RalphiusMaximus

I can't see Neeld getting rid of him this year. I can see Neeld getting rid of lots of other players. I think a case can be made for up to 9 being moved on, depending on what is done with the rookies. But that thought belongs in another thread.

Maybe some extra coaching? Show him how they want him to play?

He can say what he wants about the reason he plays football and how much he loves his lifestyle in Sydney. The reality is that his lifestyle is better because he went from a fixed contract for a draftee to being the highest paid player in the league and he's loving life because he's got more money that he knows what to do with. While I have no problem with this, I do have a problem with his claiming it has anything to do with his team. Man up and admit that the money what motivates you dude.

Apparently about 168 points worse.

You probably did yourself a favour. There was quite a lot of waffling in there, but little of actual substance. What it boils down to is that the guys who should be on notice don't have anyone to replace them and the guys who should come into the team don't have an obvious spot opening up for them and I have no idea what's going to happen.

I don't care about Scully's giant leaps forward, I just care about him falling backward on the end of Tappy's shoulder. If Scully gets off the ground unassisted when they play us I'll be ashamed of the whole team.

I think people need to go easy on Sylvia. He's played two games after breaking his back. Give the guy some time to find a bit of touch before you crucify him. If we want to see what Fitzpatrick has to offer he needs more time at the top level. He's been very good at Casey, but like his 1 game last year seemed to struggle to adjust to the pace and pressure at AFL level. This is in no way unusual and he should be given the chance to get his head around it for a few games to see if he can make the adjustment and impact games. He did show one moment of pure class gathering a contested ball from the ruck contest, accelerating through traffic and nailing a pass to an outside runner. It was only one moment, but it showed a glimpse of what he might become. Bennell looked like he had gotten the message with his attack on the ball at the start of the game, but he very quickly fell off again and returned to his old habits. He may have blown his chance given that he's had a lot of opportunities to show more hunger and there are guys at Casey knocking on the door. On the other hand, we are short on pacy back flankers, so he may get lucky. Bate has been very good this year and I think has the credits in the bank to be allowed an off game. He'll be kept. I'm unsure on Ricky Petterd, I don't think he's got much currency with Neeld. Might find himself replaced by Jurrah. Bail is the type of player Neeld loves, but he's very error prone and may find it tough to keep his spot. Like Bennell, the big point in his favour is that there isn't a like for like replacement waiting in the wings. I think the changes this week will tell us a lot about what's going on in MN's mind. There are players he clearly loves who have been under-performing and there are guys waiting in the wings who have been playing very well but would be replacing others who don't really deserve to be dropped. Could go either way. For mine I think Jurrah, Dunn and Green need to come back in. Watts I am torn on. He's playing well on the wing but still needs better accountability. The problem is that if he doesn't come in he takes a two week vacation and that isn't good for anyone. If we see those three or four come in, who goes out? As I said, the guys who play a similar role are not really playing badly, although Petterd for Jurrah would seem a no-brainer at the moment. I have no real answers, but I look forward to seeing what happens.

It's because our contested ball-winners are prone to a panicked 40m snap in the direction of our goals and most of our defenders can't kick. This means that either one of our defenders gets it and kicks it straight to an opponent or one of our stoppage players gets it and snaps blindly to a cluster of opposing players on the 50m line. Either way it comes right back in to start the cycle over again.

We will win because the flying pigs told me so by writing words in the sky with precision formation flight. Really.

He'd make a hell of a substitute. He loves the one quarter burst. We could easily see him come on and kick 5.

I believe that the articles said he would be appearing by video link. Not sure whether this is the actual trial or just some sort of preliminary thing though. Perhaps Rudeboy could tell us?

Personally, I'd like to see Watts play as a winger rather than a forward. We have enough talls in the forward 50 that we can spare him from there. Richo was switched to the wing and only barely missed a brownlow. Watts can play a similar role and really set up our forward play with his great foot skills. He'd need to work on his endurance, but he has more than enough pace to pull it off.

Once again I have to look at the statistics since nobody has yet come up with an accurate measurement for pea-heartedness. Nic Nat - Games 60, avg disposals 12, av marks 1.7, av goals 0.6, av tackles 3.6, av hitouts 18.3, disposal efficiency 67.1% J. Watts - Games 45, avg disposals 14.3, av marks 5.1, av goals 0.8, av tackles 1.7, av hitouts 0.4, disposal efficiency 74.4% So, Watts has played 75% of the games, is the best part of a full year younger, has more disposals, marks and goals per game but fewer tackles and hitouts. Given that he doesn't actually play in the ruck it's not unexpected that he should fare so poorly in the hitout stats. To summarise, Watts is younger, has played less games, gets more of the ball and does more with it. Yet he is still considered the lesser of the two players and consistently hammered by the media and supporters for a perception that he lacks "heart." Edit: Stats courtesy of http://www.footywire.com/ (except for disposal efficiency, which came from www.afl.com.au)

Funny, the thing I was looking at was the tackle count. Cunnington, Swallow and Harper in their top 5. Do we have any players in that age bracket showing that sort of work ethic? McKenzie and Trengove are our two best. Not much else from the youth.

6. Bartram 5. Garland 4. Grimes 3. McKenzie 2. Jones 1. Magner

Right. I was thinking it was 20 games for some reason.

Tag their engine room. Lewis, Sewell, Mitchell. Those are the guys we need to stop. Let Hodge float around with his "I'm a playmaker" t-shirt on. It's their hard ball winners who kill us.

In all honesty I don't have that much of a problem with the Hawks. They play a really good style of football and their players work together really well. Obviously it sucks to have them thrash us, but we need to measure ourselves against sides like this to see how far we have yet to go. They did ruin my perfect tipping round last week though. Going down to the Swans I ask you...

Isn't Harley Bennell eligible? 37 Disposals and three goals has to trump whatever Motlop did. It was his 20th game and I doubt he's too old. What gives?

When will we know the result of the tribunal hearing?

Morton in 9th and improving. How many would've picked that two months ago?

I think we were outclassed and outworked today. It's really that simple. The reason Geelong made us look slow isn't that our players are slower in an outright sprint, but that their players work so much harder off the ball to get into space. Then when they force the turnover they look up and see players wide open and move the ball to them quickly and accurately. Our players meanwhile cluster around the ball and hold their zones when the play is elsewhere. I found Mick Malthouse's comments on the play to be very interesting. He said that the Melbourne players didn't trust each other to win the bal, so they were being draw into contests they should be staying out of, and because of this had nobody on the outside to pass off to. Geelong on the other hand have absolute faith in the man at the contest, and so they hang off and give him someone to pass to after he gets his hands on the ball. He said that once the Melbourne players got their heads around the notion of letting the man at the contest do his job, then we would see a drastic improvement come on very quickly. Obviously this fits in with Neeld's mantra of winning 1 on 1 contests. You'd almost think the two of them had talked about this before... Anyway, Back to the game. How good is Mitch Clark? He's carrying our forward line single-handed at the moment. The sooner we can get LJ back out there the better. If we can get Fitzpatrick or Martin firing as well things will start to look very promising up there. I'm also loving the improvement by some of our mid-tier guys. Bate, Morton and Dunn are all doing better under Neeld, and Jones has become a real onfield leader and inspirational player. We just need some of the youngsters to put on a bit more bulk and they'll be fitting right in as well. Even better is that the backline is finding their mojo again and Bartram is actually kicking it pretty well these days. We always knew it was going to be a loss today, but I'm thrilled to improve by 146 points over last year. Imagine if we do it again next year!

I'm loving the hate for some players in this thread. Some people are completely unable to see past their little pet hates. Lots of beating dead horses over Dunn and Bate. Hate to tell you this folks, but we need them both in the starting side. Bate remains the only midfielder in our side who can hit targets inside 50 (although Morton showed a bit today) and Dunn is by far our best defensive forward. It was a huge mistake to have him as substitute today. Scarlet did pretty much whatever he wanted with Sellar to mark. For mine, Sellar has to go. He was pitiful today. Replace him with another tall, either Martin or Fitzpatrick if they feel he's up to it. Dunn needs to start on the field. Give him the job on Gibson. No other changes needed.

They were our top two ball-winners. You can't say that's not a drastic improvement.

I actually though they were both pretty good today.