La Dee-vina Comedia

The problem is the definition of "coming good". At this time I'd accept "coming good" to mean 6-8 wins in a year with some other close losses. But I don't want my team to actually believe that that is anywhere near "coming good". For them, it has to mean playing finals consistently. I wonder what our players, individually and collectively, believe "coming good" means?

He's probably one of those players who keeps his best for the AFL and never performs at VFL level.

Old Dee, I feel like calling you an old fool just to get a fight started. But I can't. I've not met you, so I don't actually know whether you are old.

Roos spoke at the weekend on SEN pre-game about games at Casey being about 'development' and shouldn't be confused with 'punishment for poor form' (not his words, by the way. Mine summarising what he said). That suggests to me that players may go up and down as part of their development. Whether that's because of fitness or to practise a particular aspect of their play, I don't know. But he's very keen on the promotion of the idea that Casey is about development.

Just to put it in perspective, the opportunity to watch Flower play was generally only possible by going to the games. In the 60s through to the 80s there were no live games on TV and replays were limited to a maximum of two hours per week and generally didn't include Melbourne games because we weren't good enough. And it was worth going to games to see him play.

While I'd prefer a standalone team there is no reason why an alliance cannot work properly. It needs the two club to agree - and what I think Paul Roos was saying is that the two club's currently don't and that's hampering the development of his players. Before we think about who to trade, who to draft and who to delist, we need to get this sort of fundamental issue fixed or the rest becomes irrelevant.

On this I agree - except it's Carlton's failure, not Judd's. He's played outstandingly for Carlton until the last year or so when age has finally caught up with him.

Gee. Making rash statements about drafting and trading after three games. His skills are wasted. He should be posting on Demonland.

The slide rule was introduced as a player safety measure to stop leg injuries. But it has actually improved the game because players stay on their feet so there is less of the 'rolling maul' play. The holding the ball rule stops players pulling the ball in under them which causes ugly stoppages. If players would learn not to drag the ball in, they wouldn't get caught holding the ball. The bump had to go for the long term health of the players. Do those three rules make the games different? Yes. Does it make them worse. The first two definitely make it better. The third makes it less spectacular - but I can live with that if it means the long term health of the players is significantly enhanced.

Interesting. On the pre-game on SEN yesterday Paul Roos was interviewed. In his quiet, subtle way Roos talked about the importance of Casey as a development team in a way that seemed to suggest a disconnect between the MFC and Casey. The discussion was measured and one way (that is none of the SEN crew picked up what Roos was talking about) so Roos had to stress the word "development" a number of times. Perhaps I inferred something that wasn't meant, but I was left with the strong impression was that Roos is unhappy with how Casey is handling his expectations of what he wants Casey to do with MFC listed players.

So, in summary... In: Pace; Out: Slow runners

Yes, it must be deflating to kick the ball to the right spot only to have the player who's meant to be there not any where near. And that makes the kicker not only look foolish but also be accused of being prone to turning the ball over. I'd like to think professional coaches appreciate what was a good disposal versus a bad disposal by what should have happened rather than what actually did.

Let's assume the AFL and the MFC have different stats. Does that mean we're measuring something different? Perhaps "tackles that stick" or "tackles that result in something positive for the team"? Anyone know...or is it more simply just that, like playing football, we can't count, either.

Satyr...you disappoint me. The only reason I opened this thread was that I saw your name as the most recent poster and hoped (alright, expected) that you'd provide us with your training insights. That you didn't leads to only one possible conclusion...that training was cancelled.

Also agree about Bail, but I don't think he's a forward. I would have thought he'd be better as a tagger or back pocket type.

If we had to wear this to get Hyundai as a sponsor, I'd take it.

I suspect you'll find that the opposition has a spare man back because we moved one of our forwards to strengthen the backline. It allowed Dunn to become the spare man in defence. We've been doing this for years (not always with Dunn as the spare, of course) and, in my view, it only works when there are less than two minutes to go in a quarter and you're trying to stop a score.

While I agree it was an excellent article (I'll bet Nathan Jones has never compared himself with Sisyphus before), did anyone else find it strange that there was not one quote from Jones in the article? I wonder if Jake Niall tried to get a comment and if not, why not? And conversely, if he did try, why didn't Jones give him something? As I said, very strange.

I should stress that I could not fault Sellar's effort. But he's the slowest player I've ever seen. He looked like he was running in wet concrete.

I agree about putting Pederson back and one of the defenders forward. But I worry about Dunn going forward because he's spent most of his career being shifted around. In the last year or so he's been settled in the one position and doing pretty well. I'd hate to see him go backwards again. So, I'd rather McDonald, or Garland when he's fit, to go forward until we get our tall forwards back.

I'd like to think you're commenting on the slow pace of the investigation rather than the slow pace of the player.

Pederson is clearly not an AFL standard forward, nor an AFL standard relieving ruckman and has shown nothing to suggest he ever will be. On the other hand, while he's not an AFL standard defender yet he's shown enough to suggest he might become one. He's a bit like Sellar with more pace and consequently more hope.

Frawley's "apparent lack of interest"? Silly statement. He made some disposal blunders but he was consistently making efforts to create run and opportunities off the back line. For what it's worth, he strikes me as the ideal candidate to play on Cameron as he's the most likely to match Cameron's agility.

Bit harsh on Judd. He's delivered everything and more. That Carlton hasn't thrived under him is due to inherent weaknesses in the rest of the club. Similar to Ablett, really.

It's certainly a bizarre inconsistency that front loading a contract (viz Frawley) counts for salary cap purposes but not for determining whether a player is a restricted or unrestricted free agent. You'd think if it's considered an appropriate accounting tool for one purpose it should likewise be for the other.