pantaloons

Cometh the hour, cometh the Matt Jones.

Tim. It is amazing that you have been able to enter the minds of every person booing to understand their rationale. There are plenty of examples of non-indigenous players who have been booed and taken to by the crowd for prolonged periods of time. As for the dance itself - I don't care about hurt feelings in the crowd. As I've said, when you've directed you attention and behaviour towards opposition supporters, you have to be prepared to cop it from them.

As picket fences are generally white, I take offence at this. And...down the rabbit hole we go.

The issue for me isn't that Goodes performed a war dance. He's played an important role in raising awareness of issues facing indigenous people and used his profile to do this. Good on him. The issue is that he ran over to the nearest Carlton supporters and directed his act at them. Now I don't have an issue with this. Players can celebrate a goal however they like, provided they don't give the nazi salute, de-robe or bring out an ISIS handkerchief from their shorts. When you direct your attention to an opposition crowd however, you have to be prepared for the abuse that inevitably follows. There shouldn't be a furore over whether Goodes was 'right' or 'wrong' for his actions. There should however be an acceptance that he will get booed from time to time because of the way he conducts himself on the field.

I haven't followed the Goodes stuff that closely, but who was it that first asserted the booing was race-related and what was the rationale? Unless it is well-founded, I fear there is an element of racism from the person claiming it. Ie. "Adam Goodes is indigenous, thus he is 'different', thus the crowd must have interpreted him as different, hence the booing". It is bizarre logic that I can't believe has gained traction in 2015. If, say, 5000 Hawks supporters were booing him, maybe 50-100 neanderthals might have been doing so with a racially motivated bent. It's not acceptable, but not illustrative of everyone's motivation. I recall booing him a decade or more ago after he destroyed a Melbourne player from behind in a marking contest in a very poor act. I'd like to think booing is directed due to on-field behaviour but I guess there is no code of conduct for this. As for tonight, I'll wait to see what comes out in the interview wash-up. Indigenous war dance in indigenous round - classic, go for it. Directing aggressive behaviour towards opposing fans just invites abuse though, and I would expect that if someone does that, they would anticipate and enjoy to an extent the vitriol that comes their way afterwards. Again, I'll wait for the wash-up. Who knows what's been said over the other side of the fence prior to it.

How does Trigg still have an AFL job? He's probably on Talking Carlton as we speak telling them how useless they all are.

When you look at the guys out of contract, there will be 4-6 players most of us would agree will get the chop. The one of most interest to me is Jamar. Four weeks ago, I was lamenting our desperate ruck situation, with an ageing Russian and his protégés barely progressing. When Roos replaced Jamar with Spencer I thought he was having a lend, but full marks to Roos for not waiting until the end of the year to act on the ruck department. While beating the lifeless, fetid corpse of Ayce Cordy might not be a true test of Spencer's mettle, we are at least now making the necessary steps towards the ruck division of the future. Hearing that Gawn and King played well on the weekend is great too. More of that please. The loser here is Jamar. I like him, he's battled manfully for years now and is the longest-serving player on the list. It'd be hard to be bothered turning up to Casey Fields to play out the rest of your days, but hopefully he gets a farewell game in Round 23 (provided we're not playing for a top 4 spot) and gets to steamroll T Scully on his way out. If we can get continued improvement out of Spencer, Gawn and King, then we should be able to avoid spending valuable assets via trade on a ruckman at season's end.

If it keeps his next contract under eight figures, it's ok by me.

And yet no free kick with the umpire right there. Bizarre.

As for Leigh Matthews, is senility a taboo subject in all seriousness? I say this not to be a wise guy, but I have genuinely felt he has been losing it over the last 4-5 years.

Before the season, I had round 8 pencilled in as our first win of the season. Before the game today though, I couldn't see us winning due to the injury list. I haven't been wallowing over the previous three games. Those teams are clearly in a different weight division, and while I'd prefer not to have our trousers dropped in any game, I'm more concerned with how we measure up to the rest of the comp, and cobbling together as many wins as we can. This was a superb win today. Career best games for spencer, Fitzwilliam, Toumpas and van demon. Meaningful contributions from almost everyone. I was happy for Grimes too - his best game for a while. Hopefully we'll get a couple of players back next week, get on top early and go from there. We seemed to use a bit of third man up at ball ups as the game wore on, often ineffectively. Something to work on.

If McDonald was the gatekeeper, then Fitzpatrick was the keymaster today.

This thread needs a priority pick.

Classic work. I'm afraid the Minnesota Timberwolves are sheer toilet though. There is a far greater chance of you seeing Melbourne win a premiership than Minnesota winning an NBA championship. The cold (get it?) reality is that people who earn millions of dollars don't want to live in Minneapolis. Heck, even Boston, with its storied history and being in a great city, can't attract big free agents. Don't do it unless you truly hate yourself. It's one thing to choose lame teams as a kid and get stuck with them for life, but you've already got an AFL team to ruin your life - don't add to it.Pittsburgh Penguins is a decent choice though. I accept that proposal.

I don't like it. I've been reading some of Pete King's thoughts on it and he's obviously a better Football mind than me, but I preferred the old method. I get the argument that something like 4-5% of PATs fail so it's a waste of time, but I think the weighting (unlike rugby union) on the scoring is about right, with the focus on all the work that goes into a TD rather than some piddly play afterwards.