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Ryan likes his sport played efficiently, effectively and elegantly, like a Nic Naitanui hit out to advantage. Always searching for an interesting angle, Ryan loves nothing more than digging deep into the play and searching for the signal others miss in the noise. You can follow Ryan here (@RyanBuckland7).
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It’s not often you can draw a line through a top four team at the half way point of the season. But here we…
The top eight looks mighty settled through 11 rounds of the 2019 season, but there’s still plenty of room for teams to rise and…
Next week’s numbers game will show the competition is a race in three, or four, or at most five, as we hit the half…
Nine rounds into the season and the competition is separating in the usual way. We can start to look ahead knowing the likely finalists…
No more. The AFL executive has lost its ability to govern itself, and it cannot be allowed to continue this way for the good…
This year, more so than in any of the past five, the outcomes of the first seven weeks of football have been impacted by…
Melbourne has confounded us all. Show me someone who says they saw this Demon season coming and I’ll show you a liar, a fool,…
Today in breaking news I can exclusively reveal the AFL is working on a secret plan to start a new professional Australian Rules football…
In keeping with this column’s early season capacity constraints, here’s ten significant numbers that help explain the madness of the first three weeks of…
Nothing that has happened in the AFL in the first two weeks of the season makes sense. Nothing, except, the team that sits atop…
If we can extrapolate a significant downside surprise in Round 1, then surely significant upside surprises are fair game. Fremantle, and their obliteration of…
It’s that time already. A truncated preseason for this column is no excuse for missing out on the whacky science of pre-season predictions. Let’s…
Acquiring a prime age AFL superstar has been a fraught and surprisingly fruitless exercise, according to recent history. Is Patrick Dangerfield set to join…
And so we reach the end of The Roar’s AFL Top 50. Now we’re in the sorts of rarefied air where there’s not much…
Facing one of the longest finals loss streaks in the league, Essendon has emerged as the 2018 offseason’s darling. One key unknown dogs them…
So much of last year’s football palace intrigue centred on just how far the AFL would go to change the rules of the game…
Numbers! Football! It’s time for our annual dispassionate look at some of the numbers behind the numbers in the AFL and see whether we…
Let’s do two sets of rankings for the final BBL column for this year: the finals teams, and four things Cricket Australia should do…
The past 18 months have been challenging for a thinking fan, with the repeated administrative malfeasance of AFL HQ. This year, we cast all…
With five games to go, this season’s finalists are all but decided. All that’s left to do in these penultimate power rankings is work…
The crowd is getting a little restless with some line ball umpiring calls (or no-calls) going the opposition’s way…
West Coast Eagles vs Melbourne Demons: AFL live scores, blog
Q1 – 20m – The Eagles are on the board! Some loose checking on a turnover sees Mark Hutchings pump the ball in deep from the centre square, and Willie Rioli goes to work once the ball hits the deck. They get the follow up centre bounce but can’t capitalise and we have a stoppage on Melbourne’s right wing.
West Coast: 1.0 (6)
Melbourne: 4.2 (26)
West Coast Eagles vs Melbourne Demons: AFL live scores, blog
Q1 – 18m – An excellent start from Melbourne as – you won’t believe it guys – West Coast break down trying to exit the ball from their defensive half.
West Coast: 0.0 (0)
Melbourne: 4.2 (26)
West Coast Eagles vs Melbourne Demons: AFL live scores, blog
Q1 – 15m – Melbourne’s pressure forces yet another turnover on the West Coast half back line, with James Harmes able capitalise. As soon as the Eagles stopped off half back it looked a foregone conclusion. West Coast has put a spare behind the ball.
West Coast: 0.0 (0)
Melbourne: 3.2 (20)
West Coast Eagles vs Melbourne Demons: AFL live scores, blog
Q1 – 14m – A great tackle from Alex Neal-Bullen gives him a shot from the 50 metre mark, but he misses to the left hand side.
West Coast: 0.0 (0)
Melbourne: 2.2 (14)
West Coast Eagles vs Melbourne Demons: AFL live scores, blog
Q1 – 13m – Sam Weideman kicks truly from a mark inside 50, and the Demons look well on top of things as we tick towards the half way mark of Q1
West Coast: 0.0 (0)
Melbourne: 2.1 (13)
West Coast Eagles vs Melbourne Demons: AFL live scores, blog
Q1 – 12m – Jack Darling is in a bit of trouble after a tackle from Oscar McDonald, but fortunately he’s able to get off the ground under his own steam. Looks an unfortunate one more than anything malicious.
West Coast: 0.0 (0)
Melbourne: 1.1 (7)
West Coast Eagles vs Melbourne Demons: AFL live scores, blog
Q1 – 10m – Melbourne’s pressure around the ball is overwhelming West Coast’s attempts to switch play. It’s seven inside 50s to three so far.
West Coast: 0.0 (0)
Melbourne: 1.0 (6)
West Coast Eagles vs Melbourne Demons: AFL live scores, blog
Q1 – 7m – The ball is spending a bit of time in the Melbourne forward half with the Eagles unable to break through the Dees’ press. Some costly skill errors aren’t helping the Eagles.
West Coast: 0.0 (0)
Melbourne: 1.0 (6)
West Coast Eagles vs Melbourne Demons: AFL live scores, blog
Q1 – 3m – And Melbourne gets the first through Mitch Hannan. Both sides set up with six forwards and defenders at the first centre bounce, and so it is with the second.
West Coast: 0.0 (0)
Melbourne: 1.0 (6)
West Coast Eagles vs Melbourne Demons: AFL live scores, blog
Q1 – 2m – Hot start, with both sides having a bit of play on the outside to begin proceedings. We settle in to a couple of repeat stoppages in the Melbourne and they get the first shot at goal.
West Coast Eagles vs Melbourne Demons: AFL live scores, blog
Almost set to go here at Perth Stadium, with the West Coast Eagles hosting the Melbourne Demons. There’s a heap on the line and conditions are perfect. Bounce is five minutes away.
West Coast Eagles vs Melbourne Demons: AFL live scores, blog
I would contend it’s more likely to have been a week than a decade since an “act” like Gaff’s was perpetrated. You’re conflating the act and the outcome, which is the point I just made about five times in the article above. The intent to punch is the root of the problem. The outcome is a product of the intent and circumstance. Circumstance is mostly out of the control of the perpetrator, where the intent is wholly their responsibility. Clean up the intent, that’s all I’m saying.
If the Gaff incident doesn’t change the AFL’s attitude, nothing will
It’s a tricky one, because you could go with two interpretations: the definition of a “throw” versus what constitutes a legal (and therefore an illegal) disposal.
The rules say a throw is what a throw is – propelling the ball forward with a throwing type motion – and adds a definition of using a scooping or swinging motion to propel the ball forward. However you have to also have taken possession of the ball for this to come into play. Under that criteria Higgins “threw’ the ball.
The rules also say that a kick is a legal form of disposal, and the rules don’t specify how the ball is to be dropped to your foot in order for a kick to take place. So under this interpretation Higgins was executing a kick, and the ball was “thrown” as part of his ball drop.
I fall on the side of the latter, because I think it was a relatively unique situation that will almost never arise. No one is ever going to throw the ball up and kick it, because it introduces all sorts of variance versus a regular low ball drop. It’s also worth noting when a player is tackled that the ball sometimes goes “up” without being handballed as it did in Higgins’ case but also touches a player’s foot, and that is considered a legal disposal.
With four AFL rounds to go, every spot in the eight is up for grabs
I’m not an editor.
State of the game? It's the state of the football media that's the problem
So he was! I wrote this before the GF and obviously didn’t update it haha. Thanks Josh the guys appreciate it.
Exclusive unpublished material: How priority picks made tanking, rebuilding and improving AFL lists a whole lot murkier
Thanks, that was a very big oversight, particularly as a West Coast fan myself…
Exclusive unpublished material: How priority picks made tanking, rebuilding and improving AFL lists a whole lot murkier
I did what? Melbourne is a better team than Collingwood.
Collingwood’s final form emerges, and its ceiling is an AFL premiership
That last graphic is the one for you then!
Numbers game: Which teams will rise and fall in the second half of AFL 2018
I call a blow out a game that is decided by the average margin plus one standard deviation. This year that has been 57 points (same as last year).
Numbers game: Which teams will rise and fall in the second half of AFL 2018
Melbourne pushing for top four
Collingwood pushing for top eight
North somewhere around the bottom six (+/- a couple of spots)
West Coast I had no idea
Numbers game: Which teams will rise and fall in the second half of AFL 2018
Good thinking Macca. It doesn’t change too much believe it or not.
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AlVXsvff-VNow3fGLrF2NnCgNlmj
The ruck is a tactical battleground: How is your team approaching it?
Stats Pro makes more of this sort of thing possible, so I’ll give it a crack for sure.
Next week is Numbers Game time so that one will have a very numbers-heavy angle too.
The ruck is a tactical battleground: How is your team approaching it?
Q1 – 23m – Tom McDonald has a set shot from the left forward pocket but misses the lot. But if this does the way it has all day another Melbourne scoring opportunity will come soon enough.
West Coast: 1.0 (6)
Melbourne: 4.2 (26)
West Coast Eagles vs Melbourne Demons: AFL live scores, blog