Mazer Rackham

Terrifying words for big Mitch. Almost as terrifying as "the coach has the full support of the board".

And that rhymes with C and that stands for Clark!

This. Tom has shown before what he's capable of, hence the groans when he lets himself down with brain fades and sloppy disposal. Now he's shown us what a top notch Tom McDonald game looks like. It's what we suspected and hoped for. Could be a turning point in his career.

Yes! Nothing like a bit of scoreboard pressure to help the forwards AND backs. Suddenly the oppo are the ones scrambling and getting desperate. We seem to play best when we get a jump start and it's easier to stay in front than to come from behind.

I reckon Collingwood will get into him big time now that the writing is on the wall for Cloke.

They'd be just as fired up as we were after our Ess game. Which proved to be a hell of a firestarter for us. But what the hey. Let's go for the triple whammy in one week. Etihad, Saints, and a team coming off a loss. Three hoodoos beaten in one.

After every punch line they'd throw their arms in their air then put both hands on their head and shout out "that's not how it goes! It was Reagan who said that to the pope!!!" Then mid week they'd call the booking agency and demand you be sacked.

The Hanging Judge

It sounds like there is good Melb support in the crowd.

The Darwin Demons. We're relocating there as its so much closer to China.

Riewoldt has been shown to be far more effective close to goals. Hogan has his best games when he roams around. Everyone knows the classic "positions" don't exist, but one big bloke up forward is not the same as the next. Hogan is more like a traditional CHF than FF, and Riewoldt the reverse. Your backhander at me makes no sense.

Not strictly true. I take your point but some players are better suited to some parts of the ground. Simple example: Lynden Dunn has played his best footy in defence. Was always NQR as a forward. Hogan is a CHF for reasons laid out earlier in the thread. Whereas Jack Riewoldt is not a CHF. He is a FF. Good quick lead, good hands, good straight kick. Where better on the ground than near the goals?

Just used for sex? That sounds alright. How do you arrange that? I'm prepared to give it a go (for science).

I heard the first 6 or 7 minutes. They were pretty complimentary of the whole team and the way they are coached. They went on to talk about TMac and gave him a big rap. Listen here (click "Pure Footy on The Run Home") from about 4:00 to about 13:00: SEN Audio

I see Fyfe as a player who plays in 4 flags for MFC before going on to coach us to another 4. Then joins the board of Collingwood as a double agent and destroys them from within. Then becomes an AFL commissioner and kicks all other clubs off the MCG and rigs the draw so we never have to travel, even to Etihad.

Yes, he must be confident, but are the staff confident talking to him? Who would want to be the one to tell him he can't play? He's a little tank and definitely someone you want on your side and not against you. And his kicking is already better than his old man's ever was.

Viney missed training last week due to a suspected hammy, or at least a niggle that they didn't want to turn into a hammy. I was surprised to see him in the final 22 and didn't expect him to have a blinder.

Tom's bad kicking comes from his ball drop. It's worse than Hogan's. (A lot worse: Hogan is obviously working on his set shots.) Tom throws the ball out in front of him, the ball floats in the air for five minutes before it gets down to his foot, and by the time he gets to kick it, it can be almost anywhere. If he wasn't running after it in the first place, he's miss it completely. All good kickers guide the ball on to their foot. Look at Watts, Brayshaw, Bernie. Plenty good qualities to Tom but he nullifies it with his bad kicking.

Hey, don't forget he's a "defensive" forward. Sounds odd but such things exist in other sports and other vocations. Like hurdlers in track and field who can't jump. ("Give him a break, he's a non-jumping hurdler.") Shooters who can't hit targets. Pool players who can't sink balls. Musicians who can't play their instrument. They can be very successful. Think George W Bush. Or Sid Vicious. Or Eddie the Eagle. Al was much loved. Unfortunately all his days seem to be bad. i've wondered if Roos plays him to fatten him up for trade, like he did with Frawley and Howe. Only Chris isn't doing his end of the bargain.

No I haven't.

I think 58 games is enough to show your potential. Pedo has fulfilled his. Compare with Tyson who (to me) still has upside. And of course Petracca, Hunt, Oliver clearly show enormous potential, unfulfilled to date (naturally).

Today was a very entertaining game where the better side won, by about the right margin considering the difference between the sides. Let's not forget that AFC are a well drilled side and worked their game plan better than we did. When we got the ball they crowded us (as every side knows to do) and did it very well. That is what forced the handball handball handball high floating kick sequences that we saw. And when they got a turnover, they always got a man or two loose. Very quickly. Really, they were good to watch to see how they did it. That's what we should aspire to. Those goals at the start of the third were the deciding factor. To win this game we needed to get in front early and stay there, to force them to play catch up. If they got in front, it was going to put awful pressure on our leaky defence, who, as it turned out, lived up to expectations and let through too many easy goals. Instead, they got the jump on us twice, once in the first quarter, and again in the third. Easy walk in goals that can kill confidence. What was our response? It was pretty good. We didn't drop our bundle in the first, kept the margin manageable, and fought back. Scintillating second quarter. That's why we come to the footy. At the twenty minute mark of the second quarter, the scores had exceeded the full time scores of the previous night's unwatchable game between two "Big Snore" clubs. We turned the tables on them and forced them off their game. (Just couldn't do it for long enough.) In spite of their superior execution of game plan, in spite of the c0ck ups and turnovers, forced errors, blind kicks, Tracc invisible, OMac overwhelmed, Kent/Bugg/Kennedy/Harmes off their game, etc etc, there we were, right in it against one of the premiership favourites. I call that encouraging. Twenty minute mark of the last, we were still in it. Needed a mighty effort, one to keep the footy journos w@nking themselves for a week, but still do-able. Because these days we have the scoring fire-power to pull it off. Which brings us to ... Dawes. Fewest possessions of any player on the ground. Someone said he is a "defensive forward". This must be a new thing in footy. Like a cricketer being a non-scoring batsman. Or a non-wicket-taking bowler. Fact is he has always been that rarest of things, a key forward who can't mark the ball. Today he even had trouble getting into the marking contest. Let alone getting his mitts on it. It really is like playing one short. We all know Pedo is the key forward that John West rejected. But he at least takes some marks. He at least kicks some goals. He at least brings the ball to ground so our mids and small forwards have a chance of grabbing it. He's not the future. He'll never get better than he is now. But he's a better option than Dawes, every week. What about TMac? He's becoming a whipping boy. Frustrating as hell. He can do beautiful things in defence. But for every good thing he does, he seems to nullify it (and very soon after, it always seems) with a horrible error. We've seen enough to know that that is what he brings. He isn't going to get better than he is now. Frost may have passed him. But we still need another KPD if we want to be a top side. But that's the thing. TMac can do good things. Dawes seems not to do anything much.

Carlton last year. Essendon last year. St Kilda last year. Essendon this year. He couldn't mark then either. Was a surprise we went after him.

Oh, no! He's going to Fremantle!

And to think Dennis used to be a coach, and not a bad one!