Akum

It's simple - Watts fits Port's game style better than ours. Classic win-win - he'll play better with Port (and they'll play better with him); we'll play better without him. Should be an interesting GF!

8 to Duckwood

Clearly the AFL doesn't want the Dees in the GF. No such free as in the back any more.

One of the really annoying things about the game is that teams who play defensive and even bend the rules seem to get more friendly umpiring. Something I can never understand.

Couldn't agree with you more. You get the feeling that Dees vs Dogs GF would not be the AFL's preferred outcome. I reckon a lot of the gripes this year about AFLW are because of all the hype about the Blues vs Pies season opener. The worst game of AFLW between the worst two teams, whose AFL clubs both give the impression of being ho-hum about it.

... and getting a highly-skilled intercept-marking defender seems to have really added so much to the team structure and performance.

They're playing as if they really have a point to prove, having just missed out on finals last year.

Was good to see Alyssa MIfsud back as well, and giving away a few goals to teammates.

16 scoring shots to 4.

We'll beat Geelong without Viney.

Good "thoughts" Poita. GWS prepared for this well. They picked their two toughest players to wear Daisy and O'Dea like a glove for much of the game, (though if Paxman hadn't gone down they probably wouldn't have been able to cover the three of them), so our two best ball users were under the pump most of the time; when they did get clear, they were really damaging. GWS defended in numbers and stopped us spreading from stoppages pretty well; they tried to score on fast breaks, and did move the ball well at times. As others have said, defensive skills are easier to teach to "average" players than attacking skills - the tackling, for example, has gone up a notch from last year, as has teams playing a defensive strategy. It will take some time for the attacking skills to catch up. And there are a number of players from other sports who have definite athletic ability but are still learning the skills. The problem about expansion is that now everybody else wants a piece of the pie, including the clubs that were indifferent at the beginning, though other clubs might feel justified in believing they were gazumped at the original allocation. The AFL will probably engineer it so that the big Melbourne clubs, Sydney and Brisbane (GCS) will be at the head of the queue.

I've only seen the highlights, but most of our goalscoring moves seemed to be initiated by Elise O'Dea.

The last time AFL looked like becoming a rolling maul (Swans defensive "flood"; Hawks "rolling zone") it got picked apart first by the Cats and to a lesser extent the Dogs by rapid ball movement and precision foot skills. So much so that Clarko saw that this was a far more effective way to play and changed the Hawks style accordingly. These things can change within the course of a season, and if you get caught out with last year's game style, which other teams have worked hard to counter, you can end up holding a ticket for a bus that left long ago. The trick, as Clarko realised when he had the cattle, is to develop next year's game style.

Part of me can't help but wonder whether you're on to something here. But we probably won't find out until the 30-year rule is up. Or until one of them writes a book.

Again, for the umpteenth time: Watts is gone. He's now someone else's problem, probably Port's. Goody stays and continues to be a vital factor for us and our future success. And because it's Goody who's the ongoing concern as far as we (MFC) are concerned, some of us feel that Goody could have handled his share of this thing better. That's it.

Absolutely. This should have been the reason he gave from the beginning. If he'd left out all the pointless talk about his "lack of discipline off field" (and training blah blah blah), it would have only helped our ability to trade.

Houli? Martin? Cotchin? Rance? With Watts gone, Salem is the only Demon who comes anywhere near this quartet in quality and consistency of ball use. And they moved the ball into space brilliantly and lowered their eyes into attack, resisted the temptation most of the time to bomb it on to Riewoldt's head (the way that we do predictably with Hogan and, yes, Watts, under Goodwin) which would have allowed Adelaide's tall defenders to pick it off with ease. They either hit forward targets, or delivered it low and hard and into spaces when no targets were available. They were brilliantly coached, and they were encouraged by their coach to take the game on and take risks. In all the bluster about Richmond's pressure, some have totally missed their skill and their quality of ball use. If they hadn't been able to hurt Adelaide so much when they had the ball, a lot of their pressure would have been wasted, and it would have been much harder to sustain.

Since you asked so nicely ... There was absolutely no need for Goodwin & to a lesser extent Jones to talk his value down early in the piece. They gained nothing from doing it, and really messed up our capacity to negotiate a higher pick. Where was Mahoney at that time? The FD took ages to work out its narrative, and then its negotiating position, and by then it was almost too late, a lot of damage has been done. Even some "Watts needs to go" posters wondered why we were talking his value down so much. In answer to your question about "how else you can do it": how about something neutral that aims at the ball (i.e. the issue) and not the man (Watts)? Such as: "Our game next year is going to be much more focussed on contested ball. Watts has great talents, but not in the areas that our team will be moving into. We've therefore encouraged him to seek other options where his talents will be a better fit for their style of play." Pick 15, please. [P.S. My opinion (not fact) for why Goodwin & Jones were so heavy on criticising Watts initially was that they were struggling to convince the playing group of the strength of their reasons for pushing him out. I can't imagine who else the would have been trying to convince that "Watts is bad". If my opinion has any truth whatsoever, I very much doubt whether what anybody has said since would have made the slightest bit of difference. Which would be grounds for concern.]

It's feasible. We're pushing him out 1 year into a 3-year contract, so we're the party that's taken the initiative to break the contract. Not unreasonable to expect that we should pay some of what remains of it.

True, they know they have to toe the line according to the rules, but it doesn't mean they all have to like them. Or that they're all convinced that the "rules" have been fairly applied in this case.

Watts's manager also manages Stringer. We've been pre-occupied right up until Thurs with getting Lever. Port have been pre-occupied with getting Motlop over Suns (thus massively disrupting the GAJ trade), and before that landing Rockliff. Perhaps it's only now that the Motlop FA trade has gone through that they can start talking. Port have lost Trengove who was apparently on 600K, and also Impey & probably Lobbe. I think it was Port themselves who said they had plenty of room. I'd say that Geelong & Swans were interested because with the way Goodwin spoke initially, they expected us to accept a late second or even early third. Since then, we've stopped Goodwin talking to anybody and Mahoney's done all the press calls and statements and he's tightened things up a lot.

Mahoney's done well to get it down to 30, since he came into the picture after the initial statements of Jones and Goodwin (twice each), that went pretty hard for Watts when there was no need, made it look like we'd be lucky to get mid-40s.

Not like us! Any gaps we have that need to be plugged, we have ... Oh. Right.

Could get very interesting if it doesn't.

Surely players would have provision for days off in their contract? Surely there couldn't be a problem with what he did on what was probably his day off?