We’re a very professional organisation here at the VFL and we’re committed to making the game day experience the best it can be for each and every stakeholder
What a load of malakies or malaky take your pick. It actually detracted from the experience and didn't enhance it at all - it failed in " making the game day experience the best"... just a generalised statement of rubbish. For the most part I and other Port fans couldn't get into the game feeling like they were watching a non Port Melbourne side which in hindsight given the result may have been the one and only benefit of the shirt.
_______________________________________________
Spiny above is the statement from the AFL - apparently its about giving the ultimate game day experience. As Digs used to say years Go dint pass in my pocket and tell me it's raining... talking about Digs - I agree Hobbs will definitely be on a club or possibly a dew clubs radar, also Baldwin may go but I feel he is more if a gamble and clubs may wait until mud season to see if his body is right. When Hird takes the Essendon job he may very well have a clean up and take some Port Melbourne players with him, we hold onto hope and loyalty and think this will be minimised taking into account his loyalty to the club and that his son is captaining. - how much that plays a part in this day and age is debatable but ild like to think their is a tad bit of loyalty left.
Last edited
17 PREMIERSHIPS, 19 X Runners up
THE VFLS MOST SUCCESSFUL CLUB - THE MIGHTY PORT MELBOURNE BOROUGH!
I'M PORT MELBURNE BORN, I'M PORT MELBOURNE BRED, I'LL BE PORT UNTIL I'M DEAD!!!
Yeah I think it can more or less be taken as given that anything the AFL does will be insane at best and the justification will make no sense.
Mega, I've also wondered how many of our players James Hird will take to Essendon with him - in addition to the ones you name, he's said he thinks Bedendo is good enough for AFL level, and it wouldn't surprise me if Charlie Clarke gets another chance at some point as well. Rankin's one I'm surprised is never mentioned in these discussions, perhaps because he has yet to play a full season without injury, but he's so versatile I could see him getting a chance somewhere. But at any rate there would be a limit on how many players Hird could take at once since Essendon will only have so many list spots and it depends on their specific list needs as well, so hopefully we won't lose too many at once. I hope that McCartney stays - from the sounds of things James Hird will be difficult enough to replace but losing the head coach as well while we seem to be on the right track would be quite a blow. At any rate we do seem to be going in the right direction currently and hopefully that will continue.
Agree with your comments and soon after posting thought it might be a case of if we don't take these players then somebody else would therefore why wouldn't we take and give opportunities to those that are deserving, How good was the Clarke goal in the last, probably won us the game in a testing situation of the game when it was in the balance.
17 PREMIERSHIPS, 19 X Runners up
THE VFLS MOST SUCCESSFUL CLUB - THE MIGHTY PORT MELBOURNE BOROUGH!
I'M PORT MELBURNE BORN, I'M PORT MELBOURNE BRED, I'LL BE PORT UNTIL I'M DEAD!!!
Another game of footy that raised the stress levels! It was almost a soccer scoreline until late in the game and Sandringham were right in the game abd creating opportunities. For a first year back as standalone, they have been more than competitive against us in both games.
We did have opportunities early, which, had they been converted into goals perhaps would have seen enough pressure applied early to break the game open.
I've been standing down between the Fred Cook end goals and the Sandridge Events Centre so it's given me a good opportunity to watch both forwards and defenders. Van Es' defensive intercept marks were terrific with good clean hands in average weather.
Werribee looms as a tough challenge. Hopefully we can rise to the standard of the opposition again, which (to my mind) is how we seem to go week to week.
On a side note, the Australia Post building that borders the ground has mostly been demolished. I'm not sure what the current plans are for that space as I don't believe the Cricket Club had elected to play on (what would be) a much smaller playing area.
Also I should mention other players on the day that performed well. Josh Green, Stubbings, Hobbs (again) all very solid. Bedendo and Tovey also got possessions in the forward half. I just feel like it hasn't quite clicked yet.
On another positive note the VFLW side notched up another important win. For an kicked three in a game where the Zebras had more kicks, handballs, vand significantly more tackles with the only area convincingly won by Port being the hit outs.
The Borough sit 4th on the ladder and venture out to a classic footy venue, Windy Hillto take on the Bombers.
Agreed with all the above comments. I'll add Rankin as another who played particularly well. Some very good moments from Sparkman, Rosman, and George as well. Great to have Rankin, Van Es, and Clarke back from injury.
Was Drew Lloyd injured? I noticed he seemed to be the only player wearing a coat in the postgame photos and videos.
A bit of an ugly win again and I hope there's good turnout for tonight's optional goalkicking, but a win is a win and I certainly wasn't expecting to be 5th on the ladder at this point in the season. It does look like the playing group has developed some resilience that they didn't have last season - last year we were on the wrong end of several fourth-quarter comebacks, but this season we have much more composure late, as shown again by the fact that when Sandy took the lead we were able to take it right back. Sandy were able to turn it into a scrap, helped by our poor goalkicking, but once again we ground out the win.
The various in-game positional moves are continuing to work well. Bedendo to the wing for parts of the game, Baldwin and then Rudd to defence late, and swapping Rankin and Hird for part of the third quarter were all good moves.
No doubt I'm preaching to the choir here, but I'll mention anyway that the deliberate rushed behind free kick against Sandy was absolutely correct - if you have time and space to dispose of the ball but you don't do it and you end up under pressure and rush the behind, that's deliberate according to the rule. Too few commentators know the rule as written, although I think they did end up suggesting (rightly) that it was the correct call.
Yes, the Werribee game will be tough. I watched most of their game against Southport last week, and I'd say AJ Kuol Mun actually beat Brayden Crossley in the ruck - it was a close contest, and quite something to watch, but Kuol Mun did have more hitouts, clearances, and disposals, and his ruck work was a big factor in Werribee's win. Our mids will need to be prepared to essentially rove to Kuol Mun's hitouts - Penry's work rate is excellent, but all the same I don't expect him to break even for hitouts. Hopefully he can match Kuol Mun around the ground and also compete hard enough to keep him from just taking the ball out of the ruck and getting the clearance too often.
Not sure what the ideal midfield setup is against Werribee. Hird's current form is a bit of a problem. The effort is there as always, but he's been down for four weeks in a row now, and I'm not sure what's going on. One thought I have is that he and Rankin should essentially switch places. Hobbs/Tovey/Green could be the starting mids with Rankin, Polkinghorne, and perhaps George rotating through while Hird's at halfback. Alternately Hird could start in the midfield as usual with instructions to glue himself to Dom Brew at stoppages and centre ball-ups - not a hard tag around the ground but giving Brew no room to manoeuvre at stoppages. He did perform that negating role on Brew well last time we played Werribee, and his defensive work is still reasonable right now. Also not sure who should take Lazzaro (perhaps Hird could take him instead of Brew); Polkinghorne seemed to be getting a bit more midfield time this week, which was good to see, and I wonder if he's being prepared to match up on Lazzaro again.
I think these paragraphs about the upcoming Werribee game make my post sound more pessimistic than I intend. Admittedly I'll be surprised if we get the win next week; in any case it's interesting to consider tactics and ideal matchups. But although there's still work to be done and as you note, NorthPort, not everything is clicking right now, I'm very pleased so far with the improvement since last season.
The VFLW side did win the inside 50's as well. It was good to see them get the win over a team who are close to them on the ladder. It was a great effort by the girls to kick 3 in the last to get the win after Sandy took the lead. Courtney Jones played an excellent game, and this was probably Lauren Caruso's best game so far this season.
Agreed, Mega, I can't imagine James Hird would sign any of our players to Essendon's AFL list that he didn't genuinely think could make it and might get picked up by other sides. At any rate hopefully we don't lose anyone to other VFL sides or to local footy. The fact that we're seeing more team success this season should help us retain players. I know you've said in the past that it's a tight-knit group and that is how it looks on the field.
Great to see the girls get the win. Essendon made some adjustments and increased their pressure in the second quarter, but we outworked them and were cleaner with the ball as well. Being +2 in tackles in a 30-point win shows how good our work rate was. In general our players seemed to be much more effective in the contest than the Essendon players were. Hopefully Caffry will return for the next game, but the midfield put up a great performance despite her absence, with O'Keefe, Ashley-Cooper, Caruso, and Bourne our leading clearance winner. Jones was excellent as well. The defence as a whole stood up well, with McBride-Loane in particular standing out. McKellar and Hannah Foran had some strong marks too; both Foran sisters played a solid game. I particularly liked Stutt's game also. Stutt and Creaton both stand out to me as good users of the footy.
Gebel-Lamb and Adams both made a good impact on their return to the side.
A good third quarter from White - good to see her efforts rewarded with a goal, as she was doing some good work off the ball laying shepherds for teammates.
Josh Tovey being out injured this week definitely weakens our midfield. I see Rankin's named to the midfield, which makes sense, and Hobbs is named to a half-forward flank, which does not. If our best mid and leading clearance player actually starts up forward, and against an opposition with a very strong midfield group too, I'd say that will be an even stranger move than last year's Highmore-in-the-midfield and this year's Highmore-up-forward experiments.
It's too bad Lloyd has another hamstring injury, too - he's just had no luck with injury this season. Hope he re-signs and is able to get a clean run at it next season.
The VFL again dealing with the important issues requiring us to wear our clash jumper this week. Red and blue stripes are of course so easily confused with black. Whoever decides what counts as a clash has too much time on his hands or very peculiar colour perception.
With this week's list of emergencies, I've completed the list in the other thread of our signings for this season - or at any rate the list I was keeping has reached 44 players, so it's complete as long as list sizes are still set at 44 and we haven't signed anyone midseason.
Would not be surprised to see Hobbs get another crack at AFL level.
Definitely good enough !
We might be from the bush. but we ain't green
Would not be surprised to see Hobbs get another crack at AFL level.
Definitely good enough !
We might be from the bush. but we ain't green
We’re a very professional organisation here at the VFL and we’re committed to making the game day experience the best it can be for each and every stakeholder
What a load of malakies or malaky take your pick. It actually detracted from the experience and didn't enhance it at all - it failed in " making the game day experience the best"... just a generalised statement of rubbish. For the most part I and other Port fans couldn't get into the game feeling like they were watching a non Port Melbourne side which in hindsight given the result may have been the one and only benefit of the shirt.
_______________________________________________
Spiny above is the statement from the AFL - apparently its about giving the ultimate game day experience. As Digs used to say years Go dint pass in my pocket and tell me it's raining... talking about Digs - I agree Hobbs will definitely be on a club or possibly a dew clubs radar, also Baldwin may go but I feel he is more if a gamble and clubs may wait until mud season to see if his body is right. When Hird takes the Essendon job he may very well have a clean up and take some Port Melbourne players with him, we hold onto hope and loyalty and think this will be minimised taking into account his loyalty to the club and that his son is captaining. - how much that plays a part in this day and age is debatable but ild like to think their is a tad bit of loyalty left.
Last edited
17 PREMIERSHIPS, 19 X Runners up
THE VFLS MOST SUCCESSFUL CLUB - THE MIGHTY PORT MELBOURNE BOROUGH!
I'M PORT MELBURNE BORN, I'M PORT MELBOURNE BRED, I'LL BE PORT UNTIL I'M DEAD!!!
Yeah I think it can more or less be taken as given that anything the AFL does will be insane at best and the justification will make no sense.
Mega, I've also wondered how many of our players James Hird will take to Essendon with him - in addition to the ones you name, he's said he thinks Bedendo is good enough for AFL level, and it wouldn't surprise me if Charlie Clarke gets another chance at some point as well. Rankin's one I'm surprised is never mentioned in these discussions, perhaps because he has yet to play a full season without injury, but he's so versatile I could see him getting a chance somewhere. But at any rate there would be a limit on how many players Hird could take at once since Essendon will only have so many list spots and it depends on their specific list needs as well, so hopefully we won't lose too many at once. I hope that McCartney stays - from the sounds of things James Hird will be difficult enough to replace but losing the head coach as well while we seem to be on the right track would be quite a blow. At any rate we do seem to be going in the right direction currently and hopefully that will continue.
Agree with your comments and soon after posting thought it might be a case of if we don't take these players then somebody else would therefore why wouldn't we take and give opportunities to those that are deserving, How good was the Clarke goal in the last, probably won us the game in a testing situation of the game when it was in the balance.
17 PREMIERSHIPS, 19 X Runners up
THE VFLS MOST SUCCESSFUL CLUB - THE MIGHTY PORT MELBOURNE BOROUGH!
I'M PORT MELBURNE BORN, I'M PORT MELBOURNE BRED, I'LL BE PORT UNTIL I'M DEAD!!!
Another game of footy that raised the stress levels! It was almost a soccer scoreline until late in the game and Sandringham were right in the game abd creating opportunities. For a first year back as standalone, they have been more than competitive against us in both games.
We did have opportunities early, which, had they been converted into goals perhaps would have seen enough pressure applied early to break the game open.
I've been standing down between the Fred Cook end goals and the Sandridge Events Centre so it's given me a good opportunity to watch both forwards and defenders. Van Es' defensive intercept marks were terrific with good clean hands in average weather.
Werribee looms as a tough challenge. Hopefully we can rise to the standard of the opposition again, which (to my mind) is how we seem to go week to week.
On a side note, the Australia Post building that borders the ground has mostly been demolished. I'm not sure what the current plans are for that space as I don't believe the Cricket Club had elected to play on (what would be) a much smaller playing area.
* It's time to restore the VFA name.
Image of the cleared space..
* It's time to restore the VFA name.
Also I should mention other players on the day that performed well. Josh Green, Stubbings, Hobbs (again) all very solid. Bedendo and Tovey also got possessions in the forward half. I just feel like it hasn't quite clicked yet.
On another positive note the VFLW side notched up another important win. For an kicked three in a game where the Zebras had more kicks, handballs, vand significantly more tackles with the only area convincingly won by Port being the hit outs.
The Borough sit 4th on the ladder and venture out to a classic footy venue, Windy Hillto take on the Bombers.
* It's time to restore the VFA name.
Agreed with all the above comments. I'll add Rankin as another who played particularly well. Some very good moments from Sparkman, Rosman, and George as well. Great to have Rankin, Van Es, and Clarke back from injury.
Was Drew Lloyd injured? I noticed he seemed to be the only player wearing a coat in the postgame photos and videos.
A bit of an ugly win again and I hope there's good turnout for tonight's optional goalkicking, but a win is a win and I certainly wasn't expecting to be 5th on the ladder at this point in the season. It does look like the playing group has developed some resilience that they didn't have last season - last year we were on the wrong end of several fourth-quarter comebacks, but this season we have much more composure late, as shown again by the fact that when Sandy took the lead we were able to take it right back. Sandy were able to turn it into a scrap, helped by our poor goalkicking, but once again we ground out the win.
The various in-game positional moves are continuing to work well. Bedendo to the wing for parts of the game, Baldwin and then Rudd to defence late, and swapping Rankin and Hird for part of the third quarter were all good moves.
No doubt I'm preaching to the choir here, but I'll mention anyway that the deliberate rushed behind free kick against Sandy was absolutely correct - if you have time and space to dispose of the ball but you don't do it and you end up under pressure and rush the behind, that's deliberate according to the rule. Too few commentators know the rule as written, although I think they did end up suggesting (rightly) that it was the correct call.
Yes, the Werribee game will be tough. I watched most of their game against Southport last week, and I'd say AJ Kuol Mun actually beat Brayden Crossley in the ruck - it was a close contest, and quite something to watch, but Kuol Mun did have more hitouts, clearances, and disposals, and his ruck work was a big factor in Werribee's win. Our mids will need to be prepared to essentially rove to Kuol Mun's hitouts - Penry's work rate is excellent, but all the same I don't expect him to break even for hitouts. Hopefully he can match Kuol Mun around the ground and also compete hard enough to keep him from just taking the ball out of the ruck and getting the clearance too often.
Not sure what the ideal midfield setup is against Werribee. Hird's current form is a bit of a problem. The effort is there as always, but he's been down for four weeks in a row now, and I'm not sure what's going on. One thought I have is that he and Rankin should essentially switch places. Hobbs/Tovey/Green could be the starting mids with Rankin, Polkinghorne, and perhaps George rotating through while Hird's at halfback. Alternately Hird could start in the midfield as usual with instructions to glue himself to Dom Brew at stoppages and centre ball-ups - not a hard tag around the ground but giving Brew no room to manoeuvre at stoppages. He did perform that negating role on Brew well last time we played Werribee, and his defensive work is still reasonable right now. Also not sure who should take Lazzaro (perhaps Hird could take him instead of Brew); Polkinghorne seemed to be getting a bit more midfield time this week, which was good to see, and I wonder if he's being prepared to match up on Lazzaro again.
I think these paragraphs about the upcoming Werribee game make my post sound more pessimistic than I intend. Admittedly I'll be surprised if we get the win next week; in any case it's interesting to consider tactics and ideal matchups. But although there's still work to be done and as you note, NorthPort, not everything is clicking right now, I'm very pleased so far with the improvement since last season.
The VFLW side did win the inside 50's as well. It was good to see them get the win over a team who are close to them on the ladder. It was a great effort by the girls to kick 3 in the last to get the win after Sandy took the lead. Courtney Jones played an excellent game, and this was probably Lauren Caruso's best game so far this season.
Agreed, Mega, I can't imagine James Hird would sign any of our players to Essendon's AFL list that he didn't genuinely think could make it and might get picked up by other sides. At any rate hopefully we don't lose anyone to other VFL sides or to local footy. The fact that we're seeing more team success this season should help us retain players. I know you've said in the past that it's a tight-knit group and that is how it looks on the field.
Great to see the girls get the win. Essendon made some adjustments and increased their pressure in the second quarter, but we outworked them and were cleaner with the ball as well. Being +2 in tackles in a 30-point win shows how good our work rate was. In general our players seemed to be much more effective in the contest than the Essendon players were. Hopefully Caffry will return for the next game, but the midfield put up a great performance despite her absence, with O'Keefe, Ashley-Cooper, Caruso, and Bourne our leading clearance winner. Jones was excellent as well. The defence as a whole stood up well, with McBride-Loane in particular standing out. McKellar and Hannah Foran had some strong marks too; both Foran sisters played a solid game. I particularly liked Stutt's game also. Stutt and Creaton both stand out to me as good users of the footy.
Gebel-Lamb and Adams both made a good impact on their return to the side.
A good third quarter from White - good to see her efforts rewarded with a goal, as she was doing some good work off the ball laying shepherds for teammates.
Josh Tovey being out injured this week definitely weakens our midfield. I see Rankin's named to the midfield, which makes sense, and Hobbs is named to a half-forward flank, which does not. If our best mid and leading clearance player actually starts up forward, and against an opposition with a very strong midfield group too, I'd say that will be an even stranger move than last year's Highmore-in-the-midfield and this year's Highmore-up-forward experiments.
It's too bad Lloyd has another hamstring injury, too - he's just had no luck with injury this season. Hope he re-signs and is able to get a clean run at it next season.
The VFL again dealing with the important issues requiring us to wear our clash jumper this week. Red and blue stripes are of course so easily confused with black. Whoever decides what counts as a clash has too much time on his hands or very peculiar colour perception.
With this week's list of emergencies, I've completed the list in the other thread of our signings for this season - or at any rate the list I was keeping has reached 44 players, so it's complete as long as list sizes are still set at 44 and we haven't signed anyone midseason.
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