Nasher

You remind me of the kid in primary school who would call you a dobber (my kids would say “snitch”) if you told the teacher that the kid was giving you grief. As if exposing the behaviour of others is a greater crime than the initial behaviour itself. Lumumba would have recorded that conversation as a result of his belief that he was being consistently mistreated. He wouldn’t have just randomly started doing it out of the blue. He would have thought nobody would ever believe him if they didn’t hear it for themselves, and he was absolutely correct. I agree that recording private conversations is extremely unpalatable and I’d be horrified if I learned someone was doing that to me. But put yourself in his shoes. What other choice did he have?

I view the Yze thing the same way I do when I lose a good member of my team to a promotion elsewhere that wasn’t available with us: we’ll miss him, but our overriding emotion is we’re stoked he’s got the opportunity that we know he deserves. I don’t believe in stifling people’s growth so we can selfishly keep them on our team.

Give away tickets to Freo fans who can send in a photo of themselves in a Dees scarf from last year. West Coast fans will stay away in droves, so we can pack the place and they can play in front of a hostile crowd on their own ground. Seriously though it’ll be great to go back there for the boys I reckon. Happy memories there. Doesn’t feel like that long ago that a trip to Perth meant pencilling in the loss and just hoping for the best. Wonder if I’ll ever be able to see bang… bang bang bang without getting a lump in my throat?

Do people really think it through when they bellow ATTENTION SEEKER at people who blow the whistle on big organisations like this? I doubt Lumumba is motivated by having his name publicly dragged through the mud all over again and getting thousands of twitter @s and death threats from unhinged Collingwood supporters. I don’t know the full story but I’m sure it’s more complex than this daft and illogical explanation.

He actually does though! I saw some footage of Jordie recently and went, “what the…” Not sure which recruiter brought Jordie in - if it was Cameron or Prendergast. Whoever it was though had obviously looked in to the crystal ball and gotten confused.

When you’ve got absolutely nothing to worry about, but you’re a pathological worrier, so you invent something to be worried about.

One of the “symptoms” of how we’re travelling is that we have the best full back in the league and we’re barely talking about it. I’d say Steven May is in even better form than last year. He’s just an absolute monster. Obviously he’s fast, strong and tough, but he’s also smart and skilled. For the number of contests he gets in, he hardly ever gives away a free kick. I’m seriously in awe.

Haha. AFL tactics are funny though. One week a team decides they're going to try and completely close him down, the next week a team decides to let him just do as he pleases. You'd think there'd be a bit more flogging tactics from each other. Goody made the point during the week that every time a team tries a new tactic, such as closing down Langdon, it goes in to their "information bank" for tactics clubs might try during down the track and things we'll have to manage. I thought that was an interesting take, and a perspective you only get the luxury of having when you're the best team.

Agree - I think the reason it was such as good win was because the opposition didn't throw in the towel. The margin in the end was pretty much accounted for by the dominant period we had in the first half. For the rest of the game it was an arm wrestle. Beltings require a certain compliance from the opposition. The reason we haven't dealt one out is because we haven't yet had an opponent offer up the requisite surrender. It will come.

You're herpes??

Tomlinson plays for Lever if he's injured. No change otherwise.

Jury not in yet, but definitely played himself to 201. I'm happy for him, back to his best today.

Thanks for cutting the telecast just as TMac was about to lead the boys off Fox. Grr.

Ed Langdon obviously felt the need to claw back the possessions lost from last week's tag.

I thought that was a complete performance. Another game where the opposition threw absolutely everything they had at us and fell well short.

Yeah Goody. Abandon the premiership winning zone and man up.

Nah. St Kilda through absolutely everything but the kitchen sink at us, and they clawed back a total of 7 points on the margin. Tough quarter of having to defend a lot. It's what we do when the game is going against us that makes us such a good side.

Thoroughly enjoyable quarter. What's not to love about a quarter of Kozzy magic, finishing with a ballsed-up regulation kick for goal from 20 out for the opposition? Awesome.

Dear Victoria, Please cease trying to dump your garbage on our state, immediately. We don’t want it. Regards Tasmania

If that’s the logic they applied then their decision makers should be sacked. Fagan was an extremely experienced coach who had been in the system a long time, in a coaching capacity. A quick glance at his resume would reveal he is very clear qualified to be a senior coach, even if his most recent role had been administrative. Could the same be said of Noble?

Yep, the “fab 4” were incredible. I would say very loose equivalence would be Trac to Voss (powerful, skilful, untacklable) and Oliver to Black (sees through traffic as if it isn’t there). We don’t have a player as lethal as Akermanis, who could do anything from destroy you through the middle to park in the forward line and kick 5 goals. But those flag teams had combinations of Clark Keating (2), Beau McDonald (2) and Jamie Charman (1) as rucks - all decent but nothing particularly special and certainly no Max Gawn. Good point on those West Coast era mids. I’d forgotten. Maybe there are more I’ve forgotten.

It’s really hard to compare players across eras. Hell, it’s really hard to compare players in the same era. Who’s the better player between Oliver or Gawn? I haven’t seen Max get 30 contested possessions in a game, nor have I seen Clayton take endless contested marks at crucial times of games. They’re totally different players, but both contribute enormously to our momentum. What I do know is that we’ve never had three players of this quality playing together all at once though. The last time I saw a team that did was the 2001-2004 Brisbane Lions juggernaut. This is a special time for the club and us as fans. Chances are, we won’t see a group like this again in our lifetimes. Savour it while it lasts.

1. Goodwin 2. Daniher 3. Northey 4. Roos 5. Bailey I’m of the firm belief the Bailey rebuild was on track until it was derailed by senior management meddling. It gets blurred in to one massive traumatic period because of ‘08, 09, ‘12, ‘13 and 186, but other than the latter, we were competitive and not that far off in ‘11. I reckon he gets a bum rap. The only other permanent senior coaches in my life coached spoons.

The starting 18 = definitely in the team rule wasn’t applied two weeks ago when TMac was named on field and then dropped, so I’m officially abandoning my long held belief that that’s how it works. That said, I’m still of the belief this means they’ll play TMac and drop Weid. In any case, that’s one role in the team that is obviously far from settled in match committee’s mind. Looking forward to watching it continue to play out.

And I guess he only holds it until we finally lose one, if I’ve understood that right. Bit of a weird record that one, in that you can lose it without someone taking it from you.