rpfc

Dawes playing up the ground allows Hogan to be a target in the 50. If it wasn't for Dawes being able to provide a target across HF - Hogan would have to constantly chase kicks up the wing.

The guy is a frontrunner, and I mean that in the nicest possible way - teams need them. And he can be damaging, the same way that Sylvia could be damaging, but these types of players require others to get them the footy and they require certain conditions for optimal use. Watts is getting better because the team is getting better and he will do some damage for us but it is when we are winning clearances and hard footy and getting him the ball and getting space in the forward line for him to kick to that he will be his most potent.

Another solid game, and another game where he is out of marking form - he can get better. One thing that I think we have to remember with Dawes is that Hogan gets more space when Dawes is bullocking the top of that forward line. Getting Hogan one-on-one is the aim of that forward line for the next decade.

Yeah, I would hate to recruit very good players...

I reckon Garlett is one of those blokes that gets better the more he feels comfortable and valued. He is going to have the occasional stinker - second hardest spot to play on the ground is small forward. Would love to see Salem back there for one of our inert players. Drop Lumumba if you like but don't expect that to be a panacea for our lack of backline run and dare. Other than that it will be rubbish in and rubbish out unless vanders is good.

Sister city to Gotham apparently...

It's not 'offensive' - good lord... He doesn't like a hard tag - Jacobs gave him a hard tag and did all the things a good tagger does and I saw far too many arms out looking for easy frees from Nathan. We didn't help him get much separation but I didn't like what I saw to be honest. Having the flu, notwithstanding I don't like him appealing to the umps - he should be appealing to his teammates.

It's not really the 4 best mids that are the problem, it's that we don't have much beyond that. If Jones is having a sook and Bernie gets a big head and that happens in the same game you get smashed 46 to 12 by qtr time. I can deal with Jones, Vince, Viney, and Tyson staying as good as they are now but we will need Vanders, Brayshaw, Petracca, and whoever else and whoever else to come or continue to come on. NM ran deeper than us and it really does help your better players when the pressure is alleviated somewhat.

While I was disappointed at Qtr time I now have some level of confidence that I didn't think "oh, here we go again" even with the stats saying we hadn't turned up. Loved that fight to get back in the game. While Lumumba makes me nervous after he has run 10 and unloads to Berwick - he has a few inert players in that backline. I harp on that a great deal but when Jetta is doing more creation than McDonald, Dunn, Girmes, and Garland - we really need someone to try some stupid things. The way I saw the game was that - around the ground - we were better. But they got truly fantastic movement forward from stoppages and some of their clearances were so damaging; we get a tumble punt forward and they get a bloke running at goal ready to hit someone or the goal. The Higgins snap in the last was great skill all around - from him, the ruck, from NM players to open that space. They rely on their clearance work to win games and it shows - I don't think they will do much this year - but they are easily better than us at the minute.

I have no problems with this. Been arguing for it for a while, the academies successes have brought it in. Arse about as always the AFL but on the right track.

Yeah, it is amazing how he seemingly catches the eye of Dees fans - they see us lose a contest + Jack Watts was in it or near it + no other player jumped out at being at it = Jack Watts was the reason we lost that contest. I think that happens more often than us Dees fans would care to admit.

What fawning have you seen in the last few years? He has done this before - strung a few good performances together, not as good as these last couple of months admittedly, and then he goes missing for a few months. I have seen him chase blokes and tackle blokes and get hard footy and push hard to get the footy previous to this year - it was just so haphazard and seldom and his form so disjointed that we didn't know whether he was capable of consistently doing these things that would be required for him to be an AFL player for the long term - let alone a good player. The difference is the seeming removal of the lapses in the above over an extended period of games. I still think he requires certain conditions to play well, and I would have dropped him earlier in the season for those conditions (wet weather, a literally 'tough' opposition), but I am glad he has shown over the past month and a bit a way of contributing in a variety of different ways other than simply playing lead up HFF that struggle to impact games when its too wet to link play or to tough to get space and clean footy. So, I will have it both ways (without the fawning) - he has shown he 'can' do this and that is what we have pointed to - in 2015 he is finally showing he might well end up doing it. And he is 24.

The way Green flung himself into contests and at the footy for marks was tremendous, but like any skill - he was far better at it toward the end of his career than at the start. I don't want to go over old (very old) arguments but the guy worked on a weakness to the point where it wasn't a weakness, I refuse to believe it was never a weakness - I am comfortable with what I saw.

Yes, it's a lovely read... Oddly enough it is used by both sides in the argument for draft assistance over the last couple of years. I say oddly because my Hawforn supporting mate is still adamant that we shouldn't have got any help 'because we did this to yourselves' with our terrible drafting. When does a team not 'do it to themselves' when they become horrible? He can be such a [censored] this bloke, we weren't even talking about PP or anything, I was just musing that it is good to see perennial losers like us, Saints, and Dogs finally rising with the expansion clubs... Sigh.

Yeah, but you're one of them apologists...

...WHEN WE GET THE BALL INTO THE FORWARD LINE, UNFORTUNATELY, IT DOESN'T HAPPEN OFTEN ENOUGH.

Rd 1 happened after the pre season which included some disappointing losses incl. Essendon's VFL team if I recall correctly.

This argument depends on whether you are talking about Watts as a player, Watts as a pick, and whether you realise that it doesn't matter anymore where he was picked. It just doesn't. He just helped us beat a team we hadn't beaten since 2 years before he arrived at the club - you would have to tie yourself up in metaphorical knots to argue the player on the weekend a 'dud.' And some of the 'hate' was more than 'disappointment,' B59... It was petty, over-the-top vitriol that became a race in 'who can make the most disgraceful statement' about a player, and a Demon no less. He isn't 'out of the woods' yet either - he has to continue with this form to cement himself as a HFF/wing in what, I hope, will be a good team over the next 5 years.

This year has had a few of those games I think - the Richmond game comes to mind.

It is testament to that forward line and how well it functions that we can get near a winning score with so few Inside 50s. Good OP.

Do you think there is someone sitting there deciding what goes and what doesn't? It's an IT limitation od the software of the site - I am sure that there is a list of words they can put in and if those words are attached to anything else - they won't be picked up by the software and be censored. [censored] in a teacup, really...

This was the point I was making last week - that our improvement makes the drop offs that much more infuriating and disappointing. I would love for us to not play poorly - but we are not there yet on this journey. And to be perfectly honest - I am not sure that us being 9 and 8 would really be a good thing - we are still an embarrassment against the best 4 teams in the league. We need to add more talent and skill, and continue to build. Nathan Buckley said when he team was about 8 and 3 that he was not sure he wanted the team to make finals this year and be top 6 because the fixture they would receive in 2016 would be a burden they would not be ready for (the fixture is based around grouping the teams 1-6, 7-12, and 13-18). Now, Nathan Buckley doesn't have to worry about that anymore (lol) but he makes a good, if slightly misguided, point about teams getting ahead of itself. I think we have seen a true indication of this group as it stands - there is still a ways to go for us to be considered a competitive, mid table team.

That thread didn't have much about NevJet...

Vanders apologised after that tackle... F-ing drop him. Sick of these MFC apologists.

Really didn't need that last line. When someone boils down another's argument to an asinine level - you are essentially saying that the people who are on that side of the argument are asinine. So to answer your underlying question - No, jnrmac, I don't think all people who 'boo' people/things are racist.