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No he can't. If he had anything other than concrete for hands he'd be a lock at centre half-forward. And further to that he wouldn't even play for us as Collingwood wouldn't have offloaded him. His inability to mark the ball means he's fringe for our best 22.

This is such a spectacularly poor call I just don't even know where to start. Ask anyone, ANYONE whether the footy we've seen played so far this season has been more entertaining than previous seasons and you'll hear a unanimous 'yes'. Free-er flowing, higher scoring, more exciting. Why? Because the 2010 Malthouse Magpies strategy of "never kick it further than 10m from the boundary line" is no longer effective, because the new deliberate OOB interpretation is so much better. Yes, people will occasionally feel aggrieved; but the attacking, corridor footy we're seeing as a result is well worth the price of admission.

Hahahaha! Pffft.

I used to play volleyball against Daisy. Her best friend is a mate of mine. She is an athletic machine. Her coordination is unlike nearly anyone I've ever met, male or female. What I wasn't expecting was her confidence as a media performer. She's already incredibly charismatic and polished, with very little practice and (I assume) very little training. Extremely impressive. I don't think anyone realised at the time how important it would turn out to be for the Dees when we secured the first pick in the first women's AFL draft. Daisy was always going to be pick one. Turns out she would have been the best pick one even if she was only half as good at footy as she is. She's the complete package, and she'll put our club in the spotlight next year, big time.

Agreed. He's a vastly more useful player in this team. Fantastic contested mark down back (Dawes? nope), serviceable key forward (Dawes? tick), powerful presence and link up player in the midfield when required (Dawes? nope), capable of rucking despite height (Dawes? nope).

Hahaha! [censored]! Lucky I've got you blokes to keep me up to date!

Evidently not! He has been pretty quiet, not surprised he's been dropped. I hope he can force his way back into the middle of the ground, he's not a forward I don't think. If he becomes the second James Magner I'll be really disappointed.

We need Viney or VDB to put some serious hurt on Pendles' ribcage within the first few minutes. Keeping him clear of the contest will go a long way to securing the victory.

Are you talking about Matt Jones or Bernie Vince? Jones did it two or three times, Vince did it nine or ten!

I do know what they say about stats... that they often show our intuitions to be incorrect. Your claim that he gives away lots of stupid free kicks didn't sit well with me. I couldn't remember a single occasion where I thought he gave away a silly free kick. It seemed like the sort of thing a person would say about a player they were actively looking for negative traits in. I looked up the stats just to see whether your intuition had some merit or not. I don't think it does. Glad to see you've pulled the standard "go and watch some football" argument, as though I haven't witnessed every game Melbourne has played in Melbourne live for well over a decade, and every other game on TV. What an inane insult to fall back on.

Average Melbourne player frees against per game = 0.84 Matt Jones average frees against per game = 0.7 Argument not stacking up I'm afraid Junior.

I can state with total certainty that the coach's instructions to the defenders is not "just boot it forward to a contest".

Why do you say that? Their mobile coverage is so vastly superior to anyone else's that I wouldn't dream of going with another carrier again. Their customer service experience has a reputation for being pretty [censored], but in the last few years I've found it quite good. The call-center staff are relatively knowledgable and empowered, the livechat staff are good too, and once every 12 months or so a real live Australian calls you to check if your services are all good. Last year, that call resulted in them moving me to a cheaper plan because it better suited my usage patterns. I reckon the "Telstra sucks" meme is out of date. They don't suck as much as they used to, and from my experience they don't suck any more than any of the other carriers. And, you can actually use your phone more than 20km away from the CBD.

@monoccular just install the app on your iPad as well. You don't need to pay twice assuming both the phone and the ipad are on the same iCloud account.

Don't think he won the B&F, but other than that I agree with you entirely.

The reason to practice with a numbers advantage for the offence is so that the team gets a feel for how the play flows when it works. It helps them work out where to run to create the correct 'next option'. As they get better at it, you add defenders. If you start with even numbers or a defensive advantage, they don't get the opportunity to learn the running patterns that open up the play.

When the AFLW takes off proper, can we have a dedicated board for discussing the women's league where misogynist idiots are banned?

Picket Fence, you "may" not consider yourself a "sexist" but I'm "afraid" that everything spewing out of your "mouth" (whether enclosed in seemingly meaningless "quotation marks" or "not") makes it quite "clear" that you are a sexist. I "understand" that you will not "change", however, so I'll simply "move on" now that I've made myself feel a little better by "hanging sh!t" on you for being "an idiot". Good day sir.

The guy noted that Plugger was the same height as Garland and Darling. He was right. Who's the simpleton?

Yeah, we couldn't possibly discuss football on a football forum in the off season. That would spell disaster.

Rewind to the 1950's and you'd still be complaining? The fact is, teams take 5 or 6 years to get good, spend 5 or 6 years being good, and then drop away. Geelong is done. They're finished. Hawks look like they're about to drop off the perch, too. The fact that our administration and football departments have been absolutely deplorable for ten years is not the fault of the AFL. We've had PLENTY of opportunities to climb the ladder and failed. That's not the fault of the AFL. That's the fault of the peanuts who were running our club.

A meaningless match in a season whose mediocre results are a foregone conclusion = "biggest loss in our history". Hyperbole, much?

Yeah, the title of this thread should be "western society drug culture", because that's what this is. The Gold Coast club have handled the situation badly, sure, but the fact is that our society as a whole has to have a sensible conversation about mind-altering drugs, because our present policies are a complete failure.

Round one, actually, I seem to recall we had four.

Matt Spangher is a premiership player, and Kyle Cheney would have been if the timing had been slightly different. It's hard to imagine either of them getting a game (or a spot on the list) with us, either. That's the way footy, and the draft, works. There's not enough a-grade players to fill every list. Every list has some NQRs. I'll grant you that we have a few more than is ideal, but we'll never be "NQR free". No-one ever is.