Jaded No More

Exactly. What backline coach wouldn't want to work with Jame "the great" Frawley, Garland, Rivers and so on. I'd even give them Grimes if they were looking for a sweetener, although to be perfectly honest they should pretty much pay us for letting them get near our defensive stars On a separate note, you know you're in trouble when the talent of your coaching staff is greater than the talent on your playing list.

Screw you Essendon. Hope your mates rates 2-for-the-price-of-1 deal blows up in your face like everything else you've done recently. Wellman or no Wellman, it won't stop us from outplaying them for the next few years.

MUST.NOT.GET.INJURED. Otherwise, love.

Absolutely, and look how many forward entries on Saturday were the long kick under pressure to a pack! As long as he isn't completely useless at creating a contest when the ball is in the air, he'll provide us with 3-4 extra goals a game just by giving us more crumbing opportunities, even if he only kicks 1 or 2 goals himself.

Good. Nothing ever bloody happens until the last 3 hours of the final day of the week anyway. The shorter it is, the better.

One can mark a footballer, and the other one can't. They are both ordinary, but Brown can afford to be ordinary because he provides enough physical presence up forward. You may as well have kept Miller and taught him to ruck, because he'd be a lot more similar to Brown than PJ is.

Agreed. It also gives Gawn and Fitzpatrick more time to develop, and allows us to rid ourselves of the current crop of secondary ruckmen on our list who we know are never going to make it. There are plenty of ordinary players who play a vital role in a side, even in a premiership side. FFS, Zac Dawson might be a premiership FB next week. At the end of the day we cannot move onto next season with PJ and Spencer as our only backup options, and we certainly can't shorten Jamar's career by burning him out with 22 consecutive games of 100% ground time. It's foolish of supporters to be so narrow minded about these things. We're not about to trade Scully for Hale, and we're not about to miss out on a gun kid because we've given up a draft pick to get him. If he helps us ensure that Jamar is still alive and kicking when we're ready to contend for a flag, while also providing some physical protection for Watts/Jurrah, than what have we got to lose?

And this is why I got out of town on Friday. Was out in Geelong on Saturday night and the place was like a ghost town. Not a single Collingwood supporter in sight, just plenty of "We love Gary Ablett" banners Even the Collingwood bogans at the pub in Oceans Grove weren't as bad as you'd expect. I thought they'd torch the place when the Saints came back, but they just proceeded to get more intoxicated and rant in barely-understandable language.

Love him. The sort of player that players love playing with, coaches love to coach and supporters love to support. Not the fastest, smartest and most talented, but has the heart and hardness to make up for it. Although I must say his skills are surprisingly good. He's not a spectacular kick, but he is very reliable with his disposal. I'd say marking should be one of his focus areas in this pre season, just to give him an added dimension to his game.

Caught the last bit only. Rodan is a great dancer, whereas Shane Crawford is just out there to get nude. Any Melbourne boys disgracing themselves early on? I'd bloody pay to see LJ up there one year putting on a show. Dunno why but I have a feeling he can dance.

Hope Watts didn't need to miss the end of season trip for this garbage. Watch the loonies on AFL forums Australia wide get stuck into him if he doesn't win

Don't give a crap if he wins, as long as he doesn't do his hammy!

Hope not. I've spent years bagging the crap out of him to all my Carlton friends (Saint Sultana). Embarrassment much!

Absolutely not. There is no greater evil in the AFL than Carlton, and not enough words in the dictionary to sufficiently convey how much I loath and despise that club. Collingwood are bad, as are St Kilda and Hawthorn, but Carlton take the cake when it comes to cheating, filthy, arrogant scumbags. Nothing will bring me greater pleasure than to smash them in a Grand Final.

Carlton called. They want their title back.

I was gonna say, I bet 7 of those pages were written around the time of the Judd trade. Not sure if you were posting here back then, but there were literally 1000 posts a minute made about it. I even think we had a whole board dedicated to Judd.

Haha yeah, he went to Carlton because he got [censored] with Greg, because that obviously had a bigger impact on him than his apparent love for Melbourne. That was yet another [censored] spin on the matter. And when do I ever mention Chris Judd? He is the topic of conversation today because of his surprising win. I've said again and again that he is a gun, but that I think in the end we were probably lucky to have missed out on him and gain the picks.

If all that is true, and again, it might be, why the spin and the [censored]? Why not come out and say that? Does he think he'll be made to look like a tool, when in hindsight our list is probably as good if not better than Carlton's? (which I agree, it probably wouldn't have been had he agreed to play for us). It's the flat out lying that shits me. He never had the guts to come out and say "this is why I chose Carlton", he just went on to rubbish other clubs and point out things like training facilities (back when Princess Park was a crapheap mind you). At the end of the day he is an incredible footballer, who got lucky last night because he is surrounded by utter mediocracy, he knows it, and we know it. I don't wish him or the filthy scumbags he plays for any success whatsoever, and he can keep his gushing about our club to himself. Nobody cares what he thinks about us now.

He is a gun player, one of the all time greats. But he also happens to be smug and selfish when it comes to his football (he might not be in real life). He was lucky to win last night, but as I said to my Carlton friends, one player a team does not make.

He didn't even make the starting 18 in the AA team FFS. And to whoever said that we begrudge him for not choosing Melbourne, well I don't. In fact I think we dodged a massive bullet. I just hate that he was too much of a coward to admit that money was his sole motivation. He made clubs waste their time chasing him and came up with pathetic excuses about why he turned each club down. To stand up in a room full of AFL greats and profess your love for Melbourne and Jimmy but then turn around and say a [censored] up at the race with Greg Swan was your deciding factor is a joke.

Could he be a bigger [censored]?! Ugh! And going on about Jimmy too. Please, who are you kidding, the only thing you've ever supported is your bank account. Probably the only true thing you said all night was when you described yourself as selfish.

*vomit* I hate the AFL.

Jim saves me from throwing the TV in the pool. Get bloody Ju$$ off the screen. Arggggghhhhh!

Sadly, I agree. I loath Collingwood, and they have their fair share of wankers too, but there are a few St Kilda players who certainly don't ever deserve any kind of success in life, and I can't bring myself to support them on Saturday. As it stands, I think I'll avoid the game or proceed to drink during the coverage to lessen the feeling of disgust associated with watching those two teams fight for a premiership.

I'd also argue (and this is probably slightly off topic), that these days, games of football are also largely won from the backline. The four finalists this year have 2 things in common, a great midfield with good skills, and a solid backline with some good running half back flankers. And with the exception of St Kilda (or Reiwoldt I should say), none of the top 4 possess a genuinely good forwardline that delivers consistent results. So if you take those points and apply them to us, I'd say that our backline is very promising albeit perhaps lacking another good runner (Bennell/Strauss/Blease?), and that our forwardline is coming along nicely. It's the midfield that needs to really develop to take us to a top 4 spot, and this is where I think Jones is hanging by a thread. Because he's a solid contributor, but you need nothing less than B+ graders running through the midfield in order to win a flag. And if you're going to be a B+ grader in a premiership team, you've gotta be the sort of player who can win a heap of clearances, and/or tag a star out of the game. Jones can't do either.