Dappa Dan

I certainly give us more chance than I gave us against the cats. The only reason I have any hope? The Demons and Dockers have easily been the two softest teams of the year, given their lists and experience. The only reason we're any chance at all is not how well we play, but how badly they play. Also, unlike the Cats, Saints and Hawks they don't know a lot about the G.

-----Bate - I have defended him last week but he isnt rite. Give him some time at sandy (at least 2 weeks i feel) Oh yay. About time someone agree's with me. I see you have come around occo. Last week you were quite the opposite. Where are these people saying the kid can play?----- Right here. The kid can play. Maybe he's down on confidence, making mistakes, maybe he needs a week or two at Sandy, maybe he's being forced to play in weird positions. Maybe.... HE'S YOUNG!!! Drop him if the time is right and if he's not doing enough a la CJ, sure. But go back and have a look at the footy he played last year. The kid goes alright. He's going to need time to get better, and he's going to have good and bad patches before he hits his straps in his career.

Well, except for that part about his wang, yes. - He's played WELL more than the 2 reasonable games you describe there. And he's only gotten regular games since late last year. He took time to come on as a player, it's well known he's picked up a lot of confidence since his early years, and just because this is his fifth year on the list you think his achievements so far are less important? OP sucks, you know... - At the moment his decision making is absolutely first rate mate. He's utterly swamped by guys smashing his face in every week, and during all this he's still able to hit up guys with 50 metre passes with little or no time to think. As I predicted, so far his decision making has not only come back to being within normal bounds, but is better than many of his mates, including Trav just at the minute. - DOESN'T GET THE BALL MUCH!!! Number 21... Look for him on the field. He's the guy nullifying a small forward and still getting plenty of it himself. He's not playing in the guts for crying out loud, and he's not playing loose unaccountable footy like Ward. He's defending... playing ON a bloke AND launching forward forays... - Love child? You betcha bottom dollar mate. And he should be yours too.

Some of your finest work there, RR.

Absolute unequivocal garbage there me old matey (no offence)... First of all it's heresay that Alwyn raced him and beat him. Secondly that was YEARS ago, making it highly irrelevant given the growth of both players and their playing histories and upbringings. Thirdly, they are comparably quick, they both approach the loose ball and chase-donw opportunities identically, and are equally as dangerous in both situations. Fourthly, from what I've seen Aaron's pickups, running into gaps, finding space, kicking to contests and for goal, and his hardball gets are each FAR more developed than Alwyns (though it is early days, Alwyn could catch him there) even in his first yaer when he was much younger, but equally as green. Fifthly, even if you found fault with much of what I said above, there's no way you could say Aaron is "a lot" quicker than Alwyn. That's blatantly untrue. If one is quicker than the other, it couldn't be by much. In the end, if you find fans debating which Davey was better at the end of their careers, the LAST thing they'll raise as evidence is one's pace over the other. It will come down to their other skills and football nous, as well as success in finals etc etc.

What are those fears based on?

Yeah sort of. I just reckon If you get Judd there, he's 50% better than any player on MFC's list that he'd replace. Get a decent coach and you could expect 10% improvement from many of the players. Maybe more than 10% if the coach is good and takes a liking to one he sees himself in. For example, how much better as players, have Judd, Kerr and Cousins been under Woosha? That's good maths I reckon. Make the good players great, and make the average players good and we'll be closer to a flag than a single superstar will bring us.

Whoa! Take it easy mate! What about that don't you like? are you saying Miller and Green are too good to trade or the other way round? Now that's not a half bad idea.

I'd prefer a first rounder who has his entire career in front of him and McLean who has 250-300 odd games left to Judd who has 200-250 left. Assuming the round 1 pick is going to be good, you're trading McLean, who is a gun + a conceivably good player (maybe a star?) for a guy who's already played over 100 games. 2 potentially great players for 1 of the greatest ever? Not for me thanks. Though you are right Wet Toast fans would probably only grudgingly accept that. Personally McLeanis the only guy I wouldn't entertain the thought of trading... and as it happens, McLean is the only one they'd be interested in having... Probably, but that is a secondary issue to me. Yes he could up the memberships and sponsorships temporarily, but with that MUST come success. What if his shoulders started to go bad again? He would also be playing in a team without Kerr, Cousins, Waters, Chick, Stenglein and Braun. He'd be copping it from all angles. SO many things could go wrong, and if the club were to put all its eggs into one basket (money, salary cap, captaincy, sponsorship etc etc) if something terrible were to happen, or even if Judd were simply to find himself incapable of playing as good footy under a coach other than Woosha, then we could find ourselves worse off than before. It's a huge risk... Now that doesn't mean I'm not all for it (I hope the club does all it can to get him. Staying with the list we have is pure stagnation)... it just has to be at the right price. A few hundred thousand here or there, or a pick or two could make ALL the difference.

For the record I'm not against the idea of CJ being played this week, but what I'd love to see him do is hunt the footy. He seems to do that at Sandy, and with his boot all he needs to do is get a hold of the thing to have an impact. I can only hypothesise, and maybe some people will see a kernel of truth here, that he's been given so many instructions and specific jobs that his brain is getting in the way of just playing natural footy, as he does at Sandy when given less responsibility. In other words, perhaps if someone can just get him to think about the basics, he may start doing enough to be in the 22 permanently. I hate the idea that while the team is clearly not fuctioning well, he can't step up the way JMac/Bartram type players do. I hate the thought that he may be another frontrunner, but I can't seem to escape the thought at the moment. I hope he proves that theory wrong...

What's the total salary cap? Is it something like 7 or 8 million? A $1Mil price tag means he'd effectively be soaking up 1/7th or 1/8th of MFCs money per year. Apart from the obvious question, can we afford him, the knock-on effect would mean the players around him would probably get less money than many of their opposition counterparts for doing much the same job. Would it have a detrimental effect on morale? It's obviously worth a ertain amount of risk, but there are many ways in which trading for Judd could backfire BADLY on whoever picks him up (should he leave).

Disagree. CJ was positively invisible last week. Bate doubled his touches, and while he made a few mistakes, at least he found the ball, led strongly and kicked a ripper goal. IMO CJ is a way off getting to his best form, and he may have to wait until the senior players start pulling their weight before he can slot into the side and start offering something. With players like TJ and Davey not doing nearly enough there's too much work on the shoulders of the guys who've played less than 20 games. In other words, it's not his fault, but it very well could be the right decision... The players they bring in, however...

Juice Newton coaching the rucks. Different Juice.

Right. Thanks for that. Makes sense doesn't it?!

- Actually, that's a thought. It may well be the case that CAC is due for a few duds. But regardless of their eventual fate, some of them have done enough to at least be given a run at the highest level. - I reckon it might be fair to temper the excitement of Juice a little bit, but I'm not sure your reasoning is fair. The 5 forward-line spots are taken. Dunn, Sautner, Sylvia, and a resting ruckman tend to go there, and at least 2 of those spots belong to small players, which obviously he is not. Yes there's a spot for him, but he's more than done enough to warrant a few quartrs out of the square. The problem is not that he hasn't done enough to be selected there... he has! He's done more than enough. It's that he's not been given enough time there. For the record I don't in any way advocate the selection of Newton at FF at Sauntner's expense. Your last point is a good one, but over 50 goals in just over 10 matches in the ressies suggests he SHOULD be playing in the seniors... quiet matches or not quiet matches. I've probably said enough about my desire to have Newton play in the seniors. For all I know there's a perfectly good, but confidential reason for his non-inclusion. I'm willing to let the match-committe decide his immediate fate without giving them any more of a hard time. Players like PJ, Jamar and others could very well turn the tide in the forward line. But if they don't, I'd be really disappointed if he wasn't given a go. In terms of type, he's perfect for our purposes. That's not the problem. It's whether or not he's capable of doing enough when the bar is raised so much higher.

? Did I miss something there? Or is that a typo? Occo. Fair enough questions I guess, and as highlighted above, he's playing mature players simply because he believes you can't win a game by playing too many kids. As he said on the footy show, his primary job is to win, and it makes it harder for him to coach if he has too many unknown entities who are at the moment one-dimensional running around. As far as Jamar goes, if you're asking my opinion, then the answer is no. He's struggling at the moment to maintain the second-ruck role. If he played full time in the ruck? Welll we could do worse, but as far as my powers of prediction are concerned, he'll never scale the heights of White or Stynes. Figuratively or literally speaking. We need to look elsewhere.

Well now, that's never stopped some of the other players who are still getting games has it? Some of them don't even have futures. I doubt there's 30 listed AFL players that COULDN'T get a game for the 16th placed dees at the moment, and if Newton is one of them, I'm stunned. Kicked 8 goals for Sandy? Not true, and besides, that doesn't accurately describe why the players are perceived as "not good enough" yet. At least not Newton. But again, it's just a difference of opinion. Me and a few others vs Rhino, MFC footy department and some others. What difference does it make? Come Sunday night we may find out something new, or we may find out what we all have been hypothesising for months... Bring it on.

Okey Dokey. Hopefully I'll see it before I head out this evening.

Of course. But even you must have a tinge of sadness should ND get the sack and disappear from our screens. At least he has a personality, and knows how to handle the media and what they're for. That said, I'll be the first to wave goodbye if we get a decent premiership coach hungry to have a crack at this list.

You betcha mate. From what I've seen he was bumping and tackling and chasing as much as you'd want ANY player to do. I vaguely remember you've been down to see him this year. Did you not see it that way? If not, I'm stunned. Don't mistake my keen-ness for Newton's inclusion for desperation, I have genuinely seen good signs this year. Surprising as it may seem to you Finks, I am willing to make a fool out of myself backing this kid up for the time-being. I'm as sure as anything that the odds are good he won't make a fool out of me. As good as they are with any debutant.

Based on what? HOW is he fragile? I've gone and watched him for the past month and I've seen no evidence of ANY kind of fragility. I have the distinct feeling that even if Newt gets a game in the month Neita has off, people are going to denounce his promotion. He could get a game in a year and people would still say he's too mentally weak and NOT to play him. Yes, one month of good footy isn't enough to warrant an about-face on the kid, but we have 3 of our best 4 KP forwards out, and like it or not, he has shown good form in the pre-season. I'm not saying he's earned a callup to a full strength demon forward line, but he's certainly right to go for the team as it is now.

Once again, just a simple matter of disagreement. I'd place Petterd WELL behind Buckley and Newton in readiness for Sunday. Why? Physicality. He is just so tiny. Pretty much the only fault with his games that I've seen so far is his size. Newton has played on an ex-AFL defender in Cloke and gone well, he loves the physical side of things, and had he not been placed on a wing last round I'm CERTAIN we'd all be calling for his inclusion. He's in his 3rd year with the AFL. Even IF you don't count his first year because he is a bottom ager, he's still old enough to be looking to debut. He's put on enouhgh weight, he hasn't got THAT far to go in terms of size. If we're talking about players being crucified in the pressure of a tough, hard-fought game, well then aren't we just pussyfooting a little bit? Even IF players like Ward play blinders and get 30 possessions of the back line, we are actually worse off... We know without a shadow of a doubt that he'll get those touches going up the wing, kicking to safe options if he's low on kicking confidence. Even IF the older fringe players play well we are guaranteed a loss... I can respect your position in wanting to retrieve a match by playing mature players, but you'll find there is a minority here that want to play the younger guys FOR THE SAME REASON. Now fair enough, If Buckley's behind Bate and CJ, then he may struggle. I don't advocate his inclusion. But Juice is ALMOST as ready as he'll ever be from what I've seen in the last month. I think you mistake our desire to blood one or two guys for "giving up" on 2007. It's quite the opposite actually.

Not a whole lot new there. He's gotten to be even better than Sheedy at deflecting unwanted attention. Brownie, JB and Newman were quick to say how well regarded he is by the players. Couldn't help but feel a bit bad after they said that. But only for a second. Said Sylvia pulled up a bit sore, Pickett will play a full game this week, and Riv has a sore hammy.

Jesus I nearly had a heart attack. I thought they were going to say he needed a reco or something...

I reckon we'll have to wait until the finalised squad tomorrow. Maybe tune into Gaddy on the footy show. There's something happening with Daniher and Sam Newman. Maybe he'll shed some light there. Might even say something about Col.