RalphiusMaximus

I say smalls all the way. We need some serious quality in the midfield, as well as a crumbing forward and a back pocket. We need to use our high picks to fill in these holes. We have more than enough tall timber in our forward line to see us through the next decade or so.

The education system.

I've noticed this trend too. We seem to have a lot of "supporters" who go to the game to have the joy of yelling abuse at their whipping boy of choice. I was at a game last year where a guy a few seats away spent the entire match yelling insults at Liam Jurrah. On the weekend I repeatedly heard someone yelling "You're soft as [censored] Watts!" It's apparently very easy for the beer-swilling supreme athletes in the stands to throw stones. I'd love to see them out on the field showing us how it's really done.

I'd love to see the throwing rules enforced. The ball has to be propelled by the striking hand, not the one holding the ball. How often do you see players swing the ball and give it the slightest brush with their knuckle on the way past. How about the diving handball pioneered by Scott West and picked up by many others? Pick up the ball, dive forwards and flick the ball out with both hands. The Umps have never had the guts to call it a throw. As for the current version of correct disposal which declares that it is ok to simply drop the ball when tackled, I seem to recall last year a Melbourne player was called for holding the ball when he was tackled, had the ball jarred loose and managed to kick it for a goal on the half-volley. The Geisch said that this was a correct decision, and within weeks was telling the world that dropping the ball was preferable to being caught still in possession. Consistency? I think not.

Awesome news. I hope he tears them apart. 5 tackles and a few goals should do to get him back in the seniors the week after right?

This goes contrary to everything the AFL PR is saying about protecting the man going for the ball. Thomas won the ball and made incidental contact after the event. Sooner or later htey are going to have to realise that it is a contact sport and occasionally injuries happen. Next they're going to be blaming tacklers for ACL injuries.

For the record, Davey had Murphy for the first half. Dunn was switched to him at half time and worked his ass off to stay on him when the doggies sent men over to try to man him up and give Murphy a cutout. He also took on pretty much the entire Bulldog backline when they started trying to bully Watts and Davey. I'm very curious to know why there wasn't a report when one of them nailed him in the third. Umpire turned around to see him on the ground clutching his stomach and didn't even make a note to check the tapes.

Totally agree. The two mistakes in the third to cost us a goal were painful to watch and were clearly a concentration issue as much as anything. After the goal the camera showed him and he looked exhausted. Needs to maintain his concentration when he feels like crawling into a hole and sleeping for a week.

ND was a man before his time. I actually think that his game plan would have been very effective in the last few years when the press was all the rage. His mantra of fast movement out of defence and long kicks to CHF would have bypassed most zones and given us some great transition with very little tinkering. Sadly, I can't argue with the state of the list he left us with, although I don't think he can be held solely responsible.

Did you see the mark he took leading to his goal? Wrestled his man, tossed him aside and took it easily. His issue is that he get the fumbles when he's tired. I think it's more a matter of fitness than strength, although he does need both to improve.

Magner kept Boyd to about half his usual tally against us. It was a superb job and showed a real team focus that he was willing to sacrifice his game to that extent just to stop one of the prime movers from impacting the game. As important as he is to us with his clearance work, I'd take that from him every week. It could also clear the way for Couch to come into the side if Magner were to play as tagger.

I hadn't heard about Rohan. Really bad news. He was just starting to find his feet. I agree with you that rushing back from a broken leg would be a bad thing. Nathan Brown on the radio said earlier in the week that he came back too soon and it pretty well ruined what was left of his career. It's just so frustrating to see so many bad kicks coming out of our back half.

It's not a bad summary of the teams. Interesting that the gameplan he describes for the Dogs wasn't in evidence today at all.

Tom was really bad today. There's no getting around that. Yes, he's only played a handful of games, but we can't have that sort of disposal in our back half. If we had ready-made replacements I'd be saying to drop McDonald, MacDonald, Bartram and Garland, because they are all terrible kicks. Sadly, we don't have anyone to replace Garland and BArtram, so they have to stay and we just have to hope they play within themselves and stick to long bombs down the line. We DO have players to replace the two Mc's, so they can go play for Casey for a while. Tom can come back if and when he shows improved decision-making and disposal.

Out: McDonald, Macdonald and someone. In Sylvia, Grimes and Davis I'd love to bring Strauss back ASP to get some decent disposal into the backline, but I don't think he's ready yet. Give him at least one game at Casey to find his feet again. Sellar seems to be a popular choice for the third out. I can go with that as much for balance as for form. We are too tall and need to get a few more running players into the side. If Mitch Clark is out because of his neck, Martin comes in to play the same role. He won't take the marks, but at least he'll get in there and fly at the high ball.

All in all I'm much encouraged by the game today. Reality says that the only reason we lost was the skill errors. We played with much more heart and intensity that we have shown in the first three rounds and showed some real ability in attack. Neeld has said repeatedly that the team already know how to attack and his job is to teach them to defend. I think we saw that today. The Dogs were repeatedly forced to reverse course and bring the ball right back to their defensive 50 (which elevated their disposal count a lot) because they couldn't find a way through. When we attacked through the middle we looked quite good. I also think that overall our list is in better shape than theirs. The real damage was done by the usual suspects and they are all getting on in years. None of their talls look particularly good. The doggies got the ball forward breaking up the play. They deliberately kicked mongrels when under pressure because they expected to win the ground level ball, and it worked. That sort of play won't work against a better midfield. They scored most of their goals through scrapping and working the loose ball forwards. They got the four points today, but if I were a Dogs supporter I'd be very worried about that squad. Points of note for me: - If we hadn't made so many silly disposal errors the possession count would have been far better and probably in our favour. - We need to have better hands. Far too often we got the ball clear of the pack to an open player and he failed to pick it up cleanly. This of course gave the doggies time to pressure him. - Watts may be the most scragged player in the league. I truly think the he must have run over Gieschen's cat or something. Have a look at how often he is taken down before he can get to the ball/contest. It seems to be standard procedure to throw yourself into the back of his knees when he outsprints you. - We NEED to make some changes in the backline. No team can support that many bad kicks in their defensive 50. Strauss has to come back, even if his defence is suspect, and I would rather have Davis than Tom McDonald at the moment. - Mitch Clark is gold. Not just his attack on the ball but his attack on the man as well. Loved the huge tackle he made, even if the ump gave a charity free for it. - The Umpires have it in for us. I know the free kick count was even, but they paid repeated frees to the Dogs where they could score from them, they ignored frees to our forwards and gave us some cheap consolation frees around HB and wing where they couldn't do any real harm. - Bate's passing into the forward line is first rate and he's finding more and more of the ball as he settles into the midfield.

6. Bate 5. Rivers 4. Jones 3. Moloney 2. Watts 1. Morton

I recall some discussion of this by the AFL during the off season. There was a bit of footage shown of leg injuries caused by players diving at the ball at a full sprint and crashing through the man who stayed on his feet. Obviously they also talked about the increased likelihood of head/spine injuries. I would guess that it is a situation they are monitoring but (oddly enough) are reluctant to legislate over too quickly.

It's a draft that we did quite badly out of. Although it did land us a pretty good Rookie.

All the people who would normally be flinging that label around are too busy screaming about the fact that the sky is falling.

Love the comment about the 8 absolute clangers leading to a 60 disposal turnaround. Once again showing the way Neeld sees the game.

This goes right back to the way we trained under Bailey. Several people who frequently attend training made note of incidents where assistants from other teams were watching and laughing with each other over our methods. I noted in several posts that it was like watching you local amateur team training. Lots of yelling, good-natured ribbing etc. Very little precision or professionalism displayed. I said at the time that it appeared to me that the coaching staff simply didn't understand how unprofessional the whole outfit really was, hard as that is to imagine in this day of spying on other teams and the amount of information available. What Neeld faces with our club is the fact that most of the list has never had to operate in a truly professional environment before. They have never been held to the standards we would expect. They have never been drilled to the level we would expect. In most cases they never even realised that they weren't doing the same level of work as their competitors. Only the seniormost of our players have been in a truly successful side. Only Green has played in a grand final, and that was at the very beginning of his career. This is what Neeld is beginning from scratch. He's having to teach the whole club what it means to be a professional outfit. Bear in mind that he has come from a team that was in the top few for out and out professionalism in the league. Collingwood don't necessarily have the raw talent of a lot of other sides, but they always knew exactly what they were doing on the field, and you could see that certainty in their play. If he can teach our list how to function like that then we will be unstoppable.

Maybe I'm just not as emotionally invested as some of you, but I do find some of the drama entertaining. I'm not at all bothered by the prospect of finishing right down the table, although I know that it will hurt us in many ways. I would love to watch us play some decent footy, and I will no doubt get upset on gamedays when we play badly, but I get what's going on right now and I think we'll be ok in the long run. The premiership in 2013 might be a bit of a stretch, but we'll live. All things considered, given the situation with compo picks, I think there are worse things than finishing at the bottom of the ladder again.

I'm pretty sure the AFL has already introduced rules against staging for frees and also for diving into a stationary tackler. Sadly, none of the umpires (whether on their own initiative or at the instruction of the Geisch) have had the balls to make use of them and make the call. If I recall the penalty for staging for a free is a two match suspension, while if a player lowers the head and rams a stationary player it is supposed to be a play on call (personally I think it should be reported as a deliberate head-butt). Thinking about it, did the suspension for taking a dive ever get enacted or was it only ever talked about?