Akum

My impression is that this season we've given away a lot of goals late in quarters too.

That's the point exactly. To get someone of quality, you gotta give. It would be painful, but a huge win-win, on both sides.

Jamar is a dilemma. On the one hand, he gives nothing around the ground. Never has, never will. He's basically a tap ruckman and that's it. Once the ball's in motion, we're one short. On the other hand, with the midfield of any other side, he could be a matchwinner at stoppages.

Agree with both parts of this. First, that subbing off Dunn let Fisher off the hook. And second, that Watts should have worn the red, much as I'm a fan. Also couldn't understand why Howe & Trengove & Davey were kept in the forward line the whole of the last qtr when all the play was in our defensive half of the ground. Howe was good last week further up the ground and we needed somebody in the play who could use it well enough to get us past the centre.

Compare the collective last quarters of their senior players with ours. It was our kids (if you could include Jones & Bartram as "kids") against their stars.

I think at least part of the trouble is that when we have two tags on onballers, it takes JT out of the midfield & consigns him to a flank or wing. Plus he seems to be a long way from being match-fit, like Grimes, Tapscott, and to some degree Bail. We showed heaps more tonight, but still a long way to go. At least we're not hopeless any more.

Nobody has considered the obvious risk to GWS bidding for Jack V in the first round of him doing a "Scully-in-reverse" and ending up at Melbourne the nanosecond his 2-year contract expires ... minus the compo picks we got for Scully. Scully has laid down the path, and it's been given the Vlad seal of approval. All Jack has to do is walk it by giving them 2 years of ordinary service, including exaggerating an injury (Scully's knee 2010 = Jack's OP 2012), and getting his teammates (including Scully) to take the heat for him from the press. We could even start an "I believe Jack" thread on the GWS website. On the other hand, I'm persuaded by the poster who says the club will take him first pick whatever happens. In other words, MFC considers Jack as #1 pick because we place such high value on contested-ball ability, even if the "experts" have him well down their lists. This is the "no-risk" option, and th3ere's much to be said for it. It's just that something in me - and I'm sure I'm not alone - would love to see GWS on the wrong end of a "Scully-in-reverse" play.

Did he say anything? Or did he just talk?

As others have said, if we rate JV as top 5, we simply take him at #3. But if we rate him as 5-15, we call Sheedy's bluff and nominate him 2nd round. If GWS bite, they will then have to take JV at #1, handing the 'true' #1 pick (Whitfield?) to GC (who by the way will be their major competitor in the years to come) and the 'true' #2 & #3 picks to us. We get our early picks effectively upgraded by one, courtesy of Sheeds. TS, also courtesy of Sheeds, will have done us a favour by demonstrating the Vlad-approved behaviour for a #1 draft pick who really wants to play for another club. In his 2nd year, he refuses to sign a contract with the club that picks him #1, while making all the "right" noises, while pulling the club apart in the process, and playing at half-pace for the small part of the season when he's not "injured" (that OP can niggle for years, you know!), then he signs a contract during the trade period for the club he wants to play with. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. JV follows the TS script to the letter, and ends up with us in 2015. Everyone will know exactly what he's doing but, having so enthusiastically endorsed TS's behaviour, Vlad can surely do nothing about someone else doing exactly the same. So at the start of the 2015 season, Sheedy will have effectively given us 3 out of 4 top-15 picks (4 & 12 for TS, plus JV) in the best draft in years, while effectively upgrading our 2 top-5 picks by one position. In the meantime, his #1 pick in that same draft will have vanished into thin air, by means of the exact same strategy that he used to snare TS. So bring it on!!

It's interesting how the Hawks use Suckling, one of their best kicks. They don't expect him to play like Sewell or Mitchell. They expect him to find space when they have the ball, and his fellow defenders look for him & try to get the ball into his hands, so he racks up the uncontested possessions and does damage with them. We expect Strauss to play like Matty Whelan & get his own ball under pressure. Will we ever use Strauss like they use Suckling? Not holding my breath.

We made them look like world-beaters at Etihad last year. The only game that their whole midfield clicked. If it happens again, result will be similar.

Thought we saw the difference between a midfield playing as a team and a midfield playing as individuals. These aren't the guys who were usually at the bottom of packs - that was their inside mids like Tuck, Morris, Edwards, Conca. The mids you mention - Cotchin, Foley, Martin & Deledio - are outside mids, the breakaways from the edges of the packs, who receive the ball in tight from the inside mids & work it between themselves to break away from the packs. Our mids - Jones Magner, McKenzie, Moloney when he's in - are expected to both get it at the base of the pack and also to do something with it, either try to break away (which is why Jones gets caught) or get rid of it in a hurry (which is why Magner's DE is down, why Jordie has so many handballs, and why Moloney bombs). We simply lack the structure that the top midfields do. Interestingly, none of Cotchin, Foley, Martin & Deledio are that good defensively against their direct opponents, but in their midfield structure, they don't need to be. But they work as a team-within-a-team to protect space on the edge of the packs, to stop their opposition mids from breaking away. Our outside-mids equivalents to Cotchin etc aren't Jones, Magner & so on, but Trengove, perhaps Grimes, perhaps Tapscott, Gysberts when he's not injured, Sylvia ditto, perhaps even Blease & Davey. They are more creative, more capable of being playmakers. But our current game plan bypasses these outside mids, which is why they can't get into the game. And one reason why our uncontested possessions are almost non-existent. Since 186 there has not been a single game where the side has played as a team for more than a few minutes in bursts. And our midfield is almost unique in having no structure whatsoever. They're things I expected Neeld to bring with him from where he came from, but maybe that's stage 2 or stage 3 or ... maybe it's not. The expression "outside mid" almost seems like a term of abuse at the moment.

Something I expected Neeld to do was to get them to play more as a team, which they did only sporadically under Bailey, and have never done since 186. Somehow, they are playing even less as a team now. Once Neeld starts to get them to play as a team rather than a set of individuals, we'll be on the way. IMHO, that's the main factor that's missing, for whatever reason.

Seems that the game plan forbids them to do that.

This is a very tall and extremely slow team - must be one of the slowest sides ever selected. When we did well in 2010, it was when Jamar had to ruck virtually the whole game, with someone like Dunn as back-up, and we selected a team full of runners. We seem fiercely determined to ditch everything from the Bailey era as a matter of principle, even the few things we did that actually worked. Even if we do manage to cover their talls, we'll get absolutely run off our feet at Subi.

It had crossed my mind whether this "member of the AFL fraternity" might have done some "misconstruing" recently, as a result of a certain interview.

Yep, but not holding my breath.

Trying to recall who a few months ago threatened to smash us by taking away our sponsors.

Two things continue to mystify me: (1) Misfired has apologised to Neeld, but is totally unrepentant about breaking his source's confidence (whether his "source" is Davey or not), not once but three times, the third time after the first two checked back to the source & didn't go into print, and to someone that he knew wouldn't bother to check with the source. He has no regrets whatsoever for putting so much pressure on an indigenous footballer, with no regard whatsoever for the damage it might do to him. And he's making it worse by refusing mediation, which would be the one way to get the issue resolved from Davey's perspective. Right from the first breach of confidence (to Caro?), before he knew how Davey would react, he seems to have done his utmost to damage Davey, for some reason that I don't understand. Do they have a history of any kind? (2) Vlad's strange statement at the presser when asked why they were protecting the source - he said something to the effect that the source wasn't getting off scott-free, having "been presented with a series of facts that were then misconstrued and incorrectly relayed to Mifsud. The person is hurting and knows the error of his ways." (quoting from the afl.com.au article about the press conference). Now, this simply doesn't fit the role that Davey is said to have had. There is no way Davey was "presented (presumably by another party) with facts" which he "misconstrued" and then "relayed" to Mifsud, because Davey wouldn't have needed to be "presented with the facts" by anybody. If anything, Davey might have been the person who did the "presenting of facts" to another party, who then misconstrued them before passing them on. That would fit the construction that Vlad put at the presser, much better than that he believed Davey to be the person who had spoken directly to Mifsud. And perhaps this "Davey vs Mifsud" fiasco has been cooked up to shield this other party who was between Davey (or maybe another aboriginal Dee) and Mifsud, who "misconstrued" the situation, for whatever reason, when he spoke to Mifsud. I think there's a large piece still missing here. Ian Flack has been mentioned as a possibility, but he's denied it, and the AFL has made a huge effort to protect someone like Flack

We need to stop hiding our co-captains on flanks, wings & pockets. Now that Moloney (who has far more game-time on the ball than anyone else) is not there, we need these two to play a huge chunk of game-time on the ball, together & separately. Now is the time to hand responsibility on field to our co-captains, and we need them front & centre, whatever the result in the short term. It is these two who will shoulder the main burden for pulling us out of this mess, no mater how long it takes. We can start by having Grimes & Trengove in the centre square for the start of every quarter.

The point here is that Misfired didn't blab this story once, as a slip of the tongue. He blabbed it to at least 3 media people on separate occasions. He broke his source's confidence 3 times, and when it didn't hit the news the first 2 times, he made sure he blabbed it to someone with less scruples. He apologises to Neeld, but there is no remorse whatsoever with breaking confidence with his source (whom it seems he claims to be Aaron). And has anybody raised the question about the coincidence that the day he slinks off to Warrnambool rather than confront mediation, the Ben Polis story (about remarks which have apparently been on facebook since 2010) breaks?

Which begs the question of why this story breaks today, and by whom.

This was what I was banking on, more out of hope than anything - that Neeld made no moves when we were getting smashed, in order to expose us to the harsh glare of reality etc. But then Neeld said he was surprised that we lost so badly. So ... er, no, he just did nothing about it. One of my criticisms of Bailey was that he never made any moves to stem the flow at the critical time when the game was starting to slip away from us. And others at that time gave a similar explanation - it's because he wants to teach them to work it out for themselves etc. But we know now that it was because he wasn't capable of making any moves when they need to be made. And Neeld? Well, all I can say is that I hope it doesn't take us the best part of 4 years to find out whether he can make the right move at the right time or not. It's a basic part of a coach's job.

Any idea who's playing well? There's got to be a lot of selection changes for the Dees next week.

But packs need to be crashed. Doesn't matter about the result, as long as the pack gets crashed!