Tony Tea

Ha! What makes anybody think we're going to beat Hawthorn?

Manage of Liverpool in the 60s and 70s.

I first heard Bill Shankly say it.

10 years is a Buddy long time, if you get my drift.

I haven't heard anything bad about Pert, he hasn't been there long enough to be a problem, and I assume our poor form this year is purely coincidental with Pert's arrival.

A family friend was on the MFC committee when Smith was sacked, and said to me pretty much the same thing. The Demons urged Smith to apologise, but he refused, hence the settlement. Regarding our onfield demise. The Demons flag had a scent of the 1991 Hawks flag - a last hurrah of a champion team. Unfortunately, while the Hawks have managed to unearth a revolutionary coach in Clarko, the Dees have gone from dud to spud, rinse, wash, repeat. Fingers crossed Goodwin's 2018 is not a flash in the pan. While I had a strong sense that 2019 would be a bust, I have just as strong a feeling the 2020 will be a good one for us.

Post what?

Yes. If the Hawks are into him, he has already committed to them. It's almost as if the Hawks modus operandi is to instruct a player to get injured, pick him up cheap, then turn him into a gun.

Grunt matters in big games. When it comes to the big games it's player on player. If both players are equally skilled and equally quick and equally fit, as is mostly the case in finals, the stronger player will win because whenever the two players come together at the contest the stronger player will buffet the weaker out of the way and win position and possession. Take StKilda. The Saints are currently running hard and long. But they don't have a raft of grunt players. If we were well conditioned, rather than our current fitness shambles, and we were equally as fit as the Saints, I would back us to win. We have the grunt, but we are just all over the shop with our fitness and conditioning. Currently I'd back, say, Geelong and Collingwood in any big game against the Saints.

I tweeted it at the time. Sly elbow to the head. But it's Dusty, so it will get a pass.

I'm not against giving Weed a run in defence. Worth a try.

Give Lewis a run in the guts. He's too slow for a sweeper / QB.

Hence we are sponsored by No Balance.

The Celebration Matches are one of the reasons there will never be a 17 game season. (Not that there ever will be.)

No doubt the best available free agent will go to Hawthorn.

Alex Sexton?

The last few years Bruce has become too Bruce, but be careful what you wish for: the replacement look like being one of Darcy, BT or Brayshaw. (I don't mind Brayshaw.)

Opponents have been quick to get in Hibberd's face, and he lacks the pace to beat them into space.

Prepare ourselves... for the t-word?

Jack Billings, I think.

I have issues with the notion that we should not have taken an inside bull and should instead have taken an outside runner. It is much easier to teach an inside bull how to get and use the footy in the AFL than it is to teach an outside runner how to get an use the footy in the AFL when it's hot. I'm not against outside runners, and I agree we need link-up pace from half back to half forward. That's why we had a big go at Gaff. But if you are picking youngsters in the draft and there is no obvious gun runner available (in Sparrow's case, around pick 27), pick the bull.

I would be surprised if our footy department overrated our list going into 2019. Ditto Ratten. We need an assistant who knows Clarko Footy. Since Clarko himself has said that he likes to turn over his own assistants, let's have a lash at Yze.

Clarko plays a zone (which Adelaide's one-dimensional attack played straight into) but Clarko's key has always been knowing when to take the ball the other way for easy scores.

Dunny is a Demon at heart.

The zone defence will be alive and kicking when we try to find a way through it.