hardtack

For the first time in a long while, I feel confident of a win. It won’t necessarily be easy, but if we play like we did last Saturday, I think we’ll win with a reasonably comfortable margin. Defence should handle their forwards with relative ease. Mids should be able to comfortably hold their own. It’s just the forwards who concern me, but I do feel that Fritsch will be out to prove, as much to himself as the selectors, that he is more than capable. Petty I’m hoping didn’t give us a one off last week… if he can, and he should, hold his marks and outbody his younger and less experienced opponent, he is in a good position to hit the scoreboard. I’m looking forward to this game!

Well, here I am back in for cycle #7 and feeling pretty positive. A quick consult with my oncologist revealed that my CT scan (taken last week) shows that the spots on my lungs and liver are shrinking… the largest spots in my lungs have reduced by about 33% since my last scan (whenever that was). My CEA marker that gives an indication as to how active the rectal tumour is, is now down from 26 when I started to 14. All good news so far, although I did lose 4.2kg over the past two weeks… something I’m kind of liking.

His brother seems like a real piece of work!

Well, let’s hope it’s not Fullerton. If you’re going to bring the guy in for a well deserved debut, you don’t just send him back the next week… he needs a real run at it.

He’ll miss two games max assuming that neither the AFL, nor the club apply any penalties

I haven’t searched to see if this has been discussed at all, but is the ‘Bison’ nickname derived from his hair, that somewhat resembles that of a buffalo?

My band played our last gig for an indefinite period of time on Saturday 12th April. As the chemo has had a direct affect on my voice, making it quite fragile, I brought in some friends from local bands to help out. They included Paul Field (The Cockroaches and Sacred Hearts), Brendan Smith (The Stray Dogs), Marcus Phelan (Brave New Works and The Beatels), and Mickey Mahoney (The Treble Clefs and The Allniters). It was just as well that I did invite this crew as during the first set, I gave myself three songs to perform and by the second I was starting to sound like the love child of Tom Waits and Donald Duck! Fortunately, by the time the second set came around it had warmed up and worked well for the rest of that and the third set. Other invitees included Richard Burgman (The Saints and The Sunny Boys), Richard Rhule (early Dynamic Hepnotics drummer), plus a couple of unplanned fill ins. It was a real spirit lifting afternoon despite it happening at the end of the first week of my fortnightly chemo cycle which is when I’m at my lowest ebb. Later during the week (last Wednesday) I again met up with Seiko, Mitsuteru and Takami from the Japanese band Buddhadatta, for coffee and general chatting. A nicer bunch you couldn’t hope to meet and another real spirit lifter! The Irinotecan and Fluorouracil that they have me on for my chemo, is having a cumulative affect on my body, and while not being too vicious on my appetite and my general energy levels (I can still walk to the shops just making maybe three stops on the way to regain my breath), but it has now completely [censored] up my taste buds… everything, but…EVERYTHING tastes absolutely foul!

Yes, but what does it mean?

I wasn’t going to read through this topic to see if it’s been asked already, but what is the “shadow puppet duck” hand signal that Petty gave after each of his goals, and as the players got around him to celebrate, what did the two handed shove in the chest signify?

And his trying to wrench the ball from Melksham’s grip… that was a real jaw dropper!

Their best games for the club!

Personally, I’d rather we find someone who has played the game in relatively recent times., and is across the modern game (yes, I know SG fits that description, but he ain’t working). Search for another Mitchell… it may take time (so start NOW), and there’s a certain element of risk involved, but I’m tired of Melbourne always taking the safe road.

Treacy with 3 goals in the first 7 minutes! Richmond with 3 goals… looks set to be a fast, open, high scoring game. My only complaint… do we have to listen to Derm?

I think that rather than stubbornness with the game plan, it’s his inability to come up with a new and effective game plan, and, it would seem, a backup plan; he is incredibly slow to react to what is happening on the ground. With no backup plan, when things are getting away from them, the players just seem completely lost. I think after yesterday’s effort, his cards are probably marked, and the search for a replacement is probably underway, behind closed doors.

No, in the starting 22. Start Fullerton at FF and Jeffo is used to give either Fullerton or JVR a break… it gives us some height up forward plus it means we’ll have rested forward to come in when one of Fullerton or JVR is taking ruck duties.

Short for ‘Interchange bench’.

I want Fritta dropped back to Casey for a reality check. I want Fullerton to be sat at FF and JVR moved to CHF. And Jefferson on the bench.

We have a Hore for Hire?

Not really… the Cats were all over us, but off target for the first three quarters. We were never a genuine chance. Sure our pressure was ok at times, but we were never able to sustain it. We seem to be unable to rid ourselves of the desire to just bomb the ball long into the forwards… watch the Cats, time and time again, they were able to find players with space in the forward line and hit them on the chest. We looked like a team without a clue and without a plan. We looked lost! There’s just one word that sums up how I feel: Flabbergasted!

Absolute rubbish… we have no forward line, no effective mids, still just play up the wings, cannot hit a player on the chest to save ourselves, our skills simply aren’t up to scratch… awful to watch!

Regardless of whether or not we have pick one, we cannot wait to start a rebuild, as next year is the ‘Tassie draft’ and as such, will be severely compromised for ALL clubs, except Tassie of course. We will have to trade players for picks, and as I opined in another thread, the most likely candidates are Trac and Kossie, who will (read, should) net us at least three first rounders and a second rounder in this year’s draft. There’s no time to hesitate!

If we’re going the rebuild route, then it MUST start at the end of this season, as next year we’ll have the Tassie team scooping the pool. Trac and Kozzie are the obvious trades and should net us at least 3 first rounders and a second rounder between them. I agree with BDR in that we should keep Fritsch, but a real conundrum is, what do we do about the likes of Sestan, JVR, Jefferson, Adams, Fullerton etc?…I’ll probably be accused of blasphemy, but, if JVR doesn't show anything this year, then does he get traded while he has some currency? On current form, we’re likely to finish in the bottom four, so we’ll have good picks for, hopefully, picking up a couple of decent mature age draftees in the second and third rounds; of course, a lot of how we can use our picks will be dependent on where White is rated, assuming he is our F/S pick.

I don’t know what to make of this team. They look like they just aren’t invested in the game plan (whatever that may be), they don’t appear to be working for each other (very little talking or awareness of what team mates are doing) and they just appear to lack energy. Honestly, I feel like I’m watching a Neeld era match… it’s so [censored] awful!! Fritsch can’t buy a goal, Rivers is having possibly the worst game I’ve seen him play, Viney appears to be disposing of the ball to players that we can’t see, Salem doesn’t appear to want to lay a tackle, Oliver still having the occasional expensive brain fart etc etc. And on top of all of that we lose Lindsay, one of our most productive players in the first two rounds, early in the game. I am liking Johnson’s attitude if not his skill set, and I’ve liked Sharp’s run. Back to the game now…

He was actually shown as injured in the list of outs when the team was named, yesterday.