Dr. Gonzo

Agree but we basically have 3 months to convince them. Most of these conversations getting someone to move across are a year/years in the making. If Freo are going to dig their heels in and say we'll only deal picks (think they did similar over Hogan?) then they need to find picks not just expect us to take whatever they have in hand.

I would love someone in the media to ask the question "how do Freo get the deal done?" It's all well and good to say they want Jackson or he has agreed to go there but he is not a FA and they still need to satisfy is in a trade. So how do they get it done?

The players have to actually want to leave Freo though. That is the hard part when they would likely be comfortable there under a food coach with good prospects in the coming years.

The difference is Cerra never nominated us. If Jackson nominates Freo it makes it hard for us to deal with West Coast.

I hope there is something, it would be extremely mean to tease us like this with nothing to come of it (or something less than we expect such as a debut this week which would be good but a letdown on what is expected based on this morning's tweets).

Hmmmm???

And Parfitt

Agree swyl, when on our midfield still [censored] on every other midfield in the league and can bulldozer over them. Our defence is the best in the league. Our forward line is clearly the worry but more than capable especially when our mids are on top and contributing to the scoreboard. I await the next two and a half months with nervous optimism.

Problem is the kids coming through have grown up doing this their whole careers now since Selwood started the rubbish in 2007. There's been plenty of them coming through, McLean and Hunter at the Dogs, Mathieson at the Lions and yes Spargo and to a lesser extent Pickett. Now Ginnivan and even Pendlebury has started at the Magpies and you're completely correct, it should've been knocked on the head 15 years ago!

Either that or tackle with a swinging arm. If the duckers cop a decent belt around the ears it might make them think twice before doing it again.

If we're 3rd and Geelong is 2nd (or 4th/1st) doesn't really matter tho. It's only if we have to travel to Perth it becomes a problem.

We're probably better off with the Cats winning putting a gap between us and Carlton. Geelong will finish top 4 so we're in a better position if they beat Carlton.

With the Lions getting done today I have us still making top 4 even if we lose to Freo, one of Carlton/Collingwood and Brisbane. Lose all 4 of those and it drops us to Elimination Finals though. So by my calculations we have to win at least one of those four while getting the job done against Port and Footscray to secure the double chance. If we win 2 of the three Pies/Blues/Lions games we should avoid playing Freo in Perth week 1 and play the Cats at the G.

What if we rehabbed him into a genuine human (and won a flag with him as a pleasant side effect)? Surely being supportive of our indigenous players means changing the behaviour of people who make stupid racist comments rather than refusing to have anything to do with them and let them live in their squalid racist beliefs.

With who?

Performance and results are two different things. Loading can partly explain the performance (lethargic, sloppy etc) you're the one wringing your hands over the result

But you're not the only one

I think what gets lost about Kardinia Park is that it is a narrow ground but is also longer. It is not a "smaller" ground, it is a skinnier ground. The Cats play the length well, several times they had players congregating at half forward where they raffled it and also picked through the zone at half back before going long. Trying to go long from deep in defense or across half back plays into the opposition's hands because you end up in no man's land (similar to Subiaco).

It's not that it's "all good", the point is that similar things were being said this time last year and look what happened. I'm not (and I assume others are not) saying, "relax we got this" and the flag is ours to lose - what we are saying is that the level of pessimism on here is out of whack. Let's see how things play out over the next 2 and a half months first before spitting the dummy.

And despite all that we are 2nd on the ladder with 6 games left. Imagine if we actually start playing well!

It's even more pronounced when Gawn and Jackson arent sticking marks.

Appreciate your comments mate. As someone who was at the ground would be good to know what the forward half looked like when we were rebounding off half back. The coverage was back to its typical rubbish last night with close in shots of contests without knowing what's happening upfield. So it was very frustrating seeing us try and handball in circles or take a split second too long to dispose of the footy but if there was nothing presenting upfield it's certainly understandable. Did we have no-one there? We're we outnumbered? Was it one on one contests with no clear targets? I thought the Cats player us extremely well last night and we were clearly off. For all that we could have hit the lead with 10 minutes left. I still feel pretty positive after last night's game but we can't afford to drop many more games leading into finals.

It won't. He is our leading goalkickers this year, has kicked goals in each game. We already have an underdone forward line and you want to remove our biggest weapon down there? Come on be serious. A word to him about making sure he looks at options instead of blazibg away should be sufficient. Certainly not the reason we lost last night.

We definitely looked sluggish and "off" tonight for whatever that's worth. I guess the proof of the pudding will be in the eating so we will just have to wait and see.

If we keep Gus it will ease the pain a bit - I just don't want to get screwed on a trade though, hopefully Freo realise they're going to have to make the trade work not just expect they can get him to nominate, offer a late teens pick or two and say "take it or leave it"