RalphiusMaximus

My issue with Strauss is that I've yet to see him win a 1 on 1 contest. He is a great kick, and if he's allowed to float off the outside of the pack and have someone feed him the ball in space he can do great things with it. Sadly, that's simply not enough. He has to have another string to his bow. He needs to be able to win his own ball is he plays in the middle or beat his opponent if he plays back. So far we've seen no sign of this happening.

Agree. We get killed by teams with good small forwards. Having someone of his quality able to do the shut down/rebound double would be a huge asset.

I found it funny that Trengove wasn't listed in his young players to watch section.

His speed is the factor you chose to question when you tried to shoot down the suggestion. Now that it's established that he is in fact bloody quick you want to veto any further mention of it? Poor form old chap. I note with interest your attempt to diminish this by repeated use of the phrase "for someone his size." The fact is that he is fast for someone of any size. Please refer again to the footage of the Grand Final Sprint. You may note that while Stef is almost 2m tall, his opponents are not so, and indeed the winner is a shrimp. I have no doubt that he would lower his colours to Goodes, but his pace is not in any way the reason for this, nor his agility. It is a simple fact that Goodes is a dual brownlow medalist and there are few players in the league who can match him when he fires. The same is true for any player we put on him. It's not a matter of finding someone who can beat him, but rather someone who can limit the damage he does.

Have you seen him in many games? I know I saw him perform a passage a play which sums up his football ability in a few seconds. He led from the goalsquare, easily leaving his man behind. Dropped the uncontested mark at about 40 m directly in front. Ran on and picked up his own spill at around 50 beating both his own man and two others who were closing in from the sides. Performed a sharp u-turn at high speed, again leaving them in the dust. Ran in to the open goal. Almost kicked it out on the full. Came away with a point. I was standing on the fence at the 50m mark and was astounded by two things. Firstly, his raw pace and ability to turn so sharply at that speed. Secondly, his ability to miss a virtually unmissable goal.

You don't think we drafted him for his mad skills and footy smarts do you? He has always been an athlete trying to pass as a footballer. His great strengths are his speed and agility, both of which are amazing for a guy of his size. He came second in the grand final sprint in 2008.

Use Stef Martin on him. He has the size and speed to keep up and he always looks better defending than trying to create.

Interesting thing with people talking about Watts' attack on the ball and commitment to the contest. One of the people at Fridays game, and also many of the coaches after various games, have mentioned his off the ball work. They all talk up his chasing, tackling pressure, blocking etc. I agree that he needs to be more confident in his body and harder to shift off the ball, but he is by no means a shrinking violet out there. If anything, he is working too hard to do the team things and 1% acts when we all want him to be a little more selfish and get the ball/kick the goals. On Friday night he went and won himself several clearances, in one case then handballing to Maric for a goal. It's great team play, but not at all the role we expect him to play and as such goes unnoticed.

Must be Bates fault. He came on and we immediately started falling apart.

Make that 3.

2 goals in a half. That's just rubbish.

Trend for the second half. We kick into our forward line and Hawks win the ball.

Maybe someone gave him a rocket at half time?

Love this bit:

Jurrah seems to be having issues. Can't take a clean grab.

Green to Bruce for a goal. How often have we heard that one?

So why aren't we laughing?

Two umpire goals to the Hawks. No idea how good the second call was.

Great passage of play stopped by the umps to give Hawks a goal. Buratron unsure what the free was for.

I'm noticing that we have really good accuracy so far this year. We have had far fewer scoring shots, but more goals keeping us in games. Great to see.

2 to Maric.

Still, it would be nice to get something more than this.

Ditto

From Ricky Petterd's twitter. Dunn is up to 70 games. I sense another father-son prospect in the making. Also, congratulations to the Dunn family.