titan_uranus

Seems like McKenzie is quite highly regarded by the club. Maybe 17 will be for our first draft pick in this year's draft.

The full list is as follows: 1. Matthew Warnock 2. Nathan Jones 3. Clint Bartram 4. Jack Watts 5. Jordan Gysberts 6. Matthew Bate 7. Brad Miller 8. James Frawley 9. Jack Trengove 10. Cale Morton 11. Paul Johnson 12. Colin Sylvia 13. Jordie McKenzie ® 14. Lynden Dunn 15. Ricky Petterd 16. Jack Grimes 17. 18. Brad Green 19. Addam Maric 20. Colin Garland 21. Daniel Bell 22. Brent Moloney 23. James McDonald 24. Liam Jurrah 25. Kyle Cheney 26. John Meesen ® 27. Jared Rivers 28. Joel Macdonald 29. Michael Newton ® 30. Tom McNamara 31. Tom Scully 32. Cameron Bruce 33. Austin Wonaeamirri 34. Stefan Martin 35. Luke Tapscott 36. Aaron Davey 37. Max Gawn 38. Danny Hughes ® 39. Neville Jetta 40. Mark Jamar 41. 42. Jake Spencer ® 43. Jamie Bennell 44. Rohan Bail 45. 46. Sam Blease 47. James Strauss 48. Jack Fitzpatrick 49. 50. Rhys Healey ®

Thanks for your coverage WJ. I'm surprised that Blease and Strauss didn't change. Changing numbers seems to be the fashion atm. Looks like the night was a resounding success.

I'm in. I think I got the last spot in the league. Should be fun. This is a welcome change, I reckon. Now you don't have to waste trades if you've got spare midfielders and holes in the defence (e.g. Chad Cornes). Another welcome change is the 'partial lockout' we've got in Round 1 and the Split Round. Because Richmond v Carlton is on the Thursday, and the rest of the teams don't come out until the Friday, only Richmond and Carlton players will be locked in on the Thursday. Then you can go back into your team and fiddle with players from the other 14 teams, until the full lockout on the Friday. Same deal with the Split Round. This makes things a lot easier.

Disappointing for a number of reasons, primarily (for me) it prevents us from playing Martin forward, where I think he is best suited. Hope Jamar's foot doesn't screw him up this year. This could be a good year for him. I don't know how Gawn and Fitzpatrick are doing but if these injuries are serious then maybe one of them could find themselves in the red and blue a lot earlier than we thought they might.

Thanks for the report Bringbackbarassi. Interesting to note Cheney assuming some sort of leadership role. I still think he's got quite a bit to offer, but I get the feeling he's not a part of our long-term plans. Good to see we're working on kick-outs. Hopefully the training pays off this year and we can eliminate that massive weakness.

2010 Ladder position and record: 11th / 9 Wins 13 Losses B & F Winner: Moloney Most Brownlow Votes: Moloney Most Rising Star Votes: Scully Most Improved: Grimes (if that's possible because we saw so much improvement in 2009) Our 5 most important players at the end of the season will be: Moloney, Sylvia, Jurrah, Warnock, Garland 2010 Premier: Bulldogs Wooden Spoon: Tigers Brownlow: Hayes Coleman: Jonathan Brown

Nice way of looking at it. Can't really fault any of those groupings. With a bit of luck with injuries hopefully we'll sneak a few wins out of that 'Unexpected but possible' group and end up with around 7-9 wins this year.

At least the grass looks quite nice...

Of those on our 2009 list, I want to see as many of Strauss, Blease, Cheney, McNamara, Maric, Spencer, Wonaeamirri, Martin, McKenzie, Bail and Jetta as possible. Basically the youngest, most inexperienced players. Don't want to see Newton at all. Of the new kids, I reckon we'll see Gysberts and Tapscott, and maybe Scully and Trengove.

Phew... Mitchell Marsh is going to be a star. Should force his way into the Australian team in the next 12-24 months.

Whoa... Whoa... Gotta get my head around all this. It does look somewhat cleaner, which is nice.

Tsonga-Almagro. What I saw of that match was awesome. Or, in the words of Henri Laconte, UNBELIEVABLE!

Henin-Dementieva = best 2nd round match in tennis history? And it didn't even go for 3 sets. Would have been immensely epic if it had. Unfortunately, Henin won though. I still don't like her, but I'm softening I think.

Great idea. Should be going off when Strauss, Blease etc. are tearing things up in the VFL.

Western Bulldogs St Kilda Geelong Adelaide Hawthorn Collingwood Essendon Brisbane -------------- West Coast Carlton North Melbourne Melbourne Fremantle Port Adelaide Sydney Richmond West Coast to be the big improver, Carlton to be the big drop.

IIRC, they originally did have the orange logo next to the word 'hancook', but that was changed early on last year. Don't know why.

Good to see the Vics make the Champions League again. But winning the Big Bash is going to be pretty difficult, with no White, McKay, Siddle, Bravo, or Taylor. Will be interesting to see what Taylor and Bravo do come the Champions League if Trinidad and Tobago, or Central Districts (Taylor's NZ team), or the Royal Challengers Bangalore qualify. I would assume that they signed their Victorian contracts with a clause that allows them to play for their home teams if they qualify. IMO, it's more important, in any form of the game, to have a bowling line-up that can take 20 wickets. Most batsmen can make runs against poor bowlers or flat pitches. Obviously you need competent batsmen who can put together decent length innings (Pakistan doesn't have these, neither does Bangladesh), but bowlers are more important than batsmen who average 50+. On a related note, has there ever been an XI in which 10 of the 11 have taken a Test wicket? Our team in Hobart was just that, with only Haddin not having ever taken a Test wicket.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/peter-si...f-1225821044172 Dwayne Bravo out of our line-up with a hand injury. Not good. Lose a bowler and a batsman. Katich didn't bowl before because of his shoulder. Before he bowled in Hobart he had a saline injection into his shoulder to free it up and allow him to bowl. And I didn't get around to bagging England. Seriously, Morkel highlighted a weakness in Strauss' game (angled in from round the wicket), Cook is still susceptible, Trott's no good, Pietersen's out of form, Prior's no good, Broad and Anderson weren't that good either. If not for some luck and some defiant batting from Collingwood and Onions England would have lost 3-1. Agree there. North isn't good enough, and should be replaced for the NZ and Pakistan tests, even though they're not the best practice. I still think Hussey should be batting at 5 and Clarke at 4. He bats further down in ODIs, where he is indisputably one of the world's best, and he always bats well with the tail.

Pretty fair analysis, RR, except I disagree with the final statement. I believe we can (and will) win the Ashes this year. We now have a world-class opening pair again. Katich and Watson are high class batsmen who complement each other well. And they both bowl, which is nice. Agree re: Hauritz. The figures flatter him immensely, and Yousuf said as much after the match. A lot of his wickets were the batsman playing a woeful shot. I'd hazard a guess that less than half Hauritz' wickets were on account of good bowling (though he got Manzoor yesterday with some smart pace variation). Graeme Swann is well, well in front of him. Good to see Siddle back in the wickets. IMO he's better than Bollinger, but didn't get the results to show it. Consequently, he's going to need to really out-bowl Bollinger in NZ to keep his spot when Hilfenhaus returns (and Hilfenhaus goes straight into the team, no questions. He swings it. Enough said). Siddle swung it both ways yesterday, though. If he keeps doing that hopefully he can get a ton of NZ wickets. It has to be, doesn't it? I mean, Ross Taylor comes in tonight, so someone has to go from the team that beat Tasmania. Won't be Hodge or Finch, they batted well at 1 and 2. 3-7 are Hussey, White, Bravo, McDonald, Wade. Won't be Bravo, Wade or White. Could be McDonald, but he's in better form than Hussey. So I reckon Hussey gets the chop.

Glad I read this thread through to the end. For a moment there I was wondering how I was going to fill a massive void in my life... I seriously don't know what I'd do without Demonland. So I thank those who donate to this site. And I thank Demonland, Nasher, and anyone and everyone else who kept this site going.

Good cricket results worldwide. Steyn and Morkel did everyone a favour by putting England back in their box. Can someone tell me why Onions was dropped? As for us, I'm bitterly disappointed with our batting. Clarke should have hung around a little longer. 2 more runs and they would have had the highest ever partnership in Australia, 50 odd more runs would have made it the highest 4th wicket partnership for Australia, and 80 odd runs would have broken the record for highest 4th wicket partnership ever. Seriously, though, those two weren't in good batting form, so it was good for them to get some runs. North, on the other hand, did nothing to improve his standing. Haddin, Johnson and Hauritz managed to come in and start hitting the ball straight away. North took 46 balls for his 21. Too slow given the circumstances. And then he went out to another waft outside off stump. Also, good to see Siddle grab 2 wickets. He's bowled better than his figures suggest, but he needs wickets to keep his spot anyway.

I like that we're getting it out of the way so that it isn't lingering around during the season. But we need to see improvement this year to be sure that Bailey is the right man for the job. I'm confident he is, and I'm confident this year we'll start our climb up the ladder, but in case we don't, there's no need to extend the contract any more.

So long as Serena Williams or Justine Henin don't win, I don't care who wins the women's draw. Clijsters preferably. I'd say Stosur, but she's in such bad form right now I dobut she'll make the 3rd round. As for the men, Federer isn't in great form either. It seems quite open to me. Any of Federer, Nadal, Murray, Roddick, Del Potro, Davydenko or Djokovic seem capable. Should make for some classic matches.

^ I don't get it...