RalphiusMaximus

You were there for both games?

BigFooty have a contracts thread, but a lot of it is supposition. Riley signed a new contract last year but I can't find how long it was. Michie came in in 2014 and I think is still on his initial contract but again, I can't find a reference for how long.

It would be very interesting to see us line up next year with Fitz and Frost as our tall defenders and Hogan and MacDonald key forward. Both are great endurance athletes, so if they could work out their running patterns to mesh properly they'd be a nightmare for their opponents. Even better if a few of our project players were to kick on and cement a spot around them.

I think Hunt might be playing himself into a new contract the way he's playing right now. Five goals the last two rounds playing as a small forward/mid with one of those games played in shocking conditions. I'm not sure if Cross will be offered another contract or if they'll try to turn him into a development coach. Pedersen I think we keep. He's better value than Dawes and given our lack of depth in tall forwards we probably need them both. With the rookies, vandenBerg has signed a new deal which pretty much makes it a certainty that he'll be upgraded. White has another year to go, so he'll be kept on. Someone said King was a NSW rookie and as such can get a third year? Not sure on that but if so he's a keeper. That leaves Harems as the big question. He's out of time as a rookie. Needs to get a string of AFL games together to show what he's able to do once he adjusts to the pace. I agree with the trades of Howe and Fitz. Not sure on the Toump. I think Riley is probably gone.

Honestly, I don't think he's that bad a kick. He comes undone by making silly choices sometimes, but the actual kicking isn't bad. Yesterday we had a case of Team Yips which cost us the game, and he was no different to Vince, Jones, Viney, Garlett, Howe, Dawes, vandenBerg, Gawn or Harmes who also missed shots. In the case of several he was better in that he eventually hit the mark (I should also note Tyson, Jetta and Hogan who bucked the trend and nailed their attempts). I do think that at this stage it would be a bad move to send him forward permanently as we really don't have anyone ready to replace him. I like it as a change-up though.

Then there's North Melbourne in the '98 GF Then there's Geelong in the '08 Grand Final That aside, I think it's a massive effort from the Casey side to do that to Port, especially in such shocking conditions. I'm thrilled that Hunt is starting to show some return on the work he's been puttin gin after all those injury issue too. He has some massive attacking weapons if he can make it to AFL level.

I really liked the move forward for him yesterday. He shifted things in our favour and if he'd been able to kick straight we would still have lost . I do think he's better off in defence, but having the option to swing him forward and have an impact is great.

Sometimes I hate being right.

Raised it in the trades thread a while back. It's all a question of how well his body will hold up. Maybe a little of whether he'd like to leave as well, but only a little.

I give us six of those games at most. I can't see us beating Freo, Pies or North, no matter what the form line looks like. Freo are just too far ahead and North always beats us. The Pies are the most realistic of the three. Then there is the sad fact that we are probably not much more that 60% on most of the others. Aside from Brisbane, they are all against teams at roughly our level. I have high hopes of a strong back end to the season, but we could just as easily see it all fall apart and finish the season on 6 wins.

This is three winnable games without a doubt. Realistically the only one that should trouble us is the Saints who are on fire right now. I do however see possible issues this Saturday. We face the Bombers on the back of a thrashing and with renewed media pressure. I have a feeling that they are going to rally and throw everything at us. On top of that we are coming back from the Darwin road trip which was once again placed after the bye instead of before it (well done AFL), and traditionally we struggle to recover from this trip and fade out of games the next round. While we deserve to be favorites, I think this is a big danger game for us.

Great finish to this game. Port are holding on by a fingernail right now.

I'll be a bit upset but not really surprised. I've got a feeling that the Bombers will come at us pretty hard trying to prove a point after last week.

So does anyone know if he's actually related to Wayne Harmes? Not that it makes a huge difference, but it would be interesting to know. I'm absolutely thrilled for the kid to get the nod this week. Hes a classic example of someone earning his spot by putting together such a great run of form in the reserves that they can't leave him out anymore. He's worked his guts out at Casey and had some amazing results. I'll be there cheering him on with my dad this weekend.

Well, that pretty much confirms that he'll be upgraded in the draft this year. He absolutely deserves it after the effort he's put in this year.

The thing that sticks with me from Roos' game is his defensive marking. Kind of like Harry Taylor in that he had great judgement and really clean one-grab hands when he went for the intercept mark.

Why would Moloney know anything about the Melbourne salary cap? That being said I seem to recall Roos saying something about spending more of the cap this season to free up funds later. I question this as it is exactly the tactic that allowed Frawley to walk, but I guess the plan is to make Melbourne more attractive so players won't want to walk anymore, so that's ok.

If you could keep a tally of free kicks not paid to Melbourne players that would be helpful. Also an analysis of which of those non-frees were followed by a WC goal. You know, if you're offering...

I'm calling the non-call in the third after we kicked two goals and looked like getting back into the game. Nate Jones was leading for the loose ball and Yeo tackled him to prevent him from getting to it. No call, WC get the clearance and they paid a free to a WC forward for a goal. Absolute momentum-killing moment from the umpires. Imagine if we'd been paid that free and scored from it. Suddenly we're back within a goal and have all the momentum with us. Watts seems to have figured out that he has time and that he can take a tackle and still get a good ball away. If you look at the way he's played the last three or four games, when he gets the ball in tight spaces rather than panicking he's accepting the tackle, keeping his hands clear and taking a little extra time to hit a target. It seems to have clicked for him that contact isn't a bad thing.

Toumpas - Never Hand Pass.

But it was still a mark for Watts. Even if you subscribe to the "pay the man in front" approach, we've seen repeated examples this season of the man in back being paid the mark because he came down with it. They paid one against us (Garland I think) in the goalsquare a few weeks ago. If Schultz, Buddy, Lynch, Walker, Elliot or however many other forwards from more respected sides took that it would have bee paid in a heartbeat.

Nathan. I should have remembered but Matt was just so abysmal today I tried to repress any memory of him playing.

No, he stunk it up a fair bit. The reason his stats are still decent is that he still fought like hell even though he was having a stinker. He should have had three goals but missed two sitters, he couldn't buy a mark for most of the first half. His hands were like bricks. He was throwing himself about like Howe and letting his man run off while he was picking himself up. Importantly though he never stopped fighting. When he couldn't mark the ball in the forward half he led up the wing and got a few easy marks between wing and HB just to get a feel for the ball. He knew he was having a bad day and worked his ass off to push through. I love what that says about him as a player.

Playing WC really emphasizes how bad our delivery into 50 is. They have superb technique with those low, hard, accurate passes to the forwards. We on the other hand invariably hit them too high and too slow and give the forwards no chance to take the mark. We desperately need to iron that out of our game. If we gave decent service to the forwards, the forwards would have an incentive to lead rather than sit back and try to take a contested mark and we might actually kick a decent score consistently.

I'll say it again. How good was that non-mark from Watts? If the Umpire wasn't a useless maggoty turd that would have been in the running for MOTY.