Charles is leading the Coleman. He has kicked a goal in every one of his last 56? Games which is a record a that goes back decades to find a peer I believe. I'm not sure how out of form he is.
However that out of form also coincides with playing 2 rucks. Harry being in the 50 full time during the period you mentioned.
Charlie has been inconsistent all season, but I admit he and coach have stated his role is a little different this year, he's had moments when his ability shines and he can score quickly, but he is not consistent like he has been the previous two seasons. He's also scored a bunch more of the Joe the Goose type goals courtesy of Harry or TDK contesting while Charlie roves the back of the pack. While I understand his ability to recover quickly is unique for a player his size and shape, he needs the others contesting to do that but that is not how we want to see Charlie Curnow scoring goals, it should be an occasional feature not a method operandi.
I'd like to claim we don't need TDK or even Cripps and Pitto pressing forward, but at the moment TDK is proving valuable. He can't do that and ruck, and even if he does push or rest forward when rucking it probably means one of Charlie or BigH aren't there and the advantage of being the 3rd wheel that needs a cover is lost.
But this debate becomes silly when people demand one or the other, it has to be horses for courses, and I expect some weeks even if the list is in full health we should / would go with only one ruck.
It's like a broken record, if we win a flag with TDK and Pitto playing, they'll be telling us we would have won by more with only one!
BigH has consistently been our only effective forward in the last month or so, Charlie is in a rut, and the anti-ruck-duo brigade want BigH out of F50 and rucking when he doesn't really need to do so, even contemplating it momentarily is pure insanity!
"Nah, let's put BigH against Gawn, or perhaps next week he can follow Grundy around like a tagger, we shouldn't worry though because I'm sure Grundy will lead him into our F50 just to play fair." We can surrender the midfield clearance on the SCG, the ground that's one good kick from the midfield break to the goal square!
Of course, for the last 4 or 5 weeks our rucks and midfield have been flogged witless, no wonder we need to make change! (Or would that be f0rk up the only lines we have that are consistently winning?)
I believe it's his little finger, if Travis Cloke can wear a special glove that binds his fingers together, then Pitto should be allowed to do so also.
Just to dot point what im saying. The vaccines were garbage the lockdowns not so much.
The statistical evidence of the efficacy for both lockdowns and vaccines is overwhelmingly positive, globally there are billions of tests cases for both, it's the great weakness in the anti-vax anti-lockdown position which just confirms all opinions are not equal.
Even more damning, are the statistics for the unvaccinated outcomes, pretty much any valid peer reviewed source shows the unvaccinated fell or had worse outcomes at massively higher rates to the vaccinated.
There are some scientific and specialist groups who remain anti-vax, but they have largely dropped the efficacy debate as it's a loser in any circle, they now choose to focus on the rare side-effects.
They know trying to debate that the vaccines weren't efficacious is like standing in front of an ocean while claiming water doesn't exist, so they won't even mention it out of the fear of lost credibility, but they remain happy to stoke those fires anonymously in social media. The have a generalised anti-vax position, some due to religion, maybe others due to trypanophobia.
A new variant of CoVid called " Flirt" has also hit our shores....not sure what the symptoms are and if it has anything to do with the name?🤔
Yes, and I've just got family coming back from the states!
But even so, some of the same people who predicted COVID about a decade before it happened, just a year or two after MERS they tried to warn authorities who largely ignored them. They think if the same mutation rates follow the same patterns they are predicting another pandemic with Avian Flu by the Mid 2030s, it really only a matter of when not if. The science was based on good evidence of what had happened in the evolution of the bugs between SARS in 2003 and MERS in 2012.
With these predictions the mutation part is random, they openly admit it could never become virulent or it could be deadly tomorrow, the problem is do you ignore the risk, like we ignored them last time?
We didn't do that last night, only May picked off a few when Charlie was out of sorts.
Watch the last 5 or 10 minutes again, Lever ended up with leather toxicity syndrome, closely related to COVID apparently, nobody wanted to go near him except our kickers!
To reiterate, COVID mortality in Australia was 736 deaths per million compared to in excess of 2500 deaths per million in the USA and the UK. The worst case scenario wasn’t happening in Australia because of the very effective measures put in place by Australian Governments.
Yes, our natural geographic isolation was in effect a test case for the efficacy of lockdowns.
The next time they should really close boarders to travellers harder and sooner, but I fear the screaming lunatics will again influence politicians and disrupt efforts to save lives.
The hard evidence, the numbers, confirm isolation works to slow / delay transmission, there is no debate!
Ultimately, the severity and acceleration of the pandemic came down to global politics and local bureaucracy.
We should all be vigilant, Avian Flu is spreading, just this week there are reports of dead birds lining highways here in Melbourne around Werribee and Carrum Downs sewerage works. Not just one or two birds as is usual, but dozens and dozens over extended distances. Influenza as a starting point is many times more deadly than Coronavirus.
As much as I hate it, and how it can suck in umpires, my only concern is for players who get done over at the MRO for a bloke that stages.
The staging players will never admit to staging, they all fear becoming the next Ginnivan, so they go to the tribunal and offer ambiguous evidence like "I felt some contact!"
Last week we had players fined for running into umpires, the Dees did that multiple times last night, the Dee midfield deliberately use the umpires as physical obstructions. Let's see if they get fined?
Meanwhile, is there any chance of scrutinising Neale-Bullen’s flop when Newman brushed past him? 🙄
The super slow mo shows no obvious contact with head or jaw, and no deviation in Neale-Bullen's head aligned to Newman's direction of contact. The only detectable motion is Neale-Bullen throwing his head back!
The same thing happened to De Koning about 15m from goal in our forward line. Poor umpiring!
It's umpiring without regard to the conditions, when TDK took his mark in the rain it was a wet weather mark every day of the year!
I don't mind that they don't call them, I just want it eh same for both sides and it isn't. This is a downside of having more umpires than ever before, the subjective stuff varies widely from umpire to umpire.
I feel reasonably confident about Syd, I feel we mostly play well against them and have no issue with playing them up there in Syd either.
Agreed, I think it's actually an advantage to play them on the SCG. It might be harder for Charlie and Harry to find space, but I think it helps our slower midfield keep up with the play.
It will be interesting to see what Horse does regarding our ruck duo tactics, he's basically the ruck work Tactical Primo of the AFL.
Agree with remarks about the Ch7 commentary last night. It scaled new heights in bias, irrelevance and statement of the blindingly obvious. BT gave a masterclass ably supported by his willing cohort.
On the question of a lack of enthusiasm in BT's calling.
In the past he use to make excuses that we were boring to watch, yet in recent weeks we've been in both high scoring shoot outs, fumbling high intensity struggles, and last night in the first half we were dominant and efficient the imposing Handbagger style. Yet his attitude calling our games remains largely the same, until the moment our opposition get on a roll and his demeanour changes! He is pretty much schtum until our opposition look threatening, and even if/when we are on a roll he spends most of his time casting seeds of doubt or talks about the weather.
His dislike of Carlton is palpable, so why bother dragging down the spectacle, just get him out of the call team on our games!
It reminds me of watching The Storm versus any NSW team, the nine crew basically turn the broadcast into a Bellyache, Big Nasty, et.al., bashing session, I feel sorry for Cam Smith and Billy Slater for having to put up with it!
