Dappa Dan

Moves like a cat.

5 kms after that you'll see Ablett and GC, along with Scully, Sheedy and GWS smiling maniacally at you... IF we do what we did tonight, or against WC with them, we'll lose by ten goals to both. And that's absolutely no exaggeration.

Good OP, if a little sad. This is worst than 2008 and worse than 186 (thought probably 186 and this are one and the same thing).

My five cents. Half of it is the list (about 50% of them) and half on Neeld.

Awesome.

I know everyone's sick of hearing it... but how people can't see he's Goddard mark ii is beyond me. Everything we're saying now (except the fact he's not the KP forward we wanted) was said about Goddard for the first probably five years of his career. It's startling. He's a tiny skinny little guy at the moment who has no weight to throw around. Patton will come in and have an impact cos at 18 he's already 10 kilos heavier than Jack. When he's THIS concave in his chest, his only role will be mopping up in defence. His kicking can be lethal when his mates lead for him. He's got sensational vision and kicking skills on both sides... For now, it's the role he SHOULD be playing. Then move him up to a wing when he gets some more weight. Then finally half forward. There's nothing WRONG with that. It's a shame we didn't get our KP forward out of him like we planned, but to be honest, I don't care, as long as the #1 draft pick starts being a dangerous player in ANY role.

Nup. Sub-par, maybe... He was soft and thinks too much as usual, but you can't blame his disposal on the fact every single one of his teammates were standing still. Not offering anything. He still managed to hit guys up where there wasn't an option at times. At one point I remember a kick of his got chased down, and he threw his arms out as if to say, what else can I do? I didn't love his game... but it was something to build on, for sure. Wait until after the GC + GWS games. If you saw any of the GC dogs game, you'd say we're ten goals worse than them right now. When we lose to them (and going in with that effort, nothing is more certain), Neeld will be gone.

The way I heard it WC were gonna take Jack if we didn't.

Still not sold RR, but applaud the sentiment of support.

I think it's time and experience, along with size that fixes the wuss aspect. Of course you can. The bodies are just as big. It's senior footy. Getting the hard ball is probably one of the few things that you don't miss out on in the VFL. Garbage. Morton is already tackling harder this year. Speaking from personal experience, I didn't go for hard balls at all when I played, then I turned 25, filled out, then overnight getting hard footy became the reason I played. You don't go from being a wuss to being Magner... but you improve on it heaps. It takes size firstly, then time and the experience of coming off better than the guy you hit in order for you to trust yourself in those situations. Plus... the fear aspect at times might not be physical pain. It can be the fear of embarrassing yourself and letting down your coach and team mates. When you realise that you embarrass yourself more by not giving it a crack and failing, then it changes the way you think. It's absolute garbage that kids don't gain toughness as they age. They're not all Fiora.

I'm not all that fussed about picks anymore. It's clear now that high picks gets you slightly better potential and that's it. I'd rather we get players who want to stay beyond their first contract, that instill some leadership and team qualities... and mostly, the club needs to fix whatever it is that ruins top 10 draft picks, because when we've had them in the past, we've almost always let them down and ruined their careers. Watts, Johnstone, McLean, Sylvia, Morton... the list goes on.

Yeah RR, I have no problem with the DCL... Would it be run out of demonland? I mean that will one person put the schedule together, and put up the numbers, winners and losers?

Cheeky. Phillies awful...

Just so everyone knows, the idea of promotion/relegation vs keeper was proposed before this season started. I think whichever one we'd have gone with, the grass was always going to be greener. Personally I like both ideas, but if there's a preference, I go for keeper league all the way. Based in no small part on the fact that the promotion/relegation system would be harder to maintain with people dropping out. And the fact that I think there's basically nothing not to like about keeper players. They've only added to the fun.

Yup. I like keeper players, and I disagree that people tanking at year's end is detrimental. I'm in another league along with this one and have been caned in it... I've decided to trade for Kennedy and maybe Carrazzo, tank my year, but be positive for the next one... I think that's a plus for teams at the bottom? So in other words you have all the same lists, but you play a sort of round robin for the first few weeks of the following season? That actually sounds like fun... The only drawback there is someone has to organise it. Poor old JA. It'd also be funny if you came up against someone from RFL who had many of the same starters as you.

If we win the spoon, then we'll only need to give up a second rounder... This might end up being a non event.

Not up for losing yet more senior players, even if they are moody. It'd be preferable for them to win some games later in the year and accept Neeld's leadership and work together. I'm sick of being as training club for richer sides. Especially since we had 2 really good young ruckmen under Jeff White, who was a superstar, and both might end up at Collingwood.

Oh and on the scoring system, I'm up for a review, but I don't think changing it actually changes much. Whatever the scoring is, the onus is on you to recruit cleverly. When it was 9 categories, you still recruited with that in mind. The only reason that changed was that frees are a random thing that can go from great one week to disastrous the next. And scoring only changed because if you won scoring, you could lose it if you were playing someone like Buddy who misses a lot. I'm ok with the current system, unless someone can suggest something simple to fix it. If the weighting of the stats gets too complicated it just gets annoying. Also, I don't rate hitouts as only a 1 point category.

Love your passion RR, but I'm pretty much on the same page as JA. I actually really, really like the keeper league concept (not just cos I recently landed Kreuzer), and like the idea of upping the players year by year to 6 or 8. As it stands, 18 teams X 4 players, that pretty much means the top 72 ranked players in the league all get locked away. I reckon it would be fun to have more. And by that stage, keepers will be more likely to be traded. If it goes to a vote, then sure, I'll go along with it. But my thoughts on relegations, as long as it's just 2 teams a year. More than that and it gets messy, and the many rivalries disappear more often. The DCL... That confuses me. So are you saying the top nine from both leagues play in a league the following season? Not a fan of that. I would have thought maybe you could have the top nine from both leagues play in a finals system during the ACTUAL finals in the AFL. I've seen dream team do something like this. Though obviously it would be a nightmare to coordinate. One other thought, would it be impossible to suggest that a keeper league could work with relegations? The idea was floated that teams that swapped to other leagues took the keeper players that the vacating coach had. If they didn't like them, they would be welcome to decline the option on that player in return for a priority pick at the start of the draft that year. I think this would work because if you've been promoted, you're likley to get hold of injured superstars that were the reason the relegated player ended the season so badly. And if you're the relegated player you're likely to inherit a hell of a list. Could be a little complicated. Just a thought.

It'll make round 15 good and interesting.

I reckon if Vickery finally comes out of his shell and kicks 2-3 a game occassionally, then he wins, basically trading in a higher amount of hitouts for a player that kicks bags when he's on. I reckon it's fifty-fifty and really comes down to how Vickery goes vs if Krooz has an injury and what they plan to do with Warnock.

That's how I felt about Vickery... I just lost patience with him. He can be anything though, and you'll get your 10 hitouts. I'm happy with the trade just cos I have a ufooty crush on the Krooz.

HT!!!!! Trade of the year! That's a feelgood trade too. Everyone wins. You get the Darling of the league who'll kick you 3 every week, plus Vickery who can absolutely fly when he's up and running. And I get Kreuzer who's a bona fide keeper player and Sam Reid who can be a gun FF. Great trading.

Let's talk Robbo... Carrazzo for sure. McEvoy, I reckon, is hugely overrated as a player...

Malhouse is fair dinkum barracking for the dees.