Undeeterred

Disagree. He was excellent today. His kicking has been cleaned right up and he was plenty damaging enough.

Just had to make that count when we stack the forward line - can't afford to let them get out the back.

Really, really critical we belt them again into the wind this quarter.

LOL HOWE

Best opening quarter under Paul Roos

Frost great use of the body to push Grundy off the ball and Harmes a belter of a kick to Hogan at the top of the square. The future.

Well you certainly know how to use Shift and 1 at the same time with those two fingers!

I don't think he intended to push him into May, but he'd lost the contest and did deliberately push him square in the back, which meant that Martin was off balance and had no way to defend himself.

I noticed this and thought it was just as dirty. Pushing a bloke square in the back running full tilt typifies the kind of stuff the Abletts, Hodges and Mitchells get away with on a regular basis.

I completely agree. I think his absence has gone way under the radar and the effect is really underestimated.

Hellloooooooooooooooo Cameron Pedersen.

I wrote last week that they'd lost the plot and I reckon I wasn't 100% right but wasn't exactly wrong either. These changes make absolutely no sense, but after last week I'm willing to suspend disbelief until I see the outcome. But they do make absolutely no sense.

To scare us into playing Pedersen and Frost? I joke, but it isn't so far fetched.

Done the rounds on this one already (I think even on this thread). Darling and Kennedy still have enough footy left in them that it would make it really hard to fit him in now. And I just can't see how they'd fit him under the cap.

I'm still wondering why the hell it matters who our opponent played last week. Does anyone think Hawthorn, Freo, Sydney or Geelong get the slightest bit worried if their opponent lost last week? Until we stop thinking like this, we'll be an irrelevancy.

Sure was. Everyone who responded on this has confused good, hard, in the play footy with going out of your way to focus on hitting someone who is already sore, and losing focus on the game itself. Bernie is the classic case in point. In play, bump looks great. Tries to be tough and elbow someone, looks like a kn0b. Too subtle for most, clearly.

That is quite funny actually. Made me LOL.

Nope. That doesn't wash anymore - we've been told we have to put up with that for 10 years. In actual fact, the 'inexperience' was just hiding mostly rubbish lists. We've got the players now win games of footy against middle of the road teams. Where we will lose out still is in tight situations against good teams like North, where that inexperience is genuinely the difference between winning and losing.

Your framework was 'serious competitions'.

Sure, I take your point. Although I'd say that a hard tag is different from going out there with an attitude of aiming to hurt players. Bernie on Dangerfield is a good example though, you're right.

We have gone wrong many times playing the man for years. We're not good at it. Look at how clumsy Bernie Vince looked trying to be tough last week. We have to just play good hard footy and stuff who is injured from the other side. Focusing on it gets us nowhere.

Would be so fantastic if after the tanking debacle we got caught up in another investigation

Well yes. Clearly he's an AFL footballer, so he's clearly, obviously marked a footy before. I was just having a small joke. He's still a virtual no name who will probably bob up and kick a bag on us.

I get basketball, but why would Europeans have any more interest in American football than Chinese would have in Australian football? It's all about marketing, in the end, and providing an interesting product. People pick it up and will watch if its interesting.

Both the NBA and NFL have played games for points in Europe and I'd gently suggest they are much more serious competitions than the AFL.