GWS are still not a proven second half of a season side. At the start of the year all the talk was of how to stop GC and GWS. Well GC just collapsed after the round four getting it out of the way early, I still hold faith that GWS will suffer a similar fate.
Mumford has been talked up by the media as some kind of tough guy hard done by player who was dumped by his previous team. I remember the talk of him in the media when he went to GWS was of Sydney making a tough but wise decision to get rid of him in order to secure Buddy Franklin. He was off to GWS with his dodgy knee on an early retirement plan. He gets away with the usual kneeing, holding, rabbit punches etc because "he is a tough guy". Watching the replay from last weekend I think Griff did an excellent job on him. If the tough guy got penalised for his acts of bastardry he would be at best an average ruckman.
I cant help feeling like the AFL desperately want one of their new babies to be a success short term and GWS are now that protected species. The dream scenario for them is to have GWS, the shiny new sports car, play Hawthorn, the old muscle car going for 4 in a row, in the Grand Final. Its a revenue and promotional win win for the bent bustard's.