Earl Hood

Yes it's all about time and space at this level. Terlich had none of that in 2013. If things go to plan in 2014 he hopefully has more time and more space to get the ball and deliver, along with the rest of the back line. If his tendency is naturally to attack, he could be a weapon for us. Maybe!

Are we talking about the same bloke? Talent issues, yes. Soft I don't think so.

Robbie I have a feeling you are familiar with the Gonski recommendations and are about to tell us about them and that Labour did not take on board all the committees ideas. All I know is the idea was for the federal government to provide a minimum level of funding for every school to match every child under their care based on their level of disadvantage. That is Government schools look after the majority of disadvantaged students and need extra funding to meet their needs. That's my layman's take on the Gonski committees in depth four year battle to build a model acceptable to all the stakeholders involved. Now we have Mr Pyne stating he will issue a new model in the new year. Based on what grounds we may ask!

My last visual memory of him was wrestling Fraser Gehrig to the ground after he tried to play on around him just before half time? Our last final appearance in 2006. I think Gehrig never reappeared that game. A month later he has had some altercation with Ben Holland and was banished from the club. Last I heard he was playing up north and working in mining!

The Coalition's pre-election promise to match Labor's Gonski schools funding has been misunderstood by some people, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Sunday. Mr Abbott insisted that Education Minister Christopher Pyne had pledged that 'schools' as a whole would get the same amount of money under the new government. That was despite being played a clip during the election campaign in which Mr Pyne said: ''You can vote Liberal or Labor and you will get exactly the same amount of funding for your school''. Mr Abbott told Channel Ten's Andrew Bolt: ''I think Christopher said 'schools would get the same amount of money'. And schools, plural, will get the same amount of money. The quantum will be the same.'' Pressed on the apparent clear-cut promise to individual schools, Mr Abbott suggested there was confusion in the community. ''We are going to keep the promise that we made – not the promise that some people thought that we made, or the promise that some people might have liked us to make. We are going to keep the promise that we actually made,'' he said. No fair cop I say, it's us that are confused. Unity ticket doesn't mean what we may have thought, that's our fault. Is this an updated version Howards core and non core promises or Abbotts famous statement not to believe anything he says unless it is written on paper? I suppose it doesn't matter 53% of voters fell for it at the time.

I thought the team was already doing meditation. I cite as evidence first 15 minutes round 1 versus Port this year. We didn't get a touch I am sure we were still mentally preparing for battle.

Robbie It would have been nice to have been able to have a serious debate in the public arena on any number of major issues in the previous three years but I don't think we ever got near any facts, or reasoned argument, just idiotic slogans, fear mongering and personal abuse from ShockJocks, Lobby groups and Tony and the boys amplified by the News Ltd echo chamber. Tony is in charge, the buck stops with him. He needs to deal with all this. If the media is giving him some grief, so what? Welcome to government and accountability. Let us see how he goes.

Robbie To answer your question I have no idea how a Labour Government would handle this but that is not the point. Tony is in the chair and I am merely maintaining the high standards of Government demanded by the former Opposition. That is that the Government of the day must be utterly perfect and anything that goes wrong at the national level must be attributed to the Prime Ministers incompetence. We had this for the last three years, why should I be cutting Abbott any slack? He set the standard. He needs to be judged by his own high standards!

I can remember Gary Buckenara playing the same role in 89 for the Hawks. Watching him play us at Waverley he just ran away from contests waiting for their guy to extract the ball and get it out to him in space. And I use the term singular guy because my memory of that thrashing was that one Hawk could go into a pack of Melbourne players around the ball and extract it every time. It was hugely frustrating at the time. But Bucky cut us to pieces that day with his precision delivery. If we could set up Watts similarly it could be a weapon. But you do need mid field dominance for it to work well.

Robbie thanks for the in depth analysis. Very helpful at this stage. You have used Bull Shitten, do you want to send that one through to Mr Pyne, I am sure he could use it to deflect people away from his " shall we say by his own standards a blatant lie to not implement Gonski". Ten weeks in and we have a diplomatic crisis and a broken pre election promise, every week. Going well so far.

Yes what have we had today short change Shorten and shambles Shorten to add to Electricity Bill! I mean when do I start laughing at this puerile rubbish? Have the Libs hired a comedy writer? If so who is paying, the taxpayers or the party? Prickly Pyne comes to mind. What a joke he is. Going to set up his own system but he has never even understood the Gonski report. He is on record as stating he wants to go back to the Howard model but has since denied he ever said that. I mean the man is an absolute abomination.

Gee I have a memory of him taking out Neitz with an elbow to the jaw put him in hospital circa 1997 or 98 that would have got him 6 to 8 nowdays. it was cheap as. I also remember the prelim final of 1998 against north and Steven Tingay lining up Pickett on the wing early on to deal out some revenge and Pickett pulling out big time. He was good at giving but not receiving. He came to us in 2006 and played some good footy but then basically stuffed us up the next year. Treated us like Shyte, let's face it but we gave him a send off on his final game!

Oh sorry I forgot to add East Timor as well to our disgruntled neighbours! It is not Tony's fault of course, all these things go back to Howard and Rudd but Tony has to deal with it all. Lets see how he deals with this diplomacy. He has failed every test so far so let's hope he is learning.

Hey Robbie how is your lot going now? We have upset the Indonesians. Now Julie has upset the Chinese for heavens sake! They are probably just scared of her eyes. Pyne has lied about Gonski and Abbott just flounders about In poorly lit press conferences as if he had a skin problem he hopes the lights won't show up. Oh and where would I start on Scott "it's an operational issue, so I can't say" Morrison! Robbie its going really well at this stage and using the standards set in the last parliament by Abbott and Pyne can I call them liars? But yes you have three years for your lot to get their act together but of course their act is well and truly together now to meet their masters demands. Rupert is happy, BHP is setting up your climate change policy. What other big capitalists are being looked after? Business Council are they looking at work conditions for the least powerful, i.e. migrant casual cleaners, as they do every few years? I mean I find the reneging on promises on Gonski quite amazing. The LNP are taking a big political hit for what? The money is the same, it just seems they are obsessed with pushing ever more money to the elite schools at the expense of public schools! For what gain? It just doesn't make any sense but then that is assuming Pyne is logical. I fear he is an ideologue more interested in trashing the previous government ideas than looking to do any good. Going well so far, what eight weeks in!

But that would be a big problem for recruiters. If there aren't already big problems.

To be fair in all this The Master was commenting on some public bystanders at training. I am not sure he suspected that they would all be Demondlanders. He has been caught out and should have guessed that if you are watching us train at this time of year, the chances are you will be a Demonlander. Oh well there you go, no excuse really but he has been a bit stiff. By the way is the Master a well known time lord? That may explain a lot of this.

Re Gonski as in gawnski! Christopher Pyne a snivelling liar, who would have thought?

Good on you T 34 I am not sure where the Master was coming from. We all show up to support our team, I didn't know we all had to meet some physical aspiration set out by someone who calls himself the Master! For what it is worth I had achillies problems this year that has curtailed my tennis and running and as a result my weight has ballooned. Better not show up to training I suppose, at least until I can get my body back into shape.

Oh thank God it's a beer related issue. if we were talking Templars who knows where it might end. The Pope would have to get involved and I think he has a number of other problems to deal with.

Yes talk of consorting with goats is always likely to lead to wagging tongues. I was thinking is McQueen a Mason? Maybe even a Templar? But then again maybe he just drank too much beer! I am still not sure.

Gee sounds like we have more than enough hardware to deal with any feasible threat tht is likely to appear in the next 20 years. However if circumstances change and climate change models prove to be correct and we have sea level rises then we have millions of people on the move. That will test our moral compass. Shoot or accept?

Intensity!! Sounds good, I am going to make an effort to get down there this preseason. The last two years I worked nearby and would duck out of the office to have a look and it used to drive me crazy how players would wander over from AAMI like Browns cows, laughing and joking and wander about waiting for the coaches to get something organised. When they did get going the players would be jogging around bouncing footies before they would start doing some real training. By then I needed to get back to work so I never saw intensity at any of the dozen or so sessions I saw last year. So this is good news. Unfortunately I don't work nearby anymore.

However can I just add to the theme of this thread that TA is an embarrassment is the information that is coming out that Australia is now playing a destructive, spoiling role at the Warsaw climate change talks. And we know we took a stand with Canada against a Commonwealth Green Fund to help the small low lying Pacific ommunities that are going under the rise of sea levels. Abbott is anti Global Warming and represents the interests of the big carbon polluters. This is why he is more than an embarrassment, he is down right dangerous to our environment. We can have an argument on what difference we make to emissions but the problem is we are among the World's biggest coal and gas exporters. Add that in to our high per capita emissions and we are a big player in the Global emissions equation. we need to be a major player in reducing our emissions but Greg Hunts capped direct Inaction policy will go no

Oh dear can we just keep our comments to the politics of it all and drop the personal stuff! The political differences in thinking are quite facinating to see in this dull period between seasons. Once the season starts we won't give a flying f*^k about Tony et el. And who thinks what about what.

I know FA about these kids personally but from what I have read it is Freeman for me. If there is a risk but also a potential X factor mid who has an explosive side to his game but with some questions on his kicking, well I will take the punt and go for the potential unstoppable force versus the silky skilled mid, myself. We have failed so often in the first round we may as well take a punt on Freeman.