Autopsy Cats lose to GWS* AFL trust fund babies by 26 points.

[Hinkley29]

I've got to disagree.

Everyone else can see the throw but too often it seems the ump can't.

And HTB isn't that hard really.

People aren't getting frustrated by the umps interpretation of the finer details, it's their ad hoc interpretation of the basics.

I assume that you are making that judgement from a tv screen without all the impediments that the umpires are dealing with. Which makes it significantly easier than what the umpires are asked to do. The view from your couch is way better than the view that the umps have, and from your couch you have zero pressure or accountability to perform.

I don’t think you are giving nearly enough credence to how difficult their job is.

Would you be an umpire? And do you reckon you would make less mistakes than they do? Be honest.

 

[Mr Meow]

So why was Max playing predominantly half back in the first half? Why did he play far less in the midfield than he has in nearly every game this year? There are only so many midfield minutes to go round, and George was taking some of Max’s.

Like I said, I am ok with george playing midfield last night. We needed to find out what George could do against good opposition. Now we are more informed than we were 48 hours ago.

But you can’t deny that it pushed max out of his preferred position.

I am not excusing max though, he did play about as badly as he has for a long time, regardless of the position he was playing.

Scott played Cameron as a centrebounce midfielder against GWS last time. I think he's running out of ideas against the Giants.

We are a midfield rotation (at least) short, but it goes without saying they have to play well. You can't just bash Holmes, Smith and Atkins into the ground as 100% stoppage midfielders who barely get any rest. There aren't many options we have to support them though. It's an issue for sure.

I have a theory they might release Dangerfield there for finals and are preserving his body until then, but who knows.

 

[Frappe]

It's so off the charts that I'm questioning if the stats from yesterday are correct. If they are then it's damning.

That's under 10km on average per player. I suspect between Dangerfield, Cameron and Henry/Stevens - the numbers would not have been high. Still pretty ordinary reading.

 

[Cataholic]

I assume that you are making that judgement from a tv screen without all the impediments that the umpires are dealing with. Which makes it significantly easier than what the umpires are asked to do. The view from your couch is way better than the view that the umps have, and from your couch you have zero pressure or accountability to perform.

I don’t think you are giving nearly enough credence to how difficult their job is.

Would you be an umpire? And do you reckon you would make less mistakes than they do? Be honest.

I've umpired a different sport. I enjoyed it.

Of course every sport has its unique challenges and differences.

How would I go? I don't know.

The masses aren't happy with the quality of the umpiring. The commentators are either speechless or giggle.

The AFL is determined to avoid any scrutiny of their performance.

Sure, it's way harder on the ground, but these guys and girls are supposed to be the best of the best.

It's a thankless task, I'll give you that, but the quality on display isn't inspiring either.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

Hard to see a happy ending to the year after our most recent two losses.

Zuta's post about the running stats pretty much matched what the eye saw ... sheesh. I'll do some research later to see if that's a trend.

Things to cling to?

• Can we play one, just one, game against a contender without Stewart getting hobbled early and having to play the game sore? Has it actually happened in every single one of the losses he's played in?
• Shannon Neale. Nuff said. (WA clubs will come for him, of course)
• That first ten minutes was on fire stuff. Then .... pfffffffft.
• That's the worst unforced turnover game I've seen from us in a long, long time. I mean, there have been games with dumb kicks straight to a spare defender, but this was different.

On Neale i think we're lucky the two WA clubs are stocked for tall forwards

 

[Warhorse]

I want to see our pressure rating compared to theirs. We don't look fit

 

[cats_09]

I thought the same, flip a coin between a fine and a week suspension.

Wonder with Greene doing similar later in the match they opted to "ignore" both

 

[Hinkley29]

I've umpired a different sport. I enjoyed it.

Of course every sport has its unique challenges and differences.

How would I go? I don't know.

The masses aren't happy with the quality of the umpiring. The commentators are either speechless or giggle.

The AFL is determined to avoid any scrutiny of their performance.

Sure, it's way harder on the ground, but these guys and girls are supposed to be the best of the best.

It's a thankless task, I'll give you that, but the quality on display isn't inspiring either.

scrutiny of umpires performance would make the situation even worse. So it is already a crap job, and now you want to publicly scrutinise the impossible job that I being asked to do? Sign me up!

The fact that it is a thankless task is directly correlated to the quality on display.

If someone had the skills to be a top level umpire, there is very little incentive to actually use those skills as an afl umpire.

 

[Pure_Ownage]

I want to see our pressure rating compared to theirs. We don't look fit

In the first quarter our pressure was well over 200 i reckon but after that it dropped off we didn't sustain it.

 

[Hinkley29]

Scott played Cameron as a centrebounce midfielder against GWS last time. I think he's running out of ideas against the Giants.

We are a midfield rotation (at least) short, but it goes without saying they have to play well. You can't just bash Holmes, Smith and Atkins into the ground as 100% stoppage midfielders who barely get any rest. There aren't many options we have to support them though. It's an issue for sure.

I have a theory they might release Dangerfield there for finals and are preserving his body until then, but who knows.

I completely agree - our midfield was already too thin, and the Bruhn situation has exacerbated it. Which has meant that we have had to try and find out if lottery tickets like Stevens are a potential solution. It has also forced us to speed up Mullin’s transition to the midfield.

I also think that they are saving dangers midfield minutes for the games that count. Here’s hoping it works.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

Can't believe I saw some giving Z.Guthrie votes. He had Stringer and was well beaten.

Pretty hard to find players that weren't

 

[Cataholic]

scrutiny of umpires performance would make the situation even worse. So it is already a crap job, and now you want to publicly scrutinise the impossible job that I being asked to do? Sign me up!

The fact that it is a thankless task is directly correlated to the quality on display.

If someone had the skills to be a top level umpire, there is very little incentive to actually use those skills as an afl umpire.

Public scrutiny is inescapable, because it's a public game.

You can have up to 100,000 people watching, so it's kinda hard to excuse the umps from any sort of scrutiny at all.

Again, it's not the finer detail that drives people nuts, it's the inability of the umps to adjudicate the very basics with any consistency.

That's what drives people spare.

It is not that hard to offer some consistency with HTB, to know what 15 metres is, or to identify a throw.

Just this last couple of games there's been multiple instances of marks and kicks being taken OOB, with the ump RIGHT THERE, but they've called it 'in', leaving commentators and fans gobsmacked.

The quality of the game itself isn't real flash right now, but it eclipses the quality of the umpiring imo.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

We don't know if the virus that Smith had and kept him out last week affected other players. I'm probably clutching at straws but we don't know. It may be why Holmes was started at half back and seemed lethargic.

My family and half the families at my kids school got wiped out with influenza B this year. It's like a 7 day turnaround. Wife ended up with pneumonia. It's finishing off a few oldies this year.

 

[Cataholic]

My family and half the families at my kids school got wiped out with influenza B this year. It's like a 7 day turnaround. Wife ended up with pneumonia. It's finishing off a few oldies this year.

I've been battling it for nigh on 4 weeks now.

Was every bit as bad as COVID. I tested negative for that.

The lingering cough, breathlessness and fatigue is damn hard to shake.

 

[Catman]

I did say during the game are we running in cement, because no one on our team was covering the ground well.

GWS are an elite running team but to have almost 100km more than us, what the hell is going in there, looks really bad for us.

Is it work rate, or were there extenuating circumstances behind such a differential? Was there a virus that had gone through the group as someone suggested, for us to start well but drop of alarmingly. It's unlike us.

If there wasn't and it was just down to a lack of work rate, then training should be nice and spicy this week and deservedly so.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

Seems Shark is in the clear for that clumsy spoil attempt.

https://www.afl.com.au/news/1364384/match-review-big-bomber-charged-with-rough-conduct

Good news for us, but I was sure it would at least get looked at.

I thought they'd give it a week but I'll take it

 

[CatToTheFuture]

I've been battling it for nigh on 4 weeks now.

Was every bit as bad as COVID. I tested negative for that.

The lingering cough, breathlessness and fatigue is damn hard to shake.

Get well soon mate

 

[CatToTheFuture]

Scott played Cameron as a centrebounce midfielder against GWS last time. I think he's running out of ideas against the Giants.

We are a midfield rotation (at least) short, but it goes without saying they have to play well. You can't just bash Holmes, Smith and Atkins into the ground as 100% stoppage midfielders who barely get any rest. There aren't many options we have to support them though. It's an issue for sure.

I have a theory they might release Dangerfield there for finals and are preserving his body until then, but who knows.

I reckon we saw danger at some cbas and he didn't get near it. I'm not sure it's something we can rely on

 

[CatToTheFuture]

I want to see our pressure rating compared to theirs. We don't look fit

We've looked ok in other games though. It's literally just this week we looked like we couldn't run

 

[Hinkley29]

Public scrutiny is inescapable, because it's a public game.

You can have up to 100,000 people watching, so it's kinda hard to excuse the umps from any sort of scrutiny at all.

Again, it's not the finer detail that drives people nuts, it's the inability of the umps to adjudicate the very basics with any consistency.

That's what drives people spare.

It is not that hard to offer some consistency with HTB, to know what 15 metres is, or to identify a throw.

Just this last couple of games there's been multiple instances of marks and kicks being taken OOB, with the ump RIGHT THERE, but they've called it 'in', leaving commentators and fans gobsmacked.

The quality of the game itself isn't real flash right now, but it eclipses the quality of the umpiring imo.

I had an epiphany about half way through the game last night. I was complaining about the umpiring and I realised that it was lame (and a bit embarrassing) to get so upset about something where you had people trying their best to do an impossible job. So now I have decided to be far more zen about it.

We will need to agree to disagree.

 

[Cataholic]

I had an epiphany about half way through the game last night. I was complaining about the umpiring and I realised that it was lame (and a bit embarrassing) to get so upset about something where you had people trying their best to do an impossible job. So now I have decided to be far more zen about it.

We will need to agree to disagree.

To be fair, if you peruse my history I consistently refuse to lay any blame at the feet of the umps for any result.

It's not an easy job, and I think its tacky to resort to blaming the umps for a loss.

But that said, I believe the quality of umpiring is poor.

We agree, but kinda disagree.

That's cool.

 

[Jumping Jack]

I thought they'd give it a week but I'll take it

A week off suspended (or dropped) wouldn’t hurt him or the team.

He had a foul stench last night and was carrying an odour in the weeks prior.

 

[joe444]

I want to see our pressure rating compared to theirs. We don't look fit

Giants lead the league in most disposals per time tackled. We're below league average.

I'm no less disappointed, but gosh it's like a perfect storm playing them.

 

[Hinkley29]

I reckon we saw danger at some cbas and he didn't get near it. I'm not sure it's something we can rely on

He was certainly struggling last night.

I can’t figure out if he has just started to show his age, or if he was playing injured last night.

The next few weeks will tell a tale. If he (and other players like Stanley for example) get regular rests then I would suggest they were playing at less than 100% last night.

 

[Pure_Ownage]

I completely agree - our midfield was already too thin, and the Bruhn situation has exacerbated it. Which has meant that we have had to try and find out if lottery tickets like Stevens are a potential solution. It has also forced us to speed up Mullin’s transition to the midfield.

I also think that they are saving dangers midfield minutes for the games that count. Here’s hoping it works.

Danger as a forward doesnt really work. So it has to be about saving him for 4 weeks of burst mid work to try and win us a flag. Which given his age and propensity for soft tissue injuries is probably the right play.