titan_uranus

I don't get your point. Essendon has the drug issue, the effect of which is pretty much equal to what we've gone through over the last few years on its own, but because 'they already have a good list in place' it doesn't matter. Well, isn't it our fault that we don't already have a good list in place? We've had some pretty bad issues come up, but almost all of them have been of our own doing. The tanking investigation was dodgy, but it wouldn't have happened at all if it wasn't for our conduct in 2009. Obviously the tsunami wasn't our fault, but that brought the club together more than anything. The rest of the issues you've named are essentially our own fault or are things we could have mitigated against, and we didn't. I'm not sure what your point is, then.

That's unfortunately how it works. That's why we had to wear white against St Kilda, as the AFL deems their home jumper to be 'dark' with ours also being 'dark'.

AFL deems Collingwood's home jumper to be 'dark' (it's based on black), and Geelong's to be 'light' (it's based on white). Therefore, they don't deem this to be a clash. I'm not justifying the policy, just explaining it.

St Kilda's performance tonight must concern Roos and the players. It has to. If a club that was, two weeks ago, favourites for the wooden spoon can force West Coast into this kind of scrap, what is wrong with us? Never mind Hardwick, what about Brenton Sanderson? Adelaide not giving a yelp despite not having the injuries they had last year.

Mainstream is also Judd, Hodge, Franklin, Goddard, Riewoldt, Whitfield, Patton, Boyd, etc etc etc etc. So you don't care what Emma Quayle thinks, only what you think, which you rationalise post-draft. You don't want us to pick 'mainstream' picks even though the vast majority of 'mainstream' picks are correct, and at any rate what 'mainstream' really means here is 'based on the evidence'.

I see what you're trying to say, but when you wrote 'I'm not renewing my membership until Clark comes back', it made it sound like you were protesting at Clark's decision to seek time to heal.

What the f**k does Schwab have to do with those players? FFS you are so incredibly misguided in everything you say.

This is indicative of the awful attitudes people have to mental health issues in sport. I would say 'you should be ashamed' but you wouldn't understand.

Why was that indicative of anything? We've been denying everyone possession though. We had the ball for 53% of the game against West Coast.

I love it. Emma Quayle disagrees with your hindsight-based view, so you decide that all of her work is no longer worth it. And I love how you think 'mainstream' is not what we should be doing. So, if everyone thinks a junior is a gun, we should go somewhere else because why would be want to be mainstream? Ridiculous.

No it doesn't.

Well, the rest of the post was pretty ordinary, but this pushes it to the next level.

If we'd kept him he would be worse than he is now. It's a lot easier to develop and play good football when your teammates are skilled, your coach is Clarkson and not Neeld, and your leaders are Hodge, Mitchell, Lewis, Gibson and Roughead instead of...well...whoever we have.

Huge wake up call for Fremantle - they have a lot of work to do if they want to win the flag, as they'll need to learn how to beat Hawthorn in Melbourne. It's not the end of the season though. We've seen time and time again that you don't want to peak in April, you need to be ramping it up in August/September. Fremantle are still a very good side.

His issues with disposal are separate, and aren't the reason he's been dropped. I don't think he's any worse as a decision-maker, in terms of the decision or speed, than anyone else in our side. But he's lost a lot of effectiveness by hardly being able to sprint. I genuinely hope that, whatever is wrong with him, whether it's physical or mental or both, he works on it and can improve. We needed to drop him, but we need him to improve and come back too.

If we had Clark, Dawes, Hogan or Jamar available, Fitzpatrick wouldn't be playing. Simple as that.

Some people talked of Richmond being top-4 worthy pre-season. Top 4 sides shouldn't be dropping games to Gold Coast and the Bulldogs. They have Collingwood, a trip to Brisbane, Hawthorn and Geelong in their next 4 games. They could well be 2-5, with their finals hopes in trouble (suits me!).

One of the most spot on things ever posted on here.

Changing things up is a good idea in a sense, in that it might be one way to go about breaking the psychological shackles that enslave many of our players. On the other hand, how adept will they be at trying new things so quickly in the year? And is there the issue of the players second-guessing themselves (e.g. 'we're changing things after Round 2, that's how sh*t we are'. As for the team, I can't see how Byrnes can be dropped. He's not the best player, but he's kicked 50% of our goals so far. He's at least providing an option and scoring. It's frustrating that I also can't see how we can drop Spencer and/or Fitzpatrick, neither of whom are close to good enough. Gawn might be able to replace one of them, hopefully.

It had nothing to do with forwards, but it also had nothing to do with attitude. It had a lot to do with us having inept ruckmen (Spencer is a joke of a player) and West Coast having great ruckmen, plus a great midfield.

Is there a clip of this quote online? What did he actually say?

The saddest thing about the continued misguided 'debate' about Toumpas is not that drafting him wasn't a shocking selection (by any definition). It's not that it's largely fuelled by hindsight. It's not even that it's fuelled in many instances by hypocrisy. It's that Toumpas is actually playing well, especially considering how many other MFC players are playing abysmally.

But that's the point - Fitz, Pedersen and Spencer are all on our list but are all not AFL-standard. They are the depth players but they are well into their careers now and aren't going anywhere in their development.

True, and being overlooked/ignored/dismissed too much. The replacements aren't at a good enough level, though.

It's very easy to say 'injuries are excuses', and a lot of the time it's not enough to point to who's out. But when your three key forwards, your two best ruckmen, a promising young midfielder and your best defender are all out, and you're coming from the low base we are, it's simply an irrefutable truth that our injuries are destroying us. Nometheless, we have too many senior players who, even with Roos, aren't good enough, and we have too many playera who have been on our list for years but have gone nowhere. How long has Spencer been on our list? Grimes is a 7th year player but still can't kick. Fitzpatrick is into, what, his fourth season? Fifth?