Binmans PA

We did chase Ross Lyon.

Grimes has proved himself and Trengove hasn't? Give me a break. I'd prefer the ball in the hands of Trengove over Grimes every day of the week. Though ultimately I deem them both to be "AFL standard", just nowhere near where we want them to be eventually. Just a quick side point too. It gives me the shits that Neeld refers to JT as "Trengrove". Get it right. You coach the kid and appointed him captain for crying out loud. Take a listen to the Neeld/Dawes press conference.

It's a ridiculous statement, because in order to get it into an uncontested situation, you have to first win it in a contested situation. Geelong make it look easy.

Geelong have been undeniably lucky with their father/son draft picks, but you still have to develop them. Credit to Geelong. They can't be questioned. 125 wins from 150 games. Imagine that.

Oh and while we're praising. How well do they set up at stoppages? Amazing. It's not just in the midfield too. They set up with discipline right around the ground. The backline is brilliant too.

Some of the creative handballing tonight. Some of it is as good as a kick. Lots of handballs over the head that always seem to hit targets too. So impressive.

Hahaha, this is great. Hurley looks like a footballer until he kicks it. I hope they beat them by 50 or 60.

He's also a far better kick and general decision maker than McDonald, Grimes and Nicholson.

I can see the thinking here though. Jimmy T is young and has to earn his spot. Davey won't be there next year and I doubt Rodan will either, so it's simply about getting experience on the ground. I'd take Rodan this week over Davey.

Jamar is a dumb footballer. The hit outs he wins are either straight to the opposition, much like Warnock's last week, or at his feet, usually ending up with Nathan Jones being tackled and a reset. In modern footy you cannot carry a player who does not work around the ground. Jamar isn't always lazy, but when he's trying, he's still painfully slow and for a bloke who's played almost a decade of footy, he looses his feet far too easily.

Keep playing Jimmy T down at Casey. Another two or three weeks. If he earns a call up, he earns a call up. Meanwhile, Fitzy has earned his recall and Dawes will be a welcome addition. People saying Jamar is our best ruckman are kidding themselves. He can't tap past his feet. Offers absolutely nothing around the ground. It's like having 17 players out there when he plays. Spencer provides a contest around the ground and taps to advantage. It's no coincidence that our midfield were far more competitive in the stoppages last week without Jamar. Clark is our most talented ruckman, but Gawn is number one for me now. Clark as back up, with Spencer has number two. Jamar's finished.

Oh you mean upstanding types like the violent alcoholic Eric Cantona and the drug addicted Mark Bosnich? I know what you mean, but a number of the articles coming out of the UK at the moment are saying words to the effect that their game will never again witness a reign such as Sir Alex's. World sports have become such big business since '86 that there are too many people with financial interests to ever let a manager stay in the post for such a period of time again. Frankly, if the next Man Utd manager fails to win trophy ware in their first six years, they'll be gone. More pertinently, the AFL is a different beast all together. There are massive broadcast rights, club sponsorships, membership bases etc that each take a beating with poor team performance, particularly when these performances are prolonged and seemingly perennial.

Young whipper snappers. Back in my day we'd keep coaches for three years, now they don't get to see out two years of a contract. Oh wait, Daniher, a coach serving during the early Gen Y days, is the longest serving MFC coach. I wonder if instead this has something to do with the dissatisfaction of a broad subsection of the MFC supporter base? Nah, it's just short-sighted Gen Ys. Anyway, I get it. You're disappointed your life has passed you by, you've probably bought yourself a flashy new car, a leather jacket or motorbike, so be happy with that, but there's no way you'll convince me this has anything to do with Gen Y.

Really good move this. I like it.

1) Actually, I thought the Carlton game was one of the first time's I've been able to decipher our gameplan. Perhaps that's because I took the emotion out of it this week? Our zone was working the majority of the time. The times it failed were a result of abhorrent skill errors and lapses in concentration (that I'm certainly not excusing). Our defenders were sucked into the contest a few too many times and goals resulted out the back. We have to be smarter about how we attack certain contests. I was merely happy finally seeing endeavour from our players. Week by week it becomes clearer RE: fitness. This is the biggest hamstring, outside of disposal and decision making, that our team must deal with this season. The zone seems incredibly taxing and they will not be able to sustain this consistently this year. But all I want is endeavour all year. Every week, every quarter, every minute. 2) And Trenners doesn't have OP. This was my opinion last year. I think it's his workload in the legs. He's lost some yards, because of the last two pre-seasons. But his seeming dedication to training and preparation tells me he'll make it. The skills at his disposal, along with his professionalism, support this.

You're going to need a more mature mid's name amongst that 2016 team.

Clark to Freo. Oh wait.

Cameron will be a gun, but fix the bloody midfield. Dawes and Clark are enough company for Hogan to thrive under for the moment. I'd look at adding crumbers to that list before KPFs.

Soft as butter.

Turned it over by foot, struggled to keep his feet and went missing for large patches. Still fails to dominate his opponent consistently for four quarters. Not a gun. Not a gun at all.

Right. Is that a question? If so, yes. It was pretty crystal clear today that the midfielders aren't fit enough. Their work rate was up on last week's standards and the zone actually worked a lot better today, but too often the midfielders didn't run hard enough to get back and help out the defence. Further, everyone up the ground failed to present options for our defenders to kick at. Admittedly, the kicking out of the back half was atrocious. It doesn't take a genius to work out that you can't leave opposition players unattended at stoppages. So yes, I have managed to figure out that our midfield coach is no good. He would have identified and then implemented some change in set ups over the last few weeks if he was capable. Neeld is in the same boat. It's taken until now to tighten up at stoppages though and we're still occasionally very loose. Royal, like Neeld, has to go. Simple. I find it difficult to believe you cannot see the connection between wanting the senior coach sacked and the man responsible for our woeful midfield too.

Agreed, Robbie, but I couldn't fault his endeavour and work rate today though. Really good inclusion.

Once again, today I thought it was our best game defensively for a long, long time. Our midfield's defensive pressure and at times our forward pressure was rubbish, but one on one, our defenders did really well. What did let them down however was their horrid disposal by foot, which cost us a number of goals. But yes, Rawlings is no Wellman.

Royal is rubbish, but I thought our midfield was pretty good today, considering the talent out there. Our midfielders didn't seem to be as static as in previous week's and I'm inclined to think it might have had something to do with Spencer and Gawn's ability to tap. We didn't seem to set up so loose today either. We had numbers on both sides of the stoppage, although there few a few exceptions that were glaring. Royal has to go, but I thought today our midfield was far more effective. I still fault them for a lot of the scores against. One on one, our backline was almost fantastic, but by foot they were atrocious. Once again, that seems to be a very taxing game we're playing. The midfielders just stopped running.

He's consistently been in the top 3 for hit outs over the last few years. It's what he does (or doesn't do) with it that counts.