Diamond_Jim

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.

Cannot get over the fact that Port get the money but it is at the cost of a Gold Coast home game (OK ... GC get money as well) Apparently GC only agreed to one year but Port's China deal is for five years. Will be interesting to see who if anyone steps up next year to be Port's "patsy". GC cannot get direct flights from Qld so they are flying somewhere else and then on to Shanghai... total flight time (including layover) was reported this morning on SEN at 20 hours and only part of their team can be accomodated in business class.

sorry ... wrong link.... unicorn food was part of our China game discussion will edit and fix... amazing fad this unicorn food though !!

Melksham reported twice so you say. Made my day.... can this season get worse

The rate of change in this team is high to say the least. It seems to always be in three in and three out. TBH there is no one at Casey knocking the door down and hasn't been for weeks. JKH out on the theory that almost anyone could be better but for the rest no change unless Stretch has rectified whatever he was dropped for in the first instance. In which case Stretch for Bugg. Hard to get any enthusiasm up although I will accept that occasionally seeming miracles do happen. One good thing about the weekend was that although we lost the hitouts by total we won the clearance numbers. Will not help the longer term next week that we will have to take two emergencies ... (when is our VFL game? )

Good article from the Guardian on Buckley's woes at Collingwood and as usual the comments make a great read https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/may/08/discontent-grows-as-listless-collingwood-defeat-heaps-pressure-on-nathan-buckley What I find interesting are two things: 1. Why were Collingwood confident of making finals. Their list last year was not brimming with youth on its way up. I suppose they added Wells and was Treloar this year or last. 2. The article ties Buckley's future into that of McGuire. Call him what you will Eddie has been great for Collingwood. It seems that it is payback for the Malthouse/Buckley deal but from where I sit they would be mad to push Eddie.

Two weeks or so ago (Freo match) we were criticizing Vince (?) for bombing in during the last minute. Ok this was closer to the end but I am not sure that the players knew the time left down to the seconds.

That's our game plan... when it comes off it looks good... sometimes even great but when it doesn't In his defence he is taught to look for the spare player.. there was one... Rioli closed down the space and in spoiling pushed over the receiver. Moreover Lewis could not impact the play. Their ability to take marks allowed them to slow down the game and stop us from getting the ball into space. It also seemed to me that we got a few unlucky bounces. Hell I don' think this season is going to be much fun

we were outscored in all quarters except the third... simple mathematics as to why we lost. As to teams being on song ... we must be selling the hymn sheets !!!

Ah.. but unicorn food is the latest trend http://www.goodfood.com.au/eat-out/news/unicorn-food-has-gone-too-far-20170317-gv0pu4

I am afraid we are not better. Our game plan is high risk and when it comes off it's great. The reality is that in modern football the consecutive handballs and get it to the running player will be easily closed down by a close checking team. Plan B requires more traditional down the line marking (we don't do it ) or the rolling scrum like the Bulldogs play (we are not strong enough). For our game plan to work you need to dominate the midfield and have three outside runners together with swooping forwards. We have some of those components but not the lot and until then we will continue to be one quarter wonders. On the upside get the game plan right (may need different players) and we will be millionaires. Hope I live to see it.