John Crow Batty

It was the fault of whoever gave us those icky bright colours in the 70's to make us look more colourful on TV. We lost our continuity of tradition then. Tradition maintains its validity only when there is unbroken continuity. We lost it a long time ago. You can only defend tradition when you still live by it. The Pies and Hawks never deviated too much from their original look though the Hawks did try to shed those pukey colours but faced a lot of resistance from fans. As I recall there was not a whole lot of resistance to our IKEA look of the seventies at the time.

Just because he has a passing resemblance to said Mr Bolt does not mean he is a Neo Fascist. I thought he looked like a KAOS agent.

I just hope he proves me and other doubters wrong and leads us to victory with a bigger than Ben Hur performance on Monday.

And there was the penile legend WOW Jones.

Carlton obviously thought he was a useless prickk.

If we are 2 points up against the pies with 30 seconds to go I just hope he is nowhere near the ball or worse someone gives it to him. Just make sure his opponent doesn't get near the ball as well, thats all I ask.

Just highlights what taking opportunities is all about. They came to play and had chances like us to get the win but fluffed them. How irritating for us it would have been if GWS got up and won? Now that we are competitive we have to take the four points when we have the chance. No more excuses for honourable losses.

I also believe that should happen. Grimes as captain is an anachronism from the ugly Schwab/Neeld era. He is still a required player but not up to the leadership job. Would be a great gesture to the club if he stepped down to work on improving his personal game.

If you are going to quote my post then at least refer to the essence to what I am saying. You sound like a cheap shyster lawyer.

Richmond are making us look worse than what we are.

The essence of the game is taking advantage of opportunities as they arise. The game is far too competitive and cut throat for taking satisfaction from a so called honourable loss. Many a grand final loser bemoan this fact. We had them on toast but lacked the smarts to finish them off. We are back in town for sure. [censored] the memories of the last 6 years. They are are gone for good, Do not compare us now to then.

Like Brisbane with Brown and one or two diehards as the last links to past glories.

I just hope the players are not feeling as self satisfied as one too many supporters here. If so we are going to get walloped next week. I'm sure Roos will see this as an opportunity lost. The 4 points were there for the taking.

If Grimes was not captain I'm sure he would just be a yoyo player coming in and out of the side as required. It would be hard to drop a captain after steady improvement by the team as whole. I sort of compare him with Cheney at Hawthorn. Can be relied to do a job as required but never an automatic selection. I see that as Grimes fate next season unless he goes the next step and becomes a more composed player.

Maybe yes but this was the same as against the bulldogs. We could not stop them keeping the ball in their half and they just converted one after other from essentially random play. We left the desperation play up to them. For me the turning point was when Howe took his hanger then proceeded to turn the ball over with a short kick. His kick should have went deep to half forward to a contest and a throw in at worst.

AFL is the premier footy competition. Footy SOO was a big yawn. Rugby SOO is the premier rugby comp. NRL is a big yawn.

We still need to find a way to score more goals. While we dominated for most of the second half we should have at least another 3 or 4 goals from the play we generated. Without regular offensive pressure we cannot stop good sides from having having a sniff to steal a win. I thought there was a little timidity going forward in the last quarter. Going short too often upfield when we really should have tried to keep the ball deep in our forward line. In the end they took the game on and got rewarded for our callow mistakes.

Can you remember those arty semi naked warrior photos that took up whole pages in newspapers like The Age and The Sun? Exploiting the noble warrior image to the max.

Well that may be the common perception or else it would not be raised by the media. I cannot recall any other indigenous player who has had so much publicity about him and his tribe. Was it all necessary? If anything he was portrayed by the club as some sort of circus freak that Barnum & Bailey would have presented at their circus.

Making the association that Liam's downfall may have been the fault of the club is improbable, But the club did make too much publicity about about its connection with Liam and his community. Just about every week we kept hearing glowing feel good stories about Liam and his community, the good things we were doing and then there was the famous pilgrimage by Stynes and his entourage. So it is not surprising our connection with his downfall and his communities troubles is being suggested and exists in the mind of many. IMO, the club then exploited Liam and his community for the publicity value to the extreme.

Though I am very optimistic I have couple of niggles in the back of my mind. After our first two wins the following games have been a let down. It also remains to be seen if the bye has a negative effect on us. In previous years we have mostly always disappointed after the bye. Then again we did not have Roos coaching us. Their losses of Monfries, Hartlett and Cassisi is a bonus for us but considerably offset by Dawes missing. Cassisi is a natural leader and will be missed just like we will miss Dawes leadership. The key for us is to shut down their scoring. Schultz and Wingard in particular.

Have not seen the cats so tired and lethargic and error ridden for ages. The Swans are in cruise control. Two six day breaks against a side thats had the bye. Does this give us extra hope for our game.?

No matter, the name is the same. Both are a variation of the Gaelic Ua Neill. There are several other variations.

Just being flippant of possible outs for GWS. Since there seems a bottomless pit of money funding them they can afford to take the hit of his salary and be rid of him. They can't afford him draging them down for another 3 seasons. A club may be pursuaded to take him for say GWS paying 75% of his salary and throw in Cameron for example.

Also reported in The Age an hour ago. Best wishes. http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/hawthorn-coach-alastair-clarkson-in-hospital-20140527-zrppc.html