pitmaster

If John Northey was still there he'd have hit on Mark Knight for the original, had it laminated and installed in the change rooms for the entire pre-season, and told the players about it every week. Corny tricks but some times they work.

I thought you were trolling so I opted not to bite.

You clearly weren't around when his career was derailed by injury.

Diversity deficit?

Sometimes reality is even better than dreams.

I don't think so. They win this and that's their whack and we can go back a little more towards normality. Once they have won a flag, like Brisbane, like Adelaide, the Weagles and Port, their favours cease. I thought GWS were terrific yesterday. Very hard at the contest and while the ball was greasy and mistakes were made their determination to put in a second, third, even fourth effort to regain the ball or pressure the Pies was sensational. It was very good finals football. They dominated the first half but did not get the reward. Collingwood, however, had no forwards and only looked threatening when they could get their slingshot happening. The Giants' pressure stopped them doing that more than a couple of times. They only got going once they could exploit Grundy's dominance. If GWS win it, they'll have played well and the bars and restaurants in Swan St, let alone the motorists parked there, can rest easier. Then we push back into a fairer competition. (I just wish the Suns are sent to Tassie.)

Grundy was great. GWS roved well to him early, however he dragged the Pies back into the contest in the final term.

I can't claim to be a beer expert although I do know I prefer lagers to ales. However can someone tell me what is that very fine aftertaste that comes with the Demon Brew. Is it hops? (I tried provoking a response above but no result. Is no-one else drinking the stuff?) A surprisingly good, distinctive beer.

Having listened to the entire interview what surprised me was that Frosty seemed not to have given his manager Anthony McConville much in the way of riding instructions. Only when prompted by Lyon did he indicate he had told McConville he'd prefer to stay but was waiting on an offer. Frosty seemed to be pretty passive and dare I say it, lukewarm about staying. It sounded more like a vague preference on account of the fact he had his mates at Melbourne. It makes me wonder how much influence managers' have: we could be looking at another Jeremy Howe situation where the manager talks the player out of his club by trying to build up his price. He nominated North and Hawthorn as clubs that had contacted McConville and added that another, a third club which he did not name, had made contact.

Exactly. I hope he knocks us back. Great when he is out there but that's not often enough and if the Pies struggle to keep him fit with their state of the art resources how will we go? Look, within a few weeks he might be thinking about having another tilt at a flag with the Pies after they lose the Big One by two points due to a last minute, appalling umpiring decision that gifts Jack Reiwoldt a goal. So he stays. I prefer the Langdon and Tomlinson rumours to this one but the upside of all three is that we are in gear and looking to make a difference to a group that failed comprehensively this year.

Ling is dreadful but Basil matches him with Du-whane Russell not far behind. Three complete hacks.

check your maths

You're absolutely right, but it also pained me to know that Hawthorn had Neitz and Yze there at one point when we were battling. It just seemed wrong that after their success they were picking the eyes out of our one-club champions to boost their own chances. Even the angry little man played a couple of years for us.

Heard same thing. Looking stronger now, and I like this rumour.

One option could be to develop the site ourselves and retain a portion of the redevelopment to provide rental income. A long shot but A Leoncelli is in real estate development and has overseen a major residential project in Hampton. He could at least offer insights into what's achievable. It's worth noting the site is a 10-15 minute walk (1.2 kilometres) from two railway stations, McKinnon and Bentleigh which is pretty neat siting.

OK

How do you feel about Jack Mueller, the original glove man? (Besides the four premierships and three BnFs.)

Interesting, clean with subtle hops after taste. Recommended.

Hawthorn made themselves a premiership factory specialising in left footers dg.

Dec played two AFL games for two wins. A 100% win rate is a very rare thing at our club. Well done, kid. Jeffy was wonderful at his best. A great contributor. Farewell both.

You're right, Melksham should have been in that list. He missed 10 games, same as OMac. My bad, as the hipsters once said.

Since our ranking on the number of games missed from the Best 22 showed us looking dire earlier this year I decided to do an end of year ladder for games played by the nominal Best 22 for each club. I admit there is a certain phoniness about this since a team's nominal Best 22 at round one will often be different by round 22. Also, since I don't have much of an idea about other clubs I had to standardise the exercise by adopting the only comprehensive list of Best 22s I could find, which was Fox's. And any Best 22 is arbitrary and subjective. Note Spargo is included in ours, and I would not have him in my best, for example. In any case here goes, keeping in mind the potential number of games from any Best 22 over 22 rounds is 484, here is the actual number played by the Best 22 according to Fox: BRISBANE 402 (83%) WEST COAST 394; HAWTHORN 381; CARLTON 380; NORTH MELBOURNE 366; BULLDOGS 363; ESSENDON 362; PORT 361; GEELONG 360; COLLINGWOOD 352; ADELAIDE 341; RICHMOND 336; SYDNEY 335; FREO 323; GIANTS 312; ST KILDA 307; MELBOURNE 305 (63%); GOLD COAST 294. I guess the first thing to notice is that the Lions have had plenty of injury luck, but that's not news, and we are much worse off, and that's not news. St Kilda have done relatively well with almost as many games missed as us, while Carlton, Hawthorn and North might be flattered by their relatively good injury runs. And what was that about an "injury crisis" at Essendon and Collingwood? They are both right in the middle of the field. Except of course that all are not equal in the Best 22. Games missed by TMac for example are more important than games missed by ANB. This is only one factor in our unacceptable season. For what it's worth these were the biggest "missing game numbers" from Fox's Best 22 for us: VandenBerg (22), Hannan (16) Jetta (15), May (14), Spargo (14), Lever (14), Weideman (11), OMac (10).

The good signs are that we seem able to get those we really want. First Burgess now this bloke (not that I rated him at the Saints...but as an assistant, maybe).

Both changes welcome. That is the team we should have had last week. Then throw in Lockhart for Spargo and it would look like we're fair dinkum, romance or not. I hope Spargo proves me wrong.

Many thanks for this. I had hoped to get there today but it didn't work out. Well done you. Good to hear there's still a boisterousness about the joint.