Rnd 9 Match Day Thread. Hawthorn V Sydney. MCG. 19.50 pm.

[bloodsbigot]

It's the year of The Bloods , I can smell it .

I don't mean to be a buzzkill but it's only May and this game was almost a carbon copy of last year.

Yes, it was a good win, and I love beating those scumbags, but let's just focus on our next game against North. It's a long, long season and we shouldn't get cocky until we beat them convincingly with Hodge in the team. LEt's wait until the SCG before we start running our mouths off like asshole #freekickhawthorn supporters.

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That's pretty cheap. He's an enthusiast, that's all. He's also very knowledgeable and well-prepared. His style can be a little grating at times but he doesn't deserve that.

He's lost his touch. He thinks every single play is 'clever.' I for one find him sickening.

[Bloods05]

Jones has copped a bit of criticism in here about his progress but I see him being a no nonsense very solid first team member, not a star but exactly the type of psomething you need to have success. He is coming along nicely as far as I can see.

Tippett really seems to have stepped up as a leader this year, from what I've heard he is the consummate professional in terms of his preparation and lifestyle, a true pro and a great role model

Agree about Jones. There are still plenty of flaws in his game but he is getting better all the time, and lately he's shown a few flashes of real quality. I'm hoping he might develop into something more than a solid citizen.

[Bloods05]

Mchack tripped someone 15m out from goal. The ultimate clanger. Only lucky the ump didn't see it. Sorry folks, but we can't win a flag with him in the team. He's cooked.

On the Swans Bigfooty forum, which I rarely visit nowadays, there is a regular who calls himself Bedford. Some of you may be familiar with him. He has a lot in common with our Barry. I think he may have been the originator of the appalling nickname "McHack". He is rude, blunt, curmudgeonly, paranoid and monosyllabic. His views are often peremptory and ill-considered. He is unfamiliar with punctuation. Unlike our Baz, he seems to have remarkably good sources inside the club.

As an aside, Bedford once warned me to avoid RWO. Said it was full of wankers.

[Bloods05]

Yes, and we also turned the cold hose onto Bruce's other little fantasy, Poopy: he was hardly sighted all night.

I don't like him either, but I think it's "Poppy". Mind you, "Poopy" works well for a Hawthorn player.

[Bloods05]

[QUOTE=Ludwig;696956]There in the last 5 minutes of the 2nd quarter. Besides the ones you mention, the HTB

Yes, and unfortunately for us and our chances of getting through any Friday night Swans games without any truly cringe worthy moments, Bruce's restless heart, seems to be in the process of being captured, by a certain young blonde who wears the the number 5 jersey for the Swans.

Blond. There are lots of young blondes wearing no. 5, but the one on the field is a bloke.

[bloodsbigot]

On the Swans Bigfooty forum, which I rarely visit nowadays, there is a regular who calls himself Bedford. Some of you may be familiar with him. He has a lot in common with our Barry. I think he may have been the originator of the appalling nickname "McHack". He is rude, blunt, curmudgeonly, paranoid and monosyllabic. His views are often peremptory and ill-considered. He is unfamiliar with punctuation. Unlike our Baz, he seems to have remarkably good sources inside the club.

As an aside, Bedford once warned me to avoid RWO. Said it was full of wankers.

I kind of like Bedford. He has a unique perspective. A cranky old South Melbourne supporter perspective.

I really don't care what your point of view is, if you're a swans supporter, you're my friend. Disappointing to hear swans supporters turning against each other sometimes as Bedford does.

[graemed]

Rnd 9 Match Day Thread. Hawthorn V Sydney. MCG. 19.50 pm.

I don't mean to be a buzzkill but it's only May and this game was almost a carbon copy of last year.

Yes, it was a good win, and I love beating those scumbags, but let's just focus on our next game against North. It's a long, long season and we shouldn't get cocky until we beat them convincingly with Hodge in the team. LEt's wait until the SCG before we start running our mouths off like asshole #freekickhawthorn supporters.

It was a very satisfying win but it is wise to heed this very sage advice lest we forget the 89 point loss that followed our MCG victory last year.

On a more positive note it was great to see the charge in the last quarter being led by the likes of Jack, Hannebery, Kennedy and Tippett but I thought it was the support the whole team provided playing a man short for the whole game that was most pleasing.

Most encouraging was the genuine maturity in the thick of battle shown by the youngest and least experienced:
Mills could easily have lost confidence after Gunston started to get on top but he persisted, continued to concentrate and be involved. He then took a telling intercept late in the game. Very brave stuff.
Hewitt displayed the football smarts he has been guilty of throughout his time in the reserves. Calm in a crisis he continues to find space a la Pendlebury and Del Santo.
Lloyd was irresistible. His running was instrumental in creating opportunities and his ability to read the game was outstanding.
Jones is learning all the time and whilst less intense physically has become more valuable as an attacking defender because of it.
Rampe, (probably does not qualify under this category now, but I'm biased, I still see him kicking a footy for the first time as a 15 year old), is now an outstanding player with a penetrating kick, good anticipation, closing speed and discipline.

Glad I didn't get carried away.

[barry]

Bruce loves a small forward. Maybe he was one as a kid. You could hear him falling in love with heeney last Friday. He's still the best in the business.

I don't go to bigfooty if thats the angle of the earlier posts. I got banded from there many years ago defending this fine city from the evils of the norf hordes. They never seemed to agree that the are too many teams in Melbourne and solicitying themselves around the country was a waste of damaging those areas .i haven't posted there for over 7 years, and when i did it was as "doctor jolly" if you must know.

Mchack is a nickname i saw first here at RWO.not by me. It was typical RWO in that he was a young player having trouble finding his feet at AFL level. Much like towers, hiscox, etc. As you may have noticed i don't buy into the bullying of young vunerable players, but established players are fair game. It s hypocritical for some on here to have outrage at mchack while chastising towers and hiscox. All of which are playing at or about the same level. However the younger ones have the upside of youth and improvement.

[aardvark]

My wife has two old chooks that have stopped producing eggs. I want to chop them but she says they deserve to live out their lives in return for previous services. I'm thinking I might rename one Macca.

[Ludwig]

Mchack is a nickname i saw first here at RWO.not by me. It was typical RWO in that he was a young player having trouble finding his feet at AFL level. Much like towers, hiscox, etc. As you may have noticed i don't buy into the bullying of young vunerable players, but established players are fair game. It s hypocritical for some on here to have outrage at mchack while chastising towers and hiscox. All of which are playing at or about the same level. However the younger ones have the upside of youth and improvement.

I wouldn't call writing comments on a fan website 'bullying', although I may joke about our players reading this forum, I doubt that it's true.

There's no problem criticizing an established player if they're not playing well and if you think it's best for the team to leave him out. Everyone loves and respects Adam Goodes, but he's done things that deserved criticism at times in his career, and I was one of those that thought he should be dropped when he was playing poorly at the start of last year. There wasn't any name calling. He simply wasn't playing well and many of us said so. A player's career can come to an end quickly. Players like Kennelly, Kirk, and ROK, it seemed to change over the course of a summer.

Maybe we are seeing the end of McVeigh as a top level player. He had a telephone interview with SEN radio on Saturday, which can be found in the audio section of their website. There was a line that suggested the he knows he is not playing his best football at the moment. He could just be in a form slump and will bounce back. 31 is not necessarily the end time for a career, but it might be. One thing we do know, is that McVeigh will give 100% to the club and always has.

I've seen one senior game of Jack Hiscox and it's enough for me to suggest he's not a footballer. I've been supportive of Dean Towers because he's making progress, however so slowing, but IMO, it may be time to pull the plug. I've been critical of BJ, but for some reason feel that in due course he will finally make it the end; I may well be wrong. I don't have anything against these people personally. I hope they all lead happy lives in whatever they may do, whether in football or elsewhere. Jack Hiscox and Dean Towers seem really nice and I wish them the best in whatever they do in life. I don't begrudge them if they find football a bit too tough, because it is a tough game. I think they're trying their best. Sometimes the criticism is not so much directed at the player, but rather at the coaching staff that selected them for a game.

No one enjoys a whipping boy more than I do, but it's a fine line you walk if you've got one. You could be in for a rough ride if you choose the wrong horse or whip him too hard.

[chammond]

Mchack is a nickname i saw first here at RWO.not by me. It was typical RWO in that he was a young player having trouble finding his feet at AFL level. Much like towers, hiscox, etc. As you may have noticed i don't buy into the bullying of young vunerable players, but established players are fair game. It s hypocritical for some on here to have outrage at mchack while chastising towers and hiscox. All of which are playing at or about the same level. However the younger ones have the upside of youth and improvement.

Nothing new here.

Just about every quality Swans player from the past 15 years has been pilloried on RWO at some time. I can remember quite nasty campaigns against both Goodes and O'Loughlin for example, demanding that they be traded as soon as possible. That kind of thing is part and parcel of a fan forum; it's interesting for a while, then the vitriole just becomes childish and boring, like the current twaddle being sprouted about McVeigh.

No big deal. It's easy enough to ignore.

[Bloods05]

No big deal. It's easy enough to ignore.

Indeed.

[56-14]

My wife has two old chooks that have stopped producing eggs. I want to chop them but she says they deserve to live out their lives in return for previous services. I'm thinking I might rename one Macca.

The other one? Maybe "Teddy Bear". And when replacements are bought & one doesn't produce in a couple of year - "Xavier".

[stellation]

I wouldn't call writing comments on a fan website 'bullying', although I may joke about our players reading this forum, I doubt that it's true.

For what it is worth, I've chatted to a couple of folks associated with different clubs and they had the same opinion that it is an issue with younger guys coming in to clubs over the last few years that they're social media/Internet savvy and use used to being able to obsessively consume everything that's written on a subject.

They are told not to, and it's included as part of their draftee orientation, but the reality is it's a young guy who has access to read what people are saying about them fairly easily.

[bloodsbigot]

It was a very satisfying win but it is wise to heed this very sage advice lest we forget the 89 point loss that followed our MCG victory last year.

On a more positive note it was great to see the charge in the last quarter being led by the likes of Jack, Hannebery, Kennedy and Tippett but I thought it was the support the whole team provided playing a man short for the whole game that was most pleasing.

Most encouraging was the genuine maturity in the thick of battle shown by the youngest and least experienced:
Mills could easily have lost confidence after Gunston started to get on top but he persisted, continued to concentrate and be involved. He then took a telling intercept late in the game. Very brave stuff.
Hewitt displayed the football smarts he has been guilty of throughout his time in the reserves. Calm in a crisis he continues to find space a la Pendlebury and Del Santo.
Lloyd was irresistible. His running was instrumental in creating opportunities and his ability to read the game was outstanding.
Jones is learning all the time and whilst less intense physically has become more valuable as an attacking defender because of it.
Rampe, (probably does not qualify under this category now, but I'm biased, I still see him kicking a footy for the first time as a 15 year old), is now an outstanding player with a penetrating kick, good anticipation, closing speed and discipline.

Glad I didn't get carried away.

The thing I took the most out of the game was the improvement of our defense. Rampe and Grundy played incredibly well. I'm not sure if the Hawks forward-line was really bad or our defense was really good. Time will tell. Jones I was disappointed with in the first quarter and his foot skills were bad throughout the game, but I guess he made amends a little. He really needs to work on his disposal and decision making. Mills I was impressed with; he's being played out of position and is only 19 years old. He held his own against Gunston. Who was playing on Pupcrapolo and Rioli? They deserve praise for keeping their influence to a minimum.

Hewitt made some good decisions, but I'll reserve my praise if he starts doing this consistently. Still, very good potential.

Heeney should be showered in praise. The guy is a keeper. He just seems so cool under pressure. He learns so quickly and already seems like an established player. Hate to admit it, but opposition clubs have every right to be pissed that we got him so cheaply. He's going to be as good as Fyfe. And he's only 20. Sheesh.

Mitchell was excellent.

In saying all this though, #freekickhawthorn are an underdone side. SCG game will speak volumes.