Chook

Of course I'm exaggerating a little, but the fact that there are so many past players in the footy media suggests that writing ability is not the number one criteria that is required when becoming a footy journo. Who your father is (i.e. Sam Lane and her father Tim) seems to have more importance than actually doing the hard yards at a lower level or in another field.

That's actually a good point. Clubs that share the colours of the new club should be able to say that their own brand might be diluted by yet another team entering the competition with the same colours.

Are you kidding me? Give me a thesaurus and a computer hooked up to footywire and I could be a Herald Sun footy "journo" too. One of the easiest jobs there is, IMO.

Lots of people last week were going on about how Maric's game was so good in our smashing of Sydney that we had to give him another game, despite the fact that we had the possible Moloney, McDonald, Trengove trifecta to come in the next week. Now that Watts has a 27 possession, high-ish efficiency, massive work-rate game, everyone's bitching about how dodgy his disposal was and how he absolutely must be dropped. Double standards, I guess.

Is that you, Robbo?

I wouldn't. She'd be way better than me in bed and would shatter my confidence for the next time I got with a girl. I'd think "oh no, what if I fail like I did last time?" I mean, really!

Sounds like the Sideshow Bob quote; "Attempted murder? Now honestly, did they ever give anyone a Nobel prize for Attempted Chemistry?"

Or not winning, as the case may be.

That's if you can "pick" a number one draft pick. Any idiot could see that Adam Cooney was going to be very good.

Don't worry. Those guys don't have enough brain-cells to compute anything outside of the very thin margin in which they operate. Total idiots who are very lucky that SEN is as lacking in talent as it is. If it were of a little higher standard, those two [censored]-jockey's wouldn't be anywhere near any voice transmitter more powerful than a telephone.

I get that vibe, too. He does some pretty good charity work and is always good for an enlightened quote, but sometimes that comes off as a little pretentious.

That's pretty specific. Mark Jamar will kick three goals, though, so that'll be nice.

Obviously, but just cause we won without him, you can't say that the reason we won so well was that he didn't play. I would drop him based on strict one-off performance, but you can't judge a Captain based solely on the last game they played.

I think it should be kept up, as a tribute to the stupidity of some footy fans. I mean, really? Yeah, let's finish 9th. As if that would somehow make our players better at dealing with the pressure of finals than actually playing in one. Absolutely ridiculous!

What makes you so sure of that? Did you play with him?

Me too. I can't wait to see how we go against the Hawks in a couple of weeks' time. I'm sure the players will have a lot of motivation, given what they dished up in Round 1.

Then it's lucky that we're not talking about winning flags in this thread. To make the finals, you need to have more points than eight other sides. Currently, Carlton and Sydney do, and it may just be that in a few weeks time, Melbourne may also. If that's the case, then we get to give our young team at least one more game of AFL than we would have otherwise been able to this year. This alone makes it worthwhile to get there.

This is pretty much my opinion, too. I'm (relatively) okay with having to wear a clash strip at our away games, but I'll be damned if I'll ever be happy to watch Melbourne play a home game in anything other than navy blue with a blood-red yoke.

Well, the idea is that he's Captain based on more than his individual performance. Conceivably, we may have lost the game against Brisbane if McDonald was replaced by, say, Jack Trengove. Perhaps something James McDonald did or said as Captain inspired the rest of his team to hold on and win. Not to mention the fact that to drop your Captain is basically an admission that you made a mistake in picking him to be your leader in the first place. Most people don't like to admit when that they were wrong. Of course, I could be wrong.

Not to mention the flawed idea that any team who makes the eight is automatically making a "tilt," implying that later attempts at the eight might be sacrificed with the aim of doing better now. As long as we don't sway from what we believe will cause our players to play their best in the future, whatever happens, happens. Football players want to win every game. Fans should want their team to win every game. If our team wins every game for the rest of the H&A season, we're in the eight - good for us. If we keep winning each week, hey presto! we'll have won a flag. Basically, there's no argument that it's a bad thing to make the finals prematurely as a result of planning for the future. Where you get problems is if you sacrifice future greatness in the name of mediocrity in the present.

WTF no Garland? Judy was awesome on Sat. Weird.

Maybe one will be named Damien

Oh, right. Good point.

Isn't he a West Coast fan? He may even live over there.

Brilliant response to a passionate but sometimes misguided footy fan. Good stuff.