Chook

I disagree. His job is to make it more difficult for the opponents to move forward (ie towards their own goal), when they have the ball. This is pretty much the same as any defender's role. The only difference is which part of the ground he's doing it in. Does all defence only occur in the back fifty? Back half? Defensive goal-square. It's all just semantics.

Of course, but the press is irrelevant when your backs are getting marks taken on them left and right.

I don't rate his defensive capabilities at all, though his kicking is pretty good. I'm of the opinion that a setup with him and Jared Rivers in the same team would be very bad for us. Riv needs to be able to drift off his man, but he can't do that if other players aren't good one on on. Not sure where else Strauss could go in this case. Maybe on a wing, although I'm not too sure.

Athiests who get offended by other people's harmless religious beliefs (or God forbid its' symbols) are just as bad as religious people who hate gays or want to ban the teaching of Evolution. Religion is part of human culture. Don't fight it. Just live with it. Use a Good Friday Demons-Saits blockbuster to raise money for the Royal Children's Hospital. Sell Easter eggs. Whatever. The variety of people's beliefs, and the ability to share in them from time to time, is part of what makes a Multicultural society great. Footy on Good Friday is something that should happen.

I agree with you. Blockbusters don't need to be "earned" if they are well-marketed and have a good theme. Good Friday: Demons vs Saints would be a good-natured homage to the Easter period. No-one would be offended and it would easily develop a niche in the year's events. I'm for it.

On a similar topic, whose idea was it to give the Anzac Day bye to the Club which lost the greatest number of players to the War?

Unfortunately, we're the only Club that cares about the Queen's Birthday "blockbuster." Apparently it's our "Grand Final," even though I thought the Grand Final was our Grand Final.

I heard Lynden Dunn was sighted having a cuddle with his two-week old son prior to our game against the Swans. The fact that young Emmet is so quick to travel to the 'G to watch his dad must mean he bleeds red n' blue. Future captain right there. Also, I should get a prize if this actually occurs.

Honestly, I don't see us winning this one. I don't even think our players will turn up.

I'd go for Paul Roos as coach in a second. I like Dean Bailey, but I like Paul Roos more.

You know that silky-slick chain of handballs through the midfield followed by a kick down the throat of Liam Jurrah, which makes you go "Jeez, where the hell has that been all day?" That's our game plan in action. "Why don't we see it more often?" I here you ask. Because we're young, that's all. Intensity comes with maturity, and skills come with time. Put the two together and you have the ability to reliably hit your game-plan.

I thought his marking today was top-notch. Was murdered a couple of times without getting a free-kick, too. Sure he missed a couple, but two of them were posters, and almost all of his kicks were in about the tenth row. Not in super form, but whatever, he'll come good. Or not. He is the wrong side of thirty - and we all know how quickly things can go downhill at that age.

I thought you were making a witty stab at the Consumerist, sponsor-driven nature of modern sports . . . until you ruined that by admitting your ignorance. Oh well. As for the game, I haven't been too impressed with Colin Garland over the past couple of weeks. I would make the following changes: IN: Madonald, Petterd OUT: Garland, Dunn But that's unlikely to happen. Besides, it may just be a little poor patch for Judy. He could even be out of it in two weeks time anyway.

And if we had actually played well.

I felt like his disposal efficiency in the first half was woeful. I'm obviously one out and loved his second half. I just thought his first was poor, and for that reason, he shouldn't be getting all these 4 votes.

Disagree on Rivers. He's actually been our best defender two weeks in a row now. His disposal is much better than it has been, and as long as he plays on the slowest forward, he's great one-one-one. Poor on the lead, but we have the defensive versatility to work around that.

Love your work, CB. Totally agree.

I'm really surprised at all the votes for Sylvia. He was awful when the heat was on. Not worst on ground, by any means. But certainly not in our top six. His second half is probably the reason he's getting votes, because it's fresh in your minds.

6 - Trengove. Kicked a couple of good goals, and generally won the hard ball and delivered well. Also cleaned up a bit in the back half. 5 - Moloney. Continued his good form from last week. You'd expect him to kill it against the Suns, and he did. 4 - Bail. Has heaps of run and great endurance 3 - Jamar. Needs to work on his kicking for goal, but his tapwork is good, and if he got half the frees close to goal that he should have, he would have kicked a bag. 2 - Jones. I think he's finally worked out how to play around his weaknesses. I expect him to really continue this form into the future because all the things he's doing are very reliable. He's not a flashy player, so he should be able to remain consistent. 1 - Wonaeamirri. Toss up between him and Morton for the one vote. Wonna was great in the forward half and really brings the tackling pressure we need. Great to have him back. Sylvia was shocking in the first half, IMO. Kicked some teenage butt in the second half, but was really poor early. Garland was not so good either. I would consider dropping him for Macdonald, who played well this week in the VFL. Obviously we'll have more info to go on in a couple of weeks time.

If Jack Watts comes in at three-quarter time and doesn't do something good against players from the worst team in the competition - all of whom have been working hard for 90 solid minutes, I will be severely annoyed.

How kind of you.

I really think that having a unique game-plan is essential to winning a Premiership, because as others have said, it is very difficult for other teams to counter that with which they have little experience. However, regarding the press, I do think that it's a disadvantage not to apply it ourselves, since if our forwards don't do it at training, our defenders have less experience penetrating it than other teams who have access to the press every single training session. At the moment, we only experience it once per week, whereas every other team has to battle through it each and every training session. Seems like a disadvantage to me.

Liam Jurrah > Legend > Champion > Superstar > Elite > Star > A-Grade > B-Grade > most footballers > hack > spud > publicity recruit.

That was his fault for not making it clear that he was not taking advantage. If we could make it so that players were always clear which team's free kick it was (by having different sounding whistles, for example), then it would be easy for the players to ALWAYS be the sole arbiters of whether advantage is or is not taken. If we brought in a rule like, "It's always play-on unless the next player from that team to intentionally touch the ball clearly raises their hand and signals that they want the ball to be returned to the person who was awarded the free kick," then the problem would be solved, IMO.

What about each umpire having two whistles, each with distinctly different sounds? The umpire blows the whistle designated to the team who gets the free, at which point the player from that team can either take advantage, or opt for the free kick. It's when players don't know which team's free kick it is, that trouble starts.