Seriously, they're first gamers. And their star first gamer has never, ever played AFL before (probably why he's a first gamer).

They didn't even finish top four in the VFL. THE VFL!!!

Goodness me.

Matera & Toy barely played for them while they finished schooling commitments, so I'm counting them.

Righto. Guess we'll both find out tomorrow whether the big, bad schoolies, fresh from a grueling year of Ivan Dragoesque training regimes, are better than our puny 20-somethings with several preseasons under their belt.

Is it really just me who sees the absurdity of this mismatch?

Anything less than a 10 goal win will astound me. And I really want to type 20 goals there but you'll think I'm winding you up.

Anything less than a 10 goal win will astound me. And I really want to type 20 goals there but you'll think I'm winding you up.

For the record, Jack was underdone last week too.

Let's not assume anything of their players and just go out and smash them. Let the commentators worry about who was unfit or not.

Where has this myth come from that we need to play more than one ruck sprung from?

On the flipside where did the myth come from that it is not an advantage to have 2 bonafide ruckmen, or 3 if they are faster than most smalls, multi dimensional and in good form?

Cox played a lone hand last week (admittedly against midgets), Sandilands very rarely has support when fully fit, Mumford is going it alone this week...

Perhaps it has something to do with depth and injury.

...the Dogs decided to go with Hudson solo last week instead of playing Minson or Roughead...


and the big story to come from that was the attributes given towards (supposedly) the best ruck combo in the comp: the Dogs were demolished and proved Hudson couldn't do it alone

...meanwhile I think Leigh Brown's contributions in the ruck are seriously overrated due to his tremendous upside in being able to play just about anywhere, it's essentially Jolly for 80% of the game.

They still need 2 ruckmen, and I agree fatso Brown has a big heart but against good ruckmen he is exposed. Luckily for Collingwood they have an innovative game plan and well drilled midfield

Essentially, I think a lot of the instantly dismissive idea that the earth is not round...emotive stuff there Rhino...and that two rucks must be played comes from all three of our rucks having cost a pretty penny, and that we want it to happen, rather than believing it makes good sense. Do you really believe that's what people think, or you think that's what they think, or is that comment made to strngthen your argument? Sorry, but that's baseless commentary.

Would we be hailing the necessity of two rucks if we had a tall utility that had proven his worth to pinch hit in the ruck? (i.e Setanta, but actually good in the ruck), imagine if Waite or Henderson had proven their worth in this measure? Hampson becomes an afterthought.

Interesting that Richmond's team against the Saints have played fewer average games than the Suns this week.

Last I checked the comparison was as follows:

Avg Games Played:
GC = 23
Richmond = 52.4

Avg Age:
GC = 21 and 69 days
Richmond = 22 and 9 months

In fact Carlton has only an Avg Games of 50 and Avg Age of 22 and 343 days.

Let the media spin it how they want.

So it's going to rain in the first quarter or half? That's probably not going to help us.

yep.if it rains,we'll have to leave the field.

We are a notoriously bad wet-weather team.