Good morning, everyone. This week, our Game Day thread sees our Magpies travel across the border to the City of Churches, to take on the eponymous Adelaide, in a match with everything to play for. We need to win if we are to remain a chance to make the Top 4 and secure that elusive double chance. They need to win if they are to make the Top 8 and play finals, period.
The stakes, in short, are high.
The teams:
Tip: Collingwood by 5 points.
Over to you…
Jesus, they’re still going on about Stephenson on the radio now.
Rosco just had a look at the Collingwood VFL side on the Magpies homepage and Scharenberg has not been named in the team. We have a good forward line with Stephenson and Wells lining up in the forward pockets. If they are serious about Wells playing in the senior team this year he is going to have to play a full match in the twos to show that his body is capable of getting through a match.
Rosco
They have been naming players in the VFL who have been selected for the AFL side for weeks so I doubt whether Scharenberg will be lining up in the twos. They might be going to play Moore up forward which is one reason they may have picked Magden again. He actually played his best game to date against the Crows which is not necessarily saying a lot. Also they may have just run out of options given that Goldsack is not going to play again unless the team bus falls off the Westgate Bridge on the way to the game with no survivors.
As to whether or not we are just making up the numbers only time will tell. Given the number of players Essendon is resting tonight we should have a comfortable win against them if we play anywhere near out best even with the team we are lining up. A loss or a narrow win could well mean that we are just making up the numbers even with additions to our team for the finals. Assuming that DeGoey and Sidebottom return with Stephenson for the first final the team would include 17 of last years GF team. Out would be Aish, Goldsack, Sier Landgon and Cox and in would be Moore, Roughhead, Elliott, Scharenberg and Callum Brown. There could be a few other changes if Aish is fit or Noble plays a blinder against the Dons tonight. On paper this years team stacks up very well against last years so there is definitely some reasons to believe that we could do some damage in the finals after week 1.
The media coverage of the Stephenson saga has been interesting. The AFL obviously made a mistake with the wording of the penalty in the first place and we have made just walked on through to take advantage. They wont make that mistake again that is for sure. Ralph in one of the papers said that it was possibly the difference between winning the Grand Final or not which appears completely over the top. My guess is that he will only play about half the game time to just get a bit of a feel for handling the ball in an actual match. How much different that is when compared to doing match simulations at practice is hard to say. I definitely dont think that they will be taking any risks with him.
Does anyone know why Scharenberg has been named – on the field – in the VFL?
Is it likely that we will look to debut Brown? HBF with Crisp to push up on the wing?
I was surprised Magden was retained with Moore returning and Sidey out. Moore is clearly not a like for like with Sidey.
Our wings gave been an important given the way we play and it would very difficult to replace Sidey, not only for his defensive work but his overall work rate and endurance to get to contests and stoppages. We have to plug a 26 possession, 5 mark, 3 clearance, 4 inside 50 and 3 rebound 50’s hole in his absence.
Not sure there is an obvious replacement – WHE doesn’t work hard enough both ways. Crisp seems the most logical but there is a question mark on his endurance for that sort of role.
Nothing has really changed Brymee save for the salary cap which essentially acts as a safeguard to stop clubs going broke in the process, the way we did with Cloke and Raines.
If players move for the almighty dollar, it does not necessarily translate to success and can act as a millstone around a clubs neck (think Judd, Franklin, Tippett) and it does not mean that the club that loses the star is consigned to mediocrity.
Keep in mind our GF side last year contained no less than 9 players from other clubs and it would have been 12 if Dunn and Wells had been available.
I think Grundy will stay but there is a bit to play out.
What I am more interested in is the concerted attempt by the media to mount an ongoing campaign to try and denigrate and destabilise our club.
1. Today’s Herald Sun has THREE different full page articles on Stephenson. ( one is by Mick McGuane who consistently shows he has an axe to grind at the club).
2. And – surprise, surprise – Grundy’s contract situation suddenly gets a new lease of life as we enter the game tonight to give ourselves a chance at top 4 with Jarman urging Adelaide to pay him $1.5m a year over 7 years.
3. Carey pens an article putting us in the same boat as Essendon (!) and saying we are just making “making up the numbers in the eight”. But he does not mention GWS at all.
4. The Murray decision has been inexplicably held over to be announced before the finals (ask yourself why?).
5. Serial Buckley hater, Beveridge The Sook takes it upon himself to publicly comment on the Stephenson situation – as an opposition coach totally unaffected by the decision (while at the same time defending the Bontempelli fine that should have been a suspension) while an opposition President in Kennett weighs in, and calls it an “unfair advantage”.
Other than in regard to McGuire’s history of gaffes – where the focus was justified – this sort of ongoing negative commentary is unprecedented.
Not a single favourable – or even neutral – story.
Not one person giving us a chance in September.
Someone said Greenwood was interviewed after the Crows game and made reference to the players ignoring the noise, so the club is obviously internally aware of the media prosecution.
I hope Buckley can galvanise the playing group with the “us against the world” mentality that Hafey created at Richmond and Malthouse was famous for at West Coast and Collingwood and – in the words of the immortal E.J Whitten – “Stick it right up ’em”.
So, this is the way they do it eh.
Adelaide need a ruckman and so the suggestion now is to offer Grundy 1.5 million bucks a year.
We are back to the days of the old VFL where the likes of Carlton, North Melbourne etc simply bought their way to a premiership by taking other teams best players with crazy money offers.
The AFL is fucked as far as I am concerned because teams take a punt on players, stand by them and train them until they blossom and then some arsehole club simply walks in and offers ridiculous money that cannot be matched by the players club.
I am almost AFLd out by now what with the rule changes every frigging year and this dog eat dog bullshit with player payments that has robbed so many clubs of any chance at success.
Fuck the lot of them.
I missed 360 tonight.
He really said that, Rosco?
He should recuse himself from 360 from now on. He’s clearly been drinking his own bathwater (probably after he farted in it, too).
The postscript to this Brymee was on AFL360 tonight when the regulation “Weekend Forecast” segment was played. When it came to the “Doomsday Scenario”, Whateley did NOT say:
1. Suns beating Giants
2. Franklin not getting up for his 300th
3. Ken Hinkley gets sacked on Saturday night.
Instead, he went for:
“Stephenson pings a hamstring”
This was no “doomsday forecast”, this was Whateley’s Karma wish for the weekend.
I guarantee you can watch that show all next year and every past episode and he will never, ever, put the mozz on any player in regard to an injury the way he did with Stephenson tonight.
Whotta cunt.
Yeah Rosco, they all love laying the boots into Collingwood.
What would Whately know anyhow, he should put this glasses back on and continue his Groucho Marx impersonations because he knows fuck all about football.
Seems to me that you can king hit a player and break his jaw as we saw last year and not get any more penalty than if you put a few dollars on a bet which you dont win anyway.
In the first instance, the king hitter was a player with several years experience under his belt and in the second a kid playing his second year who self reported his misdemeanor.
That kid has served his 10 match suspension from playing in the AFL come 11 oclock Friday night but still that is not enough for some arseholes who want his balls as well.
As for Kennett I would love to see his reaction were it a Hawthorn player and not a Collingwood one.
I hate hypocrites and this is typical hypocrisy but, should we expect anything less?