Gator

I have once. Ended up in hispital. Nothing to do with you though. It's life. Those agrieved by Matthews' unlawful attack on their person are well justified, if that's their view. That's their business. I'm not invested in their concerns. I'll leave that to them. I loved Matthews the player. My choice.

I don't disagree, although I do genuinely think we have more raw talent. They just seem to have more maturity and cohesion. That said, it's definitely a winnable game if we're on song.

The difference between us seems to be that I don't care that he performed thuggish acts. I genuinely couldn't give a rat's toss bag. I judge him on his footy prowess. Oh for him to have been a Melbourne player. Clearly, we see things differently. I get it.

Grundy went to Sydney as a forward, but couldn't cut the mustard. It may be worthwhile having a look at him in defence even though the club may see him more as a forward.

Make it 10 levels. He kicked 91 goals from the midfield when he was 25. Won a B&F as a teenager in a premiership year.

Yes, Parish has a long career ahead of him. He's an unbelievably busy and smart player, who will really hurt teams once he gets a tank. He reminds me of a young Cousins and a young Crawford.

Lockett was incredibly quick over the first 15 metres for a beast of a man. I see no similarities whatsoever. And obviously it's an entirely different game due to the onerous running required of all players, including key position players. McCartin's present physique won't allow him to get near his potential. By the time he's 23-24 he'll look very different.

It was discussed on Demonland at the time and from memory it was an issue with the coach. Some old timers may shed more light, but I definitely remember that he was angry with the club.

Jones, Vince, Tyson, Watts, Tom McDonald and potentially Spencer are the only players to saddle up in Roos first game as coach 3 years at the same venue. We had talent such as Terlich, Georgiou, Michie, Bail, Matt Jones and Fitzpatrick gracing the field that day. While I'm not overly confident it's not hard to understand our abysmal record against most teams, let alone the Saints at Etihad, with such poor AFL quality players. We're a totally different unit to teams gone by.

I wouldn't. It's a terrible idea. Kudos for thinking left field.

The ubiquitous Melksham. Hogan won't be lining up on Riewoldt.

In the same circumstances I'd share the information if I was going to post about it.

Patent nonsense. Matthews wasn't the only one to perform brutal acts in the 70's and 80's. To suggest the game is poorer for his presence is ridiculous. An incredible player and I'm privileged to have seen some of his career.

He's been disappointing. Has he kicked a goal in the 3 games ? Might have kicked one. I was looking on a Saints forum today and a few posters agreed he's not presently in their best team, but they know he'll be selected. His physique still looks like that of a bush full-forward.

Hunt is more a defender than a mid. He'll attack, but his first priority is to defend and stop his opponent. While plenty of players (12-13) will have minutes on ball there are still a core group of 5-6 mids in any team who take the most centre bounces and are prevalent around the stoppages. Until we can rely on a core group of 5-6 week-in week-out to win contested footy and clearances then I see us not providing the consistency required to play finals. We increased our inside 50 count in 2016, but we need to increase it further this year. If Viney, Tyson, Oliver, Stretch, Salem, and Brayshaw can genuinely elevate their games in 2017 then I think we will. I'm not convinced.

My biggest concern is still the midfield. which might sound surprising. Potentially it's terrific, but unless some key components can take the next step then we won't be finals bound in 2017. On the weekend the 3 highest rating players for West Coast were their mids in Gaff (145), Masten (125) and Mitchell (123). Priddis and Shuey round out a very solid top 5 group of mids. Melbourne's highest ranking mids were Oliver (123), Lewis (93) and Bugg (85). Viney and Tyson need to take their games to a higher level and I'm not convinced they will in 2017. Lewis and Jones can't afford to drop off (I don't think they will). Salem needs to start stamping himself as a quality week-in week-out mid. Stretch needs to elevate his game and Brayshaw needs to have more midfield minutes and not just be a 10-15 possession high half-forward. Vince seems destined for a back-line role, which further robs the midfield; Bugg is little more than a run of the mill role player, and Petracca plays forward. I'm as excited by our future prospects as the next supporter, but I have these nagging doubts whether 2017 will be the year all of these unknowns come together they way we'd like. Oliver will become a genuine superstar and start making some serious inroads, but my concern is we're still short on the genuine midfield class necessary to play consistent finals-bound footy. If the midfield pops it makes life so much easier for the back-line and forward-line. A dominant midfeild will help cover the cracks we have down back.

Running patterns so advanced ? That's a new one. There are really only 4 reasons a player is overlooked. 1. His teammates don't trust him 2. He's not predictable to his teammates 3. There are better options 4. They don't see him

I agree about Wilson, he was a star. But I also agree that Matthews is the greatest player in history. He won a B&F in a premiership year when he was 19. He also kicked 91 goals as a rover in 1977 before he became more of a permanent forward. The same year he averaged 27 disposals, which would be the equivalent of 35 in today's footy. Not to mention 9 B&Fs in strong teams. Goat.

Hawkins was a fantastic player, but a rung below Flower imo, who was unquestionably the greatest wingman of all time. Unfortunately, due to a lack of team success Robbie never features at the pointy end of these "best of" lists.

I take no notice of supporters grievances when it comes to preseason player selections. None. Their views are predicated on nothing more than emotion and are utterly irrelevant.

We played Carlton when they had Simpson, Gibbs, Murphy, Docherty, Kreuzer, Casboult. None of these senior players lined up against the Saints. It's silly to reference the Saints game as a comparison. Cripps played against St Kilda, but unsurprisingly wasn't dominant coming off a poor preseason due to missing months with a back injury.

He was shocking too. Nothing to do with being "kind".

Spencer took 2 marks and had 7 disposals, which is in line with his 2 mark 8 disposal career average. He's not a 60 or 40 goal forward, so it's safe to assume he won't be kicking 3 very often or even again. At best I see a goal a game (and I don't see that). Is a couple of maks and a handful of possessions enough to be choosing Spencer in the team ? Not for me. It will be interesting to see our round 1 lineup.

Just watched the game again. The mistakes and turnovers were incredible. The amount of goals they kicked from our basic disposal errors was amazing. They also had 3 shots at goal from deliberate out of bounds. And 2 of those were rubbish decisions. Our kicking and decision making into our forward 50 was also the pits. It makes you wonder why the game was relatively close. Obviously we did some things well, but I'd argue we almost couldn't play any worse. It's easy to pick one the usual suspects like ANB, Harmes and the McDonalds, but Lewis, Viney, Vince, Watts, Jones, and especially Tyson (understandably rusty) had some horific disposal errors where they couldn't spot up easy 20-30 metre targets. That said, most of that stuff is quite easily rectified.

Yeah, I can't come at it. Spencer is just not a good enough footballer for me. I'll be disappointed if he's named, but I'm virtually certain he won't be.