binman

VDB will cop a fine at worst. Low impact and looked accidental so careless

Only your scarf?

Kids should do drugs

Disagree

First time. Long time. Jokes. Go dees. By the by Dr D i'm thinking something a little more embarrassing than a picture of Jack Watts as your new avatar. How about this:

My best for tomorrow, on what is a great day is Le Romain first up. Deserves a win and dropping back from group 1 class i ti think will get it done. Big weight but huge class edge over the second favourite Siege of Quebec, is unders in my humble.

Have done my form for Caulfield, Randwick and the group race at Morphetville. Really terrific days racing. Quietly confident. Will post my best tomorrow morning when i see how the tracks and odds come up. have posted my best footy bets here

Two stand out bets for mine in the AFL Tigers plus 14.5 Comment: I think the 14.5 line for the tigers is too short. I know tigers are resting players and Bombers are playing for their chance of finals but Tigers are a 6 goal better side and i would have that line at 30 points. Great value. I hasten to add my betting partner has Bombers as one of his best so i won't be betting in this game (unless i can convince him to go unders on TMP of 166.5 - i think it will be scrappy, low scoring game) GWS plus 4.5 Comment: GWS will win this game by 4 goals plus so a line of 4.5 is terrific value

Do you read all other posts other than your own as one big, single post? Saty against the world. Anyway i'm happy wit selections, save JKH being dropped. He is one of the few reliable kicks in the side and i think he played ok. I like Hunt and Hannan as two physically strong forwards. Jeffy deserved to be dropped.

Im a fan but he lost me last week

I hope it is to replace garlett. He was a terrible against the swans. Unforgivable lack of intensity from one of our senior players. I'd also drop Spargo and bring Hannan back in. Hannan and Kent as small forwards is a good combination i reckon. Hard bodies, both of who one presumes will leave nothing in the shed. Sorry pedo i'd also drop you big fella. Didn't give us enough on the weekend. So if i was doing selections (as opposed to what i think will happen, which to be honest i have no idea what they'll do) i would have: Out: Hogan (inj), Hunt (inj), Spar goes, Gar left, Pederson In: Weed, Hibbo, Melk, Kent, Hannan

I noticed that. Surely he was/is injured?

Agree on all points. Not wanting to single out jonesy but his decision to go for goals late the in the last quarter rather than center the ball (which surely is the team rule) was perfect example of our poor decsion making as was the stupid dump kicks to the extra defender.

That's true. But they have some excellent field kicks who hit targets and forwards with good technique that take their chances. They also have a ruckman who has good technique ans can be relied on to kick goals when he has the chance

All game plans require good kicks for them to work. Rhe best players are generallt excellent teams and the best teams have more excellent players.

No. Good kicking is. Always has been. Always will be. Great example the cats last q against us and rhe swans 2nd. Kennedys kick a perfect example. The wind was swirling and genuinely tricky. Our crap kicks simply could nor cope with it. He never looked like missing from 40. Perfect technique

Melbourne has one stand out weakness. And it is not our game plan. Though it certainly negatively impacts on the effectiveness of our game plan. We have had the weakness for 25 years. And it is not mental fragility. Though it certainly creates mental demons and our ability to execute in big moments. Our recruiting philosophy in the last 5 years has exacerbated the weakness. The weakness is that, with a very small handful of exceptions, we are a terrible kicking side and almost all of our players have woeful kicking techniques. Of our top 30 players i would only rate the following players as being above average kicks (and unsurprisingly all have strong techniques): Fritsch, Salem, Melksham, Lewis, Vince, Weiderman, Omac, Oliver, JKH, Hibberd (just), Spargo (but only up to 30 metres) and Tmac (but only when shooting for goal). That is simply not enough players who can be relied on to: hit a basic target, kick clutch goals under pressure, kick a ball to a designated spot, kick to a forwards advantage (put it in front of them, put it on their side of the contest!!!) and critically be trusted not to break scoring chains through basic turnovers. And of the 12 players noted above only 3 are anywhere near elite kicks. Again not nearly enough Our recruiting in recent years has empahsised players who are strong at the contest at the expense of skilled kicks. The best coach of the last 50 years, Alistair Clarkson has recruited all sorts of different players - talls, silky skilled, outside and inside. But there is one skill he has has empahsised throughout his career as coach - kicking. And won 4 flags. We have more talent than the current Hawks side and are certainly stronger at the contest. They are equally inexperienced, albeit with some senior players with much finals experience. And they are also down key players. Yet they are above us on the ladder. In large part because they have more players who are above average kicks. The stat about our goal kicking accuracy against top 8 sides mentioned on Footy Classified was fascinating. It is too easy to say the cause is mental weakness or choking - but not surprising so many so called experts go there given the shallowness of most analysis. Yes mental strength, inexperience and not playing in enough big games are factors. But the real cause is poor technique. Kicking technique is tested by 3 key external variables: environmental (wind, rain, dew, humidity etc), fatigue and most critical of all pressure (big moments, big games etc) The golf swing of professionals (and amateurs for that matter) is a good analogy for kicking technique. The best golfer's swings stand up under those same 3 variables and in particular pressure. Poor techniques don't. Not often enough anyway. Which is why so many brilliant players, like Adam Scott (whose putting technique has always been poor)do not win more often. Perhaps the best example is Greg Norman who was so often unfairly accused of choking. He had technical flaws in his game that were exposed under pressure - namely blocking drives. Tiger Woods is perhaps the most mentally strong player in the modern era but when he had to retool his technique because of his back injury he could not execute under pressure because his swing could not stand up under the variables noted above. Love him or hate but Jack Watts would have nailed his shots if he played in Sunday. And we win that game. Which is why i wanted to keep him. Yes i understand and respect the decision to trade him but i would have kept him simply because he was the best, most reliable kick in our side with a technique that holds up under pressure. And as i said above we simply do not have enough of that sort of player. And please don't throw Fritisch up. We could have traded one of our rubbish kicks - hunt for example - and had both of them in our forward line.

I 100% agree with the quoted text. I have in fact posted something almost exactly the same in recent weeks. Using a medical metaphor the critical thing in designing a treatment plan is getting the diagnoses right and treating the cause not the symptoms. Stretching the metaphor a bit, if i was patient showing symptom of an illness i would not want you as my Doctor.

Is it? Weird they would build a brand new ground and not make it the same dimensions as the g. If it is indeed narrower that really helps u as the width of the g makes our aggressive press less effective as an attacking weapon and more easily penetrated by opponents on the rebound

No problemo. I quite like the early race each season as first and second up form is on the whole a pretty reliable indicator. Some just come back better than others i 'weight' first and second up form quite high in my form analysis. That said it is of course not exact and i often get bloused by horses that have rubbish first up form and the trainer has changed something or it runs out of its skin. The other thing about the early races is that some good horses peak early in their prep and fall away. And so you can get ok odds and then avoid the losses at shorter odds. One horse that comes to mind is Black Heart Bart

G'day punters. This weekend is the weekend my mate and i kick off our spring season on the punt. Love the run in from here to when the carnival proper begins. Always some great value and i think the next few weeks in Sydney are great from a punting perspective - particularly if wet as it narrows the chances. I look forward to buying the Winning Post on Friday morning and starting my form on the train into town. Will post my best bets on Saturday morning. I'm not into sports multis so happy for this thread to focus primarily on the ponies. That said happy to offer up my two best footy bets for remainder of the season. I have pretty good strike rate with the footy so if others want me to post my two best i will continue to do so

Do you see everything through the prism of left and right political views? What a very strange way to understand life

They may not have the option to rest players.

And by the by i know you love winding people up and your choice of avatars is part of that shtick. But having a player from another club, particularly one that that king hit two of our great servants, as your avatar is ban worthy in my opinion. But each to their own

Disagree on all points. Except one. Yes it was a different era and there were different standards. But in that era Matthews was regarded as vicious thug. He was judged at the time as being a mindless thug with a propensity for premeditated violence. 99% of his peers were not mindless thugs. He remains the only VFL or AFL player to be charged by the police for an on field action and his viciousness saw the introduction of video to make sure such brutality was appropriate punished (and stop the inevitable legal issues that would have occurred if there was not a system put in place). He could easliy have killed Bruns, Smith or Giles. He can be judged on that.