Nasher

Heading over again as my (probably) only trip for the year. If Viney plays I would be bloody stoked.

Definitely not coming from the site. Other than that I can't help, sorry.

1) I think we could win any of them. 2) I don't expect a prolonged fadeout. I expect continued yo-yoing inconsistency as we have already seen so far this year.

For sure: none of them. Possibly: any of them. We're not in 2013 any more man.

I am I the only one who feels an actual, physical stabbing pain in my brain when reading such irrational pessimism? Maybe I've just been around this site for far too long, but after years and years of reading it, it does my head in. As if we're only going to win 2 more games for the year.

I know rpfc laments this too, but the obvious reality is that there aren't unlimited midfield spots. Even without Viney you'd think Jones, Vince, Tyson and Oliver are going to eat up the majority of the midfield minutes. It'd be good to see him starting in the middle on occasion but I can't see him spending heaps of time in there.

I agree that it doesn't matter really. All of them are capable of the required pressure to play the role. The difficulty comes in predicting which ones are going to be on this week; the results suggest Kennedy should have played, but how do you predict that in advance? 3 out of our 4 half forwards will play (vB/Kent/Harmes/Kennedy). I'd be leaning towards leaving out Harmes as he has had consecutive poor weeks now and selecting Kennedy. It feels like a very low percentage change though.

How would you know how much they played though? There are two umpires in the AFL who played at the very top level (Fisher and Bannister) and they're hardly better. I bet there is a poor correlation in umpiring between games played since under 12s and false free kicks (either paid or unpaid).

They wanted him to be a second ruck. With his athletic traits he would have the potential to be a brutal 5 minute per quarter ruck/on baller. With Pedersen sick we're now playing Watts in this role which is clearly a compromise, and Pedersen is a 29 year old journeyman footballer anyway. It's not that much of a mystery why we hoped Frost would come on - he's got the right traits and we have a long term need. Defenders are a lot easier to find. Happy to see him settle as a defender; there's no reason why his athleticism can't be uses as a weapon there as well, but I can see why they persisted for as long as possible, until it was clear it wasn't working.

Generally the idea with changing the side is to make it stronger - that usually precludes dropping the best player you have for particular positions.

I thought our ability to lock it in the forward half was what kept us in it, especially in the first half. Those stats don't look good from an individual perspective, but those players aren't the only ones in the forward line in contested situations - half the team is, so someone must have been tackling.

The score gap reflectedly positively on the experience gap in a tough game IMO. While disappointed, I wouldn't be too critical.

It was a bunch of disjointed thoughts with no bearing whatsoever on what you initially said, didn't address my point in any way at all, and you opened and closed with abuse. I gave it the level of response I thought it deserved. Moving on.

Might not be talking about the same night binman. I'm pretty sure it was this game I was at: http://afltables.com/afl/stats/games/2003/091120030808.html - was a Friday night, not a Saturday night, and the scoreline doesn't reflect the drubbing in my memory. Looks like Geelong kicked a lot of points that day though. I also saw Richmond get pasted by St Kilda the next night in some sort of milestone game for Nathan Burke - might have been his 300, or he'd just announced retirement?

Exactly.

I (as a Hobartian) didn't meet a single person that went "nah, not going, too cold". Most people were pretty pumped about it. During the game it got as low as 6 degrees. You can't tell me it doesn't get that cold in Melbourne in the dead middle of winter. The coldest I've ever been in my entire life was on a drizzly Saturday night at the 'G watching us get rogered by Geelong about a decade ago. At least in Hobart you can be pretty confident it won't rain.

Man, this has turned really ugly, really fast. Richmond

Not sure if anyone's ever been to that other place in Victoria, I think it's called "Mel-bern" or something, but it gets pretty cold there too.

What's wrong with that?

It's a ridculous theory.

I think it's a case of not all bad games being equal. If two players play badly, but one plays badly following team instructions and one plays badly ignoring team instructions, I know which player I'd hold more accountable if I were the coach. It's only speculation that this is what happened, but it's an explanation that at least makes sense. We'll never know from the outside, of course. The idea of playing OMac to get his brother to sign is silly, and beneath you. I trust you are kidding - it's dang hard to tell through text alone.

I reckon last week, missed goals were a huge factor in the limp performance we put in for periods. Even on TV I could see the energy get sucked out of them every time someone missed a goal that should have gone through. It certainly sucked the energy out of me.

I count 12 players in the side this week Trengove would not have played a game with excluding VFL games this year: Hunt, Bugg, McDonald, Wagner, Stretch, Garlett, Petracca, Hogan, Oliver, Frost, vandenBerg and Harmes. I know he's been there the whole time so it's not as if he's meeting them for the first time, but it will be a pretty different looking side to the last ones he played in!

Do you set the bar really low to avoid disappointment or something? If we play like we did in those other games, we are a red hot chance to knock them off. Hawthorn of 2016 are not the unbeatable juggernaut they have been in previous years.