RalphiusMaximus

Yeah, I noticed that the last few days. Nothing about Melbourne playing well, it was all "what's gone wrong at Tigerland?" How about we played well, had a good gameplan to shut down their halfback run and put huge pressure on their every disposal? Is that too much to ask?

That's pretty good company he's keeping. Level with Dangermouse is good given how highly people like to rate him.

You're, perhaps?

HE's not top 5 in the league, but certainly he has to be in the top 20 or so. His work has been outstanding this year. I have been wondering if he's got a shot at an A selection, although I suspect they will stick with the usual suspects and skip him again. I also agree with a few others on here that he needs to hit the scoreboard a bit more to add a bit of hurt to his game. Every other aspect he has covered, but the truly elite mids produce the odd game where they step up and kick a a bunch of goals. Nate rarely goes past 1 in a game. 8/10 for me. He can get better.

It really depends on the ladder order. We know Brisbane needs talls desperately, GWS needs key defenders, Richmond needs everything, the Saint need a replacement for Saint Nick, Carlton probably a tall forward as well. It will certainly be very interesting to see where he lands. It's also going to be interesting to see who goes tall with their first round picks given that traditionally a lot of clubs consider this more of a gamble than picking a more or less ready made mid.

If Mitch were to make a comeback, which is a pretty big stretch for me even if I do hope to see it, he would pretty much have to go through the PSD. This is not a terrible thing for us, as many players have agreed to terms with specific clubs and told others to not bother and have gotten away with it in the past. If he were to say that he wanted to come back to Melbourne and agree to a contract, I think other clubs would leave him alone and let us take him in the first round of the PSD. I'm pretty sure he would not qualify as a delisted free agent given that he has retired rather than us giving him the boot. Two very different scenarios, and I'm sure everyone would agree that you can't have players "retiring" and then claiming FA status to go to the club of their choice at the end of the year. That is a can of worms the AFL do not want to open.

I think people are pretty much spot on in the above. We have a raft of players treading water at Casey who really aren't pushing hard for a senior spot right now. All of them have to consider themselves in the firing line. It's really going to depend on which of them can get their act together and start putting pressure on the senior group. At the moment Blease seems to be doing that, and Jordie is racking up the disposals when he's allowed to hunt the ball instead of tagging someone, but he still needs to be better with his use. None of the others are really showing much that would get them retained. He doesn't have that option. We can choose not to offer him a contract, but if he decides to leave when we have made him an offer it's off to the draft.

If that is the incident I'm thinking of, there were two unmarked men inside our 50 and Watts was trying desperately to cover them both while screaming for someone to get over and pick one of them up. I actually thought he did really well on that one.

Frawley in for Dawes. If Jones junior isn't born early then We'll need to replace him, so Kent or Jetta to come in. Other than that no change.

There are grounds for challenging in that verdict. I would be looking at two aspects. Firstly, calling it a striking incident is clearly false. I don't know if it makes a difference or not to the end result, but what Deledio did is a strike. Dawes is at worst rough conduct. Secondly, they have called it Medium impact. While the player played it up at the time, he was unaffected, played out the game and will not have any ongoing issues, so clearly it should be a low impact. That being said, I don't think it is worth a challenge. The tribunal is notoriously reluctant to dismiss charges and if (when) they returned a guilty verdict it would lead to a two match suspension. I doubt they would accept a plea of "no case to answer" or "this charge is bloody stupid."

Sleep in, get up around noon, chill for a while, maybe catch up with the parents for a late lunch... I don't work Mondays

What we need is cleaner hands, quicker transition and better passing to our leading forwards. These are the three things costing us games right now.

Probably has something to do with his back issues.

I don't think the claim that Jack only plays well against crap opponents holds water. His best game for the club was in the win over Essendon in 2012. In that game they moved Watson forward in the last to try to win them the game and Watts took him on and beat him. I don't think you can call that crap opposition given that they'd lost one game up to that point. This year we have already won games against two of last year's finalists and Adeliade who finished 10th and came back the week after to knock over Collingwood. I think we need to give that line a bit of a rest now, don't you? I am beginning to think that Jack finally gets it. He said in an interview after the game that the team as a whole are now understanding that they don't have to do something exceptional, they just need to play their part and go when it's their turn to go and if they can all do that then they are going to be competitive against pretty much any side. That is a huge step in his attitude towards the game, I think, and gives me great hope for the future. We've already seen that when he just digs in and does the simple things right the rest follows. If he's now thinking in those lines then surely consistency can't be far behind.

Pretty sure Martin got 20 or so in the second half if that helps.

This is indeed the case. It could make things very interesting could it not? I don't suppose anyone would like the notion of resting a few of our guns so they'll be fresh and ready for Collingwood the week after? I mention this for two reasons. One the fact that we are almost certain to be thrashed anyway, and two the fact that teams who play in the NT almost always run out of steam in their next game due to the draining conditions up there. It could make all the difference against the Pies to have a few fresh mids running around off a two week break.

Max is an interesting one. Physically, he's not quite there yet which is understandable, but his tapwork is looking very good. The one great criticism of Jamar's rucking is that he always seems to drop the ball right at his feet. This is offset somewhat by his ability to tap it in pretty much any direction which is something other rucks have pointed to as one of his biggest strengths. Gawn has the ability to put the ball much further away which creates space for his mids as we saw with the Vince goal. THey actually look like a really good team with different strengths which must make it more difficult for opponents to set up for the stoppages.

If we're going to descend into throwing insults at each other, I think it's probably time to close the thread. Mods?

I was pretty happy with Jack today. There were a couple of moments where I was screaming at him to pick up his bloody man again, but in general he was a lot more accountable when they had the ball. He was also doing better with contested ball which is really nice to see. His 11 marks is a pretty decent indication of his workrate, and he could have had more if his teammates would just open their eyes and see him leading into open space. The number of times he breaks into space to be ignored is shocking, especially when they then kick to a bad option instead. I was also happy to see him take the shot from the HF flank that went Out on the full. It showed that he's hungry and also taking some of the responsibility for games on himself. These are traits we've all questioned in him from time to time.

You say a bottom half side, I say another finalist from last year.

The folks on the 7 coverage tonight say it will be looked at but nothing in it. I don't think they were taking carryover points into account though. A reprimand would still see him go out for a week.

I think this is almost a reversal of the St Kilda loss. In that one we were in control for large portions of the game and probably should have won but we kept kicking points instead of goals and then they slipped past us. This time, a case could be made that Richmond should have smashed us given their 20 missed shots. However, we kept at them, kept it competitive and made the most of our chances to knock them over.

Pretty sure they were all from the same Ump too. He had his Richmond undies on today. There was also a pretty obvious holding the man on Watts that was ignored during that little period. They were clearly trying ot break our momentum because we'd just scored the first two goals of the quarter.

Got pinged twice, incorrect call on both occasions. I think he may have run over that Umpire's cat.

Grimes should not be taking kickouts, nor should he be used as a short target when someone else takes one. His kicking just isn't suited to that situation. He seems to be better in general play than he is with those spot kicks.