Nasher

It sounds like you’ve put a lot of thought in to this, but 7 changes to a side that won by 50 points is just not going to happen. It might have been an imperfect game against ordinary opposition, but more went right than wrong. The clubs also place a great deal of importance on keeping the sides stable - above all else at times - you seem to have ignored that completely. If there’s any more than 1 change I’ll be stunned. I don’t think I ever saw 7 changes made when we were the worst side ever.

That’s revisionism - at least in Martin’s case. Many were spewing when Neeld traded Martin. He was a good ruckman when he was here, the problem was that he was behind Mark Jamar in the pecking order and he couldn’t play anywhere else. There were also a few personal issues at the club that might have prevented him from staying anyway.

That’s a bit like selling your car just in case someone steals it. When Jesse gets to the FA stage, he’ll be a RFA anyway. If he comes to the club with an offer and wants to go, we make the other club come up with a suitable trade, Dangerfield style. I definitely wouldn’t pre-empt it though. Save that stuff for the paranoid and the insecure, and back ourselves to keep him. This is all hypothetical anyway. I’m very confident he’s not going anywhere. I know some people think footballers are all filthy liars, but the quotes from the article listed by @ProDeereally resonate with me, because they align with exactly what I thought would happen. So long as we could successfully navigate those first few homesick years, he would develop in to an adult that was settled in Melbourne. That’s precisely what has happened.

This is what playing AFL footy until you’re 40 does to your brain.

It’s absolute classic Demonland to spend weeks demanding Frost gets selected, then start frothing at the mouth over his turnovers. Surely by now we know what we’re getting when we pick him. Our back line looks best with two talls, and presently Frost is the best we have. As I said in the post match, the cringey miskicks are the price we pay for the strength and speed he adds. He won’t be dropped for it.

Thanks Taylor and Viney. We paid massive overs for both, if I remember the threads rightly. The Melksham trade was particularly a total writeoff because he’s a soft spud, and he spent the first year rubbed out so there was no way the future seasons he spent on the list could make up for that one lost one.

I liked it just because of how much it wound up the Dogs’ box ?

Just played game 97. Will limp over the line I think!

Yep. Sounds likely that Viney is probably going to spend the balance of his career managing this foot. The reassuring thing is he’s the sort who will leave no stone unturned in working out the best way to do that. Hopefully the issues reduce over time.

Do Geelong count as a scalp? They're flakier than we are. Only legitimate scalp left on the horizon is West Coast IMO. I see the rest of the remaining teams as level pegging or worse.

If we finish in the top 8, we deserve to make the finals. We certainly don't deserve it any less than Geelong, North, Port or any of the other inconsistent teams we are contending with.

No matter what happens from here on, if anyone says "we don't deserve to play finals" as if implying we deserve it any less than Geelong, Port, Hawthorn or any of those other clubs around our mark, I'll know they're full of it. Our game against St Kilda has nothing on what Port just served up against Freo. This year's flag is anyone's at this point.

Thanks as always for the updates guys.

Definitely want a North win personally. A log jam of teams getting stuck behind us is no problem - our fate for protecting our position from them is in our own hands, all we have to do is keep winning. The teams above us coming unstuck gives us more opportunity to move up.

Those guys were all still playing AFL grade footy - North were trying to help correct the age imbalance on their list, ie push it in the direction of youth to avoid severe pain down the track once they decided they weren’t a premiership threat. We’re still on the youthful side of perfect when it comes to that balance, although we are approaching thr sweet spot now, so there is no need for us to start cutting away experience that still has some meat on the bones at this stage. I expect Jones to be around for another 4 years at least. Players like Vince who are clearly now on the slippery slope are a different story, but I wouldn’t put that in the category of “tough call”.

Lolwut? I criticised him for the same things you did - I even said I was against selecting him in the first place for those exact reasons. I do sometimes wonder if I’m speaking the same language as everyone else. Please read my previous post again and consider whether your response was appropriate and fair in the context. If you think it is, we’ll agree to disagree and leave it at that.

No modern coach is going to tell a player he’s not allowed to try and find a player by foot. He has to be allowed to participate in the ball movement the team is expecting to occur. I don’t think a message of “we don’t trust you to kick it” is the way of getting the best out of a player, nor does it help the rest of the side much if they have to change how they lead/present if they know it’s Frost who has it. It’s these turnovers that made a few of us reluctant to pick Frost in the first place. However I also accept the need to have a tall to support OMac, and Frost has other attributes no others have, like his impressive closing speed and strength. To that end, I think while he is needed in the side, we have to just accept the occasional facepalm moment with the ball as the price to pay for the attributes he does bring. He’s an imperfect player, that’s why he doesn’t play every week.

I think from a top 4 point of view we would prefer Collingwood to beat West Coast wouldn’t we? Given we play West Coast in the run home, it could be their spot we are trying to pinch, whereas we have no influence in Collingwood’s final ladder position so they may as well win every game from here on.

The other weird thing is it sounds like there’s a pro-GWS crowd. Are they actually developing a fan base?! Ripping game though.

I took “OOTF” to be a freudian slip and LH meant “deliberate out of bounds” - obviously an OOTF is black and white and it wasn’t one of those as it bounced inside the line. As for whether it was deliberate or not - I think it would have been pretty stiff to have been paid. I’ve never seen anyone do a kick that unco and mean it. I thought it was a pretty clear skill error.

Only for those that don’t understand how and when to use them.

Another one down. The Geelong and Hawthorn results this week show why there’s no need to go overboard with poor results. The clubs we are competing with are just as flaky and likely to shoot themselves in the foot. That said, I’m hopeful we can put Geelong away next week. If so, top 4 remains within reach and finals overall get a lot more likely.

Content with that, without being excited. Gee the Dogs waved the white flag in that third q - great to see us skewer them with it all the same. A Grade games from Gawn and Oliver. Outstanding. Brayshaw a B+ - skill errors still too frequent to classify him in the top bracket yet, but getting there. Knows how to find the ball! I think we can win down in Geelong. If we do, we are most definitely back in business.

Yiew! Can’t wait.

My unsolicited advice: make sure she has the best day ever, even it the MFC are poo.