titan_uranus

I think by virute of our inexperience turnovers and structural breakdowns occur more now than they will in the future. I think as we get older, stronger, and more experienced as a unit, and Bailey gets better at match day coaching, the turnovers and structural breakdowns will become less frequent and we'll develop the consistency we're looking for.

May well have been. Hopefully someone knows; I sure as hell don't.

Nice attempt to put a positive spin on it. Fact remains, we can be in top form, go to Etihad, and lose. It's happened both this year and last. Coming off our big win against Adelaide, we faced North, who at that stage had just one win. We led them by 30 points in the first quarter. And we lost. Last year we'd won three in a row and again came up against a mid-table team in North. And lost.

Hard to be sympathetic with them when surely it was Harrington and co. who signed them in the first place? It will be borderline embarrassing if we are forced to delist players like Maric, Wonaeamirri and/or Blease simply because we are forced to contractually keep Bate and Dunn.

Wouldn't we all. West Coast are legimitate this year. They have the bye this week, then Friday night football against Geelong in Perth. That will be a corker. Should be interesting to see how they shape up against the ladder-leaders at home. I reckon they can do it, especially if Geelong are still missing some of their stars.

Haha, no I can safely say I have never been called a 'premiership barracker'. Don't worry, I'm not wishing my life away at all. Eventually we'll get there. Yeh at least I can say I saw a Grand Final when I was 10. Pity we stank in it, against the best team of the last 20 years, but still. Richmond supporters my age can't say that. Suckers.

I love being my age (21) but it's times like this (discussing Melbourne's good old days) that makes me wish I was older.

They've been on our list since 2004. I don't think waiting 6 years is too quick.

Bate and Dunn are not good insurance. They're bad, bad insurance. Seriously, what do you base this comment on? The fact that they're older? The fact they are stronger? Neither Bate nor Dunn has shown that they are capable of holding down a spot at AFL level. Dunn played some good football towards the end of last year but regressed badly this year. I'd rather us continue to play Howe, Petterd, Sylvia and even Tapscott as half forwards, and failing that, look to Fitzpatrick and Cook. Bate and Dunn will only be on our list next year if they are contracted already, and we can't offload them.

I'm sure other clubs' supporters say the same things about us. The guy two seats down from me was whinging about how every time Watts came to the bench he was clapped off. 'Wow, he kicked a goal, so let's give him a standing ovation'; words to that effect. In some ways, I know what he's saying. But really, just shut up and sit there you Tiger-supporting moron. I do love how the Richmond supporters felt the need to yell ball at every tackle.

Lake won't play. Even if he does, we have him covered. Warnock is one-dimensional. Hall is out of form. We're worrying too much about the wrong players. Robert Murphy is the forward we need to care about, and then we need to do what we did against Richmond and prevent Griffen, Boyd, Cooney and Cross from dominating the midfield. The Gold Coast could have won yesterday if they hadn't let Boyd get 39 touches, and Griffen and Cooney to kick goals.

STMJ's original post was both right and wrong. I don't read into his high-fiving/celebration of the Fremantle goal anywhere near as much as STMJ. In fact to me that was a ridiculous call. However, I do in general regard Green as more of a front-runner than anything. When we're up it's easy for him to look good. When we're down he is not exactly a leader. Couldn't agree more.

Agreed. No place for Warnock.

...I want to see them played up the ground. To me, our current defence is doing fine. We're generating sufficient run out of defence with Nicholson, Strauss, Bennell, MacDonald, and Frawley, and then Gysberts, Scully and Trengove pushing back to help out. I also don't think our kicking from defence is too bad anymore (not playing Bartram helps with that). With that in mind, I feel as though we stand to gain so much more from Tapscott and Davey if we play them up the ground. Tapscott on a wing or even a half forward flank, where I think he played as a youngster, could be a real weapon, a la Chapman. We know he kicks 50+ metres, so he can be a high forward option. Davey's best football, IMO, has always been when he was a forward pocket, and I'd love to see him go back there, with the direction to chase and tackle like it's 2005. I'd be somewhat disppointed if, when he returns, Davey is put straight back into defence. I'd rather see us put our faith in Strauss to take the kick outs and use Davey as an attacking weapon.

Just wait for us to lose to Hawthorn, Geelong and Carlton. That will send someone like North, Richmond or St Kilda over us. What I'm saying is being in the eight right now means jack-shite.

To be fair, Petterd was pretty poor outside of his tackling. For three quarters I felt he was giving us very little. In the fourth I felt his workrate went up, and I noticed him harrassing a lot more. The tackling effort and his fourth quarter to me are more than enough, but I didn't think the rest of his game was very good at all.

Yep I think so. We had 35 inside 50 tackles, Petterd had 13 of his 14 inside the 50. All this just two weeks after having 1 inside 50 tackle against Collingwood.

Kicking is atrocious. Running effort wasn't very good either. The latter may have something to do with being the sub. The former has nothing to do with that.

Funnily enough, I haven't changed my stance: wait until the end of the year. We are a good chance to win this week, but if we don't people will be complaining, especially if we lose like we usually do (i.e. by 5 goals or more). Moreover, we have a three week patch coming up of Hawthorn, Geelong in Geelong, and Carlton. Which we will lose. All by significant margins. Which will get people all whingy and whiny again. It's the games against the Dogs, Port (twice), Richmond and the Gold Coast that will determine Bailey's fate IMO. If we don't win most/all of them, and look respectable doing so, then he may be in trouble. That's despite the likely scenario of being blown off the park for three weeks in a row.

Most of the jeering was from Richmond supporters. They do not like him. They whinge about the same stuff we did (doesn't get involved, too slow, can't kick etc.). I like the man, but he still can't play football.

I'll be there for the first time in a few years. I hate it so much, but it's a Friday night, I have friends who are Dogs supporters, and I think we can win. I'm more confident about beating the Dogs than I was about us beating the Roos.

Morton goes. He was terrible. Tapscott gets his spot back, deservedly so, he was in good form prior to being injured, and we can now afford to play him further up the ground and make even better use of his kicking. If MacDonald is injured, we can look to Blease as a replacement for some run off half back. The Dogs' forward line is small, with Hall and their resting ruckman their talls, and Jones and Grant as mid-sized forwards. I'm not worried about replacing MacDonald with someone like Blease, the loss of height won't be a problem. In: Tapscott, Blease (only if JMac's injured) Out: Morton, MacDonald (only if injured)

Rubbish. Not good enough.

6 - Watts 5 - Moloney 4 - McKenzie 3 - Trengove 2 - Nicholson 1 - Martin

Well that will hopefully keep quiet those who want him dropped or subbed. Even when he's not at his best, and he still isn't, we are best served with him in the side.