binman

I was JOKING! Sheesh, defensive much (not joking)

If I was a kid I'd give you a month for that attempted pun. God awful. Or should I say Devil awesome

What a load of rubbish. The issue is 100% a result of the impact of having interrupted preseasons and the flow on effect on fitness, confidence, 'connection' and even skills (hard to practice skills when you can only run laps with the rehab group - or for that matter work on connection and systems). I just can't understand why people don't get this. All of the players Bitters mentions in his post - Oliver, Tmac, Omac, Weid and Brayshaw - had interrupted preseasons. Oliver, TMac, Omac and i think Weed all had post season surgery. All are clearly not up to full fitness and all look hampered by injury as well. Tmac is the best example. Something is obviously up. He can't kick 40 metres or pick the ball off the ground for Pete's sake. And again whilst Richmond have had some injuries (which by the by are starting to bite) they had a strong off season with few players having had surgery and not many in rehab. They got the miles in their legs. And besides they have not been hit anywhere near as hard us in terms of injury. Not even close. We have gone past the tipping point where a system can help mitigate against impact of injury.

I have a sneaky feeling.......

Neither are playing for the dees and both struggled to make the senors at the roos so it would be an appropriate name.

I missed this post. And my chance to come in as an emergency! Was wondering where grapeviney was. Late out. Salems's Gastro? I'll get Skype happening so I'm ready to roll in the event of a late out. Good show by the way. Surprisingly upbeat.

When they nail it I guess they are on song

Too true ub. I thought pyke exploited these issues really well. The other key issue was hore's late withdrawal robbing us completely of the intercept player who could zone off and go third man in to mark or spoil. To take advantage of our rubbish team defence and nor having aeriel coverage he isolated omac one out against a much stronger opponent. As you say omac had a poor game and was well beaten by jenkins but that is not a shock given he has is at a signifacnt strength and experience disadvantage. Collins for gc was at a similar disadvantage and was towelled up by tmac in his only half decent game of the year. It happens. But as I say smart coaching assited by lazy mids, poor forward pressure and two late outs robbing us of two important defefenders who were replaced by twi short non defenders and one of those is treacle slow.

He had post season surgery. Can't recall what it was but might be a factor.

They'd find a way if biind siding each other

What was frustrating was not so much he took the kick but he turned his back immediately and in doing so ruled out the option of a short kick to a team mate closer to goal. Which I assume is a team rul to do so (look for an option tbat is)

Block me.

Fair dinkum some of the comments on this pathetic excuse for a thread (i mean a time to go oscar thread - really?) are beyond the pale. Don't rate a player. Think he should be dropped. Don't think he is up to it. Fine. Resorting to personal attacks is simply not fine. Pathetic and gutless. Social media at its gutter worse. Grown men (i'll bet london to a brick almost everry comment on this thread is from a bloke) venting and spewing insults on a young fella who's crime us to be selected in the side they purportedly follow. If you have an issue with his selection take it up wirh Simon Goodwin. And if you have the mettle do so to his face.

Are you being serious? Just a coup,e of minutes ago i i heard the ABC radio commentators giving him a big wrap. Yuo know, paid objective observers Doing his job. Again. Laid a couple of crunching tackles late in the lst quarter too which should satisy his critiics who think he is not aggressive enough Watch with your eyes not your confirmation bias.

Good Lord. Gastro. The curse is real.

Couldn't bring myself to listing why we could win last week. Because i didn't think we would. But even though i've tipped the Crows i am much more confident this week and would not all be shocked if we win. I'm very confident we will be in it for most of the match and would be surprised if they get a hold of us. The betting line is 10.5 which i think is about right. Reasons we can win: They are rubbish Their strength is nominally their big forwards - the likely sweaty humid and slippery conditions will negate this strength and make it very hard for them to clunk their marks (us too but we don't do that anyway) Omac will rack up his 10 plus spoils and make life hell for their bigs (and no one will notice, least of all DL posters and the stoopid commentators) It hasn't been the big forward that have hurt us (last week notwithstanding - but geez Rance, Bruce Doull and Steve Silvagni would have no chance last week) it has be the small and medium forwards. The crows have eddy and not much else i this regard and he is not the player he was They are rubbish They struggle to score so won't get away from us like GWS Salem, Hibberd and Hannan are huge ins Even though obviously the giants well and truly put the cue in the rack in the q last week it was important we kept working hard and brought the loss under 5 goals- there is an old saying in footy that teams carry on from where they left off and we got reward for contested ball and dare The teams we struggle against are those that hold the ball up and spread and use the width of grounds. They don't play that well and our game plan matches up well against theirs (or perhaps it is more accurate to say their approach doesn't not exploit our weaknesses) as is reflected in the fact we have 3 of our last 4 encounters (and should have won the 4th) Dids i say they are rubbish

I listened too. That fella is total peanut. Major axe to grind with casey. I suspect he was turned down for a coaching job or some such. Would not shut up about how disappointed he was - work rate blah blah. I made a mental note to ask KC if he knew of him but i can't recall his name (started with a P?). How can you implement a game plan with so mnay of your team out and so many players playing having NEVER played together? Peanut

Huh? Both are in the seniors.

That's not the case BB but i see your point. Perhaps I should have added 'in my opinion' to my Which is plain wrong comment but in my defence it is a given that it is my opinion i would have thought. An opinion i would bet London to a brick Goody would agrees with given he picked him in his starting 22 all last year when he had other options

Spot on.

I had to laugh at the 2% comment. Is that like a soft, past it Hell's Angel? It was particularly funny given it presupposes TGR was actually correct in his position we should not have traded Lewis in. Which is plain wrong. He has been a terrific addition to the side. Which is 98% of people thought it was good move. It absolutely has been a good move. As you say he would likely not be playing this season if we didn't have so many outs. That said it was instructive they elected to bring Spargo in instead of Lewis (who plays a very similar role to Salem) for Salem. Lewis then goes and clocks some fella in the VFL. Which is dead poor. Apart from agreeing with TGR that that act was stoopid i also have to agree with his comments about Lewis on 360 saying Thomas should not have been cited for calling the ump a cheat. What bollocks. I couldn't believe it. He was all over the shop in his attempt to defend his position. No wonder because it was indefensible. If my son or daughter called an umpire a cheat i would be livid. Simply not on and crosses a line big time. Says a fair bit about where Lewis, a well known sniper, draws his lines. I wouldn't be shocked if the club was similarly dismayed at his lack of leadership and that perhaps that was a factor in the decision to go with Spargo? If so his decision to get himself rubbed out wouldn't have done much to assuage the club's concerns.

Excellent post suit, and I agree wholeheartedly with your criticism of Gleeson, who I rate as a journalist. He contradicts himself. For one the dees situation is not comparable Collingwood as as he points out himself those injuries are all recent and after they have got a good block of wins. And taking his numbers a 30 odd difference in games misses of best 22 between us and the tigers is huge. So we can't fairly be compared to the tigers either. And as you say his point about the quality of the three key players tigers have lost also is a strange one given we have also lost very talented players (albeit not as good) but we don't have the capacity to replace them that the tigers do. To his credit he notes our interrupted preseasons and tbat some players are obviously not fit. However he fails to mention two other interrelated key factors that need to be taken into consideration when comparing us with the tigers and pies in this context (ie capacity to play well despite big injury toll). The first is that it is simple fact we don't have as deep a list as either the pies or tigers. So we are obviously going to be hurt more by a large number of outs. Secondly both the pies and tigers have been been building their success for some time and had the same head coach for much longer than us. So the systems are well embedded, as is often pointed out about the tigers. So players coming in are supported by the system and can focus on their role in it. Goody is only in his third season. We had lots of injuries in his first, with maxy being a huge out in terms the of structure (watts rucked for a fair bit of that season). Last year was better and we were able to play a consistent brand and system. So we have one seaon to embed our system. The tigers and pies have has 7-8.

Go back one page and magically all your questions will be answered grasshopper. 89.

I'm not one usually to get too discombobulated about selections but i'm bamboozled by Spargo getting a gig ahead of JKH. Flummoxed even. Was an emergency after struggling at VFL level, gets a late call up and puts in a stinker.

We can rule out leather poisoning