Nasher

heh. It is nice to have a second week in a row where we've had a genuine upgrade (last week it was Frawley for Pedersen). Seeing Byrnes, Rodan, Pedersen, Sellar and Blease permanently stuck in a revolving door tour between Melbourne and Casey was getting a tad tedious.

In other words in Grimes, out Blease. With that bench, I can't see any permutations that strengthen the side that include Strauss, Sellar or Pedersen.

I hate the idea of trading Howe. Trades that involve players that are firmly entrenched in the 22 and the club as a whole just make me feel very uncomfortable. I fully understand the logic, but gut feel says no for me.

Never heard of him. What is so special about him and what position does he play?

So is your position that instead of recruiting Nicholson, we should have recruited some other guy from the ammos who also probably wouldn't have made it? I'm all for moaning about our drafting, but honestly, WGAF if we drafted an ordinary player with pick 14 in the rookie draft. The probability of getting good players that deep in to the draft is slim, so the consequence of blowing it is immaterial. If you stood it next to the consequence of those botched first rounders, you wouldn't even be able to see it.

Agreed. The general vibe around the Brisbane fans (online at least) was that they'd been resigned to losing him for a while, and were grateful to us for paying a fair price as Freo were trying to screw them. They were as pleased as we were.

I'll caveat this by saying I didn't change the topic of either of your posts, but I have in the past changed the title of topics when it doesn't give any indication of the content. "Swoop the board" sounds pretty cryptic to me, perhaps that is why it was changed.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that question was tongue in cheek.

Indefinite doesn't mean infinite, it just means it can't be defined. It fits with what Neeld said about Clark being reassessed by the specialist every 4 days.

Sounds like nonsense to me.

Calling Brock McLean slow is hardly vitriol.

Agree with all those comments, and I think for the most part, most people have been fairly understanding of Gawn's situation. He busted a gut for three quarters and ran out of steam - it happens. I too wondered why Fitzpatrick wasn't given more time in the ruck under the circumstances, particularly in the last quarter. The main reasons I thought of were 1) that they didn't think he was capable of beating Minson or 2) perhaps he was just as knackered as Maxy. I would not agree with putting Dawes in to the ruck. It was good experience for Gawn though. I heard in his post match comments that he was out on his feet and Minson just kept on running. Hopefully his fitness program gets enough continuity that he is able to survive conditions like that in the future. I was pretty stoked with how he played for the rest of the match.

I think every year, we should make the captain the best player from the previous year. Better yet, we could change it on a week-by-week basis based on the best player from last week. Good luck this week as skipper against Sydney Wattsy! Alternatively, we could go down the very radical route of accepting that our young captains were chosen for good reason, and stick with the decision we made instead of pissing about with it. Just a thought.

Indeed. PJ recently made a comment about players feeling as if they are wasting their careers being here and I'm sure Frawley is one of them. To that end I'm neither confident or unconfident that he will stay; it's a simple equation of if we get our act in to gear on and off field he'll stay, if we keep acting like a pack of incompetent mungbeans, he will go.

Agreed. I've gotten to the point where if I see him involved, I have complete confidence that he'll get it done, be it win a contest or make good use of the ball.

In: Grimes, out: Blease. The other skipper said he thought he was ready, so if so then Magner is no longer eligible to play.

Neeld was judged on 35 games, not 2. And I'm battling to understand your logic about decent showings against the Saints and the Dogs proving you right. That sounds upside down to me; surely if we'd been smashed, *that* would prove it wasn't all Neeld's fault?

Me too. I honestly wonder if I'm watching a different player sometimes; I can't reconcile what I see with what I read on here.

I like Fitzpatrick's form and he played well last night, but when Clark is fit, it won't be much of a dilemma.

Agree on the midfield, though I also agree that our ruckman being dead on his feet was a big contributor. TV survive this week Sleeve? :-)

How could you possibly forget Kent, vibes?

I agree, they experienced getting run over without actually losing. While we would all agree that we would prefer to have won by 10 goals, they will definitely remember this next time. Really liked Jack T's interview with Hall as well, as a side note.

Made, honestly, I'm down a pair of jocks now like most here will be, but we win and we deserved to. Don't know if you noticed, but we haven't done much of that lately. Loosen up and enjoy it a little.

Jesus Christ Melbourne. You just took 10 years off my life you bastards. I can't breathe.

No injury as far as I know. Just a like for like sub I thought.