Adam The God

Vince is the bloke who should make way. He doesn't marshall the zone like Lewis does and his kicking isn't as good either. As we've been saying for a while, time to play Petty alongside Oscar. Jetta, Joel Smith, Hibberd and Lewis the other backs.

Pretty bloody bog ordinary, mate. Was he injured/sore in the second half? Seemed to go missing for 2 quarters and sat on the bench for much of the last.

Our inability to be clean inside 50 and connect regularly with each other / have any forward half synergy, meant that we didn't capitalise early on our ridiculous midfield dominance. I have so much love for Neville Jetta though. Feel like adding him on Facebook. What a star. I wish all our leaders played like him. Tom McDonald looked really good early on. Viney, Oliver and Brayshaw had good games. Gawn battled manfully but still continues to tap to ridiculously dangerous spots at times. Melksham is now a gun for us. It feels as if when he gets it across half forward, we score 90% of the time. His kicking is beautiful. However, tonight he was absolutely murdered by the umpires. Should have had at least two goals and instead had about 3 free kicks against. Just on this, it was the first time this year I felt the umpiring was incredibly one-sided throughout (the QB performance was only lopsided the first half). ANB continues to make stupid mistakes with ball in hand. Harmes was better, but fumbled when it mattered. Oscar wasn't immune from mistakes either - why didn't he handball to his team mate in space, rather than try kicking it 5 metres and turning it over. Fortunately, Joel Smith's spearing tackle knocked the ball free to Jetts. How did Oscar get caught on the mark too? That cost us another goal. Poor communication back there. Petracca was impotent again for 3 and a bit quarters. He drifts in and out of games far too much for my liking. He's played 50 games now and struts around as if he's an A grader. It'd be really good if we didn't have to wait another season for him to play consistent footy, but I fear that's on the cards. And then there's Hogan. WTF was he doing tonight? He spent the first three quarters inexplicably trying to crumb the packs when it clearly wasn't working and then his night was summed up in the last two minutes, when he failed to take a relatively gettable contested mark in our forward line, only for it to ping outside 50 and see Westhoff take the contested mark that he couldn't. Hogan's inability to compete in the air meant our system consistently broke down. How does one player lose so much confidence across one game? He was flying heading into the Collingwood match and against Port, he looked like he was afraid of body contact. He's lost his creativity far too easily. Then there were our leaders. Jetta was brilliant. Lewis was passable. But Vince was ordinary. Hibberd was uncharacteristically fumbly and continually beaten one out. And Jones. He was terrible. Is there a worse captain in the league? Maybe Jarryd Geary or Marc Murphy. His leadership was found wanting yet again in a crucial game for the club. He's really on the cusp of B and C grade these days. His leg speed is becoming a real issue and were Viney 2 years older, I'd say give Viney the sole captaincy. I bang on about his leadership whenever we lose, but so often when the game is there to be won, Jones is fumbly, or tries to take on too many players, or simply kicks it long in hope. You could tell we were cooked when Smith, McDonald and Jetta all went down within 2-3 minutes. The umpires killed us, but to not kick a goal in over 40 minutes of football, it's no wonder these media muppets keep saying we need to earn respect. I didn't think we'd win tonight, but I thought we should have. We just don't seem to have the leadership yet and until we do, we won't win these important games or earn respect.

Jones is a liability. Seriously. So slow.

If you compare our forward syngery this week with previous weeks, it is miles apart. I don't know how many times Petracca knocked over his team mates and then fumbled the ball. We've been rattled by the Collingwood affair and seem to be lacking confidence (Hogan and Petracca in particular).

I reckon Harmes will play on the outside. Maybe on a wing. Otherwise, Jones goes to half back or the wing. Harmes' strengths are working hard and getting into good position to receive. He's improved on his tackling and contested work this year, but he should be utilised on the outside IMO.

I reckon there's still too many scarred supporters out there that won't come back purely with one finals appearance, unless we go deep.

I previously said I didn't think Smith would make it. I apologise. I am glad to see him back. He really impressed me earlier in the year. He brought the ball to the ground, was good below his knees and brought team mates into the game. An important "in" I reckon. Lets see how the forwardline functions with him in it now. We play the Adelaide Oval really well, so I'm hoping we can get on top of them early and silence the crowd.

Pretty obvious move for mine. We've lost the stoppages convincingly in the last few weeks, so Tyson's clearance strengths will contribute to our midfield and his weakness of lack of foot speed won't get shown up given Port's slower midfielder.

I'll take 44,000 this year. Let's make finals, win a final and we'll be able to surpass the 45,000 barrier next year. 50,000 is very gettable by 2020.

Quite true. We don't know how they were treated internally and maybe they were thoroughly respected, consulted, felt valued etc, but we can only comment on the external messaging and to my mind, if that was me, I could have interpreted that as a shot to my ego. I guess given how carefully PJ choses his words, I would hope Bartlett would do the same. And look, perhaps there wasn't a lighter way of saying it, but that does seem unlikely.

It's more how you manage an organisation or a team of people working for you. As someone who oversees film productions, I can tell you that people feel a lot more valued and work harder when they are respected. I think this is a completely separate issue to the participation award culture in schools and in some homes, which will see a generation of kids grow up with absolutely no resilience what so ever. Instead, I see this as being about organisational cohesion and the evidence says ensuring people feel valued and part of a team (good culture), is how you get the best out of the majority of people. It's also a key pillar to ensuring loyalty. Loyalty is also clearly a trait PJ has worked hard to build up within the walls of the footy club. Time will tell if Bartlett's messaging around topics such as this, will impact on the culture of the club.

Or... Petty debuts alongside Oscar. Particularly, with Port's talls. My gut tells me Harry will debut this week.

Demonland might become more interesting for it, but the club seems a little less tight lipped in the last week, than it has in the past. Or maybe I'm simply reading into it...

That would be the Federal Government you're thinking of. You know, the ones trying to privatise the ABC, having already handed Murdoch tax-payer-funded Telstra. That's a great organisation now isn't it? The more you privatise, the less customers get. It's all about cutting costs.

I'm not sure if I've got this, but I would hope there'd be a commercial element to the precinct we would own and could then exploit for profit. This is what we've always needed and in the MFC heartland. Fingers crossed. Another one for @Chook in Perth. Kudos again, mate. Wonder if the Sun went public after Chook's post yesterday. It wouldn't be the first time...

There is some grey, mate. To say Goodwin's job is under pressure would be ludicrous, but to say there's expectation would be closer to the mark.

Due respect? Not sure he's earned it... He's talking absolute rubbish as usual.

Or someone at AFL House said "settle down, Tom".

As I said to my old man, I'd be worried if Malthouse had endorsed Pert. I remember what happened the last time he endorsed someone that came to our club from Collingwood. The bloke is a doddering old gronk.

Fair enough.

That'd be consultation then...

Kent lost me in his second season with a string of lazy performances. He's a goal kicker (when he's kicking them straight), but hasn't improved on his work rate in all his time at the club. He's old Melbourne.

I'd be staggered if the AFL's man wasn't consulted on Pert's appointment. Staggered.

Spot on, mate.