Earl Hood

I thought Jamar was good today and his battle with Smith was a highlight. The post was more in answer to another poster who said Jamar smashed Smith. You could have called that one either way, the stats show it to Smith and I thought he just got the points.

Jamar battled hard in the ruck but Smith won the contest overall I thought, very tall and put some good taps out to his midfielders advantage.

6 Macca

5 Jones

4 Watts

3 Garlett

2 Cross

1 Viney

Special mention to Bert Newton, the Prince, Tyson, Brayshaw and Vanda.

McIntosh for the toiges must be up there as well

Might be too old?

Rising Star History dictates it must be Saad

Can report that the price of bottled water is down to $3!

"So What" So Good!

Here's a couple from the late, great Ronny Jordan

First, one of my favourites ... 'At Last' then a version of a song that Miles Davis made famous called .. 'So What'

Macca, thanks for that, it reminds me so much of an early George Benson, brings back a lot of great memories of the 70's and early 80's when I was in my prime. Life seemed so simple back then, you could just lay back and listen to this guitar music for hours without a worry in the world then call up a few mates and head out for a big night. Doesn't happen these days.

Will be at the Gee as well...this is my son's birthday trip to Mlbourne to see the Dees, so he gets to see as much as possible. Footy overload tomorrow :-)

I will keep a look out for a Day of the Dead tee shirt at the Gee. But if we lose "Don't Blame Me!"

Wonder why Pedo is on the back burner this year? All things being equal he would be the pinch hitting forward- ruckman for round 1. He was ticking all boxes last year until he was legally Karate chopped across the face against Brisbane last season when he wasn't looking. Thank God the head is sacrisanct in the AFL I say or he could have done time for head butting Merret's forearm.

I will be at the Casey game first with my son... I will be the old fart wearing a black t-shirt bearing three Mexican day of the dead (dia de muertos) skulls...feel free to approach and say hello if you see us.

Hardtrack doing the 1030 am seconds match at Olympic Park but not the ones at the Gee? I would love to be at Olympic for Casey but had been pre-booked for a brunch unfortunately. Oh well.

I am going and hoping to take along my 14 year old niece who has just arrived from Egypt. She lived with us for a year several years ago and back then we went to every home game but she has never seen us win a match. How bad is that?

Very hard to get her attention for tomorrow, she remembers our last game together where we both got drenched in the rain sitting with the cheer squad watching MFC lose yet again

For the record as well, my bespoke tailor requestes payment for his services! Apparently this is a problem for BBO who expects it is more payment and enough to be a model and walking advertisement for anything my tailor produces.

Its a good side but wouldn't say its the best since 2007..

Gee the bar is set pretty low if we are saying since 2007. God I hope Dazzle is right.

Was watching but missed the Prestia bit. I assumed it was Gary Ablett, but has he re-signed? If it is Pretia he will probably go to the Hawks, you know the team with the bottomless salary cap.

Corrupt may be too strong a word. But I repeat: would you trust the judgment and biases of anyone who let Barry Hall off so he could play in that grand final? I don't.

I played tennis with Jonesy for a number of years, albeit quite some time ago when we could both cover the court much better than we could hope to these days but he was a straight shooter back then I thought. Unlikely to have changed his values markedly I think.

How much water has been contaminated by the 3.5 million sites world wide where fracking has occurred?

Quite a bit in the US I believe and Of course there is the exponential growth in earth quakes in a couple of states in the US where fracking has been going on longer. I wouldn't trust a mining company to fully understand the consequences and likelihood of what they are doing with new technology like fracking. For heavens sake their track record is appalling - Ok Tedi anyone, Deepwater Horizon, Santos's endless mudflow in Indonesia. Miners equal cowboys in my opinion.

There is an article in the Age today that talks about the science and increases in seismic activity in Oklahoma due to fracking and of course big business pressure to deny anything is happening. Hmmm I am thinking Cowboy miners again.

Listened to Little and Hird at their presser on SEN on the way home. They both thanked a cavalcade of people who were involved in this sorry saga but both failed to mention Bomber, (as I heard it anyway). Looks like Thommo is on the outer at Bomberland big time. He was the guy who tried to warn them off their mad scheme I thought.

Get rid of the interchanges, just have 4 substitutes like soccer and the game will open up as fatigue sets in late in each quarter and more so in the second half . The coaches are taking advantage of the rules so we have 18 midfielders and a fullback and a maybe two key forwards and rolling mauls, ball ups, the forward presses etc. Without the continuous rotations off the bench we would see players actually playing in their position for much of the time.

I read today in tha Hun that Kent's heal injury was caused by a car hitting him on his bicycle over the summer. I thought it was from NAB game. Did anyone else know this?

Why do we find all manner of off season ways to interrupt our player's development? from natural catastrophes to family deaths at the wrong time in indigenous homelands!

I'll be there hoping for a win but, realistically, expecting to be in the bar by the third quarter with all the other bitter and twisteds cursing our players and club.

I love your pre season confidence Bitter. The old stiff upper lip in the face of overwhelming adversity stuff! Love it.

When was the last time we lost 16 in a row?

I'm scared this could happen.

Not that I expect to beat GWS in rd 2, but I reckon we have a better chance of beating them than GC.

In the words of Lawrence Oates of Captain Scott's Antartic expedition " I am just going outside and I may be away for some time"

Well, I was channeling the Reverend William Archibald Spooner when I was writing that contribution.

A stunning.......?

Do you need to kick more than 40 metres as long as you know that and can kick to a target within a 40 meter radius accurately. I reckon if you can do that you will be in good AFL company. Not everyone can put in a 50 meter precise spearing kick to a running outsiderwhile in a contest. Yes the best players can do that but we are not competing with best for some time yet.

not a problem if they are de-sexed. they will still catch small animals, but they (de-sexed pets) cannot breed to become a rampant pest. like the Fox, cane toad, rabbit, goats, buffalo, carp, other fish tank species, camels, feral wild dogs, & yes feral cats.

all carnivores & exotic animals should have to be de-sexed when kept as pets. Cats, Dogs, ferrets, snakes, exotic frogs, anything that can be let loose into the wild. cats catch small animals. feral dogs catch from small to large animals such as Koalas, lambs, cats, other native animals - baby wombats, joeys, echidnas, possums, platypus, young calves, etc.

If only we could make it a national priority to battle all these feral pests. I would happily pay an environmental levy on my tax if I knew the millions were going to fight pests and rehabilitate natural environments.

I wonder if Hunter is doing this off his own bat, or is perhaps a stalking horse for other players, particularly those now at other clubs?

I work with Hal's mother and she is a force to be reckoned with. It didn't surprise me when I heard he was the mystery player. She hasn't told anyone, it was supposed to be kept confidential. But she is after justice and she will get it one way or another in my opinion.

She was appalled by the way the club communicated with the parents and how her son was off loaded after his rookie contract was up. He had worked through numerous injuries only to be unloaded when it suited the club. She was less than impressed by James H. But that is to be expected I think as a mum. But she is no fool and has not been impressed by the way the Club has handled their players and the issue.

In her view her son has been injected with an unknown cocktail of supplements or whatever they were and then unloaded by the club with no support system in place. You are on your own son. Any wonder Mum might be mad?

It's amazing that the dismissal still rouses intense passions today, nearly 40 years on.

In one of the tribute programs that have been shown over the past few days, Fraser said that he didn't believe the dismissal to be the most divisive event in Australian political history, an honour he said belonged to Billy Hughes' conscription push during WW1. It's a fair call given the political and religious splits it created.

The other interesting point he made about blocking supply was that in '73 (or '74?) spending in the Budget increased by 40 percent - in a single year! What, Fraser asked, would the modern Senate do today if a Government tried to do that?

A modern day senate of cross benches would block the new legislation and therefore the expenditure. They would not block supply and with it the right of a democratically elected Government to govern. Just a small legal difference there. Let's not downplay that event. Put it in the context of the day. After 23 years of conservative rule, aided by the bitter split of the DLP from the ALP , Gough wins but is after a short time harassed by the establishment, the conservative state governments and later the Murdoch Press. For the true believers it was a classic coup. The economy was on the up and the Hayden budget if passed by the Senate would have turned things around.

How do I know that you may ask? Well it is because once Fraser forced the election and won, they passed the senate bills and the Hayden budget initiatives were implemented for the next year to help drag the economy out of stagflation.