RalphiusMaximus

I'm kind of coming to the opinion that Nate Jones is our Richie Vandenberg. He's the leader who shows how everyone needs to work and act around the club and leads through the bad times, but will he be good enough to hold his spot once things turn around and we start looking like a real finals contender? For years I've maintained that he is drastically underrated and would walk into any midfield in the league, but lately I've been forced to wonder if that's really true.

But even when we were credited with the clearance it was under pressure and generally didn't result in possession for us. More "hack it clear and hope a teammate gets it" than a clean win.

The massive disposal differential is because we conceded the midfield to them and flooded our defence. Basically the moment we turned it over (which was frequently because of our terrible kicking) the entire team bar a couple of token small forwards dropped back and tried to hold them out of our defensive 50. The Bombers were free to chip and share through the midfield until they saw an opening. Not only was it terrible coaching, but it was terrible play because despite this tactic they still managed to take marks inside the 50.

Hell No! That's the biggest problem Hogan has right now. Stop putting him in the goalsquare and let him play his bets position. He needs to be able to roam and hit the contests on his own terms.

One aspect of this game that I found interesting was the ease with which they dominated us in the centre. They were reading Gawn's taps, smothering our clearance players and easily taking the ball away. You'd almost think they had a guy who was heavily involved in building and coaching our centre square work the last few years over there. While I was surprised Jamar didn't play, he clearly had a big influence on the tactics they used to beat us there.

How big is he?

Swap Pedersen and Hogan over.

We won't beat North. Not going to happen.

I think he takes a random sampling of the posts each week. This would give a balance of fairness and not requiring too much maths and effort to make work. It would probably be better to average the scores across all votes posted, but that's going to wind up being a massive pain to do every week.

We have a perfectly good CHF. The problem is that we're playing him at FF and ruining his games by making him sit in the square and lobbing high balls onto his head. What we need to do is let Hogan play at CHF where he belongs and put the resting/spare ruck in at FF, whether that's Pedersen, Frost, Watts or King I know not. Hogan's strength is his mobility, not his power marking. We need to give him the freedom to run his man into the ground. Weideman is a long-term prospect, not a quick fix for this season.

Hell, at least a kitten is going to get a new home.

Kennedy is the only one who really deserves a nod.

Today we saw two massive failures, one from the team and one from the coaches. Team: our kicking was putrid. At half time, EVERY ONE of the bomber's goals had come from turnovers. Think about that. If we had been able to hit our targets, they wouldn't have had a goal for the half. It's been years since I've seen such a poor display of basic skills, and the pressure is no excuse. They are supposed to be a team of competitive beasts but the moment they were put under pressure they crumbled. Coaches: What the hell were they thinking dropping everyone behind the ball like that? Where was the forward pressure? We would take the ball to HF, turn it over and immediately the entire team turned and ran back to our defensive 50. Was this supposed to ensure that they wouldn't take any marks in range of the goals? It certainly didn't achieve that goal. All it did was give the Bombers the freedom to chip the ball down the field under no pressure and rack up extra uncontested stats. On a side note, what the hell does Hogan think he's doing? He's supposed to be an endurance athlete. His game is built around mobility. The last thing he should be doing is standing in the goalsquare surrounded by opponents and calling for the ball to be dropped on his head. He needs to get on his bike and start working his man over, long runs up to the wing, back to the square, back out to CHF, etc. He's no use to anyone just wasting away down there.

So, anyone know when the game is actually starting tomorrow? I've seen suggestions of 1, 2 and 3pm so far.

Wouldn't want to go to the dogs. He'd have to fight for his spot with them.

If you're on footytips then you can still join and bring your score across.

Now THAT was a pass! Shocking finish though, there's no excuse for missing from there.

Scully doesn't rush his kicks, he just has poor technique and floats them.

Cotchin should be far better than he is. All the skill in the world can't make up for being soft, lazy and careless. Jack seems to be doing what he can though which is nice. . I'm amazed that Collingwood aren't throwing bodies in and smashing into the contest. After last week surely they have something to prove? They're still looking for cheap outside ball. If they play like this against us they'll get smashed.

I like the notion, but I don't know how well the "blokes" on the show will cope. Will they give her enough space and airtime to be a serious part of the show or will she be relegated to the token female who gets talked over and largely ignored? As for the show as a whole, I can't believe I'm saying this but it's gone to hell since Eddie left. I just can't be bothered with them anymore except to flip the channel and try to catch the Melbourne teams and predictions. There's only so much you can take of toilet humour and juvenile pranks. Which brings me back to the thing about introducing a woman into the Bloke's club...

EVERY Home side won! How often does that happen?

No, they paid an end of first round pick for the best mid in the draft who would have otherwise gone top two. Heeney, like Ablett before him, has the distinction of having forced a rule change due to the manner in which he was acquired by his club.

They also got well on top when Gawn was off the ground. Pedersen and Frost aren't good enough back-up.

Talking footy was actually quite good tonight. Lots of discussion of the drug tests, of course. They really rate Oliver and his Rising Star Nom. Also talked up the overall quality of the top 5 draftees who all got games this week and all looked AFL-ready. Wietering and Oliver were singled out from the bunch for their awesome games. Watts got a big wrap as well for his game. Said he had set a new bar for himself and now he needs to play like that every week. They also rate the direction Melbourne has taken with their gameplan.

With those numbers, how could they not give it to him?