RalphiusMaximus

There were a number of shockers in the last quarter in particular. They did their best to snuff out the Melbourne challenge.

Season possibly, but I doubt career. He seems to want to stay, and they won't ditch him.

Agree. I only caught the second half on TV (I hate working weekends) but he looked really good and did some great things.

I have no problem with female commentators. However, I have a big problem with CRAP commentators. Once again I find myself wondering how hard can it be to learn the players' names?

North beat us today for several reasons. 1) The Ruck/Forward. Every time we play against them we see one of their ruck/forward types make our defenders look second rate. 2) Strength in numbers. They flood like mad and thus have two-3 players at contests where we have only 1. 3) Etihad. I hate that bloody stadium. Rotten surface, smaller playing area. I'm thrilled that we avoided the hammy curse. 4) We played like crap. Say what you like about North, the real difference was that we were rubbish. We were back to handballing in circles, missing targets and blind bombs into the 50. I don't know if this is the result of complacency in the playing group or some other factor, but if we'd played that way for the last three games we'd be 0-6 right now.

That was a truly bad game to watch.

Alex Keath has decided that he'd rather take a contract with Cricket Victoria than go play for the GC. http://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/keath-chooses-cricket-over-footy-20100429-tth5.html They've already named him as one of their free 17 year old's so does that mean they wind up with one less?

I thought he was an umpire.

It is a great position to be in. Right now we have too many players fit and in form to fit into our senior side. Aside from the fact that this is a sign of a team in form and with depth, it also allows us to take some time with our young guys. Players like Straus, Blease, Watts, Tapscott and even Wona are not needed right now, so we can take the time to make sure they are ready and also to let them get some good form before bringing them in. The same goes for Morton and Jurrah. While these guys all want to be in the team ASAP, there is no reason to rush them back.

I don't remember who or in which thread, but one of our posters said that he chatted with Ricky at training (??) and was told this. I really hope it's true. I don't want to see any of our players going to GC or GWS.

One thing I loved about Martin's game. Look at Sylvia's first goal. The ball went to ground and Martin managed to fight his way to it, being held all the way and got a quick handball off to Scully who put Sylvia through for the goal. It was a ball Martin had no right to win, but he wanted it more and made something happen from what probably should have been another dead ball.

That is assuming that the fix from HQ isn't already in place. Remember that article regarding the texts from on high?

There are two things we need to focus on if we want to win this one: 1. Boomer. NO not the fireproof dog, but Boomer Harvey. If you stop him you stop their midfield. The rest of them are fair players but without him they are lacking direction, leadership and spark. 2. The Ruck/Forward. The last few times we have played we have been torn apart by their ability to send their rucks into the forward line and have them kick big bags. We absolutely must be able to man up on that extra tall forward and shut him down. If we can stick to our guns regarding our own style of play and do these two things then we will win.

While I do feel sorry for them, this mess has not been all bad (mostly, I know). Their membership has jumped by 300 since the news broke last week. Not a bad effort. All those people supporting them have decided to get out there and back the club. Also a great crowd at the game on the weekend. If they manage to get the no points part of the penalty overturned, they are still going to be a formidable team this season.

17 year-olds can be drafted. I don't know what the cutoff date is for them though. If he comes in after the concessions that may actually be a bad thing. If we FS him then it pretty much negates the impact of the concessions GWS have. If it's the year after then we'll be using a much higher pick.

It's interesting to me that the club clearly knew what they had. When we delisted Valenti last year there were plenty of us wondering where we would get a hard tackling in-and-under type. And now we have a 19 yo who is just as good if not better in the tackling and ball-winning arena, but is fast around the ground and a great kick. No way we can complain about that. Hard to believe that this guy is yet to see his 20th birthday.

On Bigfooty they say he'll be in the 2012 draft. Can't find much more info than that. I also don't know if the father-son rule will trump the draft concessions of GWS. What happens if they name him as a 17yo that they want? Will we still be able to nominate him? As for whether he's a lock to come to Melbourne, assuming we offer to FS him and GWS can't pinch him from under us, I believe it's up to him whether he accepts our offer or goes to the draft.

Love seeing how excited Trenners was as well. Great goal, and something we should see many more times over the next decade.

Are you using Firefox? It won't work if you are. Try (as painful as it is to say it) internet explorer.

I think we have just seen a worse umpiring game than Us vs Collingwood. Seriously, that was so biased it wasn't funny. The AFL really needs to have a look at the betting accounts of some of these umps.

You're talking about Trenners again, right? Has anyone ever won the Rising Star and the Brownlow in the same year?

There was mention made in the news of Petterd being injured towards the end of the match. If this is so, he may have to sit out for Bail.

Thing is, North tend to match up really well against us. They've given us some very nasty experiences in the past. This is not a game we are guaranteed to win. I seem to recall that their ruck/forward type players have a nasty habit of tearing us apart.

One of the news services said that Petterd was injured, so there could be a spot opening up for Bail to come back in, at least for next week. As I have mentioned before, how good is it that we have so many players hwo should be in the team that we have to make decisions like this? Not only do we have Watts, Morton and Jurrah to come back, players like Cheney, Bail, Martin, Straus, Blease (when he gets over the leg) and even Newston are pushing for spots. Next year we'll have Gawn and Fitzpatrick fighting for those spots too. We're getting to the point where we could almost field two teams.

Anyone keeping a running tally of votes for the season so far? I'd be interested to see how it's looking now that we're five matches (and three wins!) into the season.