Campbell Brown - How many weeks should he get?

[KT31]

Ward has the hardest head at our club and was knocked flat. That one wasn't low impact.

Two weeks in a row.
IMO his worth is known and now he is a target each week.
I think the opposing coach has said he copped one last week , give him one this week to go on with.

[Hotdog60]

Does Brown open himself up to be made an example off, he's gone on the media (LINK) that this is how he plays his football and he won't change. Which if not given an appropriate penalty will make a mockery of the message that the AFL is putting across in protecting the players head.

[LostDoggy]

Ward has the hardest head at our club and was knocked flat. That one wasn't low impact.

Is that why now 2 weeks in a row he has been knocked flat, taken off but only to return a short time later with people saying/thinking ....."well, he couldn't have been hit that hard, he's up and around now!". Perhaps he needs to show it a little more that he was hit hard - not asking him to soften up but maybe just take a little more time to get back on the park?

[LostDoggy]

I think the odds are shortening that he will get off realitivly lightly.
GC must be protected.

[Bulldog Revolution]

I wonder if there is a code in the media to cut the GC players a bit of slack and not to hang them out to dry.

I think maybe its the Hawthorn mafia

Crawf, Dermie, Quarters etc

The hit on Ward was off the ball and thuggish. Its incidents like this where the mrp should send a message. There is no place in the game for these types of cheap shots

[always right]

I'm a realist and understand that other factors will come into play other than applying the object nature of the AFL's demerit system.

The offence that I believe best fits Brown V Hall's is the charge of "Bumping or making forceful contact to an opponent from front on whilst that player has his head down over ball".

Aside from what the MRP come up with in their version of chook lotto, do you believe Brown 'intended' this act OR as you suggest just 'recklessly' put himself in the position to put it on Hall ? For mine he intentionally bumped and made forceful contact to Hall from front on whilst Hall's head was down over the ball.

I'm not suggesting he was reckless......I'm suggesting that this is how it will be classified. History tells us they are always reluctant to classify an offene as deliberate or intentional. It's relatively easy to have it downgraded to reckless and Brown will simply argue that he came in to apply a hip and shoulder when Barry turned his body so that he was front on. Can almost write the script.

[LostDoggy]

I recorded the game and watched the Callan Ward hit last night. I felt like the commentators were trying to downplay the incident, coming up with all sorts of excuses "If he just threw his elbow back and didn't know Ward was there...." "Well Ward's back on the ground now"

I think he should get 4 weeks (combined). It certainly got the crowd fired up on Saturday, reminded me of the North Melbourne game last year with Scott Thompson/Barry Hall.

[LostDoggy]

He did exactly what he was recruited for, the joke is what what they paid for and Hawthorn got for him.

If he gets only 3-5 then it might be worth it in the team sense by making the kids stand taller. They were definetely a better side after it.

I haven't seen the game, but what I don't understand is why it makes the aggressor's team stand taller -- shouldn't it make the aggrieved team fight harder to gain justice through the scoreboard?

If someone from a rabble team with 15 kids and 5 cashed-up mercenaries flattened my teammate I wouldn't stop until I put 30 goals past them. From the final score it looks like the Dogs went back into their shell and just coasted around -- I know it's probably harsh, but the final score is a disgrace to our supposed desire, and I just saw the contested ball stats, which tells me that we're in trouble if we play Collingwood next week .. oh wait, we do.

It's still the first 5 weeks, so I'm cutting the team some slack, but seriously, you have to question our mental toughness if 70 points is the best we can do against a rabble team that Carlton smashed out of the park. It wasn't wet, was it? Can be this time of the year in Melbourne and it's the only excuse I can think of -- just checked, it was at Etihad, so the roof would have been closed (right?)

[Ozza]

I actually thought it fired our guys up immediately after the incident - and we kicked the next 3 goals in pretty short time.

Disappointing that we didn't win the clearances. But as I said during the week - it was always going to be a game where many Bulldogs supporters would be annoyed that we didn't win by 30 goals. After Carlton beat them like that last week - Gold Coast were always going to get numbers behind the ball and slow the game down.

It was largely a training drill where we didn't execute as well as we should have.

(bye this week - Freo after that and then Collingwood)....realistically 3 weeks until we know how we are going.

[Sedat]

He did exactly what he was recruited for, the joke is what what they paid for and Hawthorn got for him.

If he gets only 3-5 then it might be worth it in the team sense by making the kids stand taller. They were definetely a better side after it.

I actually thought they were rubbish for the next 30 minutes after the incident - we were about 4 goals up at the time and we extended it out to almost 10 goals approaching half time. If that galvanised the GC, I'd hate to see them ungalvanised. GC improved in the 2nd half because they were getting used to each other's game style and we dropped off our workrate, not to mention we missed several set shots that would have taken the margain out to around 100 points.

A kid like Seb Tape needs to have Campbell Brown sitting in the stands for the next few weeks instead of helping him out in defensive 50 like a hole in the head. Brown's actions were selfish in the extreme and showed not a skerrick of regard for his young teammates, who desperately need on-field support from the senior brigade.

[LostDoggy]

Disappointing that we didn't win the clearances.

How can we simply dismiss this fact? Is it just me or does this set off massive alarm bells?

I don't care if they had Gablett in there, they have a ruckman with less experience than Ayce Cordy and don't have an on-ball brigade to speak of, while we are supposed to have one of the best midfield groups around, and we still get smashed in the clearances? Incidentally, we are talking about the same group of players that were massacred by Essendon in round 1, and this despite Libba supposedly having brilliant games in close, which begs the question: what would the stats have been without him?

Relying on a third-gamer to be competitive in and under -- is this a sign of a real problem?

[Maddog37]

Gary Ablett is one of the games greatest players ever. Swallow has been largely accepted as a future great and Zac Smith may be young but the boy really can play and jumped all over Hudson. Brennan had one of his good games and when he is on he is a player of rare talent. Also D Harris is no gun but is pretty handy in and under.

The Dons game was just a debacle and is hard to place in context other than to say when we lack effort we are crap, as are most teams.

I have a hairbrained, halfbaked theory that when the focus is strongly placed on tackles, the players will hunt the man more than the ball and as a result quite often will be second for the pill. Strangely enough with the way they officiate the holding the ball rule now it actually works better to be second for the ball at times.

[LostDoggy]

Gary Ablett is one of the games greatest players ever. Swallow has been largely accepted as a future great and Zac Smith may be young but the boy really can play and jumped all over Hudson. Brennan had one of his good games and when he is on he is a player of rare talent. Also D Harris is no gun but is pretty handy in and under.

.

Cooney is a Browlow medal winner -- sure he's no Gablett but he's in the same bracket. Griffen is a top 3 pick (and was largely accepted as a future great for a long time, and most of us still hold some hope of that happening) a la Swallow with infinitely more experience and conditioning, Zac Smith is two/three years behind Ayce Cordy and Jordan Roughead who are also two gun young ruckmen. Sure Brennan is a talent, but Higgins should easily be his equal, and I haven't even added guys like Boyd (captain), Sherman, Hudson, Cross, Gia etc.

We give players like Cordy and Ward excuses because they are young, we don't expect Roughead to carry the ruck for a couple of years yet, but we are happy that third-gamer Zac Smith beat Huddo?

Look, like I said, it's the first 5 rounds and there are a lot of mitigating factors (we are aiming at September, while after last week's Carlton debacle, GC was always going to play harder this week), but no way, if we are aiming for a premiership, can we be happy or have any excuses about Cooney, Griff, Huddo, Boydy, Higgo et al being beaten in the clearances* by a midfield made up of TAC Cup All-Stars, Gablett or not.

* and from what I've read of Rocket's comments, he's not happy about this fact either.

[Maddog37]

I agree with you but I do not want six players diving on the ball and the opposition leaving a few seagulls outside and just running away like the Pies do every week.

Losing the clearance count is not great but nor is it the end of the world.

Cooney is not even close to Little Gaz either sorry. Wish he was...........

Also I do not really want Cooney, Higgins, Griff and Sherman getting too many clerances. I would prefer they stayed outside and let Ward, Libba , Crossy, Hudosn and Boyd do their thing.

Zac Smith is a different body type to Ayce and Ruff too but I take your point.

[LostDoggy]

ILosing the clearance count is not great but nor is it the end of the world.

Zac Smith is a different body type to Ayce and Ruff too but I take your point.

Blimey, I don't know if we're at cross-purposes here, but clearance counts are everything in the modern game where first use of the ball is paramount. Forget the game against the GC (where any AFL team would beat them on sheer experience and larger tanks in general) -- I would defy anyone to show me a premiership contender that gets regularly beaten in the contested possession stats.

I think you may be confusing 'clearances' with diving on the ball and handballing blindly; the stat only registers a clearance if you actually get it out of congestion into open play (generally to advantage either by getting the pill to a teammate or moving the ball significantly forward).

Skill-levels inside are so good these days with the likes of Mitchell, Pendlebury, Hayes, Selwood, Ball etc. that you can't just expect to seagull-pick off the errant disposal; if these guys are getting their hands on the ball first, the next in the chain of handballs will be a clean take to a flying Hodge, Didak or Montagna, and that's another forward 50 entry. If you think the Pies last year were only 'seagull picking' off other teams' clearance work, you need to watch Jolly, Swan, Pendles and Ball a little bit more.

Considering the fact that we aren't exactly the cleanest team by hand or foot out of congestion anyway (Libba notwithstanding, it seems), winning the contested possession count becomes even more important.

I'm not worried about losing the clearance stats to GC per se, I'm worried about what this means when we play against the other real contenders who WILL make you pay for being second to the ball.

ps. I don't know Zac Smith, but Roughead was supposed to be a 'more mature body' when we picked him up too. Our midfield group don't need excuses, they need a good kick up the bum to get them going -- no one is doubting their talent, it's their application that is the worry, albeit better in April than in September. (Still, you don't necessarily want a team that is turning things on and off as suits them, we have a habit of not being able to wake up in the first week of September too).