Nasher

More than happy with Grimes as skipper.

Amen! Clark would have made a huge difference today. Of the options available; a million times Jones. No contest for mine. Would've loved to see TMac continue on Brown too though. He probably would've been smashed, but the experience would be valuable.

A couple of observations on today: - We're carrying far too many players that give us nothing, and in some cases are consistently giving us nothing. I'm thinking Bate, Dunn, Bail and Moloney in particular. Too much work is being left to too few; at the moment guys like McKenzie and Howe are carrying more than their fair share of load. - Whatever it is that Neeld is looking for from Blease, I hope he saw it today. I'm fully supportive of him being dropped if he's breaking team rules and not doing as he's told, but gee whiz I'll be bitterly disappointed if he plays at Casey next week while Bate and Dunn close in on being in the top few worst 100 game players for the club of all time. I'm conflicted on this. - I'm a huge fan of the Jared Rivers Forward movement, but Mitch Clark he ain't. He can't mark the ball when he's swamped with three defenders (unlike Clark!) and shouldn't be expected to. It looked to me like we need to set up much more smartly around him; you'd back him to win most one-on-one contests. And make sure the others don't drag their bloke in to the contest! - Joel Macdonald has been a positive since Rivers and Garland exited the back line. He's not the most polished guy in the world and I think he'll always be a peripheral player at best, but he gives a contest. At the moment he's easily best 22.

Playing Dunn in the ruck is equal to giving up. Sellar to ruck for 5 minutes a quarter is probably the next best idea, but I don't want to stunt his development as a defender - he's coming along nicely IMO. Look I don't disagree that Spencer stunk the house down. I do think that we need to keep in mind that 1) it was probably considered the best of a craphouse set of options and 2) it's the first senior game he's played in bloody yonks. Given this, and the fact that he was far from being on his own in the playing rubbish stakes, I think singling him out for a thread is super harsh. Not your best work GSOAG.

Is that a serious question? We speak different languages if it is.

Doesn't the report go that he interviewed the Jettas post season? If that's true there was no investigation to be done. Even if that's not the case, I still think it's impractical for the chief recruiter to follow every lead every relative gives him. Why would he listen to Neville Jetta's mum any more than the mum or aunt of other budding young footballers? How is this different to the dozens of other such suggestions the chief recruiter gets from family members?

I'm so glad I've got you around to remind me what forums are for and that each of us have an opinion. If you want to form a baseless opinion, knock yourself out. I prefer evidence based opinions myself.

No, the number of very ordinary players would change.

There is no evidence whatsoever that tanking has adversely affected Carlton or Melbourne. There's so many millions of other variables that affect how teams play that it's ridiculous to blame it on just one. The truth is that we will never know the impact that tanking had on either club because there is no way of measuring it. The best we can do is guess, which is equal to just making stuff up.

It's not that he's committed and passion that annoys me, it's the completely absurd, over the top things he said - see the posts by UTAH and Chook above. "I will have a war chest and will declare war on the world"? FFS. I think he's a little unhinged.

Exactly! If we recruited every player who had a recommendation by a relative, we'd have 930 very ordinary players on our list.

This has already been discussed a bit in the pre-game thread: http://demonland.com/forums/index.php?/topic/30684-the-heat-is-off/page__st__50

I've sent you a PM Smithy.

I know that, but I didn't think the general population of Demonland would give a crap that he was from Penguin - Burnie is close enough. Hell, I was born in Devonport but have lived most of my life in the south of the state, and still Burnie is close enough

It was Burnie. He's from up that way.

It is an easy fix and some us with the skills to do it have offered. But without access to the site nothing can be done, and the site owner is reluctant to put that on offer, so the status quo remains.If it were up to me I'd call time on 'ology and import the database in to a read only forum on 'land, so that the defunct site is immortalised in a readable, searchable manner. Then all Smith's stats could probably be salvaged too.

Jetta straight back in to the seniors is a pleasant surprise. No development league this week?

I realise this is nitpicking, but just on the title of the Age's article: the AFL haven't really "overhauled" the bidding process, they've tweaked it slightly to add an extra layer of reasonability. Jeez I hate headlines designed to make people panic.

I totally agree. If you're an athlete and can't handle being heckled without resorting to churlish retorts, then don't sign up for Twitter. If you don't have the willpower to resist, then suck it up or face the consequences. I have little sympathy for McLean.

Yeah.

Yeah, talking about bleaching and cracking Aids jokes is much better quality!

It doesn't seem that inevitable to me. He looks A grade in defence, and if that's where he has to play for us to capitalise on his talent, then so be it.

No, that's not right. The pursuit of a player takes up time and resources, it shouldn't be wasted on a player who we have zero chance of moving. By all means if Travis Cloke (or Chris Judd for example) is putting out the feelers, by all means the club should give it a shot, but this guy's not going to go anywhere. In the mean time, we continue to look for our star in the draft, just like every other club does, and pour all our resources in to that.

I'm glad Jetta may get a chance to press his case - his career is currently in the balance. He's probably the least gifted player on our list, but makes up for it with courage, aggression and hard work. I've always thought that when push comes to shove his lack of speed and small tank would be his undoing, but I've also had the feeling that he's the sort of player Neeld might love because of the attributes he does have. We'll see; good luck Nev.

You've obviously been reading How to Graciously Disagree by Ben H. Hur