titan_uranus

Agreed. There's nothing wrong with the current system. The McIntyre system doesn't reward good home and away form in that the teams who finish 3rd and 4th can theoretically be eliminated in the first week of the finals. In our system you get that second chance as a reward for putting in the effort in the home and away season.

Geelong isn't a Melbourne team. St Kilda doesn't play at the MCG a lot, thus their supporters don't view it in the same light as ours do, and they have less MCC members than we do. It wasn't just wet, it was forecasted to be even wetter which turns people away. It was also a Friday night, not a Monday public holiday where people have nothing to do. Get over it.

I personally wouldn't have Bennell in there yet. Yes, he's the type of player that can add something special to the team, but I'm not convinced he is as important to our flag chances as the other members of this 'flag core' group are. The point is well made, though. You couldn't have a more deluded viewpoint. Jones was being absolutely slaughtered by Harvey. We were losing that battle, and getting nothing out of Jones. When he went off, we lost rotations, sure, but we put Scully onto Harvey and that worked a lot better.

Knights is definitely someone we should consider. The only two worries would be the asking price and his hamstrings. But a (fit) Knights on our list makes us a better team.

I reckon Hazlewood and Starc are two promising young bowlers (both NSW by the way). George too. I reckon they're all better than Pattinson atm. That's one option. The other would be for Hughes to open, Watson to shift down the order and North to go away. White's batting is getting to the point where he doesn't need his bowling to be considered for selection. Actually, it is at that point. He is a better batsman than you, and presumably the selectors, are giving him credit for. Definitely a batsman who bowls. At the moment his bowling isn't good enough to get him selected as the spinner in front of Hauritz.

Paper today says that 'several clubs', including the Gold Coast, are expressing interest in Miller: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/brad-green-wins-keith-bluey-truscott-gong/story-e6frf9jf-1225913539920 I'd be very surprised if that's true.

To move on from the unfortunate circumstances surrounding Pakistan, the squad for our two tests in India has been announced: Ricky Ponting (capt), Michael Clarke (vice-capt), Doug Bollinger, Peter George, Nathan Hauritz, Josh Hazlewood, Ben Hilfenhaus, Phillip Hughes, Michael Hussey, Mitchell Johnson, Simon Katich, Marcus North, Tim Paine (wk), Steven Smith and Shane Watson. Hughes was named, a good thing IMO. I hope he gets a game somehow (would it be too much to ask for North to be dropped?) and makes some runs, I still reckon he's going to be a good player and thus should be getting time in the team.

See ID's list here: http://demonland.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=22458&st=0

No, that's rubbish. Dunn's first half of the season was pitiful. His 'effort' against the Bulldogs on the Friday night was atrocious. It was only in the second half of the year that he began to string together some decent football, to the point where he carved himself a spot in the 22. Bate had a couple of decent games early but for the most part looked slow and ineffective. Didn't really progress from last year. Whether that's injury-related or not will likely remain to be seen.

That would be his reputation, would it not? Just so you know, Johnson played in 4 of Geelong's 5 losses this year. In those 4 games he kicked 6 goals, never kicking more than 2. He kicked 33 of his 57 goals against Richmond, West Coast, Brisbane, Essendon and Port Adelaide (8 games). He kicked 12 goals against Hawthorn, St Kilda, Collingwood, the Bulldogs and Carlton (7 games). He just doesn't perform to the same level of brilliance in close games, losses, or games against the top quality sides, as he does when he beats up on the crap at Skilled Stadium.

But McLean is a midfielder, and we had midfielders to replace him with. Jamar is a ruckman. We don't have another one (at least not a decent one). Therein lies both the difference between this situation and yours, and the problem with this idea. We'd do ourselves so much harm the pick we'd get for him would be nothing.

Yep. We find someone with natural forward ability, we also find a swag of midfielders, but we put the forward in the midfield. Shouldn't even be a question.

Agreed. Johnson shouldn't be there, and I'm not just saying that to up Green's chances. He really hasn't had that good a year.

Who should have won? Dustin Martin. Yes, David Swallow will be a star.

I love how North has (maybe had) on their list Warren Benjamin and Benjamin Warren. That's two different people. Nice.

My first thought was that someone had bumped this thread from two years ago. I understand the idea, but it would only make sense if we had two ruckmen. By that I mean Jamar + someone else who is actually competent in the ruck. Since we don't, trading Jamar is akin to pressing the self-destruct button. We would struggle to win more than 5 games a year. So no.

There are some shocking selections there. For example, the panel believes Jobe Watson and Brett Deledio are in the top 40, but Cyril Rioli is not. Nor is Michael Barlow, who doesn't get in, yet Steve Johnson, who missed a fair chunk, does (probably the right call on Johnson but definitely the wrong call on Barlow, he should be there). Frawley should make it, Jamar's a chance but has to beat Jolly (which he should do given Jolly's first 6 weeks were crap) and Green has to beat LeCras.

I vaguely remembered something like this being a big focus in the pre-season, and lo and behold, our aim for this year was to be about $750,000 in debt: "We are quite ambitious with regard to where we hope to be at the end of the year," Schwab told The Sunday Age. "We would like to be well under $1 million by the end of the year." Well we smashed that, didn't we? And we thought it was 'ambitious' to aim for a debt of under $1 million! Shows how far this club has come, and how damn well we're doing under the Stynes-Schwab administration.

Let's be honest about what's happened at Lord's. Mohammad Amir is 18. He earns something like $35,000, where for any other country he'd earn in the hundreds of thousands. A man offers him money to do nothing other than bowl a few no-balls. Not to deliberately drop a catch, or give a wicket away, or try not to take wickets. Just to bowl 2 or 3 no-balls. Sure, it's the wrong thing, and it's corrupt, but in my mind it's not match-fixing per se. Outside of those no-balls he did what he was expected to do, which was to take wickets. He did take 6 of them. Match-fixing is one thing. Bowling no-balls is another, and whilst it's corrupt and wrong, and he should be punished, I see the kid's reasoning. Hopefully we don't over-react to this if this is all he is guilty of, and he can learn from this mistake and continue what will be a fine career. This is, of course, separate to the possible (and likely) rigging of the Sydney test. Amir didn't play in that Test, but I would be fairly confident that the Pakistanis threw that match for money. Possibly Salman Butt fixed the Hobart match, too. But I want to defend Amir until I'm proven wrong, I think he is just too young to fully understand what he did and he is poor enough to do what is asked of him for extra cash.

He can kick. He can play defence as well as forward. He is quite mobile for a guy of his height. There's a lot of upside to a kid of his young age. I've seen more in him than I've seen in Maric or Cheney. Disappointingly, IMO, both of them have contracts for 2011 and TMac doesn't. He was, but I'm not so sure after this year.

Sylvia no doubt would be the biggest improver. He introduced second efforts and a much better work-rate this year, which would earn him tonnes of respect. As for sliders, Bate's the big one here I reckon. He just doesn't do enough when we don't have the ball and he doesn't tackle or chase hard enough. Newton would fall into this category too, but he probably never had a lot of respect to begin with so he can't be a slider.

The way he moved on Sunday was so impressive. He seemed to be floating across the ground at times. So fluid. His kicking is very good too. Matthew Lloyd last night on One Week at a Time said he has one of the best, if not the best, goal-kicking style in the competition. Keeps his head up and focused on the target until just before he drops, he watches the drop, keeps his head over the ball, doesn't fall back, and kicks through the ball. And his field kicking is great too, as we saw when he passed to Green lace-out. Who knows what he could do with a full year...

1. Sam Blease to get a game 2. Luke Tapscott to get a game 3. Grimes, Petterd, Wonaeamirri and Jurrah to have injury-free years 4. Something that resembles a half-decent performance at AAMI Stadium 5. Finals footy The Darwin and Brisbane wins don't count? It's more of an AAMI thing than anything. Our last few games in Perth have been OK (vs Freo this year and West Coast last year).

I firmly believe we have the better list. Our skills are higher, our best football is well in front of theirs, and we can match it more often with the best teams than they can. Having said that, they're more consistent, they get the absolute most out of their players (which is in some ways a negative), and they also have a good young list which is promising and which deserves to be talked up like ours is. Next year you'd say that it will be us and them who will be pushing for a spot in the eight above the rest of the current bottom 8.

Me too. We put Morton on Goodes for a day which was a learning exercise above all else. I reckon Scully could have learned a thing or two if he'd been on Harvey for the full game, not just half of it.