Jaded No More

I've noticed a trend with established players who have left to the CGS. These players fall into one of 3 categories: 1- Reaching the end of the career and wanting to financially capitalise on their remaining years in the game and prolong their career (Bock, Fraser) 2- Unhappy at current club, feeling on the outer or generally looking for a change of scenery (Brown who was filthy at Hawthorn for trying to trade him, Brennan etc) 3- Achieved everything there is to achieve in football and have lost a bit of passion and interest so decided to fatten up their bank balance (Ablett spent the week attending parties with his GF instead of getting himself right for the weekend. Tell me that isn't someone who has lost a bit of interest?) To me Scully does not fit into any of the above 3 categories. At the end of the day individuals go into a career in football to achieve team success. Money and lifestyle perks definitely help, but nobody wants to get smashed every week and potentially miss out on a premiership for the sake of more money. At least not the motivated ones like Scully. My biggest joy yesterday came from reading Trengove say what a great club Melbourne is. I simply can't see a reason beyond pure greed why Scully would leave.

Forgot to mention Bennell, McKenzie and Jurrah in that 08 crop did you? Drafting is imperfect and will continue to be so for as long as you're dealing with humans. Some come on better than expected, some don't. Some get injured, some don't. Some lose the plot and some rise to the challenge. No club ever has got it right 100% of the time. I think the bleating that goes on here is ridiculously premature and does not take into account the individual physical and mental development of the players in question, nor the fact that they have all played in terrible teams with no senior leadership. Watts would have already shown more if he played for Geelong or Collingwood. Why? because he'd have more support up forward and better supply through the middle and a hell of a lot less pressure to carry the side to a flag. Also, unless you can prove to us without any doubt that Scully is going to GWS please keep your negative opinions to yourself. If your track record is anything to go by, he's about to sign a 10 year deal with us.

Yep and good teams get the job done. We've been ordinary and are sitting 7th, and are out of the top 5 by percentage. We played two good teams and two terrible teams and have only lost 1 game. Give me those sorts of results every month of the season and I'll be happy. Better to be stuck in third and win, than be in first and still lose.

One of the same. Paterson Stadium is Subiaco, just named after a new sponsor.

Agreed. Subiaco is a big ground, so we need as many good runners. Petterd gives us better flexibility up forward with his run and I'd have Bennell as sub, given he is naturally a burst player. His fresh legs on a big ground could be really important to us in this match. Dunn has been just average, and he needs to do more than that to keep his spot. Watts has to stay and develop, and he cannot be a goddamn sub. That decision still baffles me.

From someone who does this for a living, the uniforms look brilliant from top to bottom, striped socks included. We look sharp and polished. Now if we could only play that way!

I give up. This board is draining my life. Enjoy busking in negativity and MFCSS.

Except harder, smarter, a better defender, a better reader of the play and a better leader. But apart from that, he is exactly like Bruce

Good Times Grimes. What a bloody lazy selfish show off B)

So you want him to get smashed and break something, is that it? He runs to the right spots and he takes contested marks. He'll get down on his knees in contests and feed the ball out. What else do you want? I've never encountered this phenomenon before of supporters being obsessed with watching a young player prove he is any good in the way of getting hurt or negligently throwing themselves at a contest. It's absurd and it shows how silly supporters can be, because they look at Hurley and go "ohhhh hard player, smashes bodies" and therefore if Watts doesn't play this style of game he is useless and a drafting mistake.

Dunn is definitely the one that annoys me the most, although he has gotten better in this area. He used to duck, now he just shuts his eyes. I suppose the fact that physically he is very strong helps him in the contest, but he definitely has a tendency to hear footsteps. On the other hand I don't think Bennell is soft, I just think he is such an outside player that he has no idea how to play the packs. He does well quite often in contested marking situations, so he isn't completely adverse to body contact. And while I don't necessarily disagree about the game plan not being suitable for finals, it's encouraging to know that we are up there for contested marks this season. That helps when precision kicking goes out the window under the pressure of finals. We have some very good overhead markers in our side, especially our 'smaller' players like Trengove, Sylvia, Bennell, Grimes and Tapscott.

He took some good contested marks today and put himself in many contests. One of his clearances on the forward 50 arc was exceptional with 4 guys on him. Did you watch the game or are you just another one of those supporters who will continue to put sh*t on him until he kicks 6 goals?

The thing with Sylvia is that he is icing on the cake, he isn't batter. So when we're good and he's good, he's bloody sensational. He can rival Ablett with some of his work in close. It's just that he doesn't do it well enough for long enough on a consistent enough level. If he did, he'd be right up there on Brownlow night, because he certainly catches your eye when he's on.

Pathetic analysis. FFS he played one quarter and apart from one disappointing kick, he did some very nice things. Took a couple of good contested marks, tapped the ball to advantage for a goal, laid some tackles. What the hell did you expect from a tall forward being used as a sub? It was a bloody idiotic decision. If Bailey didn't want him in the team he should have dropped him. To have to sub Jurrah to get Watts on was mind boggling, and no doubt Watts will now have to play for Casey next weekend to make up some match fitness.

6- Moloney (sensational for 4 quarters. Carried the midfield through good and bad patches) 5- Trengove (brilliant) 4- Bail (great speed and use of the footy) 3- Jamar 2- Sylvia 1- Tapscott

It was an OK win. I didn't expect us to win by less, with just 2 of our best 22 out and them missing Ablett. The 3rd quarter was again terrible. Just unacceptable to lose a quarter to a team with an average age of 18. They dominated the stoppages in that quarter which was pretty dismal. But we take the margin and we move on. Can't really get excited by beating a soulless franchise to be honest. Edit: ridiculous decision to have Watts as a sub. He did well when he came on and this was the perfect game to get him going. I'd have used Bennell instead to give us some fresh legs.

Agreed. However my lack of trust in human nature means I'm putting a complete media ban in this house until 3pm. No Internet, twitter, phone or radio. In fact, I'm going out of the house and not returning until 3.

It's fair to say that I will kill myself if we lose this match... or win by less than 40 points... or lose a single critical stat.

Absolutely, there is nothing better for a football club than a loss The mind boggles!

Correct, but give me a D grade forward who will consistently kick 2 goals on a bad day and I'm happy. His bad days are average to good days for many secondary forwards in the league. His good days are as good as any forward in the competition. When we finally stop being shizen, and he matures (especially mentally) I'm confident the gap between his sublime and average days will shrink significantly. My one annoyance with him is his lack of forward pressure, although he was better on Sunday than he was against Hawthorn (where he was deplorable with his defensive pressure!). Having Aussie in the team, who loves that sort of thing, helps bring that side out of Liam too.

That is pretty much it in a nutshell. Everyone wants him to be a star because we "wasted" a number one pick on him. I don't care if he turns out a star or not, as long as he plays his role in bringing us a premiership. Watts will be a unique and important player for us in years to come. If he doesn't win a single AA nomination or a single Brownlow vote along the way it won't matter to me one little bit. He has a role to play and I'm confident he'll be able to play it well for the next 10 years, doing things that separate him from other big key forwards and which will make him hard to match up on. Who says you have to have an angry bull at FF to win a flag?

It's clear to me that Tom Scully's left patella has already signed with GWS. The club is fighting a losing battle trying to secure the rest of him. Obviously Tom will follow his knee cap wherever it goes. 2011 is so dead to me. On a serious note, I feel for poor Tom. Knee injuries are a motherf*ing piece of crap!

You gotta agree that there are some valid points here though. Davey has never been one to handle a tag well, because it's very easy to get into his head and put him off his game. If he gets picked on behind the play he'll often end up giving away a free for his retaliation. My solution to this problem is to find alternative elite midfielders, so that the burden is not only on Davey. That is the only thing we can do that will make us a better team and not rob us of creative midfielders, and that is exactly what we are already doing.

Heaven help you if Scully stays at Melbourne. You are going to cop more hammering than a rusty nail.

Plenty of players more ordinary, less skilled and softer than Jones have played in, and won premierships. That doesn't mean that we should settle for average, if we have better options. Jones has been getting a game every week for the past 4 seasons because currently we haven't got a better option, and he gives us good honest service. But it's because we haven't had better options that we have struggled to get off the bottom 4. If we are to ever contest a flag Jones has to be a fringe player. He needs to constantly be on the brink of selection, as opposed to being one of the first selected each week. Even now, with arguably our two best developing mids out injured, he isn't named in our starting 18 each week. To me that says that the club knows he isn't a key player in our future, but they are happy for him to play bit roles, because in all honesty he isn't going to be someone who wins or loses you a premiership. In other words, he is a foot solider in a nuclear war.