Leaderboard

Just on the radio over here in the west, Karl Langdon said he spoke with Glen Bartlett at a function last night who stated Hogan will not be traded under any circumstances. There was a bit more said but mostly stuff we've heard. Hogan is loving Melbourne, his girlfriend is from Melbourne etc.

Speaking of finals (as some on this thread have been) a mate of mine has two tickets for this years Grand Final. One night's accommodation, prime seats in a box, food and drink etc, but he didn't realise when he bought them that this is going to be on the same day as his wedding - so he can't go. If you're interested and want to go instead of him, it's at St Peter's Church in Toorak Road, Toorak at 3.00pm. Her name's Louise.

[censored] Luke Darcy - "Brodie Grundy had 26 possessions last week , the most by any ruckman this season" Except that Max Gawn had 27 vs Collingwood in a BOG performance vs Brodie Grundy.

Plays like he's 200cm

I also hate that odious little fat girl playing the recorder in the AAMI commercial.

Don't worry mate, I don't. I've been sitting through the last 10 years as well. My point is that he was given that flexibility by the support structures that, let's face it, the AFL started by bringing in PJ, and PJ then implemented. My personal view is that he's not a particularly amazing coach. BUT, I don't dispute he's been a fantastic person to come in, say 'everyone just chill the F out, we'll sort out this mess', then get on with driving a team of coaches, recruiters and administrators to get it done. You're also right that Clarkson might have taken as long to fix the complete shambles we were. But I reckon Clarkson, for example, might have squeezed out a couple more wins along the way, because he's a better coach. Edit: To be fair, it's also worth noting that Roos was probably the only available person in the football world who has the swingers big enough to stare down the football world while this resurrection has been going on, and keep the wolves from the door while it gathered pace.

One of my favourties... http://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/2016-07-15/kent-signs-on-until-season-2018

The stakes have been upped with Port rolling North today. You'd think Port and ourselves would be keeping a close eye on that 8th spot with North having fallen away so badly (how good has it been?). Need to win now to a) win one of our remaining "very winnable" games, b) stay in touch with Port and c) put one of the other teams in the same wins range as us a game behind. Simply must win this one.

I'm not sure which of the Scott brothers I hate more. Any suggestions/comments so I can make a decision?

He did last time and it still didn't matter.

Are you the Honey Badger??

Coaching is not merely about win-loss record. If it was, Malthouse, Sheedy, Eade, Williams would still all have a job. The Scott brothers are bordering on unproven because neither have even attempted a rebuild. Longmire inherited Roos' squad and benefited from that. Simpson is overrated. Beveridge again benefited from spectacular drafting and development before him. Roos had none of this. Literally. He came to a club that was arguably the worst list of the past 50 years. How he has turned it over and made it competitive is amazing. His coaching style has at times been at odds with the club P Jackson has wanted to build, and it's clear that Goodwin is driving a lot of it now, but it's working and improving a lot on the pieces he has added. Jetta, Pederson, Hunt, Wagner, Watts, Gawn, M Jones, the way these guys have improved is amazing.. I'm not a massive fan of the Roos "style" of gameplan, but his people skills seem perfectly balanced next to development. He has built-in the perfect team for Goodwin, and started building it before he even knew Goodwin would be involved.

After the Bombers game (We picked underdone players, we'll learn from it), after the Saints game (We picked the wrong players for the ground, we'll learn from it), after the Bulldogs game (In hindsight another tall would have been good), After the Port game (I've got to take responsibility for not making more changes for this week. We spoke about it at match committee). There's 4 examples.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's how they do contracts. Josh Mahoney yells from his office, "First in, best dressed fellas - get em' while they're hot".

Favourite Kent moment

North's slide means that we have something real to aim for in the last 7 games. We have to aim for that finals spot which means we have to win tomorrow. Doubly important given St Kilda is in the same boat as us and has the easier draw than us. Also, I hate St Kilda and I hate losing to St Kilda. So there's that, too.

Yes ....the nucleus of the list may have been there at the Swans but Roos tweaked them ...bought them together & won a premiership...McCartney bought a list together & Beveridge tweaked the list (hasn't yet won a premiership) The point is everything has to be right for all the "Gods" to align & to win the ultimate prize but for someone to come in & to turn around "off field & on field " in basically the leagues "basketcase" in 3 years & to leave us with a very good chance of playing finals is to me ....amazing ....I so love watching us now & thinking that most games we have a chance of winning is just so rewarding ... After 30 plus years of misery I feel "hopeful" thank you " Roosy" !!

Hmmm, you make some good points there

Normally I wouldn't condone assassination attempts...

Adam Hills reminds me of Will Anderson, which i hate.

I hate being reminded of Will Anderson.

I hate Will Anderson

If North does end up losing, it really opens the door not just for Port, but for us, Collingwood and St Kilda too. Collingwood's draw is tough but if they can beat GWS on the road they can beat a lot of teams. St Kilda's draw, though I do not rate them at all, is easy (they still have us, North, Carlton, Richmond and Brisbane, which can get them to 12 wins). I still think North will hold onto 8th but it would be nice to re-enliven the back-end of the home and away fixture by having a few clubs' finals chances back in contention.

First year i supported The Demons mate. Remember it well. Not much has changed!!!

Roos is practically a politician when it comes to talking to the media.

Maybe its me....I just dont care where he ends up. The era of looking/needing silver bullets is over. We will develop anyway Rather get a top FB anyway

It is if you can fight.

To put it quite simply he did it at Sydney & got a flag & that team still hasn't dropped out of the 8 & he has set us up the same way ....I will be eternally grateful over the future years when we will probably realise exactly what he has achieved.

I've been staunch for Watts in the face of some truly bad games. Also Neville,Gawn and the skipper. I've backed Hunt to become a star early. I still say Salem will be a star. Never doubted Jack Viney. In fact,I'm very rarely wrong ever. About anything. Most of you will know that by now.

Nah, I am just bored, I work on a ship and all we had the past 3 weeks was wimbledon on the TV.

He's not our best ever, but, like Neeld, he recognised a damning rift between the club and the rest of the league. We don't know how other coaches would have delt with it, but don't underestimate just how bad the list and club more broadly was when Roos arrived. Some coaches would have made bandaid moves, others may have just stuck with the current crew. We could have ended up like Richmond where we topped up, finished mid table, made finals and then dropped again. Roos was literally given the flexibility to build from the ground up. Clarkson didn't make the finals until his third season and he had a much better squad in 2005 than Roos did in 2014. We are on the edge of finals and should [censored] it in in 2017. Arguably, Clarkson would have taken just as long to take a team to finals that had a guy like D Terlich finish high in the B&F in the year before he arrived.

Fremantle might have lost, but they didn't look tired to me after a six-day break and only making two changes. So what's the requisite number of 'tired' players we need to 'swap out' after a Darwin game? 2? 3? 4? 8? 10? What numbers will make a difference? Why do you think players can't recover from game that was not particularly hard after 8 days? Why not the whole 22 just to make sure the whole team is 'fresh'?

Geelong looked terrible tonight. No system, no forward line. You take the free agent out and they'd have gone down to the 16th team on the ladder. I don't see success for them long term. None of their younger players are coming on, and they've had a fair few seasons to get games into them. And their coach is a d*ck.

you would think they know what they are doing, but you do wonder just a little

Interesting when you don't go in a particular thread and go back a bit when you do. The many DL critics of Omac are clearly of completely divergent thinking to the coaching panel who clearly rate him as both a keyt part of our future and a key part of the now. His selection this week is clearly not just about getting game time into him. This is a critical match for us to win and they really wanted omac in the side because with him we are a better chance of winning. With his injury it would have been very easy to rest him and replace him with Dunn or Garland. But they didn't. To be clear i am a big fan of both Dunn and Garland but this is an excellent decision.

Looking at the formatting of this post, it looks like Trac is asking about Garlands whereabouts... In answer to your (or Christian's) question, he's progressing in the twos)

Could watch that over and over again!

Has a hint of arrogance that I love (and would hate in opposition players). His surname is appropriate. This one was never in doubt, but I found myself grinning at this news.

Have been impressed by what the current recruiting team has done thus far. As far as the thread poll goes, I would describe Roos as a wonderful 'football manager'.

You had me at Max Gawn. Lost me at Phil Ceberano. Then lost me again at Dave O'Neil.

You could always try friggin` in the riggin`......

I still say Roosy was the man to do the job that had to be done post 2013...

Clarkson did it at Hawthorn. Beveridge did it. They definitely have runs on the board over anything Roos has done as a coach. What he HAS done, which is unarguable, is draw tons of heat from the media, deflecting it from other parts of the club (including the players). I don't believe for a second that all the guff about 'woops we made a mistake again this week at selection' and the like is anything but drawing attention away from the players, and giving them time to develop without that scrutiny, because the media don't question Roos when he puts that stuff out there.

LOL You still watching deefella?? This will go down as one of the most poorly timed posts of all time. Can someone with IT ability load the replay of said soft player running into an oncoming pack and being KO`d. As brave an effort as you will ever see.

Ah well, different strokes and all that. I love his stuff.

Yesssssssssssssssssssssssssss.

Another one of those good things happen when he has the ball in hand types. This year has done his confidence a lot of good and round him off for a big next year. A couple more tatts and up his endurance and we should all be wrapt.

Beat me by 20 seconds Stuie. Cracking news. A really important signing going forward.

Those comments from Dunn re: struggling to adapt seem to confirm what others thought: his move forward and subsequent omission after the last Saints game were due to a failure to play his role. I hope he works it out - it can only be good for the team if he's able to put genuine pressure on the young defenders currently holding fort, and force his way back in. He's got time, the skill, and hopefully the will. Good luck.

Ha! Your cover is blown, MD! We should have realised this ages ago. Reasons we can tell he's not Einstein: He's not 137 years old. (Are you, MD?) He would have posted the gravitational formula adjusted for relativity, like so: The real Einstein didn't care for the AFL competition. His famous quote: "God does not play dice, unlike the AFL umpires" summed up his attitude. Some other famous Einstein quotes. "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I'm talking to you, Dawes!" "That's dropping the ball! That's dropping the ball every fückin' day of the week! Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."