titan_uranus

Why are you so fixated on disposals? Again, no one is saying Clark + Dawes = we win. But having them makes our job easier. In the end, despite the lower number of inside 50s, we kicked three less goals. Three. We didn't score from all our inside 50s, so, using logic (you still with me?), from those we didn't score from, having Clark and Dawes would have helped. See how that works? Again - having Clark/Dawes does not mean we automatically win. Oh yes. If we all say something, it will happen. I guess if we all say 'MFC for the flag 2013', that will happen too.

Where did I say I thought all our players are good? I didn't. We have a bunch of hopeless players. Happy to admit it. We were beaten by an ordinary side. We didn't play well. Correct. But that is where this club is at at the moment. Two weeks ago we lost to West Coast, a side with one win to Brisbane's two. We lost to them at home, not away, and we lost by 94, not 28. Two weeks later, I see improvement, clear improvement, and right now, given where we are at, that is something I can at least look at and take as a positive. Instead, the majority of people on this board are wrist-slashing. This is why I said I didn't want other posts in the thread.

I was wondering how long it would take for someone to use the term 'apologists' for anyone trying to sound reasoned or logical. Stop calling those who at least try to sound calm and collected 'apologists'. No one's apologising for anything. You can disagree with people, fine, but your inability to deal with reasoned posts is worrying. We were missing our key forwards. Is that untrue? No. Does that have an impact on our performance? Yes. Is that the reason we lost? No, but who said that? The fact is, we lost by 28 points despite having no forward line, the logic there being - maybe if we'd had a forward line we'd have kicked a few more goals. Does that make sense to you? I doubt it. I'm not apologising for anything, but I'm sure you think I'm an 'apologist'. We suck. I don't disagree. We weren't good today, I don't disagree. Brisbane suck, and we lost to them, sure. But West Coast is lower than them on the ladder and a fortnight ago we lost to them by 94 points at home. Today we lost to a side above them on the ladder by 28.

I'm all for Terlich getting votes, but he remains in my mind a liability to the side due to his awful ball use. I have absolutely no confidence in him any time he has the ball, just none. I do like his endeavour, run and strength, though, so hopefully if he can work on his disposal he'll be a useful long term player. Right now, I just cringe whenever I see him pick it up and take off.

I would have thought the two points above your 'Pedersen is redundant' line explain Pedersen's situation. He's no good as anything other than the third tall, but today he was asked to be the focal point. He's just not that player. With Clark and Dawes in the side he doesn't have to be the focal point and he can stick to his job, which will be to make space for the big boys to lead into and be a link up mark. He's not good enough to be the main forward. Rodan was terrible early. Didn't see the second half, but heard bits, and he didn't sound good. Agree re: Blease and Davey. I don't know why Blease got a game, I don't think he earned it, not kept his spot. He doesn't do anywhere near enough. Agree re: Byrnes. As for the last point - we're always going to be out of games for 10 minute periods, that's the type of club we are at the moment. At least today we went interstate and matched a team that isn't GWS or GC when we weren't sleeping.

This thread ought to close. Delete all posts other than this one. Thank you, C&B. Seriously, thank you.

Both sides are out of form, though I guess since we won last week, and are coming off a 12-goal quarter, we're less so. Both sides are missing key players. The one main difference - it's in Brisbane. In Melbourne, I'd be a lot more confident, but putting our side on a foreign ground, especially since we've been at the G all year so far, makes me doubt our chances. At our best (first half v West Coast, last quarter v GWS) we can and should beat them. Whether we can reach our best for long enough up there remains to be seen.

I agree that goal umpires getting in the way of the ball is a bad thing and, yes, in an extreme situation could obviously cost a team a game of football. But there's no solution to it. People are screaming for goal umpires to stand behind the line. Well, that sounds nice, until you stop and think about why they're told to straddle the goal line in the first place. They do this because, if they're not on the goal line, they can't tell when the ball is touched or crosses the line, and as such, they can't adjudicate on kicks being touched, or when the ball crosses the line and is dead (for either a goal or a behind). They have to be on the goal line, otherwise they're going to make errors regarding when a ball is touched or when it's a goal or not.

Stupid reactionary crap. I agree that the umpire should have called for a review. What would have happened, though? The video was inconclusive. You could not tell from it whether or not the whole ball had crossed the line. So it would have reverted to the umpire's call, which was that it didn't cross the line, hence play on. So Richmond would have ended up with their behind, no change. As for the deliberate rushed behind against Hill, there was a player right next to him, and they were all confused about what was going on with the behind/goal/review situation. To call that a free is insane. Richmond should be applauded for their PR job here. All anyone is talking about from that game is the behind fiasco. Instead, we should be focusing on the fact that, once again, Richmond cracked under pressure, and once again, lost a lead late in the fourth quarter.

I'm not making excuses. I'm simply noting that it's completely unfair to compare Neeld and Hinkley, as if to say 'look at Hinkley and Port, since he can do it, why can't Neeld?'. There is no getting away from the fact that Port have A-grade midfielders but we do not. There just isn't anything Neeld can do about that. I don't disagree that Hinkley's been able to get a steeliness and resolve into his side that was lacking last year. But their two main performances (vs Adelaide and vs West Coast) have shown them to be able to play woeful, sub-standard football, but be dragged back into the contest by their stars. That's never going to happen to us. Yes, part of that is because Hinkley is a good coach, clearly a lot better than Primus. But would Hinkley be able to get our side to claw itself back from the jaws of defeat? I highly doubt it. No one is making excuses for Melbourne or Neeld. We're crap. No one's disputing that. But it's totally unfair on Neeld, and is just another example of anti-Neeld bias from some, to compare him to Hinkley and use that as an argument against Neeld. Do you think people don't know we're bad? You clearly haven't been on Demonland much the last month.

Rubbish, anti-Neeld biased comment. Compare Port's list, then compare ours. Hinkley actually had something to work with, and it's not so much of a 'miracle' to turn around a list with talent like theirs.

I don't rate Ing's view on this. Just because it's never been used before, and the one time it was used was literally the most ridiculously blatant example, does not mean it can't work here. Not only would Trengove have a great argument, but policy and reason would also be in his argument's favour. As I posted earlier, it simply is unrealistic and unfair to require 18 year old kids to have to second-guess their doctors and undertake an analysis each and every time they are asked or required to take something. Provided players are informed, and do not turn a blind eye, and there is no suggestion of that here (to the contrary, the Essendon players asked to sign documents confirming what they were taking, indicating they wanted it on the record that, at the least, they'd done their research), it's going to be very hard for ASADA to successfully prosecute here.

Port is half-decent. They have an amazing resilience that they haven't had since they won the flag in 2004. To come back from 30 points down in a showdown and win, and back that up two weeks later by coming back from 40 points down in time on in the third, is immense. Of course, each week their best are generally Hartlett, Cornes, Boak, Ebert and Schulz. Their A-graders. Makes a huge difference, when I wouldn't rate the rest of their list much above ours. It's that class at the top that is driving them.

Food for thought: If we win tomorrow, we will be no lower on the ladder than 13th. We'll move past Brisbane, the Bulldogs, St Kilda, and West Coast, who just lost to Port despite leading by 40 points at the 20 minute mark of the third quarter. If Hawthorn do the predictable and beat North, we'll then be in 12th. Will we win? Probably/likely/almost certainly not, but at least there's some ladder-climbing motivation for the players. Interesting idea. Not the worst thing I've heard, either. He does seem to be suited to the role. I wonder how being a sub every week goes for fitness, though. And confidence/morale. I don't think we'd do it literally every week, but maybe he'll find himself in the vest semi-regularly.

Disagree - the 'I didn't know what it was' excuse will work where the player has done all that can reasonably be expected of him in the circumstances to identify the drug and whether it is legal or not. Here, if Trengove was told, or asked, Bates or Dank what the drug was, and asked, or was told, that the drug was legal, then ASADA is going to have a lot of trouble prosecuting him. That would set a very dangerous precedent, requiring players to continually distrust their own doctor's advice and go hunting elsewhere. It would also be incredibly inefficient.

But it's not 2010, so that's a pointless thing to say. We can only play who we play, we can only beat who we beat, and Neeld can't go back or forward in time, he's stuck with the present. Let's wait and see what happens from here. It will only take one or two wins against better clubs to make people believe that the path is there and we're on it (I'm not saying we are, nor that this will happen, I'm saying that this wil be the view people take if we happen to beat a better club than us).

He won't. As the article notes, any attempted charge from ASADA would be met with a significant legal challenge (this goes for Trengove as well as the Essendon players). IMO, I cannot see how Trengove can be penalised if he was instructed of the drug's safety by Dank/Bates/anyone else with relevant seniority. The previous CEO (Mr Ings) of ASADA claimed that players have a duty of care to suss out a drug's status for themselves. That's an ignorant view, one which I'm sure would easily be rejected by a court. Seriously, do we expect 17/18/19 year old kids to be calling ASADA and asking for information when their club doctor has told them the substance is OK? IMO, in the washup of this all, no Essendon player or Trengove (or any other Melbourne player) will be prosecuted or guilty of anything. The people upon whom the charges will fall will be the administrators of either/both club.

There is now only really one problematic issue at play, and that's the administering to Trengove of the anti-obesity drug in December. The key question is why we didn't tell the AFL about this. To me, the facts as they stand lead to a more likely than not conclusion that Bates covered its use up. He didn't tell us because he was scared or stupid or whatever, and there was no reason for us to suspect otherwise. As a result, we didn't tell the AFL about it, because we didn't know and had no reason to suspect it might have been used. We'd done an investigation (Thurin-led) and told the AFL what we knew. We did what we could reasonably be expected to have done, and that's what's important. As the MFC insider who supposedly is leaking this stuff to The Age said, the AFL is the body with the investigative powers, not us. We did what we can/should have done; it cannot be our fault that Bates decided to be non-compliant and deceitful.

Team named as expected. Tapscott the sub? Davey wore the vest last week, would we go for him twice in a row?

Bench better be McKenzie, Tapscott, Davey and M. Jones. McKenzie should be playing, whilst none of the other three deserve to be dropped. That then makes it McKenzie for Viney (fair), Rodan for Jetta (not 100% like-for-like, but close enough), and then Blease for Clark (clearly trying to enhance our run). Clark out hurts, no doubt about it, but given we proved we can score against a crap side without him, and Brisbane are, at the moment, a crap side, it's not the end of the world. If this was in Melbourne, I'd have some sort of optimism (that sort of MFC optimism that kinda doesn't actually exist, but whatever). Being in Brisbane, though, I have no confidence.

Toughness also isn't getting your facts wrong and berating a young player for a friggin mistake. It wasn't 'behind play', it was a second after Whitfield kicked it. He didn't get 'beaten', he was trying to chase down and was, again, fractionally too late. It was a poorly executed bump, but it wasn't a disgrace and it wasn't undisciplined. It's also got absolutely nothing to do with why he 'can't get a game'.

Out: Jetta, Clark, Viney In: McKenzie, Rodan, Kent There's no obvious replacement for Clark. Dawes isn't ready, Fitzpatrick isn't good enough, Sellar doesn't deserve his spot back. Let Pedersen and Gawn/Jamar do the bulk of the big forward work. Rodan and McKenzie fill in for Jetta and Viney. Kent gets a game due to his VFL form.

Pathetic comment. Sydney got towelled by Geelong in the second half. Does that make their game plan crap? No, it doesn't. The OP is right. We definitely tried to move the ball quicker with more running overlap. Our skills were awful, which led to turnovers and fumbles and general poor play, but that's not the game plan's fault, that's the execution. It's a clearly different concept.

I'm not sure who has applauded Eddie for Collingwood's on-field success; most of that appraisal goes to Buckley/Malthouse and the players and other coaches. Eddie deservedly gets a lot of credit for how successful Collingwood is off the field, but that's not what I was talking about. Costa's name was definitely talked about when discussing Geelong's rise to their flag in 2007, but again, the on-field success was attributed to Thompson and the players, mainly. My point essentially is this: if we had opened the year with a big win against Port Adelaide, who would have said 'well done McLardy'? No one. Yet as we've fallen apart on the field, the first person to cop it has been Don. I understand his point, it's a valid one. The President is simply not the first person you think of when you see on-field success. He just needs to learn to deal with it, because it's reality and that's how the job and league work. Rubbish. Collingwood and Richmond have been 'turned' by their massive amounts of supporters, most of whom are anything but white collar.

In the first two instances, she made the correct call, in calling both of them goals when they both were. Boundary umpires in each case weren't sure, and have been told in those instances to notify the field umpire of their uncertainty over the score. The review was called because Chelsea, correctly, didn't want to be stubborn in her views, and the replays are there to make sure howlers aren't missed. The Byrnes one was again the correct move from Chelsea. This time, she couldn't tell whether the ball had hit the post or Byrnes' hand (or whatever) due to her position on the goal-line, so her inclination was to call it a behind (benefit of the doubt, I'd say). The review was called for due to her doubt, but it wasn't her fault that the wrong decision was made (I've seen the vision, and to me it's clear that it comes off Byrnes' hand, not the post). In all three instances, then, she was right to call for a review.