La Dee-vina Comedia

While that's an amusing comment, this year is really about getting ready for a genuine assault on the Premiership in 2019 to 2022. The stats show we're building in so many areas. Next year I expect it to all come together and make us a serious contender. I'd like us to make Finals this year so as to give the players some September experience, all to help with the 2019 to 2022 window of opportunity.

Glad you cleared that up. I thought you were talking about Saty.

Surprised you didn't go with Hann in

To be fair you need to add (f) to (n) [little maths joke] of all the negatives such as: f) if it's a behind the opposition can attack g) ditto if it's out on the full h) if it doesn't quite make the distance it will be punched through for a behind - see (f) i) if it misses, it looks bad at the ground j) if it misses, it subdues the crowd k) it might increase the risk of a hamstring or calf strain etc

As a matter of interest, is there any data which refers to the success rates of coaches versus their experience? We appreciate that inexperienced players make mistakes with the consensus view these days suggesting that it's not until a core of players reach 50+ games each that success starts to follow. Is it generally the same for coaches? I know it's hard to assess because some inexperienced coaches inherit strong teams (Chris Scott, Alan Joyce) and conversely, some experienced coaches take over when a club is very low (Roos with us, Malthouse with Carlton, Eade with Gold Coast). Nevertheless, we should not lose sight of the fact that Goodwin is still an inexperienced senior coach.

I'm in favour of the club replacing the free scarf with every membership with a 30 minute session with a sports psychologist to help me cope with the footy season.

Of course, if we do beat the Eagles, there will be claims that the Eagles tanked deliberately to keep us in the finals race on the basis of the common belief that we couldn't actually beat another team in the 8 if that team was actually trying.

On the inside or outside?

Thanks. Perhaps we won't then hold that particular record, then. And I don't feel any better.

We already hold the record for missing out on playing finals by percentage. This year if we miss, we might create two more records: highest percentage for a team missing finals; and missing finals by the smallest time gap. (If the siren had gone one second earlier in the second Geelong game, we wouldn't have lost it).

Thankyou, grey wolf. I've been trying to find the best way to describe how he played and you've done it in one, beautiful word. And I agree that Jezza is the closest comparison. Those of us old enough to remember them both are quite privileged.

He made going to the football bearable during the dark days pre-1987. The clip reminds me of just how good he was to watch. He's not the best player* I've seen, but he was clearly the most watchable. (*Matthews, followed by Carey, Ablett Sr and Ablett Jr, then Flower)

Check the date to make sure it's not April 1st

Barassi would be my choice. But there's a player we drafted who never came to us but eventually played elsewhere who would have been pretty handy: Darren Jarman

(this thread bump has to be the biggest of all time). Apparently Ratten has been cast off by Hawthorn, not because he's considered to have failed but because Hawthorn believes in constant renewal of its assistant coaching stocks. He has admitted that he has been spoken to by other clubs about joining them in an assistant's role. My view is that when we lose games it's because of an inability of the midfield to defend under pressure. If Ratten can help fix that, I'd be in favour of getting him into our assistant coaching ranks.

Like for like in its purest form.

Hogan out requires some structural consideration. Which of T Mac, Weideman or Pedersen becomes the second ruck to provide Gawn with relief around the ground? All of them have had a go. In my opinion, T Mac would be the best relief option because of his ability to run and play more like a midfielder than the other two. But if he does that, it leaves either Weideman or Pederson as the sole key forward (unless we play them both...or neither of them, which is surely unlikely). Or are we better to keep T Mac permanently forward (the Hogan role) and have either Weideman or Pederson play the role that T Mac has been playing? My gut feel is keep T Mac doing what he's doing and have either Weideman or Pedersen play the Hogan role.

Presumably the designers of the auto-censor assume that every reference to 'bastard' refers to the child of an unwed mother.

Actually, I am. He seems to me to be the only commentator that appreciates how the game is played today. Too many of the rest seem to think the game is played the way they played it, even if that's only 5 years ago. Irrespective of any other value they bring, commentators like Matthew Richardson, Luke Darcy and even Cameron Ling have been out of the game so long that their comments show they don't understand the technical side of how the game is now played. I find Bartel's commentary to be insightful.

Do you mean effort or execution? I thought the former was there but not the latter.

I think the concern about the coach is valid, but it might be rectified with experience. With one exception (St Kilda), all our losses have been against teams with very experienced coaches. I accept that we've also won games against teams with experienced coaches (Freo and North), but I think most of our losses have been due to what the other team brought to the table, and our inability to counter it.

The inference from your post is that we didn't play accountable football yesterday. (If that's not what you meant, I apologise). I think we did try yesterday, we were just out-coached and out-played. The end result may be the same, but I don't think the players had "got ahead of themselves".

Whether the thread is started on the basis of a falsehood or not, we clearly don't yet know what to do in the last few minutes of a game when it is close, whether we're ahead or behind. It's time we worked out what to do in each scenario.

The media curse strikes another player. It seems that every time a player is written up in the media, whether it's for his performance or positive off-field activities, he play a stinker the next game. It's been going on as long as I can remember. Serious question: Does the club use a psychologist? It seems to me we should be.