Rogue

The falafel reference was a cheap call, but the reference to Buckley's infamous chips moment is what made it worth posting for me.

Only if Ned was a CEO etc of some company Schwab was a shareholder in would that make sense - it's not otherwise analogous. EDIT: Beaten.

Scully, McKenzie and Morton are injured (while McDonald and Bruce are gone). I can see why people might think Gysberts is a handy inclusion, and I also don't see how people advocating for Gysberts on the basis we need more mids for the game equates to them screaming he is an automatic selection (or even best 22). He didn't say Petterd was the only one......

Read the existing thread for thoughts on Martin:

I liked my falafel/chips comment better.

He looks like a mad uncle at a bad party...nice one, DB.

Ponting's just announced his retirement from captaincy. He wants to play on.

Absolutely.

Exactly.

You're right.

Surely you understand that kicking sideways/backwards can be an effective way of finding a route to goals? You only need to watch a few games to see that all teams do this in order to switch play and find a route to goal, given that defending teams are very good at team defence, blocking space down the line. By the way, I don't think that kicking directly to an opposition player is either 'undisciplined, stupid or does not have vision' - there are execution mistakes, and all players make this.

Indeed. Strangely, it happens all the time.

I think it seemed louder in those memorable Freo and Bris games. That said, in the last quarter the crowd came alive.

I reckon Roost It's last few posts in this thread have been very reasonable. I think he makes a decent point re: Tapscott's long-term prospects as a defender, and I'm interested to see whether he'll carve out a career there or further up the ground.

I'm with you on this one.

I think this is a strawman - you're misrepesenting at least some of the comments regarding Watts.

Gawn says hi. (He might be a while off, but I assume we picked up Campbell for a reason).

I'm sure I saw a figure of ~35K for the Coll v Port game reported in one of the papers.

I think the 33,xxx was a pretty decent result.

I think you've got a different definition of 'valuable player' than I do, but I do think that - despite the flaws in his game today - Watts at least competed better than he has in the past (I imagine that's a result of another year of physical development). That's about as far as I'll go, though. Like most in this thread, I didn't really notice Bail. Did he perform some impressive negating role I've simply overlooked while at the game?

45 has already responded in the vein I would have on a couple of points, but I wanted to note that I'm pretty sure no one - apart from you - is complaining about his decisions to sometimes kick backwards. Rather than 'lacking discipline' I imagine he is showing discipline when he looks to switch play.

We played Tapscott back for a reason.

I'm pretty sure Buckley won't be that player.

I completely disagree. What exceptional on-field abilities did he display? I'm pretty keen to know, because I can't see where you're coming from.

NZ getting over SA is why I didn't buy the idea that we couldn't win the World Cup - it's been a pretty open field (no pun intended).