Nasher

To be very clear, abusing somebody by private message is every bit as frowned upon as doing it publicly on the forum.

I find it pretty hard to accept that at 21, Gysberts was beyond redemption. North Melbourne would have taken him on the assumption that he was a talented player who had been "Melbourned", so if he was good enough they'd have persevered. He was given the boot after his first contract and if I recall, didn't play a game. There's no magic development that happens between 18 and 21 that can't happen afterwards if the player is talented and driven enough. Gysberts clearly wasn't. I wholly reject the idea that it's ever too late to develop a player.

It's not really that telling when its only your opinion, and it clearly isn't reflected by the footy department based on the evidence presented. In the 7 matches Pedersen (not Pederson) played, 5 of them were when Dawes was unavailable. They only played in the same team in two matches. I realise he missed most of the second half of the side injured, but I think the pattern would have continued. Dunn played a game forward in the last round, when neither Pedersen nor Dawes were available and there was no clear matchup for him in defence. Dawes is clearly ahead of Pedersen in the minds of those in charge. Dunn is a distant third. Switching back from facts to anecdotal speculation for a minute, I've also heard that Hogan prefers working with Dawes over Pedersen as Pedersen gets in the way. Chemistry with Hogan in my mind is probably more important than which out of Dawes or Pedersen is the better player in isolation. For the record, I'm in favour of keeping Pedersen, but it's wishful thinking that he'll ever play ahead of Dawes.

He was dux of the Colin Garland school of How to Always Look Like You Just Got Out of Bed.

I thought he had already signed.

Good analysis. I'm bullish on the future too, but there is a lot of things that can go wrong. In that first group I only count 5 players I'd consider near-certain to be valuable contributors and maybe 3 out of the second group. We need nearly all of those names listed to fire if we are to have any sort of success. The range of possibilities is huge with such a young group. This reinforces the need for bringing in players in the 50-100 games range for me.

My final outs would be: Cross, Jamar, McKenzie, Fitzpatrick, Riley, Bail, Terlich. Hunt outcome pending trades - will delist and rookie if no further reduction in player numbers. Sign otherwise. Candidates for trade: Watts, Grimes, Howe. Re-sign: Garland, Toumpas, Pedersen, Michie. Promote: Harmes, vandenBerg [Edited for clarity] Retain: White, King.

I'd trust implicitly the word of a player who has recently left the club. I'm also pretty interested in the idea that you can play at a level beyond your natural capability. Sounds like something out of a bad 80s SciFi movie.

Sandy's the footy commentary equivalent of your senile grandfather - a shadow of the great man he was. But you know what he used to be, and that he can't help it, so you turn a blind eye when you catch him urinating in the bathtub because he is confused about where he is. Derwayne is your douchebag uncle, who gets shitfaced, bullies all the kids and pinches all the girls butts, then wonders why they stop coming to his BBQs. He's always been a jerk and you'll never offer him any benefit of the doubt. Your family sounds like a real hoot DA!

The reason Jones won't win is because he had a slow start to the season and a patch towards the end where he played like poo. Are you suggesting that the club engineered a Jones form slump in order to stop him from winning the B&F out of some sense of embarrassment?

Yep, this was covered in the Derwayne thread. It was Lynch and Johnson that had that dialogue. It's pretty frustrating when you just know they are speaking complete garbage. Salem was good before the injury and has been good since coming back, but we get told he has second year blues. He also barely touched the ball as a forward and was in and out of the side last year. He's taken a big step forward this year, even with the injury. I get that the commentators can't know the ins and outs of every player, but it would be nice if they didn't resort to just making shit up when they don't know what they're on about.

Exactly. We even hear this kind of speak amongst Melbourne supporters - "we've been rebuilding for 10 years!!!!!" - no, we've been rebuilding for two years. We had a rebuild under Bailey, a de-build under Neeld, and a new rebuild under Roos. To the casual observer it just looks like 8 years of train-wreck though.

The thing that impresses me about Garlett is the speed in which his brain operates. That pass to Hogan was a split second decision as Hogan appeared in his sight. It helps that he's also got the skill and foot speed to go with it. Still can't believe we got him for a packet of stale twisties. Thanks again Mick.

How'd you come up with 4 out of 10? 311/22 = 14.13 out of 10. Either way it doesn't add up. I'd have thought the highest possible score would be 220 under that system. Edit: sorry, forgot to factor in the "four members" bit. Divide it all by four and it works (sorta). The highest possible score would therefore be 880, so you're right, a score of 311 out of 880 seems low.

I love the way Garlett just steps over him as if he's some annoying obstacle in the way.

Harmes and King were from the previous rookie draft (along with Alex Georgiou - how long ago does that seem now?).

Name one single poster who wrote Harmes off after one or two games.

Bernie. That patch of form was white hot. Best form I've seen at the MFC since Woewodin in 2000. Jones and McDonald to round out the top 3. Viney to make a late charge to finish top 5, but will prove to have missed too many games to challenge the others. Viney has been our most consistent performer this year IMO. Didn't have the real form slump that the top 3 had, at least not that I can recall.

It's not really an option though. We rolled the dice against a team with a poor ruck division and won - I'd hate to see us try this against a side with even one decent ruckman. I loved Dunn's competing as a forward. The goal was a ripper, but the margin for error for those sort of shots is very narrow, you only need to look at the result of his second shot. Unlike a shot from near the goals, from that distance the kick only needs to be slightly off perfect and it will miss. At the end of the day, it's low percentage play and not one I'd be relying on. It was a good once-off moves based on needs on the day, but he's still a defender I reckon.

It was bizarre fixturing for sure. It's almost as if the AFL were trying to set a record for the lowest attendance ever. The only thing they could have done to make it worse was schedule it in the 4pm slot (but they slugged the equally irrelevant Pies and Bombers game with that one :D).

The Geelong win, just purely because of the unexpectedness of it. Couldn't believe what I was seeing. The win against the Pies was good too, after embarrassing ourselves the week before. The Demonland Hyperbole Machine was in full swing in the leadup and wrists were slashed left right and centre. I thought it was almost a given that we would win after that. The early season wins against Gold Coast and Richmond feel like they were a decade ago now. It's amazing how your memory of a season dims, especially when you ride the rollercoaster of despair to elation on a weekly basis as we do.

I don't even care if North win it - not that they will because they're too far off the good sides. I'm just tired of the groundhog day style watching the same teams winning over and over again. Would love to see the Bulldogs pull one out of their backsides. Not going to happen though. Think I'll have to settle for a Freo flag.

Don't care who wins, as long as it isn't Hawthorn again.

I prefer the explanation that they were just horse poo, myself. I don't want to give Bummers fans another excuse to be sanctimonious turds ("we were a lot better than we showed, we just wanted the picks...") It's pretty funny that Collingwood vs Essendon got banished to the 4pm Sunday timeslot though, in the round where the AFL can schedule the games when and where they want. It's a rare treat to have both clubs fade in to irrelevance together in the same season.