Rodney (Balls) Grinter

Frost had one of his worst games for the year. Tried hard and dared to take the game on as always, but a bit like Tom McDonald last night, almost every time they tried to get around an opponent, they got caught and turned it over, he also fumbled and couldn't control the slipery ball very well. To say that we had passengers is laughable. Their system and ball movement was clearly better than ours and they hurt us far more when they had the ball at times, but that doesn't make the other guys that pulled on the boots for us passengers. Despite what the players and coachest will say, I really do think we are missing our A team on ball side badley. Take Dangerfeild, Selwood and Duncan out of Geelong and they would have been beaten as badly or worse against the Crows last night. That we were almost in the game for patches last night is a credit to ALL the guys that run out on the park for us.

6. Hunt. 5. Lewis 4. Oscar 3. Melkshem 2. ANB 1. Vince Honorable mentions to JKH, Hibbard, Jetta, Hogan, Frost, Smith and Kent for effort and endevor. Although he didn't get a heap of the pill or use it very well when he did, I did thought Kent's running and tackling were pretty good, typified by his tackle that ended Slone's night (not because it ended his night, but the ferocity og the tackle). It's a really pitty that Kent got injured, because he might just have been starting to find form. I find the malign on this forum at present somewhat difficult to understand, he was injured in the off season and has struggled to find his top form, but at his best, Kent can be a pretty good player for us. I think it's somewhat of a reality that not all players can be in form all the time, so I'm not about to pay out on them for one bad season.

Do you have us beating Port next week to get that result Chook? I'm still hoping we can make finals, but we really need some of those A graders back fast.

He wasn't the only one that did that. They handled the slippery conditions much better than us, though that's not suprising given they operated in more space and under less pressure than us today. I'm also not convinced our high paced attacking in close, risk taking game style stands up that well in wet conditions.

Was a disapointing last 15mins, because before that I thought we preserved and fought hard. To get back to within 21 points early in the last I though showed some fair fight, for a side that is down three if it's best on ballers and three or four that you'd expect to be there. Some really bad misses from AFL footballers today, Kent, Hogan Pedersen missed shorts from with 10 - 20m, minimal angle, that's really bad. I'll give a bit of grace due to it being so slipery. We miss Jack Watts and Salems entries into the forward 50 big time.

Signs a new contract and plays his best game for the year. We need to get the whole 22 for the game against Port new contracts. Loved that torpe after the siren at the end of the third.

@Danelska, I'm generally ok with what you are saying. I don't think it's a big ask to be polite and respectful of other contributors to the forum and it's personally my modus operandi on this forum, as it is in life. That said, I do also quite like a bit of good spirited banter, but if someone bites hard, I am going to bite back. I also think the moderators do a pretty well of what is a tough job and I wouldn't want to make that harder by introducing the pretty hard core approach your initial post suggested. The mental heath/depression issue is sadly and frighteningly real though as you say and it is something we should all be mindful of. In this respect, I was pretty proud of the Demonland community rallyed round, when an individual contributor admitted they were in a bad place in a post sometime in the past 12 months or so.

Barneby Joyce can be quite colourful. His face starts to look like a beatroot when he gets worked up. He and PJK are definitely on opposite ends of the scale on intelligence though.

I know what you are saying, but the previous suggestion of getting McDonald to tag him seems so wasteful of our most in from key forward. Perhaps useling Pedo or even Hogan in the tagging/defencive foward role you suggested might be more the way to go.

Was only natural he ended up his career at Collingwood

Just to emphasise this, against Carlton last week, we lost the clearances to the team which is currently 18th in clearances in the league, after the lost probably their best clearance player (Cripps) for over half a game. Clearly (pardon the pun) an area we need to address against the Crows who are 5th for clearances (BTW we are 6th).

How about move the ball into the foward line properly, find targets and not bomb it? For a few weeks there our delivery into the forward line was first class. That said, I don't think we will have the cattle to suffiently dominate the play through the mid feild to pull that off this week.

Channel 7 comentry team: Omitted - Brian Taylor; This goose has called us the past two weeks now and has given me the complete shiiits both times. Craps on incessantly. BT, it's time to go.

I hope you are right, but I think the evidence thus far of the respective situations was that we were able to more effectively replace and work around the absence of Gawn and Hogan than we were our or midfield A team last week against Carlton.

Smith is clearly a player for the future, but his selection last week baffled me and I can't see how we can carry him into the game against Adelaide. The defensive side to his game is B+ and possibly even A or A+, but what I've seen from him thus far at senior level is that he lacks offensive, skills, confidence and ball getting ability at this point. To some degree, I think we are such a long shot to beat Adelaide that we might as well blood him for the experience and or turn the game into a defensive grind and minimise the damage to our percentage, but that would go so far against our gamestyle now, that I'm not sure we could pull it off. I thought what we clearly lacked last week was ball winning grunt around the midfield and to me that brings into play Tyson (if fit), Ben Ken and or possibly Trengove. I'm not convinced that either Stretch or Kent are playing as badly as some suggest, but they would probably be the main ones in the firing line to make way for mind.

Lewis was giving him a huge rap on AFL 360 tonight (I think that's pretty much what is used as the sound over in the video clip)

I've rarely seen players get any punishment, free kick against or anything for this act. Granted, some of these are on the low end, but I think it's potentially so dangerous, completely gutless and outside the spirit of the game... instead we'll all get carried away with a young red head who has a bit of a chat back to the dick spectator who just sledge him. I'm not so sure about Tex's case. At first we I viewed it I took his word that it was more or less accidental, but even time I watch it, it looks less and less unintentional. I keep coming back to how skilled AFL players can be when they have the ball, evading a player or kicking a goal as an objective, but then how down right clumbsy they get in incidents like this one.

Haven't rated the Weid's performances in the seniors this year, but quite happy to reserve final judgement on him for a few years yet. He did show a few glimpses of class and his potential against Hawthorn last year and his haul in the VFL a few weeks back was fairly impressive, even if it was only at that level. Pretty common knowledge that most KPPs take a few years to develop, they aren't all freaks like Hogan .

Next thing we will be accounting for broken nails as well. Dislocated fingers are not much worse than a grazed knee, put it back in and play on, I've done one on each hand personally.

On of the best things I read on the AFL site match report. INJURIES Carlton: Cripps (left leg), White (left knee)Melbourne: Nil I do feel for Cripps, but so rapped that we have got through a game unscathed for once in recent weeks.

I've noticed it too. It's actually being executed pretty well by a lot of our players and really helps to get the ball out of tight spots and get it moving quickly. No doubt it is a much practiced and I dare say encouraged skill. If the Bulldogs had their handball club, perhaps we have taken it one step further and started a tap/knock on club. A few players like Watts and Trac with basketball backgrounds have always been good exponents of this skill, buy I get the feeling that it's become more prevalent within the team.

I'm not interested in picking on or singling out one particular umpire, but there were a few occurrences yesterday that really caught mire ire: 1. First goal of the game from an off the ball incident 100m away paid in the Carlton goal square. There was that much happening off the ball that I don't know how the umpires picked that single incident above all others and to pay it in the goal square was grossly unfair I thought. Probably karma for the one Bugg got a few weeks back against the dogs, but in general I don't think these type of free kicks are good for the game; 2. I think I counted three 50m penalties to Carlton which were all pretty borderline for infringing/holding up the player after a mark. Similar incidents occurred when our players had the ball and pretty much nothing. If I recall correctly, I think we had one 50m penalty in our favor. Umpires need to improve their consistency in this regard big time. To their credit, I think the umpires did do fairly well to stop forwards being infringed upon for both sides. Specifically Tommy Mc and Jeffy were rewarded for us from some pretty clumbsy defensive holding on and I recall Krusier getting one he deserved from an obvious infringement from Smith.

I've got pleanty of love for Jetta, but could both he an Hibbard make the AA side? On a similar note, my perception was that Hibbard might have had a bit of an off day. It wasn't that Hibbard discraced himself or anything, I just not that he was quite as effective and damaging as he has been for much of this season. I do like Wagner as a defender. While some question him for a lack of skill, he kicked two fairly handy goals yesterday, showing real poise and calm execution under pressure. Also put on some pretty good spoils. Beyond all else, I recon Wagner is as hard as nails, dosen't hesitate and fully commits to the contest.

In a similar vein, you always see players being tackled over the boundary line, taking it out of play for a throw in. What I'd like to see (if it hasn't been tried already) is players being tackled back into the feild of play to get pinged holding the ball.

Looking at the repla last night, I couldn't believe that Carlton defenders left Lewis so loose, they only have them selves to blame. It was also a handy goal from Lewis in the end as well. Helped keep our % up around the 110% mark. With the comp so tight at the moment, having good percentage is as good as winning another game.