Carrot Top

Well bully for you. 15 years in the military obviously didn't teach you about geo politics or history. If it had you might remember the Sino-Vietnamese War of 79, or how Vietnam toppled the (Chinese backed) Khmer Rouge. So much for Chinese hegemony, eh? And he wasn't 'vocal' vet. I'd known him for the best part of a year before the subject came up. We were swimming, and it was me asking him about the nasty scar he had running from the back of his thigh right up to the middle of his back. Turned out he'd been on the turps on R&R and was in a car accident that lost him a kidney and nearly killed him. Took another bunch of months for him to tell me he'd been a tunnel rat and that it was the most horrible part of his life. And that was pretty much all he ever said on the matter. And no, 15 or 50 years in the military doesn't give you the right to [censored] on vets. And it certainly doesn't give you bonus points when parrot discredited propaganda,

Probably upset that he had a training session that didn't involve him planting someone into the dirt.

Met a fella in the NT who was a tunnel rat. We were drinking buddies for the three years I was there. He was a really nice guy, but at the same time he was NQR. Odd emotional reactions to things that didn't seem important, and cold to thing that did. Sometimes we'd all be drinking and laughing about something, and he'd go quiet for a bit and then just walk away and stand off by himself. Later he'd join back in the group as if he'd never left. It was sad and disconcerting to see a person that was one of nature's nice guys so lost, and knowing there was something broken inside him that could never be fixed. Dragging kids out of suburbia to fight a jungle war for reasons even the powers the be couldn't explain properly was never going to end well.

Stats are nice if you're into that sort of stuff, but stats can't tell how cohesive a team will be, especially as both teams have new coaching set-ups.

No team ever loses out by having a bloke like Jordie on the list: if he's in the best 22 then we've got a player that gives everything he has all game, and if he's not then the guys that have his spot know damn well that they'd better do the same or he'll take it back off them. If you want to pot someone then pot the blokes that cruise on talent rather than the blokes that would sell a kidney to be 1% better.

What number does this fella wear for us again?

Assuming he's coming out of contract, then I'd assume he'd be on the short list for delisting at year's end. I like some of what he has to offer, but think that it's won't be enough for him to be kept around.

Not a fan of the name for some reason.

We might be missing a soul, but the rest of the package is pure awesomeness.

You couldn't afford me.

Would they get the same value though? Would you give up #1 for Patton? Are you going to give up a top pick for (say) Scully if he's fifth best mid in a struggling side. If they are picking kids that they think will be guns on the basis they don't really need them and that they might get a good pick/trade later down the track then the lot of them should be sacked. If you aren't picking to better your team then what the hell are you doing?

Yep. And a fair bit of our 'just pick talented kids and the rest will take care of itself'. And we all know how that worked out.

After GWS's strange drafting I'd run like hell from that place. #1 and # 2 were fine (as they should be), but some of the other stuff left me scratching my head.

So many things to like today, so few like buttons.

It's a good point. It's about building a team, not about getting a champ with every pick (as nice as that would be). I think Roos can build a team, and that means that 30 odd players get an extra couple percent out of themselves. That's very different from the 2007 - 2012 mantra of getting players and the rest will look after itself. I'm still on the fence as to whether Roos can turn this place around, but he has the knowhow, background and gravitas to give it probably the best shot it has.

Not me. I was fat, lazy, uncommitted and would sneak off to the bar as soon as the coach looked the other way. I can't believe Bails and Neeld kept me around so long.

Very much missing that like button right now.

Nice

Damning with faint praise is an English idiom for words that effectively condemn by seeming to offer praise which is too moderate or marginal to be considered praise at all.[1] In other words, this phrase identifies the act of expressing a compliment so feeble that it amounts to no compliment at all, or even implies a kind of condemnation. - wiki

I don't think anything I say from my POV will sway you, just as I'm not going to be swayed by yours. Both of us have formulated our subjective opinions on JW over five years, and short of dissecting Jack's brain* for study, not much is going to change there. *I'm guessing the the AFLPA is against such things too. Boo! to them.

Right now that's all I hope for. Everything over that will be a bonus. Thanks for the reports all.

The fact that he still plays like a kid in a man's game suggests it to me. Occam's razor. Of course he could have just been born a pea heart, but it's pretty hard to ignore that first year when his subsequent style shows such glimpses of talent and so little confidence in himself.

It wasn't the tackle. That in isolation was nothing. Taken with the media pressure in the weeks leading up to the game (why don't they play him? He's #1 pick they have to play him), the idiocy of the club to use our biggest game that year to debut him when he wasn't ready, and the cringeworthy introduction by the club of the new messiah as he ran out, then the tackle was huge. Those three Collingwood players were only minor participants in the gangbang - most of the AFL world were in the line. I doubt he could offer anything to Hogan other than to wish him the complete opposite of what he was dealt.

I don't. Jack got gangbanged in front of a big crowd. I think that day still haunts him. Better he deal with that before he offers advice to anyone else.

Or he'll fall in love with the city, love being coached by one of the best, realise that there is only one place to play footy when he kicks 13 on QB, and see that we are putting something special together. I like my imagination better than yours.