Nasher

My viewing companion for the game did cry. I just sat in stunned disbelief.

Even if you do believe that Armstrong and Jolly shouldn't have been removed from the club (which I don't), you can't possibly argue that their careers were ruined. They're still playing, and rather successfully, aren't they?

Clint Bartram is Godders' heir apparent, and is undoubtedly a much better player. He's injured though. If the seasons' delistings were going to happen now Godfrey would be safe, and I suspect it will remain the case at the end of the year. You can't delist too many players at seasons end, at risk of tipping the youth/experience balance the wrong way. If we delisted 4 + Godfrey then that essentially means he'd net us a 5th round pick. I think he'd be more useful to us than a kid taken in the 5th round. Anyway, my point being we've got too much dead wood who will go before Godfrey does.

Hey dm, did you watch the Carlton vs St. Kilda game last night? If so, do you still think "kick it long to the forward line" is the be all and end all to winning a footy game?

I'm blonde every day. I was born that way.

What? You realise CAC was talking about Joe Anderson, a person we didn't draft, right?

s-t-i-n-g-a already has it as his avatar.

So that's in: Neitz, Buckley, Holland, Warnock, Jones out: Garland, Jamar

The only possible way Sylvia will not be on the list next year is if he's involved in a trade for Judd. The club has invested far too much in him to discard him when he's finally fully fit and ready to fire.

Agree Biff, that has YM's fingerprints all over it.

So far I'm in the "inconclusive evidence either way" camp. It's the closest I've gotten so far to wanting Daniher out. Ow, the splinters...

Y_M posts this kind of thing every week Ash, as I'm sure you've noticed. Sometimes he's right, usually he is wrong. I'd just take his posts for what they are, an overly optimistic bunch of toss that not even the man himself believes. They're somewhat refreshing though, amongst all the doom and gloom posts.

Agree. I'll be very surprised if he does not walk straight in to the side when he is fit.

Jarka, I agree 100% with your "if Green and Neitz are okay" team. I certainly like it much better than the seven change teams people have proposed above.

In: Newton, Buckley Out: Garland, Bate (if inj), Brown (if Bate not inj). Anyone due to come back from injury this week? If Neitz is back I'd drop Jamar but suspect PJ is more likely to be in the firing line. Unlike most I'm not just throwing Buckley in the side for the sake of it. I just don't see who else there is to replace Bate, and I really can't see what worth Brown adds to the side at this point that Buckley couldn't cover. Garland has had his tastes, now it's time for him to hit some good form for Sandy.

I didn't respond to the parts I agreed with

You're right in that I didn't quote you directly and I have no idea why I said that I did. Perhaps at the time I thought that I had. Brain fade? For that I apologise. However: You're still yet to tell me what on Earth you were on about with the premiership remark, and you keep harping on about the misquote. Misquote or not my response to what you said about Jolly being a premiership was still valid. So for the third time, if you didn't mean that Jolly having a premiership to his name made him a better player, what did you mean? For the fourth time, if you didn't mean that Jolly having a premiership to his name made him a better player, what did you mean? I'm asking you, I'm not misquoting you. You're trying to avoid answering this question by throwing back the misquote at me. Jeff White got 29 hitouts that game. The same as Campbell. Simon Taylor is a Mark Jamar clone so they cancel each other out. Which ruckman would you prefer in your side, Robbie Campbell or Jeff White? In round 1, Jeff got 13 hitouts to Matthew Clarke's 12 (nobody else got more than a couple). Clarke is obviously a good ruckman and has been for a long time. Jeff was also the leading hitout winner against Geelong. The "Jeff White struggles with the centre circle" conception is a complete myth. Fact his, he's still, at the very least, breaking even in the ruck contests. He's clearly no match for Sandilands in the ruck contests but who is? Improving the ball winning skills of our inside midfielders is much more important than the rucks IMO. It's pretty hard to say where we're at there because our best two insiders in McLean and Jones are out at the moment. I'm willing to bet that if they'd been in the side winning the hard ball as they do, we wouldn't be having this conversation at all. Against Hawthorn we broke even in the taps but couldn't clear the ball to save ourselves. What does that say? i do agree that we need more out of our ruckman around the ground. I remember Jeff White at his absolute best though. I still believe that he is capable of delivering what we need, even if he isn't really at the moment. Even so, Jeff White in bad form is still at the very least breaking even in the hitouts. Jamar is struggling at the moment, but there's only a small handful of second rucks who aren't.

Sorry but that's a load of bull. His disposal in the past few seasons had been ordinary under pressure but this year it is, at the very least, at par standard. It's not first grade but it's definitely not poor. I can't help but think you're just regurgitating your previously conceived idea without watching him play objectively.

You didn't, but by throwing in the "but I'm prepared to wager that at the end of all their careers only Jolly will have played in a premiership team", you have implied it. I ask you again, if you weren't meaning that meant he was a better player then what did you mean? I'm just trying to find a meaning to what I thought was a pointless statement. Obviously I'm not alone as Rhino came to the same conclusion. Worst or "one of the worst", whatever, it's all semantics. Either way I don't believe it is true. I don't believe we have anything close to the worst, and in my eyes "one of the worst" and "close to the worst" mean exactly the same thing. Hostile little bugger aren't we?

Bell would be in the top 5 of our B+F at the moment. I just can't see how you've arrived at the conclusions you have.

Well I completely disagree with the "sack Daniher" crowd but at the same time I can't see the point in extending his contract at this point either. IMO the board have this one right. Analyse the situation at the end of the year (or at least closer to it than we are now).

Ricky P, what a debut. That's all I have to say.

I didn't misquote you. I quoted you directly. If you weren't saying that playing in a premiership made him a better player then why did you make the point at all? I also don't think have the worst ruck combination going around. I'd put us somewhere in the middle. Let's take a look at some: Adelaide: Their #1 is Hudson who is a quality player. Who else do they have? Some "combination". Brisbane: The Lions have always managed to maintain a pretty solid list of rucks. They'd easily beat us. Carlton: Ackland and Cameron Cloke. I'm quaking in my boots there. Collingwood: Their best is Fraser but he's a #1 pick. He's not as good as Jeff White was in his prime. Beyond that Richards is so-so and Bryan is, well... Essendon: Hille and Laycock together would stack up better than what he have. Freo: Sandilands is a good ruckman, but beyond that they've got little. Longmuir can't get on the park at the moment. Geelong: I don't even know who their ruckmen are. King ? Ottens? Hawks: Robert Campbell and Simon Taylor are both slow moving, fumbling giants who provide almost nothing around the ground. We've got one Mark Jamar, they've got two of them. North: Their ruck combination is Hale and McIntosh. Both first round draft picks. Yes they're a good combo, and so they bloody should be for the price they paid. St Kilda: Rix, Brooks, Gardiner, Kozi... Oooooooh. Scary. Swans: Everitt is a top class ruckman. Jolly is a good second ruck. They're on top of us. West Coast: Cox is obviously the best in the business and Seaby IMO has what it takes to be a #1 at other clubs. Clearly they're better than us. Bulldogs: Again Darcy is classy but they've got very little depth beyond that. Minson's form radically fluctuates and Peter Street has demonstrated time and time again that despite being the tallest man on Earth, can't play footy. Tiges: Simmonds is a good player, but as good as Jeff White at his best? I don't think so. Good ruckman don't want to play as #2 rucks and Simmonds is a good example of that. Trent Knobel is a journeyman footballer who offers nothing other than taps. Port: Lade and Brogan are good players. So to summarise I'd say Brisbane, North, West Coast, Sydney, Port and maybe Adelaide have ruck divisions that are undoubtedly stronger than ours. That's six clubs. I don't think we're any worse off than any of the other nine clubs I mentioned. We're certainly not the worst.

Playing in a premiership team does not automatically make you a superior player. There have been some dead set duds who have a premiership medal in their cabinet. Conversely there have been some brilliant players whose cabinets are bare. Playing in a premiership is completely irrelevant to the argument.