Akum

Joeboy, most of us look forward to your bit after every game. Of course we don't agree with all you say, that's the point, it's the best discussion-starter on the forum. Nobody does it better. Enjoy your break, and come back as provocative as ever.

Considering the shallowness of the draft, and the amount of upside in him, he must be a chance for a late pick. He'd come with a large and very colourful supporter base. Those Sudanese drums echoing around the MCG would be a buzz too!

This is true to some extent - we'll need some of the more experienced players but not all of them. The question is, how many do we need to stay to consolidate the young team, and how many to go to make way for draft picks etc? And the bolded part will be especially true from next year onwards. My concern is that as we improve & become competitive against top teams, we can't afford to carry experienced players who star against easybeats but disappear when the heat's on. If we're ever to move up the ladder, it's going to be the better teams that we have to be able to beat.

True, true and true. If you're concerned about the real problem, this is it. By all means keep discussing the merits or otherwise of "power forwards". But it's a moot point until there's more reliable and better quality supply from the midfield. A "power forward" can't make up for a seriously deficient midfield.

I only saw this on TV, but your summary & player evaluations seem spot on to me. As difficult as it might be to say this, I really liked PJ's game. Last week he got 50 or so taps but put almost all of them at his feet & into the pack, but this week he cleared the pack on a number of occasions and directed it much better overall. Also had to use his strength more to play as an actual ruckman rather than his usual ruck-rover style. He wasn't the best, but he showed things that I didn't think he was capable of. What I like so much about Casey is that they give the Dees players an opportunity to work on parts of their game that need to improve, but the team still performs. In the last few weeks we've seen Petterd, Bartram & Dunn come back into the Dees and play much better there because of how they were able to develop parts of their game while playing for Casey. The alignment is paying off already IMO.

So are Rawlings and Crocker. If the Tiges really were trying to tank, the mistake they made was to get themselves so far in front. Did they forget? Is every loss (or in this case "non-win") now going to be seen as tanking?

Was that his first or second goal where he won the ball by getting into Grimes's back? I thought the midfield tag worked well in the first quarter. In the second quarter, in whatever way, it was unravelled by moving Ablett to the goalsquare. I just liked Nasher's crack about Morton playing forward being "another experiment that unfortunately worked, just like having Jones do tagging roles" and agree - I think Jones should be persisted with, Ablett is very hard to tag for anyone over a whole game. Something we really lack is a competent midfield tagger, all the top teams have one, and if we don't develop one or two it's always going to hold us back.

What frustrates me about Robbo, Bruce & Brock is that they were all good (B&B very good) against Port & WC, but poor against the better teams. Yes, Robbo & Brock were against Scarlett & Ling, best in the business, but they didn't give a yelp, although in fairness the same could be said of Flash for the first time this year. Bruce gets the ball, but the quality of his disposal seems inversely proportional to the quality of the opposition. Starring against fellow cellar-dwellers is fine for where the team is now. But in future when we improve, we won't need players who shine only against the dud teams, we'll need players who can maintain their performance against top opposition and contribute to the team effort even if getting tagged. Will Bruce & Brock be able to do this? Not on the evidence we've seen so far. The disposal stats are interesting, but I've never been able to work out what constitutes an "effective disposal". Is it "effective" because a good connection is made with the ball (by foot or by hand), or is it "effective" because it goes to a team-mate in a better position? I suspect that for statisticians it's the former, but for fans it's the latter, and that's the discrepancy with Bruce. If he balloons it 50m to CHF where there's Robbo against three opponents who sweep it away, it's an effective possession statistically but a turnover as far as the game is concerned because there was only a 10% chance of his teammate getting it. What excites me about Jurrah and the Jacks (& Strauss & Blease by the way, two we haven't seen this year) is their ability to spear a pass to hit a teammate in traffic. This is the difference between purposeful disposal by foot, and disposal that may be effective but is hit-or-miss or kick-it-and-hope. This year it's the purposeful delivery - hitting a target - that marks out the top teams, because that's the only way to consistently beat defensive plays such as "floods" and "rolling zones" and "huddles". It's this skill I believe that's really going to define whether the older players stay or not when we start to climb the ladder.

Ablett had only 5 in the first quarter when JOnes tagged him on the ball and got some of it himself. Thompson then moved Ablett to FF, and DB took JOnes off him because he didn't want him to be playing FB. Ablett did his damage from then on. About Morton - think Richo IMO, but much smarter and more reliable kick. Imagine a 190cm wingman who can be changed to KPF & get 3 goals, or a KPF who can be switched into the midfield & be relied upon to pick up 7-8 possessions per quarter. Cale is going to be a big weapon in the years to come, and a major headache for opposition match-ups.

His pass to Petterd was almost as good. That's the point - once in a game is an exciting flash-in-the-pan, but he does "exciting" several times a game.

Hear hear

I take it all back. Brisbane 9.8 (62) Freo 6.5 (41) 18 mins

True, but if Brock can't get it out if he's being tagged, it makes it easy for good opposition to bring our entire game to a screeching halt. He HAS to be able to produce against top opposition. But maybe, fully fit and with a good preseason, he can. I'm prepared to give him benefit of the doubt, because we are so much better with Brock firing.

3Q Time Freo 6.5.41 BL 7.7.49. Maybe they're not tanking???? Said it before and I'll say it again - the Pies fall apart completely under pressure. 2nd qtr against us, last qtr against Dogs, 3rd qtr against Hawks. The most overrated team in the comp. To go out in straight sets in the finals.

I have not the slightest doubt that Cale will be fine. Just a matter of time IMO.

Agree with this, sort of. Of the four, Brock is definitely the one worth persisting with. To be fair, Davey was tagged out of the game too. Brock needs a preseason next year, needs to do whatever it takes to get him fully fit. I thought he was playing injured until the past two weeks when he showed no signs of it. Players who star against the duds and disappear against the top teams are a liability, but Brock definitely deserves another season to see if he can play well against top teams. If he can, he'll be valuable for the future. I think too that if Bruce is to be criticised for his delivery, so should Jones and probably Moloney. Though at least they get the hard ball. Robbo I feel sorry for. Hard to blame him for being not tall enough or fast enough for a key forward. But he's another who might do well against bottom teams but go missing against top opposition. We just can't afford that in 2010 and beyond. And that's the point.

I don't like such out-and-out player criticism. I even stuck up for Robbo last week. But this can't be disputed. The only thing I can say in their defence is that at least Brock was tagged, by one of the best in the business. On the other hand, I agree with those who say that next year we can't afford McLean, Moloney & Jones on the ground together.

With appropriate adjustments for your prejudices against Bate, Bennell, Bate, Jetta, Bate, Morton & Bate, it's pretty good. Not that these players were great, but I thought they all made a solid contribution. IMO considering the lack of contribution from Davey & McLean (who were tagged by the best in the business) and McDonald & Jones & Moloney (who weren't -the best thing that can be said about our midfield today is that we're one game closer to Scully!), it was a reasonable effort. Especially given the Cats' charity goals (in front of the home crowd) & junktime goals. Does anybody still think Cats will play off in GF? Saints vs Dogs for mine.

This game will please everyone. We lost as we knew we would so the tankers are happy, but we showed plenty, especially the young guns (but god how we need Scully!). Take away the charity goals and the junk-time goals to the Cats and it's even better.

Would love the Cats to lose second place on percentage because they couldn't make any inroads after half time.

This is one of those games you'd love to sit and watch the replay with the umpires and get them to have to justify every carp decision.

Don't know why, on such a windy day, they think that up-and-unders in Robbo's general direction are a good tactic. How many times is he going to get it against 3 opponents all 10cm taller than him? Has to be the lowest-percentage play possible.

PJ doing more with his hitouts this week too.

Really like Stockdale off HFF.

Hey cool it. I'm not saying that Scully won't be a star & won't improve our team's performance. Of course he will, and I want him in a Dees jumper just as much. But you and others taking it much further than that, you're arguing that Scully is our only chance of a premiership and anyone who doesn't advocate tanking or list management or whatever you like to call it is in effect depriving MFC of a certain premiership and doesn't "burn for a premiership" as much. Hence the put-downs of everybody who doesn't see things the same way. All I'm saying is that I don't buy the proposal that the only way to a premiership is to get Scully, and the only way to get Scully is to deliberately sabotage our on-field performance by whatever means (I'll use the word "tank", for shorthand). I don't have the conviction that some do that there is no way we can get a premiership without Scully, and we will probably get Scully anyway without having to "tank" to do it. Likewise, of course Kreuzer & Judd have improved Carlton, but that's not the argument. The argument goes: "tanking" = Scully = premiership because look what Carlton's "tanking" has done for them! Well, I don't buy that either, because the fact is that no team has yet "tanked" their way to a premiership. And I agree with you about Carlton - I can't see how Judd & Kreuzer could play that much better than they have this year to make the difference between battling-to-stay-in-the-8 and premiership - if they do get a premiership, the upside on top of their current performance will need to come from elsewhere. Which weakens even further the argument that the only way to a premiership is to "tank". Yes, "tanking" may bring you better players, but to hold it up as being the way a premiership is very flimsy when you look more into it. I'm not denying that some recent premiers (though not all) have had high draft picks in their side - Hawthorn yes, Geelong ... well, no, not as much, and St Kilda haven't yet won a premiership though their high draft picks have undoubtedly brought them closer to it. But the argument isn't about getting high draft picks - it's about getting high draft picks by "tanking" . Nobody is advocating that we don't need high draft picks. And of course we have to develop our younger players. We're playing for next year as we should be, but you develop young players by trying to get as good a performance out of them as possible. There's a huge difference between playing them to develop the side for next year, and playing them to "tank". I'm also trying to point out how easily the argument slips between "How can you possibly deny that Scully will improve our performance?" to "If you don't want us to 'tank' to get Scully, you simply don't care about whether we get a premiership". There's a chasm between these two statements.