tiers

Thanks. Max got the nickname for his bowling action not his footy. His was an ungainly bow;ling action and he seemed to tangle up his feet as he approached the crease. Didn't stop him being a champion test bowler just as an ungainly kicking style does not always mean a poor kick. Just think of Phil Krakouer who held the ball in what seemed to be the wrong hand.

Brian Leahy - wrecker

I watched the ball sail towards me. A goal for all time. You had to be first.

Please don't use them all at once. This thread may have to last a few weeks.

For something to fill the time during the social separation why don't we start never ending threads on the well known nicknames for past and present players. I will start with Froggy - Neil Crompton premiership player and goal sneak. Please add your own and keep this rolling. We might need it for some time.

No rush but does anyone know what will happen to our scarves? Let's hope that there will be a season after May when we can collect and wear them.

+1. Continuously at the highest level.

Be careful with this analysis. MCG is home ground for many teams and so we do not have the same potential advantage as teams who do not share. Look at filth's %. Top four teams have been the standout teams since 2015.

At the end of the game it is the team that has scored most that wins, not the team that has most possessions or displayed greater courage or commitment. Sending the ball through the big sticks is the name of the game and why talented forwards have been prized forever. Maxie can get all the hitouts to advantage and Clarrie can get 60+ possessions but unless we score we are toast. TMAC at his best can score. That's why he is the most valuable, even though not necessarily the best.

He can be a gun so long as he doesn't try to do too much when in possession. Get the ball and get rid of the ball to advantage. By now he should be experienced enough to play this style without causing us to lose possession due to trying to be too tough. Perhaps it is a legacy of trying to hard to lift the team when we were performing poorly. Now that he is no longer captain he can revert to his game before he was elevated and injured.

I like Mooney. 2020 Go dees.

@skuit I never posted about monkeys. @demonland Someone has posted a fake comment in my name. Please investigate and fix.

To @Skuit Thanks for the suggestions (I have used them before) but I prefer to keep my postings as short (in length) as possible. Some posters quote long entries and add only a single line of commentary. I find these posts wasteful. Navigating these threads is hard enough without spending time scrolling through pages and pages of repeated entries.

to PaulRB Agree. The best captains can swing the momentum of a game. I recall how Garry would move on to the ball when we were lagging and lift the team by his own effort and leadership. None of our captains since have had this ability. I hope Maxie has.

To La DVC There are very few players with the awareness and intelligence to be good on field leaders. There are plenty of media and pr people at a club to fill the role. Think Maxie before he was made captain. I want to win games, not hearts, minds and clicks. They will follow if we win games. My first choice was TMac because I have seen his leadership on the field in close games.

The captain should be the on field leader of the team. Not the media darling nor the pr front man for the club. So long as Maxie provides the on field leadership and direction I don't care how he speaks or how entertaining the press conferences are. Nathan Jones was a great captain who led from the front and whose only weak point was that he could not lift the team in a match. Should we ever get silverware while he is still playing, his hand should be on the trophy together with the captain and the coach. My hope is that Maxie can add the extra dimension and lead our club to success. 2020 Go dees. Go Maxie's mob/mates/maulers/mugs/mass/multitude/ - add your own.

2007 was the year that it all fell into place for cats. The squad was mostly 5+ years into their careers (many had been drafted in the early 00s) and they had played together as a team for three to four seasons. They were primed. Should apply to us. 2020 Go dees.

Who cares?

Easy transitions for our opponents arise when the ball movement into our forward line is so poor as to almost invite an easy repulse and transition. Moving the ball into the forward line with purpose and skill and holding it there will mitigate the problem. Get the forward line working properly should be the key. At that point, a single defender behind the ball is the best strategy to protect against transitions. 2020 Go dees.

Thanks to the administrators for providing quick links to the quality training reports by Deespencer, Baghdad Bob, George and others at the front of this topic so that we can get straight to the important stuff. The training posts have been excellent in their objective and succinct coverage of the happenings at training and they are the best feature of the summer months. In their training reports they avoid the banal commentary in other posts. They have elevated their contributions for the benefit of those of us who just wish to follow our team, unconditionally support ALL our players no matter what and are excited about season 2020. 2020 Go dees.

Simple. Left footesr have a natural advantage over the majority right footers in that they can turn clockwise onto their kicking foot and evade right footers who find the turn unnatural. As a result, they have less need to kick right foot. But right footers have no such natural advantage so have to learn to kick both feet. Its what made to dorks more potent under Clarko.

Or a spring roll for vegetarians.

A goal is a goal is a goal .....and six points no matter how it is called.

Northey came to the club at the end of the Barassi era and inherited a group of emerging u19 players such as Greg Healey, Yeats, Newport, Bailey and others who had played together as a group under Slug Jordan. He added recruits Spalding, Viney, Dean and Lovett (from Dorks) and changed the structure of the team. At the beginning of 1987 our best half back line was R, White Icke Giles. By the end of the year it was Lovett Spalding Grinter. That change alone made a colossal difference. Neale arrived in 1998 and was blessed by the return from several injury affected seasons injury of Lyon, Tingay, Schwarz, G Lovett and the drafting of White and Johnstone. He did well until he was comprehensively out coached in the preliminary final by Pagan. His reluctance to play Stynes and White on the ground at the same time arguably cost us the game. Thereafter while we made finals we never competitive. Northey coached finasl for five consecutive years, Neale coached finals 6 years out of 9. Each had a very slim chance in a GF but 1990 under Northey still hurts. Neale probably had the better list but did less to develop them and left a lesser legacy for his succesor. Balme got us into finals after only 2 years after Northey whereas it took 12 years after Neale. That Neale is still with us is a comfort. Blessings.

For sheer beauty and consistency, Phil Roden's drop kicks from full back in the reserves were without peer. Tassie Johnson and Bernie Massey were next best for drop kicks. Post the drop kick era, for distance, Darren Bennett and Paul Wheatley were consistently long and good. Flower, Lyon, Hughes, Yze, Davey and many others were long and reliable kicks and Jackovich especially when shooting for goal. But the greatest of all was Travis Johnstone who had the unique and innate ability to kick the ball so as to draw the player to the ball in the best position to take the mark. Unfortunately his team mates at the time could not adapt to his skill and did not anticipate his kicks and the coaching panel at the time seemingly ignored it. What a waste of a weapon.