rpfc

Uncontested Possession getters in double figures: Grimes 19, Michie 14, Watts 13, Stretch 11, Cross 11, Dunn 11, Salem 10, McDonald 10. Now the backs are going to get a few uncontested touches switching play - which is important but I will concede that is not 'hard work' to do that. Every other UP is hard running. Well done to the boys above - especially Michie, Watts and Stretch, who would have got less of those switches than the others. Jones 8, Vince 7, and Viney 6. Now this is where I get into a less congratulatory tone... We only had around 170 UPs - that is a very lazy performance from a team that has worked hard to push the average up to nearly 200. Against the Pies a month ago we had 237 UPs and the three above had 49 of them between them with Vince getting 24. 12 players were in double figures that day (in order: Vince, Grimes, Jones, Garland, ANB, Watts, Cross, Hogan, Vanders, Viney, Tyson, and Howe). As we know - our best players need to lift, they are letting their mates down. I hate to be emotive about this but there are playing a couple of blokes out of contracts. That's how footy works.

...at AFL average salary. Average salary for an average player. I mean that in the nicest way possible - he is an average player, and paying average players who don't play above average roles, above average salaries is bad list management.

What Roos and co. do with Garland is of little interest to me; if he stays on a short contract or leaves for a bit of security - I just can't really build up the desire for much emotion. I want to get a couple of midfielders and I want Jones and Vince to get back to playing good footy. When Gawn re-signed, that was the last contract we HAD to keep. The rest are up to the whims of the Footy Dept and what they see in the ND, or in Trade Week, or in DFA, or in NEAFL et al. I have got my 'thanks for the effort in tough times' post all ready to go - doesn't bother me when I copy and paste that bad boy.

And that is 72.4% of our losing margin over that time in one quarter of footy! haha, good lord. Only lost the other 9 quarters by 43 points... I can picture Misson reading this doing a 'Neil De Grasse Tyson in a theatre gif'. I can't upload it atm...

Well, you have already stated you hate me so there's that also... I don't think any of your reasons is really enough to hate an individual for the way he plays or doesn't play footy, so you can state all the reasons you want, you will still look like a sheep standing on its hind legs...

This is a way off as Nathan's form at the minute. Wasn't saying this nonsense a few weeks ago. This is yet another travail on our travel back to relevance - Jones will bounce back and so will the club. Been through tougher spots than this.

Yes, I think he is more concerned that you hate an individual for your perception that he does not have enough chat.

That second half was not irrelevant, it still doesn't excuse that first half - in fact it damns that first half - but it wasn't irrelevant. I am not taking that away from Michie, Brayshaw, Watts, and a few others that tried to lift their teammates.

You should change your mind when the facts change.

Yeah, he was trying to grab it but Gawn reached up from behind, spoiled him, and then Cripps picked it up and cantered off with it...

He may be a problem, but how would you know? Their fitness didn't excuse that first half. Or the first half last week. I know it's fun to look for The Cause, or one The Few Reasons, why we are like this but they don't seem to me to be so easy to point out. Nathan Jones' form has been the patchiest it has been in 4 years. Who do I blame for that? I can think of one bloke...

I actually meant to write: it will not only improve them. But really, they are good enough to do it, so improvement may not be the right word...

You are just settling old scores and trying to justify the hate you had for a bloke that has pulled his finger out. He was one that actually wasn't in Bali yesterday, why he gets added to your list only you know.

The roles he plays, or attempts to play, both forward and back could be filled by players in the first team that would earn less than $600k together... I can understand the desire to keep him, but literally at half or what he is asking, I can't understand it for anymore than that. That backline needs another Salem, and that forward line needs to work out how to leave Hogan one out. Neither need Jeremy Howe.

Topsy turvy world when I admire Jack Watts' focus to finish off the season and am fed up with Nathan Jones...

Doesn't think he needs to I would say. I don't like how Vince and, to a greater extent, Jones demand more from teammates than they ask of themselves. they need to give it to the 'right' player not the 'best', and they should block for the bloke in space don't demand the footy running ahead of the footy, and not demand the footy 15m away along the boundary line just because you are Nathan Jones or Bernie Vince... These are the bad habits of good players and getting them out of it will not improve them, it will improve our team.

They're not scarred - but our best players didn't want a bar of it yesterday. Jones, again, was tagged well - boohoo Nathan. Vince and Jones have got into the bad habit of getting cheap kicks by demanding the footy off of 'lesser' players without working hard to get into a 'better' position. Hogan was alarmingly petulant (whingeing to umps, having a go at teammates kicks) in that first half and worked hard to get out of his malaise only for Gawn to illustrate what a bad forward can do to a forward line; he routinely smashed into packs that Dawes and Hogan were battling in, and took two or three goals away from Hogan by attempting marks that Hogan was about to cleanly take. Gawn was truly abysmal in that forward line yesterday. Michie was lively and Newton ran hard but our best players are done for the year apparently, and the coach can't get them focussed. I can understand why, Roos has never had to do this before, his Sydney teams always had 'something to play for' and he never had to convince them to wake up. I don't want us to make a rash decision and install Goodwin for 2016 but I would appreciate a concerted effort by the club to 'wake up' before heading to WA this week where a lesson about footy will be handed out by a, hopefully, Fyfe-less Fremantle.

The site is a great deal better than it used to be. What browser are you using?

I don't wonder.

Well, they did push him out the door... I don't like calling him that though.

NM were far more developed in the midfield before they went and bought their class. To say that we should be ignoring the Redden's of this world to look for these skill-dare-run players is ignoring the state of that midfield. Jones Vince Tyson Viney Brayshaw Vanders Not enough of everything there. Throw in Petracca and develop the promising players all you like, but 2016 is going to a lot like 2015 unless we get a deeper, more talented midfield. Talking past each other - you don't think I would ignore the need for a skill-dare-run mid and you wouldn't pass up the chance to get Redden for the right price...

Find it, show me, because I remember similar words but they were about his coaching responsibilities at any club including the MFC, and not with the club itself. I have always had the impression that Roos wants to be around the club in some capacity beyond 2016. I am sorry if others haven't interpreted what he has said the same way.

Find them before paraphrasing what is said in them. This is how garbage gets such a long half-life - he has said in the past that he wants to balance his life more with the wishes of his family but I have never, since he came to the club, have developed the impression that he would 'love us and then leave us.' He has never been the personality to do that. When he talks about the future - we want to hear involvement, but he knows that Goodwin wants to hear separation and a relent of control. Different audiences will interpret different scenarios to the same words.

You say that like it is a fact. How did that loss set us back that much?

"We'll all be rooned!" A win is better than a loss but losing to Carlton would be embarrassing. But embarrassment is an unfortunate expectation around this club so it won't hurt too much. Such embarrassment will hurt more when we have built up some consistent pride in our performance that we can subsequently lose. And the fans that you are worried about not signing up next year? Yeah, they are not watching anymore. The painted on fans like us are the only ones still with their eyes on the footy.