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The Roar

ChrisH

Roar Rookie

Joined January 2019

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Not sure what your measure is for an “alpha key forward”, but Pies definitely don’t have an alpha key forward, and as you say, nor do Demons… You thinking Blues for the flag?! I’d go Blues too but no team has ever won with such a long break between finals appearances.

Is 2023 the year Brisbane takes their AFL premiership chance, or is it mission impossible?

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AFL
 
2w

Don’t understand why Ashcroft gets stooged just because he only played 19 games. That’s more than enough to judge him the Rising Star.
Is it voted on like the Brownlow? Or do they just sit around and say, who is the best?
It should be the latter, and Ashcroft should win.

AFL Rising Star Power Rankings: Every nominee rated from 1-24 - is it Sheezel's to lose in the best crop of young guns ever?

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AFL
 
5d

Yeah, was a bit rich Gil blaming “human error” and punting the goal ump for the rest of the year.

The umpire made a call he was very confident in. That’s his job. His job is not to second-guess every decision he makes, else he won’t be able to make any decisiona nd we may as well rplace him with robots.

He made a mistake. The problem was and is failures in the system to catch mistakes.

Gil couldn’t bring himself to speak the truth, to say “The system we have in place failed, and needs to be fixed because it wasn’t able to correct this mistake.”

Crows robbery the latest in a long list of failures by Gill's arrogant AFL

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AFL
 
2w

I think 2016 he might’ve got lucky.

He inherited quite a good squad, the 2016 pre-season bye benefited them immensely and derailed other contenders, and even many neutrals say they got quite a good deal from the umps in the grand final.

Since then he has struggled to get the best out of a highly talented list.

But the list he’s built has been somewhat confusing. Been more like a newbie playing fantasy football, putting everything into high value players

First he stacked up on mid fielders – with names like Bontempelli, Dunkley, Macrae, Smith, Liberatore, Treloar – and many people thought they’d be unbeatable, and in 2021 it nearly worked, getting all the way to the grand final.

Then he’s seemed to go all out for forwards, such that this year they had Naughton, Bruce, Darcy, Ugle-Hagan, Lobb and Weightman. And again many pundits wondered how they could be beaten.

Won’t be surprised if now he stacks up on defenders!

Has Luke Beveridge made the most of the Western Bulldogs' talent, or is he all smoke and mirrors?

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AFL
 
2w

Hopefully Daicos won’t be another Max Holmes story.

Massive Pies blow as knee injury leaves Nick Daicos' season in jeopardy

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AFL
 
4w

No. Coz Broad was saying that would have been the case with any ball, not this particular ball as the author the strongly implied.

ICC issues wishy-washy response to Ashes ball swap fiasco as both teams cop fines for slow over rates

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Cricket
 
Aug

Agree. Bazball has been proven.

But it’s not all bash ball. It’s captured in the reactions of the captains afterwards.

Cummins (Australia, retained the Ashes): We’re disappointed we didn’t win the Ashes

Stokes (England, failed to win the Ashes): I hope we inspired the next generation. (No sense of disappointment or failure at all)

Bazball doesn’t make winning the be-all. And that was of refreshing. It was disappointing to hear the Aussie comments about not winning the Ashes*.

Professional cricketers – all professional sports people – are paid entertainers first and foremost. If we want Test cricket to survive, it has to be entertaining, it has to put bums on seats.

Winning isn’t enough to do that, because that only gets the bums from the winning side. And when a side wins 5-0, then half the bums stop turning up. It’s not entertaining to see your team get flogged, and it certainly doesn’t bring in new fans.

It must be said too, the Poms did make absolute fools of themselves early in the series, with their arrogance and self-righteousness that was not in the spirit of Bazball.

But after Lord’s when they got back to letting their cricket do the talking, the results swung their way.

*I reckon the visiting team should only have to draw the series to win the Ashes. e.g. If the Poms held the Ashes, and we draw 2-2 over there, then we win them back.

Northern View: 'Aussie Snoozeball' hinted at a dreaded future. England have changed the course of Test cricket

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Cricket
 
Aug

“England took such a shine to the replacement ball that they didn’t bother taking the second new ball late in the day…”

Ermm… that’s not true.

Broad said they didn’t take the new ball coz the new Duke’s weren’t doing as much as the old ones, which they learnt from the First Test. And they got burned then when they took the new ball and the 9th wicket were unthreatened by it, and he said they should have stuck with the old one.

ICC issues wishy-washy response to Ashes ball swap fiasco as both teams cop fines for slow over rates

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Cricket
 
Aug

Yeah! Far superior on paper. Before the series I thought this was the strongest side we’d sent over since maybe 2005. Ussie, Lasagne, Smudge, Head, Cummins, Starc, Hazelwood, Lyon… That’s some sort of base for a team!

The Liebke Fifth Ashes Test report card: 'This series will be remembered as the 2-0 GOATwash'

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Cricket
 
Jul

Bairstow was robbed! He was clearly Australia’s player of the series! 😂

Test-mortem: Bazball ultimately a little too reckless against Australian crawl - Where Ashes was won, lost and drawn

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Cricket
 
Aug

Another beat up by the whinging Aussie media.

Aussies won the Whinging Ashes and pipped them too on the fight for the Moral High Ground Ashes.

Let’s not bother with cricket at all next series, just let the media fight out the Ashes.

English bitter: 'Pathetic' Poms accused of dodging post-match beer in aftermath of tense Ashes series

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Cricket
 
Aug

England lost the Ashes with their arrogance early. Crawley saying they’d win by 140 at Lords. LOL. Robinson, every time he opened his mouth. Cringe. And some say Stokes’ early declaration on day one of the First Test smacked of arrogance too.

Once they dropped the arrogance – and Robinson – they turned things ’round.

Every player rated from the fifth Ashes Test: Spinner shines, Davey defies doubters, but is Cummins cooked?

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Cricket
 
Jul

Geez! Pot meet kettle! Have a whinge! I’ve never seen so much whinging from Aussies fans, especially once we started losing. It was the weather, it was the toss, it was the ball change, on and on it has gone!

We kept the Ashes – tho I reckon they should make it so a home team should have to win outright to claim them – and we’re still whinging!

We’ve certainly met the Poms eye-to-eye in the Whinging Ashes!

UK View: 'The moral victory is real' - Poms revel in Pat's 'failure', downfall of 'dastardly' and 'scared' Aussies

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Cricket
 
Jul

’tis a shame that both teams lost their #1 spinner. Tho, I think the GOAT would have done more than the Leech. And, getting two tests to Leach’s none, he did. Helped us win the first Test – albeit more so with his bat – and thus retain the Ashes.

The Liebke Fifth Ashes Test report card: 'This series will be remembered as the 2-0 GOATwash'

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Cricket
 
Jul

It’s not a scientific comparison. But, it still works as a way to put perspective on how great a player is.

Another is to see how far ahead of his peers he is. Buddy’s kicked 1066 in the same era that the next best are Hawkins and Riewoldt, both around 780.

On goals per game:
Lockett 4.8 per game
Dunstall: 4.7
Ablett: 4.2

So, Lockett was 2% ahead of Dunstall and 14% ahead of Ablett.

Compare that to Buddy’s peers:
Buddy: 3.0
Riewoldt: 2.3
Hawkins: 2.3

Buddy is 30% ahead of his peers!!

AFL News: Bye, bye Buddy - legend's career call, Zorko accuses rival of 'grab the groin and squeeze' tactics

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AFL
 
Jul

Wouldn’t be getting on a Blues Premiership wagon. They would have to overcome massive weight of history. No team has ever won it in the last 50 years (at least) with more than a 4 year break between finals appearances. Adelaide did it in 1997 after last making finals in 1993. Dees are next best, 2018 to 2021.
Carlton’s last appearance was 10 years ago! Ed Curnow, who’s in the twos at the moment, is the only player on their list who’s even played a final in Carlton jumper, if I’m not mistaken!
Sure, history can be broken, but that’s pretty solid history saying you need some finals experience.

Footy Fix: The Blues aren't the only winners out of Friday night - because the Pies' luck has run out at last

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AFL
 
Jul

If you compare averages for goal kickers between the ’70s-’90s, and the 2000s-’20s, and then extrapolate… Buddy could have kicked 1600 or 1700 goals in the earlier era. Mind blowing.

AFL News: Bye, bye Buddy - legend's career call, Zorko accuses rival of 'grab the groin and squeeze' tactics

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AFL
 
Jul

Australia’s best hope will be to swallow their pride and fight Bazball with Bazball. They ain’t going to draw in a fit if the weather holds, and wont win at 3ish per over, so may as well go Bazball and see how the Pommie bowlers cope. And they’ve definitely got the batters to do it. Better to be bowled out for 300 off 60 overs than 300 off 90

Aussies Bazballed again as Root, Bairstow and Crawley power England towards series-levelling win

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Cricket
 
Jul

The media bagged Stokes for not batting longer in the First Test, now Tim is saying he should’ve declared early in the Fourth Test. Stokes can’t win!

What makes people think Australia would have batted worse if Stokes declared early? Because that’s what it would have taken to eek a victory.

Aussies were 5/214 when the rain intervened. Let’s say Stokes declared at lunch with the lead at 189. Poms would have got an extra 13 or 14 overs at the Aussies.

Australia were batting for draw and looking reasonably solid too. So, would not have likely been bowled out. But if they were, they’d only have a few overs to chase – but would Australia been allowed to bowl their quicks?

The English spinners bowled the last 12 overs. So, Cummins would have brought himself and Starc on, the umpires would have said, “Gotta bowl spinners if you want to keep bowling today” and Cummins woulda said “No dice, we’ll try again tomorrow” and the umpires would have called bad light to end day four 12 overs earlier than it did.

Basically, there wasn’t enough time no matter when Stokes declared.

I suspect they put on as many runs as they could to try to break the Aussies’ spirit to make it easier to bowl them out. Chasing 275 to stay in the game is more demoralising than 189, or less.

'Stokes put his mate over the Ashes': The Pommy and the Aussie chat late declarations, retained urns and more

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Cricket
 
Jul

I see this exact system I proposed three years ago is now being considered by the AFL!!!
Nice to know someone at the AFL reads The Roar!
Tho they do claim to have been thinking about it since 2015. ????

Seventeen-five? The way to securing a better 22-round fixture

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AFL
 
2020

If Warner gets dropped for either of the next two Tests, does that count as another dismissal by Broad? 😁

But seriously, if Warner wants to retire in the summer, time for him to do a tactical hammy

Stuart Broad's match referee dad in hot water with ICC over savage Warner social media post

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Cricket
 
Jul

The Pommie selectors have their own pig-headedness to deal with too that has proved very costly.

Does anyone else think Bairstow should be Man of the Series? I mean… if it goes to the person who most influences the outcome… 😂

Turning a blind eye to Warner’s woes proving costly for Aussies - as McDonald sticks his head in sand yet again

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Cricket
 
Jul

“The selectors could consider playing both Marsh and Green in the middle order and reinstate Travis Head to opener, a role he filled admirably in India.”

This is exactly what they should do. Play the players with form. Harris is an unknown right now, and having two world class all-rounders is an opportunity not to be ignored.

Be interesting to see what selectors do tho if Poms somehow win this and the next one, and we’re off to The Oval 2-2 and Warner still with no big score in the Fourth Test.

If Aussies win here though, then the selectors won’t feel any need to drop Warner no matter what, since the Ashes will be won. And then they’ll give him the home Tests he needs to retire at the SCG.

It must really p*ss off guys like Ian Healy and Brad Hodge who were shown no such favours.

Turning a blind eye to Warner’s woes proving costly for Aussies - as McDonald sticks his head in sand yet again

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Cricket
 
Jul

Big fan of Bazball but…

If you’re gonna play the game, boy
You gotta learn to play it right
You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em
Know when to walk away and know when to run

Poms stopped playing Bazball and just went nutsball.

This shouldn’t be the death of Bazball, they’ve just got to learn from this and refine it.

One thing they do need to do is drop the off field arrogance!

Bazball, or Brainlessball? England implode in 15 overs of 'pure stupidity' to gift Aussies golden chance at 2-0 lead

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Cricket
 
Jun

“Most of all, that will require two teams who… are at the moment when battle is joined, utterly desperate to win and terrified of the alternative.”

On that I disagree. England were most certainly not “terrified” of losing, and I didn’t think Australia were either.

My impression were both teams were not afraid to lose, but yes, both desperate to win.

On Bazball, I am a big fan. My only concern is idiots in administration will see it as a way to justify 4 day Tests, forcing every Test to follow the same script, so Tests just become 4 day T20s.

Why Bazball will never save Test cricket - and England didn't 'win' no matter what they claim

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Cricket
 
Jun
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