Jaded No More

Because it might make Mark Williams go "OMFG they've taken out their ruckman and put in a goal sneak... what will we do, our entire setup has gone down the drain. Call the press, we're withdrawing from the match"

I think Warnock might be a smart strategic move. Port don't have any monsters for Warnock to play on, so we were looking to add more run to our backline, which we obviously have now. Could be a good move. I expect Jetta to replace Spencer in a late move if the weather is poor.

Another forward bites the dust

You will either be everyone's favourite poster, or you'll get a lifetime ban tomorrow. Good luck.

It's because guys like McKenzie get overlooked and because Rivers is (from memory) the one and only defender to ever win this award, that it is rubbish and has no credibility. You basically have to kick 6 goals or have over 30 possessions to have any chance of getting a nomination if you are not a top 10 pick, you don't have outrageous hair and you don't play for a winning side. Because apparently it's easier for a kid to play in a losing side If Naitanui wins the title this year, you may as well rename the award "NAB Possible Talent and a lot of Marketing Value Award".

I'm doing my bit for this thread

I'm not sold on Jetta but with the next two drafts being seriously compromised, expect a lot more unknown players to re-sign. Better the devil you know and all that. Besides, Jetta is far too young and inexperienced for us to be making a call on his career. Plenty of other players who should be given the flick ahead of him. He has every chance of becoming a good solid player for us! Great news on Jurrah especially. Shows how committed he is.

He's in overdraft

Don't give a shite about Brock, but great news about the brotherhood if true.

Without wanting to go into details, Thorp is a serious liability. His talent was not enough to ensure he stayed on an AFL list. Unlikely to ever appear in the system again.

The players vote for a leadership group and the football department chooses the ultimate captain and the structure of the group as far as I know. Happy to be proven wrong on this though.

I think you're right. I'm not a fan of the "in-between" captain, but based on that I can't see Bailey giving Grimes a captaincy role anytime soon. But on the other hand I also can't see him giving Green the role either.

Most interesting part about the interview was him listing who has leadership potential at the club. In no particular order he listed Trengove, Scully, Watts, Grimes, Moloney, Davey and Rivers Said Moloney, Davey and Rivers have really come on as leaders in the last 2 seasons, and that Trengove, Scully, Watts and Grimes all have good leadership backgrounds in their junior years (Scully and Grimes captained Vic Metro, Trengove captained SA and Watts captained his school). Also said that we'll see Gysberts "a terrific young mid" soon.

Sylvia is most likely struggling for one of two reasons: 1. He isn't fully fit, or is sore, or is lacking confidence in the jaw 2. He is having some attitude/application issues Both of these are a worry and both of these issues IMO require a week off or a week with Casey.

Where is our forward line? Nursing broken shoulders and bung knees, is where. There is also some dude running around, he's kinda useless if you ask me, but they say he might be worth something in the future. Jack something or other. The forward line is the last piece of the puzzle yet to be completed, but I think the raw elements are there. You've got smalls in Jetta, Bennell, Maric and Aussie to choose from, medium sized forwards like Petterd and guys like Sylvia and Tapscott who could rotate through, and talls in Bate, Morton, Watts, Jurrah (who is in his own category), Martin and in the future maybe Fitzpatrick and Gawn. Green can also comfortably play another 4 years up there. But this part of the ground will take the longest to develop and is probably the one area we need to wait on before we can start thinking about premierships.

Not true, the "debate" as you so nicely put it, has been that Rivers is either completely crap and should never be seen in a Melbourne jumper again, or that he is a great player and easily part of our best 22. I think the answer lies somewhere in between, because he is definitely not a terrible footballer and does have some unique qualities, but he is also going to struggle to be part of our backline if he doesn't change his game. Nobody here really seemed to answer my question about his viability as a forward. He is a better kick than Miller, he can take a mark and he can read the play. Question is, can we teach him to lead to the right spots and can he instinctively make the switch into an attacking player? IMO it would be wrong to throw him away like yesterday's garbage without trying him in a new position. Clearly our club holds him in high regard, or they wouldn't have stuck with him through years of surgeries and injuries and they wouldn't have put him in the leadership group, so he is worth something.

There is one game and one game only that matters... Carlton. Words do not clearly express my disgust towards that club or how much I want to beat them. Please Melbourne, I've sat through years of utter shite from you and I've suffered in silence, so do me this one small favour and smash the bastards! Oh and if we win 2 of those games it will be a miracle. 1 is probably pushing it as well.

I agree in a sense. I don't think Garland was the wrong match up and that if our midfield put an ounce of pressure on West Coast then Garland would have had him covered. But his pace did burn Garland on the lead and I think maybe Bartram would have been able to keep up with him a little more. As a side note, it was probably due to poor defensive match ups that I saw Bartram kicking the ball and driving us forward a lot more than usual on Saturday, which is a disaster. He should be the last person to be taking the ball out of the backline and has only been great in recent times because we haven't relied on him to be creative. He is your bread and butter small defensive player who tackles hard and might get a couple of handballs out. But because he didn't really have a match up on Saturday he ended up with the ball in his hands far too often. As did Bruce. No wonder we couldn't convert many of our inside 50's.

And doing your knee in a ruck contest hurts more than getting punched in the face. What's your point? Head high contact is illegal in the AFL no matter how minimal. Pulling an opponent's hair might not hurt as much as a tackle would but I doubt the AFL would look at it kindly. Because you lay a tackle to try and stop your opponent from getting the ball. In what context of the game would pulling a player's hair help your team?

Blame the alcohol

I wouldn't make those comments unless you've had long hair and had it pulled. I've had babies pull my hair and it is VERY painful. Imagine a strong guy doing it. Ouch! If he wants to have long hair, and look like a tool, he should expect to cop verbal abuse, but nothing warrants physical abuse of that nature. Sorry, but pulling a guy's hair... FFS what are we, 5 years old?

GTFO with your logic, you are ruining Demonland!

IMO Sylvia is exactly the sort of player you don't allow to have long runs of poor form just because he has the talent to be a gamebreaker. History suggests to us that when Sylvia gets comfortable, laziness and poor attitude creeps in. Maybe he is a bit underdone, and that could excuse him for failing to make some contests, but he was selfish yesterday. He went for the glorified long bombs at goal, and was rarely seen chasing or tackling. That is inexcusable, especially when you have a long history of playing rubbish, selfish, hero football. He has really matured and improved in the last two years, no doubt. But in the last 3 weeks I've seen moments of the old Sylvia that really disappointed me. Maybe it's because he thinks his spot in the side is safe, when perhaps he is the sort of player who needs to constantly have failure pushed in his face in order to push himself to succeed. Either way, 3 terrible weeks have earnt him a run with Casey IMO, because he doesn't have enough runs on the board to let performances like yesterday slide... especially when you have Morton, Gysberts, Jetta, Aussie, Miller and so forth pushing their case in the VFL.

Put yourself in his shoes, and imagine the sort of external pressure he is feeling from the lunatics in the media and from his own supporters. He is a kid, a baby. At 19 I could barely tell my head from my arse, and this guy is meant to be the messiah. He will be a very very very good footballer, maybe elite, maybe a generational forward. The proof was out there for everyone with an ounce of football intelligence to see. So please, move on.