Nasher

I'm still struggling to understand the difference between Leigh Brown and Paul Johnson. Paul Johnson has had purple patches in the past where he was played adequate-to-good football too. Brown is obviously a better player (his purple patch has taken him to good-to-excellent), but they're both the same "type" - that is, crappy midfielders in oversized bodies. My tip is that Leigh Brown will go down as a premiership hero at Collingwood this year, then next year he'll be back to the same old pile of dud that he was before. General question to those who want a "Leigh Brown type": I can't think of any other player in the league in this mould besides these two, so if it isn't PJ you want, who exactly is it that you want?

Watch the Sydney game again. Watts did a chase down the wing on Lewis Jetta, very similar to the Frawley one IIRC.

The words will announce imply certainty ("will" as opposed to "could"), and it's certainly not a stretch to expect that if it's certain to be announced then it's locked in. To now turn around and claim that this was the expected result is a backflip that the OP has done just to try and save some face because his mail was bad.

Absolutely spot on. Carlton's next best poller was Kade Simpson on 9 votes - come on. All the possible winners from Collingwood, St. Kilda and Geelong all stole too many votes off each other for it to be possible to beat the one man team. I don't mean to piss on Judd's parade at all because there's absolutely no doubt he's champion player, but I think he's benefitted greatly by the fact that he's not in a champion team at present. I'm sure he'd prefer to be having crack at another flag anyway.

There's also stuff all chance of getting Jacobs. There's no doubting Carlton have plenty of promise up their sleeve with regards to rucks, but they will not be letting Jacobs go without requiring the counterparty to cough up a left testicle. Let's try and be a little bit realistic. I'm not that interested in Minson but at least E25 has named a trade-in that might actually be plausible.

KotD.

Didn't happen quite as I remember it, but the slow-mo does show the ball hitting him in the face as he fumbles it.

Is he that guy who fumbled the mark in the goal square against us and then headbutted it through the goals?

Those expectations were entirely spectator driven though, that's the worst thing. Given that he was taken at pick 55 I really doubt the FD were expecting greatness, despite the fact that Daniher was clearly a fan. On that basis I'd say the club more than got its money worth, and I find it hard to be disappointed at all really. As you said E - he appears to be very highly regarded by the club for his professionalism and leadership. Couple that with making it to 100 games and he can hold his head up high for mine. Well done Brad.

I don't understand why there's this incessant need to compare players anyway. Even if he is a "Joel Corey type", he'll have different strengths and weaknesses anyway, so what's the point? My interest in Gysberts is whether or not he'll be able to put on much muscle. My first impressions were that he was so good in winning contested ball and had such clean hands in traffic - so if he's able to add some muscle / strength to that wiry frame, he could be anything. I think at worst he'll be a good player. So far the signs are good.

I can never help but laugh when people say things like this - "trade player x, he is useless". Yes, because other clubs will be just itching to bring in a player that is useless!

Save your money?

Which of the following players is McKinley better than? - Green - Petterd - Dunn - Bate These are the current players who he would be competing for a spot with. There's only room for three of these players in the forward line (with Watts, Jurrah and one of Wonaeamirri or Bennell occupying the other three). By my reckoning McKinley would be fifth in line - fourth if you want to be extremely generous towards him and extremely harsh towards Bate. Not to mention other players that will rotate through there such as Sylvia. Not needed IMO.

You're probably right, however if I didn't mention the stat at all (as I used it purely as a segue to the remainder of my post - it wasn't the core point), I believe my point would still stand - that is that his kicking seems to be okay when presented with a feasible short-medium distance target. Like I said though, I've got nothing at all to back that up other than what's etched in my memory.

If he's such a poor kick (as per the assertion of the post I replied to) wouldn't you expect there to be errors amongst those as well? I've seen those short switches across the back go horribly wrong enough times to realise that there's plenty of scope for error there if someone's a wonky kick. I didn't tell you that . It's not like you to put words in people's mouths. Bad day?

Offering a young player like Strauss a one year contract is inviting him to walk out the door for nothing. West Coast (or the Gold Coast) would happily take Strauss with their early pre-season draft picks. Contract negotations are two-way and have to be fair to the player as well as the club.

Statistics don't back that statement up. I know stats aren't everything (and sometimes they're not anything) however I think in this case it has merit. When I think back to the worst of Bartram's kicks (one game he put it OOF twice in a row), they have ALL been on occasions when he's had no specific target to kick to and is just trying to hoof it forward. So basically if he's got a solid target to hit, my gut feel would be to trust him to hit it. It's only when he's not presented with any valid options that I would not trust him to get the job done. As the side plays better footy and gets better at presenting appropriate options, I'd be confident that we'll see less errors from Bartram. I'd love to see a statistical breakdown of his error rate for short kicks versus long ones, as my gut feel is that he'd be reliable with the former and hopeless with the latter.

Uncontracted players make the worst possible trade bait as there's a much higher risk of losing them for nothing.

Nobody with a clue said that. Only the worst of the worst get delisted after two years. If you show any promise whatsoever in your first two years, you have earned an extension to give further opportunity to show what you're made of. That's fairly standard practice. It doesn't mean Strauss will make it and like many I don't think he will - but he has done enough to earn the benefit of the doubt and therefore the opportunity to prove it either way.

I think there's more than two years between 2006 and 2010 buddy

Nice work. What were the odds? Well done Dappa. Glad your prediction came true and not mine.

Me neither. Even if Green and Jamar don't make it now, I'm absolutely stoked for Frawley. Thoroughly deserved in my ridiculously biased opinion.

How would it do that? Warnock is outside our best 22 at this point IMO (with Cheney further behind him, obviously). The best it would do is bring Cheney closer to the fringe.

You worry about Garland? You think Garland will make it (when he clearly has already made it as per his top 10 B+F finish)? Christ. We've got a few players to worry about in regards to if they'll make it or not, but Garland is definitely not one of them. Get that MFCSS seen to.