Akum

Yep. And guess who writes the rules? Worksafe will argue that their exhaustive investigations have shown that safety standards on site were world's best, Grocon encased all their workers in protective padding, the worker was wearing a suit of armour, and it was just criminal negligence from the evil MFC that caused that nasty mean missile to bury itself into the worker's skull. And the County Court will be right on the side of Worksafe. MFC's solicitors will not be able to argue that the worker was negligent, or that the employer was negligent, because Worksafe's meticulous examination has already shown that they were absolutely blameless. And Worksafe generally only bring cases like this if they're sure of their ground. In other words, it won't be judged according to the truth of the situation, or anything so primitive as common sense. It'll be judged on legal technicalities that Worksafe's lawyers know inside & out. It's be like playing a combined Crows & Port team on AAMI oval. Everything, fair or foul, mitigates against a win.

Will get downright ugly from now on

Yeah, but he might add something to the team as a desperado ball-magnet small forward/mid. We have more than enough "silk" in the midfield, but he would add a heap of in-and-under never-say-die grunt to the mix, which is what we need more of.

What we lack in our midfield is physical strength. Although we're more than competitive against young midfields, we get so easily outmuscled by the more physically mature midfields of the top 6-8 sides. And this will continue to happen for the next 2, possibly 3, seasons, unless we pick up a mature-bodied mid with strength in a trade. Therefore, we are going to struggle against the top 6-8 sides for the next 3 seasons unless we can remedy this problem. When we're getting outmuscleed in the midfield, we need someone who can be thrown in there to add physical strength. At the moment, Bate is one of the options to do this, and it's hard to really think of others - Grimes perhaps, maybe Tapscott or Jetta, maybe McNamara if he stays, but they're really still too young for next season and the one after. That's why we've tried Joel MacDonald & Petterd, but they've been less successful at AFL level than at VFL. Bate actually played some good games in the midfield when we were tanking (sorry, "experimenting"). Seriously, one reason for my disenchantment with Bailey as a coach is that during the time of experimentation, some of the moves he made were actually pretty useful. Bate in the midfield was one; Dunn as a defensive forward was definitely one; Jamar as a forward against Carlton was good; Warnock or Frawley forward was another. But without the tanking, Bailey seemed incapable of intelligent experimentation. When we're getting smashed for one reason or another is a good opportunity for intelligent experimentation. Bate won't be needed in the midfield in every game, and might not be in the best 22 for a lot of games, but he'd be a good "contingency" selection when here's a risk of being outmuscled in the midfield.

Yes!

Can't speak highly enough of Martin's improvement. While he's now quite good as a tap ruckman (still nowhere near as good as Jamar, but he'll get there), he just gives us so much around the ground. He's what we dreamed about at the start of the year - good enough to be worth a place as a KPP (back or forward) who can go into the ruck for a fair chunk of game. In fact, with Martin, Jamar, Gawn, Spencer, Fitzpatrick & Campbell all looking the goods: First, we can safely dispense with Newton & Dunn. Second, we may have one ruck too many, and the question is whether we look to trade someone like Spencer, or whether we really get aggressive in trade week and look to attract a top-level midfielder or forward by offering Jamar to Hawthorn or Tiges or Port. This looks very risky now, but could look very good indeed in 2013 when we have Martin, Gawn, Spencer or Fitzpatrick tearing it up - and remember, we only need 2 of them to be A-grade. Jamar is a great tap ruckman, but gives us very little around the ground, and is hopeless up forward (last week he hit the behind post from barely 20m out).

Bomber would up & leave to take the Dons head coach job a nanosecond after it became available, no matter what stage of contract he was at.

The best player in the AFL in 2014 will be Tom Scully. If he's with the Dees (which I think he will), then NikNat will be the NBT from elsewhere. If he's not, then Jack Watts will be the one to tear it up for the Dees. And the one player I'd really love to see crack it big time is Majak Daw - it would open the floodgates.

It's not difficult. So far, we haven't been coached to play as a team. They play like individuals trying to do something called "teamwork". We got smashed in the clearances because the Suns mids are organised & play as a team. Our mids are each trying to get the same ball. No system, no organisation, no structure. Viney can't fix it in a month. It's only when we get a decent coach next year that we'll realise how badly we've been coached.

If this is a "coaching sub-committee", it might not be the same thing as "coaching selection panel". These might just be the guys who are going to do the groundwork - make the approaches at the appropriate times and suss out who's interested. There is actually a lot of groundwork that will need to be done. They may have to look at combinations - Laidley, for example, is supposed to be a crash-hot match-day coach, but probably has deficiencies in other areas so will need a senior assistant to cover for his deficiencies. Some may wish to bring their own assistants, so it's a package rather than just the single appointment. Which is where they will need Schwab's input. No reason why the ones who will actually do the interviewing also need to do the groundwork beforehand. And G. Lyon's past remark that he doesn't want to go through it again may refer to the interviewing etc, while he may be happy to take the lead role in the groundwork.

Know what you mean, but I think the changes made at half-time that brought us back into the game already puts him way ahead of anything we saw from DB tactically.

Really struggling to understand why posters want to be so harsh on someone because they don't have the complete game by their 2nd full match of AFL footy. Especially one who's missed so much with injury. Blease showed heaps yesterday that he has some major talent. I too wondered whether he could use his weapons under pressure and at this level, and the answer seems to be ... well yeah! Like Wojo but better. Of course he has plenty of work to do. How far he goes from here depends on the work he puts in from now on, and he has plenty of examples both good & bad at MFC of that. But he looked every inch the top-20 draft pick.

Just a coach who gets them to play as a team, rather than as individuals (yet to see it so far, though Viney's getting closer).

... and Col shows how it's done.

Third chance at a captain's goal and ... misses again.

All the hallmarks of a blowout. The captain has missed another 2 captain's goals.

First time this year that a coach has actually had an impact on a game. And it's probably too much to ask to see them put to bed for all time this idiotic tactic of all the forwards going back into defence when the other side has it.

'Course I'm kidding. Let's face it, strange interview tho'

Herring of the red variety

Glasnost

IMO a lot of our problem as a team is that we haven't had anything that could be identified as a "team structure". And when we do get it, whoever coaches us, I think we'll see how much that's held back the performances of individual players and the team as a whole. That's why it's tough to really be sure one way or the other about whether or not Sylvia deserves a more generous contract. Hence the differences in opinion. He could be one of our most valuable assets in a better-structured team, but there's no guarantees of that.

Not only that, but Jack Watts did a fantastic job of buttering him up during his interview with Lethal by: * The mo - mon dieu!! * Having Lethal's playing stats & acheivements at his fingertips; * Taking him into his confidence that he's only just learning to use his strength, because in his junior career he never had to learn to use his strength to advantage. This was giving away a fair amount of information, but a great way of defusing any tension there might have been between them by the "you didn't know this about me at the time, so it's all OK" approach. Lethal did the right thing in return by saying that he could see now why Jack was No.1 pick. I thought at the time that Jack must have been under instructions to go all out to lure him to the club. Can't remember seeing an ex-champion being so blatantly worshipped by a likely future champion, but he managed to make it work (and to avoid coming across as too sycophantic)by the "tongue-in-cheek" device of the mo. It was a great performance, and must have been very carefully thought out. And wasn't Matthews mentoring Bailey for a while? So he'd have good knowledge of the list, and he'd probably be aware of what to watch out for behind the scenes, tho' he'd probably deal with them very differently from Bailey.

In the top sides, the midfield plays like a unit, a-team-within-the-team. Each player knows who's going where when, and they have plans for how to beat opposition midfields. Ours plays like a group of individuals who are all trying to get the ball as best they can. They are very talented individuals - in fact, on sheer talent they can beat just about any other midfield that doesn't play as a unit, which is why we have won well i n some games this year. But they invariably get spanked against well-drilled midfields, as we are likely to see happen this Sunday. If we are to ever become a top team, our midfield will have to play as a unit. When (if?) the new coach gets our midfield to do this is when we can judge the true value of players like Col. Until then, no matter how good they are as individuals, they will be rendered ineffective against top midfields.

If we did make it we would be absolutely POUNDED by the 5th side - either WCE in Perth, or Carlscum anywhere. I'll take a catastrophe-free 2012 over a meaningless & deflating 8th in 2011.

So wrong in so many ways. Geez.