titan_uranus

A tagging job isn't defined by the number of kicks, so I'm not sure how relevant that stat is. How many of those seven frees were paid against McKenzie? Those stats don't help your argument.

Agreed. His lack of leadership qualities is startling, exacerbated by his ridiculous habit of always telling the better defenders what to do and where to run, pointing mindlessly at opposition players or space, whilst himself either ambling around, or doing his job of manning up the fourth-best forward who is shorter than he is.

I've just watched it again. I think what he is trying to say is that he signed a form and was given something, and his understanding from the form and what was said to him is that the substance was AOD. I guess on the one hand you can read it as him saying 'at the time, I thought it was AOD', but whether that is sufficient to constituted 'attempting to use a prohibited substance' will remain to be seen. But I think you're right in that he's saying that he signed the form and took the substance under the belief it was AOD, which he believed to be legal.

I'm not sure what was on the consent forms, I thought it was more of giving permission to allow the program to take place. I don't follow your second point. Watson didn't indicate he 'intended' to take anything. All he said was that, after the fact, he was of the opinion it was AOD. That doesn't mean it was AOD. It also doesn't mean he ever intended to take AOD.

Seems like you completely ignored what I wrote. There are two preliminary issues, before we even need to care about whether AOD is banned or what ASADA said or any of that. The first preliminary question is to determine what substances were administered to players. There is a lack of clarity over this, exacerbated in part by Essendon's failure to keep proper records. The second preliminary question is to determine which players were injected with which substances. No one player can be charged unless there is evidence he, as distinct from an indeterminate group of players, took something. Once there is enough evidence to show that a specific player took a specific substance, then the issue of whether the substance is banned or not arises. For Essendon, there does not appear to be enough evidence to determine what substances were administered, and who received what. That is the issue here. The players appear likely to escape sanction because ASADA doesn't have enough evidence to meet the threshold (they have to go further than just showing it's more likely than not).

This is factually incorrect. Watson did not admit he was given AOD. He said he believed that's what it was. Massive difference, especially given Essendon appears to have sneakily sourced substances from overseas. The 'consent' forms you speak of were not consent forms to take banned substances, they were consent forms to be administered supplements (e.g. to allow Dank to inject them). That's not the same as consenting to being administered a banned substance.

Agreed - I think it's three-pronged. First, they don't know what was administered. Second, they don't know who was administered which substance. Finally, there is some doubt over the status of the potential options for what the substances were.

England only have themselves to blame for running out of time. They dawdled all morning with no intent on a result. If it wasn't for Clarke, they wouldn't have been that close. Don't blame the umpires, have a look at yourselves, I'd say. Clarke did the right thing, IMO. 4-0 compared to 3-0 is no difference, but he created buzz and could have won us the Test. Turns out our bowling was crap in the evening (Starc and Faulkner the biggest culprits I think) which gave up too many hittable deliveries, but we still took 6 wickets, 10 for the day. In the end, of the five Tests we were in a winning position in three of them (Old Trafford, Chester-le-Street, The Oval), and could easily have won two of them (Old Trafford, where the rain thwarted us, and Chester-le-Street, where we should have been able to chase that score down). We didn't deserve to be as close as we were at Trent Bridge, but we could have won that too if little things had gone our way (e.g. Haddin not being given out on that evidence). We were clearly outplayed at Lord's, but in the end I think it was much more competitive than the scoreline suggests, and it gives us hope for the return series. Mind you, if Harris goes down it's game over.

I can't believe people still think this is the case. Dunn does not 'always have a crack' - he squibs contests at a similar rate to Watts. He doesn't have 'aggro', he has misdirected stupidity. He's not a good 'niggler', he's actually a bad one since he continually gives free kicks away. Agree with this. In general, I don't think this thread is appropriately timed, as we have players performing at a lower standard to Dunn right now. But the fact that Dunn is in our team at the moment is an indication of how many players short we are. Dunn plays on the third/fourth/fifth forward, usually with a height advantage. That's why his marking statistics look decent. His kicking, though long, is generally crap (kicks it too high and often to a poor choice), which is a weakness given he's playing HBF and thus should be providing rebound.

The problem appears to be that there is too much doubt over who took what, and what was taken, to charge anyone. Whilst there is an increasingly widely held view of innocence, the true issue is not innocence/guilt, but the fact that ASADA hasn't got the evidence to charge anyone.

I was interested, that's why I raised the point in the first place. You seemed to be fixated upon the number of players who registered a goal, whereas I feel that's just a manifestation of the true problem, which is our poor midfield. Then you told me to 'take a break'. So, to use a child's favourite, you started it. Anyway, the point is there. You're concerned about goal-kickers, I'm concerned about creating opportunities, we're both concerned about lack of scores.

Ill-directed, simplistic, missing the bigger picture, something like that. Don't worry if you're not following.

Discussing areas in which we need to improve after a game's done and dusted is not mutually exclusive from considering our future. In fact, they're the same thing. You're focused on the fact that we don't have enough goal-kickers in our side. I believe that focus is ill-directed and is by and large a byproduct of our poor midfield failing to generate enough meaningful inside 50s. We are, in essence, looking to the same thing - we need a better midfield to help create more opportunities, the end result of which will be more players scoring.

I don't think you're really focusing on a big issue. The number of goal-kickers we have right now is being hampered by our inability to get the ball close enough to the goal, which in turns stifles our attempts to have shots on goal. As I said, next year we will have Clark, Dawes and Hogan, each of whom is capable of being the forward who can bag 4 goals a week. We can then add Howe and potentially Watts to our half-forward line, as well as Kent as a smaller forward (though we need to look at a true forward pocket). As for midfielders who kick goals, clearly we lack those, but that takes us back to the real issue, which is our midfield. A better midfield turns our forwards into players who kick the number of goals you think they should.

I'm not sure what you think the 'problem' is here. Number of goal-kickers? Or generally number of goals kicked? The latter is an issue, the former is not. Either way, we all know the problem. Our midfield is a disgrace, leaving us with far too few inside 50s, and of the ones we get, too high a proportion of them are wasted (turnovers, targets missed, deep into pockets, etc.). But with a forward line including Clark, Dawes and Hogan, if we can improve on the midfield, the goal-kickers will present themselves.

Well it hardly matters since he's contracted, and since we're not in a position to be spending money paying out contracts, he'll be here next year. Personally I think you're being far too lenient on a player who hasn't shown that good disposal in the limited chances he's had with the ball. He doesn't appear to work hard enough, he doesn't appear to have many strings to his bow, and he doesn't strike me as really being a talented player who will command a role. In fact, I don't even know what role he would have for us going forward.

B-H's hit the nail on the head, so most would do well to read his post above. I see potential in many of our players. What we need now is for those players to pull their fingers out and put the hard work in to make themselves good to great AFL players, and we need a coaching team that will do the same. We haven't had either of those over the last 5-10 years.

Watson and Smith have both hit centuries right at the right time. Heard someone liken Watson to Marcus North - approaches being dropped, pulls a 100 out of nowhere, then (probably) proceeds to stink again. Hopefully Watson can actually convert this 100 into a run of form. Rogers, Clarke, Smith and Watson form four of the top six (Rogers at 1, Watson at 3, Clarke at 4, Smith at 5). I'm not sold on Warner, but you'd assume he stays given how much the selectors love him, and the sixth spot is up for grabs. Come Brisbane, it won't be Faulkner. It probably won't be Khawaja either. It might be Hughes or Cowan, but they'll need to make some first class runs before the series. As for the bowlers, Lyon clearly is our number one spinner, and that debate should be ended. In terms of pacemen, Harris and Siddle are the top two, with Pattinson IMO the third if fit. Starc is errant but has the advantage of being a leftie. Bird is back-up in the likely event Harris is injured some time between now and the Sydney test. Haddin remains our keeper whilst his glovework continues to be of his high standard. Wade needs to learn to keep wicket if he wants to get back in. So, Brisbane Test XI: Rogers Warner Watson Clarke Smith Hughes/Cowan/debutant batsman Haddin Siddle Harris Pattinson Lyon

Rubbish. Given the number of inside 50s our defence has had to deal with, he's had a perfectly acceptable year. Yes, his disposal is still iffy, but his defensive work is fine.

Sometimes there is more to it than the distance back the players run (e.g. Dunn's instinct is to kick long and his kicking style results in all his kicks being up and under). But your point is definitely a valid one, and is contributing to far too many mistakes. One of about 100 things the new coach needs to work on.

To add to the list of players who are unfortunately contracted: Blease, Byrnes, Bail, Pedersen, Tapscott. Tapscott seriously lucky to be contracted, he'd be one of the first out the door IMO if he was OOC. I fail to see what he offers us at all.

I haven't seen much of the game, but there's a real problem when Rodan, subbed off at quarter time, still has more touches than Howe, Tapscott and Pedersen. Howe is far too lazy. If we were half decent we'd drop him. Tapscott is just purely useless.

At least Tapscott has three tackles. Pedersen yet to register a single statistic (no hit outs, no tackles, no frees against, nothing).

I wonder what the odds would have been on us leading at quarter time. Key stats (Adelaide-Melbourne): Disposals: 107-95 Clearances: 12-6 Inside 50s: 10-11 Contested possessions: 38-35 Tackles: 17-24

I don't understand Pedersen over Davis. That's a pretty poor call I think. With Frawley back you'd expect Pedersen to be played forward, a position he's struggled in all year. That's poor team selection, IMO. I also don't agree with Rodan over Magner. Yes, Magner's a clearance player and Byrnes/Blease play different roles, but Rodan's not in form. To me, it's improper to be bringing players in when they're not in form, especially when the delineation between their roles is so slight. I'd have rewarded Magner's effort and at the very least given him his last chance to convince us that he should stay.