Changes for Rnd 10 V Hawthorn.

[dejavoodoo44]

I'm backing our back six against any combination of forwards Hawthorn deploys.

Puopolo thoroughly backed on the Hawks chat sites as one of several who has done little this year. Not surprised as the head high rule change means he's no longer getting the frees for ducking.

Yes, I quite like it when the relentless duckers of the past, still can't help having a go. They collapse the knees, attempt to force the contact high and duck their heads. And now, instead of getting a free, they either give up possession or get a free paid against them. And they often get an actual whack in the head, because, 'hey, he ducked, it's a free shot'.

[Auntie.Gerald]

Reid is playing swing more then ever of late
This allows us to have a more mobile backline by not picking a 3rd or 4th tall defender

Hence tippo forward more and a great target at the SCG

[Nico]

Selwood is still dropping the knees and getting frees. There as an obvious one last night. Howler of a decision.

[Ludwig]

The third man up rule change hasn't been detrimental to ruckmen.

True! Got me on that one.

Give it time.

If we were playing Bulldogs this weekend with Dunkley as the second ruck, and Sinclair was putting his knee in Dunkley's throat and fisting the ball forward 30m, things would quickly change.

Dunkley is already out injured. Let's not put him in the firing line just yet.

[CureTheSane]

Yes, I quite like it when the relentless duckers of the past, still can't help having a go. They collapse the knees, attempt to force the contact high and duck their heads. And now, instead of getting a free, they either give up possession or get a free paid against them. And they often get an actual whack in the head, because, 'hey, he ducked, it's a free shot'.

Yeah, I thought the Saints did this really well.
Three occasions spring to mind where they grabbed the ball with a Swan in hot pursuit and dropped to their knees forcing the Swans to have no option but to follow them to the ground.

[dejavoodoo44]

Yeah, I thought the Saints did this really well.
Three occasions spring to mind where they grabbed the ball with a Swan in hot pursuit and dropped to their knees forcing the Swans to have no option but to follow them to the ground.

That was a slightly different thing, were they fell over in front of the pursuing player. I assume accidentally. Thought it was a bit harsh, to give a free against a player, who tripped over the player who tripped over in front of him.

[Sandrevan]

Titus O'Rielly's view of Friday night game.......GOLD! :

"Sydney v Hawthorn (SCG) 7.50pm

It?s been awhile since this wasn?t a top eight clash. Instead, this year we get 12th taking on 17th.

For Sydney, it?s 12th with a bullet, as they are now playing somewhere near what we all expected pre-season.

If they can get a win here, they?ll be flying with a spectacular record of 4-6! That could be enough to clinch a finals spot this season. If the AFL had its way, everyone would get the chance to play finals each year.

I think this wildcard thing is nonsense. Why don?t the AFL just let the Pies pay to be in the finals? In fact, paying to play in the finals would be the purist AFL policy ever. More teams, more cash.

Hawthorn still have Jaeger O'Meara?s return listed as ?indefinite? but to be fair, there was no prior history of him having injury problems, so you can?t criticise the Hawks? list management for not seeing this coming.

Plus, they didn?t give up much to get him either, so no harm was done.

Hawthorn?s biggest structural problem this year is sending only Tom Mitchell out to play.

The onballer is playing against his old side this week, and he is probably hoping his new teammates decided to join him out on the ground this time. Currently, Mitchell is the council worker you see digging the ditch while 17 people ?supervise? him.

Sydney to win this one." Like I said....Gold!

Certainly like this. Surely Titus can't be part of the Melbourne AFL media

[wolftone57]

Hawthorn are a poor example, because they're not a strong side. But we should go with Tippett and Reid v McEvoy and Vickery, which ought to be a better than breakeven situation for us, and we can easily take them on most other positions around the ground.

My qualm is with Longmire's insistence on playing 2 ruckmen, with the mistaken notion that this will somehow lead to a stoppage dominance. It's been shown quite consistently in recent times that this is not the case. So it warrants questioning whether we would be better served by having an extra midfielder or tall defender in lieu of the weaker of the 2 ruckmen, in our case this would be Sinclair.

The extra tall in our forward line only clogs things up and often Sinclair just gets in the way, or draws a defender to the contest. Tippett has been most effective playing in the ruck and drifting forward, often getting a mismatch. McEvoy is quite good at this tactic as well.

The only thing that will save the ruckman is the end of the centre bounce, which would give a greater advantage to taller ruckmen. All the recent rule changes have been detrimental to the ruckman position and we need change our thinking on how the stoppages should be handled. Longmire is an intelligent coach and I think he will get it right in the second half of the season.

I'm not too concerned about this game. We could play Derickx and Galloway in the ruck and still win by 10 goals.

To me this is important. Tippett has not been effective lately. He has only 28 (Av 7) disposals in 4 games for 3.2 (Av 0.8) scoring. He is averaging 10 HO per game which is pretty pathetic. His output is the worst of any of the ruck division who have played Seniors this season. Even Sam Reid is ahead on Av HO is 3.2 but only played ruck for 2 games so in reality 14.5. Tip really needs to step up. He is contracted for next season but if he doesn't start playing the way we know he can then he might be heading north next year. If we can get them to buy his contract out.

In reality Ludwig I see him as third if not fourth on the pecking order on form. Cameron got 55 against a pretty good opponent in Tagliabou last week in the reserves. I don't agree with you over ruckmen as I believe we are better balanced with Reid up forward not gallivanting around the field. As for teams having only one ruck or no ruck that is s furfey. So Bullies had no rucks last week? Redpath and Boyd are not rucks?

- - - Updated - - -

At least we are not playing Bullies, GWS, Saints, Norf or Cats tonight. If we were we would have to watvch them play Rugby Union while we try to play aussie Rules. The umpies have again proved that you an throw all you like if you are playing for certain teams in the last two weeks. I wonder if Clarko, who hates the throw nor being penalised, will decide to use it tonight?

[CureTheSane]

That was a slightly different thing, were they fell over in front of the pursuing player. I assume accidentally. Thought it was a bit harsh, to give a free against a player, who tripped over the player who tripped over in front of him.

One of my issues with the game is the high tackles.
When I was at school "too high" didn't exist. It was "round the neck"
Ok, so the game got professional, and the player needs to be protected etc, but when a tackle is laid, and the tackle slides up to the shoulders, it really annoys me that that is a free.
It seems to be against the grain of the game as it's just a technical free kick when the player who is being tackled was put at not risk of injury.
A small thing, but annoying.

I'm still getting my head around HTB and how long a player can hold on without being penalised.
Hated how the AFL went with a slit second to release it or they are pinned, but we all got used to this, and now it seems like they can hang on for an eternity, whih is good, but hard to adjust to.

[Ludwig]

To me this is important. Tippett has not been effective lately. He has only 28 (Av 7) disposals in 4 games for 3.2 (Av 0.8) scoring. He is averaging 10 HO per game which is pretty pathetic. His output is the worst of any of the ruck division who have played Seniors this season. Even Sam Reid is ahead on Av HO is 3.2 but only played ruck for 2 games so in reality 14.5. Tip really needs to step up. He is contracted for next season but if he doesn't start playing the way we know he can then he might be heading north next year. If we can get them to buy his contract out.

In reality Ludwig I see him as third if not fourth on the pecking order on form. Cameron got 55 against a pretty good opponent in Tagliabou last week in the reserves. I don't agree with you over ruckmen as I believe we are better balanced with Reid up forward not gallivanting around the field. As for teams having only one ruck or no ruck that is s furfey. So Bullies had no rucks last week? Redpath and Boyd are not rucks?

If you go through the team lists you will find that we are now the only club playing 2 ruckmen. I'm not counting Lobb as a ruckman in this case because Mummy does all the ruck work until he's exhausted. Hawthorn used to play 2 ruckmen regularly, but ran out of bodies. So now there's just us.

Here's something reported by Nick Bowen on North Melbourne:

• Ruckman Braydon Preuss appears unlikely to play despite being named on North?s extended bench for Sunday?s game. North coach Brad Scott said at his Friday press conference that it had become increasingly hard to play two ruckmen
  
  
  

Tippett's stats can be misleading as he was injured in the first quarter of one of the 4 games he played, so it can have a big distortion on the averages. He has played more forward than in the ruck this year, especially when paired with Naismith. He also played more forward last week. Everyone knows he's down of the form he showed in the first half of last year. He's already had a couple of injuries this season. We just have to wait to see if he can get a solid block of games and work his way back to his best form, which is pretty good.

I also commented that I liked Cameron's game against Tagliabue, who, as you say, is a pretty decent ruckman. I would like to see him get a run in the seniors sometime.

[Sandrevan]

With our good players back from injury and improving form ... and... Hawthorn with lots of injuries to key players and old players looking cooked .... if there was ever a game where we should give them a hiding it is tonight.

Go Swannies - don't let this opportunity go past.

[Nico]

The AFL rule book is made up of core and non core or supplementary rules. The later are the rules that are brought in on the run. eg. the dropping the knees and out of bounds rules.

Last year it was red hot on dropping the knees, this season it has dropped off the radar. Mind you Hewett adjusted his game to suit the rule for the better. The deliberate out of bounds rule has disappeared as if it never existed.

What about running into the "protected space". Doesn't exist any more. Both sides last night were running past a player who had taken a mark or a free and/or were coming behind the player to take the mark.

Is it because umpires have short term memory problems or an umpire's boss who has NFI.

Lets just stick to the core rules.