
If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Time to harden the fuck up.
https://youtu.be/unkIVvjZc9Y
The AFL is in the hands of the weakest, most insipid and reactionary CEO
McGovern gets one week for deliberately shoving a player into the boundary fence, which could have had any manner of serious consequences – and the player concerned had to go to hospital anyway – and Stephenson gets a dozen for some juvenile betting.
Don’t tell me the fix isn’t in.
There is either going to be a further change before Sunday RS – possibly Grundy but more likely Cox who looked to me that he had a problem with his groin or quad last week, immediately after kicking that goal – or the coaches believe that the Dogs lack of height in defence can be exposed.
This theory would rely on not having Cox, Reid and Mihocek all fly for the same pill, of which there has been no sign so far this year, hence the ease the ball has been moved out of our forward line at stages.
It appears to answer the hypothetical question that Bucks seemed reluctant to entertain not that long ago – can we play Cox, Reid and Mihocek in the same forward line. Bucks was quite cryptic about it earlier this afternoon, seemingly tossing up between a runner and a jumper but they have opted for the jumper.
Reid slowly inches closer to game 150, notching up 148 this week while Pendles lopes and weaves his way to the magic 300 , racking up game 290 this week with the first final looming as a massive milestone.
Reid in for Stephenson – did not see that coming. Like you Rosco I wonder if Grundy is going to play. Thomas must be the luckiest man on the planet
I don’t know why it is RS but we seem to struggle to shake the Dogs.
Beveridge acknowledged this week that he goes in with a very specific plan against us and for a large part of the earlier game this year, it worked.
The Dogs have always played a high effort based game and they seem to run out of steam late.
Elliott and Stephenson kicked 4 of our 11 goals in R4 and Stevo kicked a critical goal at the end of Q3 and also kicked the sealer toward the end of Q4.
It was also probably the best all round games Phillips has played (he kicked 2 goals) and apart from the Carlton game, he hasn’t come close to replicating.
From that R4 game we have lost Adams, Langdon, Stephenson and Elliott (so far) and have gained WHE and three yet to be named.
Grundy monstered English and was our best player but will he play? Lynch’s inclusion in the squad is a concern.
I think a lot of what will play out will be about how the group comes together after the bye and with the Steve saga this week. Our post bye form has not been flattering in recent years and we have been lucky to strike a couple of sides at the bottom of the ladder in ten last couple, in Carlton and Freo.
Carlton should have beaten the Dogs last week and on that basis we should win and win well but a slow start could prove fatal on the fast desk at Marvel – a stadium the Dogs play well and in what Beveridge concedes is a season defining contest for the Dogs.
Moving on to our next match – despite not having Stephenson, if we are genuinely going to be a chance at the pointy end of the season we should beat the Bulldogs on Sunday (and North and Hawthorn in the two rounds after). From the 22 who played in last years GF we are missing Goldsack, Langdon, Adams and now Stephenson. They have been replaced with Moore, Roughhead, Brown and either Daicos or Crocker. The net effect is not so great – a better defence versus a drop off forward. If we play at a level anywhere near last year we will beat the Bulldogs.
Nothing makes sense about the situation, Rosco.
The sentence is out of all proportion to the offence considering his age, immaturity and self-reporting.
Whilst the integrity of the game is paramount, the AFL can’t use that as a defence when drug users can be caught twice before a third strike outs them publicly. If they are on speed, that is match fixing.
It smells like Stephenson is the sacrificial goat for something else (beyond just the need to deflect attention from McLachlan’s staggering incompetence).
PS. Good point about the score review.