Warren Boland was an under rated Wests player, who ironically made his debut with Balmain. He was a very intelligent commentator and I loved him on the old ABC Saturday afternoon games.

John Ribot played on the opposite wing for Wests, although I imagine they lined up against each other in opposition a few times too.

Couldn’t imagine two more different blokes.

5 wooden spoons in 20 years means Carlton are the worst team this century. Hands down.

You’re on the site 18 hours a day.

For a start, it’s Georgia Yeoman-Dale, not Georgina. She appears to be doing her best Robbie Slater impression here, saying something controversial while the Australian team that she was never an elite part of has a resounding success in a team-building victory. Obviously a very long way to go in qualifying ahead of a world cup that will be the best chance for the Matildas to show the world how good their best can be.

One thing you can usually rely on Carlton to do is miss the 8. There will be the usual excuses and someone will be made to be the scapegoat. Nobody reads the optimism for Carlton from January in November though, so the cycle will continue where Carlton keep getting talked up as future finalists. Happens every year. They buy decent players and fail at getting maximum benefit from the draft. It is good though. Mediocre Blues are good for the whole comp.

When you have a footy tragic quote to you a cliche from economics you know you’ve won the argument, but with this one you will never, ever, ever gain an admission of having been wrong even though he’s wrong year after year after year.

Cerra could continue to average measly possessions and below average stats across the board and you will still be wrong. He will get a top 10 place in Carlton’s B&F and you will be wrong for 5 more years.

I will be ecstatic seeing Carlton finish 9th to 18th. If the footy gods allow them to finish in the finals, let it be over in an Essendon like whimper.

There is no point in engaging. You will always be wrong.

Only for pedants.

Interesting take. Maybe revise it though because the Suns are excellent at the SCG and you are rating Hawthorn pretty highly when I think they are headed for a wooden spoon.

At the end of 2017, the Suns cleaned house. They had new chairman in Tony Cochrane and a new CEO in Mark Evans who reviewed the footy department and found it wanting. They told Rodney Eade he wouldn’t get a new contract and footy boss Marcus Ashcroft was soon to follow, with list manager Scott Clayton asked to manage his final trade and draft period before packing his bags.

They brought in Stuart Dew, who had famously turned down overtures from the Demons to take over from Paul Roos. They created a new position of GM List Strategy for Craig Cameron, who had been list manager at Melbourne, Richmond and GWS. They also brought in WA heavy hitter Jon Haines and made changes to the strength and conditioning program.

They started the rebuild by trading and delisting 12 players from their list of 45, then 15 players the next year, 12 the year after on so on until only 11 out the 49 players on the list now remain from the 2017 season, with just 3 foundation players left. The median age of the list is 22 and the average age of the best 23 is just over 24, so when the 28 to 30 year olds at the top of the list start to retire the young blood will be in their prime.

Stuart Dew is as highly qualified as AFL coaches can get. He’s learnt from Mark Williams, Alastair Clarkson, Paul Roos and John Longmire, which is about as good a coaching apprenticeship as you could hope for. The club has brought in Wayne Campbell to guide him through off-field stuff and polish up his failings, while the new assistant coaches are Steven King who has been Luke Beveridge’s assistant for 7 years and Queenslander Brad Miller who was at GWS before Covid.

In 2018, Parfitt was charged for a dangerous sling tackle on Jayden Short and fined $2000.

Brandan Parfitt was charged with rough conduct (dangerous tackle) on Karl Amon just 6 weeks after the Rowell tackle and fined $1000 (Covid reduced fines).

A month after that, he hit Dylan Grimes late and high, but the Murdoch media was already building a case against Grimes for staging for free kicks so there were many commentators excusing the rough conduct in order to implicate Grimes.

I actually like Parfitt. If the AFL had have actually let the Suns keep the NT pathway continuously from 2010 instead of giving it to GWS then Brandan could be a Sun. But he’s got form and I’m calling it.

Your want to do-over the 2015 draft? So do I! No pick trade with Melbourne, Suns take Clayton Oliver at 4, Harry McKay at 10 and Josh Dunkley at 20. Now your turn. You like Darcy Parish at 5, but the options at 6 are all meh unless you like McKay too, in which case the Suns would be their cardinal rule of never drafting Geelong Falcons players and gone for Charlie Curnow. (fun fact: Ben Ainsworth played with the McKay twins at Gippsland that year as a 17yo and made All-Australian, but if the Suns don’t do the Melbourne pick trade, they don’t get Benny, so it’s a pipe-dream).

I get your point, but that draft had some real diamonds in the late rounds and rookie draft. Richmond alone got Dan Rioli at 15, Oleg Markov at 50, Nathan Broad at 67, plus Mabior Chol and Adam Marcon in the Rookie Draft, which is two flag players, but they all played. Josh Schache is the biggest washout of that year, but where to pick him other than top of the order?

Adelaide had picks 11 Wayne Milera and 17 Tom Doedee, while Port had 37 Riley Bonner and 45 Aidyn Johnson. SA had 16 players drafted from a year where they were good but not crazy good. The 2018 SA 18s were generational and as such they had 3 players in the top 5. Izak, Luko and Rozee made each other and their team look better. Luke Valente and Jez McLennan both came from that team and haven’t debuted or been delisted.

Still, I think the comparison between Dawson and Lukosius is fair. Similar height and both stellar kicks, with both playing their best footy off halfback. I watched Dawson play a lot of NEAFL because the Suns and Swans played each other 4 times a year and he would slice our boys to shreds. Luko will excel up forward though – he reminds me of Chris Grant.

Fact check:

“Marc averaged 18 disposals per game in his first year, highlighted by a season-high 26 in round 11, when the Navy Blues travelled to Subiaco and went down fighting against the top of the ladder West Coast Eagles. A fortnight later at the Gabba in Brisbane, he suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in when he was crudely slung to the turf in a tackle by Rob Copeland of the Brisbane Lions.”
blueseum.org

Wrong Macca. You. Are. Wrong. Again.

Rubbish. Jarryd Lyons had a bad attitude, didn’t get along with the new coach, refused to defend, was a one way player and his body language was about the worst I’ve seen. His contract was far greater than his output and he sooked about being dropped to the NEAFL. I was glad to see him gone and am just as happy that he’s found a side that can accommodate his talents and arrogance because he was a cancer at the Suns.

Because Oscar McDonald’s 2 quarters of football as a forward were the best Carlton looked all year. Did they still make him stand in the middle when they sang the song even though he was an unused medical sub? Did he even know the words?

Jack Lukosius was never going to be a player that immediately started winning accolades in the AFL. He needed to build his tank, find his best position and grow broader in the shoulders. While he had over a year in senior footy in the SANFL, he wasn’t ready for AFL level intensity as an 18yo, however, the coaches decided that he wouldn’t learn anything in the NEAFL and put him straight into a side that came last.

There are times when he makes you wonder if the Suns made the right decision in recruiting him, but others where you see him do brilliant things and just wonder why he didn’t go at pick 1. Compare him with Jordan Dawson, who has similar stats, but had a break out season in 2021. Jack is 3 years younger though and has a higher ceiling.

Ned Moyle was listed at 194cm and 78kg in 2020 and played zero footy, then he played 4 games for Oakleigh Chargers at 204cm and 96kg and was so devastating that he earned selection for Collingwood’s VFL side against the Suns. In his 3rd game of AFL, he beat out Sam Naismith and Cal Sinclair, relegating Mason Cox to chop out ruck forward. Don’t sleep on Ned Moyle, he’s already very good.

In fact, his brother Ben just went undrafted, who is already 197cm and still growing, having played in the ruck for the Chargers after his brother got drafted. He has a very late birthday, so watch and see what measurements he has as he enters his top-age year at Oakleigh.

I didn’t specify a year. The move north has been on the cards for a couple of years, but as I said Carlton still had a use for him.

Tom’s production fell off a cliff after the 2017 Grand Final. In fact, only 6 players remain at Adelaide of that 22. That forward line of Tex, Josh Jenkins, Lynch, Charlie Cameron, Eddie Betts and Richard Douglas averaged 110 points a game. Playing third tall forward is somewhat of a luxury when you have such talent around you, but with the Crows going younger he was forced out even though the team was better with him in it.

I’m not so convinced there’s a place for Lynch at North, who now have Nick Larkey, Jacob Edwards, Callum Coleman-Jones and Charlie Comben competing for two to three positions. Sure, based on what he could bring in round 1 he’d be a handy addition, but if that is robbing games from players who will still be around in 10 years then you play the kids and have Lynch coaching on the field in the VFL.

Maybe if you have a look at both tackles on foxtel/kayo and watch them live in context then you’ll see my point. The Parfitt tackle was a sling and would have been booked for a dangerous tackle under 2021 rules, while the Langdon tackle was awarded a free kick. From there it is really just debating semantics. You’d need a tribunal to sort it out and even then people would disagree. The Suns are historically timid when it comes to the match review panel.

The Facebook links don’t show all the angles or the context of the game. Both incidents happened in the first quarter as Rowell came under heavy attention from opposition players.

In the Parfitt tackle, it was the second consecutive tackle by the same player, who showed his intent to cause damage by using a slinging movement in the tackle. It wasn’t a love tap, that’s for sure. He wanted to hurt him and he did. Had Rowell not braced his elbow it would have been his head hitting the ground, a suspension for Parfitt and Rowell out with concussion.

In the Langdon tackle, a free kick was paid for excessiveness. The direct intention is obviously not to target Rowell’s knee, but there was a clear intent to hurt him. For some fans, that’s part of the game and shouldn’t have even been a free kick, but for mine the instruction was clearly to apply a close tag and shut Rowell down with maximum violence.

But it is futile to argue because the people arguing against it aren’t even stating their case, they are just blinded by their own opinion. Nothing will change their minds. Note that they don’t mention anything about the other 11 pages I wrote. They didn’t read it, that’s why and they are only here to argue the toss.

The fact that Carlton still had use for him, mainly as a defender, demonstrates that he still has a contribution to make. Tyson Goldsack just spent a year at Port Adelaide, playing 10 SANFL games. His last AFL game was the 2018 GF. They used him as a development coach because of the reduction in the soft cap, which is how I see the Suns using him.

It was a free kick. So the umpires disagree with you too.