bing181

Not far off half those possessions came after Jones went off. Murphy had something like 11 till 3/4 time - which given his usual output, is definitely a win to Jones. Shame people can't give credit where it's due.

I also thought that that was the case, but don't have the time to go looking for anything to support that. If it's something that has come in recently, it can't be applied retrospectively in any case. And if it's something that hasn't come in, I would imagine it's only a matter of time.

I like Lance. Don't always agree with him, in fact, often don't, but he does his homework, which is more than can be said for many.

This has been roundly discussed In Another Place, and as I and others suggested there, if you were to look at the reality of Olympic sports, or any sport at an elite level, these points are pretty well invalid. Sure, every sport has its idiosyncrasies, but there's not that much difference, especially once you get to the professional level. Athletes in olympic sports have to toe the organisation's line every bit as much as at a footy club, perhaps even moreso. Cyclist Trent Lowe was sacked for going to a non-team doctor, as was sports director Matt White who recommended said doctor. In the Armstrong case, there was much made of the fact that the cyclists who were penalised were given a 6 month ban which just happened to be right across the off-season. Then, this mention of the Olympic calendar is a complete furphy - you only have to look at the Olympic winter sports for example, where the focus is completely on the season-long competitions: world cup, world championships etc. etc., with the Olympics themselves as a bit of a postscript. Cycling is the same ... can anyone here tell me who won the gold medal in the men's road race at the last Olympics? etc. etc. Rather large red herring for mine.

Not to mention, laying plenty of tackles. A handy attribute for someone who's in the thick of every stoppage.

Woah ... First of all, UCI is the umbrella organisation for cycling - ALL cycling, including track, cross etc. etc. - they don't run any events. The Tour de France is run by Amaury Sport, ASO, a private organisation and sports promoter. Then, it's not for UCI to prosecute drug cases in cycling, it's for the national doping bodies in the countries where the cyclists concerned are registered. UCI have no say in who gets prosecuted, or the prosecutions themselves - any more than AFL have input into what ASADA are doing. UCI's role in doping cases is to enforce the penalties handed down by the relevant bodies (as they did in the Armstrong case), and/or to monitor and where necessary, appeal the decisions to CAS (as they did in the Contador case). Moving on ... It wasn't the American Cycling Federation who prosecuted Armstrong. Firstly, because there's no such body, the national body for cycling in the US is USA Cycling (much like Cycling Australia here), and secondly because, as with the UCI, the national admin bodies don't prosecute doping cases, the national doping agencies do. ASADA in Australia, and in America, for Armstrong, USADA. You're not any closer with the rest of your post either. For example, none of the cyclists prosecuted along with Armstrong (ever) tested positive - thus, there were no positive tests as the basis for the charges for anyone charged in the Armstrong case. Leipheimer, Hincapie etc. were charged on the basis of confessions (the guns to their heads being the testimonies they had previously given under oath to Federal Prosecutors), while Landis (and Hamilton) were not charged in the Armstrong case, they were (only) witnesses. etc. etc.

Great to see you here Lance. Your leather elbow patches are in the mail.

No problems with the diet this week it seems.

And you still got it wrong.

All credit to the coaches. After 3 heavy matches and a humiliating loss last week, to get the team up for this, believing in themselves, and staying the course under a couple of serious Dogs' challenges ... massive. Also, a special mention goes out to the MFC players who are regularly pilloried on this site by all and sundry ... well done. Fitzpatrick, Spencer, Toumpas ... nice work gents.

Going to be interesting, but I'd feel a bit more confident if Viney, Tyson and Jetta were out there.

He is what he is. Live with it. In an ideal world he wouldn't be in the team, but he is, not his fault.

Can't see us winning, just too many players with questionable disposal, the turnovers gift the opposition possession and ultimately, goals. It's like giving the opposition a 3-4 goal start. On the other hand, we're showing a bit of life and effort, which is great to see. A bit of love for Vandenberg, Toumpas and Spencer.

Going by reports, he has put in some decent games at Casey.

Tapering isn't just resting or having an easy week, it's much more specific than that, even moreso now that there's so much data available. I don't believe there's any actual tapering going on in the AFL, and can find no evidence of it being used as part of a training strategy in similar season-long team sports, except for the examples I mentioned. Of course, balancing heavier/lighter loads etc. is very much part of the AFL (or any professional sport for that matter), and there's no doubt that at certain points, players are pushed harder and then "freshened up".

I don't know that we can read too much into it, would need a whole season of results/data to see if it was part of a longer-term structure in training loads. But in the AFL, it's too risky. In event sports, it doesn't matter when you don't perform so well in secondary tournaments, because you're working towards a world championship or whatever. But in footy, if you end up throwing a few matches because you're overloading, that ends up having a negative, even catastrophic consequence in terms of placings in the final 8 (if you even get in ...).

Tapering isn't applicable in sports like football, where you need to perform on a weekly basis over a 6 month (or longer period). It's not just AFL, same for football everywhere. There are/have been tapers focusing on major tournaments, but they're built around competitions like a World Cup, where players can be loaded and then unloaded over a period of a month or more beforehand. Also, it's not necessarily true that producing high level performances after your peak event is a result of messing up a taper, as it's possible (sometimes even necessary) to hold peak condition over a number of weeks. There's an element of "overshoot" as a result of tapering. As you pointed out, tapering functions differently for different sports (type and amount of loading, and then type and length of tapering), so what's applicable for swimming isn't applicable for, say, cycling, or long-distance running - or football. re the Dees, in spite of your post or what we've been seeing, I don't know that too many of the Melbourne players are tired as a result of training issues. Certainly, it's been a difficult 3 weeks against older, more solid, and more experienced opponents, which has no doubt taken its toll, both physically and mentally. Perhaps its having a more visible impact on the younger players, but I don't know that it's more than that. For example, a few people commented on Brayshaw, but turns out he was off-colour during the week. It's no accident that players start to look tired when they're losing, or that you don't notice the soreness as much after a win. You mention over-training. That's very different to loading/unloading as part of a structured build using a build/taper. Over-training is a specific condition that's straighforward to detect through monitoring of performance, output and loads. Given the amount of data that's collected on the players, I'm sure that Misson and co. know exactly what's going on with each and every one of them - as would fitness departments in any sports at elite level (or even a sub-elite level) across the world. It's not for nothing that in all those training reports we hear that player X is only running laps because they're due for a reduced load. Nothing specific to do with your post, but with the salaries and funds available to fitness and sports science departments in the AFL, hard to see that they wouldn't attract the very best. Neil Craig had a nice little earner with Cycling Australia - but bet he had a better one when he moved across to Adelaide. Of course being a cog in a wheel in the fitness department at a footy club isn't for everyone either.

Mitchie not even on the extended bench. After already being dropped a couple of rounds ago, you'd have to wonder if we'll see him in the firsts again. A bit surprised to see Newton there after a) he was dropped and b) he didn't play at Casey last week. Having said that though, would think the bench will be something along the lines of Toumpas, Newton, Riley and Bail. Injuries are really stretching us.

In your opinion.

As one of the few (only?) card-carrying Belgians to post on Demonland, it's a big day to see one of my countrymen holding the future of our sport in his hands. Never thought I'd live to see the day ... nor did Essendon probably.

Every footy supporter's forum in the land has a thread similar to this one - though many are more hardline, we've been quite restrained.

Ins would probably be from this trio (Casey stats): Jordie McKenzie 1 goal 34 disposals 14 kicks 20 handballs 8 marks 8 tackles 148 Dream Team Points Alex Neal-Bullen 24 disposals 13 kicks 11 handballs 7 marks 2 tackles 90 Dream Team Points Aidan Riley 28 disposals 9 kicks 19 handballs 5 marks 11 tackles 122 Dream Team Points

That's not what he said at all. He discussed reviewing the game with the players. On the other hand, he said nothing about not reviewing the game himself or with the coaches. "MELBOURNE coach Paul Roos has told his players to forget about Saturday's 105-point loss to Hawthorn and he has no plans to show them a replay as part of the team's review. " In any case, even if they don't review it now, I'd bet it will be the first tape that's pulled out when time comes for renewing contracts. Or not.

Telling it like it is. It's not just the players who need to harden up.

Excellent press conference from a mature, experienced, premiership-winning coach, showing that he knows exactly what he's doing and has it completely under control. (ridiculous hyperbole can go both ways ...)