Pates

Would love for this to backfire in their face in the form of DVT! Still as much my Supercoach team hates this (I literally just got him last round), it may just make QB game a little less painful.

I had a look at our injury list, and there's a common denominator: Rohan Bail (knee) Clint Bartram (hip) Robbie Campbell (knee soreness) Aaron Davey (knee) Jack Fitzpatrick (ankle) Colin Garland (ankle) Jack Grimes (foot) Mark Jamar (knee) Michael Newton (foot) Jake Spencer (knee) Luke Tapscott (hamstring) (Tom Scully (Knee)) Most of them are knee, foot, and ankle injuries (Tappy being the odd one out), apart from Jamar (who i believe was worked into the ground) they seem to me to be impact injuries, something you cannot plan for. If it had been a lot of soft tissue injuries i would've agreed, but not this time. Coincidence/bad luck for me.

Would never wish an injury apon someone, having said that I wanted him out of the side so I guess I got my wish. Surely there's little doubt now, Gawn's in.

Can't say i'm surprised that we're perceived as weak, too many times players put in pathetic efforts to tackle and are swatted aside like a fly. It sickens me to see it.

Bit surprised he cooked Sylvia, I reckon he's been one of our hardest working players the whole year.

That is actually quite a well constructed post, i agree with just about all of that. Except if we don't any of Baily will be sacked at the bye, i'll be surprised if he doesn't coach out the year.

I haven't seen much of Gawn live, but he's still quite slight is he not? If that's the case i have no problems with the club letting him get used to getting hit by tougher blokes, I'm sure stepping up from VFL reserves is a jump and i believe he'd played the one good at senior level. Now that he's done it again i think the match committee will be much more comfortable giving him a crack. I hope so, no matter what the result debuting a player is a positive.

Tappy's my favourite big improver, a solid unit and backs his delivery, it's great to see. Seeing Watts develop into a footballer has been fantastic to watch and i couldn't be happier for him, as much as the club maintains that the pressure wasn't getting to him I can't imagine it not. The constant debate over him vs Naita would've been impossible for him to ignore, still waiting for him to have a massive breakthrough game but in just about every match this year he's been a consistent performer. Gysberts is an impressive kid, for such a slight figure he knows how to go in and get it, he can only get better from here. And a big special mention to Stef Martin who's had to shoulder sole rucking duties and has thus far come out of it very well. Still doesn't do much around the ground but what i really like has been his follow up work to his rucking, it actually reminds me a lot of Jamar!

Because I was bored i thought i'd go through the Win/Loss ratio for clubs coming off a bye, i took out the games where it was being played between two teams that had both come off a bye (ala WCE v Melb). It stands at 9 losses and 4 wins, make of that what you will.

The physio would've made him ice it weather it was giving him grief or not being it was his first game back. Last week a lot of people at the club were saying 2 weeks at the VFL to get him some match conditioning, so it won't surprise me if they do give him one more week with the Scorps to make sure everything is right. The worst thing we can do by him and the club is to rush him back.

I'm definitely more optimistic this week than last, the inclusion of Trengove and potentially Scully could give a few people confidence. It's an interesting one, and we must make sure we're not blown out of the water especially leading into the QB match.

I must admit though, there is a romanticism with Todd coaching his son in a premiership team. When was the last time that happened?

Definitely, as much as the injury to Jamar has massively sucked, it has fast-track a fair bit of development with Stef and i really think he's done quite well (under the circumstances). I reckon it will ease the pressure off Jamar, and as you said, play him as a forward more often.

It's all well and good to use Paul Roos as an example but the fact is that the success rate vs failure when sacking a coach mid season would be skewed MASSIVELY towards failure. IMO very little will be gained from sacking him mid-year.

IF we got rid of Baily I would be furious if we went for an untried coach, for that matter I wouldn't be too impressed if we went for an experience coach who hadn't won a premiership. My gut feeling says that we will turn this insipid form around with real afl players out there and a renewed confidence. Whether or not that'll be enough for Baily to keep his job.......

Chip had two shocking errors which both resulted in goals. Take them out and he was one of our best in a backline that was constantly getting hammered, honestly who would want to be in the backline for melbourne at the moment, you get the ball out and 20 sec later it's back again. He's starting to show a bit of the dash again that's made him one of my favourite players.

This is exactly the question i had running through my head on Friday night. What is the game plan? Watching the game it looked like the players were going along the boundary lines, all well and good but when we win the ball why is it that there are 4-5 opposition players to our two (if we're lucky)? Doesn't that mean that we should have free numbers in the middle of the the ground? At the moment i don't think we can judge Baily on his game plan because the players simply aren't playing to it (whatever it is!). However motivating the players to do what you want is something we can judge him on, which currently is not so good. There is also a mitigating circumstance of half the team being spuds. Whiles we're on game plans: FFS can we PLEASE mix it up when doing kick ins? Every bloody time it's "kick for the boundary line", and i don't even blame the player kicking out, NO ONE is giving him an option. We are the worst side in the comp for kick ins at the moment.

I disagree, look at every marking contest he's been involved in lately. He's barely getting two feet off the ground, I'd like to either see him have a week or a spell at casey with limited game time. The commentators seemed to think he's hampered as well so I'm not seeing it with rose-coloured glasses.

Ah Benno, I find it very difficult to judge him when all he's got are spuds, and those spuds clearly aren't playing to the game plan (unless that game plan is to constantly kick to a 4 on 1, which if so definitely sack him!).

TEN still reckon he's playing, hope not but all we can do is wait!

Just heard on TEN News that Robbo will play Travolta in a duet with her. And fair go btw, she's a pop icon of Australia who's performing at our home game despite being a Carlton fan and is trying to promote a very important charity, and who knows it could even bring a few extra people through the gate. Personally i think it's a big tick for us.

I don't think at this stage it's important for him to have it, he's still leading (arguably better) and doing all he can to prove he wants back in. But what I think is more important is for the club to hold a strong stance on what is and isn't tolerated. A mid-year recall, after a starring queens birthday performance , is what I'm tipping.

I'm in the "play him at Casey" match, he's still very young and as much as he is a quality young player, I'm sure he will be rusty and I'd rather ease him into it and get him some math fitness.

I said yes, Jimmy has asked and as much as I will feel like a complete dill I will at least have them on at some point.

Good to be reading a positive thread rather than the doom and gloom everywhere else. Evans was very impressive on debut, any debutant that gets his hands on it 27 times and lays 5 tackles gets a big tick. I actually also reckon he would've had to do more with Tappy going down early so congrats to him. We looked harder and hungrier than last week, we fell down in skills but as long as I see them having a crack I can take something from it. Watts is continuing to build as a footballer as is becoming influential on the match. Football smarts are starting to show, and is using his body more. Gysberts, currently my favorite player. Keeps getting better, he could really take off once he gets some backup. Unfortunately we have regressed back to "taking every little positive", but expectations should be scaled until the cavalry returns. The one positive I can take from the upcoming run is that we don't really have much to lose, so we might as well play as positively as we can.