Undeeterred

That's ok! My main beef is statements about money, and resources, and salary, being made in a vacuum.

That's exactly what I'm saying, so I'm not sure why we're having a debate. The discussion you jumped in on was my response to another comment about 'spending the money better'. That's fine in principle but is based on waffle with no concrete analysis of the alternatives. That may be the case, but a bit of rigour in the analysis wouldn't go astray, rather than just 'I don't want to pay Chris Dawes because the money is better spent elsewhere'.

This is what I'm talking about. What resources? You're making definitive statements with absolutely zero context.

I put my thoughts up every day on this forum and am very willing to engage on them and debate them with you. As I said, definitely admire the passion!

Let's assume for a moment I'm not a complete idiot. Perhaps take off your Dawes Blinkers and go back and read my last post and see if you can work out what I was actually saying!

He hasn't been dropped once this year as far as I can recall. He has come on, and is absolutely, clearly best 22 when fit.

Quite. But the poor barstad at the club who has to read this type of guff doesn't.

That's not how your comment comes across. You (and others) often comment about how much players are 'worth' without any real anchor to the realities of how the salary cap works or an real idea of what players are paid, or what the market is for those players. How much a contract is worth has a direct bearing on whether it is a good idea, and you make blanket statements about 'money better spent' with no idea what we're talking about. Better spent on what? What if we're paying him $20k a year?

Is it yours? Why do you care???

We are going to take a pounding, and the players will be drunk by the time the bus gets back to Melbourne.

Which is exactly what the open letter said, just in a more extended, self-indulgent, and boring way.

Count how many were in the forward line - I'd say 5 at most. Happy to be corrected as I haven't watched the game again, but my general impression was Hogan spent a hell of a lot of time up on the wings.

Spare us.

Let it roll mate - especially when the response is such nonsense. Makes the day go by much faster.

Good luck picking that fight. If you can't see the difference between the two situations PD has commented on, you're in for a treat.

It's pretty clear in the article that they are taking the punt on this week being the last North game in Melbourne this year, so that people can come along. I agree it's bizarre at first glance, but makes sense if you think about it.

Leadership being punching people behind the play whenever you think you can get away with it? Much rather persevere with what we've got.

Makes much more sense! LOL. Well, clearly no I didn't. Thanks for enlightening me though.

Dane Rampe, Jeremy McGovern and Rory Laird would be pretty handy in our backline right now. And Ceglar is pretty handy

Started the third quarter coming off the back of the square too. He bolted in from the bounce and impacted the contest straight away. Maybe just getting himself into the game

Yes. Very.

Me too - he closed down a marking contest with someone like Casboult on the weekend, he came from miles back and spoiled a bloke a foot taller than him. Did the same to Peter Wright a few weeks ago. He's a genuine spoiling defender, as well as a running, goal kicking one. It's astonishing he's not more widely known, let alone praised.

Let it all out mate.

I'd say completely the opposite. Knew how to play, just so frigging lazy.

Don't distort my words. You asked me to provide examples. I did, off the top of my head. I could probably go and find footage of him making one metre handballs to blokes standing still as well. Why don't you show me some examples of positive contributions, beyond the one I've just spoken about? Of the examples you provided, he did in fact miss easy shots and committed turnovers. Yes, selection is not in his control, but if you think having the two unforced omissions in would have changed the way we approached that game, you're dreaming. What you'll find I have said in the post game thread is that we have a complete failure of leadership, generally, in this team. Jones is the captain - ergo, he must take at least some of the fall for this. He's not on his own. Our leadership group is constituted of Jones, Garland (who can't get a game), Vince (who I think we can all say makes more very silly mistakes than someone in his position should), Tom McDonald, Gawn and Viney (no complaints on the last three). The fact that half our LG is 24 or younger, and one of other three can't get a game ahead of a pack of 19 and 20 year olds, says more about the current state of the club than I need to.