Chook

He's a weapon of war, Neeldy. You wheel him out only when you want to blow up young footballers' egos, so you can't expect him to have super humour.

They already are loathed on and off the field, WYL.

I doubt it. From what I've heard, his "impending court case" is simply a video link where he pleads guilty or not guilty. The next time he'll have to appear in court is still months away, I believe.

Conduct a thorough interview with the lad and actually get to know him rather than take him on face value. Who knows? If we did that a couple of years ago, we might have picked up a neat young kid called Dustin Martin.

Watch West Coast or the Dockers pick him up at pick 20 and catch the rest of the league with their pants down once again.

I blame Jack Watts for the Flash Sideways.

And what are we supposed to do when our shocking midfield goes for minutes at a time without getting the ball inside fifty. Sylvia will get mighty cold up in the goalsquare with our current roster of mids.

Even the crappiest forwardline can kick goals if given a regular supply of the ball from great midfielders. Since we have the worst midfield in the competition and at least four potential ruckman already, we need to pick up as many mids as we can from this draft. Some midfielders know how to play a crumbing role also, which would be killing two birds with one stone.

I blame Jack Watts for Russell Hantz and the introduction of the Hidden Immunity Idol and the Final Three.

I think it says more about our terrible drafting and ruthless youth policy than our remaining senior players.

You're looking at it from too much of a "results" point of view. The OP made no mention of how little (comparatively) we lost by, because this year that's largely irrelevant. He saw what many of us saw - an increased intensity, a desire for the contest and a bit more cameraderie. I still think we have a long way to go in each of those areas, but once we do bring them up to speed, you'll see consistently smaller margins. One day, when we're old and grey, we may even get to see our team win again.

Who controls the British crown? Who keeps the metric system down? Jack Watts! Jack Watts! Who leaves Atlantis off the maps? Who keeps the Martians under wraps? Jack Watts! Jack Watts! Who holds back the electric car? Who makes Steve Gutenberg a star? Jack Watts! Jack Watts! Who robs cave fish of their sight? Who rigs every Oscar night? Jack Watts! Jack Watts!

It's a blight on our supporter base. I reckon Melbourne supporters are the quickest to bag their own players, and it's really embarassing. When I was about 15 years old, I went to the footy by myself for the first time, and had to listen to two 20 year olds bagging the Dees at every turn. All the while, they were wearing Melbourne scarves and jumpers. Finally I gathered the courage to turn around and ask them "Are you really Melbourne supporters. Because you don't sound like it." "Yeah," they replied sheepishly. We ended up winning the game but those two blokes were nowhere to be found. The fella you're talking about has obviously become Jaded™ over the years and is no longer a real Melbourne supporter at all.

Great point. Totally agree. I reckon the only chance the "stacks on" situation will ever stop is for the interpretation to change to your suggestion. Unfortunately the only way that'll happen is if someone gets seriously injured by having a broken leg or their head crushed under the pack.

If you pay chuckers vigorously, then the rolling maul will stop. If you have any control over the ball and you're tackled and the ball spills out, then it should always be dropping the ball. Apparently there's no "dropping the ball" rule, but there is an incorrect disposal rule, so pay it. Sometimes you have a rolling maul where nobody has possession for about a minute and there's no ball up. To me, that's some of the most exciting stuff in the game. I love those moments when the ball is in dispute. I don't love it when a player picks up the ball, is immediately tackled and the ball drops free. Pay incorrect disposal (dropping the ball) if he's legitimately got it or pay holding the man if he doesn't.

He actually already had the bruise before he knocked himself out

How about nothing? The next time we should mention Jim Stynes from an on-field perspective is after we hoist the Premiership cup.

That's total BS. The players often went to one another to encourage or congratulate.

Because getting payed off-book is morally wrong. It's like saying "Why have money if people can (and do) steal what they want." Not everyone gets payed off-book, so the current system is (mostly) effective. If there were no draft, then there would be no real club loyalty, and those clubs which could (or were willing) to rort the system would win every premiership, fostering a climate of success that would draw in every other success-driven (as opposed to money-driven) player.

IIt honestly looked like he could have killed himself doing that. Then where would we be? But Clarky's made out of rubber, so he got up fine.

Game Plan? Good show, but I prefer 360.

McKenzie's hesitation whenever he gets it is part of the reason our ball movement looks so slow. Not only can he not run with the thing (since he'll get caught), if there's no-one to hand the ball over to immediately (via handball of course), he waits until the last possible second then just hoofs it as far away from himself as possible. My honeymoon with Jordie is over. That party ended for me last year.

Predicting what we'll be like in 7 weeks time is impossible. By that time, everyone will have a pretty good understanding of their roles and we'll (hopefully) be fielding a full side. I'm backing our maiden win to happen against the Pies on QB. Our style probably works best against them, so it's likely that we'll get the cookies then (to quote K. Hunt).

The problem is what happens when he gets it. I'd prefer the thing in Joel Macdonald's hands over Jordie's.

Whoever invented the capital letter would be right royally [censored] off to see you abusing it like that. No respect! If we kept a salary-cap which was strictly regulated and could be sure there'd be no Judd-style deals, and if we could guarantee every player would be more interested in earning money than winning a Premiership, then abolishing the Draft would work. But players can (and do) get payed off-book by wealthy clubs, and many people would simply just go running in search of a Premiership, leaving the poorly-performed clubs high and dry. In short, we'd probably be screwed.