Nasher

He's almost 25, he'd have to play until he was 33 to reach 200 and that's assuming he plays every single match between now and then. I love the guy too, but let's not get too carried away. From his starting age making it to 150 will be a stellar effort.

He spent a number of years playing in the VFL with AFL listed players - I'd say that's what he meant, i.e. sees young blokes on lists not giving it their best shot while he was missing out on the chance.

Out: Macdonald, Blease In: Frawley, Bail Like-for-like as fitness determines. No injuries equals no change.

I'd say you might be right. MindOfBlighty The Mind of Blighty Take a parodically hypnotic & spiritual adventure into the mind of the messiah.

Dan, I reckon I'd take out the "not Collingwood" caveat. Essendon are #1 on my list of favourites to beat. I just _love_ watching the way their whole world collapses when we beat them. Footy turns me in to such a sadistic bastard.

I saw the shot of the rooms while the "offline" boys waited for the players to arrive. Gysberts and Spencer were grinning like they'd eaten all the hash cookies. Disgrace! :D

I didn't cry at the end, but when Garland came charging out of the goal square and took that mark (I think it may have been the kick he shanked?), my hands were shaking and I nearly cried then because my brain did not know how to cope with the surge of emotion coming. Fuck, what a great feeling. I'm still high 11 hours later (after possibly the worst sleep I've ever had). I love footy.

Yep - remains to be seen if the move has any longevity, but it was a masterstroke on the night. Good call jungle dee.

Just like after massive smashings, I need to let the adrenaline die off before I post, otherwise I don't know how I'm going to see past Col Garland's efforts in the last quarter. That and watching completely, utterly exhausted players throw themselves on the ball and man to stop Essendon getting back in it in the last.

Start working on your goal kicking at training Col - you could be down there for good. What an absolutely outstanding game. Wow.

I'm illogically optimistic. I think it must just be hard wired in me to keep me interested.

It's only a little bit of a shame as he's largely been rubbish this year.

Agreed. Watts is a beautiful kick and user of the ball in general; if he must be down there we may as well play to his strengths.

If we'd done a list the same time last year, i.e. before anyone had signed, it'd have looked like this: Frawley, Watts, Sylvia, Gysberts, Morton, Grimes, Gawn, Martin, J Macdonald, Maric, Scully, Warnock, Wonaeamirri, Campbell ®, Evans ®, Johnston ®, McNamara ®, Newton ®, Nicholson ®. It's not equally as many, but it's a lot - as I said it's normal to expect up to half, possibly more if your list is particularly unbalanced. That's why occasionally players are offered three to balance it out. I expect this is why Trengove initially was given three when Scully indicated he wanted two - notwithstanding the GWS thing I expect the club didn't want both Scully and Trengove coming OOC at the same time every year as they'd probably be continually competing for salary cap money. Not ending up with too many - or too few (which presents its own set of problems) - players coming out of contract at years end is all part of Tim H's job. It could also be a reason why someone like Joel Macdonald gets retained on a 1 year contract as he was - it gives you some easy delisting fodder for the next year if you find yourself stacked with heaps of talent you want to hold on to. If we'd given him the flick and drafted another kid instead we'd have another kid on a 2 year contract and we'd have to find someone else to delist, possibly someone we don't want to like a Fitzpatrick.

So do I, but given Sellar was given the flick this week and no second ruck came in, we're going to hate parts of the Essendon match. Come to think of it, actually, I expect we're going to hate most of the Essendon match!

Why is it alarmingly high? Given that most players sign two year contracts it's logical that you'd expect up to half your list to be out of contract at once. There's a good reason why it's a full time job managing this and why it takes all year to get through all the signings.

Sylvia shouldn't play because he didn't earn his stripes in the VFL? Going by that logic it should have been no change, as nobody earned their stripes in the VFL due to there not being a match on.

It's not weather or not he would have played, it's whether or not his body was cactus or not, and as he would not undergo a medical with us, I don't see how taking this risk was viable at the expense of a top 20 pick. Then again with our leadership the way it is then maybe it was, but how could we have known that at the time, and how could we have known he wouldn't have retired after one season - or even immediately, if he really didn't want to play here? We're in real hindsight warrior territory here, with a splash of revisionism tossed in for good measure.

What do you propose that we should have done about the problem of Ball not wanting a bar of us?

Yes, he's played a total of 12 games for them so far in two and a bit seasons.

The lack of skill could also be a function of the fitness and confidence, old dee. There are only a handful in the vicinity of our current side who I'd consider to be genuinely poorly skilled (Bail, Nicholson and Bartram), the rest I reckon will look better as the side starts going better. I guess what annoys me about the other posts I've challenged (not yours) in this thread is when people resort to unmeasurable intangible vagaries like "killer instinct" after dismissing the more obvious and logical reason.

The talk from Neeld and Misson as early as January was that our fitness levels were diabolical, we're apparently being smashed during the week at training still, we're playing a style that requires more hard running forever, then a match day symptom pops up that could obviously be attributed to poor fitness? Nah, bugger that, their fitness is fine; it's just because they lack the ever elusive "killer instinct". Sure thing.

You're right. It wasn't that we weren't fit enough, it's just that we didn't want to win. Yeah. I could really tell by the boys body language as they walked off the field that they were pretty relieved that they didn't win.

I really doubt that they do.