MadAsHell

Very true. Australia ended up making 4/396dec Watson 109 Rogers 75 Smith 68* Clarke 62 Cowan 58 Hughes 19* Worcestershire currently 7/246 Bird 4/38 from 20 overs! Agar 2/79 Faulkner 1/55 Both Smith & Bird putting their hands up for a birth in the 1st test! Smith to bat at 6 with one of Cowan or Khawaja to bat at 3 and Bird as the 3rd quick after Pattinson & Starc to bowl into the breeze???

What was even better is that was against Matthew Watson. Carltank listed player who was their first round draft pick (18) in the 2010 draft who's now in his third year and Hogan towled him up. If I remember correctly he was dragged from Hogan in the end as he was exhausted and couldn't go with the Hulk. If Hogan's doing this to first round draft pick players who are in their 3rd year of AFL, just wait till he has another pre-season into him and he draws the oppositions 3rd defender as the two best will go to Clark and Dawes. A lot to look forward to here! Edit: Spell

May have given people the impression that a family of Magpies had a nest in the ceiling of our board room and then flew through an open vent in the ceiling and swooped some of our membes during a meeting???

And that's stumps on Day 1! http://www.espncricinfo.com/the-ashes-2013/engine/match/566929.html Watson 109 Rogers 75 Clarke 62 Cowan 58 Smith 21* Hughes 10* Good to see us hitting some form leading into the Ashes, all be it again weak opposition. The big thing to look forward to on Day 2 is the battle of Bird & Harris with the ball to see if either of them can put pressure on Siddle for the 3rd bowlers spot?

Harmless omission billy.

Say anything of note?

You never know Bing. I've heard that the Australian Democrats look set to make a big return as a viable 3rd option at this Septembers election!

Coaching in the Ballarat league. Don't know what his business credentials are. That's what I was calling for. If swooper does join the board I'll credit myself with getting the ball rolling on that one... Edit: Spelling

Yeah Pedersen's role is certainly depth in the defensive tall man department. I reckon only 1 of Davis, Gillies & Sellar who are all out of contract at years end will survive tops. Sellar may survive given his ability to chop out in the ruck.

Wish someone could rread the minds of the selectors Macca, would be amazing to see how they justify some of their decisions. I agree re: Warner, will be very tough to justify his selection. My gut for the first test XI is telling me it might be along the lines of: Rogers Watson Cowan Clarke* Hughes Khawaja +Haddin Siddle Starc Pattinson Lyon With both Harris & Bird stiff to miss out. I know Jazza you're keen for a 4 pronged pace attack, but I doubt the selectors will go that way, but who on earth knows???

I reckon our setup next year will be: Ruck: Jamar, 1st alternate Gawn, 2nd alternate Spencer 2nd Ruck/Forward: Clark, depth Fitzpatrick Stay at Home key Forwards (FF/CHF): Dawes, Hogan Utilities (HF/Wing/HBF): Watts, Howe Reckon you'll find if Jamar were to miss Gawn or Spencer would get a run and if Clark were to miss Fitzy would get a go. However if one of Hogan or Dawes were to miss another midfielder would just come in and both Watts and Howe would play forward wothout the need for onr of them to spend sometime on a wing or half back.

For me the big questions that will determine our XI for he 1st Test will be: 1. Does Warner play despite not playing any warm up games? 2. With Watson now openning, does he still play as a genuine allrounder? Or does that mesn that we have to consider Faulkner? 3. What's more valuable in England, a genuine into the breeze bowler like Bird, or do we get Siddle to play that role and look for either the strike power of Harris or variation of Starc? 4. With Hughes seemingly having secured his starting spot with two 50's, who's ahead for the other spot, Cowan or Khawaja? None of those questions are easy to answer IMO.

Only because it's Round 1. Otherwise would have exchanged it for one of the North or Bulldogs games.

While I don't like the idea of playing home games interstate, whether that's in Darwin or Hobart. It does carry some weight, at least in the short term to make us more financially strong. The only way I'd consider it is if we could get some sort of deal with the AFL that we'd agree to play 8 home games in Tassie, 3 home games at the G, 5 away games at the G but with some sort of deal that Victorian Members still got entry to all the away games and still had a designated seating area in the Northern Stand for example like we do at our home games. And then 6 games for our interstate travel or trip down to Geelong. If you used this years fixture for example we could have looked at something like this: Home Games at the G: Round 1 v Port Adelaide Round 10 v Hawthorn Round 11 v Collingwood Home Games at Launceston Round 3 v West Coast Round 7 v Gold Coast Round 15 v Sydney Round 18 v North Melbourne Home Games at Hobart Round 4 v GWS Round 14 v Western Bulldogs Round 17 v Brisbane Round 21 v Fremantle Away Games at the G: Round 2 v Essendon Round 6 v Carlton Round 8 v Richmond Round 13 v St Kilda Round 23 v Western Bulldogs Other away games: Round 5 v Brisbane (GABBA) Round 9 v Fremantle (Pattersons) Round 16 v Geelong (Skilled) Round 19 v GWS (Skoda) Round 20 v Gold Coast (Metricon) Round 22 v Adelaide (AAMI) The only down side with that draw is that after the round 13 away game at the G to St Kilda, unless you made the trip down the highway in Royund 16, we wouldn't see the Dees again at the G until Round 23. But it gives you an idea of how we could still keep an equal presence at the G and make some money in Tassie. The long term goal of course would be to get to the stage that when Tassie want their own team, we'll be financially strong enough to return to the G full time for 11 home games a year.

Stumps on Day 2 in what's been a rain effected day. Australia 4/266 Watson 90 Clarke 45 Hughes 44* Haddin 38* Khawaja 27 Cowan 3 Good innings from Watson as openenr and an encouraging start for Hughes giving him the early front running over Cowan and Khawaja. I'm 90% sure Rogers will play the 1st Test. Don't think they would have picked a 35 year old who's played 1 test years ago for this tour to just sit in the dressing room. One things for sure, our poor form and Warner's suspension has certainly made selection interesting and added something to these warm up matches.

I reckon Burgs does a great job. And as for the article you mentioned. It isn't relly any different from Emma Quayle's article the other week. So it's obviously a shared view from others outside the club with no bias so I don't think we can acusse Burgs of spin here, just giving supporters some hope in the middle of what's been a difficult season.

Score at stumps. Somerset 320 Strac 4/33 Pattinson 4/56 Faulkner 1/70 Lyon 1/75 Australia 0/2 At one stage Somerset were 2/304 so it was a pretty amazing result to bowl them out for 320. But the fact we let them get to 2/304 is pretty concerning considering bowling is suppose to be our strength.

I'm hoping that Rogers will be one of our bright lights this tour.

Not in the squad so we shouldn't have to worry about that thankfully!

That's a fair concern, and I expect both Ahmed and Agar to overtake him in not to long a time. Also look out for John Holland, James Muirhead and Adam Zampa. But having said that Lyon is still an upgrade on what we previously had. Beer or Hauritz.

IMO you should always play a specialist spinner unless you are playing on an absolute green top that's likely to see a result within 3 days. Remember The Oval in 2013.....

I'm in two minds about Faulkner. I really rate him as a One Day player, but question whether his batting average in first class cricket 29.odd is good enough for a top 7 spot. But then again with Warner likely to miss the first test are playing two of Khawaja, Hughes or Wade as specialist batsmen likely to do any better? Faulkner's left arm fast would be handy as the 5th bowling option and meaning that 3 of Pattinson, Siddle, Bird or Harris can play along with Lyon as Faulkner averages around 23 with the ball in first class cricket which is very good. However again I worry that his bowling may be very similar to that of Nathan Bracken, very good in ODI's and First Class cricket, but just not quite good enough to cut the mustard in Test cricket. If we had a really good keeper batsman like Gilchrist or AB De Villiers who's capable of batting in the top 6 then there would certainly be very good argument to play Faulkner, but with Haddin's poor form before he was dropped and Wade's struggles for consistency, coupled with our horrible batting line up of late (Clarke excluded) you wonder if this will weaken it even more or is the argument that it can't get any worse? If Faulkner does play as the all rounder it would then mean Watson can concerntrate on his batting and return to the top of the order where he's at his best. The XI would likely look like IMO: Rogers Watson Cowan Clarke* Khawaja +Haddin Faulkner Siddle Pattinson Lyon Bird Gives us a new, hopefully more stable openning combination. Cowan at 3 who's got a good technique and will hopefully help sure us up and not allow us to loose quick early wickets. Clarke up to 4 as we need him in as early as possible. Khawaja at 5 for me. I know he's a top order player, yet this would allow him to come in a bit lower down with less pressure on him, his highest test score so far I think was scored at no 5 or 6. Haddin at 6 and hopefully can re-discover some batting form, Faulkner as the bowling all rounder at 7 and then the bowling line up as I've mentioned, although Harris could come in for Bird? Will be interesting to see what way Boof goes.

Haha. my bad. Clisby in Terlich's HBF position... Terlich can stay in the BP.

Further amendment with Jamar out for an extended period. IN: Frawley, Gawn OUT: Pedersen, Spencer (susp) FB: Garland, Frawley, Terlich HB: Dunn, McDonald, Terlich C: M. Jones, N. Jones, Byrnes HF: Howe, Watts, Kent FF: Fitzpatrick, Dawes, Davey FOLL: Gawn, Sylvia, Rodan INT: Blease, Toumpas, Trengove SUB: Nicholson EMERG: Davis, Jetta, Sellar Davis on standbye for Chip, Garland or Tommy Mac. Sellar on standbye for Gawn or Fitzy. Jetta to come in if anyone else was a late change to give us another midfielder.

Yep. 2005. Ontop of the ladder after round 12 only to then loose 7 in a row and fall out of the 8 needing to win our last 3 to make the finals. Started with that 1 point win over the Cats, then beat an inform Bulldogs team by 3 points after being down by about 20 with 5 minutes to go and then knocked off Essendon by 10 points in Round 22. Geelong did get revenge though flogging us in the elimination final and King breaking Jeff White's face. 2006 was when we had the draw down there that ended their season as has alreay been mentioned.