mauriesy

In the mid 1960s when he was playing VFL, Blair ran a Sunday footy game for local kids in Hedgeley Dene Gardens in East Malvern. Every second kid from around the area would turn up, to be divided into two teams and play. Blair would umpire. It was great fun until the Council banned footy in the park because the kids were chopping up the lawn too much. I remember one Blair's favourite local kids was Robert Lamb, who went on to play 58 games for Richmond and 7 for South Melbourne. Lamb is the only player in Richmond history to have kicked 8 or more goals in a game at Senior, Reserve and Under 19 levels.

So 3½ years then? ?

Boy, we're looking through a very hazy retrospectoscope with this one.

Jack Riewoldt is on the way out. His modus operandi now is to fly spectacularly through the air and then flop around on the ground looking for a free kick, which he gets occasionally and hence scores 1.6 goals a game. ?

Hard to equate the Brownlow with the club Best and Fairest. Players very rarely receive Brownlow votes when their side loses (I think Max Gawn receiving 2 was one of the few occasions this year). There were 8 games Melbourne lost where significant Brownlow votes weren't given to Melbourne players, but votes would have still been given to players in the Best and Fairest. Maybe Viney works harder regardless of whether Melbourne wins or loses, hence gets more BaF votes?

Shows what great value you can get from pick #32.

When someone retires after 239 games, most of them at Melbourne, the time for snubbing and holding grudges is over. I realise that's hard for some supporters, but it would look really bad and petty if the club itself didn't recognise a significant career.

Hopefully not to offer them pick 8. ?

I know this is just a "value" exercise, but Jake Lever comes from Romsey and wanted to come home from SA. There's no way he'd want to be trooping off to Freo or the Gold Coast.

Yep. Doesn't talk enough. ?

Port Richmond Bulldogs West Coast

Good luck with that. And the AFL and clubs still have a duty of care to their employees.

Since the best we can do is finish 8th, we wouldn't get a home final so it's a moot point.

Unfortunately, the reward for finishing 8th will likely be a hard road trip to Perth to play West Coast. ?

I know commentators have to talk games up, but what drives me nuts is Brian Taylor going into non-stop hyper-babble overdrive because he thinks somehow a team that has kicked 5 goals for the entire game can suddenly kick three goals in the last three minutes to win.

They're not the solutions to our problems. But maybe a fresh Bedford, Baker or Wagner is still better, for at least a match or two, than a tired or flagging Jones or Melksham.

The game has still changed to a certain degree. Shirtfronts were once admired (think Whelan on Hird). We all complained bitterly about the "original" Trengove sling tackle, because of the precedent it set. I think the AFL would like to do more, but every suggestion is greeted with the "we don't want the game to be like basketball" chorus, mainly from certain retired players of the game who are now media commentators. Sooner or later the AFL will be forced to do more any way, because they risk being faced with a raft of legal cases.

The AFL is doing the right thing by trying to limit concussions as much as possible. Supporters should think about long-term effects to Polly Farmer, Danny Frawley and current cases like Kade Kolodjashnij, Paddy McCartin etc. next time they complain about fines and suspensions for sling tackles, elbows to the head, shirtfronts and rough conduct. Or even worse, complaining about how the "biff" is going out of the game.

What a boring game of football Ess v StK was. Chip kick the ball 25 times around your back half, then kick it down field only to have it marked by your opposition. Rinse and repeat. Three goals each in a half of footy.

Saying you can't have Viney, Petracca, Brayshaw and Oliver in the same side is like saying Brisbane would done better if they got rid of one of Voss, Black, Lappin and Akermanis.

You're getting tiresome.

I think lack of pressure is also a problem with Brown. Probably why he's not getting a game.

It's easy analysing draft selections through the retrospectoscope a few years down the track. I bet most people here thought Lumumba was a good pick-up when first recruited.

Lumumba for Clark wasn't an error. It was just a trade swap of players (not controlled by Taylor), both of whom did nothing at their respective new clubs. We didn't win or lose. Any player from a rookie draft is speculative, and hardly a major fail when they don't make it given the price you pay for them.

This is just a nonsense. Firstly, Taylor isn't respoonsible for trades. Secondly, just classifying picks on a "success-neutral-error" basis is totally subjective and far too black and white. As is the assumption that we would have picked the same player another team did with a traded pick. Remember that 19 other recruiters overlooked Fyfe at pick 20, for instance. The only way to assess Taylor is against his peers (i.e. how other recruiters at other clubs have performed with a similar range of picks) and how his actual picks have gone against the average number of games for picks in the same range. For instance, getting a 90-game player like Salem for pick 9 in 2013 is hardly an individual "error". How many games on average would you expect to get out of a first-, second-, third- or fourth-round recruit? To reduce the overall score for Taylor by saying: Sparrow and Jordon are "neutral" when they are still second-year developing players taken later than pick 26, and Nietschke is an "error" when he's out for the season. Jackson, Pickett and Rivers are "neutral" when it's their first season. is either jumping the gun, or a poor assessment of players who have played a handful of games. I think they are all showing tremendous promise.