Jaded No More

I was thinking that reading Demonland while I finally have my coffee after being at work since the crack of dawn is going to make me less stressed. I was right. Laughter is very good for the soul.

Excellent news if true. This season has flat-lined quite badly. Nothing like the drug of unknown youth to perk us all right up!

Ever ask yourself why someone who has been on our list for 7 seasons, and hasn't had any major injury concerns, has only played 20 something games? Hint, it's because he hasn't shown enough to warrant more games.

I still don't understand why we are discussing this. Newton came into the side only because every other ruckman bar Martin has decided to lose a leg, or is an 18 year old child. He came into the side under the provision that he was going to help in the ruck. If we wanted another tall in the forwardline we would have kept Bate in the team. Newton did well in the first quarter when we were up and about and winning the ball in the middle and delivering the ball to him on a platter. He deserves another chance, especially with Dunn out of the side, but if he can't compete in the ruck he has no long term place in the side.

Agreed. Trengove so incredibly stiff it's not funny, Dunn lucky. 2 weeks is a light penalty for that dumb act.

Jamar and Martin played all but one game together this season, and I reckon the only reason they dropped Martin 2 weeks ago was because Bate had a great game in the VFL and they wanted to reward him for good form, which threw out the balance of the side. So I won't need to eat any hats, because both these guys can and will comfortably play in the same side. Martin is not and will never be a first ruck, and judge him as one is stupid. He did a good job under the circumstances and to get stuck into him because he didn't have enough taps to advantage is just pointless at this stage of his 7 game rucking career.

I don't like he being played as a loose man in defense either, but that is not his fault. He did well in the role he was given. I understand that some people will feel that not trying to go for the contested mark every time is a concession of failure and due to Watts lacking the desire to go for the contest, but a smart and good player knows their limitations. The bottom line is, he won't win about 90% of aerial contests he's involved in due to a combination of strength, and experience. So instead of getting outmarked and losing the contest, he tries to at least create a contest. I like that idea much better than seeing him get outmarked time and time again. For one, it will sap his confidence, and it will also hurt the team. I feel that his teammates are also not helping. Watts is better served having the ball come in high where he can use his leap and ball reading ability to his advantage, as opposed to having it kicked to his chest where his opponent can easily outmuscle him. Everybody is going to disagree on Watts until he puts in a very strong consistent season, but we know he is a couple of years away from that still. But in the meantime I hope people watch him closely and start to understand how smart he actually is and how talented he is, and accept that for now we need to appreciate him for what he can do and not what we want him to do. In my whole time as a Melbourne supporter I have never come across a player who is more harshly or unfairly criticised and it's really quite upsetting. I would hate to have to perform at my job under that much immense pressure and weight of expectations.

I hear you, but you have to think about team balance, and our opponent. Saints don't have a super strong ruckman, and are not very quick. You could argue that it is therefore a great opportunity for us to bring in Gawn who won't give us much pace and run but who could give us the upper hand in the ruck. On the other hand, if we are going to beat the Saints, it's going to be with pace. You bring Gawn in you have to take out a tall, say Newton, or forgo bringing in Bate. Would Bate and Newton give us more run? Probably not, but they would give us a better contest around the ground one would assume. I think we can try to go with an undermanned ruck division again as long as we have enough quality runners in the middle. McKenzie will help hugely, but losing Bail is going to really hurt. I would rather bring in Nicholson or Evans or Blease this week, who can give us some zip and some run. Saints are beatable on current form, but we have to be very strategic with our selection this week. Horses for courses, especially as this looks like our last winnable game for the next 3 weeks.

I also forgot to add that he would probably take more contested marks if his teammates stopped kicking the ball to him when he is outnumbered 2 to 1. Friggin frustrating!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It works with Jurrah sometimes because he is a freak who can leap tall buildings, but most normal human footballers can't compete against 2 opponents.

And that's despite training as a secondary ruck in the pre-season and playing there occasionally for Casey. Imagine how much worse the situation would have been with Dunn! Newton did not ruck before Garland got injured for more than about 2 minutes at a time while Martin was having a breather (hardly a game changer, and hardly an excuse for Newton to be put off his game at FF). And besides, if Newton is EVER going to make it, and let's be honest, he is odds on to fail, he has to be able to compete in ruck contests because with the current sub rule you cannot afford to have too many one dimensional talls in your side, especially up forward. Let's not all get excited by one good quarter by Juice. I thought he work off the ball was excellent and his pressure important, but he makes horrible decisions and is generally not a very smart footballer. He will get another chance this week, and it will be interesting to see how he goes.

Interesting. While I think it's reasonable for people to assume he doesn't want to participate in body contact, I think sometimes it's just Watts being very smart. For example, if he knows he isn't going to outmark his opponent in a contest, he'll try to tap the ball away, which is a basketball tactic. He is probably smart enough to know that he isn't always going to out-muscle his opponent, so he wants to at least neutralise the contest, where he has the upper hand in most cases due to his athleticism and ability to pick the ball up off the deck so cleanly. It's easy to get excites by man mountains who crash and bash their way through matches from their first season, like Tapscott, but reality is that most players, most great players, started out as being significantly smaller and weaker than their opponent. To me the pleasing thing is seeing Watts lose very few one on one contests, despite being so much less developed than many of his opponents. It means he isn't a liability and it allows him to work on his great agility. Very few players his height can do the work in close that he does every week. And when Bailey threw him down back we saw how good he is at reading the play.

Derrr, I did know that. No idea why I wrote Richmond. Argument remains though, Saints are in crap form and Hawthorn are having a good season. Us and North are equally average.

With Casey form in mind Out: Bail (fail), Garland (double fail), Dunn (idiotic act), Wonna (to Jenny Craig) In: Rivers (self explanatory if fit), McKenzie (FTW!), Bate, Nicholson/Evans/Blease (as sub, and to give us something to get excited about)

Ummm seriously? Where are Hawthorn in terms of development and where are we? Where is our Luke Hodge, Franklin, Rioli, Mitchell, Roughead, Burgoyne, and so on and so forth? Oh and Hawthorn vs Saints is a far more one sided game than Melbourne vs North Melbourne on current form of all teams. So please stop making shizen comparisons. Also, Hawthorn lost 2 big men today, they didn't lose run through the middle, or a key rebounding defender.

LOL @ Luke Ball. Tapscott > Ball

Does anyone here actually understand the problem with throwing just any random player into the ruck? Firstly, you give away lots of free kicks, which absolutely kill you. Secondly, you risk serious injury if you don't know what you are doing in there. And finally, Dunn had to go down back to cover for the loss of Garland (and yes he did a shite job and let's never talk about it again), so for those who wanted Dunn to ruck, are you suggesting we should have put Newton down back? Because given the injuries we had, especially once Martin slowed down with his knee, we had no choice but to throw someone in there who could at least compete for size or something. Remember the game wasn't actually gone until about halfway through the last quarter. We were only a few goals down at 3/4 time. And it makes no difference if Newton was at FF or goddamn Wayne Carey, if we were uncompetitive through the middle the ball was never going to make it into the forwardline anyway, giving Newton no chance at all.

Pathetic comment from an idiot who doesn't understand the game. Martin has been playing footy for something like 4 or 5 years only. He was a mature age recruit and in his short career has played down back, up forward and now in the ruck. He was thrown into a first ruck role under extreme pressure and came up against a genuinely good ruckman and he held his own. He also won his fair share of clearances. He has 6 clearances to be exact, second highest in the team behind Gysberts who had 7 (Moloney had 5). He was also in the top 3 for tackling yesterday. That is despite hurting his ribs in the VFL last week and copping a knee injury during the game yesterday. It disgusts me that people stick the boot in when a player clearly works extremely hard and tries his best, when so many of his teammates didn't even do that. Martin ran all day, with very little help, and you bemoan his lack of taps to advantage. Do you even know how hard it is to master that? It took Jamar 7 years! Martin has played about 7 games in the ruck at AFL level. FFS!

Fine, he's going, maybe he's already signed. What's the point of going on and on about it? If he wants to leave, good luck to him and I hope he enjoys a long unsuccessful career in that hell hole with a coach straight out of the looney bin. Money won't buy him success. Can we just move on until we have confirmation?

JORDIE! good news at last. Our midfield could not be crying out for this man anymore right now. Bate can replace Dunn next week. Would love to know how Gawn, McDonald, Blease, Morton and Strauss played, because I'm going to assume that any other changes will be made from these guys.

But I'd rather be depressed dammit!

This is just what this already clinically depressed board needs, another Tom Scully conspiracy thread.

I care about one thing and one thing only... The JMac getting through the whole match without his groin exploding, thus pushing his case for selection next week. Amen

Lifetime ban and possible jail stint. We have to eradicte these criminals out of our game. P.S.- what incident are we talking about?

And he just as often disappears when the heat is on. He was OK today, but he is no captain. There is so much more to captaincy than just your on field heroics. You have to represent your club at all times. Think about Sylvia and where he has been, and now work out why he ain't no captaincy material. Beamer is, to a lesser extent, in the same boat.

The only reason Newton is even on our list is to play that second backup ruck role. He is so much better than Dunn in the ruck it's not even funny. If you're gonna play Dunn in the ruck you may as well play Jurrah in there. Having said that, he is not a ruckman, and even though he started well, he made so many dumb decisions today that it left me with no doubt as to why I can't see any future for him.