Nasher

Billy Stretch.

It's a nice trip down memory lane if yours goes back that far, but has zero relevance to today. I'll be honest, I struggle to maintain interest in things that happened 20-30 years before I was born.

After some of the efforts I saw last week I'm convinced that there's a psychological barrier that needs breaking through. Our blokes just don't run like the other teams do. I just can't accept that the coaching staff don't remind them of this; the cast of thousand coaches can't possibly all be that inept (can they?). Be farked if I know what to do about it though.

Maybe I'm thick or just really poor at reading between the lines, but with all this to and froing between a few men I have immense respect for, I still haven't managed to pinpoint exactly who is accusing who of what.

Why would Jones be such a better captain than Grimes?

It must be because Neeld is an idiot. Or the dozens of other reasons that have been discussed to death on here, like waving the white flag last year, sulking, only being any good against rubbish sides (how shocking that he killed us), being a poor cultural influence etc. Nah, must be that first thing. By the way, I don't reckon forgoing Pedersen, Gilles and Rodan would have been quite sufficient to land Mayes or Wines.

In addition to rpfc's and Ralph's posts; because he did not show enough last year to indicate that he was a "must have". Think between the three of us it's about summed it up.

Not a hope in the world. He runs in a team that won't, so it would be to the overall detriment of the team. Happy for him to get a kick in the ring gear for torching his team mates in front of goals, but you're kidding yourself if you reckon he will be dropped.

Out: Pedersen, Blease In: Dawes, Viney?

A few disjointed thoughts: - There were so many occasions that Brisbane would get the ball and you'd just see their blokes running in all directions. I'm definitely no guru on footy tactics, but I thought, "why the heck don't you see our guys doing that?". Even when we had the ball in our hands, our running did not match theirs. This happens a lot, and I don't understand it. - When chasing an "in dispute" ball, I lost count of the number of times I'd see one of our players hesitate and let the opposition get the ball first, then lay a half-arsed tackle. I won't pick on anyone in particular because it happened a *lot*, and from players who I'd not expect it from. These two points seem completely psychological to me. How come when we got on a roll last week, suddenly there were MFC players running at the ball like bulls all over the place? - We had no reliable marking targets in our forward 50. Gawn and Jamar are good for a cameo mark here and there, but they are not primary focal points. We were all high fiving each other over our tiny injury list during the week, but I think we may have forgotten to look at who was on it. I'd rather have 8 of our average mediums injured than our two best marking forwards. Dawes should be in next week anyway, thank heavens. - Jamar looks a much better player with proper support. Perhaps he just doesn't have the engine for 90% ruck duties? I really like big Max. He moves well for someone so damn big, and does the hard stuff like chasing. - Due to the above two points, Pedersen is redundant. At the moment he adds very little. - Byrnes is finding his place in our side and has looked good in the last two weeks. That kick in to the man on the mark was dreadful, sure, but other than that I thought he was a positive. He has guts for a little bloke. I thought Rodan lifted after being anonymous in the first quarter too. - I don't think we can go in to a game with both Blease and Davey - low possession "flash in the pan" players with small tanks. It looks to me like we're trying to add two half-players together to make one whole one. We can carry one as the sub, but not both. They're both only good for a quarter of football each. All in all I didn't think it was suicide inducing stuff (unlike the Essendon game). Gee I would like to watch a game where we don't take 10 minutes off here and there though.

Wow, you sure showed him!

Snigger.

I burned out all the emotion I had on this kid ages ago, and any sense of malice or bitterness towards him went with it.

Me too. It suits Davey's tank, which is small and seems to have a low upper limit on it.

For what it's worth, hilarious mofo that loves footy and music was the picture I had and it hasn't changed :-)

Who could blame him for feeling disillusioned at the moment? GWS match notwithstading the team is really struggling, and has been for quite some time, and he's constantly under the pump. I'd almost expect his morale to be shot under the current conditions. That doesn't mean though that he will still feel that way when the time to action it comes. My expectation is that even if this is true, at some point over the balance of his contract he'll find a moment of clarity and work out that he wants to stay where his mates are. There's been exceptions, but that's mostly the conclusion footballers come to and I don't think Frawley will be any different. I also think the club will put a lot of pressure on him to stay. I always laugh when I read these threads though. There's always the odd person who moves straight to "WELL IF HE DOESN'T WANT TO STAY I DON'T WANT HIM ANYWAY!!!11", even on the back of a rumour that has all the credibility of an AFL tanking investigation. These people need to recalibrate their self-defence reflex. I can't believe that anyone who follows the MFC genuinely believes that the club would be better off without James Frawley; some are just lying to themselves to soften the blow if he does leave.

Thanks for the story DA. Funny how you can get "familiar" with a poster through years of forum interaction and feel like you know them - as I have with you - then they post something pretty fundamental about their life and you realise that you know absolutely sweet FA about this person. I don't even know your name.

Gieschen put the person ahead of the game. It's a bloody tough call either way; but I reckon it would have been very rough to stand Bannister down. I wouldn't have done so had I been the boss; managers have a responsibility to their subordinates as well as their organisation. What a sad story. I fought back tears reading it.

You have replied to the same post twice as if I said it twice. Whatever it is you are smoking, I suggest you stop.

Glenn Lovett could hardly count as from "inside the club" these days. It's been a decade and a half since he played at the club and judging by his career progression post footy, I doubt he's spent much time mucking around at the club. He'd be coming in with fresh eyes. That said, he's probably out of our league anyway.

You'd expect that in a high pressure, high tension environment like a coaches box, that there would be some pretty heated disagreements at times.

Nonetheless, it would be nice not to have to whip out the dictionary every time a person does an injury report.

The problem is that with a decade of abysmal drafting, we're continually in a cycle of chopping out the middle of our list, putting us in this "forever young" cycle. It's why Neeld targeted experienced players; it's the only way to fast track improvement.

That's because it goes without saying.

I read somewhere recently that he is or was living with Daniel Bell. There's some irony. Besides his Doctors, there's probably nobody better placed to discuss this with.