Rab D Nesbitt

I come in peace Dieter. It's just a little observational humour. My background is no less humble I can assure you.

I'm concerned about the effect on our players. This could end up a pyorrhic victory.

The poor lad should have a meeting with an orthodontist first. He has a smile like a row of condemned houses.

It's not unreasonable to guess that he wasn't on much coin on his current deal and there's nothing to suggest that his new one is on really high numbers either. What we can say with some certainty however is that should a rival come sniffing in the short term they will now pay a high price to prise him away. It also provides us with a little more clarity on our cap space in the short to medium term. Much ado about nothing methinks.

“I just think I’ve still got a lot more in the tank. I’ve come this far and I’m not going to give up, just because of my latest injury. I’m not a person who will just chuck the towel in and give up. “I love training and I love football. Without football, who knows where I’ll be? “Getting a third opportunity at the highest level would be life-changing for myself and my partner and my family – it would be the luckiest thing. It would mean a lot to me and my family.” Sounds like a man that still has the white line fever. Oh, ...wait a second...........

He's giving serious consideration to signing with a club that just finished 17th.

A few less Sundays aside I don't see too much to complain about here. We're a mid size boutique club in a finite market. The Partick Thistle of AFL football if you like and we've been handed a draw that befits our current standing on the footballing landscape. Let's just try and be the best we can be with the resources we have available to us. If we can punch a little above our weight , surprise a few doubters, bloody a few noses and carry a little luck then then we'll find ourselves rubbing shoulders with the big boys come spring time.

Hi Monoccular. The game itself is a distant blur so I couldn't say for sure. I do however remember they sold jugs of beer in the outer throughout the day.

It's like getting Galatasaray away in the Champions League then Millwall away in the cup.

My only trip to the west was the round one game where we kicked 2 goals 8. If this is to be our only visit to the House of Boooooo next year then I'll take it.

So, one game in the [censored] end of nowhere and the other a Friday night blockbuster in Launceston. Could've been worse I guess.

It takes too long to get served at The Tippler on a Friday after work anyway.

If self fulfilling prophecies are anything to go by it looks like we're a stick on for the regular 3.20pm Sunday slot.

I can't think off the top of my head of another country that has the same geographical sporting schism we have in rugby v footy that then leads to the ridiculously convoluted and ham fisted decisions made to try and alter it.

Personally I'd prefer we stick to what appears to be an unofficial 'no [censored]' policy. My NFL side Green Bay seem to have similar ideas and it has only enhanced their reputation as a brand when competing for new fans and among players who might otherwise look to avoid six months of the year living in the frozen tundra. For what it's worth I also think the way we conduct ourselves during the trade period enhances our chances of recruiting the right players to our club and with the rival teams we have to deal with (Fremantle look away now). It's not just on the field that those one percenters can make the difference.

A full midfield ensemble is music to my ears.

If I'm reading this correctly it seems that the concern relates more to what we do if either or both of our main spearheads gets injured again more so than whether we have enough tall targets sans injury. However, we shouldn't let our fear of the unknown (injury) distract us from the far more important issue of everyone playing and executing their role as instructed. Yes, it's that old chestnut of system versus personnel again and for me it's by far the best contingency for troops that fall during the next campaign. Having now addressed the issue of outside run we can reasonably expect to see the ball being delivered inside fifty more swiftly and more often, thus allowing our forwards (whoever they are on a given day) better opportunities to lead and mark into space. However the need to either recruit or develop a quality crumbing forward is crucial to having the multi faceted forward line we require for the coming season.

The language of a tabloid journalist. Give me Martin Flanagan any day.

Better to be marmite than vanilla. Thanks for the memories Frosty.

Tomlinson and Langdon? Winger, winger chicken dinner.

Yeah, great minds and all that ha ha. Sure we had a few games where I thought we were truly hard to watch this year which you never want to happen. I do think though that a lot of everyone's angst and frustration lies in the fact that we're so capable of being really really good. Sometimes once I've got over the disappointment of a game I try and compare us with the times when we really did have nothing to look forward to and there's just no comparison, I think.

Personally I don't think there's very much that separates most teams. Players executing their team role on a match day makes all the difference and as a collective unit we have as much talent as anyone else in this league. It's all very well to bemoan the lack of a plan B or C when things aren't working but first we need to make sure that our plan A is burnt into everyone's hard drive so that it becomes second nature.

There's only so much interest you can wring out of forty blokes looking for a change of scenery. Horse racing however has the capacity to make almost anything else (apologies motor racing & golf) look exciting.

A nice little insight into how he sees our young playing and coaching group. I'm almost more impressed about the fact he didn't say learnings once.

Trades in and out are always subjective and I'm not in the Chicken Licken camp on this one. One swallow doesn't make a summer and all that...