Nasher

And only 51% game time apparently, which the bulk of must have been in the first half. Very impressive.

Viney. OMac ankle. On crutches at end of game. Hogan slept through the first half. Moved on to the ball in 3rd. Forward again in the last and came alive. Bloody star. Oliver 17 touches in the first half, 1 in the second. Faded but very bloody exciting. I'd wait a bit for the tix.

What a rollercoaster.

Our inside 50s count exceeds our score.

Our inside 50s count exceeds our score.

I feel like I owe myself an apology for being confident. The crash back to Earth hurt.

My heart could have done with one or two fewer handballs - I'll take the goal though!

Absolutely dominating out of the middle. They score too easily when going forward though. Great start though. Absolutely loving the new model Matt Jones.

Everyone's different, I guess. It's hard to really comment without knowing the dynamics of their relationship, though I do know from an earlier relationship that time spent together lacks quality when one of the parties is held against their will. Anyway, I reckon if I proposed spending a Saturday doing something that didn't involve my wife, took up most of the day and included me taking the kids with me, I reckon my she would open every door for me on the way out and have the bottle of wine cracked before I was out of the driveway.

As for the game, I am feeling supremely confident. Everything just feels right at the moment - a solid preseason, almost a full list to choose from, our senior players fit and firing, supplemented by some serious young talent. I might be setting myself up for disappointment, but stuff it. I want more than the feeling of relief you get when you win unexpectedly.

Heh. In the space of two posts we saw the wife who can't wait to return to the 'G and the wife who is completely anti-football. Mine's definitely more anti- than pro- though she's never attempted to stop me from getting in to it. It's more of an eyerolling acceptance than a putting the foot down.

Whenever I read other forums, all I see is ridiculous hyperbole, or overanalysis that draws long bows to the point of being complete nonsense. It makes me wonder if Demonland is the same and I've just become insensitive to it. Case in point in that Cotchin thread:Big call but my impressions from him is he doesn't really care about footy. He has other endeavours. I can see him being the type to retire at 28-29. Fire in the eyes or lack of is right. I've seen him in interviews after a bad loss or bad individual performance and he doesn't come across as being angry or upset like most players.Looks happy to just be a player. I think the responsibility of being the captain has a lot to do with it. Drained him because he's not capable.

Surely we're not in the position of luxury yet of being cocky with player selection. If he's fit he's fit and if he's not he's not - doesn't matter if we're playing Essendon or Hawthorn.

Have you been paying any attention at all this pre-season?

Second year player, taken mid draft, competing against some serious talent his own age, and older players in good form. Situation normal I'd have thought.

It was pretty well documented that Malthouse didn't like Garlett's attitude and he fell well out of favour, which had a compounding effect on form. I reckon selling him to Melbourne for crackers is exactly the kind of thing an arrogant egomaniac would do. I doubt the idea it would backfire or help us in any way at all even crossed his mind.

I get on a plane to Sydney tomorrow then on a cruise liner on Monday for 11 days around New Caledonia and Vanuatu. First family holiday for me ever - I'm 32, never went on one as a kid and am 10 years in to parenthood without having been on one. Excited would be an understatement! Got my tickets to MFC vs Norf at Bellerive, and wife's study schedule permitting will nip over to Melbourne at least once again this year, hopefully for QB weekend. All I need is for the MFC to win a few this year and the year will be sweet as, starting with this long weekend. Wait, what's this topic about again?

That's what I thought. He's a country lad who clearly hasn't had the publicity coaching that others like Weideman have - this was obvious when the pair were interviewed. Best to knock it on the head while it is still harmless and funny.

That's what I thought. He's a country lad who clearly hasn't had the publicity coaching that others like Weideman have - this was obvious when the pair were interviewed. Best to knock it on the head while it is still harmless and funny.

I just enjoy not having to go through the "gee, he's off to a slow start, but I'm sure he'll come on..." with our more recent batch of early draft pick midfielders. I know people have been saying it for years (looking at you, ProDee) and I'm very slow to get on the bandwagon, but top shelf quality is almost universally evident immediately. Hogan, Brayshaw and now Oliver are clear examples of first impressions counting for everything. It's no guarantee that they will actually reach the top shelf, but I am starting to think that looking all at sea early (thinking Morton, Toumpas) is pretty much a guarantee that they won't reach the top shelf.

I know right? The sad thing was I knew full well that it would be like that before I even opened the page. RalphiusMaximus and others have put up some more balanced views since then.

This is the kind of horse bog logic that irritates me. When we the Bulldog "ones", we might play a zillion times better than we did. Their "seniors" might actually play with less cohesion that the young outfit they put on the park today. Every other possible combination in between could happen. You cannot transplant a whole different team in to a scenario and assume all the other million variables that affect the result of a game remain the same. No two games are the same and no two teams ever play the same way twice. There's a good reason why a lot of people say "you can only beat the team the opposition put on the ground"; all you can take from a game is that your team might have the ingredients to win matches, which we can clearly take from this game given that we did actually win it.

Fixed, ta.

I missed NAB2, but Matt Jones was reportedly excellent again. There is going to be at least one player who misses out who is very unlucky. By the sounds of it, I need to make room for Matt Jones and Grimes. One obvious change would be Brayshaw who must be in some doubt for round 1 now. I still want Oliver and Bugg on my bench and I still think the coaches will favour Lumumba. To that end, I would like some direction on who I choose between Kennedy and Harmes from you guys who saw NAB2 please! Failing that, I would choose Harmes by default just because I like him.

It might have been a complete trainwreck mate, I acknowledge that. Just saying I wouldn't know from reading Demonland, because I'll get told it was whether it was or not. This isn't an isolated incident, there's a good reason why I've taken to avoiding the match day threads in general in the last 12 months.