Chook

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.

Despite that, he wasn't responsible for much else. To win a game of footy, you have to get the ball within scoring range and the first step in this process is to get the ball out of your opponent's scoring range. That's a defender's job. Out of all the times today that our defenders did that, Frawley was a part of three. But his disposal today actually caused the ball to become turned over resulting in three entries back into our d50. Thus, his net impact in removing the ball from the place in which his opponents were able to score was zero. So under these criteria, that would rank him in the bottom two in our team. But he has been good in the past, so I guess he'll probably come good again next week.

For me, Newton was pretty bad today. He didn't score much, and was responsible for a couple of turnovers i50 (one in the first quarter and one in the second) and wasn't nearly creative enough to compensate. I'd drop him for Martin/Sylvia next week.

What should I do to fix it? Petterd was responsible for 1 turnover resulting in Collingwood rebounds in the first quarter, one that cost us a goal in the second quarter, 3 turnovers i50 in the 3rd quarter and totally went missing in the last, according to me.

INS: Sylvia, Garland (if fit), Martin OUTS: Frawley, Newton, Dunn Now hear me out. Frawley had no influence on getting the ball out of defensive 50. Despite the fact that he really didn't cost us anything on the scoreboard, he wasn't nearly attacking enough to hurt the opposition at all. Newton was also terrible. Again, he had no impact on the game for long periods of time and was the cause of some turnovers inside 50. We need players who are able to keep the ball in there so we can score. Newton didn't do this. Dunn. Sure, he did some good things and scored a couple of goals, but he was also one of the biggest offenders when it came to turning the ball over in the forward 50. We do too much work on getting it in there to have it all undone by a couple of non-marks or poor kicks. Scully also played poorly, but he's very much in our future, so I wouldn't drop him yet.

Apparently nobody is interested, but it seems I can't tell the difference between Bruce and McDonald and Macdonald, who I didn't even think was playing. Accordingly, probably half the points I gave to Bruce and some of Juniors should have been given to Macdonald. Oops. So, in all, Macdonald may have been one of our best today

6. Davey 5. McDonald 4. Grimes 3. Moloney 2. Green 1. Jamar

I'll be going to the footy today as I'm sure most of you (other than our favourite ankles country member) will too. But today, I thought I'd try something a bit different in my analysis of the game. Today, I'll be writing down the names and numbers of (and adding or subtracting a score to or from) each player in the following way: 1. -1/-6 points from a player who is responsible for a loss in possession (either through poor skills or by giving away a free kick) which results in the opposition scoring. The point deduction will be equal to the points scored (-1/-6 points for a behind or a goal, respectively). 2. -4 points from a player who is responsible for a loss of possession inside our forward 50. 4 points is the average between 1 point and 6 points. Considering changing this to whatever our scoring average is (ie our total score divided by the number of scoriing shots). 3. +4 points to a player who touches the ball in a passage of play in which the ball leaves our defensive 50. 4 points is the average between 1 point and 6 points. Considering changing this to whatever the opponents' scoring average is (ie their total score divided by the number of scoriing shots). 4. +1/+6 points to a player who touches the ball in a passage of play in which we score. Any thoughts on this? My reasoning is that since nothing matters in a game of footy other than who scores the most points, whoever does the most/least in this regard is by default the most/least valuable player. Comments will be really really appreciated.I'll post my results, for anyone who's interested, after the game. ..........NAME.................Q1..........Q2..........Q3..........Q4..........TOTAL 1. Warnock..................9.............4............15..........-10.............18 2. Jones.......................-4...........-4...........10...........4................6 3. Bartram...................4.............8............-1............14..............25 6. Bate........................4.............0.............14...........0...............18 8. Frawley...................4.............-4............4.............-4..............0 9. Trengove................10...........-1.............10...........-8.............11 13. McKenzie..............0.............0...............12..........6...............18 14. Dunn....................2..............0..............-8.............11...........5 15. Petterd................9..............6...............-8.............6.............13 16. Grimes.................20............16.............-4.............28...........60 18. Green..................8..............0...............6...............30...........44 22. Moloney..............-1.............24.............24..............3............50 23. McDonald............20............20.............27..............1............68 29. Newton...............2..............6...............-4...............0............4 31. Scully..................0..............-9..............8................0.............-1 32. Bruce..................-2.............8...............16..............10...........32 36. Davey.................13............12.............20..............26...........71 40. Jamar..................-13..........0................24.............16...........27 42. Spencer..............0..............0................4................6............10 43. Bennell...............-6.............0................9................8............11 44. Bail.....................11............-4...............8................12..........27 47. Strauss..............0..............12...............6................6............24 OVERALL RANKINGS (BEST TO WORST) 36. Davey (71) 23. McDonald (68) 16. Grimes (60) 22. Moloney (50) 18. Green (44) 32. Bruce (32) 40. Jamar / 44. Bail (27) 3. Bartram (25) 47. Strauss (24) 1. Warnock / 6. Bate / 13. McKenzie (18) 15. Petterd (13) 9. Trengove / 43. Bennell (11) 42. Spencer (10) 2. Jones (6) 14. Dunn (5) 29. Newton (4) 8. Frawley (0) 31. Scully (-1)

During the Collingwood match on Seven TWO this morning, I noticed a comment by Leigh Matthews on Travis Johnstone (the only player from that game still playing in the AFL today) that was interesting. Leigh said, after a much more cleanly-shaven Trav kicked a nice goal, something along the lines of "well, he was taken with the first overall pick in the Draft last year, so obviously he's rated as the best player available in the country," as if that was actually something that would be news to people. This just suggests to me that in the twelve years since, the Draft - and the entire competition's focus upon it - has absolutely sky-rocketed. Nowadays, every man and his dog knows about the Draft and who was taken when. In fact, there is almost this link between players not taken when people thought they should have been and the players that were taken instead (Judd/Hodge, Tambling/Franklin, Watts/Naitanui, to name a few) that I can guarantee wouldn't have meant a thing back in the late '90s. So I'm sure that this disparity between '98 and 2010 is also present, to a lesser degree, between '06 and now.

I was watching some rugby early this morning (I mean really early) while waiting for the Collingwood Melbourne Footy Flashback and thought that a bit of rugby might help Bruce and a few other of our low-contact players to get used to physical pressure. The thing about rugby that I'd like Brucey to master is the idea that sometimes, physical contact is inevitable. One of Bruce's problems seems to be his "handball so they don't tackle me approach." I think that there is merit, as long as it's not going to cause a holding the ball decision against him, in sometimes taking a hit rather than handballing when no other option is available. Because often Bruce will create an "option" with his handball "skills" that really isn't an option at all, but rather a fobbing off of the hit that he is going to take onto another player who might be even less ready for contact than Bruce is. Just a thought I had in my sleep-deprived mind last night.

One game made a massive difference last year and we all know it. There is no benefit to switching players around willy-nilly this year other than to find out more about where a player is suited to. I would argue that there should be only very few players on our list whose best position is still not known by Bailey. I'd like him to conduct a survey of his players and find out what they think, if he doesn't know by now. Putting someone in a position that they are comfortable in and in which they think they play their best footy can really empower them to "own" that position. I'm certainly not saying "stick everyone in a position and leave them there come hell or high water," though.

Holy crap, you'll never guess what! I just witnessed Melbourne win a game of footy.

Exactly. Every single passage of play in that package included at least one player not playing today.

Amnesia according to WYL. Apparently, at the start of each year, they forget how utterly hopeless they were the year before.

When you ain't got nothin', you got nothin' to lose. Give 'em hell, Demons.

I don't see the problem. They didn't have big goalposts, so they used little ones. Big whoop, wanna fight about it?

Are you bagging James McDonald, YM? I give you more credit for insight than most, but that's just wrong. Junior's a champ and deserves the Captaincy in my opinion, but even if I'm wrong about that, you can't say that he's a "diabolical" captain.

Of course. But every club currently existing is in the same position as us. There are only so many players that are going to be targeted, however, and the fact remains that James Frawley or Jack Watts are not that much better than some of the other key position players currently playing that we deserve some sort of special recognition. Nor is it any worse for us if they are taken, than it would be for Carlton if Kreuzer were to go, or any number of other clubs. The danger is there, granted, but my position, unclouded by Melbourne bias, is that other clubs deserve all the benefits that we get. I would put it to you that due to the fact that, as we all know, you can't win a game of footy with a bunch of eighteen year olds, the Gold Coast will be looking to pick up older, "ready-made" players, because their desire for immediate success will be quite high. Thus, every club needs to be equally worried that their current stars may be looked at. Basically, I don't see why Melbourne, who are in the position of having a large number of young players (and are thus going to ride out the storm of shallow drafts to come better than, say, Adelaide) with no real "stars," should be given anything that clubs such as Geelong, with a large number of likely targets for the new teams, (but a future with fewer exciting young prospects than us), aren't also given. I don't argue that we may be hard-hit, but I would say that we won't be so hard-hit as to render us doomed. In fact, there is a chance we won't be touched at all.

We're obviously going to be biased here, but I think that there's no reason Melbourne and Richmond should get protection. The reason we're down the bottom of the ladder is that our players aren't as good as those from other clubs. Which suggests that GC and GWS are going to pick players from teams other than Richmond and Melbourne. If they thought our players were good enough to take, then we wouldn't be struggling to begin with. The fact that we're bad means that the likelihood of a player being nabbed from us is lower - without the need for any exceptions being made.

I can remember a game against West Coast over at Subi when we were good, in which we dominated the 90% of the first quarter. Then West Coast scored a behind. The ball proceeded to stay in our defensive 50 for the rest of the quarter. Literally. We could not get it out of there to save ourselves. We've been bad at this aspect of the game for as long as I've watched footy.

21, not including finals. But I'll be more than happy to revise my predictions next week.

Yeah. My name's Jimmy and I had Jim Stynes to look up to when I was young at the footy. Him having the same name as me really helped me to identify with him. So I'd watch us when we were losing by nearly a hundred points and say "Jimmy'll win it for us," not knowing that there was about five minutes left in the last quarter. As long as they've got something to interest them at the game, then all is not lost.

God help us. We're screwed.