Bingo. It’s dogged the club for years and will continue to do so.

Khawaja lovers, this is what you sound like, minus 7 runs off the FC average.

That’s fair enough. I just think every sport has a different way of doing it – I love the system for Australian rules, but with the Premier League and FA Cup combination, obviously it’s a bit different over there.
The Americans have their Super Bowl, which is fantastic for a competition of 32 franchises.
I think the A-League should perhaps scrap the finals series to bring it in line with worldwide soccer competitions, as no one would argue the Western Sydney Wanderers were the most consistent and successful team of 2012/13, and that’s the way it works in that sport.
The Aussie Rules tradition states we play off for the ultimate prize with one game, and that’s part of the folklore. If the teams are truly great they will stand up on that last day.

Proud of the Dogs. Went out there with the football world on their back expecting a record margin, and delivered on some of the promise McCartney has been preaching about. Geelong are still an excellent side and it’s a credit to them that even after Rivers’ injury they can swing Taylor between forward and back and plug the holes that need plugging. Excellent depth. If they can manage their players as well as they did in 2011, blooding quality youth while retaining Bartel, Enright, Corey, Johnson and co as elite performers they could go well into September.
Enjoyed watching Jones and Stringer go about their business in the forward line – boy, can Jones crash a pack, and it’s great to see Stringer have the composure to go back and slot 2 set shots from outside 50 as well as a snap.
The only sour note of the night was the poor standard of umpiring – free kicks that went the wrong way, marks not paid (2 Geelong marks in the forward line in Q2 ignored) and general ignorance. It was an even contest regardless as it went both ways.

Give me a break. The game runs at a ridiculous pace and the players are still ridiculously accurate when passing via handball or kick, and kicking for goal. They kick over distances of more than 50 meters, usually in howling winds, and can still hit the target.
Where do you draw the line between amateur and professional?
What is so much more skillful about rugby or soccer than Australian Football? Which by the way is the name of the sport – AFL is the name of the league.

Then why have the finals series?
Half of AFL players couldn’t name the trophy clubs receive for finishing on top – they just know that if you’re in the Top 4, you’re in sight of a premiership.
It’s Australian footballing tradition, and there is nothing better than that last Saturday afternoon in September, spring just breaking, sun shining, while the teams battle for the premiership. Geelong weren’t unlucky to lose in 2008 – they blew their chance through wayward kicking and an inability to counter Alastair Clarkson’s cluster defence and rolling zone.
Premierships in Australian football are built on breakthroughs in structure – Think Sydney’s flood, Geelong’s quick movement of the ball through the corridor while still defending half back, Clarko’s Cluster, Saints Footy, Malthouse’s zone..
Some teams may escape with a lucky premiership but that’s the beauty of it. For the most part, the AFL Grand Final tests the mental and physical strength of the two sides that were good enough to reach it.
This may be the attitude of a dyed-in-the-wool Aussie Rules lover, but a premiership decided weeks before the end of the season in some cases is of no interest to me. The fact that it is all or nothing on one day is the beauty of it.

Agree re Fremantle getting the Anzac evening clash. They’re just as important as any other AFL club and their efforts towards the Len Hall Tribute Match should be recognized with a permanent fixture.
Perhaps seeing as Anzac Day is a national tradition, it could be recognized with a game in each state for the weekend with the appropriate ceremony for each, as well as a game in NZ if possible, considering the success of yesterday’s clash.

Golden. Thanks for the laugh, Ben.

He was on fire years ago, it’s taken him 4 or 5 years but he’s actually doing reasonably well now. 30 touches and 2 goals in the wet mudfest at AAMI when the team lost by 52 tells me he’s doing well.
Swan gets touches but often does nothing with them. He’s either a link player or a shank. He does find the goals often enough though. Credit to him, for an average looking rig he gets around the ground pretty damn quick.

Come on. Perhaps the circumstances in which Haddin was dropped were cruel but there were footsteps. Wade was without a doubt going to be picked for the following Tests if Haddin put in even a mediocre performance.

I would expect nothing less from David ‘Boys Club’ Lord.
His entire doctrine is based around picking NSW and their expats, and rarely does he provide any reasoning other than ‘He’s better than him’, which more often than not is either subjective or completely untrue.
On the other hand I agree with him in regards to Agar and Ahmed. Agar particularly with ball and bat has shown promise and Ahmed should be treated like any other quality cricketer in Australia particularly as he is a legspinner.

If you were going to call anyone overrated it surely can’t be Cooney. He won a Brownlow with a cracked kneecap, breaks games apart as well as Judd or Ablett, however McAvaney, Taylor and co. don’t froth over him like they do with the others.
There’s no doubt Cotchin is up there when he’s disposing of the ball well but he hasn’t been in recent weeks.
If you were going to pick anyone to call overrated I’d be looking at Swan. Butchers the ball to a ridiculous extent. Would rather have Pendlebury – half the touches, double the efficiency, and a touch more class, on and off field.

Yes, but don’t forget that the Bulldogs and St Kilda were in the top four 3 years ago. Things change.
Richmond’s first 3 games showcased the future if they keep on the right track and overcome their long-time mental instability.
The point wasn’t that Richmond aren’t any good, it’s just that mentally, they drop the bundle too often. They buy into their own hype or forget how to run out a game.
I hope for the supporter’s sake that they can do reasonably well with this list.

Perhaps if we received the correct level of funding from shady sources we could purchase a premiership a la 1995.

Rose coloured glasses. McPharlin has been consistent but never great. There’s no evidence he should have been selected in years gone by except for 2012.
Walters has run and zip but goes missing too often. If he can get four quarters under his belt and kick bags like the best small forwards do, he’ll go a long way to solving the life after Pavlich question, providing they can find another lynchpin.
Sandilands has questioned himself whether or not he will be back. He lacks form, fitness and confidence, and we’ll be lucky to see the big man get back to his best. Griffin has been workmanlike but been dominated in the ruck, particularly against Will Minson.
Fremantle are a great unit together but like many teams, you take them apart and you have your nucleus of stars, and the structural plodders.

Don’t bite too early Tiges fans. There’s reason to be excited as the team are finally running games out and executing what we’ve seen in glimpses for a few years, but so far they’ve beaten 3 sides that failed to make the finals series in 2012.
I hope for their sake it isn’t a false dawn – they have a brilliant nucleus of midfielders, a tight forward group and a coach who looks to be bringing back the best of our great game – running passes, high scoring, exciting football.

McPharlin and Walters are decidedly average. McPharlin is an honest toiler and Walters has flashes of brilliance but long periods of nothing. I only didn’t include Sandilands because he has barely been on the park for 2 years and won’t be this year.

The facilities were primarily funded by the 3 levels of government and a Bulldogs supporter group. The AFL chipped in very little. The Bulldogs get no more money than North Melbourne or Port Adelaide do.
I think you’re reading it in the wrong context anyway. The Bulldogs function like every other AFL club and have struggled despite widespread support in their region (unfortunately among those who generally don’t sign up for memberships), whereas GWS are having large sacks with dollar signs handed to them regularly despite a distinct lack of support from disinterested locals.

Fremantle’s list now is no better than St Kilda’s was in 2009.
Yes, Fremantle of today does have stars and rising stars such as Pavlich, Fyfe, de Boer (star? Debatable), Mundy, Mayne, Barlow, Danyle Pearce, Clancee Pearce and perhaps the league’s best tagger in Crowley.
However St Kilda of 2009 had Riewoldt, Dal Santo, Montagna, Goddard, Fisher, Gilbert, Hayes, Milne and two of the league’s best taggers in Clint Jones and Steven Baker.
The bottom line is Ross Lyon. The man is the consummate professional. He has turned 2 basket cases into sides capable of going all the way. All sides have their select group of stars. It’s how they function as a unit that decides their fate.
As Mark Neeld (god help him) said in one of his first addresses to his playing group, “Everyone has a role to play in the structure and when it’s their turn they must go.”
Every fringe player fits in, whether it be the chain from flank to flank, as a like-for-like replacement for a regular, as a high marking half forward, as a loose back.
Lyon has more cash to spend football department-wise, but no more skills to spend. He will extract the best from the average majority, and the stars will take care of themselves.

Feral PA fans?
A good friend of mine made a trip around Australia 2 years ago, and stopped over in Adelaide to watch his team, Essendon, take on the Crows.
Seeing as his team led at a stage, a travelling partner of his had a urine-filled plastic beer cup thrown at him. Later, they saw their car had been broken into as they left the ground (Essendon bumper sticker, rookie mistake).
No disrespect to the Crows fans who behave properly and enjoy the football, and I acknowledge the aforementioned feral Power supporters, but AAMI Stadium isn’t labelled Moron Park without reason.

You can purchase a club membership for far less than $320 that will get you into most parts of the ground. In Melbourne you don’t get any more games with a Victorian club membership than what you do with a Crows/Power membership.
Perhaps Crows fans need to stop behaving in such a petulant manner and go to the football to watch their team play, not to engage in tit-for-tat rivalries.

The anti-Maxwell brigade need to have a good hard look at themselves. He was thrown in the deep end on dustbowls against the best spinners in the world, and scored accordingly, and he bowled very well considering his lack of experience. Over rate is irrelevant considering his average and strike rate.
SOK would perform no better than Maxwell with the bat.

Khawaja is vastly overrated by the aforementioned army. He’s the next-best we’ve got but he takes far too long to get a start and then wastes it. Having said that, his technique is unassailable, but his attitude is not.
He should be picked ahead of Smith seeing as he has just about given up on spin bowling as an art, and ahead of players such as Henriques and Maxwell, the jacks-of-all-trades and masters of none. However he must adapt to Test level in a hurried fashion if he is picked, as a disaster in the upcoming back-to-back Ashes series’ could see some careers ended, at least for the next few years (Khawaja, Hughes, etc.)

Further to that, the Dogs had the good sense to reject any has-beens such as Dawes, Byrnes and Gillies and chose to build their team and drill the culture in from day 1, creating a club that the players bleed for and are willing to give 100% for, as well as teaching them the right way to play football from the start instead of the cross-pollination that can come from trading for rejects (with no disrespect to Sydney, who have done so brilliantly).
Melbourne chose to take shortcuts with their moronic Moneyball strategy and it has achieved nothing. The young players felt the club had no faith in them, players with average records or a history of injury were brought in encouraging mediocrity, and the results so far have been what they deserve.
You look at clubs that are starting to rebound from mediocrity. The Bulldogs, under coach Brendan McCartney, who has spent the last 18 months putting a culture in place that will benefit the club for decades if stuck to. Richmond under Hardwick, a club that has finally used high draft picks well and is beginning to benefit from the hardline culture put in place by the man (we’ll see where Dustin Martin ends up.) Fremantle under Ross Lyon, perhaps the most tactically astute coach in the competition. Say no more.

Neeld has the experience and the know-how but just doesn’t have the support of the playing group. Given that half the group consists of washed-up recycled hacks and the other half are young inexperienced draftees, with the exception of Jones, Clark and co., the group has no right to object to any coaching regime.