Akum

Can't help but think we'll look back on all this in 10 years as one of the more stupid and pointless fads of recent times. Along with Ned Kelly beards and "reality" TV.

Interesting predictive text ...

Serious lack of hyphen on thread title. A tiny dash could prevent many heart attacks!!

... be quietly content. And BLOW THE LID TO SMITHEREENS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (and expect us to lose every other game this season)

Glenn Elliott.

Good post. In addition to individual player improvement, we should get a "whole-is-greater-than-sum-of-the-parts" improvement from combining better as a team next year. Still yet to see that this year on a consistent basis. Which is part of the downside of massive list turnovers, and why I don't think it will be so massive this year. There have been a number of games this year when our structures have completely fallen apart, and we've lost all cohesiveness as a team. In the games we've looked really bad, we haven't been able to pull it back together. But there have been some games - notably against Geelong & last Sat - when we've almost lost it but we HAVE been able to pull it back together. I think we've got a very competitive group of players. But it's our team structure where we're vulnerable. That's where I've been very critical of the "spare man in defence" problem, which completely throws our structures out, and it needs a quick response. If our brains trust can work out why this happens - and, more importantly, what to do once it does happen - then this "7-9 win season" will be a transitional season. If they can't, this will be a "nothing" season, neither here nor there.

Definitely added a lot of life & movement when he came on.

We should pick Fitzy to counter Brown & Petrie, but we won't, because we never pick sides to counter opposition threats. So we'll go in undersized in defence & either Brown or Petrie will do a Daniher and kick whatever-straight to be the match winner. Gawn will beat Goldie until the 20-minute mark in the 3rd quarter when he'll run out of puff. And when those two need a rest, Brown will smash Dawes and we'll get killed in the clearances. And another game we could have won thrown away at the selection table. We've been here before, many times.

Two scoring shots in the last quarter!!!

Still got a whole lot of upside to come.

Bet they don't

Match day coaching is not one of Roos' strengths.

Not unlike Jack Watts, except for the bit about the commentators. They do what they do really well, they just don't do enough.

Might be worth sending these stats through to Grant Thomas? They make the point really well.

Interesting that the Pies' match winner against us is such a good player that he's now back in their seconds.

You're welcome to believe that NicNat is "elite", M C, but nobody else is buying it. I like NicNat, he's great for the game, but rather than a show-pony, he's a one-trick pony, though it's a damn good trick. It works best at centre bounces, and it's not as effective at ball-ups and throw-ins. But his weaknesses are really bad. HIs endurance is poor so he's less effective as the game goes on, his defensive game is just non-existent, and he spectates a lot if he's not sure he can get the ball. He has been very well coached, and it's kept as simple as possible for him - "just leap to here, and then tap it here, here or here". He is surrounded by a great group of mids who corral him really well against any third-man-up attempts, and who know exactly where he's tapping it to. He's a great athlete and has been brilliantly utilised, but he's not elite. Sooner or later one of the top sides will work out how to blunt his effectiveness, and it will be back to the drawing board.

Shouldn't that be "sentient beings"???

Jamar's acquitting himself so well since being dropped raises another question: Why couldn't Dawes & Howe respond similarly well to being dropped and play themselves back into form? Neither of them will find form in the firsts.

Not ruling out trading a top pick for an A-grader. Can't let the top clubs have the free agents all to themselves. Yeah, riveting stuff.

Loving the belief that continuing to play Howe will fool every other club's recruiters into thinking that he's worth more than a fringe player. 'Cos they're all so easily fooled, so there's no way they'll figure it out.

Did Roos say that we'd be heavily involved in FA specifically, or just in trading more generally?

Has Sloane re-signed with Crows yet?

True. How many Charlies would Leigh Matthews have won under these standards?

out for 4-6 weeks

So Fyfe, in a year that he will probably win the Brownlow, has been found guilty twice, and fined twice, to avoid a suspension. Just happens to play for the wealthiest club in the comp. Great player, but SUCH a protected species. He makes Selwood look hard-done-by, and he's beginning to give me the irrits.