Agree with most of what Wolftone said.
I am not against the AFL trying to protect players from major injury, but it has become a very difficult game to umpire. There's a conflict between protecting the head and protecting the legs, keeping your eyes on the ball and paying enough attention to the other players regarding duty of care. There was a comment about the game being less enjoyable to watch because of the umpiring, and they are probably right. I usually don't blame the umps, but we really were hurt badly by the calls on Friday.
Overall, I think we played on a par with Geelong. Aside from the umpiring, we lost because we played into their hands. We must have put some work into Selwood, but it didn't show. He just killed us. Even if he didn't milk fouls, he would still be a great player. The rules favour him, because he uses his head as a battering ram. There's something wrong with the game when good acting is rewarded.
There were some good signs on Friday. Pyke, Kizza, Macca, Mal, Benny, Jude and especially Hanners had very good games. Taylor Hunt has been playing great footy this year, so maybe we can say that Jetta did a good job negating his influence. Maybe the slingshot is shot and we need to find another role for Jetta, perhaps a small forward leading into space. We can play him more forward and bring Benny more up the ground, which he seems to do a lot of anyway.
I think our failings are all correctable and we still look like a very good team.
We should bring in Bird, Lamb and Dre, in that order, depending on how many come out -- probably LRT, Armstrong and Morton (in that order). Hard to imagine that Hanners can play a full season with the kind of punishment he takes each game.
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