John Crow Batty

48-14 inside 50 marks during finals series. We destroyed opposition defences.

And 30.15 to 8.8 in second half of finals series games.

If you read carefully I said “then” for 2012. In 2012 Martin was doing very well as a ruckman before issues beyond his control derailed his season and career at Melbourne. He was then the logical replacement for an ageing Jamar. It took Gawn another two and half seasons before his breakout game in 2015. Martin was already showing he was an accomplished Number 1 ruckman in 2014 at Brisbane and likely one of the top 3 in the comp at the time whilst Gawn was still struggling. He was averaging over 20 touches and 30 hit outs a game. Reality is that Gawn would have had little opportunity to upstage Martin if Martin had remained. Credit to Gawn to become the superstar he is now.

Ah, now I’ve seen what you done!

Martin had to leave for awkward reasons not related to football. He had more upside as a ruckman then than Gawn.

Actually it’s Italian.

The crew of the only surviving WWI German tank Mephisto housed in the National War Museum in Canberra were obviously Melbourne supporters.

As I said previously, if we had kept Stefan Martin, Gawn would have likely been delisted or traded before he had a chance for a breakout game. At that time he was another under performing hopeful no different to Spencer or Fitzpatrick. It is what it is.

That’s true but then the club was run like a media circus. The powers that be thought they could play the media for their own ends but as we know if you don’t get it right you get pilloried from pillar to post. The media were drumming up the Watts hype way before we drafted him. He was portrayed as some sort of super man who was supreme over all other draft hopefuls bar Niknat. He was handed the poison chalice then.

Again the media being tone deaf. They are the ones that create the burden and excessive expectations by flogging the the Number 1 from both ends to generate clicks.

In an ironic way he became the player we all expected Jack Watt to become.

The bulldogs didn’t concede a 100 points a game this season until they conceded 100 against us in less than two quarters.

He would have got a 6 year extension but his last goal in the GF was in junk time.

I said before that the GC game was a watershed game for us. We played our best footy for the season after that.

That’s what happens when a club wins a flag. Other rival clubs poach assistants in the hope of getting a dollop of the secret sauce. Last year he would have little hope of getting a gig elsewhere. Success sticks like chewing gum. Good luck and best wishes.

Go the way of Nat Fyfe but with a trifecta of premierships maybe.

He’s chasing success no doubt.

I guess Liam Jones truly believes that he will be vindicated for his defiant stance(I told you so)one day. To forgo a $500,000 salary in the twilight of his career in these uncertain times demonstrates how pervasive and damaging misinformation can be in steering people astray. Not much different to harmful wacky cult and religious beliefs which defy common sense and immune to reason.

The grim reaper.

I believe Stefan Matin left on bad terms. No fault of the club but because of Mitch Clark.

I have always said than an adult who changes his/her sporting allegiance without a bloody good reason indicates bad character. And we know there are quite a few people around with bad character. Implies untrustworthiness, opportunism, disloyalty, shallowness and unfaithfulness.

Some of the lame criticisms against Sparrow could easily be applied to Petracca. As far as I am concerned a player with sublime penetrating kicking skills should exploit them rather than lowering themselves to expected standards of lesser skilled players. The coach and bench went crazy with joy after Sparrow posted our 11th goal. That says it all.

The look on Bonts face after Olivers goal says it all. He looks at the scoreboard replay, shakes his head, curses and almost cries. The other players in a state of shock.They gave up then. Not even a a semblance of a challenge in the last. Beveridge confirms this when he says in the blink of an eye the game was gone for them.

I do notice it seems a tactic to kick the ball deep to the pockets. That makes it harder to score accurately from marks, stoppages or open play. On the other hand it keeps the ball locked in more often and difficult for the opposition defences to cleanly exit when they get the ball. We do lead the completion for both number of inside 50’s, efficiency for inside 50’s as well as tackles. So we are doing very well. We sacrifice accuracy for weight of entries and scoring pressure. Of course sometimes it works better than others. It’s been about playing the percentages for us.

The best 10 in any combination of 10 you wish equal the 22+1 premiership players.