Nasher

To answer my own question a bit, looking at the numbers closely, our defenders are nearly all in the bottom few players for tackles. Hibberd and the McDonald bros regularly feature at the bottom end of the ladder. The inside mids (Viney, Oliver etc) sit at the top. The ladder for 1%ers - of which spoils is a key feature - almost looks like the tackles ladder in reverse, with Hibberd, McDonald bros, Frost and Jetta often featuring at the top.

I don't understand the lack of tackles - he's such a strong competitor in general and very hard to get the footy past; winning tackles seems like the next logical piece. He's got 4 tackles in total in 7 games for the MFC. That's a very low number whichever way you cut it. Maybe it is a genuine weakness in his game, but so far nobody cares because his contests and use of the footy out of the back line are first rate, and an element we've been absolutely screaming for. I'm sure not complaining at all, just trying to understand.

There are so many posters who are guilty of being biased towards 30 seconds of play DA (read: probably all of us), but very few capable of recognising it after the fact and correcting. Great post.

Not a bad effort for someone "completely and utterly out of his depth".

No, it's bagging him incessantly when he isn't playing well that isn't right. Your claim that now is the time to show respect nearly made me throw up - it's always time to show respect, and you don't. Glad you were happy with his output yesterday.

Nah, I reckon it's yet another soft effort from PF. The time to show Oscar some respect was before, when he was struggling a bit, rather than laying in to him excessively. Supporting players when they play well is the easy bit.

With pick 9? And being Nathan's brother would have been irrelevant to the recruitment team. If I was going to rewrite history on that draft I'd pick Cripps at 9 - but I'm pretty happy with Salem.

Great compilation - a mix of clutch moments in games (how calm was Jeff White?) and just miracle goals. Funny how to passage of time becomes blurry after a while. I had to double take when I saw Dean Kent on screen in one of the Flash goals. Hard to believe Flash has only been off the list for four years, that feels like a bloody lifetime ago.

I am showing forum leadership and considerate restraint by posting this post about not replying instead of posting what I'd like to reply with.

Was he this good at Essendon? Easily in our top 5 players at present. He looks elite.

This feels to me like one of those topics that we heatedly argue about for ages, then he signs a long term deal with his current club in July. Surely he's not going anywhere.

He even lists a top 10. Jarrod Witts is in it. Whether the oversight was intentional or otherwise, it is credibility destroying. Hibberd is clearly performing well above most of those players and has been in our top 5 consistently since joining the team. Anyway, whatever. I'm long past looking for external plaudits. Hibberd was a fantastic trade and I couldn't be more pleased with his output to date. I knew he was a decent player but so far he's been even better than I anticipated.

Hah, Phew. I'd instantly consign anyone who questioned Petracca's body shape to the "never to be read again" bin.

Weid is in his second year and already playing AFL footy. Cook was delisted after 2 years. Weid is clearly a vastly superior player. I take your point, but if you want people to take you seriously, probably best you lay off the hyperbole a bit. Casey watchers last year said he attacks the ball in the air. We've seen first hand that he is also capable of moving the ball very quickly and involving himself in general play - see Hawks game last year. He's only 19 - you have gone way too early I reckon.

I came to terms with the fact that I don't know jack about footy years ago. Makes reading old threads much more bearable - and every now and again I surprise myself!

Makes for interesting reading. I had sympathy for the "not a priority" camp at the time, but in hindsight ProDee nailed it with his "he's better than all of them" argument. There's no doubt we are better off with him in the side. He's also a much better player than I realised.

5 minutes? Jeez, where were you for the first 4? Actually 5 minutes is probably fair - took that long for Richmond to get the ball in their half in that game. I thought Hibberd would be good but I didn't expect him to instantly hit his straps, thought he might take a while to get going. You wouldn't know he had an interrupted pre-season on top of 12 months out. How funny is it seeing Essendon sooking about their suspended players looking flat? Hibberd is going okay, maybe your players are just crap?

Nothing against Keilty, but the fact that he's currently playing as first ruck for Casey makes a mockery of the couple of people who wanted to bring King in to the senior side. Not even ready to be the chief ruck at Casey yet. [Edit: that's from the round 1 report. By the sounds of it, King was first ruck in round 2.] Let's just leave our undeveloped rookies alone. This isn't an issue they need to be concerned with. We will have to make do with part timers until one of the big men recover.

I thought for a minute you were quoting Prendergast. I was wondering what alternate reality I woke up in.

Unfortunately "lucked out" has become one of those expressions to have an antonymous double meaning. I died a little on the inside recently when Merriam-Webster added a definition of 'literally' to mean the same as 'figuratively'.

Yes, the strike rate gets progressively worse as you go down the draft. That has nothing to do with what I'm saying though, my argument was against the assertion that you need a special player with your top 5 pick (implication being that you should expect one) - history shows it doesn't work like that.

A top 5 draft pick improves your chances of getting a star by much less than you'd think. History is absolutely littered with top 5 draft picks that aren't stars. You *hope* you get one, but it's just as much pot luck as any other position in the draft.

Watts 2009, McDonald 2011.

Thought this would be a thread about picking Oliver. I love that they've been able to find gems late in the draft like Hunt, Hannan etc, but it's nailing those early picks that the previous bunch muffed that will project us towards the top 4. It looks so far that all of Oliver, Brayshaw, Petracca and Salem will at least be very good, with Oliver almost certainly going to be in the top echelon if not already. There's always misses in the top 20 but we seem to have gone from one extreme to the other. It's just such a relief knowing our key picks are in such good hands.

We still doing this?