Undeeterred

One day in the next, say, 10 games this team plays, the dam wall is going to burst and it's going to be amazing.

Definitely this is helping too. I think there's been a slight structural shift too, though, because earlier in the year we were pushing up much higher, with much less protection, and getting completely smoked on the rebound. Tom McDonald is the perfect player to play the sweeper role and the fact he has a couple of very quick players to get to the contests up the ground can only help. I actually really like the way the backline is coming together and the injection of one or two older heads next year (be that Melksham, Hibberd, Vince going down there full time etc) will only help.

Yep. Tom McDonald doing a fantastic job with this and those immensely frustrating goals where there were 2-3 free players over the back have basically dried up.

Precisely!

That's just wild, ridiculous speculation. SWYL - linking Dean Bailey's death with Hardwick's decision on whether to carry on coaching is up there with the best nonsense I've heard on this forum. What about Leppitsch? Should he quit, just in case he gets cancer? What about all the other, literally, hundreds of VFL/AFL coaches who have coached through shocking pressure and not got cancer? Saty - 'Mitigating' means to reduce, not to increase.

Completely agree. And when it comes off, it's fantastic because the ball goes through a few pairs of hands and they can all get around afterwards and circle jerk each other. But it's so frustrating when it doesn't come off, which should be really rare, but isn't.

Wow. Ok. That's a fairly big call.

Come on. Honour has absolutely nothing to do with it. This is the response that every single one of us would give.

Um, no it wasn't. I doubt that very much. And sorry, are you saying that coaching a bad team killed Dean Bailey? Just want to be clear.

This. It gives me the absolute screaming shits. Sure, it's nice they want to share it around and slap each other on the back. But sometimes, for example, it would be nice for Watts to take 3-4 more steps and bang through the goal from the pocket, rather than miskick a dinky 15 metre pass to Hogan who ends up smashing himself into the point post. We are way, way too unselfish inside 50 which can be great, but we stuffed it up a number of times on the weekend.

I know for one that I wouldn't give a flying stuff what my parents, or my brother, thought.

Maybe it's both and they should go down the pub and sort their [censored] out together.

I would.

Absolute drivel. It was an appallingly bad decision, and an even worse kick. If he'd kicked it flat and hard and to Watts' advantage, then it might have been Watts's fault.

It was really odd, but I think that even though Gawn was still getting a hand to it, he was a bit overwhelmed with firepower and wasn't directing it all that well.

Have to say, you sort of can't say that if you have only watched a highlights package and a blooper reel. Having said that, it was bloody dreadful. Literally the only thing that made remotely bearable was losing my sh!t when Watts kicked the winner.

Christ on a bicycle we were awful. And that's not the full list, either.

The point I'm making is being missed. The third man up was often Nicholls himself (ie, the actual ruckman), while another player engaged Gawn, pretending to be the ruck. Not the typical third man up situation. Watts waved his arms around at the ump in the third quarter, in the pocket at the city end, because he didn't know which of the big blokes standing next to him was the designated ruckman. It has to be illegal, surely.

Gold Coast did an interesting thing yesterday on Gawn and it killed us. They designated a ruckman that wasn't Nicholls, who would engage Gawn at the throw up. Then Nicholls would come across and contest the tap, so he was two on one around the ground the whole game. Even when he did manage to get hands on it, he was in so much traffic he seemed to be not able to do much with it.

Absolutely this happens. I've said a number of times before, when Roos admits 'mistakes' in the media, it's almost always being used to cover for and draw heat away from the playing group. Will be interesting to see what happens when they're fully exposed, although I'm pretty confident it will be fine.

He's already made noise about retiring from footy altogether. Too fickle for me, although would improve us massively in a heart beat. In a perfect world he was committed to playing out a full career, I'd have no hesitation handing over a Salem type plus a pick. None whatsoever.

Sure, but the great unknown for us is Goodwin taking over.

I got it....

Totally. Funny thing was, he almost brought it to ground, despite Wright taking it in his hands out in front.

Bang on. As courageous as it gets.