Akum

Agree. But it will be interesting to see whether the AFL's duty of care to its players is outweighed by its "duty of care" to its corporate sponsors (who use AFL players in PR) and its "duty of care" to what it perceives to be the AFL's "reputation". "Nothing to see here"!!! I would be absolutely astonished to see Judd held to account for this.

Boak seems to be able to go inside & outside - very good in traffic, but real burst speed too. Therefore he'd be a better option than a purely inside mid who would be competing for places with Jones, Gys, Jordie Mc, Magner, Couch, Moloney (if he stays) & hopefully JV.

So maybe Jones should tank the B&F???

Let's face it, at the moment we're a pretty easy target for cheap shots. Denham being the master of the cheap shot, so it's hardly surprising.

Agree fully about Jetta & Evans. I think the same applies to Fitzpatrick as applies to Evans, we haven't seen enough of him to know because of his injuries & illnesses. I don't know what the Magner experiment is any more. I thought we got him as a clearance specialist. He showed every sign of being that, so ever since, he's been played as a defensive forward. Moloney has had every chance this year. And totally disagree about Morton. And there have to be at least question marks against Petterd (as much as I like him), Davey (ditto) & MacDonald.

What concerns me is that, after so much blind faith being expressed in Bailey, you'd think we'd be "once bitten twice shy" about showing blind faith in a coach until the performances are there. The reason for a lot of the blind faith in Bailey was the "he's not coaching now, he's coaching for the future" line. We should take great care with the same line about another coach, before the performance is there to justify it. The fact is, we still don't know whether Neeld can coach or not. We hope he can, but we don't know for sure.

... and have done the trick for turning tabloid disgust into tabloid sympathy (and into tabloid anger at those nasty doctors who prescribe them!).

I'd just like to see Tapscott & Bail put in half a dozen games in succession, without getting injured. That will give us a better idea of what future they have. Come to think of it, that also applies to Gysberts ... Strauss ... Martin ... Jetta ...

Brisbane had a very effective play at kick-ins. We did a good job o covering all their defenders & mids, but then the kicker would just wait until another player came from the forward line or even straight off the interchange bench, without his opponent following him, and created the overlap and they were away. Very simple play, but allowed them to run it through the middle a number of times. We had by far the best of the first quarter, but it was the 3.8 to 6.1 that killed off the game. We're simply not good enough that we can waste gettable goals and not get punished for it. It did bother me that Garland and Watts looked lost today in their respective positions, and nothing whatsoever was gained by not switching them. Garland & Rivers forward and Watts & Dunn back are just experiments, and while I have no problem starting with it, we need to have a low threshold for switching back if it's having a negative effect on the team.

The only thing Martin lacked today was match fitness. He held his own in the ruck contests, against an opponent who routinely bakes Jamar, and gave us a lot around the ground.

Makes me wonder how much worse we would have been in the past month without Clark & Jones.

Gee, I'm sorry, but I thought we'd got rid of "do-nothing" coaching after 186. Especially when the team is so out of shape.

Another glaring thing here is that Brisbane have a very good idea which of our forwards are not going to chase back. They keep exploiting Moloney & Sylvia & Blease by having their fastest runners streaming down the ground off them & providing loose men.

I think Neeld & Craig need the break to get their heads in order. We're being forced to make reactive moves, and it's just pulling the team more & more out of shape. Agree with the post that said it's now time to ditch the experiments and put everybody back where they're best - at least one of Rivers or Garland to defence, one of Watts or Dunn forward, maybe try Howe key forward. Work out where we want our players to be, not react to where they are making us place them.

What I want to know is whether it is absolutely iron-clad that if GWS bid for JV first round and we say we'd take someone else first round and JV second round, that it's then compulsory for GWS to take him with their first pick? Is there any wriggle room at all for the AFL to allow GWS to bid for him, then take someone else with their first round and then JV with their second round pick? Is there any risk at all that Vlad could wave it through retrospectively as another "stroke of genius"? Or is that a bridge too far even for Vlad? Has it ever happened before that a FS pick has been successfully "outbid" by another club?

This thread is hilarious!

Comedy gold!

Some clubs in the recent past have done really well out of F/S picks, that they got for a much later pick than their value. The obvious example is Geelong with Abletts, Scarlett & Hawkins - 3 premierships to date. The idea being that all clubs consider it fair enough if another club pays unders for a F/S. Because that's part of what F/S have always been about - even in the days of zoning before the draft, when clubs had first dibs on their F/S prospects. In other words, if a club gets a very generous deal in acquiring a F/S, that's always been 'fair enough'. What's got up other clubs' noses about MFC in this draft is that they think we got overcompensated for Scully, despite him being a No.1 pick in a recent draft. That's the only reason they want GWS & GC to bid for JV. If it wasn't for the Scully compo factor, there wouldn't be a problem with us taking JV in the second round, considering where we're likely to finish. Yes, it's exceedingly generous, but that's part of what F/S is about. How many other F/S's, apart from Murphy (who was a clear and universally-agreed No.1 pick), have had to be taken in the first 3? And how many clubs previously have had to pay overs, however slight, for a F/S? The recent statement about having an MOU, rather than a binding contract, with JV indicates to me that at least some at the club have the feeling that we should be allowed to do what other clubs would be able to do in the same circumstances - take him in the second round rather than at No.3. Not because he's not worth No.3, but because what clubs would reasonably expect in the same situation is that there would be no dummy bids and they could take him in the second round. Remember too that GWS & GC will have no access to F/S picks for a generation. That's what this is all about.

You can just about guarantee that whatever changes they make, it will force us to use our first-round pick for Viney. For example, it will make it so that GWS or GC will only have to bid their second-round pick (which will come before our second-round pick, even though it's in the same round) in order to force us to use our first-round. Seems to me that the c**p they copped over certain aspects of our game against GWS have really rattled them - which would explain the amount of sooking about the banners. We fanned the fire by saying that we only have an MOU, not a binding contract, with JV, and that if GWS & GC bid their first-round pick, we could call them on it and force them to take him with it or look stupid. Vlad will want to stamp out that possibility, without of course damaging the power clubs - Pies, Dons, Blues & Hawks. So he'll have to find a way of forcing us to use our first-rounder on Viney, while letting Bombers off the hook with Daniher.

And sometimes when he flies into the air, he forgets to come back down.

Yeah, totally out of character isn't it? You forgot the most important thing ... he doesn't crash packs!! Packs must be crashed!

Yep, and if Moloney had the same stats while copping a heavy tag each game against the best in the business, we'd say he's having by far his best season yet. That's my point. Boak would be a great get.

Boak would get the No.1 tagger every week. Given that, and the fact that he gets little midfield support, these stats are pretty damn good. Would be a great pick-up, and as someone else says, would immediately be our No.1 mid. Beams is good, but there would be 3 or 4 ahead of him to be tagged in the PIes midfield.

Remember Nev Jetta's tackle last year when he brought down some brontosaurus or other head on - was it Sandilands? Would be great to get some of that back.

Neeld & Leroy would know which Dees players the Pies would like, and which Pies players are worth the effort. In other words, they'd know the best bait (Bate???) to use. Insider knowledge of both clubs.