Chook

Do you think he'll regret not making the most of his opportunity in the AFL when he's older? It's a shame to hear he's like that. I liked Chopper when he was playing for us. Except I'd always be screaming at him to play in front of Gehrig and he never did, and was always led to the ball. Not to fast, was Chopper Carroll, to be beaten in a footrace by Fraser Gehrig

That's actually the example I was thinking of when I wrote that. We won by three points after a poor start to the year, and you can pretty much guarantee we would have lost if he had've stayed on.

Man, watching your avatar is like watching a horror movie. I don't know what's going to happen next, and I'm real scared.

Stats are boring. Ask Baseball.

Probably. Thanks for that. It was a tough year for Roo. Given the Captaincy and expected to lead them to a Premiership at the ripe old age of 8, can you blame him for tearing up? I can still remember Eddie McChins' commentary, along the lines of "Riewold's down. He's hurt. WHOA this is massive!" as if Germany had just invaded Poland again.

Thank God. I'm so glad there are people who watch games open to changing their minds. Here, you recognised people didn't like Bruce's game, so you watched it to see if they might be right. Props to you for that, as well as for stating examples of reasons why he was not crap. Why do we need a weekly Bruce, Bate, Watts, Dunn thread? Bruce's "terrible disposal," Bate's "ungainliness," and so on, too often cloud people's judgement of the good things they did. Watch the game, take in players' positives and see if they outweigh the negatives. If they do, then there's a good chance they helped their team win. If they helped their team win, you then need to ask, is there someone not in the team who could bring even more positives than negatives to the table? If so, then by all means talk about dropping them. /Rant

Can we ban these "wat R U Smoking?" jokes. Totally counterproductive and not at all enlightening. If they're followed by "you must be on crack because . . ." then at least there might be some valid information or opinion in the post, but otherwise it's nothing but a waste of space. Stop feeling so good about yourselves for calling someone out on something so "ridiculous."

So does Aaron Davey.

Do you remember Mal Michael and (I think) Darrell White smashing Nick Riewoldt in Round 1 up at the Gabba some years ago? It made poor little Nikky cry, it did.

Früt.

Second quarter, just before a bounce. It was like a little kid pushing over a tortoise. Very funny.

Hence the "he will continue to do it because it's effective" part of my post. I don't like that players can do what Guerra does, and I don't like him for doing it, but I don't blame him. I blame the AFL for not changing this rule as have done others which can cause injury (running past the ball, sliding into someone's head, head-high bumps/tackles, the White Rule, and so on).

I was interstate for much of last year, so didn;t see any of Melbourne play in '09, but if I had seen that, I wouldn't have liked it I'm sure. But the other issue apart from whose team Guerra and Bartram play for (and the bias that might go on because of that) is the fact that Guerra is a serial offender. He knows he's doing it, but he has and will continue to do so because it is extraordinarily effective.

I reckon all of these things happen. There's certainly some sort of coach-directed schedule that's written up before the game, but it would be used more as general guideline than actual rule. All of the above circumstances would probably mess this roster up if there is one, though, as I would think they take precedence over anything drawn-up pre-game.

We would need every Collingwood-level team to play a little below themselves when they play us, because that's one of the reasons we got as close as we did. You need 14 wins to make top 4, 15 to be safe. Would you mind looking through the draw and naming the games we could win?

The reasons I can see are messing up other teams' match-ups, reducing injuries, using different players' strengths at different times, and so on. Another thing they mentioned on one of those footy programs on Monday night was the fact that often the head coach doesn't micro-manage the bench to that extent. Sometimes it is the doctors or the other guys on the boundary. Sometimes - rare as it is - a player even wants to come off the ground, for whatever reason.

Bailey really talked up Rivers' leadership on FC the other day, so I would expect him to come in. And Sylvia selects himself, so I couldn't see this happening. But the fact that we did so well means that the Football Department need to have very good reasons for dropping the guys they do.

I posted this in another thread, but thought it might have some value here too. I hope that's okay. From footywire, a comparison of our 2009 team on that horrible day against Adelaide and the team that played Collingwood last week: 2009 VS ADELAIDE Moloney, McLean, Morton Davey, Bruce, Jones Sylvia, Frawley, Petterd Rivers, Johnson, Bennell McDonald, Warnock, Bartram Jetta, Bate, Dunn Meesen, Miller, Newton, Martin 2010 VS COLLINGWOOD Grimes, Davey, Bail Green, Bate, Bartram Moloney, Bruce, McDonald Macdonald, Warnock, McKenzie Bennell, Frawley, Dunn Petterd, Scully, Jones Strauss, Newton, Trengove, Jamar INS: GRIMES, BAIL, GREEN, MACDONALD, MCKENZIE, SCULLY, TRENGOVE, JAMAR, Strauss OUTS: MCLEAN, MORTON, Johnson, JETTA, Meesen, Miller, Martin, RIVERS, SYLVIA Those in caps are who I would consider possibly in our best 22 if available tomorrow. Also note that Rivers and Sylvia, who are listed in the OUTS, both have a strong chance of returning to our team vs Adelaide. This post has been edited by Chook: Yesterday, 05:31 PM

He poos rainbows, don't you know?

Why? They were once my opinions, but I saw I was wrong, admitted it and posted my new opinions. Should we retroactively delete everything that is incorrect?

Wow. Pretty much exactly what I got from the game too. The only thing I might disagree with is dropping Bennell. I'd do it if it's clear that we're not "punishing" him for squibbing, because that might make it worse. I trust the Club to do the right thing. I'd drop Strauss ahead of Bennell, but if dropping the latter would help him, I'd certainly do it.

I remember Brad Green being on the Footy Show right after Brock donated, and he all but said "I donated money, but you don't see me bragging about it. The guy just wants to be Captain so bad he'll do anything."

The problem with playing it in GF week is that you might have players like Pavlich, Davey, Sandilands, Cox, Naitanui (in the future), Goodes, Jurrah and so on in the team despite not having played football for nearly a month. I think we should either have a break between the last round and the finals and play it then, or we should play it mid-season in one of the bye weeks.

He kicked five goals in the NAB Challenge match we played against them, but I think three were gifted to him from free-kicks. Warnock played on him, so if we're going to bring Martin in, I'd prefer it to be to replace Newton. But I'd keep Newton in for at least another week for the sake of team continuity.

One thing that those stats don't take into account is the extra endurance and speed that being lighter can give you. We saw what Essendon were able to do against Geelong with a fast, running game-plan, so I think that there is room for smaller, lighter players in the AFL just as long as they are used correctly, and their strengths enhanced rather than exposed.