mauriesy

PJ is worth persisting with. He has better ground skills than Holland and is a better kick.

Seems Headland was exceptionally provoked by words that didn't exist, if I am to correctly read the outcome of both cases.

Maybe the AFL just needs to codify sensible limits to sledging (a "Sledging Code of Conduct"? ). Any sledging involving race, religion or sexual innuendo involving children for a start.

Where have you been? Bell has been among the (few) best players of the last three weeks. He is developing into a class player and our only rock in the backline.

The problem is that that's not saying much, given the others were so poor. I saw Godfrey do some good hard things today, and kick a couple of goals. But his disposal and thinking is sometimes woeful, for example: 1. That mark he took near the 50, last quarter. We had Jamar and White in the goal square, but instead of going for the goal, he kicked to Bruce in the pocket on the boundary, who was covered and lost possession. 2. Again in the last quarter, he marked along the member's wing. Miller makes a good lead and Godfrey goes for him, except he kicks it right over his head, again for a turnover. I do want some hardness and endeavour, which Godfrey exhibits. But a skill set to go along with it would be good.

I think that's the death neil for this thread.

Neil Armstrong. We could really take off. Rocket into the four. Take one giant step.

They harried our run and carry. Result: harikari.

A tidbit of information: although he's played 231 games overall, tonight is Jeff White's 200th game in the Red and Blue. Good on him.

I reckon he could get on his bike with about 6 tonight.

If the just-in report in The Age is anything to go by, there might still some prevarication about Yze. Reading between the lines, has the streak ended? http://www.theage.com.au/news/Sport/Form-t...4761534229.html The report quotes Rivers as "in doubt to play" due to hamstring soreness. Guess that might have been an opening for Frawley, but perhaps it's now one for Ferguson. Is Bartram still any chance?

So far I've biased it towards the midfield. I've got Judd, West, Bruce and McLean because of their possession winning capability, with West as captain because of double points. My highest-priced back is Joel Bowden, and while I'm trying not to bias myself towards too many Melbourne players, I've got Chris Johnson and Daniel Bell, because they're reasonably priced but with the potential to get possessions and spend some time further up the ground. I thought 'running' backs would be better in this regard than 'tall spoilers'. Adam Hunter (WCE) is a good price as a nominated back who can go forward and kick goals, similarly Koschitzke, provided he gets on the field enough. Some of my reserves are some new draftees like Hawkins and Selwood (Geelong), Gibbs (Carlton) and Davey (Essendon) that I thought might step up and play early but were cheap. I'm wondering whether to leave them in or draft them later if they start playing well. Of course, if they do, their value goes up and I might miss the boat. Is picking players like them early a sound strategy? Bit of as punt I know. And what do you reckon about rucks? Worth having the best ones (e.g. Cox and Lade), or again, would you "draw down" in favour of midfielders or forwards?

Just a dumb question about selecting a team in the AFL Dream Team competition, which I've never done before ... You have $6.94 million to spread among 30 players. That's $231,333 per player. Given that points awarded place a high value on possessions, goals and tackles, it seems to me to bias towards midfielders and forwards. Backs score zero for their main task, which is spoils, and negatively for frees against, which they'd give away a lot of. Rucks can score for possessions, but only get 1 point for a hitout (e.g. a moderately priced ruck like Jamar probably wouldn't score very heavily). If you spent your cap evenly through the four areas (backs, forwards, midfield, rucks) you'd spread your cap as follows: 9 backs x $231,333 = $2,082,000 9 forwards x $231,333 = $2,082,000 8 centres x $231,333 = $1,850,664 4 rucks x $231,333 = $925,332 However, if most of your point-scoring possessions are going to come from forwards and midfielders, shouldn't you spend more than average on them and less than average on backs ... say $1.6 million for backs and $2.2 million for midfielders?

Bradshaw's AFL season in serious doubt

My guess: B: Whelan Carroll Holland HB: Frawley Rivers Bell C: Johnstone McLean Green HF: Yze Miller Pickett FF: Robertson Neitz Davey Foll: White Jones Bruce Int: Jamar Bate C Johnson McDonald Need the backline height for Gehrig, Reiwoldt and Koschitzke. Frawley will become this year's version of Bartram, play from the opening round and cement his place as a back with height and pace. Watch for Rivers to sneak forward. Not bad that Sylvia, Dunn, Bartram and Moloney aren't in that team.

Well he didn't have his measure the last time we played each other. ND had a comprehensive win.

www.bombersfc.com.au is the "cloned generic" site that the AFL link takes you to. www.essendonfc.com.au is still the "real" site maintained by them.

The MFC website is, as of today, a "clone" of the new AFL web site. I don't think it's better or worse than the original, they are both rather obscure in some of their navigation. It does look better graphically though. (Already though I have one minor problem. If you're a Firefox user, it doesn't interpret the "strong" tag properly. So instead of getting bold "strong" type (e.g. "This is a Heading"), you literally get "<strong>This is a heading</strong>". It will be the way they've used URL escape characters instead of simple <> brackets. Poor programming.) PS How come all the players were born at midnight? :D

But it is also silly to have bias beyond reason. The top 5 on ranking points were: Bruce (Melb) 126 Franklin (Haw) 126 Brown (Melb) 123 Bell (Melb) 117 Lewis (Haw) 100

It was worse where I am. We get Seven relayed through Prime Bendigo. Prime Bendigo have not yet installed a digital transmitter. So not only did we get disjointed commentary, bad cuts and '80s graphics, we also got a ghosty, overbright 4:3 analogue picture. After having widescreen on 9 and 10 last year, this is pathetic. Prime really suck. PS. Someone please tell David Schwarz that a group of supporters is a "contingent", not a "contingency". Although in the case of Collingwood, he might still be right. PPS. Who on earth picked Brucey's suit? PPPS: What's Brucey's favourite word, except for "special"? It's "ta". Egan kicks ta Burns, ta Wakelin, ta Thomas, ta ... PPPPS: I know it's early in the season, but Collingwood's young players look like they've got an awful lot of work to do.

I think the demon could look more ferocious. There's plenty of concepts around of mythical "demons" that would scare the pants off the opposition more than this limp fellow. He just looks glum rather than angry. I also think more could be done graphically with the shapes and contrast between the red and blue to look like flames. At the moment they just look like waves. Our current clash strip has better graphic elements.

It's a very simplistic assessment just dividing players up into age groups and height, without studying how crucial they are ("core players"), their impact, inside/outside skill, games played or team balance. You can adopt a concept or analysis model of your choosing, and draw all sorts of erroneous conclusions. GIGO. For instance, there's no mention of games experience in the young players, or the actual impact the older players have. Players weighting the "old" end of the scale, like Brown, Wheatley, Bizzell, Holland, Yze, Ward, Godfrey, Ferguson and Nicholson (who has retired ... a light into the analyser's knowledge maybe?), are not "core" players. It's not like Collingwood, whose aging players are still largely their core. Of the young players, some are great talent who have now got enough games under their belt. Jones, Bell, McLean, CJ, Bartram, Sylvia and Bate are now, or nearly "core" players. And I'd rather have a few tough Brocks than a few quick Tamblings. I also don't believe Melbourne lacks runners, and besides, there's still debate about how important they'll really be. Western Bulldogs run at all costs style play failed dismally against West Coast, and anyone could have run the legs off Collingwood. I also think a statement like "Melbourne's great weakness in 2007 will be its ability to run out full games, and to run out a full season" is just an easy and glib regurgitation without much knowledge or real analysis of the list ... the sort of cliched utterance you often get from another team's supporter making easy pickings of past events. Like the Bomberland forum analysis that said "after Sylvia and McLean, Melbourne's young talent looks a bit thin"! I hold hopes that with better conditioning, fitness and a good pre-season, this year will be markedly different.

If 3373 people have responded, it's pretty unlikely we'd change the 56% majority feeling of 5th-8th. I think the Melbourne fans have all voted 1-4, the Melbourne haters have all voted 9-16, and the majority have just put us where we were last year. To be expected for any predictive poll of this sort. Besides, I don't really want to pump us up. I'd prefer we just went about our business confidently but without making rash statements or projections. The only way to answer any critics, especially those who have us finishing 13-16, is by stellar performance on the field.

The whole team.

8.30 pm tonight, ABC2 (digital)