binman

I tend to agree, though it is hard to gauge how much Hodges influence as a leader has positively impacted on the Hawks culture.

I'll give this to you Hannibal. You're consistent. Why the need to be rude? I wasn't having a shot at you nor was i rude, yet you cannot resist being rude. For what its worth i rate people who show a semblance of grace and capacity to engage in intelligent argument over narcissists who rely on simplistic, dismissive insults to make their points.

You may well prove to be correct but was it not you that posted a while back that such early predictions are folly and in fact you cannot compare players until their respective careers are nearing their end, as is well demonstrated in the Judd/Hodge example. Out of interest do you think the Hawks erred by taking Hodge not Judd?

Who cares now? The Toump is a demon and wines plays for an opposition club. For whats's worth my two bobs worth is that Wines looks a gun and the jury is out on on the Toump. A very similar scenario will have played out for Hawks fans when they took Hodge not Judd. For years Judd was the clear standout - indeed until he was in his mid twenties he was probably the best player in the league. Two premierships and a norm smith later I doubt too many Hawks fans would now say they made the wrong call.

We've all just had a pretty big stress reaction

2 weeks would be round one.

If this article is correct Hogan was/is having scans today. If he hasn't had scans yet how on earth could DB or anyone else for that matter jump to the conclusion that he has fractures. Please.

No offence - but what the .......? You could be the Hun chief footy writer with that sort of logic.

. I can see the similarities to in go but to me he reminds me more of the duke of earl.awkward but effective and similar build

Yes penalties were for governance breaches and bringing the game into disrepute (which would be hard to argue against). However they do set an interesting benchmark in terms of severity of penalties. One assumes club penalties for systematic doping would be considerably harsher.

I agree. Indeed it seems the ban on players talking about anything other than the process has been lifted

and that if we have the ball they don't

My condition - Pollyanna Syndrome - is currently under control (just) and i cannot allow that genie to get out of the football. It was so bad last year that i confidently told mates we'd make the 8 and actually backed us to do so. It took precisely 1 game to realize i had a problem (and one more to ram home the point). So i refuse to countenance winning.

Good get. The commentary was appalling and that was just one example but it stood out to me. In addition to your point Blease was running across the ground and to get the ball to Cross would have had to kick with his left foot or tried a check kick - and as you say into the wind. It was the percentage play to give and go with Watts but still the commentators bagged (despite the obvious fact it resulted in a goal). Another dumb call was one of them saying that with the Roos game players who kick accurately and made good decisions would get in the team. Duh - and geez we have a surfeit of such players who just crack it for a game.

Yep - and the docs just say whether a player is uninjured and therefore ok to be selected, should that be the call. It is the role of the conditioning team to determine if he is actually fit enough to play. Viney has had an interrupted pre season and if he doesn't play most of the game against the Hawks and back it up with a couple of weeks of solid training i doubt he'll play round 1. If he is not fully match fit he's likely to play limited minutes for Casey - to which many would say that if he's fit to play for Casey then he's good to go for the AFL. That might be true of say a big fella like Dawes but not for a mid, particularly a young, developing one.

Good post WJ. I'd also add that Essendon and its media allies have also looked to manipulate the narrative in such a way that the focus is on the legality or otherwise of the drugs used. Indeed Whateley has been adamant on this point since the beginning and i heard him on Offsiders repeat the assertion that this is really the only issue. The narrative is if ASADA do not charge any players then EFC are vindicated. This infuriates me. It is the very definition of a furphy. For a start it is possible that EFC did in fact used banned drugs but ASADA don't have sufficient proof (or desire?) to lay charges. This scenario is no vindication in my eyes. Bu in any case, for me to an extent the charges are secondary. The real issue is the failure of the club to protect their players from harm. For god's sake they can not even equivocally say what drugs the players received and what is completely missed by Yobbo and the EFC apologists in discussion about AOD and the potential wrong advice from ASADA is that it is a drug that has not been properly tested and was not being used for its intended purpose. And this is just a couple of examples of how they let down their players. Hundreds of off site injections, a lack of proper proper medical oversight, ignoring their own doctors warning and in in the words of their own expert brought in to review what happened - 'a pharmacological experimental environment'. Finnis made this very point ie the issue of the legality of the drugs is secondary to the health and welfare of the players. EFC and journos like Yobbo and Whateley refuse to address this. And like you WJ i have lost a lot of respect for Whateley.

Even if she chose to not take the free kick her editor would not have allowed her to miss the opportunity to have a shot at their only real competitor (particularly given the criticism she and the Age have copped from the sanctimonious double act of Warner and Yobbo).

Either way its hard to believe he could have the front to actually write such an obviously hypocritical, contradictory piece. The players will be devastated? Well, obviously only now that their names have been blared out to he public.

The SMART replay on the AFL site is good for looking at golas, frees, points etc however it terrible otherwise. The worst part is that when on full screen it still is cropped in a red box. Super annoying. Replays of each quarter can be found here: http://bigpondvideo.com/Horse_Racing. Go to AFL strip. Full screen and proper functionality. Also all the other clips, including preesers and some specific highlights. One video is funny - its basically a blooper vid of a bunch of our turnovers. Strange but jeez there are some doozys. Last year Big Pond only had the NAB games up, not he home and away. Meaning you could only watch full replays on the SMARt replay player. I'm hoping that's not the case this year.

Spot on. Funny though isn't it - with the Hun now turning on the bombers. You want a real example of pathetic hypocritical journalism try Yobbos 'editorial' in today's Hun. Yobbo writes: ' It is desperately unfair. The players will be devastated. They spoke to ASADA/ AFL on the promise of confidentiality. They were then named in an interim report a confidential document that the AFL demanded from ASADA ahead of the 2013 AFL finals.' This is an column right next a two page spread of photos of all 12 players named and an article listing all of the drugs and supplements ASADA have alleged the EFC used in the supplement and drug program. Unbelievable. Link is here

Good points, well made. I have seen hardly any of his games for the scorps and i guess he's played a few. Having watched him a bit at that level you are in a better position than i to make an assessment, particularly regarding his preparedness to put his body on the line. As i've said i wonder if he is carrying a bit of baggage and i am hopeful he will respond to Roos positive, encouraging approach. Roos loves players who play a role and his game plan is dependent on players hitting targets with their kicks. I can see Strauss ticking both boxes. But yes, well see and l suspect that this year is a make or break one for him.

Please Mandee don't worry - he's just trolling and very poorly at that. if he had a bit a trolling skill he'd post something like: I don't want to scare anyone sat but my girlfriends uncle is a leading foot surgeon and Clark has been seeing him regularly of late (starting around the time he did his 'hammy'). The suggestion is he will struggle to get back on the park at all. I wonder if his increased interest in photography is about planning for life after football. Fingers crossed though. By the by the above is not true in any way.

Gold. Pure Comedy Gold. ' Please PJ, i know that i'm on 450k a year but it would be swell if you could pay me say 3k to to the club cub reporter. It'd be outside the salary cap coz its not footy. I'm over footy actually, playing that its is - i'm super keen to take photos of other blokes playing footy. No PJ i'm not joking, i'm dead set serious'

Fence, perhaps we were at a different game. To quote you: ' HE HAS AVEARAGE (sic) KICKING SKILLS For a player recruited for his so called "Elite" delivery he lets you down time and again. As you suggest There may well have been worse culprits BUT, BUT For his strength to be letting him down so regularly this then is a catasphrophic (sic) situation.' Catastrophic? Seriously? I couldn't find his disposal efficiency stats however as i said i watched him very closely at the ground and when i watched the replay. I reckon he only made one kicking error and no handball errors. Pretty elite sort of stats i would have thought. To top that off there were at least 2 beautiful kicks where he hit a target 40-50 meters away. One led directly to a goal and was a great example of turning defense into attack. Oh and the player he played on for most of the night - their key forward (a bigger, stronger player) did not kick a goal. And before you say oh but he missed 3 shots as another poster noted 2 of those he was not on Edwards at the time and one was a bullet pass that no one would have stopped. As an example of how blinkered some can be, in the game thread a poster bagged him for losing Edwards when Edwards doubled back and then led hard into the pocket. This was used, IIRC as an example of his lack of awareness. All well and good except for the fact it wasn't Strauss who was on Edwards in that play!

. Please stop