La Dee-vina Comedia

Strongly disagree. Ridiculous suggestion. Clearly he got rid of players because of their non-traditional first names, such as Cale and Jared.

The Age is reporting that Garlett will be training with Essendon. Presumably with permission. Bombers set to hand Garlett an AFL lifeline And Kurt Tippett presumably doesn't have permission.

And Pettard

So Jayz is Yiddish. Someone should tell Beyonce

For every player who wants to leave Victoria there is probably another one who wants to return here. So, not only do we want to have a team from which no-one wants to leave, we also want to have one that homesick Victorians would want to come to. A successful and culturally strong club should help on both sides of that equation.

Purely for the inner nerd in me, is his real name Dimitri, James, Jim or Jimmy or something else? And while I like "Thumper" as a nickname, somehow I can't get "Kick Ass Toumpas" out of my head.

There is another option...that the #1 pick wasn't wasted but the first 2-3 years of his development were.

Acronym swearing, maybe? If not, please explain.

Extra points for courage? The only person here who has passed on Toumpas.

Really? Wasn't his 3 Brownlow vote game the Essendon match? He wasn't a loose man then. He played on their small forwards (Jetta, Davey) and just ran off them to make space.

I'm not convinced the draw's supposed lack of fairness is a real problem. The Grand Finalists will virtually always come from the top 6 at the end of the home and away season, and usually the top 4. So whether a team scrapes into 7th or 8th positions because of a comparatively favourable draw seems somewhat irrelevant.

One other point to make about Jack Watts is that as a forward he would often run to position only to see the ball so poorly delivered it didn't get to where he was. And many other times he was ignored (or possibly not seen). When Robert Flower played for the Victorian State team he dominated because all of a sudden he had great players around him and the ball got to him properly. When our team improves, so will Jack Watts; and when Jack Watts improves, so will our team.

And all of Aaron Davey's 8 sons will have played or will still be playing for the Dees

Does anyone recall what David Neitz was recruited as? That's a genuine question which I'm curious to know the answer to. But irrespective of the answer, it's just worth making the point that plenty of players were recruited with one role in mind only to find that they excelled in another. And what they were originally recruited for becomes irrelevant. On Jack Watts, the general rule of thumb appears to be that the ideal playing weight for most players seems to be their height in centimetres minus 100. So, if Watts is 196cm and 91kg, he's about 5 kg too light. But I seem to recall that 91kg was his starting weight at the beginning of 2012. It will be interesting to see what his starting weight is next year. Those extra 5kgs, should he add them to his body, should make him harder to budge in contests.

Should have a caption competition for the Nathan Jones next to the van photo: 1. "I think it's only an offence if you urinate against the back wheel" 2. "Gee I look good in this mirror" 3. "Just because we've now got a bloke from Collingwood doesn't mean he's the only one allowed to break into vehicles"

Mind you, if Judd played for us and we had had the Visy deal previously approved I reckon we'd be screaming about how the rules are being changed midstream. We'd be arguing that it's unfair on the rest of our playing list because our cap has just got squeezed by whatever that payment outside the cap is. In my view, the deal should never have been allowed by the AFL. But because it was, the AFL should allow it to reach its natural conclusion. (Having said that, I have no sympathy for Carlton. But that's just the default position.]

And a request to posters...can we try and keep this thread to actual training reports and not slanging matches about posters' views. Plenty of room for that elsewhere.

Back on topic, I recall Tapscott's first game where he must have been unlucky not to get a Rising Star nomination (I remember Caroline Wilson - shock, horror - being effusive in her praise, too). He played in the backline that day and took plenty of intercept marks. Perhaps it's where he belongs.

Actually, up until now I've always thought his neck muscles were the ones which stood out. In comparison, made his quads seem like, well, mine. (And that is no compliment).

Sort of off-topic. But what should I be thinking about your name, Tappysquads? Are you more 'Tappy Squads' which sounds like an under age group of Tapscott supporting footballers or are you channelling his inner body as "Tappy's Quads"? All the important questions get asked on this forum.

May the forwards be with you. And to our onballers...'Use the forwards'.

Don't forget the Ox's masterpiece..."long term-gevity" (Or should that be written as "longterm-gevity". I have no idea how to actually write it down). And it frustrates me when shop assistants say they'll be with me momentarily. I'd rather they were with me in a moment rather than for a moment.

Or some wins

Actually, yes. Well, at least one person...Phiilip Johnson's Glasshouse

I want to see how the Herald Sun put Finkelstein and Prendergast into a single headline. They'll need to go broadsheet. (Makes me wonder what thy would have done with Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern, too.)