titan_uranus

Without a doubt the worst match of football I have ever been to. The standard of football, coupled with losing to the undisputed worst team of the year, at home, at a ground at which they had only won once since 2006, coming off a promising performance against the Dogs, was just putrid.

Well I didn't tip us this week... I used to tip us every week because I thought it would be wrong not to do so. Then I started losing tipping competitions. Now I usually tip us in Round 1, regardless of the opponent, but after that I tip us only when I think we'll win, like any other team/game.

Football on ANZAC day was started by, and popularised by, Collingwood and Essendon. They made the game, and as far as I'm concerned, they are the ones who should be playing it. What I believe is that all 18 clubs should have at least one 'blockbuster' that is fixtured annually. Rather than having different teams rotating through the same match, why not develop new rivalries or build up existing ones by giving all clubs their own sort of ANZAC day. Let's be honest, who here would be happy having other clubs rotating through Queen's Birthday? These already exist: Ess/Coll - ANZAC day Melb/Coll - QBW Adel/PA - Showdown WCE/Freo - Derby BL/GC - QLD Derby Syd/GWS - Sydney Derby Ess/Rich - Dreamtime at the G From there we need to add Carlton, Hawthorn, Geelong, St Kilda, North Melbourne and the Bulldogs: Haw/Geel - Easter Monday (they've played on this weekend before, IIRC, and their rivalry is intense) NM/WB - just pick an occasion some time in the year and play these two clubs against each other. Give them a rivalry to care about. Put it on Good Friday for all I care. Carl/St K - IIRC they play the blue ribbon game. Even if they don't, just set up a match between them. Mind you, Carlton will always have big games against Collingwood, Essendon and Richmond. St Kilda could also get a feature game against Geelong. Whatever the match ups are, the point is, it would work better for each club to have at least one match per year that is some sort of blockbuster, rather than having ANZAC day between North Melbourne and Port Adelaide, which no one would care about.

Just goes to show how terrible Port is. They got up for the Showdown because they always do, but in essence they are a rubbish side. Port, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Adelaide, Richmond and North. Some weak teams right there. But well done to the Gold Coast for winning at a venue that we haven't won at for 10 years.

So what? He's crap.

Yes. He was contracted for 2011 but we didn't want him wasting a spot on our senior list. Get over it people. He sucks. I don't care whether he was on the cusp of selection last year but for injuries. I don't care if he's in form now. He won't perform at AFL level.

Look at it from both sides. On the one hand, we're not in form, we're not playing well, we're not showing too many signs of improvement on last year. On the other hand, we've got 2 wins and a draw from four games with the aforementioned faults, which mean we have room to improve.

It's amazing how people who want to see Newton come in conveniently ignore the fact that every time he is brought into the side it is on the back of good VFL form, and every time he comes in he fails. Every time. Let me say that one more time, for those who choose not to think about it. Every time. That is why he plays 1-3 games and then goes back to Casey. That is why he was demoted to the rookie list. That is why he isn't in the side right now. He is no good. Some VFL form doesn't change anything. He is not the future, he is the past. We need to move on, accept that he is not good enough, and think about playing those who will be there when we win our next flag. Jack Watts fits that category. Newton doesn't.

The rule, notwithstanding the Martin decision, is terrible. It is good-natured, but it doesn't work. It results in too many instances where a team loses its advantage because the player does not hear the whistle, or plays on before the whistle is blown, and the umpire calls advantage where there isn't one and under the old system there wouldn't have been one.

http://www.afl.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/208/newsid/111878/default.aspx Bailey has said he will continue to play Jamar at full forward while we are lacking a true FF. He recognises that we've drafted players like Cook and Fitzpatrick for this role but they're way off it, so in the interim Jamar is as good as we're going to get, and with Martin able to give him a proper relief in the ruck, we have this luxury available to us. No brainer, really. His contested marking is a sight to behold, and he uses his frame like Sandilands does. I really like it when we play him at FF, with Wonaeamirri giving us a better crumbing option in the pocket it can work really well for us.

It's very hard to draw comclusions from two wins against the worst two sides in the competition. It's much easier to draw conclusions from two games against finalists from 2010 (and likely 2011 too). The second half against Hawthorn still stands out, and we are yet to atone for it. Until we beat someone of merit, and West Coast in Perth counts as that, we aren't having a great season.

People must be crazy suggesting Newton or Bate should come in. Newton is totally useless to us. A short term fix it, maybe (and I stress, maybe), but no chance of being in our premiership side. Waste of space. And Bate isn't much better, and beside which, isn't performing at Casey. Petterd is a chance to replace Dunn, who looked slow, lazy, weak and disinterested all at once yesterday. Dredging up his stats from last year doesn't help his cause, it only goes to show how far off it he is in 2011. Four games in, not one of them has been any good. If Maric got two weeks, Dunn's four should be enough for the FD. Morton was good yesterday. People like to look at him in space on his own and call him out for being afraid of contested footy. Truth be told, I see it as a player who knows where and when to run into space. He always seems to be a link-up option or presents into the space on half forward. He reads the play really well, and combined with his elite running, allows him to play this role. Sure, he is still lacking physically and doesn't get in the guts of things all the time, but I thought he did well yesterday. I wouldn't go close to saying it was Weetra-esque. But I didn't think he played particularly well that quarter either. Nothing to be gained by dropping him though.

What's interested me in the papers today is the talk about moving the ball along the boundary. I noticed it a bit yesterday, it seems that we're more willing to move the ball along the boundaries than last year where we looked to the corridor more often than not. It seems to be a bit of a trend across the league this year, maybe teams are following Collingwood's league.

Scully and McKenzie walk straight into the side. Petterd doesn't, but he is playing better than Dunn atm IMO. Bennell would be one player whose spot isn't secure. Bartram may be another but neither Scully nor McKenzie play his role. Jones would need to keep performing as he has the last couple of weeks to keep himself in the side. Blease isn't close to MFC selection. He needs to start playing well at Casey first.

We all said the same thing last year when we were coming off a three game winning streak. Remember how that turned out?

I'd be happy to see no change, but I'd be equally happy to swap Dunn for Petterd.

Nothing wrong with Watts. He deserved more than one quarter, and he showed enough. I saw Watts give as much to the team in his quarter than Dunn did in his match. Dunn's intensity is pathetic. I'd send him to Casey this week and if he doesn't perform there he goes for Petterd. Bennell is getting far more praise than he deserves. Again failed to play an entire match. He looks good, sure, but then he disappears for 20 minutes.

The third quarter was bad. Quite bad. A lack of intensity, again. It's becoming increasingly worrying that we can't play a full game at the required intensity. Second and fourth, though, were nice. Liked the way we ran out the fourth after it looked like we were going to just ease into a 3-6 goal win. Plenty of positives with Jurrah and Wonna working well up forward, Davey kicking some goals, and Bail, Moloney, Trengove and Sylvia all having good games in the middle. But Dunn had another shocker, and with Petterd in form at Casey, he might not make it to Perth. Frawley's kicking still needs work, Bennell needs to play four quarters for once and we need to start games with some sort of aggression. Hard to know what we can take out of this game, but with West Coast in good form this year I'm not terribly confident about our chances in 2 weeks.

He was definitely better today, but that's a result of playing Gold Coast. He did, though, play deeper which IMO is always best with Green. Took some great marks but too many of them were on the boundary line. His form this year has been pretty poor but it's not as big of a worry as people are making it out to be.

6 - Moloney 5 - Trengove 4 - Sylvia 3 - Bail 2 - Jamar 1 - Wonaeamirri Bennell needs to learn to play four frickin quarters.

Watts is the sub: http://www.afl.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/208/newsid/111854/default.aspx

Gold Coast Suns captain Gary Ablett to miss clash with Melbourne

There are two issues here which are being moulded into one. The first is that the game plan is no good. That argument remains to be seen, by virtue of the second issue. Having said that, I am somewhat concerned that we are playing the style of Geelong in 2007-09, and that the game in 2011-2014 will require something more along the lines of Collingwood's current style. Of course, that remains to be seen. The second, and more pressing, issue is that we aren't executing our game plan. Our skills have been poor these first three weeks. Moreover when the opposition gets on a roll we lose our structure faster than people on this site start posting about how Bailey ought to be sacked. These are the things that worry me much more than whether or not our game plan will win us a premiership. What we need to focus on are: 1) Our skills. Our game plan simply will never win us a premiership if our defenders can't kick the ball and our runners can't overlay with handpasses. These skills have been down in 2011. 2) Our structure. Our forwards come too far up the ground, and aren't in the right position on the turnover/rebound to make position and/or lead, which leads to turnovers at half back, which hurt. When we're winning this doesn't happen, it's when we fall behind that we seem to constantly see the forwards rush up the ground. I'd also like to see our half forwards not run straight into the centre square at secondary bounces. I'd also like to see Bailey refuse to employ a loose man in defence the moment we go 2-3 goals down. That never works for us.

Another strong batting performance from Watson, but Hussey dominated. His third century in ODI cricket. They are both still amazing innings. People can rubbish the opposition, and it's true, they're not as good as most other nations. But if they were that bad, or it was that easy, we'd see it happening more often. It doesn't happen for a reason. It's that special an innings. That same argument applies to those (I assume WYL is in this bracket) who de-value Murali's achievements simply because he played more games against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe than Warne and others did. Plenty of other Sri Lankan and Indian bowlers have had plenty of games against Bangladesh, yet they don't consistently take 5 wicket innings.

Spiffing.