Chook

Yep. Fair enough. Nobody's suggesting that only teams with Reserves sides will do well, but it probably helps.

That would be true if Jamar regularly tapped it into space, but he taps it to his feet most of the time. Even when one of our mids get their hands on the ball cleanly, they're almost immediately locked up because (as you'd expect) most of the opposition midfielders congregate at that spot.

One of them plays for a team that hasn't won a game all year, and the other almost always kicks more behinds than goals. Just because they're great players, doesn't mean their selfishness is a positive.

Do they? I seem to recall their game plan falling apart under pressure many times over the past few years. Not enough practice, perhaps?

You say "Tom Scully's in town So don't go to the snow?" Well Kev, it's our ground and our game So prepare for a show.

About that "dream stoppage," it was Jamar in the ruck (no surprise), Trengove third man up (makes sense, I suppose), Grimes with the collect (hint, hint: he's good in the midfield), and Morton waiting on the outside (oh no! but he's SOFT!). You might argue that anyone could do what Morton did. The fact is it was Morton who did it. Also of note is that in the forward-line, the first thing Sylvia decided to do when he got the ball was to go for an across the body miracle shot at goal into a wall of about ten St Kilda blokes. In one of our best team goals of the year, Sylvia was too focused on himself to give the quick handball to Bate in the clear. What does that tell you? The fact that Bartram's typically sublime skills(!) were still able to get us a goal out of that situation is a testament to the great team-work of the other six of our guys in the area.

They're not if they can take a mark. But Jamar can't, so he might be in trouble.

At the moment, I'd prefer a stab in the eye with a rusty fork over a Brian Royal-led midfield, so obviously getting Ratten back would be a huge benefit. But it won't happen. The blues will come home with a wet sail and win at least one final, thus keeping Ratten safe for at least another year.

Honestly, if he had just come out and said "A giant spewed ten beers on me while I was asleep, so that's why I'm leaving. Oh, and by the way, someone's paying me six million dollars to do it," I really don't think too many people would have blamed him. In the immortal words of George Costanza, "It's a traumatic thing to be thrown up on." I just cannot understand why he didn't let the club know he was going. The only possible reason is that he was afraid they'd stop giving him games in the AFL.

He's not in the leadership group? Wow. In a way, that's even more impressive. Instead of sulking about being excluded (like some people), he's become an even better role model for the younger players. Good on him.

Jared Rivers seems to be the only senior player who has anything resembling a professional approach to the game. If he was indeed one of the players [censored] off at Schwab's over-involvement in on-field affairs, it's a testament to his character that he has been able to get over it and embrace the new set-up. The fact that he was kept in the leadership group shows this.

I'd heard some stories about how bad his knee was. Looks like those stories were true. Poor guy. We really need a small defender (and a small forward, and some good mids, and . . .)

Ten pints of WHAT? There are various bodily fluids that could come out of an extremely drunk seven-foot tall descendent of Frankenstein. By the way, if someone peed, puked or even threw 10 beers on me, I'd seriously consider murdering them and/or getting as far away from that person as possible. If someone payed me six million dollars to do it, all the better. What I would not do is pretend I was making my mind up about it.

"Boo! Different shirt! Boo!"

IMO, two heads are better than one. In a field a speculative as drafting young teenagers, I'm always in favour of a high turnover rate. I'd always go 2 picks before 1, unless the two are way down the draft order.

That was the game that really got me into footy. We were screwed, then Yze went forward and we totally pantsed the Pies from that point on.

Right. For all intents and purposes, an umpire doesn't exist. Although I do find it a little bit inconsistent that when the ball is marked by the umpire, it's a ball up, but when it bounces off the umpire standing against the post, it's a behind.

Hit outs don't mean a thing if they go everywhere except to a team-mate. We'd be better off having Jamar whack the ball 20 metres than what's going on at the moment. I'd also prefer him to kick the ball long towards the boundary instead of trying to palm it off, and instead of trying to mark the ball, he should treat it like a ruck contest and belt the ball toward the boundary line (in the backline) or into the hotspot (if in the forward line).The reason I get so frustrated with Jamar is that he's got one fantastic strength that he manages to turn into something we rarely gain any benefit from.

Saying "We should have got Darling" is the same thing as saying "We shouldn't have got Cook."

I can't believe you're still bitching about the Scully thing when you haven't even seen what we've gotten as compensation for him. Scully vs 2 top 20 picks is brilliant value for us, and Lucas Cook by all reports is coming along great. Saying you wish we hadn't got Scully and that we had got Darling IS criticism of the players we've got instead of them. Like it or not, you ARE dissing Cook whenever you say we should have gotten Darling. LAY OFF!!

Not many people bitching about poor recruiting with this guy. To be honest, I think Prendegast's later picks have generally been very good. It his earlier picks which still have me questioning him. Having said that, a lot of our top 20 picks have either been impeded by injury or were picked as (very) long-term prospects. The next couple of years are going to be very telling for guys like Watts, Morton, Blease, and so on.

Collingwood kicked about four goals off the deck against us last week. Whatever Bartram's deficiencies are, he would have probably stopped at least 3 of those.

Clearly you've picked up that habit as a means of coping with your unneccessarily long and boring biopic. At least you learned more than me from that film.

Indeed. Why even waste your time on the biggest MFC footy forum if you don't even care if we win or not?

"Bruce McAvaney brings commentating to new heights by claiming that 'you just get the feeling the next goal will be pivotal, don't you?' after every goal."