Dappa Dan

Yep. But the concern is, with the pressure to include another gun on the bench, will they decide no second ruck this year? It would reflect the way the game is being played in 2010. Less reliance on two rucks.

Pretty funny. I was thinking of joining as "Dappadeedan" or something, and quietly suggesting that two of the fifties would have been goals anyway. Another two were within range, and the rest were our possessions that might have ended up as goals anyway. Oh and that most of them were completely right... But whatever. Let them sulk. I might have been a bit kinder here if Ash was still around. Begs the question. I know our threads never crack 30 pages on a matchday thread... but did we ever chuck a tantie like they did over the past 4 years?

Was going to mention this in another thread. Not that anyone here cares since most have written him off, but Juice did a quad training during the week. The list says 2-3 weeks. 7 weeks to go in the season... Is that it for him? My mail is that he was going to play until he hurt himself, too. Let's try to avoid the "good timing on the injury" smarminess if we can...

Aaah. Just when I thought demonland was going to the dogs with abusive PMs. A refreshingly courteous post. Now to return the favour. You and me both. I used to be like you when I first got into d'land. Thinking it was my duty to bring education to the great unwashed. But I was pretty quickly put in my place. What I can't accept now, is the idea that the FANS on this site aren't allowed to run wild and free in their admiration of players. You HAVE to give them that right I reckon. Particularly when a player as young as someone like Morton, has played a few games where he was BOG or near enough to. On the other hand, of course, when a player is in need of a bit of pressure from the club, footy department, and members in general, it can be a bit tiresome to hear excuses put forward over and over. e.g. I reckon PJ has a future... But I realise that comment will draw criticism from the naysayers, so I belt up... for now. It's not an easily explained middle ground that the powers that be at demonland have maintained. As far as I can tell, they're looking for the maximum amount of reality mixed with the maximum amount of MFC worship. The two don't go hand-in-hand of course.... You really think so? I reckon there's a few that are put on higher pedestals. Maybe he's the one that sticks out because he's just one you see little in. I'd say Frawley, Grimes, Sylvia, Green, Scully and Trengove would be his main competition in the sense of how much they're talked up. The difference is, you likely rate them just as highly as anyone. Am I right? I think we may have already been there on another thread. And I've been given a pretty hard time about my post length from mods (rightly so, I might add), so I'm happy to dwell on it in PMs if you are? Apologies about the anger. Shoot from the hip reaction. Most threads and posts get lost in the mire within a day or two. Also, might have something to do with the "how wrong were you about Morton" comment a while ago, when he was last dropped. Which I thought was flat out wrong. And I'm surprised to hear you say you're "on the fence." That's encouraging. Given how strongly you reacted to his supporters AND how you didn't seem to mind recent omission, I thought you were all for getting rid of him. Aha. Not true. I don't think he's there yet. Far from it. What he has, is the makings of a great player. At this stage, he's a player that under the right conditions can win brownlow votes. What I think he can be with development, is a player who can do it MOST of the time. Not just SOME of the time, as it currently stands. Again. We could probably do this in PMs. But just quickly... I think most things I'd say are fairly stock-standard. Nothing that's not already been covered on here, over and over. He has a great engine, I BELIEVE he has great delivery by foot, assuming his team runs for him to make position. Not as great as Davey and Trengove. But then, who is? I think this may be one thing we differ on. Also, reflected in Gotch's comments a couple of weeks ago, he's a guy you want kicking long. Some of his range-finding can be iffy, and that's what, I think, people are losing patience with, If it's a dinky, Davey type 20-25 metre pass, sometimes he chips when he should stab, or stabs when he should chip. Moreso the first one though. Maybe due to his height. Maybe technique. Maybe he doesn't find the time to get balanced, and reverts to a last-resort chip kick which sets up his team-mate for a big spoil when he should be hitting him hard on the chest. The point is, I think he's a better kick than he's showing. In open, free-flowing games... like the Essendon one... he'd punish the opposition. In one-on-one hard checking type games, where you need to be accurate over short distances, he loses a bit of potency. I think this is something that's as simple as playing to your strengths. Something Judd does, and hopefully Scully will do. Those guys, like Morton, chip when they should stab. Though with them it's a distance thing. 40+ metres and they put up a hospital. At long range, I've found myself at times saying Morton's a surgeon. I also think he's smarter than your average footballer. He finds space incredibly well at times, and knows how to accumulate touches with enough room from his opponent to do something with them. His weaknesses are interesting, and only very few. It's also my belief that his build has a part to play in all of them. I laugh when people say they want him to take over Bruce's spot. Defensively he's no Bruce. In fact, very few players are as good as Bruce going back the other way. I think he's genuinely apprehensive when it comes to regular contact and ballwinning body-on-body stuff. But let me be clear... it's not physicality he's afraid of. I believe it's failure that spooks him. I've seen him throw himself into marking contests when the only option was to put your body on the line. You might only get a couple of these a game, particularly in the loose role he has been known to play. You know the ones. Where you're backing back and you know you're the last line of defence in an opposition goal opportunity. It's in the 99% of OTHER physical contests that he has issues. I think he knows all too well he's going to get bumped off the ball by almost any player in the AFL. He's not the lightest player going round... but most players who ARE lighter have lower centres of gravity and can clean him up by getting underneath him most of the time. I think he knows he doesn't have the physical strength to tackle with intent, so I think he often plays the percentages and waits for an outside possession, or lays a half arsed tackle to force the opponent to dispose and remove him from the play. So mostly, it's his defensive footy that isn't quite up to scratch. Then you have the 50/50 contest, and ballwinning in the clinches, which it seems, is 90% of footy these days. The same thing applies as I described above. I think he doesn't go quite as hard as, say, a Jones does. Simply because he knows he'll lose the contest and cost his team the ball. Like I say, this is my BELIEF. This is just opinion. Not fact. Now. What I think you'll find most posters worth their salt are doing is crystal-ball-gazing. A lot like to draw long bows. e.g. Watts will be a gun because he was a pick #1. What I'm doing is going by what he was like when playing as a junior and being one of the bigger kids, AND looking at what he's done as a demon. As a junior he spent time forward. He even took contested marks and took them well. I think all of us are waiting to see him find that size and that confidence in his physicality. Watts is game by game gaining VERY slowly that confidence. And all tall players playing a KP role do. Not many walk in and just KNOW (Rivers) how to take contested marks with 28 year old giants. I think it's not a long bow to draw to suggest that with all the ball he's gathered ALREADY in his 45 game career, he has the makings of a good winger, HB flank rebounder-type player. Particularly if he can get free and pass long into a functional forward line. Like the one we saw for the first time on the weekend containing Green, Jurrah and Watts. Now. If he puts on weight, like we all hope he will, I believe (because it happened to me, and to many footballers I know) he'll rediscover what he loved about competing in the air, and he'll suddenly be a more attractive target even when surrounded by opposition, or being tailed by a single defender on a lead. If we can add that kick to the forward line? Even as a flanker/lead up CHF... well then bob's your uncle. No more desperation to find our second KP tall. There' I've gone and done it again. Waffled on too much. Mods are gonna kill me.

Watched Swan and Martin's games. Green's was better than Swan's easily... Martin's was only better in the context of being a teenager. Griffen I couldn't comment on. Let's not forget Green got about a thousand kicks in his touches. Barely wasted one, and in what was an average performance from MOST of our 22, Green (along with Bruce, Sylvia and Jamar) basically was the difference. In what SHOULD have been a 60 point win. I might be biased. But I think he deserved it.

Love me a bit of Bail. He deserves more attention than he gets. He may not have Trengove's boot, Trengove's hands or... well... Trengove's Trengoveness... But he brings a lot to the table. Premierships squads aren't just made up of 22 good players. You need good second tier guys who don't have the profile of a Jack Watts, but that still do their job, and keep the classy big-money midfielders honest. He's in for mine. I would probably bring in Warnock too. Not sure who to drop though.

Gotta say I wouldn't miss it... I was amusing myself when I couldn't sleep last night by reading bomberblitz (all 35+ pages of their matchday thread), and someone posted something funny. Along the lines of "they should pay copyright infringement to John Williams in the amount of $767,000"

Trengove. 26 possessions, 3 goals. (And just for another teaser, not "in competition" for this thread... Sylvia 31 touches, mark of the year contender and 2 goals)

Against a side that 'aint slow either... And one of these weeks he'll actually take one of the hangers he's been attempting. He goes for a mark of the year every weekend.

Roughy signed for 3 or 4 years earlier this season. Off the table. Probably wouldn't be able to squeeze him out of the Toigs... but I like Astbury.

So I'm not alone... So you're pretty much going on current form, aren't you? Tigers make the finals it might be the story of the year. And they'd NEVER let us forget it.

I remember Neitz hovered between 191 and 193... at one stage he was 195. I reckon you go on what you see. Lloyd was the best KP forward of the past 10 years, and he was 191 I'm led to believe.

Already a thread on this. Mods please merge.

Your bias is showing. When are you going to let this one go, and try supporting your team for a change? We're perfectly comfortable defending OTHER young tall players, but when it comes to Morton, who actually has runs on the board, suddenly he's the red-heaed step-child? Turn it up.

He didn't seem it in the rooms. The players seemed VERY pleased with themselves. I've had a change of heart on this topic. How many games have we played against good sides where we're 45 points down at 3/4 time and no hope, then we kick 5 or 6 to 3 in the last quarter and end up maybe scraping inside the 5 goal margin? We did it a LOT last season, and have done it a bit this season. Every time this happened I took nothing from the junk-time goals. I don't think Essendon would have taken anything from this either. With that in mind, I relaxed a bit when I was asked about the game today, and said a win's a win. Would have liked 10 goal margin, but if you'd offered me a 19 point win a week ago, I'd take it. Particularly since we actually weren't all the amazing today.

I won't be putting any money on it, but on paper (assuming the team stays more or less the same) I think their key players might be covered by our key players. Barlow was massive for them. They're a few goals worse each week without him. Kind of like if we lost Green, we'd be a 3 goal-a-week worse side. Also, we regained Jurrah. While he wasn't dominant, and might have had a few scratchy moments, did everything you'd ask of a player who's just looking to work into a bit of confidence. The team is up and about after last weekend. I don't think we played our best footy, but we can do some damage here. A win is not as ridiculous as the negative nancies above suggest. It's not likely, and the bookies will reflect this, but we've had tougher odds this year. We'll go closer than we did against Geelong, put it that way.

Yeah, they might go with that. I would have thought Dunn might have gotten Barlow too... but that's not going to happen.

At least it's something. Glad to see it wasn't overlooked. He's a loose cannon that Leroy.

You know what's funny, is that the all-conquering Jamar is pretty much the same player that this site got stuck into TEN TIMES worse than they're doing now with PJ. He's still not a big stat getter... Yet he's now the be-all-end-all of our team, and is in line for a Bluey. If PJ can figure out how to turn his engine and pace into 15-20 touches or more, and use his left foot to effect, he'd basically do a Jamar. On paper, his strengths would complement Jamar perfectly. A rangy quick extra midfielder, to go with the big body, crash and bash of Jamar. On a day Jamar is beaten as an athlete by someone like Cox, he can go forward and be a presence while PJ runs with him. Very unfortunate for us that he hasn't come on, but in terms of recruitment and planning, it's a good call by the club to have persisted with him. And I'm always amazed that everyone's so confident that he's gone... not that they think he might be going, but that he's an absolute certainty to be delisted... despite how little we have in the ruck cupboard, and the fact the club has always spoken of him as our second ruckman.

Am recalling a couple of things I noticed about Dunn's game. One was the time he directed traffic pretty much up the entire ground. Then went right up the side of the centre square, 2 kicks, coast to coast goal instigated and led by him. Impressive in anyone's book. The second thing I noticed... When was the last time you saw Dunn "hear footsteps?" Granted, he's only played some of this season, but I can't remember the last time he looked like he might have squibbed. What's more I reckon he might have had something like 3 contested marks in that first quarter, all of which were solid, one-grabbers... oozing class. Now if we can just get him doing that forward. There was something wrong with it. He should have handballed. But I'll give you that one since you're right, Bennell should have played the percentages and just kept the ball in front of himself by hook or by crook. I reckon that's just a bit of rush of blood to the head though. Were it Green he would have just paddled it and waited for it to bob up, but Green has had the benefit of 200+ games. Nope. Wrong again. Statistics CAN be misleading. But they're not "crap." Ask bombers fans and they'll say Watson was pretty good. Ask demons fans and they'll say Dunn got more kicks and therefore was better... My point (which was, as usual, completely overlooked) was, if Dunn was running with Watson (a big if), and Watson got on the end of it 32 times, then it can hardly be called a win, can it? Besides, I wouldn't call Watson's game ineffective. What I would say, is that when the game was there to be won in the first half, Dunn was bating him comfortably. Hmm. Probably fair. I might have sounded like I was giving him a hard time, which I'll take responsibility for, but I liked his game yesterday. He played on their only good midfielder. If you could cal Watson that... and had a very clean, confident game. Am I alone though, in wanting more out of a 192cm player than just a tagger? Don't get me wrong, players like Ling/Clint Jones are almost a desperately needed ingredient these days... It just seems to me it's a bit of a waste of height.

Oh well. At least it's at the G this time. I'd love to say sayonara to 2010 with a win against a side that mauled us earlier in the year. Just the thing to get a roll on into pre-season for a young side searching for confidence. I'm already pumped about 2011. I did the predictor on AFL.com, and somehow I had the Roos making the 8 with 11-11. I'll be stuffed if I know how, but on the off chance that that's a possibility, wouldn't a round 22 game that decided who snatched 8th spot be considered a big game? Maybe not...

I chuckled. It's funny. Having looked at the replay now that it's up online, the angle the telecast used was pretty inconclusive. But at the ground, on the big screen, when they repolayed it there was zero doubt in my mind he kicked him, studs first, in the face. Simple as that. Wouldn't have the foggiest what the MRP will do. But then, when do we ever have any idea what they'll do?

Was the pass to Bennell "elite" disposal? :D Just stirring. He was good today. Interestingly, people are saying he beat Watson. Watson had it 32 times?

Just want to add to this and say that maybe... juuuust maybe the brains on here aren't as smart as they think. They've not dropped Barts, despite his low stat count, and unobtrusive nature on the field. That would lead me to believe that Bartram has other intangible qualities that make it unthinkable to drop him. As long as he keeps shutting players down, I'll side with the footy department. Given his time on ground and the success he's enjoyed this year (albeit not the kind of success that finds its way to the front page of the HUN), I don't think anyone has the right to grumble about him.

No. But stats, when properly analysed, can tell you a few things. For example, he was very good last week, and not coincidentally, he had 18 touches. It's my feeling that a player like Watts, with his sensational disposal, would be a punishing and elite player if he could average 20+ touches a game one day, not necessarily playing deep. He may have contributed with a few 1%ers today, but I'd like to see him be the one winning, possessing, running with and delivering the ball. But put stats aside. Today he played much of the game deep in the forward line, with good service from his team-mates, with hardly any good defenders playing for the bombers. Given his abilities, I expected a few marks inside fifty taken with authority, and a couple of goals at least. I've seen 10-stat games that have been central to the outcome of a match. Particularly from forwards and negating defenders. Fev only needs 8 kicks in deep to put away a side, for example. Watts game was not one of these high-impact 10 possession games. I'm not here to give him a hard time. I've defended him a lot from the "gimme-gimme-gimme-now-now-now" crowd. But there's also another crowd who gush over the smallest play. I felt like one of them when he broke away from two opponents and looked like he was going to drill one from the pocket. But I was reminded that perhaps I should give him more time when he shanked that shot on goal and was handed the softest free of the game (which is saying something). There's posters who prefer to focus on one play, and decide on a player's worth based on that passage alone. I like players who accumulate as well as do the impressive things. I know Watts has it in him, and I have a lot of confidence he'll get there. But he's not there yet. The bombers game was his best chance yet, given the opposition, and he probably produced a bit less than I expected. Hmmm. You may be right about him not being beaten. That may have been a bit harsh. But to me (and we're splitting hairs here), saying a player was "good" means they beat their opponent, at least in the case of a forward/backman. I don't think he did anything today that would have made the opposition coaches or players get worried, when it came to matchups. Olympic stand. Why do you ask?