Cripps got off to a good start but I thought his opponent Steele was very good with 28 possies and 10 tackles and the Saints mids combined efforts wore us down. Thought we failed again to help Cripps and the work load is wearing him down....Dow and Fisher were unsighted and Kennedy didnt have any real impact.
EB. If you had the opportunity, who would you try and snag tomorrow and during trade week to specifically help Cripps? Any stand out that you think, yep, he’s the one. Call Juddy and ready the Plane. Is it The Rabbit or someone more imposing who has a bit of Dog in him? You must have a list
He doesn’t cope well with mid sized physical, quick opposition. Why the coach didn’t say, I don’t know, swap him with McGovern for a spell to see what would happen? McGovern was doing two shakes of f-all anyway. At least Weitering can take a mark and force the Saints to re-asses? Who knows. I’m just sick of it. Maybe Andy Maher was right about the word on the street that Bolton is a stubborn guy. I think inept is more apt.
MLG. Step up to the Plate. Call for an independent review, right now. State that all positions are under Review. Ideally, I’d love Bolton to be sacked now, to give some assistant 12 games to try his luck and also prove to would be coaches like Longmire, Roos, Scott that we can play. There is no point waiting any longer for Bolton to prove that he cannot get 4 quarters of effort out of a team and have them working as a unit, with a clear system. Ideally Roos - until Clarkson’s contract is up in 3 years and then we nab him. Bolton cannot seem to make logical decisions, promptly, on game day and plays his favourites. Please just walk the plank. Even if we beat Essendon next week, it just feels to me like holding back the inevitable at this point. At this point we are doing more damage to the brand than we are working on building success.
I'm a bleeding heart leftie. I did watch it, and that's precisely the sort of thing I referred to earlier. Not to be the aggressors, but be ready to send a message such that it doesn't happen again. i.e play as hard as you like, but no lining up our blokes to try and hurt. There's plenty of contact in our sport as it is. Barely a minute passes in any AFL match when there isn't hard contact of some type.
You literally only took out of my post what resonated and didn’t understand what I am trying to say.
LP and JonHenry are correct. I’m not saying we should be the aggressors, but if you touch any of our boys, by all that’s holy, you’ll never forget what happened afterwards. Ever.
Thats what Culture is. “It’s how we do thing around here.” If you do not understand or accept that, fair enough. We’re all entitled to our own opinions and you only want the best for this Club.
But this is a full contact sport with young men in their pride and that reputations on the field do count and that needing to stand up for your team, club and Members sometimes involves a tussle or two. I’d rather a brawl and a couple of our boys getting suspended, but this rough play with our boys stops, than watching us stand back and be bullied during a 22 week season. There’ll be moments in the game on Sunday when our boys will be tested. Let’s see what impact this player only meeting has had on our players. Not just Cripps. Everyone. What Pact was formed.
Look, sometimes you need to stand up and face the bully eye to eye and smack the guy into the next week. There and then. This is not the School Yard, where you take it up to the Teacher afterwards. The AFL doesn’t give a damn about our Club. You think their Teacher, Bolton, will clap them on the back for standing back and not flying the flag for Murphy, when it counted? Not a bloody Chance. You’d be commended in house if you went after Mumford. Especially if you were, say a Sammo or Fisher. Suspension included. Guaranteed.
I’m sure I posted this a couple of years ago. It’s still relevant.
The ‘99’ Call on the British Lions Tour to South Africa many years ago by my countryman, Willie John McBride, who was the Captain of the Tour and how he dealt with dirty play against his Team. A real old school Leader. Remember, Union was still amateur back then.
It’s a great wee video of him telling the story of how he came up with it. I think it has a place in today’s game. No matter what bleeding heart, group think left wingers say. It’s a contact sport and sometimes lines need to be drawn. Anyway have a watch of it.
Thank god some sense has prevailed but with only two players named as out I'm still sceptical about what may happen.
I think with those selections and what we’ve heard to date, that the Team will throw the kitchen sink at the Saints come Sunday. There’s personal pride at stake. The real questions are, will we Win and how will the players sustain that effort over the coming weeks, no matter the outcomes of each game. It’ll either make or break a few people at the Club.
Bloody fantastic. A because we need a big body in there who has proven can play and b, because with a rumour that Bolts is stubborn, it means change in personnel is possible.
Is anyone else going to tomorrow Morning’s open Training session at Ikon Park? I got the green light from the Club to bring my young ones along and they cannot wait. We’ll make a day of it. V/line train, breakfast in the city and then catch the tram down. Sadly the Kids are losing interest in the Blues, so a trip to Ikon Park to get to hold the Premiership Cup, get a free sausage and watching the boys practice and maybe get a few pics with them should help somewhat.
Please don’t let my Kids down Blue boys and get them the Win they need to keep the faith. The Win we all need.
I have to say that this Forum is getting a bit too much like BigFooty, which is not where we want to end up. It’s been mentioned by others already.A Win should help steady the ship and help settle everyone’s emotions.
I saw Barker talking to the midfield in the half time break. Maybe that is part of the problem.
I think the problem is that the Coaches have lost the players. A week to prepare and AGAIN, not firing from the first quarter. It can’t be that hard to get players up and running. It can’t. They’re young Men in their Primes, pumping with Adrenaline..and yet they dish off this. No risk of consequences. You think Roos, Lyon, Buckley, hell any decent coach would tolerate those pathetic efforts? Culture, Culture, Culture.
Let’s see what happens. I think the Head Coach is coaching for his job now. If this gets close or beyond 150 points....
If they didn't win this time they never will, and I can understand their pain looking at the cast of deadsh1ts that are going to be "managing" the country going forwards.....Freydenberg, Dutton, Joyce and the fringe loonies like Pauline and Anning and the cane toad from Queensland chucking rocks from the sidelines. The country is deadset fuc****ed.
Anning is gone, lost the Vote. Frydenburg is the only Lib who I actually like. Coherent, clever, classy fella, don’t mind him at all. The rest of them...meh.
This election was about Labor losing and Labor MPs voting the wrong guy in as Leader all those years ago. Albo and Plibersek will be going at it hammer and tongs, manning the phones and garnering votes. If they go too left wing or start virtue signalling incessantly and pointing fingers like Tanya just did on ABC Insiders blaming the Libs for losing, like the US Dems did after losing to Trump, then Morrison will win again.
At the end of the day however, it’s a bloody great Country and that won’t change over the next three or perhaps six years and, shockingly Liberal MPs also love this Country too.
Looking at this election results trend is making me laugh. All I have been listening to experts in the media for the past week, has been a comfortable victory by the Labour Party and Bill Shorten being our next Prime Minister. These experts need to check their medications. If this is an election they couldn’t lose, then fail big time. Big time. By experts and by a party that couldn’t sell policies the general public were willing to buy into.
Too true. Bill won’t be leader for very long and Tanya will be Labor Leader. All those polls, both internal and external that got it wrong...it’s like the US Election. Amazing stuff. Let’s hope Labor don’t play the US Democrat card and kick themselves in the ass by not learning from their mistakes. Actually coming to think of it, maybe Labor have done just that!!!!
I’m amazed at people’s short term memories of the Government’s ineptitude of doubling the deficit and screwing average workers...and Shorten’s inability over what...6 years?, to become PM. I think it says more about Bill than the Libs.
Anyway, here’s to 3 years of prosperity. Congrats to the Libs. Now get Governing. And keep it classy.
You don't know the context unless you're a mind reader. You catch one glimpse, can't tell anything from that.
You are talking about the second before he laughed. I get that.
I’m talking about a pivotal moment that should have overridden any desire to laugh at that moment in time. You’re getting smashed and humiliated by the bottom placed team in the Comp and a team mate is lying unconscious on the floor. And you’re a member of the Leadership Group. What he should have been doing is talking to his Captain for instructions or maybe taking his defensive group to the side to think of how we cover for our best defender leaving the ground.
I'm not sure you can take one moment in time and make something of it without context. How do we know someone didn't do one big, loud, dirty, smelly fart in the huddle. That'd get a chuckle at a funeral wake.
The Context my friend is that his colleague is lying unconscious on the ground, while 10’s of thousand of people at the ground and on national tv are watching in stunned belief and dread and he does not have have the emotional intelligence to understand something serious is happening. Hearing a fart is not a get out of jail card. I know it was only an example mate, but he’s a grown man, not a 12 year old and he is also in our Leadership group. He has to own that moment and be taken aside and told that that is not a time to laugh but a time to lead.
It was Plowman. Irrespective of what was said to make him laugh, you need very little emotional intelligence or empathy to understand that there is a time and place for it. Ideally, the senior players, whom I believe Plowman is one of, should have brought the players into a huddle to focus them.
What a waste of emotional energy. Waited all week for this game. Next 4 games will seal Bolton’s firing: Pies, Giants, Saints, Bombers. 1-10 coming up.
So many passengers. And 60,000 paid up, expecting Members. Time is running out. LP said it best the other day. You can’t have it both ways and not expect criticism if you’re selling such high hopes to expectant Members. Deliver or else.
We need a mature Ruckman and Setterfield and Kennedy in there to help Cripps next week. At least that’ll give us a chance to rest him up forward and cause opposition to do some thinking and spare the poor bugger. Instead of just making it easy for them.
I’d also be nice to have a Coach who has a plan B that he has the courage to implement. Otherwise he might as well watch the game at home. I see very little to convince me that he can Coach on Game Day.
Throw picks at Sydney for Papley (small forward) and get a mature Ruckman in the mid season draft. Whatever. Just don’t ever play Lobbe or Phillips again. And drop Plowman, Cas, LOB and Murphy. No one is safe from lack of effort, or laughing when your friend is lying unconscious on the turf. What a. Total. Twat.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Plowman is not the quickest thinking fella. Its not just skill errors. Something is not right there. Makes so many dumb decisions and has terrible, terrible half hearted body language. Not what you want your young crop to be surrounded by and absorbing. Same as LOB and Murphy. Effort fellas. Just. Get. Stuck. In. Whether you play 1 game or 250. If you play the Blues, you need to expect to scrap. And we gift games to individuals who don’t do that. And you wonder why they do it every game. Pathetic.
Let’s see what our illustrious Coach and Match Committee can do. How courageous will they be to drop players for lack of effort, not just enforced changes due to injury. I remain unconvinced. With Jones and the others out...ahh forget it.
I’d make plans now to get the interviews underway for a new Coach.
I need to go for a walk and cool off. Very disheartened.
