titan_uranus

How does it get worse?! Voges' technique abysmal. Rogers, Smith, Marsh and Voges all out due to poor technique.

Dear lord, 4/16 after 16 balls. Rogers, Warner, Marsh all get ducks. Voges, shunted down to number 6, is already at the crease 20 minutes into the innings. This is the Test with the Ashes on the line. What an inept response.

And that's it - Ashes almost certainly gone. 3/10 after 8 balls. Clarke moves down to 5, already batting 6 minutes in.

Can it keep rising? I thought the membership year finished on 31 July? If it stopped at that number, I'd still be happy. After the mediocre year we've had, following on from 8 previous years of horror, to still have 47 short of 36,000 signed up members is great I reckon.

If you choose not to go to the football because you'd like to boo Goodes (or any other player) but you fear being called a racist, then good riddance. The stadium will be better off without you.

We should beat Carlton, but we should have beaten Essendon and St Kilda - we are capable of losing to Carlton. We can also beat North and GWS, but those games will depend on whether we play for 100% of the game or not. We won't beat Fremantle and I don't see us troubling the Dogs at Etihad.

Just noticed a couple more we've broken this year: Win a game in July (broken in Round 16 vs Brisbane) - we'd lost our last 16 games in July and the last win was Round 17, 2011 vs Port Adelaide (in Darwin). Win a game in August (broken in Round 18 vs Collingwood) - we'd lost our last 10 games in August and the last win was Round 21, 2012 vs GWS.

I think Viney and Vince will take two out of Swallow, Dal Santo and Higgins - not sure which.

Who plays on Waite? I'm not convinced bringing Fitzpatrick (or Jamar) in is a good thing for the balance of the side, but when I consider having to play Garland or Howe on Waite, I'm not sure I like that either.

What do you mean by 'of course'? And why can't an American notice the endemic nature of racism in Australia?

Assuming no injuries, IMO the only possible outs will be Michie and Grimes. Michie was given a chance yesterday and patently failed to take it. I'm not against him getting another one, but I'm also not against dropping him if Salem, Kent, Toumpas or Newton are performing at Casey, as IMO each of them is a better player than Michie. I liked parts of Grimes' game yesterday, but if Salem is ready to come back in that swap is almost irresistible.

VDB laid a big one on him just before HT, he was shaken after it. I loved it. Is anyone suggesting otherwise?

To those who say 'Collingwood weren't that good' - have you considered that they weren't that good because of our pressure? Our pressure today was the best it's been since the Geelong game. Funnily enough, we also made WB, Richmond and GC look bad with our pressure too.

I'm not sure why Haddin would be considered more stable as a middle order batsman (let alone batting at 6) when he's average around 15 for the last year, whilst Nevill is coming off a 50 when he tried to hold the second innings together at Edgbaston. Not bringing Haddin back can be debated, but Nevill took his chance and did more than enough to hold his spot. Agree with dropping Clarke down a spot though - as a last-ditch attempt to get his form back, I'd bad S Marsh at 4 and Clarke at 5, with M Marsh at 6 and Nevill at 7. I don't know if a change will be made to the bowlers, but I think it's really risky to play Cummins who's played just one first class game in two years. Siddle's deserved a recall and on that basis I think it would have to be Hazlewood who makes way (more like-for-like that way), but we may well leave it as you say.

Good clearance work, but the stats don't show how slow he is with ball in hand. Those who hate Toumpas loved to pipe up about every time Toumpas got caught with the ball - it's happening to Tyson far more regularly than it ever happened to Toumpas. It's a frustrating trend in Tyson's game right now - he's coasting to contests a bit, and when he gets in them he's regularly too slow to dispose of it. Still, as I said, I like his clearance work and we need to keep playing Vince, Viney, Tyson, Jones with Gawn to keep them learning.

You'd have been proud. Not only was there a definite concerted effort to keep forwards forward of the stoppages, when we were struggling our forward line was empty.

'Grossly unfair'? It's not like we lost and we have 4 or 5 players lining up to be dropped. If Salem is fit and ready to come back in, it's either Michie or Grimes, and at least Grimes got his hands on the ball while he was on the ground. It will be disappointing, but not 'grossly unfair'. A lot of people don't like Dawes, and I definitely agree that he's a flawed player, but this is such a ridiculous post after today's game. Dawes provided a huge workrate and today he didn't just drop marks. He provided strong leads (we're a crap running side so leading forwards is a plus). He positioned properly. He worked in tandem with Hogan. And then in the fourth quarter he held two strong marks - for a player who often drops them, those were signs of improvement. He might not be the long-term CHF we'll need to make finals and contend again, but to slam him after today's game only shows your pre-judged dislike for him as a player and has nothing to do with how he actually played today.

That was almost the upset of the year - GC without most of their midfield up against West Coast playing to put distance between themselves and Hawthorn, and West Coast very nearly blew it. Next week's West Coast v Hawthorn game should be a ripper. They have a white one too - they don't wear their away jumper because the AFL tells them to, they wear it because it's their heritage and their fans like it. When the AFL tells them they clash they wear a white jumper instead.

Another observation - Elliott clearly wasn't 100%, or else he wouldn't have started as the sub. Conclusion - Collingwood arrogantly thought they could carry him through the game as the sub. Makes the win better. He was clearly the worst on the ground for us when the time came to make the sub move. Someone had to be subbed off and today, when the side lifted, Michie was the obvious choice. If it had been Newton, or M Jones, or McKenzie, it most likely would have been the same - start them, see how they go, and if they don't perform, sub them for Harmes (who took his chances I thought). Someone has to be the sub, and someone has to be subbed off. Fringe midfielders who aren't improving and don't take their chances are prime candidates, and the system will keep being like this until the sub is removed.

Next week a ripping chance to knock another two off the list. We play our best football against sides between 5th and 14th on the ladder. When we hit the top 4 sides we wilt, when we play bottom 4 sides we buckle under the pressure of expectation. North is right in the bracket of sides I like us playing against (ditto Bulldogs and GWS, when we get to play them).

6 - Vince (BOG by a country mile IMO) 5 - Gawn 4 - Watts 3 - Viney 2 - Dawes 1 - Cross But really, the most important thing is that it was a real team performance, with our senior players much more improved.

Great game. Blew some easy shots in the fourth and really should have won by 50, but that last quarter was utter domination from a team that look out on its legs late in the third. Vince is just incredible, Garland improved considerably, Dawes was great, Howe looked interested for once, and Garlett got far more involved than recent games. Senior players today actually performing to the required level, what a difference it makes. Two things I noticed structurally: We made huge efforts to keep forwards forward of the ball. There was a stoppage on the wing in the first quarter where we would usually have Hogan or Dawes at the 50 and no one else forward of centre, but today we had Hogan deep in the 50, with Garlett and Dawes at 50. Clint Bizkit would have been impressed. We employed Jones (and others at times) off half back at centre bounces, running in at the bounce to provide a runner towards our goal and blocking their run towards their goal. I really liked this strategy; although we didn't dominate centre clearances, I thought it added an attacking flair to the side. There are still issues of course, and I'm disappointed Michie got the opportunity and didn't take it, but today was another example that the talent is there and the gameplan is perfectly fine, when we execute it. Four quarters of pressure and application and we are a totally different side. Yes, you will. Before the season is out, I'm sure.

Clarke dropping Bell was the last tiny little chance we had in this Test. It's hard to believe we're going to be 2-1 down against a side with Lyth, Bairstow, Stokes and Buttler in its top 7, Moeen as the spinner, and Finn as a pace bowler, but such is Australian cricket at the moment. Marsh in for Voges, and I'd drop one of Starc or Hazlewood for Siddle - the stats suggest Starc is performing worse but Siddle is more like for like with Hazlewood than Starc. Need to back Rogers, Warner and Smith in to make runs without Anderson bowling with the new ball at Trent Bridge, get a platform for Clarke (maybe put him down to 5 and put Marsh at 4) so that he can bat with a bit of freedom possibly.

On the basis that Melbourne in 2014 didn't get a PP, there is no way anyone can convince me that Brisbane in 2015 deserves a PP. Even if we'd got one last year, I still don't think Brisbane should get one. The talent on their list is obvious, their year has been wrecked by injuries (as well as being crap of course, but it's not like they've had their first choice side out there much). Despite this, because they're in Queensland, I'm a lot more confident in Brisbane's chances than I was in ours last year.

I don't agree with this at all. If you're trying to say that, if we hadn't beaten Geelong, the last three weeks would have been unsurprising, I don't agree - I wasn't surprised at it, given where we've come from. As for the last three weeks only being disappointing because we beat Geelong, I can't agree with that either - the last three weeks have been appalling football that would be at a low, unacceptable level no matter what we'd achieved previously. We could have had just the GC, Richmond and WB wins and gone into these three weeks still thinking to ourselves that it's three bottom 6 clubs and three chances to put in decent, strong performances. The three weeks have been substandard in most KPIs, most other stats, and obviously results, and the Geelong game has nothing to do with that.