you were here in Australia for 10 nights and 40% of that time involved going to Aussie rule games,?Gman do your holiday itinerary by any chance?
Nah mate, 10 weeks, not 10 nights
Ditzy I have serious inside track on Hawthorn. Take any bets against them.
GMan - West Coast have a great midfield now with the returning injured. They looked in great Nic the other night and have a good squad. Cox staying fit is massive
Welcome back Kev
[quote=“caoimhaoin, post: 738682, member: 273”]Ditzy I have serious inside track on Hawthorn. Take any bets against them.
GMan - West Coast have a great midfield now with the returning injured. They looked in great Nic the other night and have a good squad. Cox staying fit is massive[/quote]
yeah only saw bits an pieces of highlights from the Geelong and Freo games, but Lecras kicked one lovely goal alright. Jack Darling looking good again as a strong lead forward. Lycett will be important, Cox and NicNat I doubt will have 100% playing time over the year, so promoting him to the first side to deputise will be vital. Wellingham injured himself after the Freo game, so hopefully he will be back soon. Adds another dimension to midfield area. If he and Nicnat can stay fit, and keep the core midfield group fit, they will challenge at the top end of things. Shuey at an outside shot at the Brownlow too!
If anyone is interested, the NAB cup preseason tournament is available free for streaming live games and watching previous ones.
Dean Bailey, now assistant coach at Adelaide, has been banned for 16 games and the Melbourne Demons have been fined $500k after an investigation into tanking at the club in 2009. But the club has been cleared of tanking. What an utter crock of shit. They fine them and hand out suspensions, but fon’t find them guilty of tanking.
I used to have a lot of respect for Andrew Dimetriou, but he’s all over the place at the moment.
[quote=“Fitzy, post: 739137, member: 236”]Dean Bailey, now assistant coach at Adelaide, has been banned for 16 games and the Melbourne Demons have been fined $500k after an investigation into tanking at the club in 2009. But the club has been cleared of tanking. What an utter crock of shit. They fine them and hand out suspensions, but fon’t find them guilty of tanking.
I used to have a lot of respect for Andrew Dimetriou, but he’s all over the place at the moment.[/quote]
Tanking ?
Intentionally losing games towards the end of the season to secure last or close to last spot in order to ensure the top draft picks. Sounds daft I know, but some clubs, particularly the Demons, were clearly doing it in 2009. They had no hope of making the finals, so tanked to get the best picks for the following season.
So, first round starts with opening 2 games, and both won by the underdogs. Essendon put all their drug shit behind them to surprise the Crows, and Freo dismantled the Eagles far too easily for my liking. Eagles were well on top for first half, but didnt capitilise on more chances, and gave away some silly goals. But Freo completely dominated the thrid quarter and destroyed their rivals. They just hemmed them in their own half and were relentless. Some impressive performances from their players, especially considering Sandilands was missing, and Pavlich was shite and kept quiet. Eagles big name players just didnt do enough, shuey was quiet, Cox was non existent, and Embley coming on as a sub was a waste of space. Fair fucks to Freo though, a great start, and keeping up an impressive couple of years in the Derby.
Eagles have a serious injury list there GMan and looks like they won’t be back to full strength for a few weeks, so you could be playing catch up for a while. Fucking Dockers. I detest Ross Lyon and the fuckers will probably make the finals.
Some performance by Essendon.
Bet of the round - Cats to beat Hawks at $2.45 at the G.
I hate the way they do this split opening round, playing it over two weekends.
What is this opening round spilt all about? Maximising tv revenues I assume???
I think its a fairly pathetic attempt to counter the earlier start of the NRL season.
That split weeken is an awful idea and has backfired badly with the ratings apparently, especially in Melbourne. They don’t give a fuck about Freo-Eagles in Melbourne.
Great result for Freo, they are continuing in their Donegal type rise, not sure if they have the equivalent talent, but they should have a good season.
I’m getting a great insight into what the Eagles do and ti be honest it’s becoming very obvious why they have a big injury list, they over train. That’s common enough over here but I think it’s possible worse there, their players are coming back from off season breaking all sorts of physical records. Now that sounds like hard working men, but breaking personal bests real early in the season is not really what you want. It seems it’s almost a competition as to who comes back in the best nick. That means they are not having proper off seasons. There may be plenty other reasons but that certainly is part of it.
yeah the split round thing is a load of shite, it dilutes the start of the season hugely. Last year it was Sydney and the Giants, load of shit really. Open the season with a bang with all teams out, not just 2 games.
Thats a fair point about the Eagles Kev, and its very much true that times and records of runs etc are made out to be massively important. the 2k run times are always posted up, followed by the same run later that day, and there is always an evaluation of where the players are. Not sure if it was this year or last, but there was uproar in the Eagles camp when Woosha finished ahead of some players, which didnt go down well that the manager of the team was fitter than some of his players. It also explains the awful tail off mid way through the year of the Eagles, who should be peaking at that stage, but seem to had already hit their top form and then were on the wane.
Demetriou was banging on yesterday about the split round and how they need to start the season earlier. so they don’t lose ground in the key NSW and QLD markets (he used the words "key"and “markets”).
Kev, is pre-season not the time they should be pushing themselves, doing the hard work, so they’re basically just ticking things over during the season?
[quote=“Fitzy, post: 752204, member: 236”]Demetriou was banging on yesterday about the split round and how they need to start the season earlier. so they don’t lose ground in the key NSW and QLD markets (he used the words "key"and “markets”).
Kev, is pre-season not the time they should be pushing themselves, doing the hard work, so they’re basically just ticking things over during the season?[/quote]
Pre Season yes Fitzy, not off-season, off season as in the time between finals and getting back to the club. They do too much off season on their own. It’s good to do something off season but the sensible thing to do would be to recovery completely first and then work on one or two weak eases. But what’s happening is these guys are more or less doing their own “pre” pre-season first. That creates huge fatigue long term and Neurological fatigue more importantly. It leads to injuries.
They are obsessed with 2-3KM time trials, skinnies, etc. They actually ignore alot of the real important test results and don’t test some of the right things. Coaches are obsessed by the results and use it to whip sOme fellas. Its lazy and mis-guided coaching. They are in attitude to fitness in football where GAA was 6-10 years ago. My club did 5 3KM time trials in pre season. One a 3KM time trial is a waste of time IMO, but doing 5 of them ( it was 4 for most but a few players got a punishment one, some of the best guys too) is just pure ignorance.
I thought AFL players did drugs and raped women during the off season.
Pretty stupid doing that kind of work in off season, understand the distinction now.
[quote=“Fitzy, post: 752208, member: 236”]I thought AFL players did drugs and raped women during the off season.
Pretty stupid doing that kind of work in off season, understand the distinction now.[/quote]
Ya, I think it’s become a badge of honor to come back better than ever. That’s just me picking up in what guys would be talking about around me and what ine of their Conditioning coaches said durectly to me, he seemed ti be very impressed by it all. All in all quite a few of them are as thick as shit, they really ha e no support/education system for them, with all the money it’s sad to see.
I have an in-going list of guys who are have either not being in for testing after injury or late coming back or whatever and 80-90% of them are former AFL. Try as you might to educate them on why we do Strength work it just doesn’t sink in. All of them are very talented, but either have serious attitude problems, are lazy or are mentally gone (depressed). They get let go from AFL and just fade away, hoping to be picked up semi pro.
Looking in from afar I always thought Oz to be a Mecca for sports, Sports Science and the general structures being world class etc. I have been horribly disappointed. They have their strengths(coaching structures, respect for coaches and officals,refereeing, facilities are all top notch) but there is alot left to be desired.
Essedon coach James hird in the shit now.
Accused last night be this Sports Scientist guy Dack that he was shooting up different banned substances last year. Now he was not playing, but still a coach taking performance enhancing drugs is just a bit weird.
Calls into question his playing career and if true proves there was drugs on the Essedon grounds. He was a brownlow medalist so this is big news.
The deals ASADA have tried to do with the AFL to hang Dack and the NRL seem ti be blowing up in it’s face (NRL recently found out that ASADA offered plea margins and suspect deals with AFL that were not offered to the NRL). Dace was obviously going to be made a scapegoat and decided he ain’t going down alone.
This should get nasty.
Rumors Hird has stepped aside just for this weeks game against Freo over here. That’s not 100% clear.