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Tell him you want him back as soon as possible because he's a very important part of the team. Tell him he'll be straight back in and the harder he works the quicker it will be. Give him a reason to be enthusiastic about his recovery. Make him feel wanted, not a failed product for 2017. Don't put him out to pasture and take away his motivation. Tell him he can be part of something really special and finish the year on a high and achieve with the team. Give the kid something, don't take it away.

He couldn't have picked a worse week to appear, had it been 7 days ago the posters above would all be saying how impressive he was and how we're in good hands. BTW, I still believe that we are. He was definitely listening in Roosy's seminars on "How to say a lot without actually saying anything". PR was the master.

So if Martin gets suspended then Oliver may have it in the bag

Tell that to Hipworth from Brisbane

Uninspiring interview really, not much insight. Trotted out the line about the past being irrelevant when asked how on earth one team can have the wool over us for 17 straight matches. Gotta wonder, how do you improve on mistakes from the past if you choose to ignore them?

Worth a punt on Clarry For sure. Even the cash out value will make it worthwhile. Chopsticks could easily snot someone if they rough him up.

Yup. He only needs to get a fine to cop auto week.

There is nothing in my post saying he should be brought back before he's ready. I was saying we should keep the season very much alive for him and give him incentive and hope, not shunt him off until next season as many suggested.

Take the red n blue glasses off mate. Zac would be best 22 and has 8-10 years of best 22 ahead of him at swans. His high draft pick and the reported 4 year deal is reflective of how he is valued.

The only thing that essentially talks the truth of a football club is what transpires for a couple of hours on the field. Just about everything else is smoke,mirrors ,spin or just plain rubbish imho. Stopped watching pressers and interviews a long time ago. Formulative claptrap. I invite others to do likewise

Dean Kent has eleventy hundred behnds though....

If they were GWS kids all well and good ! Leak the story to the press.Name names. Tell all Mr Reims. Any distraction for them is a bonus.

Any day is a good day to beat the filth, eh BB?

Someone was hoping Kelly came down with a case of the runs this week. MrReims, can you make this happen? A Metamucil Martini perhaps?

Why? It would mean they've been the best and FAIREST player in the league. And IMO players care less about the Brownlow than the media and general public. It's not really a reflection of peer recognition. Player Association awards are probably held higher among playing groups. Danger could have easily pushed to appeal the suspension but the risk of an extra week and damaging his team's home finals chances greatly outweights the potential of winning an award based almost entirely on umpire bias.

Appreciate the concern, but I've been doing this for 16yrs or so. Heresay on a public forum isn't quite the all powerful thing some you of obviously think it is. But I'll keep my observations to myself from now on if it offends so much

Would TMAC really have made a difference? Ultimately we wanted to play on our terms and once Hogan went down we needed Tom forward. Brown has two shots on goal when out marking 3-4 Melbourne defenders. That says it all really. And it was more so our ineptness going forward in the 4th that lost it for us, not Brown beating our defenders.

Better drop Hibberd then, 13 tackles for the season.

Gotta love the Journey. One thing that [censored] me off greatly on Sat was the refusal to use Watts as a spare back reads the game well wasn't influencing the game forward and can take a grab and is effective in this role. The amount of times NM found Brown on a lead was ludicrous massive fail for Goody on weekend.

The other player that will strengthen our defence is actually a forward. If we recruit Mitch McGovern (out of contract) then TMac goes back. Problem solved with some cash to spare. Strategically, we should be making market rated offers to both McGovern and Lever so that one of them falls out of their salary cap.

One thing that I think has gone a little un-noticed, and has been a large key to our success so far this year, has been our terrific spread of goal kickers this season. At the moment we have these players in double figures: Jeff Garlett - 37 Christian Petracca - 23 Tom McDonald - 22 Jack Watts - 20 Mitch Hannan - 19 Jesse Hogan - 14 Jake Melksham - 13 Nathan Jones - 10 James Harmes - 10 Alex Neal-Bullen - 10 One positive that has come out of a year without having Hogan for large parts and missing Watts for a month is that we've had to adapt and learn to find other avenues to goal. Mitch Hannan, outside of a very quiet day yesterday, has been a great acquisition to our side and we've been getting more out of our high half forwards as well. The challenge we now face is being able to learn to play smart, offensive football with Jesse in our side. Some of our best football this year has been without him in the side (Crows at AAMI, Eagles at Domain) and we need to make sure we are not just trying to bomb it on his head all the time. Regardless, it's terrific that we've been able to see this improvement and it certainly holds us in good stead for the years to come.

That's what they want you to think.

I assume your 22nd player is the Invisible Man. That should give us heaps of outside run.

Finally managed to watch a clip of the tackle after reading about it here (and listening to people speak about it on the radio). For mine, @JTR above is correct. If you pin an arm, preventing a player from bracing themselves for their head to hit the ground, you take responsibility. The replay clearly shows Dangerfield pinning an arm and driving Kreuzer head first into the ground. It must be sanctioned with the loss of games. The Brownlow discussion is irrelevant. If you take an action like this and are suspended, you are ineligible. As for consistency, I think the commentators who are arguing that Buddy wasn't charged have it the wrong way around. The fact that Buddy's intentional high contact wasn't picked up on by the MRP indicates that they aren't serious about the head being sacrosanct any more. The lack of consistency here is that Buddy WASN'T charged, not that Dangerfield WAS.

I think it's a bit too simplistic to blame the defenders (not all have I agree) without looking at the whole picture. It's much like when the Australian Cricket team kept 'rotating' the fast bowlers when they were beaten and leaving the batsmen alone. There's another article on afl.com.au today about where we've dropped off lately, and it probably shows some of the reasons why it's so easy for teams to score against us. In a nutshell, in rounds 1 - 13 we averaged over 7 more contested possessions a game, 2.7 more points from stoppages and 4.2 more points from center clearances. Since round 14 that's changed so we average 3.8 less contested possessions, concede 9.8 more points from stoppages and 10.3 less from center clearances. Put basically we're allowing the oppositions to get their hands on the ball too easy, which then results in getting the ball quicker and better into their forward line, so it's easier for their forwards (and harder for us to defend). If we win the ball in the middle and around stoppages, it's harder for the opposition to score because they can't move it as quickly. No coincidence that Jonesy has been out for all those games and Viney also missed 2.5 of them.

On the couch showed a graph with Danger and Martin on 27 with Clarry third on 18. Will be top 5 of he plays well in last 4 games. Needs to work on using his kicking oppressed to turning backwards looking for a handball every time.

Both of those stats point to the midfield. The game is all about pressure. If you allow the opposition mids to kick without any pressure, they can put the ball exactly where they want (hands of their forwards). Lever is just a more aerial Hibberd. Both are very good defenders, but both won't stop the likes of Brown, Daniher, etc. if playing man on man. Omac will again put on muscle in the off season. He will be a Talia or May and will be able to handle the gorillas, but that will be in time. There is no one else coming through, and if Garland were fit, I think I'd prefer Omac.

If Geelong appeal Danger gets OFF! 100% The AFL will be telling Geelong to appeal and the AFL will be telling the MRP to down grade the suspension to a fine. It will happen... No red faces on Brownlow night! Rule change for Brownlow will be made for next season...

I'll back Pedersen in against GWS over Weideman.

Slip in an off prawn, just to make sure

Trust Demonland to turn the the scheduling of the finals series into a 4-2-6.

Cool in a KLF mumuland kind of way?

Avid readers! Bwahahaha!!! Do they wear their spy glasses and use the shoe phone while going through all the threads? Someone please post an image of the Get Smart agent who hides in tiny places. The best story they'd get on here would be about BBOs jolly good flogging habits

Those Demonland Ads and Recent posts are supposed to be there. The Ads are not the same ads that you get when not a life or annual member. These ads are Demonland ads asking people who have been generous in the past to help Demonland out occasionally by buying some cool merchandise or donating. None of it is mandatory as you have already been very generous. If you were not a life member you would have a huge skyscraper ad running down that side. It also displays recent posts as a shortcut for people. I assume this is the forum software adjusting the number of editing options available in the text box where you write posts depending on screen real estate available. It is impossible for me to know everyones screens sizes and their browser preferences and habits. I selfishly just make sure that I am looked after in that department. We had to arrange and rearrange the furniture in here a few times since the new software, the website shitting it's pants and then putting it all back together again and starting from scratch. I'll still be tweaking things in the coming days and weeks. It's a work in progress and I'm always learning new things, !@#$%ing up and starting again. I'm never satisfied.

They aren't good customers, I'd much rather not have them at all

I seem to remember a game earlier in the year with the firsts where his main contribution was tackling and forward pressure

Weideman is a key forward - his main mode of contest should be aerially. It's pretty hard to lay a tackle when you're 4 feet in the air flying for the ball. That's not to say he's exempt from tackling or there's not room for improvement, just that I'd never expect huge numbers. 2 a game would put him up there with the likes of Tex Walker.

Yep. Thats it. Unfortunatley Goodwin sounds like a politician at an electoral parade. I supose he has to though.

You are all over this topic, binman, and you have been spot on in most of your assessment. To simply blame our tall backs for the issues we have it short sighted, naive and show a distinct lack of understanding about our defensive game and the zone we are using.

Time to put some money on the third favourite and Oliver, Dusty has two strikes for the year.

Like a few have said.... you can't blame 6 players for defence now days. It's too simplistic of a discussion. The defenders and our game plan rely on pressure up field and all over the ground to stop defensive enteries/scores. Without pressure up feild they get exposed, which is what i think the op is pointing out. Im not trying to argue with u bb. Just pointing out it depends exactly what the op is saying depends on the response. If u try to understand the press and how goody wants us to play it, its not a back 6 issue per say. It's an 18 man team defence issue not just the back 6. But also i agree there is an issue with the back 6 size and experience wise. Im not saying the op is wrong My overall point is you can be critical but its harsh just to focus on the back 6. Especially considering how we play... defensive stats imo are misleading when analysising them individualy as it's a Team Defense not a traditional back 6 defence. I dont even think goody wants to stop specific players ie brown. He wants pressure to create turnovers and scoring opportunities. Goody knows teams will score and i don't think it's about stopping them. Its about us creating opportunity. Also if we lose clearences etc our game plan starts to get exposed which goes in line with ehat the op is saying but again it's a slightly different discussion and not a back 6 issue

Gotta talk to the AFL about the embarrassing look of a Brownlow medallist presenting a brownlow to the second place getter because he was rubbed out....

Hogan is a two to four goal a game forward. The others are three to six goal a game forwards.

Ben reminds me of an enthusiastic young Labrador with boundless energy and the equivalent trainability. If North tell him to stay, he'll stay.

I would agree but being at the game can only say his was not the only very poor performance in such an apparently important match. Trengove also contributed some useful moments as did others. What he lacked was the "impact" play but again he was not the only one who failed in that. There were a number of players who cost us goals and every player would be dropped if the criteria applied to JT was universal. JT should not be the scapegoat nor should his career be defined on this game. But he may miss this game due to structures and the roles that are needed for this weeks competitors

No I want them all

I really wouldn't...

Other than not planting T Mac at the goal scoring end for the entire match, the defenses greatest weakness was the failure of the midfield.

I disagree that the glaring weakness in our side is our defence. But am very keen to get Lever as he will fit perfectly into our zone strategy . As some have noted just as is the case at the Crows he won't be taking the Browns etc. He will do what he does at the Crows and knock up getting intercept marks and set up attacks with smart kicks. He doesn't address a need so much as value add. Funny week to raise this as yes brown played well (he is almost leading the Coleman so no surprise there) but the reality is that whilst the zone had its moments where there was a mismatch the defence did really well given how poor the pressure from our mids was (which as discussed last week will always cause problems for a zone defence as aggressive as ours, just as it did against the crows). What stat can i find to back my claim up that the back six did well? Let's see - how about the score. They only scored 7 goals with the wind and 11 all day. Like they have done for much of the season the whole back six did their job (which has meant Tmac can go up forward and actually get a mark in our forward line) and kept the roos to a score we should have easily been able to eclipse. I mean come on, the roos only scored 76 points in total. The glaring weakness in this game was our forward line and forward entries. We scored TWO GOALS for the entire second half. Pathetic. We were level at 3 q time thanks to a terrific effort by the back six after the Roos had the wind in the third. We should have smashed them but could only manage two goals kicking with a gale. Hopeless, just hopeless. Not on the back six though. But i 100% agree we have a huge issue with contested marks. We simply do not get enough of them. And it is a long standing problem. The last really good contested mark, with the possible exception of Hogan and Gawn, was Clarke. It is one reason Tmac has been so great to watch up forward. He clunks marks. For me our poor contested marking is one of our two real glaring weaknesses, the other being how few 'elite' kicks we have in the side. Salem, Watts , Hibberd, maybe Brayshaw, maybe Garlett and funnily enough perhaps Jones are our only elite kicks. That is simply not enough and a huge barrier to sustained success, particularly given our game plan relies so much of aggressive use of the ball. When you add that we have a number of players who are poor by hand you have a serious issue.

I was a bit surprised TMac wasn't played in defense when we were going into the wind. We were playing tempo footy and basically trying to limit their scoring ability, so why not put your most experienced KPD on one of their 3 talls. Fair enough to maximise the wind advantage with him forward in the other 2 quarters. I thought it was a bit odd.