Little Richard

By taking it up to them I don't just mean that I expect we'll suffer an honourable defeat and be happy with that. I mean that I think we will play well enough to give us a genuine chance of snaring the win, but we obviously have to wait until this weekend to see the result.

The nature of our season is that we'll really take it up to Adelaide after dropping a game we should have won against the second bottom side.

Missed that speech, I'll have to have a look for it. You're definitely right about on field leadership though, his actions speak for themselves.

Is Hunt well regarded in terms of leadership? If so, VC might be the spot for him. I'm really just against the concept of co-captains.

I actually expected us to lose, which is probably evidence of the warped outlook on football and life I have after enduring the hardships of the last decade. The fact that they came so close to actually winning made it even harder. There's clearly still a culture of mental fragility and an inability to stem shifts in momentum. The latter will hopefully improve with experience. The former... we need leaders who will stand up under duress and shake off the losing mentality that still dogs us.

Wasn't 2010 the year of bruise free footy? We've come miles since then. When we're on we're one of the most physical sides in the competition, especially in the guts.

Agreed. For that reason exactly I doubt we'd pursue Kelly.

He is so, so very good. You can see the panic in the defenders eyes when the ball is coming in towards Hogan. You can almost guarantee he'll take the mark if he gets even two or three metres of space.

I can't wait until Selwood and Dangerfield begin to drop off and Geelong plummet. Their list is trash.

Fair enough! The list will be extremely small...

Cam Bruce kicked 210 in 224 games.

Prioritise defence and then look at a KPF. Interesting figures though, really shows how bad we have been. Edit: Lynden Dunn also came close with 97 goals in 165 games.

Don't need to trade, just need to find a mature defender so that Oscar can continue to develop in the seconds and Tom doesn't have to be our number one KPD.

Totally a leadership issue. I remember a couple of years ago listening to Jones speak to someone about momentum in a game, and that it takes a bit of experience to know when the momentum is shifting and how to combat that. He said it was up to the leaders like himself to take charge and stop an opposition run or wrest momentum back, and that they were working hard on that. They better still be working on it because it's the same old [censored] where no one stands up to take control back (except for Viney yesterday).

Not actually a fact until it's mathematically impossible.

Even Spencer would have had a big impact on the result. Gawn would be ideal obviously but at that point we just needed a recognised ruck who could go with McEvoy around the ground and pluck a few of those balls we bombed up the wing as well as into our forward 50.

The fact that we won the clearances shows how good a contested ball side we are and Clarkson said as much. That we got slaughtered in contested marking shows that we played dumb footy, just bombing up the line to their talls, and that Hawthorn applied some good pressure to us. In the end it meant that our winning the clearances didn't mean much at all. We just have to be smarter with our use, especially going inside 50.

That's what a lot of it comes down to unfortunately. The talent is there, but they just need experience and growth as a team. It'll happen but it's so frustrating.

Toughest loss to take so far this year. I just can't believe how many times players bombed inside 50 completely blind. Take a second to compose yourself and look for your forwards - not that fkn hard. So much dumb footy that my brain was close to exploding.

I'd settle for any player with an IQ over 20.

Frightening stuff.

Hope we stay away from any 'big fish' in the next few years. In the past I was hoping we'd be able to snare a player on a big contract, but that was when I and many others had lost the faith in the club to draft well or develop any of our own players. Both of those aspects have changed immensely and our young talent is amazing. Bottom line, it's far more important we ensure we have enough space in the cap to hold onto these guys, who are going to be very good players.

Do they have a manager/franchise kind of mode? That's what I really want from AFL games these days!

That's looking to be an excellent bet, well done.

He's a good conversationalist. It is what it is.