Nasher

If we gave Smith a three year contract, he contributed strongly for a flag push for two seasons and had one season of pension padding, that is money extremely well spent in my eyes.

To the topic at hand, surely the arguments of trying to balance Weideman/Brown or neither of them tackling much are just looking for problems where there are none. Brown falling on our lap would be an absolute KotD (for those that remember). I’m sure we’ll manage to find solutions to whatever “problems” fall out of landing an 60 goal a year forward in his prime.

What is with you damn Victorians and wanting to dump your basketcases in to Tassie? You can keep North, thanks.

I thought his answer on hub life was interesting. As an introvert, being around “the boys” 24/7 sounds like hell to me, and while pro sport tends to be an extrovert’s game, I did wonder if there would be a few who found it tough going. I fully empathise with you Ed! He mentioned that his kicking is at career best level. I’ve spent all year wondering what all the hoopla was about his kicking, because what I’ve seen has been of no concern at all. I was expecting the biggest butcher since Simon Godfrey. Maybe he’s just improved on previous years. Really excited about the back end of the season with Ed.

Soooooo, I was out and didn’t see a second of this game. I gather it went okay? ?

You’re not exactly Max Gawn yourself from memory! Long time ago now though.

4 weeks, where he served 3 in the PS, so he missed 1 H&A game.

To be fair, one of the three was Matthew Lloyd, so realistically it was only two.

Damn. I'd forgotten how sick that bump was. I'm not normally a big lover of "flying the flag" but I love seeing the Ox in that instance. How about the body slam on Hird. Even though that was a hundred years ago now, it's hard to not still hate that f-ing club.

I'm with you. I can't see Smith adding anything to the side at all at present.

I don't think any single game is important enough to put the rest of Gawn's season in jeopardy. Even with Preuss potentially out, my position is still not to take any undue risks with Gawn. He only plays if he's 100%.

From memory someone who knew him (@rpfc?) said he actually stylised it that way, i.e. Van Den Berg. I think the AFL media may have been the ones who bastardised it.

If Preuss is injured but Gawn is fit, I guess Gawn can just about cover the loss of Preuss...

Thanks. It might not come across this way but I am actually a fan of Preuss, I just think we need to be realistic about what he is and where he is in the pecking order. As you allude to I was surprised he wanted to come here to play second fiddle to Gawn when he is capable of being a first ruck, but I’m certainly not complaining about it and I’m in favour of keeping him if he wants to stay.

One item Preuss does have in the party bag that Gawn doesn't is an enormous kick. We saw it in action a couple of times on the weekend, one of which was when he effortlessly kicked it to the advantage of TMac in the goal square from 60+ metres away, in the play that resulted in the Melksham soccer goal. It was a ripper.

I agree. Surely it'll be a zero risk approach with Max. He's our best player, but we've also seen that Preuss will do while he recovers.

Could he tell us a bit about the process with recovering from the foot injury? What were the setbacks, how was his headspace during that period? Is the injury still an issue/something that will need managing for the rest of his career now, or is he completely over it?

Good question. An extension of that is if he is still juggling football with managing the family business in Canberra and how that looks on a day to day basis for him, and if that's been made harder with hub life?

Having just watched the replay, I’m convinced that if Gawn plays, they’re not going to drop TMac. He didn’t take enough marks but did the next best thing in bringing the ball to ground - two of which directly resulted in goals (Melksham and Spargo). He’s still a long way from his best, he’s going well enough. In: Gawn Out: Preuss If Gawn is no good, then no change.

Literally had to look up who Hawthorn #21 was. Who cares about some bog ordinary journeyman that plays for Hawthorn?

Prior to the Port game, we were giving Oscar McDonald credit for Lever and May coming good. In hindsight, Lever and May have probably just come good because they're both good players, who have figured out how to work as a team now that they've spent a bit of time working together. Both of them were recruits that we paid handsomely for with good reason.

I couldn’t understand why he wanted in to begin with, surely he knew it would be an uphill battle to get game time.

Agree. When we kick it in his vicinity I’m confident he’ll either win it or kill it. He’s the only one in the forward line I could say that about. I reckon the boys kicking it at him are too. There is nothing worse than seeing key defenders pick our kicks off and that hadn’t been happening since Weid has been up and about. Melksham, Kozzie and the other ground players are benefiting from this as well.

He can most definitely do worse than TMac. He isn’t a forward’s bootlace. Preuss was really good last night and it sucks that he will be dropped when Gawn comes back, but make no mistake about it, he will be dropped. He knew what he was signing up for when he came to the club.