Macca

Harry Kane off to Bayern (all but done & dusted) Ange gets his first setback

The quintessential big occasion player was Brent Crosswell

You forget how young these guys are sometimes ... of our 4 (McVee unlucky not to be the 5th) only JVR seems young But the other 3 are all still very young yet are all premiership players As @BDA mentioned above, with our draft hand this season, we've got plenty of young talent either established or coming through The future is bright

Former demon Brent Crosswell's nickname was Tiger The story goes that he was not good with fellow player's names so would call said players 'TIger' when calling for the ball. "Tiger Tiger!" Or ... "It's yours, Tiger!"

Nutbean is either taking an extended break or has moved on from forums I can understand either stance Plenty have come and gone so the above 2 explanations is probably the main reason Just on Nutbean, he is a real music aficionado ... front row seats for nearly every time a contemporary music artist (or artists) that have come to this country. As well as the classic performers from the past He'll be front and centre for McCartney

I'll give you one guess as to who accused him of waffling on too much (not that it was any big deal, Nutbean took it in the right spirit)

It's a bit like when Nutbean was accused of waffling on too much so he changed his avatar to a picture of some waffles Haven't seen Nutbean here for an age. Hope he's ok

And Kozzie as well (midfield minutes) ANB also for stoppages other than centre bounces. And Rivers sometimes has a run through the middle/stoppages Doing the exercise of naming all the 22 players on the ground does your head in a bit, AF At match committee level, they'd have it all worked out (who comes off and on and when, how & why) so you can understand the rigid nature of rotations And then of course all the rotations of the mids ... counting ANB, Petracca and Kozzie as part of the midfield rotations, there's a total of at least 10 mids if we count both ruckman And they (the MC) can't make it up as they go along ... most of it has to be pre-planned (With a bit of leeway for break glass in an emergency) And of most of the talls, most are swingmen, ruck or utility types (May & Lever tend to stay put)

From the past ... Carey & Matthews These days it would have to be Hawkins ... precisely the player we need although he is coming to the end Jack Riewoldt (in his prime) is another

Here's how I see the team lining up throughout the match With this team there are no players listed on the interchange as the use of the '/' is more appropriate. As we know, all the players often spend at least 80% of the game on the ground Feel free to critique as my line-up is more of a guess FB Bowey May McVee/Smith HB Rivers Lever Salem C Hunter Brayshaw/Sparrow Langdon HF Petracca JVR Chandler/ANB FF Melksham Grundy Pickett R Gawn Oliver Viney/Jordon Of course, all players spend time on the bench so the '/' used could be used anywhere And Smith, Gawn, Grundy & JVR could all be used at CHF or FF (rotating?) Grundy & Gawn could also spend time in the backline (Grundy to ruck as well) Hibberd to be the sub again to provide fresh legs in the backline?

SEN radio are covering all Spurs games this season ... maybe on the app

Oliver in for JJ or Harmes I reckon Grundy is in but under what system? Gawn has to be the main man in the ruck unless we want to give him a breather prior to the finals At a guess it's Grundy to ruck 40% of the time, maybe 15% on the bench with 20% forward & 25% back Gawn 60% rucking, 25% forward & 15% on the bench Which means we might need another tall forward or Petracca plays forward more (with Clarrie back) And Smith can be used forward when applicable That will leave Brayshaw & Viney as being predominantly used on the ball (Brayshaw is in good form so why change his role?) We can always push Kozzie & Petracca into the middle when the any of the main 3 are having a spell. Sparrow to be used sporadically at the stoppages as well Hibberd to be the sub again

I thought the same thing ... to me the Hawthorn player deliberately took Daicos out and should have been cited for unduly rough play. 2-4 weeks penalty But because Daicos was contesting the mark, head contact was unlikely. Are the AFL so head conscious that they let this incident go? And are we going to see a glut of these sorts of incidents (if a player can get away with it) The other standout out feature of the weekend was West Coast not flooding back to protect a slender lead in the last couple of minutes of the game There's no truth in the rumour that certain members of the Eagles hierarchy went from ashen-faced to rosey-cheeked once the Bombers scored to gain the lead. It's just another wacky conspiracy theory

That's a tremendous win to the Matilda's ... we played very well and needed to And ran out the game well, too good for Denmark Sam Kerr gets some vital minutes so augers well for Sam & the team for their next encounter ... 5.00pm Saturday vs France or Morocco. An ideal lead-in to our clash with the Blues on Saturday evening

I agree ... and CH7 will be kicking themselves now as the TV audiences have been enormous And yes, a world class through-ball by Fowler. And then the nutmeg by Foord upon scoring!

Back in the day that would disappear in 3 or 4 minutes. A sugar-hit in overdrive (redskins included)

@Diamond_Jim @Dee Zephyr @layzie @Grapeviney @roy11 @Jumping Jack Clennett @Deestroy All @Winners at last @Jibroni Big night for the Matilda's tonight in front of an enormous TV audience The team has a huge following and a win tonight would bring an even bigger following The question is ... will Sam Kerr play? Go Matilda's Go Go Go!!

1st qtr - loading, tapering 2nd qtr - post tapering

The Pies will almost certainly have a home QF final against Brisbane or Port (unless we slip up) so I can see them not playing Nick (after him being 5 weeks on the sidelines) But a lot depends on the 6 weeks forecast. Is that accurate? Or approximately?

I'm not going with anything. None of us know much at all about training loads I'm saying that anything is possible so if people here are prepared to let our team off the hook due to loading, equally, they must take the same attitude with other teams That's the fair way to judge things Also, the argument is often that when we lose it's because we're loading but what about when we win? Is that loading related as well? You know what AF? Sometimes we lose because we play like [censored] Quite frankly, I don't believe anyone knows much at all about which teams might be loading or tapering Where's the actual data & evidence? On any team?

So teams aren't at their best when tapering? And we all know that post-tapering teams are at their optimum (in theory) That's obvious and goes without saying So again, if the Pies are tapering or increased their training loads*, why can't we use that as a reason that they've lost their last 2? (quiet last quarter's to boot) All bias aside, aren't the outcomes similar for all teams with the loading/tapering process (including an arch enemy) As @Watson11 highlighted, the Crows told the world that they loaded and tapered in 1997 ... lost 2 of their last 3 and barely got over the line against the 10th team in the other match ... and went from top to 4th in the process Then won the flag (1997) Did the same in 1998 and triumphed again *With the weekend off prior to the finals, extra training 'towards' the end of the season can be managed

So are teams at their best when tapering? Or close to their best? In track & field, athletes aren't competing when tapering But logic says that T&F athletes may not be at their best when tapering otherwise, why go through the whole loading process? So if the Pies are tapering (not loading) can't we use the same excuse/reasoning for them? Now, I'm no authority on the subject matter, far from it. I don't believe anyone here can speak about the loading process with authority There's a distinct lack of data at our disposal so at best, we're guessing, AF

I recall that the Crows supposedly started loading towards the end of the season proper before tapering just prior to the finals in '97 & '98 So are teams at their best when tapering? Does anyone know? In athletics especially, athletes aren't competing when tapering Whilst they finished off the season well in '98 (despite losing their first final by 8 goals to the Demons) they did lose 2 of their last 3 in '97 And of course, they won both flags in '97 & '98 The whole subject matter is murky due to the lack of data available. And the consequences of that often, unknown data

Correct but whilst training harder periodically is a very real thing I'm not sure wins and losses can be attributed accordingly. Certainly not every time. And if it isn't every time, which times? Collingwood may well be loading but is that the reason why they've lost their last 2 games? No one knows for sure and having a firm view would be guessing The same argument can be made for Port Adelaide When we lost 2 games late in the season last year (also, just getting over the line against the Blues) those who were advocating the loading process were in full voice They may have been right too but again, who knows for sure?

Further to the above, the owner of Dukes (which manufactors the Dukes ball) is saying that he is going to investigate whether the ball was a 4 or 5 years old variety Back then the Dukes ball offered more swing & seam But will the ICC investigate? I doubt it as they'll probably see the protestations as just more whinging or sour grapes Plus, the ICC are a bit of a toothless tiger anyway. Beholden to self interest And that's the issue as well. In a general sense we are so used to not accepting the umpires decisions that when a serious issue like this does surface, it gets lost with all the other complaints & whinging But even at the lower levels of park cricket, this sort of thing would probably never happen. But we're talking about an elite level of sport here. As previously stated, it's the worst decision by officialdom (by far) that I've ever witnessed at a professional level LBW or catching adjudications even themselves out over time. So you take the good with the bad But are we ever going to see a worn out ball replaced with a near new ball in the future? A decision which led to one team having an unfair advantage? In my eyes, the 5th test has a giant asterisk attached to it Anyway, that's 4 Ashes acquisitions in a row now. Winners are grinners!