Akum

If Newton could kick straight, all his other faults wouldn't matter. If he could kick straight and average 3 goals a game, then even if he only got it 5 times a game, that's 60-70 goals in a full season. Having said that, there are 3 things about Newton that bother me: (1) The fact that his worst is truly terrible - if he was average to good in most games, there's a place for him. (2) It must be heartbreaking for the players downfield to have to fight so hard to get it to him in a good position, only to see him fluff the easy shot. (3) The impression* I get is that when Newton's out the team seems to kick straight; when he's in, the whole team seems to be inaccurate. Maybe this is just an impression built up over the past few weeks, but certainly in a few of the earlier games this season, it was only our accuracy that stopped us getting flogged. If kicking for goals is "99% in your head", and who could be better qualified to state this than PH, could one forward repeatedly missing sitters "infect" others? * (and I'm fully aware that this "impression" may not withstand scrutiny!) The good news is that it's only Newton himself who can fix this, and he's got one more season to do it. In 2010 it will no longer be a matter of "will he be good enough one day?", he will have to produce the goods. There's definitely a place there for him if he can do it, and all he really needs to do is fix his kicking for goal.

So good to see some of the less appreciated players such as Valenti, Bate & Dunn hitting their straps. All will be valuable to us in future, and there's no way we'll let Valenti go.

Do you think? I still think that they pulled off a heist last year, got to finals on the strength of their "rolling zone" game plan which only a few clubs had worked out how to combat during the season, then to the GF because they happened to play teams in the finals that hadn't worked it out, then beat a superior team who had worked it out but who got major stage fright. Now most other teams have worked out how to beat their one and only game plan, they've been shown up as a one-trick pony. I think they've got a quickie premiership by ambush, but their list is always going to struggle against capable teams with good footskills. But it DOES show: (1) the value of a novel game plan; (2) that come finals time, anything can happen; and (3) god it would be great to get a premiership any old how, by ambush, grand larceny, high treason or whatever. Clarko did a brilliant job of pinching a premiership. But I have real doubts as to whether they'll be able to sustain their 2008 performance in any year, with the midfield they've got, which will smash lower teams but always struggle against top teams. If we want to dominate for a few years either side of 2013, I think the St Kilda model of long slow build (i.e. exactly what we're doing) is the way to go.

Just wanted to pick up on this, because it's got missed. If the aim is to get the ball to a forward within kicking distance, the high bomb to CHF is the laziest, most indisciplined, lowest percentage way of doing this. The defence will sweep it away almost every time, and guys like Maxwell have built a career on cutting off these VFL-reserves-standard attacks. Yet some people want a "power forward" or "tall forward". Having a high-marking forward who manages to hold a pack-breaking mark every few games or so (which always gets on the highlights reel) is what actually encourages these useless high bombs in the first place. The so-called "power forwards" like Riewoldt, Brown, Fev, Buddy et al get most of their goals through leads and one-on-one contests, not pack-breakers. Anyone who bombs it to them would be breaking team rules, unless it's down there so fast that they're one-on-one with no chance of being double-teamed. They get maybe 90% of their goals through other skills - speed off the mark, timing, strong hands, being able to lose opponents, being able to hold one's ground in body-on-body, kicking efficiency - rather than their ability to take packs marks or the occasional specky. If you're forcing your key forwards to bust packs to get the ball, you're in trouble. A forward line with Watts Jurrah Bate PLUS another tall would risk being top-heavy, unless the other tall had these other skills in abundance.

I would have thought that if they were going to give him a send-off game at all it would be the only one we might win. There's no sadder end to a career than getting chaired off (or not) after your last game in which your team has been smashed by the eventual premiers.

I was under the impression we were trying to win this! Against probably the only ruckman in the AFL who's a potential matchwinner, surely the only explanation for picking PJ as 1st ruck is that they're not 100% sure about Jamar's fitness. In the same vein, Brock on the bench is also a bit odd, unless they're not sure about him playing out a whole game, in which case why name him at all? And Robbo named last on a 7-man bench. This is the send-off????? And they'd have to keep Valenti in the 22 after his game last week, wouldn't they? On the other hand, McNamara & McKenzie would be stiff to miss out too. And does naming Dunn in the centre mean that he's got the job on Pav? Despite these misgivings, this looks like our best team for weeks.

This draft has a lot of quality at the top but it seems to tail off quite quickly after the first 25 or 30. I think that's a key factor. If we get the 3 top-20 picks we want, it wouldn't surprise me if we don't go much deeper than that. I get the feeling that, apart from the obvious retirees, there won't be much cutting into the current playing group this year. There's simply not enough to be gained by cutting just for the sake of cutting, unless the club can be sure of picking up better prospects in the lower levels of the draft than the players they're cutting. For example, they'd be crazy to get rid of Jamar, Cheney or Valenti for a below-30 pick in this year's draft, IMHO. Of course, having said that, if Newton, PJ & Bell were contracted to 2009 instead of 2010, they'd be out too, because there would be a better chance of picking up someone better in the below-30 part of the draft. As it is, they've each got another year to prove that they're worth keeping beyond a nanosecond after the final siren of the 2010 season.

This is great news, though Cale could be an awesome player in 2 years time and we might have to work a lot harder to keep him.

I really liked Rohan from the carnival too. He seemed to have flair in abundance, the lack of which is my one (admittedly slight) concern about Trengove. But looking at the TAC reports he doesn't seem to be anywhere much. Has he been injured? Or playing a lot for his school like Scully?

The other element of this besides new players like Scully is that we have so many young players with so much potential "upside". Thoiugh it's ridiculous to expect that they'll all fulfill this potential, it's very likely that a few of them will. And it's impossible to tell who will make the big leap. I didn't expect Petterd to be able to do so well as he has in the past few weeks, he's definitely added something to the team performance and gone from a fringe player to a mid-level player and may well do even better. Blease & Strauss are two with immense upside that we haven't really seen yet (hard to tell how much Strauss's shoulder affected his play in VFL earlier this year, only time will tell). If someone like Bennell or McKenzie (or Martin or Jetta or ...) puts a lot of work in over the summer & plays up to their potential in the preseason, we'll be writing them into our best teams for round 1. Should be very interesting times ahead.

There were some wraps on Daniel Talia after the U18 carnival, after he shifted from CHB to CHF in one game and played well. What's happened to him?

Can we talk trading? The clubs that are likely to have a surplus of tall forwards, for example, would have to be St Kilda, Hawthorn & Brisbane. One I like the look of is Beau Dowler of Hawthorn (though I'd think twice about trading for anybody named Beau). He's going to struggle getting a lot of games there. Is there anything wrong with him that I've missed? Any others?

Thomas sees tanking everywhere. On FC he said that WC were tanking against Essendon, they just happened to find themselves in front at the end (ummm ... by nearly 5 goals ... and they were in fron the whole game). That left even Caro speechless. He said "nothing could convince me that they're not tanking" and in a way he's right - if there was 100% evidence he wouldn't be convinced. An ego the size of Jupiter. IMO what caused the need for about half of those moves that CTD mentioned was the fact that we had 3 or 4 injured players for most of the last half who couldn't play. The only way we could rest players in the last quarter was to get Whelan to stand in the FP. DB had to rest some of the on-ballers in field positions, like the BP (McDonald, Valenti, may well have been others) and maybe FP (Bartram? I'm not sure, I wasn't watching that closely). It seems to be the fashion for players to be rested on the bench after goals these days - they couldn't do that with Dunn & Petterd so they had to send them back too. And I think Newton & PJ were so useless that they would have spent much of the last half on the pine if we had 22 fit players, but DB had to try to put them as far away from the play as possible. The case for the Dees tanking has yet to be proven, IMO. We're not Carltank, who deliberately played to lose in 2007 - we've never done that.

Strawbs, this would be nirvana! This would round off the year absolutely brilliantly. Do we have the right to wish for something as wonderful as this?

Can't wait to see Wona & LJ on the same field at the same time! Roll on 2010.

The win didn't resolve much, but it was obvious which team would have the better prospects going into next year. Maybe that's what narked her. And Richmond must be the worst team to barrack for, because for years and years they show something once every so often to suggest they might be on the way up and the supporters' hopes rise again, but then they get ahead of themselves and think they're wonderful and come thudding back to earth. Must be really frustrating time after time.

If we ever want to lose, why would we play Newton & Miller anywhere else other than FF & CHF? Anybody else we play there (Warnock, Frawley) could only be an improvement. And why would we play PJ anywhere other than ruck changing in BP?

I'm not insulting you, but Bailey wasn't trying to manufacture a loss. If he was, he stinks at it. We had 19 fit players at 3/4 time, then Riv got injured. If the team had fallen right away in the last qtr, nobody could have blamed them, but they showed fantastic character to be in front at the final whistle - character that will stand us in good stead in the years to come. If he was trying to manufacture a loss, there was a blindingly obvious way to do it - keep Newton & Miller as our key forwards, ruck PJ the whole game, and drive Junior into the ground by keeping him on the ball. That would have guaranteed a loss 100%. It was the moves he pulled out that nearly won us the game.

Great OP, and every post in this thread has been right on the money. As DB (I think) said in May, there would be lots of experimentation this year, especially towards the end. He's had to be a lot more creative because of our terrible run with injuries for the past few games, and then during the game on Sunday. We've learned a lot about many players in that time that will be very useful to carry forward.

This is the article referred to in the "Vlad supports MFC and Bailey" thread. Both Vlad and Schwab said that Vlad rang MFC for support of their current strategies, not a "please explain" or "don't so it again or you're gone" at all. Vlad then gives a well-argued defence of Bailey, mentioning Frawley (and Brisbane's Merrett), Sylvia, their final-quarter rotations, and the fact that they have been open about experimenting since May. Caro must have been grinding her teeth while writing this article (which is why it's a one-point win!), I bet she would have loved to editorialise here & there, but it was a report, not an opinion piece (that will come tomorrow for sure). In a battle for the integrity of the AFL between Vlad and the baying media pack, I'd go for Vlad every time. Some might want to portray DB as an evil genius who's coaching all-out to lose and has now deceived even Vlad; I see him as acting with absolute integrity throughout all this mess, and showing great strength of character in the process.

The rush of soft-tissue injuries - calf, groin, quad - could be a concern, these injuries should be avoidable and it may mean we haven't got it right as far as preparation is concerned. On the other hand, it may just mean that some players are getting genuinely tired after a gruelling season. It also seems to be coming out one by one about players who have battled OP, we only hear about it when they beat this injury & come good - we heard about Petterd this week, and we know about Sylvia, who else? Seriously though, it would be a major concern of these avoidable types of injuries continued to be seen so often next year. Part of the reason for St Kilda's success this year is that they've virtually wiped out these injuries altogether.

It's Caro's article, she must be spitting chips having to print Vlad's very reasoned & intelligent defence of his non-tanking stance, particularly as it applies to Melbourne. She seemed ready to hang draw & quarter DB on Monday night, kept talking loudly over the top of Garry Lyon when he was trying to say something sensible, was obviously peed off at the Dees' moral victory over her beloved Toigs. Watch for the Caro backstab article (vilifying Vlad by twisting his words without giving him chance of reply) in the next few days - she's not going to like being made to look so stupid. You'd think she'd be used to it by now.

One problem I foresee is that it's such a shallow draft. Most clubs will pass on the 5th pick, some may even pass on the 4th pick. Even with the PP, we may struggle to get any more than 2 great, 1 good and 1 hopeful out of the draft, and maybe 1 out of the PSD. But we may have to rely on our current list plus Scully & maybe Trengove plus a tall from the 2nd round. So we may not be delist as many as we thought this year; Junior was great against Tiges. And some potential candidates for delisting - Dunn, Bartram, Petterd, even Miller - have really picked it up in the past few weeks. Maybe we'd trade Miller & Bartram, but it would have to be a very good trade - I have a feeling that Bartram in particular is keyed to really tear it up next year. Of course, we'd get more if we trade heavily. We need outside midfielders and key forwards, we have a surplus of defenders, especially small defenders, inside midfielders, and maybe one excess ruckman. And I'd far rather trade PJ than Jamar, any day of the week.

I'll see your Jack & raise you one ranga. Gary Rohan.

Sorry to go back so far in the discussion, haven't had email access all day, but this is an excellent point. The worst thing he could do now is to stop all the experimentation. The best way to show that we're seriously experimenting and not tanking (i.e. playing to lose on the field) is if we do exactly the same level of experimentation against Freo and thrash them. And Jaded, the impression I got was that Caro was referring to the Richmond players being not happy about playing against a side that they thought weren't trying to win. But think about it - which players in Caro's favourite team would be likely to admit to her after the game that they thought the bottom side who they'd just scraped a very lucky win against weren't even trying? They'd be more likely to tell her "oh no, the players were trying their guts out - they're much better than we thought!" Could be a product of Caro's imagination perhaps? But you might be right - has anyone heard on the grapevine of any dissatisfaction among the Dees players? Cos frankly I find it hard to believe anything Caro says, she works on the basis that if you throw up enough wild rumours then sooner or later you're bound to get one right.