It's not a coincidence Fogarty came into the side 17 games ago.
16, but who's counting.
Fogarty is 14-2 since coming into the side R14 vs Gold Coast which started our run. Cuningham also came into the side at the same time and has missed the odd game, but is 13-1 over that same time period (dropped for the prelim final!)
These blokes add pressure. Without them, we, yep, lack the same kind of pressure.
If I hear that we were 'lucky' again, I'll tear off my own ears! If you want to talk 'lucky', how about Freo getting 66% of their goals from frees... some there, some not. The end.
We've been 'lucky' in our last 7 games decided by 10 points or less: 7-0.
If each of them were genuinly 50-50 results (a toss of the coin) then for 7 tosses of the coin to go your way you are looking at odds of 1 in 128 or 0.78% chance of happening.
It will be interesting to see if other sides adopt some of the smothering/stifling tactics against us that Freo employed today. It will be interesting to see if other sides are capable of it.
They worked harder and wanted it more...but in the end they lost. I suspect they will be seething. Should be a tough game next time we play them.
The umpiring evened itself out in the end so we shouldn't dwell too much on that.
If Freo couldn't do it, i'm not sure if any other team can......but let them try.
Fog will get suspended but he could have hospitalized Fyfe, he kept his spoil lower than it could have been...
Fog will go and can't really argue much to save himself.
Having said that, i had the thought watching the replay of that which i don't know if the AFL has thought through.
Players are supposed to have duty of care and not hurt their opposition. So if Fog watches the ball and jumps at it and takes fyfes head off, he can be suspended due to lack of duty of care. If Fog doesn't want to do that, takes his eye off the ball to see where Fyfe is and makes contact, he gets done for taking his eyes off the ball. He's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. What do the AFL want him to do??
Now, of course how he went about it was wrong, but if instead of extending his arm, he did what peter wright did and tried to take a chest mark while watching the ball....would it have mattered?
