RalphiusMaximus

The funny thing in that article is that there is no mention of Warnock, although he is probably the most tradable of the fringe players in terms of market value. He is a quality defender who struggles to get a game simply because we have too many tall backs. Very few clubs have the luxury of not playing someone like him. I would not want to trade Morton. He has stalled a bit, but he is still a young player and his potential is huge. He is worth keeping around until we are seriously shooting for the flag. If he comes on then he is another huge weapon and if not then he can be traded. To offload him now would be very premature. I can't see Petterd going anywhere. He has been dropped because he gave a shocking defensive performance, but he is quality and can play anywhere on the field. He's exactly the sort of player DB loves. Bate I can take or leave. He's a decent medium forward, and perhaps could be reinvented as a big bodied bullocking midfielder, but I suspect he could find more game time elsewhere. THe suggestion that he could go to Richmond is not without merit. Given the amount of attention Jack R draws, he would probably be able to get a fair bit of the ball when his man gives him space to focus on the bigger threat. He is also a very good assist player, something that has fallen off this year with his limited opportunities.

But do you contend that they signed because of the rumours? It would be a poor effort by their managers if they allowed that to happen. Let's look at another example. We had a player a few years ago shop himself around to other clubs. The rumour mill had him already out the door and signed with Collingwood. It was only during trade week that he decided to take a smaller contract to stay with Melbourne because his desire to play with us was greater than his need for more money. Do any of us hold this against him now that he is captaining the club? Tom has every right to take his time and look at all of his options. The only thing that matters to me is whether he signs with us or with someone else.

Once again I feel the need to address a few points. Why would a media personality put it out there that he is leaving when they will have egg on their fave if he stays? Surely they must know something to be saying that? No, not really. If they put it out that he is leaving and he messes up their story and stays, they will simply deny that they ever said he was gone. Remember that one of the primary excuses many of these people have been using to justify their claims is that every player linked to GC last year went. This is 100% incorrect, but if they keep making the claim then people will eventually believe them. Likewise, should Tom stay with us it will simply not be mentioned again. They will start another self-congratulatory tale about how accurate their guesses were and conveniently forget that they had ever spread such an outlandish rumour. Somewhat linked to the above point is the fact that GC made a play for several Melbourne players, or indeed the media said they were moving north, and amazingly none of them left. James Frawley, Ricky Petterd and Cale Morton were all rumoured to be signing with them (by the infallible media) at various times, and every one of them stayed with us. All in all, I am disinclined to believe any of the hoard of media hacks who want to get in on the feeding frenzy and voice an opinion. There are two people who I will listen to regarding the future of Tom Scully, and I seriously doubt either Tom or his Manager will be telling us the answer until the season is over. Until then, it's all unfounded rumour ans idle speculation.

Bear in mind that they are not able to sign anyone right now. There was a specific window last october when they were able to sign players. Otherwise, they have to wait until after the season. If he's claiming to have already signed someone, then they signed a contract last year. Since Tom strikes me as a man of significant integrity, I do not believe that he has been lying all this time when saying that he has not spoken to them and has not signed anything. Therefore they are not able to sign him until after this season and any claim otherwise is just hot air.

Achilles takes forever to heal. Especially if you want it to stand up to a game like Aussie Rules. Even with the best doctors, this is probably a longer layoff than an ACL. Very harsh on the big guy, especially since it popped in such an innocuous way. Not even in a contest.

In the same vein, do CG have to delist 3 players? They can't drop their kiddies because they are all on 2 year deals, so they would have to offload some of their poached players wouldn't they?

One computer and some easily available free software? Hey everybody, I can post from overseas!

Remember that they have two years to poach players. That allows them to heavily front-end contracts to players they take this year and still have plenty to throw around next year. The majority of their list will be on basic beginner contracts so the distribution of the salary cap is skewed massively in favour of the players they are able to poach as well. These two factors allow them to offer obscene contracts to several players, with the bulk of the cash coming in the first year.

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. This is exactly the sort of thing we've come to expect of the team. Even so, I don't see us winning this one. Maybe a really close and hard-fought loss then getting demolished by Freo?

I really don't think anyone should be dropped. They all did well and the only ones who did anything wrong are people like Jurrah who was really poor in the first half. We can't drop him, so that is a moot point. Obviously Bartram is a necessary inclusion, but who do we drop? If Sylvia doesn't come up, then it becomes easy, but they all say he'll be playing, so how can you justify dropping anyone?

I would like to add the huge mark by Gysberts that was disallowed. His height is going to add another dimension to his game as a midfielder. The ability to get up in a pack and take a contested mark like that will be a big weapon for him. The more I see of him the more I think it was an in inspired choice by BP.

Damn you C&B, I was going to make a GIF of that mark and use it as my Avatar! Beaten to the punch!

Can you give us a link? The SEN site is crap and you can't find anything on there.

Yeah, he'll be fine. One way or the other

I dunno. A lot of people bagged Robbo because all he did (they say) was kick goals. Can't have a guy in the side who does nothing but kick goals every week. Liam desperately needs to work on his application when the ball is there to be won, either by himself or a teammate. At the start of the second quarter he embarrassed himself with a couple of really bad efforts. One of them cost us a goal. He showed in the third that he can play a more physical role, but we need him to lift his workrate and do it for the entire match, week after week.

We saw a bit of what he's looking for last night, especially the goals to Sylvia and Watts. In both cases we had runners pushing really hard back into the 50, ans both times it gave them the sit on their opponents. Evans' cross to the square was magic and the pass to Watts was as good as they get, but both players worked really hard to get themselves into those positions. Watts in particular was involved in the play at half back then took off down the ground to mark again in the goalsquare. That's the workrate they want to make the forward structure work.

I did notice that. I thought it was very interesting and a good dig at the self-congratulatory rumour-mongers in the media. I will also note though that Scully was deadpan singing the song while the rest of the team were going nuts. Is it a sign? Perhaps. Maybe it's just that he's not an overly demonstrative guy. Some of his movement through and out of traffic really is Judd-like. He puts in these little side-steps that take him out of reach of a tackle even as he's accelerating out of traffic. I thought last night it really did look like some of the moves Judd uses. I'm generally pretty optimistic about retaining him, and as always I think he has every right to wait on his contract, but god it would be good if he announced tomorrow that he'd signed for 3 years, and Trengove with him.

I'm not bothering to vote this week because whichever way I go I'll be dudding someone. There were so many good efforts.

Loved Morton's run through the middle. The only problem is that nobody led at him so he was forced to try for goal. But to take on all comers and burn them off was impressive.

Well, he was tackled. Calling it holding the ball is something only an umpire would do. Considering the number of calls they failed to make when we tackled Essendon players I thought it was absolutely farcical to call Strauss on that one. Consistency anyone?

Check out the best in the Age. No mention of Rivers. The hacks. Article

I'll add that Strauss was a big surprise for me. He's improved out of sight from the last time I saw him in the seniors. Still makes some poor decisions when he's under the pump, but his contest is much better and he took some decent marks.

I think Collingwood may use us to prove a point. We are one of the few sides to have troubled them last year, and they will look to stamp their authority on this one. I don't think we stand a chance of winning, but we can make it a close game if we play with the same attitude we showed tonight.

Thrilled with this win. It doesn't change how I feel about the way they played last week, but it shows that the team can match some pretty impressive opponents when they put their minds to it. Now I want to see them play like that every week.

I can't believe we got those two as rookies. How did they slip through from the National Draft?