Fat Tony

Martin is the best ruckman in the comp at the moment. He is proving that Leigh Matthews is right and hit outs are essentially worthless. We should get him back next year.

Barring injury, Bail definitely should be given another year.

But we continue to make bad decisions with fringe players. Two year contracts for Barry, Matt Jones and Spencer are repeats of the mistakes with McKenzie, Evans, Blease, Tapscott etc.

So you are basing your assessment on 2 games as a substitute?

On this occasion I think I will go with Roos and the Footy Dept if that's ok with you

Great news on Tommy Mc

I have also seen Barry play in the preseason games and for Casey a few times. He has never shown very much when I have been watching but I hope he makes it. My issue is the need to sign a player that no other AFL club would be chasing on a two year contract.

Has there ever been an occasion you have disagreed with Neeld/Roos?

Fat Tony, look at Gary ablett Jr's first 3 years, took him a while to get going

Ablett played 55 games in his first three seasons. Whilst he didn't get a lot of the ball early on, he showed great skills and always looked to be an AFL player.

This only guarantees 4 years on the list for Barry though.

We have plenty of players to go before Barry. He can have a chance to prove himself.

It will be a mistake if Barry shows nothing by the end of 2015 IMO. How many players show nothing in their first three years and go on to be good AFL players?

We should offer Mitchell a big fat contract and bend the Swans over to accepting a second round pick or lose him for nothing in the PSD.

I would prefer the club only offer one year deals to players like Barry. List spots are limited and he needs to improve significantly to make it as an AFL player. Hopefully Roos proves correct on this one.

The AFL needs to help the poorer clubs get off the bottom. They should exclude the top 8 teams from the first round of the draft and also exclude them from compensation for free agents defecting.

I still think we are too slow, so I would bring in Blease for Riley. Jamar also looks to be getting tired and might need a rest. Salem should be the sub again.

Fyfe would cost our first rounder and maybe a latter swap of picks. No more. Players invariably get to their desired destination these days. Look at Kurt Tippet, Luke Ball, Taylor Adams and Josh Caddy as examples.

I don't see the need for change. But if we did, a simple exchange of "Should auld acquaintance be forgot" for "Melbourne Demons to the top" could work.

Yep. Third game this year, 19 possessions, 7 marks. Doesn't make every post a winner yet, but is most certainly holding his own based on Monday. Classic knee jerk Demonland whipping boy seems to be Maxy's lot at the moment. Roos has all but said Salem will get a rest, possibly JKH as well. Kent will get the gig against the Bummers, and McKenzie or Riley based on whether two get dropped, and stated form at Casey.

Maxy isn't a whipping boy. He was pretty good on Monday but we are too top heavy with Gawn and Jamar in the side because it takes away our forward pressure.

In: McKenzie, Kent, Blease
Out: Gawn, JKH, Salem

Gawn out for team balance. And JKH and Salem both look like they need a rest.

McKenzie deserves a call up with very good VFL performances and has played well on Goddard before. We need to add some pace and run, so I would go for Kent and Blease over the other alternatives.

Jetta Dunn Howe
Blease McDonald Garland
Vince N Jones McKenzie
Watts Dawes Pederson
Bail Frawley Kent
Jamar Tyson Cross
M Jones Viney Grimes
Terlich (S)

I cannot see GWS trading Cameron before his current deal finishes without huge compensation.

We should chase him hard throughout 2015 though. Players don't usually get their worth once they decide to leave and nominate a club.

Both Moore and Lonergan are contracted until the end of 2015. We would be better off targeting out of contract players like O'Rourke and Plowman, who could be traded for at below their full price in terms of picks/players.

As good as Dom is now and will be, I think Salem will be better.

Comparing McKenzie to Magner, Couch and Valenti is like comparing the crack in your granny's dining room wall to the Grand Canyon.

McKenzie has won Brownlow votes for BOG on two occasions, he's played fantastic lock down roles that have been crucial to us winning games and he is a leader within the club. Why do you think he won the Coaches award for 3 years in a row?

I acknowledge that with the introduction of Vince, Tyson, Cross, Michie, Riley and Salem his place in the team is far from certain and I acknowledge that under Neeld where his focus was purely on defence his game has surely suffered.

Roos has sent him to Casey to rediscover his attacking attributes and he is regularly getting high numbers to the stage that two weeks ago he was tagged. The comments on his disposal being poor are overstated and fit in the Tom McDonald "lets wait until he makes a mistake so we can sledge him" catagory.

McKenzie may not now be a regular AFL footballer but don't depreciate his past performances because in the past when the rest of the team has thrown in the towel and gone home he's still there putting in.

At least recognize his contribution rather than a totally insulting and inappropriate comparison.

Both Magner and Valenti have polled Brownlow votes before also. That's not to say McKenzie shouldn't come in this week to replace Byrnes. But only if we want to put a hard tag on Cotchin.

Stats from the game:

Dom Barry 14 disposals 7 kicks 7 handballs 2 marks 8 tackles 74 Dream Team Points

Sam Blease 29 disposals 25 kicks 4 handballs 5 marks 3 tackles 110 Dream Team Points

Michael Evans 24 disposals 13 kicks 11 handballs 2 marks 13 tackles 1 hit out 117 Dream Team Points

Jack Fitzpatrick 2 disposals 1 kick 1 handball 1 tackle 11 hit outs 21 Dream Team Points [injured]

Alexis Georgiou 10 disposals 6 kicks 4 handballs 4 tackles 42 Dream Team Points

Jayden Hunt 1 goal 1 behind 14 disposals 7 kicks 7 handballs 1 mark 44 Dream Team Points

Jordie McKenzie 1 behind 30 disposals 18 kicks 12 handballs 2 marks 8 tackles 110 Dream Team Points

Viv Michie 1 goal 1 behind disposals 16 kicks 7 handballs 7 marks 3 tackles 1 hit out 104 Dream Team Points

Dan Nicholson 22 disposals 11 kicks 11 handballs 6 marks 4 tackles 91 Dream Team Points

Aidan Riley 28 disposals 6 kicks 22 handballs 1 mark 11 tackles Dream 102 Team Points

James Strauss 1 behind 10 disposals 7 kicks 3 handballs 1 marks 3 tackles 43 Dream Team Points

Luke Tapscott 2 goals 20 disposals 18 kicks 2 handballs 3 tackles 82 Dream Team Points

Jimmy Toumpas 21 disposals 12 kicks 9 handballs 1 mark 15 tackles 2 hit outs 118 Dream Team Points

Great work WJ.

It looks like Toumpas and Evans were unlucky not to be in the best players.

McKenzie would have to be a chance to come in to the side but only to tag Cotchin. However, I would probably send N. Jones to Cotchin, because Jackson is a good tagger and I think we get better net gain by using Jones as our tagger.

I would also send Cross to Martin and Vince to Deledio.

Byrnes and Terlich out for Riley (sub) and Clisby/Strauss/Blease.

The sub should be a midfielder rather than a small forward.

Griffen's points come mainly from his 15 tackles. He did some good defensive work but usually he destroys teams offensively. Tonight we managed to quell his offensive influence.

I think Grimes probably won the dual overall, but we missed him in defence, and I would rather see Griffen play a bit better and Grimes play across half-back. I wouldn't play Grimes as a tagger again.

I understand where you are coming from, but Grimes only had 4 effective disposals. If Griffen and Grimes swapped teams the result probably would have been different.

Whilst Grimes beat Griffin, which was handy, we missed him badly down back. I'm not sure I agree with taking him out of the backline after his effort last week. Feels like we cut off our nose to spite our face.

While Griffen (111 SuperCoach points) didn't have a great influence, he was much more influential than Grimes (23) and won the dual. I thought Roos might have tried Jones to run with Griffen to break Picken's tag.

Also, I think Frawley playing forward rather than on Crameri was probably a mistake.

Byrnes should be replaced by another mid to play as the sub and with Salam to start forward. And I think Clisby (or even Blease) will give us more drive than Terlich.

The MFC should find a biomechanist as a witness explaining that it is impossible to change direction mid stride.

My take from the video is that there was just a single Viney step between when Lynch had collected the ball cleanly AND the collision. If you accept that Viney was not negligent in chasing after the ball, the collision was really unavoidable given Viney’s momentum. The only case then is that Viney was negligent thereafter. Are the prosection really saying that Viney should have created a front on collision, opening himself up to facial, rib and genital injuries? I don’t even think this would have helped Lynch. And the fact that Viney's arm was down at contact shows that he had not intent to bump.

The decision is madness.

Damien "Purple Headed [censored]" Barrett has his say:

Viney's suspension simple by Damian Barrett

The young lib should join his brother working for Tony Abbott because he knows nothing about footy.

Actually he tried to run over my cat but lost confidence, missed and ended up smashing 20m away.

I like his hardness, I like his intercept marking, I like his tackling, but he's turning the ball over at an alarming rate and has lost confidence in his decision making and kicking which were a real feature of his debut year particularly the first half of the season.

Meanwhile Clisby has put together a composed month of football at Casey. It's not at all personal it's just time for a swap.

I am with you master. Terlich makes poor decisions and is not tight enough on his man.