deanox

not true at all. essendon had been caught for rorting the system and joe gutnick went to the afl and 'owned up' that we had done it as well. instead of going easy on us for coming clean they smacked us- worse than essendon or carlton got hit when they got caught. and if you wonder why we've been in the current onfield mess you'll realise that is directly related to those draft picks. we lost picks over 2-3 years including first round picks which meant we had a big hole in our experience around a certain age. once that age group hit 24-26 we struggled, we didnt have the footballers in their prime to win games. even now there is a gap of players between the 'jamar and davey' age group and the bruce and green age group.

i dont care what the nrl says, they will never be able to take that away from the players. they were the best team of the year regardless of what they go paid. it might be dissapointing but i dont think they would care. imagine sometime told you that 'a premiership you won a few years ago doesn't count any more'? you still won it on the day, that'll be what counts to them.

so you say that jamar didnt go alone in those matches, because he has support. but he will have the same level of support this week from dunn as well. im not sure why anyone thinks martin can ruck. he is tall, ill give you that. but that doesnt mean he can ruck. and dunn has been good the last two weeks. if dunn is getting killed and we are struggling those times that jamar is off, we can swing everything around. throw green behind the ball at the time that jamar goes off and dunn goes into the centre. tie the game right down, and choke it up - we did this against collingwood twice when they kicked a couple of consecutive goals. then after 5 minutes throw jamar back on and swing around to a 6 man forward line again and hit them hard when we are ready. we can control the pace of the game: we've done it this year. it is important to control it when you need to, and if thats how we need to play so be it. RE what hpapens if jamar goes down? I've no answer. but i had no answer before the richmond game, or before the collingwood game either. it was no different. if it was good enough then it is good enough now, the chances of a jamar injury have not increased. i agree long term we need another ruck, or a ruck forward (just a proper alternative) however we dont have an option that will make the team better. we may gain in the ruck by bringing in spencer but we will lose out elsewhere, and i think we will lose more than we gain. pick your best 22 and let them win their own way. make brisbane match up on our in-form smalls and mediums. who is merret going to play on? neither ruckman can drop back; no one to play on. but we have good tall backs to counter if they drift forward. how are brisbane going to match up on us?

why? he went all day against jolly/fraser and against simmonds/vickery? if it wasn't an issue in those games, why this week? i have no problems bringing in another ruck to help jamar, but at this stage i genuinely don't believe that any of the options are worth bringing in to the 22. spencer doesn't offer enough around the ground to justify a spot, and is still only learning the ruck thing. the brisbane duo would thrash him. And martin is hit and miss up forward and there are no guarantees he will perform much better than dunn in the ruck; nothing he has shown me so far suggests he can/will.

will be very interesting to see later in the year what they decided. 'best and fairest' on the day shouldn't include someone who was reported but if the report is thrown out and he doesnt get votes has every right to be a bit dissapointed.

no way we should drop players after a 55 point win. dunn has performed well the past 2 weeks and won't be dropped for a player who doesnt have a position and who is not dominating at vfl level. similarly, if you were brisbane and you were coaching against the mfc side from today, where do you play merret? at fb presumably but he cant gith green or sylvia both too mobile. same goes for bate. bringing in martin just gives their big guy a match up that he is likely to win. there is no way either bail (great running game capped off with 2 goals) or bennel (genuine play maker who has time and space, as well as good disposal AND who went with the body this week when it was his turn) will be dropped for martin. imo you only get in this week if someone is injured or suspended, or if you played a blinder. i dont think anyone wll add enough to our team to change it after the win.

is that when he appeared to injure his knee? he limped around for a while after that?

i have read the above posts, but it doesn't mean that 'i wouldn't be surprised' if there was a late change. who is the back up in the ruck if jamar goes down in 5 minutes with a knee? we simply don't have anyone else available to play that position, not even a tall forward who can pinch hit. we may well have the shortest forward line ever. thats why it wouldnt surprise me.

i see grimes as following in the footsteps of a player like junior. will always give 110%, will hardly ever play a bad game, but for some reason i don't think he will be the 'superstar' type player. don't get me wrong, i think he will be a fantastic player, but i think he will be the type of player underrated by everyone isn't melbourne. i picked frawley. i think he will be an absolute standout. being a defender he might not get rated as 'the best' but he will be the fletcher to the hird, the scarlett to the (insert geelong midfielders here) to silvangi to the williams/kouta etc. if defenders get equal recognition, frawley will be our best.

dunn has a few hit outs to his name over the years, but they are 3rd man up's. im not sure if ive ever seen us play so short - tall players are: frawley, warnock, garland, jamar, bate, dunn. everyone else is medium or smaller. interesting set up. it wouldn't surprise me if there is a late change somewhere for either spencer or newton. i favour newton over spencer because i think spencer gives a lot in the ruck but not much elsewhere. newton can play forward (even if his contribution forward isn't as great as spencers could be in the ruck), but dare i say it it makes us more flexible.

agreed RR. I think if we can come out and hit them hard they may wilt. The last 3 weeks we have come out hard but not been able to translate that into scoreboard pressure (the collingwood game was our performance in that regard, but we couldn't been further in front). Against hawthorn we scored lots early but only behinds. a few goals early might blunt the tigers endeavour. we definitely don't want to let them into the game if we can help it.

how much was thewind blowing in a particular direction? it usually swirls around at the g. imo it was blowing across the punt road end goals, not towards them.

6. Frawley 5. James McDonald 4. Bennell 3. Dunn 2. Green 1. Trengove Apologies: Grimes and Bate.

in that situation i would say that the drop kick is illegal, because the rules state that you cannot bounce the ball while being tackled. and thats meant to apply to being tackled and putting the ball on the ground also, even though the umpires do not enforce it.

this post is like a watered down version of one of yze_magics...

sylvia the only one to come back in imo... while the message should be that while today was a great effort, we still need to win, i don't think anyone in the side deserves being dropped. bartram or bennell are probably closest to bring in slvia. i would like to see spenc back in, but he cannot play forward. not much point in him playing on the bench and only 5 minutes a quarter.

we only had 6 goal kickers and newton was one of them. not an awesome game from newton, but i never thought he did anything wrong. he isn't a ruckman but was thrown in there. at this point i think he offers more than miller does, at least he will stay forward and contest in the forward 50. dunn was good. i wish his marking in front would improve just that little bit though, i'm still not sure if he has enough to be a long term forward.

for me the biggest ump issues were where they paid the free kicks (ie how many did collingwood get in their forward line?) and when did they pay them? how many times did they not pay the first free, and would pay the second or third. missed some obvious ones today.

credit to bailey today. a lot of things you cannot credit or blame the coach for, such as the increase in our kicking efficiency from 52% last week to 65% this week. or even the lack of flat feet which plagued us last week. What you can comment are the following: -we looked to spot up a man in the centre almost every thrust forward. a clear game plan direction which worked. - in the second and third quarters, collingwood kicked the first couple of goals. both times we managed to hold the game up and wrest some momentum back. credit to the coach here, both times we swung an extra man in defence to slow the play, then once we choked it down he went forward again and we scored. a clear change of coaching tactic helped control the course of the game in this situation. - we started with 6 men in the forward line, only two of whom ran into the square. for the majority of the day we had a couple of players deep. we didn't do this last week, and it worked today. - harry obrien shepparded players on the mark non-stop all day. after a quarter of this our backline started doing a similar thing, possibly a coaching direction, unless warnock saw it from the other end and thought it was a good idea. perhaps another ruckman would have made the difference today? collingwood got a run on a couple of times that jamar was off.

yeah newton didn't have a great day, but not sure he did much wrong. kicked a goal when he had the opportunity, and was requried to spend a fair bit of the time in the ruck, which isn't his position. i actually was happy with bruce today as well. yeah he made a couple of errors, but he didn't make them consistently all day, like usual. he got 19 touches, and at least hit some targets with the handballs. I wonder if that is because players actually ran past rather than standing flat footed?

so do you think the problem with the mdifled is that they are not good enough to get it out, or that they don't have anyone to give it to? i think its the later, whether the issue is 'don't have any other mids to give it to because they are all flat footed' or 'don't have a forward to give it to because they are all out of position' i'm not sure, likely a combination of both.

Perspective: Geelong Essendon friday night, 57,000 members. Pretty happy for 45000, for two teams who didn't make the finals last year. It was also the game that was apparently the most easy to predict for the round. 50k would have been fantastic, but 45 is pretty good.

thats how i read it. the forwards push up to try and offer short options around the contest, because for some reason the guys around the contest don't get it out. the reasons I see that they don't get it out are a, b and c. rectifying f) will do two things imo: at first we will get smashed. the mids will constantly get done holding the ball, and will turn it over a lot. but the upside is that there will be a lot more space for them to work in as well, so they will able to see where to run without having 3 half forward flankers all standing there. as they start to realise this, hopefully they wills tart to run to the right positions, which imo are natural footballing positions to run to, and as a result will have more time to look up and see the forwards (who are now in the forward line, preferably leading towards the contest). It may take a few weeks of the midfield getting smashed for them to learn how to do this, but I think trying to drag our forwards back into the forward line will result, in the long term, in the midfielders having more space to work with and implementing their part of the game plan better. HOWEVER, if we did this, initially other teams would smash us. They would have more space, they would be applying the pressure, and we would have less bodies around to lock the ball up (sort of like a localised flood). Ever wonder why the opposition always seems to have 2 spare blokes floating a kick or less just behind the play, so that when we turn it over they are ready to smash us? Thats because their players aren't pushing into the contest to lock up the play. What does everyone else think of this?

i 'think' the game plan involves handballing to advantage to a player running past the contest. it may involve handballnig to a player running to the defensive side of the contest, allowing that player to make space. the big problems are a) most players don't run past the contest to make space B) handballs often go directly to a player (which means they are either court flat footed, or they have to stop to recieve the ball, meaning they cannot satisfy a) ) or c) after the first 2 handballs make some space, the 3rd player looks to handball again, instead of kicking it forward. c) is caused by: d) indecisiveness and a lack of confidence, e) poor work up the ground from players (i.e. no leading or making space for the next ball to be delivered) or f) no one up forward because the half forwards have all pushed outside the forward 50. Solutions: -Players need to run past the contest to accept handballs, not stand still and call for it -Players need to handball (and kick) to advantage by putting it out in front so their team mates can run onto it -Players need to take the attacking option when it presents (i.e. kick it forward when they have the space and time to do so, not another handball) -The forward line needs to stay deeper, so that there is always a forward line; they need to lead at the ball so that as soon as the ball is released they are ready to be hit up

Out: Miller. In: Sylvia. McNamara is close for me, but he would have to push Warnock out and i don't think he will. Warnock shouldn't have been playing on Roughhead, it should have been Frawley (or Martin if he was in), Warnock was undersized, but not fast enough to take any of the other hawthorn forwards. Miller was woeful, and I'd rather see Sylvia play at CHF than Miller. He didn't even play like a forward, more like a floating half forward.