Hawthorn in-game discussion

[giant]

Thought the umps were fine. We could scarcely complain about the soft as butter free to Jesse in the last qr.

What was hilarious was listening to the Hawks fans complain - they started up with the Bronx cheer when they got a free kick in Q2 - then proceeded to continue with it as they got the next 6 frees in a row (admittedly with a little less vehemence each time). Someone needs to explain to "irony" to them.

[Primmy]

Interesting to see everyone bagging out Goodes for his game yesterday. It wasn't wet there yesterday but geez it was windy. Had some very tough sets shots considering the conditions.

Agreed, and of course Hawthorne were crap too, thank heavens, I mean look at the actual points scored by them, embarrassing for us. What is not arguable is that if it is that windy, why don't you pass it to someone closer to the goals......some of the decision making was at best "distracted". When Adam is on song, its a joy to watch, but when he isn't - aaaaggghhhhhhhhhhh. That's all I have to say.

Oh all right. He did continue to work and work. Not fabulously though.

Did McVeigh have a reasonable game? Anyone?

[stellation]

Especially as there is no law against being spun 360....unless you can dispose of the footy....which you can't if one of your arms is pinned....then you'd get pinged for throwing. Umpire have low IQs....and I'm not joking, they honestly don't understand this stuff....and/or can't think quickly enough toi remember the rules in a pressure situation.

I believe the umpire said something along the lines of "when he spun you 360 you lost your prior opportunity". The laws don't have anything about that from what I can recall, however they can have clarifications for interpretations of the law that form a subset of the laws of the game but aren't included or referenced by the document itself... which obviously doesn't help matters very much!

Regardless of that, he blew the whistle far too quickly, Mal got his kick away after the whistle had blown and when he got his kick away I don't think he'd even done 180 degrees. Really just a terrible decision right in front of goal.

[Melbournehammer]

I believe the umpire said something along the lines of "when he spun you 360 you lost your prior opportunity". The laws don't have anything about that from what I can recall, however they can have clarifications for interpretations of the law that form a subset of the laws of the game but aren't included or referenced by the document itself... which obviously doesn't help matters very much!

Regardless of that, he blew the whistle far too quickly, Mal got his kick away after the whistle had blown and when he got his kick away I don't think he'd even done 180 degrees. Really just a terrible decision right in front of goal.

I must say that i didn't have that much of a problem with the decision in principle. he took the ball he ran back three steps - he tried to step rioli - failed tried to palm him off and failed and then spun 360 before kicking the ball.

about 10 me in front of me a hawthorn ruckman took fewer steps than malceski did before running into kieran jack and then handpassed the ball after he hit the ground - which was faster than mal's 360

i'm more annoyed that we gifted them 4 goals from poor defensive work (5 if you count letting peterson take 10 steps to fly into a pack) or dumb turnovers (jack not breaking quickly from defence, LRT spoiling backwards, grundy chipping the ball 20 metres across goal to miss by 5 and mummy handpassing to a stationary malceski 10 me out from goal). given the pretty reasonable efforts of the back six to prevent hawthorn from scoring from their own play these were unhelpful.

[Young Blood]

Did McVeigh have a reasonable game? Anyone?

Yes, reasonably good. Certainly our best offensive mid. Given the current structure, I can't see us winning games against better opposition until ROK returns to top form.

[Young Blood]

I appreciate everyone's disappointment, my own preference is to keep focussing on rebuilding.

At this stage I think we know Hannerbery, Mumford, Kennedy, Jetta, Rohan, Smith, Heath, White. Before the end of the season I would like to see Meredith, Veszpremi, Lewis Johnston, Sumner, TDL given a chance. It is bugging me watching Playfair run around, as he is not part of the future. Pyke looks to have a future in the AFL

We're not genuinely contenders this year, and will be better faster if we develop our younger guys, so that is my preference. They will lose games, but that is the way it goes

Exactly how I feel. Pretty confident we can add Meredith & Bird to the list, and not 100% sure about Heath yet. Grundy and Jack too, only slightly older.

What concerned me most about yesterday was the lack of energy and initiative displayed by most - particularly in the first 20 minutes of the last quarter when the game was still in the balance. I wanted to see more ferocious attack on the ball and risk taking. Hannebery, Mumford & Rohan (& Jetta, Heath & Malceski to a lesser extent) showed the way to their more experienced teammates.

[Young Blood]

People had a go at Shaw for a couple of terrible kick ins but if you looked downfield no one gave him anything like a lead or a target. He had no options except to run and bomb it long. I though he had the better of Rioli for most of the day.

Swings & roundabouts. He did well on Rioli but, as is often the case, his disposal was very poor. Also, from the games I've seen, he's not providing the run out of the midfield he did last year. I wonder how his bounce stats compare.

[stellation]

I must say that i didn't have that much of a problem with the decision in principle. he took the ball he ran back three steps - he tried to step rioli - failed tried to palm him off and failed and then spun 360 before kicking the ball.

Rioli didn't touch him until he tried to fend him off, which is when Cyril took hold. Just thinking through the actions of it Mal changed directions himself to run back in the direction of the point post and tried to fend off Cyril as he changed direction, that's when Cyril took hold. He was swung around and got a kick away across his body that pretty much went straight up the ground; even if the umpire thought that Mal was facing Cyril when he started getting spun, a 360 degree spin would have seen that kick going to the boundary line.

[lwjoyner]

I agrre with Reggi re Playfair should not be in side, not part of future, but to be fair to him I thought he did Ok on Sunday and I am one of his biggest opponent. But the fact he played Ok (just as I believe he is too slow) should not stop us promoting the younger guys and get some game time into them. Currie Johnson are the same size and whilst Braddy is out it is an opportunity to play them.

[Mr Magoo]

I was most impressed with the effort of all the younger players but very unimpressed with the older more experienced guys who should be rising to the top when the going gets tough. It was a bad time for Bolton, Goodes , McVeigh and ROK to be all pretty ineffective. There MUST be something wrong with Okeefe at the moment, he is playing terribly and while McVeigh stats were 20 disposals this is not good enough from what should be our best midfielder - he should be getting 27 plus disposals a game.

Bolton was ordinary including missed tackles and Goodes, while he couldnt be faulted for trying, was off on his kicking and positioning today.

[Jesse Richards]

Interesting to see everyone bagging out Goodes for his game yesterday. It wasn't wet there yesterday but geez it was windy. Had some very tough sets shots considering the conditions.

Yet White slotted two from the boundary...

[Jesse Richards]

Are we still bagging Playfair? Ooops, I forgot, he's not the future, just one of our desperately needed present goalkickers who can take marks in the 50.

[Jesse Richards]

Let's keep those umpires - a few odd decisions and a bit of premature whistle blowing - but at least they weren't blatantly against us in the first half and did report that hit on Mattner.

[Matty10]

Yes, reasonably good. Certainly our best offensive mid. Given the current structure, I can't see us winning games against better opposition until ROK returns to top form.

I agree, McVeigh was good. The Age also has him in our best as well - if that is any indication.

[Plugger46]

Are we still bagging Playfair? Ooops, I forgot, he's not the future, just one of our desperately needed present goalkickers who can take marks in the 50.

He was OK. Not horrible, not great, just OK.