RalphiusMaximus

Very small in the forward line. However, all but one can kick straight, so that's a bonus. I'm also not sure that Joel Mac rates a spot in the starting lineup. I've only seen a little bit of him playing, but he didn't really impress me that much. I question his judgment.

Anyone else notice thet the Age's "Star Five" are just our four most experienced players + Bate? No Grimes, no Sylvia. No thought really. A oretty pathetic effort from what is usually a reliable paper.

We played half a season without him last year. We'll manage again this year. We'll just enjoy it a little less than we might otherwise. On the bright side, imagine how you'll feel when he comes back into the senior side.

We'll live. If he's out for half a season that's life and it will give a few other guys a chance to show what they've got plus give him a chance to do some gym work and build up a bit (much Like Morton). While it will hurt not to have such an exciting drawcard on the field, it's not the end of the world. Remember, he's still a beginner at this level despite the expectations placed on him. He's not our Matchwinner just yet.

Warnock gave away the free as far as I know. The real question to my mind is whether it actually was a free. According to the radio coverage Tippet should have had a free kick every time the ball entered the Crows' 50, even when he was on the bench. Given that we'd been handling the high and long balls into the forward line quite comfortably all day, I don't see why Warnock would suddenly have decided to grab Tippet on that occasion, so I have to wonder if it was a friendly hometown decision. Obviously there is no way of telling from the only coverage we had here in Vic, so I'd love to here from someone who was there.

I agree with almost everything here. My only query is the comment that the Hawks defence has been strengthened. They've lost Croad, Hodge is moving up the field. What have they gained? They have a 19yo with talent and an overrated import in the form of Gibson. Their back six is where they will be beaten this year. The good sides will walk all over them. This of course does not help us. We don't have anyone who can exploit their poor backline.

Not sure I'd go for that. The hawks play rough. I'd be expecting them to try to hammer our young guys at the bounce. Might be better off putting a couple of bigger bodies in there.

Realistically, we can promote three Rookies right from the start. We have Gawn, Bell and Tapscott who are all going to be injured long enough (in theory) to go on the LTI. I don't know what the verdict will be on Morton. I think McKenzie and Spencer are the obvious choices, McKenzie because he's ready and Spencer because we need another ruck. Despite his poor performances and form, I'd like to see Newton upgraded as well, just because he gives our forward line a better shape. Even if he was cruising along at 1 goal a game, he'd be worth it if he took one of the best defenders away and let our other forwards have more freedom.

This should be a really good game. WC are in a fairly similar place to us with their list, perhaps a year or two ahead. I expect our season to more or less mirror theirs in '09. It will be great to see how we handle them, especially given that they have a pretty strong (physically) midfield, so our young guys might well struggle. We also match up pretty well on their forwards, although I'm still worried about our small backs, and LeCras is just the guy to show them up.

There were several very nice passages of play where they combined well. Set up several goals I believe. They will have no problem working together. From the interviews, I think they both enjoy having someone who can keep up and who pushes them on at training.

According to twitter, it's a dislocated shoulder. They were waiting on scans to see how bad. Didn't sound bad from the language they used. However, they wouldn't be likely to play up the severity, so who knows?

Not sure I'd be putting much faith in this lot though.

Bloody Hell! Not a good kick from Scully.

So that's why he went #2! Gosh!

Taking that Man-Crush on Tippett a little far aren't they?

Lovely combo from Scully and Maric.

Sounds like the Adelaide guys are doing some dangerous tackles if the same injury has resulted 2-4 times. Might want hte AFL to look into that.

Listening to the radio coverage. Just heard that Jurrah is off with a shoulder, arm or collar bone injury. Not a lot of clarity form the Adelaide radio folks, but this is a very bad thing. Anyone able to give us more info?

He can also kick goals. That automatically puts him ahead of some of our automatic picks.

I'm not sure I'd be risking him on a dodgy suburban ground in Adelaide.

It's not in any way a reflection on Dunn. We're playing as many young and fringe players as we can through the pre-season. Every one of our club officials has said it "it's just a matter of getting games into the young guys" or words to that effect. Do you really think Fitzpatrick is forcing anybody out of the first team? All we are doing through the preseason is getting games into the guys who need them most.

You do realise that many of those mid tier 3-6 year players you listed aren't right? Several of those that are have had long injury layoffs too, so you really have to knock a year off for guys like Petterd and Grimes. Forget about Miller, he's a write-off. Warnock is fine. He'll sit on the gorillas this year and let the other backs do the running and kicking. The others are all very junior players. Even Moloney is only mid-tier as far as experience goes. Not even 100 games yet. Jones is 22, Jurrah is just about to start his second season. The others are younger still. There is absolutely no need to panic with this group. There's plenty of improvement left in them.

I would like to add to the line about not reading too much into the NAB cup games. You need to remember that different teams come at the pre-season comp in different ways. The Swans went nearly a decade without winning a match. Geelong lost to Richmond last week. Meanwhile the Hawks and Dogs went at each other with almost full strength lineups. It all depends on what the club is looking for out of these games. Clearly teams like the Bulldogs, hawks and Saints are looking to finetune their top teams and get hte ball rolling early. That's fine. It's equally clear that sides like Geelong are just messing around and trying out new things and different players. Then there's the sides who did badly last year. North and Freo went in all guns blazing trying to earn some respect. We however did no such thing. If you actually look at what we've been doing the last couple of weeks, there is no way we were going to win those games. We've been playing 5 guys who've never played in an AFL side before. Another has only played a quarter (and missed part of that due to injury). We haven't been trying to win games, but to get game time into the guys who need it most and to see how close they are to being ready. I agree that our forwards have lacked punch, but that is only to be expected when you look at who we've had playing. The addition of a few more experienced and capable players to the mix will make a big difference. If you're going to rate our performances in the pre-season, you need to keep in mind who we've been putting on the field and what we've been trying to achieve with them. We haven't yet put a team out that is in any way likely to win against even a poor AFL side. Rather than looking at the results, try looking at how the young guys are developing. Give them a few more months and the wins will start coming. Think of West Coast last year. In the second half they put a real run on and beat some very good sides. Before that people thought they might challenge us for a PP. We are going to see some very ordinary performances towards the start of the season, but the benefits will come at the end.

Nice work. Where did you find that? So, looking at the original basis for comparison in terms of games played, we have the following: 100+ games StK = 9 Melb = 5 51-100 StK = 7 Melb = 11 1-50 StK = 19 Melb = 20 0 StK = 4 Melb = 10 From this we see that we actually stack up ok in the 51-100 section, this presumably being players who have served their apprenticeship and can be legitimately called AFL footballers. However, we suffer a serious lack in the 100+ area which is normally where you would be looking for leadership within the group. Looking further down, we are about even in the 1-50 area, what we might call "apprentices" for the purposes of this exercise. However, the greatest discrepancy is in those who have yet to play a game. 10 players is a huge portion of our list. So, anyone want to have a stab at exactly what these numbers amount to in terms of where our list stands, in comparison to the Saints of 2004 or in general?

It has potential. I just hope we can live up to it better than the Blues.