Ollie fan

Is this the old”Is Goodwin the right guy?” resurfacing? FFS! It may not be rocket science, but we won three finals last year by an average of 74 points with none of the above in the attacking half. Oh, let me think – I think he had pretty much the same midfield then as he does now?

At the G, the displays say Tomlinson. But if Goody says hunt, it’s Hunt. I think Tomlinson offers more versatility.

Tomlinson is a perfect choice for medisub.

Recently there has been a lot of criticism of Jake Laver on this site, with posters suggesting he should be dropped etc.. Some points in his defence. First, he had a rough start to the season with injury. Secondly, over the last 3 weeks he has had to carry the defence as a tall - and he is not really tall and certainly is not solid - with May gone, Petty banged up, and Max having to go forward to help out there instead of dropping back in his normal manner. Oh, and all of this while trying to act as the general - watching the structures, directing the other defenders, last week helping out a first-gamer. And against good teams. I think he has done pretty well actually.

If they pay LJ that sort of money, what do they pay Darcy? It really doesn’t make sense and I don’t trust the information.

People keep saying we haven’t beaten anyone. In fact, we took Richmond apart in everything except the size of the winning margin - because we kicked so inaccurately. We were miles better than them.

An absolute throw by Cripps when tackled, in Richmond forward line – no free. Some players are untouchable.

In: run and dare Out: slow movement across the half back line and down the wings. Apart from that: At least Weid can fill in in the ruck. Especially with Max injured/limited, I would like to see a three-way rotation of Max/Jackson/Weid in the ruck/CHF. I feel sorry for Mitch Brown but he is not AFL standard. BBB seemed to me to be coming back a bit- he almost took a few marks; maybe next week he takes them. But I hate the fact that he plays so far up the ground; we need a stay-at-home forward so there is always a target.

I think he should train as a CHF, particularly with TMac out.

What happened to Turner?

Can’t see it with Petty. He seemed to share responsibility for Mihocek, who just killed us.

Nowhere near ready yet.

I think you’re harsh on Tomlinson. And I think Mitch Brown has shown on Saturday what he showed us in a game or two last year – that is, he’s just not up to AFL. He gets brushed aside too easily and has no presence in a pack.

It’s not a final

It would be nicer watching Geelong getting flogged…

Out: Melksham, BBB, In: anyone else

Oliver, Petracca and Viney are better than anyone - including Carlton mids.

Apart from the Viney/Dunstan etc argument, BBB out, Weed in. BBB is looking very slow.

I don’t rate Richmond. Dusty has been a tremendous player and is still good but he is not the unstoppable force he once was. Cotchin, Riewoldt, Grimes are past their best. Bolton is a great player at times bug not a reliable match winner. Then quite a lot of players who are good but not A grade. They may well make the 8 but won’t go far after that. Brisbane is the really interesting one. The old saying is, a good defence will always beat a good attack. When we play them, that will really be tested.

The ladder is really interesting. It is completely clear that only two teams have any idea about defence – of course, we are one of them. so lovely to see Geelong on the slide.

I think they don’t worry about the opposition too much because our mix of defenders is so versatile. We have players like Hunt and Salem who can play on small or mid-sized forwards, May and Petty can play on tall forwards but May is not out of his depth on a medium-sized forward.Lever really does his own thing and cuts off attacks before they ever get to his opponent – in other words, probably the only thing that might bring a reaction would be if there were, for example, four hulking tall high marking forwards on a fine weather day. But how often does that happen? And if it does, then the opposition are very vulnerable to us bringing the ball to ground and running away with it.

REST LEVER!!!!

Without ranking them, but a few comments: I’m old enough to to remember Norm Smith, and how can you go past him? Bobby Stilton was good with a terrible team. Barassi was a disappointment, and I don’t agree he set it up for Northey. Northey came in and coached us to the wooden spoon, as I recall it, while he sorted out who were the real goers; then we took off with players who were not stars: Yeats, Bailey, Balls, Sugar Healy etc.. Got shafted at Brisbane because he couldn’t handle the merger. I don’t rate Balme at all. The talent in 1994 was as good as today (I know many will see that as heresy). His style was crap and so we ended up in 7th and had to play the prelim in Perth; no wonder we got wiped. Wasted a massive opportunity. The Reverend is a hero. Roos transformed us - with the help of a reasonable administration - from a total shambles to a professional club. Goody - every single match we play the commentators refer to how superbly drilled our defensive systems are - which is purely from coaching.

Poor Melksham is going to really struggle to get to his 200…

I would actually be very interested in the 1:1 stats for all our defenders. Are they available?