Chook

You don't need to convince me. You need to convince him. I think he's good. But the question remains. Can you, who seems to think that anyone who thinks otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about, give examples of why Garland is good. Does anything stick in your mind that you can point to? Do you have any stats? Anything other than a googly-eyed devil face would do.

Thank you for mentioning it. I would have watched it anyway, but now I'll be watching with real interest.

What did he do that was good? Did anything in particular stick in your mind? Maybe if you give some specifics, you can change his opinion. Just saying "he was bloody good" isn't going to convince anyone of anything.

I can't read. What was his approach?

Based on that cutting reply, I guess not. But it makes me wonder why you even wrote it.

Absolutely. The guy's an absolute beacon for attention though. I mean, how can you miss him? With hair like some sort of tropical fruit, tall as a giraffe, with skin as black as Andrew Dimetriou's evil, evil, heart and a spring in his step like a man on a pogo stick, it's impossible not to notice him.

I saw it last night too and heard the commentators say that Surjan was on his feet before the doctors came out. I thought it was fishy but that nothing would be done about it. Surjan should be fined for staging and the highest-ranking person responsible for giving the order for the stretcher to be taken our should be forced to quit his job. If that's Mark Williams, then so be it.

Is that actually what he said? "Filth," "the football world," "be filthy at losing" and so on? Not making any judgments, just wondering.

I suppose I was a little over the top saying that they're "very good," but certainly they'll be hard for us to beat. By the way, is it just me or has Chad Cornes become an absolute liability for Port. A poor man's Bruce, nowadays - hospital handballs, one-handed marking attempts, turnovers galore, no accountability. Bruce only has a couple of those problems, while Cornes has the lot. And at least Brucey's an alright bloke.

I think it's that "I pay your salary" crap some people have a habit of spouting every time they're mad about something.

Have you actually seen Port play this year. Don't let their poor ladder position last year fool you. They are very good. The Swans are good too, but that's mostly because of two awesome games from Goodes.

If we can stop my cousin Bock and curtail Petrenko and Dangerfield, who I regard as Adelaide's best today, we'll be right in there with a chance to not only win, but win well.

Then I think you're going to be a little disappointed. He doesn't have it in him any more, IMO. But to say he was bad yesterday would be a bit harsh. He was responsible for one turnover that cost us a goal yesterday, but made up for it by being involved in 6 entries into the forward line and another two which resulted in goals, so his net impact on the score-line was, in my opinion, positive. In short, he helped us more than he hindered us in our efforts to beat Collingwood yesterday.

I disagree. A football player's job, in my opinion is to create as many entries into the area of the ground that you can score from, while minimising the amount of time it spends in the backline (where your opponents can score from). Anything else that happens is irrelivent, since it doesn't create or prevent scoring opportunities. I said yesterday that we should drop Frawley based on what I saw was his poor disposal. But having watched the game again, once now at the ground an once on TV, I now admit that Frawley was much better than I had previously thought. No way should we drop him. He was responsible for four or five turnovers that resulted in the ball entering our d50 when he was up the ground yesterday. However, to compensate, he was involved in around ten passages of play that resulted in the ball leaving our defensive 50, although a couple of these times were simply quick chip-ins from kick-ins. His disposal yesterday was poor enough to render his good defensive/attacking game against Medhurst less valuable than it should have been, but I now believe he did more than enough to make up for it. So having watched the game twice, I am happy to admit that I was wrong about Frawley's impact on helping us score more than Collingwood (which is ultimately the aim of the game). INS: Sylvia. OUTS: Newton.

Agree also. Our defending from kick-ins is so atrocious that I'd prefer we try to make goals easier to kick by spotting up lose men while in the forward fifty if at all possible, rather than taking a shot and risking the rebound that inevitably occurs after we score a point.

Here's a stat for you. It's been 23 years since that game and if we win the next 23 games in a row, our 23rd will win us the Grand Final. Coincidence? I think not EDIT: Or for the pessimistic, if we only just make the finals, our twenty-third game will be a heartbreaking loss against the Hawks in a Preliminary Final.

Totally agree. He's a damaging player - creative, fast, defensive. And I believe you can teach anything - even hardness. Why bag a player that's got so much going for him when there are others who don't contribute nearly as much to winning a game of footy as he does.

Dudes, he was actually good. Not great, but good. I have him involved in five passages of play that led to the ball going inside our forward fifty for the game, one of which resulted in a goal. He did have one turnover that lead to the ball either leaving our arc or entering our opponent's (I can't remember which), but this turnover didn't result in a goal. In effect, nothing Bate did today ever cost us a single point. Not one thing. And on top of that, he really got the ball into dangerous positions a lot, and effectively kicked a goal as a member of the four or five people who got the ball through the goals. If every player in our team did as much as him today in this regard, we'd have had about 50 entries into our forward 50 (the only place on the ground that can actually be scored from) vs 20. Them's winning numbers for mine.

When has he ever not seemed at peace with the result in a post-match interview. The guy's just a cucumber. As in "cool as a." If he wasn't mad about losing last week, then obviously whether or not we won is not an issue for him. What Dean Bailey cares about is making the most of opportunities. And until such time as we do that consistently, whether we won or lost won't be an issue with him.

Yeah, something like this might do the trick: Dear Jim/Dean, I work a full time job, I get paid and I do my work. And I guess it turns out Football is a slightly different kettle of fish, and you never do know what might happen, because today I saw the the one thing I expect from the team I love and support: genuine passion, commitment and some seriously dogged determination. I honestly have no problem with losing games of football, I just want to see blokes who are prepared to have a crack. Today I saw it. Good news is we were good. But we can be better, and there are 20 more weeks for us to prove it. I now know that the guys see this too, because they didn't pack it up until the final siren went today. Finally, the main reason I am writing this letter is because I want you to know that people like me care a lot about what is going on with our club, and that just as we see the negatives, so too do we see the positives when they come. I want you to be happy that I got to write this letter, because to be honest, this is not the kind of thing I do lightly, in fact I think it’s the second time I have ever done something like this, such is the way I felt from what took place on the weekend. My advice, get straight back on the track and give it another red hot crack… Kind Regards Paul Pitman Optimistic MFC member A few subtle differences.

Couldn't agree more with all of this. Although Scully wasn't too good. Not that I'd drop him after his second game ever though.

Frawley: 3 involvements in d50 clearances, but was responsible for 3 turnovers that resulted in the ball entering our d50 again. Net impact on scoreline - 0. Newton: 1 goal 1 behind, but was responsible for 3 turnovers that resulted in the ball leaving our forward 50 arc, one of which resulted in a Collingwood goal. Net impact on score-line: 1 Point. Dunn: 2 goals 1 behind, and was a part of 3 passages of play in which the ball entered the forward line without score and two in which there was a goal scored. That's actually quite good, but he was also responsible for three turnovers inside our 50 metre arc that resulted in the ball leaving that area, as well as one in the midfield that resulted in the ball entering the d50. The stats I gave you are 100% true. But if you like forwards who aren't able to hold the ball inside 50 and defenders who don't get the ball out of our defence, then keep these guys in the team. Can you give some statistics that show how these players helped our team in it's attempt to score more than Collingwood?But in retrospect, perhaps I judged Dunn too harshly for his poor disposal.

McKenzie was great today. So many of his tackles turn the game from worried defence into sweeping attack. Good to see our young'uns showing the older guys a thing or two about how to create a turnover.

I totally agree. Bate and Murphy play a kind of game where they are always part of the four or five touches that cause the ball to go from languishing on the half-back line to sitting cleanly in the mitts of one of their teams' forwards. Very often a part of a lot of inside 50 entries, both of them. But one thing Murphy does that Bate isn't doing currently is kicking goals.

I think Bate's playing style is highly underrated. He's almost always one of our best at getting the ball into our forward arc and today he did that again (involved in four passages of play in which the ball entered our forward 50). He doesn't make too many costly errors (today, none of his mistakes resulted in opposition scores, although one of them did result in an easy rebound from our forward 50). Nowhere near his best, though, as we know, and he wasn't able to trouble the scorers either, if I recall. Certainly not worth dropping, in my opinion.