Diamond_Jim

Ah.. Country v The City .... can just see the young lads in their Akubras and moleskins warming up the hay filled utes and heading for the MCC members

I was using the app last night to check the scores and it appeared to be unstable (not auto refreshing) towards the end of the game. Just wondering how others are getting on? On a more general issue I found the YouTube replays that one could find last year to be far superior to what I now get from the app. Does youtube use better buffering or similar.

I am having flashbacks to the "Mothers Day Massacre" For those to young to recall (or more likely for those who have wiped it from their memory) it was in Sydney against the Swans. My memory does not extend to the year or the loss margin but IIRC it was a season changing (ending) loss Edit: Those memories are streaming back: 2001 I think I was in an airport lounge about to leave for Europe. Checking the scores and looking forward to what was supposed to be a season defining win.... why does this horrible reality continue forever beyond my dreams

Is this the game where we pivot

shows you how interested I am in this game... thought it was in the afternoon... oh well at least we are not on FTA In a perverse way I hope we lose by a respectable margin.. there is something in me that would not react well to a five point loss!

nah

yeah... agree... that is why I don't mind them winning ... no one will care bit like watching a science experiment or perhaps a fantasy football team

Getting to that time of the year when one needs to starts to think about following a second team so as to maintain interest in the season. I used to like the Eagles as they played a good brand of football and Natanui was good to watch as long as Bruce and co weren't commentating. Having difficulty picking a second team this year.... probably end up with GWS simply because if they win the big one it will not hurt as much as when the Doggies won last year or dare I say it if the Toiges win one. Go you Orange Men !! Tonight will be a big test for the Eagles. The Bulldogs have continuously fallen across the line and have shown themselves at risk of good marking counter attacking football especially teams with marking forwards. Weather in Perth today is 22 with a very low chance of showers. Could be the usual evening dew. All in all has the hallmarks of a good game. Eagles by 20 points.

look on the bright side.... we could all look back on this match as the Weids break out match it is hard to see many other positives out of the coming weekend

yawn.... another week... another season .... perhaps next year

Thanks for the report. Interesting comment re Gus. For a quarter in the Casey v Williamstown match I stood next tot eh coaches box and Gus came on and off the ground a few times. Could not help but notice his face lacked animation by comparison to other players as they traversed the interchange. Could just be his style of play perhaps.

Just a question of how much we win by.... we need to work on that percentage... could be the difference between fourth and fifth

you may be right billy and in fact you probably are but that raises the question as to whether he was ever going to get a game under the present gameplan. They have played the likes of Hannan, the two Smiths, Melksham, Bugg, JKH... the list goes on. None of these set the world alight and while Jack is not as you say a "like for like" for most if not all these players who needs to go down for him to get a game. It really does seem that the game has passed him by at least at the MFC.

Can see some semblance of reason in the bye argument. If you think of him as a senior player he is ineligible to play for the AFL team until three VFL games have passed. This is the equivalent of five AFL games due to the VFL byes. The counter argument which I think should prevail is that you are playing in the VFL comp.... it's worth five matches ... and if it is going to take seven weeks for those five matches to elapse that is your bad luck.

This was a great thread and I thought it deserves bump. I am really wondering what performance requirements the football department gave to Jack for this year (2017). Whatever they were it seems that they were unattainable. Cannot help but think that Jack was offered up for trade at season's end last year. If not we seem to have done him no favours keeping him on our list. Very hard business football but I would be upset for Jack's career to end up in the same way as happened with Jack Grimes.

Gus is perhaps a little like Salem. Last year we wondered whether he could overcome the thyroid problem or should we just cut our losses. We backed the medical team and now we have a good player. Same with Gus.. the upside is very high... trade for a second round and we are most likely to end up with an average player at best and moreover it will take that player two years to hit a reasonable peak. Okay we could trade for a third year player but we would get a "soldier type player" at best. Gus gets this year and next to show his wares.

Interesting and on its face true. The question that we have to ask ourselves is does the traditional defence fit the game plan and if not do we want the tradition or the game plan. It's not easy... the idea of our game plan is a forward press based on a strong zone. Break the zone easily and the other side will score easily. You only need to give the opposition player who is leaving the zoned area a break of one or two metres and as they used to say.. "he is off to the races." Sounds easy to play a loose man back say at about the old CHB position but from what I understand this does not work. If you notice when the ball is in our forward line we have the outriders so the loose kick in defence by the other side comes screaming back in from our players. Bulldogs are great at this. The other thing I have observed is that it is perhaps far better to kick the ball to a spot about 20 metres directly in front of goal. Go to either pocket or closer to the goal and it easy for the defence to just go the wild punch knowing that the ball will go out of bounds or through for a point. On multiple occasions the Hawk defenders easily punched the ball out and negated our forward attacks.The Bulldogs work the twenty metre out kick wonderfully well and then rely on their midfielders/small forwards to scrap and kick the goal. I heard a commentator call it the "chaos ball" and that aptly describes it.

but didn't you guys tell me we were the new "destination club" The running half back has now become the poor man's gorilla forward Out of curiosity when does Hunt come out of contract?

This is what I call a replay game. Ignore ... check scores on a quarterly basis and then if in front at 3/4 by more than 20 points watch last quarter. If games go as expected.... ignore ... rinse and repeat

that's been going on for years ... easy thing to fix these days with post match camera review Big fines and/or banning of runners for that team for next match

Looking at it from a money basis we have 4 weeks until our big QB money spinner our schedule is ... Adelaide (away), North (MCG), Gold Coast (Alice Springs) and bye Collingwood's is: GWS,(Sydney) Hawthorn,(MCG) Brisbane (MCG), Freo (Perth) Could be the lowest QB crowd for many years if neither team perform

Playing the King sounds tempting but in reality it is not an option. Ruck is a position for the big strong boys unless you have special athletic abilities a la Natanui. Perhaps we can take a chance in the Alice or Darwin if he has the aerobic ability assuming Spencer is not back by then. Why did this have to happen to MFC in the very year that they banned the third man up. Can we ever take a trick !!

Last year we finished 11th and would have finished 9th if we had not stuffed up the Carlton game. Making finals was not too much to ask. The reality is that waiting for a team to "gel" is foolish... while we wait others improve and our team stagnates etc. In a year or so we will be desperate to retain the younger stars. Unrealistic to expect that we will keep them all unless we deliver success. Already there is talk on the radio about how Hunt would be a perfect target for many clubs. We continue to pay the price for no A grade senior players. It will be years before we achieve list balance so in short we have to win with what we have. Might sound unrealistic but I was expecting finals plus one or two wins in the finals

What a tipster... the famous "kiss of death" A great football personality as well as a great player. Larger than life was definitely the right description for Lou A very full life but will be missed.

Sounds sensible doesn't it but not many spare big planes around the world these days given the utilisation levels of all the major airlines. Mind you Malaysian Airlines have a couple of A 380's that they have been looking to lease out for the last 2-3 years. They are looking to use them now in the charter business to Mecca after no takers for all that time. Probably cost prohibitive for a one off flight over and back plus re-positioning costs etc.