hardtack

Yep, and they'd save on costs by not having to fill the pool with ice.

I hope he's treating that perfectly good guitar well ?

I don't think I've seen anyone mention this yet, but while I would prefer to see the game go ahead in Adelaide where it would be bound to have pretty close to a sell out crowd, would ND be in a fit enough state to cope with the rigors of traveling to South Australia and possibly being accommodated there as well (a return trip on the one day would no doubt be very taxing on him), which is logistically far more difficult than a short trip to the 'G'. It would be a shame to see the event going ahead without ND in attendance.

What a bizarre comment. Do you have something against Beavis?

But I’d still rather have him in the side than not.

Surely that’s not possible as Qld has closed off borders to Victoria.

A case of what goes around, comes around? I’m pretty sure we had to play our home game against the Saints at Marvel on at least one occasion in the not too distant past.

Finally, if crowds are allowed, my son and I might be able to get to a game without having to drive hundreds of kilometres!

That aged well.

Well, it was a response to RNs claims of deliberately biased umpiring against us (he’s yet to substantiate his claim that the umpire admitted he intentionally didn’t pay the deliberate OOB free). On the ladder of free kick differentials, at round 8 we were 5th with more frees in our favour than against (+15), whereas Richmond were 18th... my point is, we’ve been well looked after when it comes to free kicks. It’s been done to death, but last week’s game was not decided my free kicks alone, as we should never have been in a position where they could have an influence on the outcome. In some ways I don’t mind that those calls went against us, as the end result was a much needed wake-up call for us.

A link to the quote from said umpire would be nice... are you sure he wasn’t saying that upon watching a replay of the incident, that the free probably was there?

In which case, as we have a differential of +15, Richmond must be absolutely despised, with a differential of -50!

And the stats would say that we do ok relative to other clubs (this was at Round 8)...

This conspiracy theory is getting tiresome. And as for Razor Ray, if anything, he has treated us very well over the past couple of seasons.

Was there a reason for Essendon not wearing their indigenous jumper today?

I can’t for the life of me understand why we are not allowed to wear our indigenous jumper! The Dogs have a jumper that is predominantly royal blue and white, offset with a bright red and some yellow(?), whereas ours is navy and deep red with no similarities at all... no wonder the umpires make so many bad calls, if their eyesight is so shot that they cannot pick the difference between the two jumpers!

I think that playing with the roof open may work somewhat in our favour (Dogs always playing home games with it closed), and the lack of crowds could also work in our favour (let’s face it, our crowds are never quite vocal enough to influence umpiring decisions). It could go either way, but will be close whichever way it goes.

Yep... I watched the Casey game from the second quarter onwards, and Ben Brown barely got near the ball, scoring zero goals... not exactly a good audition for a place in next week's team. Mitch Brown however, scored something like 2.5 and while inaccurate, showed that he can get the ball and put scores on the board (you'd have to think he would not be so inaccurate too often). However, having said that, I'm not averse to us going back to a forward line with just Fritsch, Jackson and McDonald, which worked well for us in the first few weeks. Possibly Sparrow or Chandler could come in for the Weid.

Not really... based on the last couple of years, as much as we’d like to think we could win every game, it’s quite a reasonable assumption that most would have said 9-3 was crazy talk..

I think that’s a bit unfair. Watch his 6 goal haul against North and you’ll see a lot of those were from ground ball he’d chased or had positioned himself well to get the loose ball and then managed to work himself into a position where he could take the shot. Only two were from set shots and one of those from a difficult mark over the pack (hardly silver service).

Can we please stop with these [censored] conspiracy theories... the free kick count was 24/24 and as well as the two major clangers in the last couple of minutes, there were frees paid to us that probably shouldn’t have been. We had 7 more inside 50’s (and 6 more shots) than Adelaide and a better conversion rate, but blew it with poor accuracy. When all is said and done, the Dees have only themselves to blame.

The funny thing is, how many of us would have complained at the beginning of the season if we’d been told we’d be 9-3 by round 12? I suspect most would have scoffed at such a suggestion. I hope there aren’t too many changes to the side, but I get the feeling that we might see Ben Brown back in against the Dogs.

And an insulated side pocket for the cheese (unless you want your Brie/Camembert nice and runny).

Dueling banjos no less!

Hey, that’s what Google is for! ?