Undeeterred

What possible right do you, or any of the other 'livid' people on this thread, have to dictate to players about their holidays? For god's sake, they chase around a piece of leather for your entertainment. You don't own them. Their holidays, and what they do on them, are none of your bloody business.

Sure, but to what end?

If that's true, and it's a big if, why the hell are we playing him??

I'd like to know the 10 he's suppressing at GWS...

Not sure how more hasn't been made of this. This was an utterly ridiculous goal for a big guy to shark. Amazing stuff.

Not sure about this. Gawn is a sensational pack mark and pulled in a few last night which reminded me of last year. He's taken a number of huge contested marks down back in particular to save goals, but up forward as well. Weeds is getting up there, and Tom McDonald is probably the only player we've had in years who takes one grab marks at his highest point. Brayshaw and Oliver have very strong hands for young mids And Melksham is a great mark for his size. Concern is overblown. We're fine

Well, not really. If we had 22 208cm lumbering battering rams with questionable ground skills but good ability to make a contest and get the ball forward, I don't think we'd get very far. Clearly misread the point I was making.

Loved his game tonight. He's a big mean fella and he was fantastic.

Preuss is just the type of big nasty baaastad we've needed for years.

I've heard exactly the same thing, albeit via a foot specialist who also knows the surgeon.

Knowing our penchant for coming up with novel ways of losing players to career ending injury, he'll probably be the first player ever to lose a leg to flesh eating bacteria....

Completely agree, based on last year's form. I think they'll open up this year (and Fyfe's interview today in the Age said as much). Lyon knows he's coaching for his career and I bank on him being smart enough to use the tools he has got rather than be completely non-adaptive. We'll see.

Genuinely, I think they'll try and rejig that around him. In any case, my best bet is that he will stop the sooking too now that he's got his move home and he's through most of his recent issues. I could be wrong of course, but that's my gut feel at this stage.

Interesting - he was the only one to kick two in the praccy match last week...

We are kidding ourselves if we think Hogan isn't going to have a huge year. He will smash it at Freo, notwithstanding the fact I still think the trade was a good idea and we won out of it. To be fair, a lot of those changes apply to all decent KPFs

That's absolutely hilarious

Sounds like a deadset peanut. No thanks.

My two cents is that this is a really rubbish fixture, for all our 'blockbusters'. Geelong in Geelong, again. North is Tassie, again. Worse this year because we play them when a top 2, 4 or 8 spot will be up for grabs. West Coast in Perth, again. Playing teams in Alice that are used to warmer temperatures. again. And we lose our QB home game. At least we finally get a home game against Essendon and we get to spank St Kilda twice. We also could well be 4-1 or 5-0 going into Anzac Eve - Essendon are our biggest threat in those first few games, I think Sydney and Geelong in particular, but Port as well, are candidates for a pretty big fall next year.

Contracts protect the employee, not the employer, and that is the same for all of us. I wonder how many of you who complain about footballers changing employers would think twice about ditching your own employer if a competitor came along and offered you double the pay and work you enjoyed more. Give me a spell.

Absolutely hates Melbourne. He'd say anything.

Maybe he hates being there....

I wonder whether things change, and he thought he could get home easily and it would all be good. Now it hasn't worked like that, perhaps he realises what a mess it will be playing with us. Still, imagine playing with GC next year. Yuk. Hogan isn't exactly a culture builder.

Tend to agree, equally we're putting May in the position where he can't publicly state his intentions in the same way as Hogan isn't, so we're kind of giving him cover to wait it out without being under pressure to go public, and also saving face if it all falls through.

After all that bluster, posting how strong a position we are in on every single page of the thread, and having the gall to call me jelly-kneed when I proposed pragmatism early on. Lol at you, my friend.

Well yes, hence the reference to going in the draft. At which Freo will have one of the first picks.