Axis of Bob

HSOG: You are driving an agenda. It's like when a politician turns up and offers his 'opinion' on government policy - nobody believes them. Your evasiveness is hurting your reputation and, hence, the agenda that you are driving. You last post evading and deliberately misconstruing Nark Meeld's point is but one example of your slimey behaviour on this thread which makes your unpopular opinion even less popular. You are doing your cause more harm than good. If only you could see it from everyone else's perspective ...... Posts like yours are one of the key reasons I didn't post on demonology.

It's you. Otherwise you would answer these questions, rather than skip around them like a snake oil salesman. I'm not in one camp or another, since I don't know enough about the inner workings. But I know when someone is full of [censored] - your continued posting is actually working against your argument, HSOG. You are the political version of Hardnut and tonatopia. Almost like a plant that has been sent here to unite the supporter group against your point.

There is always the possibility of securing both MD picks by trading picks 3 and 4. The onus is then on GWS to satisfy Gold Coast to stop them from bidding on Viney. It actually takes the pressure off us a bit because GWS would do the work for us. It just means we have to wait a year before they play AFL footy. I'm more than happy to wait a year. We'll get Viney who is plug and play, plus whatever else happens.

Further to that, I think a large part of the show is to make it easier for us to do a deal with GWS/GC. Not so much for those clubs, but to make it look less like draft tampering to the AFL. For example, it's easier for those clubs to pass on Viney under the false claim that they didn't want to risk it, and then do a deal with the MFC involving pick 3. If we came out and said that Viney is as good as ours with pick 3 then it would look pretty dodgy when GWS/GC passed on him and then did a deal with us.

700 cases .... is that total or those in excess of the baseline? 10 deaths ..... or 10 deaths more than would be expected? Nearly 4000 people died in the Bhopal disaster. Does this mean that we should not make pesticides? Because that's the same argument you are making. Alternatively, over 300 people die every year in Victoria through road accidents. This means that we should ban cars. The alternative to the pretty clean energy production of nuclear energy is that we produce our electricity by burning coal (since that is the only viable large scale alternative at the moment) which has far worse side effects. It's just that the issues with coal are easier to see and so people aren't as scared. It's the same as why people don't think twice about driving their car, but get irrationally fearful when they get onto a plane. It doesn't make sense to be scared, but it's because very few people understand enough about it.

There has been a massive overreaction to the Fukushima nuclear issue. It's not sexy to go into bat for nuclear power, but the fact is that most people do not understand it well enough to have an informed opinion. Most people are just scared because they can't see what's happening and their only understanding is 'radiation = death'. Have a look at the worst nuclear accident that has ever happened - Chernobyl. How many people do you think died as a result of that? How many people actually died? How many people died of Thyroid cancer as a result of it? This is now over 20 years later, so the long term effects are well known. People are only scared because they don't know enough about it.

We should get Gary Ablett too. Maybe Buddy, although I'm worried about his off field antics, so I probably wouldn't bother. What's Adam Goodes doing next year?

Who said they have to be light bodied? Neeld's game requires guys that can run really well. Look at those who are being recontracted first - athletes, guys with speed that can run. I'd be surprised if this isn't reflected in our drafting too.

Wines is a quality footballer. A footballer's footballer. But I don't think we'll go for him. I think we'll go for a more athletic player. A high level runner and high level user. Wines is only a so-so athlete and so-so user. But he'll still be a very good player - I just doubt it'll be for us.

Ummmmm, you didn't post it in this thread. It's in the Wines thread.

One thing that we haven't focussed heavily on with our draftees is power. Not just strong, but powerful runners. Who are the players that have come on well under Neeld? Look at our best midfielder - Jones. He's a power runner. Look at those who are under question: Cook, Gysberts, Rivers, Moloney, Dunn ..... only Bate and Davis (both of whom have other issues) can power run and are under question. The others are plodders who rely on their footy nous, rather than athleticism. Our only two national draft picks on kids in the last draft were on power runners, especially Taggert. Both are good athletes. When I look at the players we will look at drafting, I'd be looking for midfielders that are power runners. In the modern style of game, the game moves so quickly that you need power, rather than being a roaming accumulator. We picked up on this later than others.

There's no greater certainty than us beating GWS next week. As far as tanks go, GWS are in a Sherman, driven by Arnie and towing a large water carrying vessel. Callan Ward out with "early signs of OP"; Toby Greene with "groin soreness"; Luke Power playing as the sub; Stephen Coniglio a late withdrawal with "hamstring tightness"; Dean Brogan dropped; Eight changes, including a debutant, to a team that won last week; The top three possession-getters from last week were rested, with the fifth highest being the sub (and brought on only after Gold Coast had kicked away); Funnily enough, those mysterious omissions are expected to be out for 2 weeks. I dare say that the tank is well and truly on!!!

The Hawthorn 2008 GF team had an average of 107 games experience per player. Last week we had 72. Against Port we had 64.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Currently they aren't fit enough and we have no way of knowing whether or not they ever will be fit enough to play. But the club has access to their physical testing and are experts in the area, so they'll know whether or not they have the ability to achieve AFL fitness. Whether the club chooses to keep them or move them on, I'll trust their judgement because they'll know.

I have trying to work out if your vendetta against Schwab was about something that I wasn't privvy to, or possibly something insightful and important. It is now obvious to me that it isn't. Your argument is that the players are playing badly, therefore it's the CEO. Not honouring Stynes, by playing poorly, was a rebellion by the playing group against Schwab?!?!? Wow.

I haven't been on this thread yet, but I see that on page 23 it is at the point it should be: It is impossible to prove because developing players is a perfectly acceptable reason. The AFL has already said this so Brock saying the same thing makes no difference at all. That said, the reputations of a few people (Brock and Paul Gardner) have been significantly tainted through this matter.

The style was (really) bad, but he was actually a half decent set shot. Of course, this is relatively speaking. Not sure I'd have him kick for my life, though.

He nominated: http://www.afl.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/208/newsid/143390/default.aspx

You obviously never saw The Prince. Nor did you see Jayson Daniels.

Davey isn't 'The Prince'. That was Scott Chisholm.

Good thread. I am really interested in what we do after this season. Neeld has a very specific idea of the types of player he wants and we have a fantastic hand in this draft (and salary cap) with which to bring those players in. Even when things look bad, they can turn around very quickly. We are not as bad as we look, but we're still a long way from being where we need to be. I'm really interested to see where Neeld thinks 'where we need to be' is.

So your last post wasn't supposed to be read in the way indicated by the arrangement of the words themselves? Fair enough. Good to see someone who blows hot air and isn't prepared to stand by his convictions. Shows real leadership.

Gysberts would benefit from being able to run. If he could run then it wouldn't be an issue. That said, his work rate appeared to be pretty good on the weekend, which was good to see.

Would you be interested in a friendly wager? If Neeld is not fired before the beginning of next season, what would you do? Refuse to post again? (please)

The Hawthorn team of 2005 had the following players in it (year drafted in brackets): - Hodge (2001) - Mitchell (2001) - Lewis (2005) - Franklin (2005) - Roughead (2005) - Crawford (1992) - Everitt (1992) - Hay (1996) - Croad (1997) - Bateman (1999) - Sewell (2003) Specifically, their midfield had Hodge, Mitchell, Crawford, Sewell, Lewis, Bateman, and Everitt. And, even with that midfield, they were still rubbish. Plus they had much better experienced players to help the kids. Now look at our midfield and compare it. Look at our experienced players and compare it.