Pates

I reckon we can just about lock in a position in defense for him in the MFC team of the new century! 2010 B&F on the cards?

I would be very surprised if he got up given the trip, and i think i heard the boundary rider saying the doctors had diagnosed it as a severe corcky and they can be persistent. Straight swap hopefully for Junior. If both were out we'd be missing a considerable chunk of our leadership capabilities.

That was the major thing that lifted from the start of the second half, one incident in particular was when the ball was in the middle of the ground and it looked like Freo were going to take the it away from a contest and Joel MacDonald (who i thought was very important today) just bullocked his way through the traffic and managed to knock the ball towards the Melbourne players, this resulted in a goal (i can't remember who to). We look like a different team when we do those small team-oriented things.

I'm happy to see Bail and Morton back in (Bail especially), but Morton's previous games in the seniors has had him struggling to get used to the pace and i seem to remember him taking far too long on the ball. But i'm confident that he will regain his touch and become an integral part of the team in time.

Yeah the 3/4 time was a bit off i reckon, i don't mind it at the start of the game, even with strange occurrence of themes in recent games. And he is slowly starting to be able to stay in time with the crowds clapping.

Are you kidding? MacDonald was really good today, in fact i couldn't really think of any key moments he stuffed up. In: Bail, Junior (if fit) Out: Cheney, Bartram (depending on junior) The only other thought i'd have on changes is Paul Johnson coming out, but i don't think there's anyone to come in for him so he gets a reprieve so Jamar can catch his breath!

I cringe whenever he gets the ball, he just butchers it. That said he has done some pretty good negating roles this year, but i just can't see him lasting in the best 22 for much longer.

I am extremely pumped for this match, almost more so than the QB match against the pies. This is our chance to get back on winning terms but it is by no means a sure thing. We will have to work hard early, get the pressure on them and get goals on the board quickly. I'm looking for big performances out of Jonesy and Beamer as they need to show the way from the start. For me there are there are a few factors that fall in our favour: 1. It's at the G, and we've looked our best at our home. 2. It's against Essendon, which should naturally fire the boys up similar to the pies. 3. Fletcher out is massive, he always kills us and it gives Watts a better chance. 4. Jamar, he will dominate, simple as that. One more thing i'm tipping, a very vocal crowed. Let's make sure the boys know we're there for them!

There is an intelligent point to this article, shame it's written like someone that just can't handle to idea of the AFL being the dominant sport in the country. AFL being the leading sport does hinder our abilities in some sports, Soccer, NRL, and Union probably being the most affected. But let me just throw this out there.......who cares? I love soccer, i follow liverpool and i've been staying up to watch the world cup every night, and i would love nothing more than to see Aussies succeed on that stage. But AFL is unique to Australia, just as NFL is unique to America, what does it matter if it's an Aussie only sport, to a player i'd imagine winning the AFL premiership would be equal to a soccer player winning the European Champions league. I'm not comfortable with the AFL raiding the NRL, mainly because i think it's a slap in the face to the players who have had to work their butt off in the U18's and do their best to get drafted. But if a kid at 13 wants to decide to play AFL instead of soccer/NRL/cricket or whatever, then that's his bloody choice.

I'm expecting a red-hot crack, we must not let ourselves get blown out in the first quarter. I know this seems obvious, but we've had so many poor first quarters this year that we must make a stand here at the G. I know that they were trying to rev the players up in the media last week with all the talk around our poor interstate record and bad starts to matches, but i think this would've been the better game to focus on with our starts given how well the saints are at it. What's been most disappointing in the last 9 rounds bar the 2-3 games is our lack of sustained intensity, it's what made us such an attractive team to watch early on in the year. We lost Petterd and i don't think many of us realised the full ramifications of that at the time, and now we've lost Junior who's been arguably our best player all year, but the best thing i found that they brought to the table was their pressure and willingness to commit. Someone needs to stand up and take responsibility to to just fill those roles, but excel at them. The players i'll be looking at this week to take up this challenge are Dunn, Sylvia (although he might be rusty first game back), and Jones. All players that have been round long enough to take that next step. The irony is that i won't be surprised at all if we do end up playing quite well and giving the saints a scare, but ultimately i can't see us winning.

Today was bad, but of course we've improved. Last year it would've been a 70+ drubbing, at least they did show some fight (even if it took them 2 quarters to find their ticker). Adelaide have been bad this year but as the commentators pointed out they came into the match with the better form line and they beat Fremantle who are currently genuine top 4 contenders. I'm not excusing them at all for the insipid performance they put in for 3 quarters, but the improvement from the group is obvious to anyone with one eye open. But as much as we have improved, our form says we've won one of our past 8 games with one draw and one close shave v Dogs. We have to get ourselves back on winning terms, the commentators were (stupidly) talking about our season being over because they were talking of finals, but finals has never been the goal this year so our season is far from over. We have 9 games left in our season, we must make every single one of them count, make the competition worried when they see us coming. The best place to start is this week, tackle the saints head on and give them a bruising encounter. Get back to what made us the talk of the competition with hard tackling and second efforts, forward line pressure was the cornerstone of our wins and near misses. One thing i'll agree with DeePower on, our starts have been insipid and that was meant to be addressed this week, we put in a start like this week and it'll be a 10 goal deficit at quarter time.

Out: Jetta, Bartram, Rivers/MacDonald In: Sylvia, Junior, Cheney If we did drop Gysberts because of an ineffective performance than he should find his way back through the VFL, if not then i'd give him a chance to get right with either another week off or through Casey. Watts and Miller both weren't great but i don't know whether they were being given the opportunity from the midfield to play their natural game so i reckon they'll both keep their spots.

C'mon Dees, don't let it blow out.

Disagree, the simple point of Carazzo's tactics on Davey and their double standards trumps anything with Watts in there.

It broke my heart listening to his interview with Andy Maher (bad enough that it was that muppet), he wanted it so badly. He could not have done any more, he was completely spent at the end and he was shown his critics just what he's made of. Chin up Mark, you were sensational.

Yeah he's really in touch with the fans isn't he! I say keep the draw, it is a result and it brings a completely different element into the season. And i agree with Demon Jack 16, the GF should be extra time, no replay, the season must be decided that day.

Funny i thought the same thing, his past few weeks have been poor to the point where i was thinking he may be dropped soon. However if it turns out that he's been hampered by this injury, which it sounds very likely, hopefully if he gets given the all clear and can show the form that made us all think he'd finally made it.

I just hope to see Moloney line up on McLean, sure to be an interesting battle. But yes, these two weeks are big games with the football world to be keeping a close eye on us.

Have you seen them singing the song at all in the last 2 years? They hardly ever show any passion when doing it, it's just become another part of the monotony of winning. They have become that used to it that it isn't as important as it is to us; look at our boys every time they sing the song, they know how important it is to the club and to the supporters and they belt it out with gusto. I just hope that if/when we become a powerful side the players look back on this period and remember what it felt like and they take pride in what they achieve each game, be it a 1 point win or a 50 point shellacking.

Yeah no you're right, got those two mixed up. I try to pay as little attention to NRL as possible!

My god, sounds like an episode of Maury Povich! The only issue in this is if they were in contact from the clinic at the school, otherwise it is a matter between two legally consenting people. Not a great image for the game, but hardly an Andrew Johns fiasco.

I was listening to MMM when March was on and he kept on throwing Melbourne players names up and it was kind of pissing me off. Many may recall earlier in the year we found out that we are paying the full amount on our salary cap this year by front ending the contracts so that in the future when GWS and GS17 start trying to poach our players we have some room to move, very smart forward thinking by Schwab and Co. March is (rightly) concerned because Richmond are in a world of trouble and will likely not be going anywhere for a good while, whereas for every one step backwards we've taken this year we've taken two steps forward. I'm not all that worried.

The thing that annoyed me was that there was no one running to make the second option or take the short kick in. Yes WC did it well, but the coaching staff should've been wise to it and devise ways of breaking it, instead of kicking it long and setting NikNat up for MOTY.

I was ready to say 'NO' straight away, but given our clear deficiencies in the forward line and the likely unavailable players this week i must say him coming in is not the dumbest thing i've heard. Having said that though, I'm still leaning towards no, with Dunn coming back into the side to replace Bate and is working with a smaller forward line. It'd be frustrating for him as pretty much any other player with that kind of form would be demanding a spot, but i just feel it's a backwards step to bring him in. Persist with Hughes, the last couple of weeks i feel he hasn't been given the opportunity (with match conditions) to show his ability. The Dogs game was wet, and the WC game we were inept.

Can i just start off by saying, Holy Crap this thread is huge! OK, now on topic! Congrats to Watts, sounded like he had a great game on the weekend and i hope he makes a good contribution to the side. IMO the club has done the right thing in holding him back until he put in a worthy performance, otherwise we're right back to rewarding mediocrity. I'll be very interested to see if himself and Hughes work well together as they have played a few games with each other this year, and with that in mind it could help Hughes for this game. Good luck Jack.