titan_uranus

And West Coast still needs another 2 wins...

Good on him.

I heard that in a highlights package on the 5th quarter last night. That was just crap. Whilst I'm glad I didn't have to listen to DR, the 774 commentators weren't that great either. There were plenty of players I hardly heard last night who racked up disposals (Geary is one of them). Jamar got little credit for the ruckwork, PJ got more. Rivers got more negatives about his kicking than positives.

Exactly right WJ. Almost every week now we hear Bailey say something along the lines of how we're overposessing or using the handball too often, yet it continues to happen. I think the problem last night was, again, that there was no target up the ground. At stages last night the commentators were berating us for not having anyone forward of the centre. It's happened many times this year, the forwards get sucked up the ground chasing their opponents and don't hold position. That means our defenders and midfielders look up and see nothing, so they handpass and go backwards/sideways. Our poor skill just exacerbates the problem.

According to the paper he played 80% of game time. No he didn't. Maybe you're thinking of Maric, who played about 4 games because he had to couple footy with school? Watts isn't ready. He isn't playing decent footy at Casey yet. He's had one good game, the rest he's been struggling. I don't want him to be thrust into AFL level with a heap of expectation on his shoulders if he isn't gaining confidence from his footy at VFL level.

I'm assuming that Rivers played on Koschitzke? From the radio I couldn't tell. About the only thing that got Rivers a mention was a couple of poor kicks (which, actually, is something Rivers needs to work on).

I didn't have the luxury of being able to see the game, but from 774's radio coverage (which was pretty crap, but I didn't want to risk getting worse coverage from MMM), it seemed as though Johnson, Bennell, Green and McLean played well. Having read the papers, it's obvious that Jamar had a good return as well.

Do we usually travel with 2 emergencies? What are the chances of Cheney in for Frawley?

Why is there a strike through Cheney's name?

So aside from 3 season-enders, we've only got 2 official injuries? Must be the lowest in years. (though I'm sure Buckley's injured) Wonnaeamirri might as well be listed as 'indefinite' if they're going to put 4-6 against his name.

Where's Leon Davis?

You can't go past beating Collingwood, can you? I'd love to see 2011 or 2012 as the next number in 45's sig. As for the captain, well, if Dean Bailey is on the podium collecting the cup, I don't care who's standing with him.

10,687

I haven't had time to read the other posts on Bell, but I don't think he's ever going to be good enough and I would have prefered Cheney. Having said that, at least Bailey is rewarding those who play well at Casey. Hopefully Newton and Robertson will see what hard work can get you.

These decisions are made before the season begins. Ten anticipated that Richmond would be doing well at this stage of the season, and that Freo would be a middle of the road team. They would not have expected St Kilda to be doing as well as they are. Overall, though, none of our interstate matches are televised on free to air in Melbourne (that is, the Port in Adelaide, WC in Perth, St Kilda on the Gold Coast, Brisbane in Brisbane and Sydney in Canberra matches). The only match that's not in Melbourne that can be seen on free to air is the Geelong match. So, in essence, we're rarely on free to air, and when we are, it's almost always a match in Melbourne that the majority of our supporters could go to anyway. Which sucks.

McNamara's been playing both back and forward at Casey. He could be played in the forward line if he did debut. Bailey's been talking about getting players to be flexible enough to be able to play in more than one position: I'd think McNamara fits that mould, and should be looked at over the next few weeks.

I'm not entirely sold on this. It would help in that we wouldn't be having MCG home games against the likes of Port, Freo, WCE, GC17 and Adelaide, and the financial windfall is obvious. But this administration has been talking about making sure our home ground is the MCG, about how the other clubs are all tenants. By selling 4 games to Darwin we lose that dominance of the MCG. And of course there's the extra travel. Based on 4 Darwin games, I'd be happy only if we had another 3 interstate games on top of that. Of the remaining 15, we could still have 12 or 13 MCG matches, with the rest being Etihad. But if we were to lose 4 MCG games per year to Darwin, then I would be against the idea. Strawbsodwyer's suggestion of back-to-back games in Darwin is something that might make it easier to stomach (i.e. we could have 2 fortnights in the season where we play in Darwin both weeks, spending the rest of the time marketing and drumming up support).

McNamara. Probably should have already debuted. I think, if the coaches base this on performance at Casey, McNamara would be very stiff to find Watts promoted before him (unless Watts' next couple of games are absolutely brilliant).

Agree. He should only be picked if he's ready, and he's not doing enough at Casey to suggest he's ready for AFL football. So if we have to wait until later in the year, then so be it.

I have to agree. Umpiring this game is extremely difficult. I can't think of any other sport where the umpire has so much to do. It's just inherent in our game. Lots of rules means lots of decisions. I've heard the proposal that umpires should be a full-time role. I agree. I think if umpires were full-time umpires, they would be more able to focus on learning and applying the rules, and there might be more of an incentive to become an umpire. This is law 15.2.3 ( b ) Where the field Umpire is satisfied that a Player in possession of the football has not had a prior opportunity to dispose of the football, the field Umpire shall award a Free Kick against that Player if, upon being Correctly Tackled, the Player does not Correctly Dispose or attempt to Correctly Dispose of the football after being given a reasonable opportunity to do so. So regardless of whether or not a player has had prior opportunity, if they don't correctly dispose of the ball when being tackled, it's a free kick.

No, it was both stupid and selfish. We all know why it was stupid. It was selfish because he was thinking about how cool he would look if he kicked the ball whilst lying on his back. He was thinking about how great his speccie was and how he wanted to continue in the same vein. He was thinking about how he would look once he'd kicked it. He wasn't thinking about how much the team needed the goal. And if you're going to reply to this, do you think you could refrain from calling me names? It shows you have little ability to maintain an argument.

I said in other threads that the margin made our performance look better than it actually was. Hawthorn outplayed us convincingly for the first half, and may well have continued on with it if they didn't cop two injuries in the third quarter. I was really disappointed with our first half. Nonetheless, we never gave up, and I love the fact that we've won 7 out of 9 4th quarters. It's a great thing to be able to run out matches (regardless of the opposition).

If Whelan's injured then Cheney in for Whelan. If Jamar's ready for AFL footy (which I suspect he's not), then we must bring him in (out Petterd?). We can't continue to ruck Martin when he could be learning the trade of a forward or a backman.

I believe that was Umpire Avon. I too found Mr Avon to be somewhat inconsistent/incorrect in his decision-making.

In 3 words I tried to say that Frawley started off poorly but improved as the game went on. 'Bad but improved' shows that. These 3 word analyses are in regards to the game, not the season/career of a player. We might not have been beaten by 200 points, but the margin flattered us, and made our otherwise poor performance look a lot better. If it wasn't for their two second-half injuries, the margin would most likely have been closer to 60. Our first half was close to our worst football so far this year.