Nasher

It feels a little bit like nitpicking to criticise a 19 year old with his second consecutive 35 possession game, who also marks and tackles, for a bit of ball overuse in a game where our forward line was cramped and dysfunctional. I understand the criticism is intended to be constructive, but boy are we setting the bar high. I expect these sorts of issues will be resolved with experience. He's a baby still and already our best player.

I thought for a minute you were quoting Prendergast. I was wondering what alternate reality I woke up in.

Unfortunately "lucked out" has become one of those expressions to have an antonymous double meaning. I died a little on the inside recently when Merriam-Webster added a definition of 'literally' to mean the same as 'figuratively'.

Yes, the strike rate gets progressively worse as you go down the draft. That has nothing to do with what I'm saying though, my argument was against the assertion that you need a special player with your top 5 pick (implication being that you should expect one) - history shows it doesn't work like that.

A top 5 draft pick improves your chances of getting a star by much less than you'd think. History is absolutely littered with top 5 draft picks that aren't stars. You *hope* you get one, but it's just as much pot luck as any other position in the draft.

Watts 2009, McDonald 2011.

Fair enough - probably a crud comparison in hindsight. I suppose my point is that it appears to be a regular feature in his game - most players would have done that about zero times in their careers.

I asked him and he didn't know either.

The Weideman running goal also featured a pretty handy one handed collect off the ground and handball to Petracca, not too dissimilar to the one in the Isaac Smith clip, though not under as much pressure. I wonder if he's got really big hands - seems like a very difficult thing to do at pace.

What does that even mean?

Vast improvement on the avatar old son.

Thought this would be a thread about picking Oliver. I love that they've been able to find gems late in the draft like Hunt, Hannan etc, but it's nailing those early picks that the previous bunch muffed that will project us towards the top 4. It looks so far that all of Oliver, Brayshaw, Petracca and Salem will at least be very good, with Oliver almost certainly going to be in the top echelon if not already. There's always misses in the top 20 but we seem to have gone from one extreme to the other. It's just such a relief knowing our key picks are in such good hands.

We still doing this?

I thought the comment "I thought I'd come back in good nick, but that didn't really work out" was interesting. I wonder what the blocker was? It's probably unrealistic to expect a 19 year old to have the full discipline and thorough understanding of their own body to know how to return in peak shape. It's easy to get caught up in setting the bar unreasonably high when it comes to young talent like him, when we're all itching to see him at full flight.

I've never really had it 'looked at' per se, but I have for a while suspected I'm on the spectrum. General traits: I impulsively avoid eye contact when talking to people, especially in forced situations (passing each other in a hallway etc) I can't small talk, at all. I consider it lucky if I can sustain any sort of conversation, often. I am usually the first one to cross the line in to inappropriate conversations, unintentionally. I can't read between the lines. If you're not explicit, I probably won't understand what you're saying to me. I can't read body language. I have no idea if the person I am talking to likes me or is at all interested in what I have to say. It takes me a very long time to make friends. It would be unusual for me to consider someone an established friend within the first year of meeting them, though there have been exceptions. I can remember the number plate of every car I've ever owned, and can remember the number plate of every car any member of my family ever owned up until the age of about 15, and a few of my friends early car number plates. I know the current sequence of number plates (letter number number letter letter) in Tasmania and roughly where they're up to (I've seen 'F' number plates, 'G' ones are reserved for Government vehicles, 'H' ones should start appearing on the streets soon...). With the older style number plates (letter letter number number number number) I used to be able to roughly guess when a car was registered based on its number plate. There used to be a car that parked near my house with the number plate next in sequence to mine. I was disappointed the time we parked next to each other in a car park and I didn't have my phone on me to take a photo. Did I mention I notice number plates? I have an elephant-like memory in general, especially when it comes to numbers I am obsessive about doing things right, to the point where I will abandon anything I can't do near enough to perfect for my own satisfaction on early attempts. I scored 36 on the Baron-Cohen test. The questions that reduced my score were nearly all around imagination - I have a very vivid imagination, I *love* reading fiction, I have even dabbled in writing some. I guess that's the whole thing about it being a 'spectrum'.

He'd have been accused of making it all about him in the throws of the season if he'd done that. If not that, someone would have found some other way to pan him over it. There's no pleasing people with the timing of things like this. I read his statement and to me it was as good as I'd hope for in the context of being a player who received a ban for drugs. It doesn't mean it was absolutely good, or that he's a hero, or that I admire him, it's just that I thought it was appropriate under the circumstances. I don't think it would kill people just to give him that nod.

I started very young if you're my son, Clint.

No, there's several father sons on here. The site is run by a father son combo for a start!

You can't look at it like that. What if pick 30 had a better strike rate? Would you then conclude that you'd prefer to have pick 30 than pick 29?

If they feel like going through the rigmarole of court proceedings. Far too late in the day for that now.

Not a free agent.

Because that would be a massive, massive pain in the arse?

I love people's enthusiasm, but I find things like this cringeworthy. I know, such a Grinch.

I don't think Redleg is referring to it being leaked to the media.

Yes, it means no compensation. Wouldn't have got any anyway most likely as I doubt Grimes will be on a very big contract if he gets picked up - very long shot anyway IMO. Unless you were worried about compo for Terls :-)