La Dee-vina Comedia

Ron, are you sure you didn't mean to post this in the cliche's thread?

Do delisted free agents have a choice as to where they play? In other words, was Riley made an offer by Melbourne and chose to accept it over the possibility of being rookied (or re-drafted) by Adelaide?

And, "He's in the mix" Also, "Player x could be anything". It's generally used to bump someone up but generally leaves me doubting that the player has any particular skill which stands out. If he did, it would have been stated.

Mind you, at some stage I'd like them to be making skill-based decisions when they're tired so as to simulate game day experience .

Who are you suggesting makes up the 5 in their last or second last season? I can see Jamar, Cross and Byrnes. And I would put Dunn and Mckenzie as maybes based on form rather than age although both could yet find something to extend their Melbourne careers. Is that the same as yours? Or do you have Vince, or someone else, in your 5?

I'd be interested in a statistical analysis but I suspect poorly skilled football teams have higher injury rates because (1) the better skilled players have to work harder to compensate for the duds thereby adding extra stress to their bodies and (2) poor execution means players are being forced to twist, turn, stop, start, etc more than they should compared with when a ball gets delivered "lace out". If that assessment is correct, our the best cure for our injury rate might be just to play better.

Agreed. And too often two or more of our players go to tackle the one opposition player with the ball which inevitably frees up an opposition player who, not surprisingly, becomes the receiver.

He strikes me as somewhat clumsy though. So even backing out he'd probably collide head high with someone and get rubbed out for a couple of weeks.

Hire your car from Hertz, get your caravan and head off to the NT. Logic suggests our next sponsors will be a tyre company, the RACV and a petrol company, such as Shell or BP.

OK - fair point. But there has been so much "bad" over the last 6 years it's been hard to remember the "good".

While Roos has apparently referred to Clark as playing second ruck he's also talked about having a taller midfield. Don't forget that Clark played as a non-rucking on baller for short periods in some games before he got injured. And he was pretty good at it, too.

Presumably before any decline there is an incline. I must have missed it.

So that's why we haven't won a flag since 1964! I've been wasting my time on Demonland reading about our poor recruiting, poor coaching and poor player skills.

Like your work, Master. My comment was a bit simplistic. But Watts needs more weight around his hips to lower his centre of gravity or he'll get bowled over whether he goes in hard or whether someone goes hard at him. The best player I've ever seen was Leigh Matthews - his backside and thighs were so large his centre of gravity was about a metre below ground so he could never be knocked over. Not even by a point post.

Just to clarify...do you mean 18 November is the next open training session? Is it correct that between now and then the group who trained today will be doing other training but not out on the field (ie in the gym, the pool, lectures or whatever)?

They need to get another 5kg into him. He was reported as 196cm and 91kg last year. That's a body that's not big enough to go hard.

I'm not so sure. Percentage play prevents the taking of speccies in the back half. While Howe has a terrific pair of hands for any sort of mark he takes many in situations which would be risky in the back half but perfectly acceptable elsewhere.

Thanks Redleg. This post is far more interesting than anything else posted on this thread. But perhaps I'm biased as I have a natural aversion to anything that tries to link the word "journalism" to the Herald Sun.

Gee. Hope things improve! Although I'm assuming Paul Roos' gameplan doesn't include players playing backwards.

In his own inimitable, backhanded way, Kevin Sheedy made the excellent point that Mick Malthouse must be an outstanding coach because any coach who manages to stay with the same team for over a decade without winning a Premiership must be doing something right.

Thought you'd be happy he wants to give Lyon the r's.

Did I read that summary correctly? Four games in four years? Not a criticism, but how many players today would get four years for four games?

Time for pre-season bingo. You know, the game where posters make claims like "Player xx is the fittest he's ever been", "player yy looks like he could be anything" and "they are clearly improving their tackling technique". Having said that, I actually do appreciate the training reports and photos that our posters provide.

Is there a technical (read: legal) reason why the "permission-to-train" process is followed? Is it required for workers compensation or public liability purposes?

Actually, I think we may have moved down to third. I would have both St Kilda and Brisbane ahead of us. Hearing a whisper from a Saint supporter that Robert Harvey might get the gig. Not sure how well informed my contact is, though.