Ollie fan

Absolute silence from the AFL on the Hawkins flop. Totally typical - they are so soft on certain favoured players.

Salem is a fair way off returning, and who knows what injuries we will have by then? I agree that Hibberd is behind the others now, although he might be brought in for a lockdown job on someone strong like Dusty. As for Tomlinson, I was surprised he was dropped so quickly for petty; I think he is a good genuine defender. If we keep up with our great run of very few injuries, then some players are going to be very unlucky but I guess it is a great conundrum to have.

Watching todays game, so far Geelong look old and slow. Who would have thought it?

To my mind, the turning point was a fantastic chase/tackle/turnover by Spargo on Houli.

This should be the shortest thread ever. We won by 67 points. No change.

I just finished reading that article too. I actually love wing play. And an interesting side note was the reference to Charlie Spargo who gets a lot of criticism on DL for his low stats, but as you can see from the quoted passage, he is playing a role. No wonder he is picked every week. But we have 3 terrific wingers in Ed, Gus and now JJ. And full credit to Goody and his team for resurrecting this role. Of course, Robbie used to do it to perfection - down back to mark the relieving kicks, and often the kickins, then long runs around the wing, beautiful entries into the forward line, and kicking a fair few goals as well. Maybe Ed Langdon isn’t Robbie Flower, but he too is a joy to watch.

I couldn’t be happier with where we are sitting at the moment. Recent results show that there is only one team in the league that really knows what defence is, and that is us. Last year we won so many games on the trot at the start of the season, but none of them any more impressive than the wins we’ve been having this season – they were all 3 to 4 goal grinds. And there is so much potential improvement! I have been a knock on Jordon, but he showed on Thursday that he has plenty to give. Sparrow will continue to improve. I think that even though Weed was quiet last game, he is starting to hold his marks, and I think he may have finally turned the corner. Loving it right now…

We’ll, we are learning more and more. Collingwood: rubbish. Footscray: have gone backwards. Brisbane: poor defensively, don’t like pressure. Geelong: maybe better than I thought but I wish they weren’t. Carlton: let’s see them against a real team. Sydney: not that good after all. We truly are ahead of the rest.

Neither of them can defend around the ground.

I don’t get it. People calling for Tomlinson to be dropped?? - our defence held them to less than 40 points (3 of the goals in junk time) and was Tommo ever actually beaten one-on-one? Why change it? The Weid/TMac question is really difficult. Weid is holding most of his marks (at last!) and is probably the future - but TMac does a hell of a lot of blocking/heavy work. I’ll trust the selectors.

Question: Is Goodwin the right guy?? (lol)

If you want a reason to hate Brisbane, watch whenever we play them. At some stage you will see Gawn or Oliver or someone doubled over, having been belted, probably behind the play.

Three rounds in, it is pretty clear that we don’t have to worry about any of the teams not in the eight. It seems to me that Carlton are ok but not great - we need to see them against real quality; I can’t think clearly about Geelong because I hate them so much but I think they were flattered by playing against witches hats (Essendon) in the first round and were lucky this week. We seem to have Footscray covered. Brisbane are obviously a good team. Sydney probably. Who else?

I’m worried about Stringer. He did some very damaging centre bounce clearances last year against us, until Hibberd went to him and shut him down but that is not an option this week. I really like James Harms, but I’m not sure he’s quite the man for Stringer, and I’m not sure who is. But I really believe we need an effective tagger on him.

Big call! We once had a guy named Barassi…. I did -all of them. Jimmy was an excellent ruckman and great mark but Max is at least as good if not better. Lyon was a great player - both at CHF or when sent into the backline to help out - and both he and Jimmy played in Grand Final sides, IIRC. Robbie was beautiful to watch - hard to compare him. Clarrie really reminds me of RDB, which is really saying something. I believe he is the best of them all, although now that Tracc is putting it all together consistently, he might go past him. I think they are both better than Max but how do compare such different types of players? As with Robbie. The thing with Clarrie is that we are so used to watching him dominate games, get possessions at will, clear the ball out of a pack with ease and accuracy, that we now just expect it and hardly even notice it. Not really fair to him!

For sure, the games this season have been ridiculously over-umpired

I so much wanted to see proof that Geelong is overrated - and I am.

What about the old saying, it’s amazing how the harder you train, the more you get lucky? In the John Northey era, my recollection is that we used to sometimes get belted and occasionally – not very often – would give sides a belting, but if the game was close, we would almost always win. The team just knew how to force the ball forward and something would happen, and how to stop o

With Taj, it is easy to forget his father’s story - which was, recruiters did not think he had enough talent and he was getting overlooked, but by sheer determination to make the most out of what he had, he forced his way into our list and ultimately to a Brownlow medal. Equally, with Taj, he was not seem to be particularly talented but he is obviously making the most of everything he has.

And one of the frees Carlton got was complete rubbish: an attempt to make up for not paying a clear mark a few seconds earlier.

Free kick Bulldogs: currently 7-3. Neither team has a defence.

Watching the broadcast, it’s amazing how much Carlton supporters look like Carlton supporters!

And wasn’t there a block paid against TMAC for a pack ball, where he managed to get both hands on the ball? – hardly blocking for the sake of blocking!

Lot of dispute here regarding Jordon. I said he was slow-thinking and others disagree. I believe he is, and think particularly of when he marked the ball on his own in the halfback flank, on the “fat side”, With wide open spaces before him and he basically just stood there, looked around gormlessly and opted to take his kick from behind the mark. That’s what I call slow-thinking.

Don’t see Lever coming in just yet - but we’ll see - but otherwise why change the backline? Including TMac there? They conceded 3 goals after half time to one of the best attacking teams in the comp. But I am a doubter about Jordon - tries hard, yes, but a strictly average player and worse: he is a slow thinker. For me Out Salem, Jordon In Bedford and either Weed or Majak