Nasher

It kind of reminds me of our embarrassing obsession with beating Collingwood. And until far too recently, Fremantle's only goal in life was to beat West Coast. I'd love to hear Dean Bailey describe our match with North this year as "their grand final" though

We're not feared and hated yet - let's not get too carried away. It's only North getting their pants in a twist. Their "what about me" attitude is funny though, gets a snigger from me too.

Agreed also. The odd turnover is a small price to pay - Davey's field kicking sets up more than enough goals to outweigh the ones that don't come off. There's no player that I'd want to have the ball more than Davey when a pin-point kick is required.

I thought so too. It's especially early for him too - historically I've seen him as being very slow to get going early in the season.

Gun to my head right now to choose between Jurrah and Scully? *BANG*

By the time 7pm rolled around I was nervous and jumpy as I always am before a game (I thought it was only players who were supposed to get nervous. Is it just me or...?) By the time the first game being played I was well and truly in. Playing well (relatively speaking) helped.

Not very excited. I find it hard to care when I know the clubs don't really. Will only watch if I end up with nothing at all better to do. To me it'd be like asking how excited I was about the pre-game warmup prior to a roster match. Absolutely itching for round 1.

I don't mean to be a stick in the mud, but what is so exciting about this? The headline was a bit sensationalist, and the comment from Trengove amounted to "yeah, I'd love to be a one club player". Every player who has ever played the game has probably said this - until they don't anymore. There was even an "at this point" quote thrown in there! I already love Jack Trengove - seems a quality bloke and will definitely be a quality player, but this was a nothing article.

I do love that Sheedy deflected the heat straight back on to Eddie though. I love the politics of this sport

Nice one. Executive summary: It's third after Jack Watts and David Hale.

Okay! I surrender.

Breathe in, breathe out. This is an annoying setback; it's not a great calamity.

Scully might be left out due to knee soreness? [censored], he's definitely signed. Let's organise a mass suicide now.

Gold.

That's a bit fantasy land really. I think in reality these negotiations would be one or both of Chris Connolly and Cam Schwab in a room with Scully's manager. These are the guys paid to worry about things like this - Scully and Bailey are paid to worry about football matters almost exclusively. The only way the conversation would come up between the player and the coach is if Tom seeks counsel from Dean off his own bat, which I doubt he would do. Also, props to Rojik for the excellent post.

That is completely at odds with what others are saying though. The complaint is that they're pink. If you make pink brighter or lighter you've got "more pink" - the logical conclusion is that they need to be darker. Your claim is the opposite, so clearly you're going to arrive at the opposite conclusion. [i'm just saying what other people are saying to illustrate the difference in opinion - I don't know who's right and hold no opinion on this topic at all as I haven't seen the jumpers first hand.]

Why is Eddie any different to any other rumourmongering journalist? The only difference I can see is that he has even more motivation to cause chaos than any other journo.

Absolutely - what a lucky break (no pun intended) for him. Would've been some distance from the selectors minds at the start of the ODI series. Big endorsement for Ferguson, especially given the level of absolute class in Marsh's century in the ODI series. What probably hurt was the fact that Marsh did nothing at all when batting higher in the order where Ferguson looked solid, which is where he'd have been required for the WC. Looking forward to see how Australia go - don't think there's a hope in the world of us winning, but I'm expecting a competitive performance.

Deleted all the non-cricket related posts on the last page. Sick of seeing new posts in this thread only to be disappointed that they've got nothing to do with cricket. Pretty disappointing effort for a bunch of smart blokes who know their cricket.

Ahh, the old "I don't care if he leaves, he's not that good anyway". I haven't decided if that's better or worse than "my life is over, he's already got a foot out the door" yet. Let's get the facts out there: - Scully appears to be a rare breed of player; the irreplaceable type. In the same way that West Coast have never been able to cover the loss of Judd and Cousins, we could not replace him if he left. - It will be shattering if he goes. Anyone who would not be shattered is either lying, or doesn't understand football. - Hand wringing / stressing about him leaving is unconstructive. Writing him letters / Tweeting him / stalking him / taking matters in to one's own hands is worse than unconstructive. It's damaging to the situation. - The probability of him going at the moment is very low, despite everyone in the footy world trying to scare us. Any questions?

It would be pretty funny. It's got to be Watto though doesn't it? He's our best ODI player by far IMO. Edit: Seems that it is Watto.

Indeed some do - some have even concluded that Scully is gone based solely on this! But it was only six months ago that there was so much smoke around "Petterd to Gold Coast" that every MFCSS suffering supporter on here was choking on it - alas, no fire. The main thing I'm worried about is that if Scully has a fantastic season this year, I'm not going to have anyone to share it with because so many on Demonland will be too busy pooing their pants about him leaving.

I was right at the time

The best this can do is nothing and the worst it can do is inflame the situation. Massive thumbs down from me.

Anyone want to speculate the reasoning behind the Johnson promotion to four? I'm not that interested in the obvious - clearly it was because Clarke wanted a player who could continue the run rate as set by Watson. Clarke had White, Hussey, Smith and even himself who could play that role, so why Mitch? Trying to put myself in Clarke's head and work out why, perhaps it was because he knew that with such a large total there was a every chance Johnson would need to bat sooner or later and believed he was more likely to respond when just playing a role of building on a good start, rather than being responsible for the run chase later on in the innings? I don't know - that seems plausible, but seems a bit wishy-washy to justify such a risky move. Thoughts?