Surely you could not bring Thompson into the side when we hit the finals running... He is surely never to play again, he is so far past it and should not have gone on this year, simple as that... His games this year in the 1's have been feeble, and bordering on embarressing for a player of his repu...

Why wouldn't we try out Thommo against the Tiges to see if he's still got what it takes as another option for the finals? We have no idea how Attard or CJ or Birss would handle the pressure of finals football. But we know from as recently as the EF last year (when he gave a terrific performance) wha...

i reckon they get off on the boos makes them more part of the game they werent good enuff to play ! More like they got lumped the role of the donkey in the preps nativity play and have been p1ssed ever since - is that a call of 'ball!' or 'encore!' - showponies!! Ill never forget "Whispers in ...

What we might see is an increase in players defending what happened in terms of "I wasn't trying to lay a shepherd, I was simply stopping dead in my tracks so that I could watch where the ball was going". Other than that, I don't think so. Still, it will be interesting to see what happens ...

Allen is easily the best and most impartial umpire running around. :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: Have you got into the Eagles stash? Well, as I already said, if you don't like Allen, then which umpire is any good? Goldspink? Head? Any of the Macs? Vozzo? He's easil...

If the cameras had been on him, he wouldn't have a problem. That's right: they had cameras and observers allocated to watch him in several games in , I think, 2005 and came away with the conclusion that he operated entirely within the rules. However, the poster is right that Baker needs to have a g...

As I have posted on other threads, Baker has a major image problem. He is generally seen as a sniper who constantly cheats behind play in order to keep star players quiet during a game. Almost the entire football world away from our club and its supporters believe that Baker king hit Farmer behind p...

Selhurst Saint wrote:I think you will find Allen will bend us over more than the other two.

Watch out for that ridiculous boof headed clown to totally confound logic.

What garbage. Allen is easily the best and most impartial umpire running around. Which umpires do you prefer to him?

Perhaps a tad melodramatic methinks. This business about Baker is simply a symptom of a problem our club faces that isn't new. Basically, for most of the rest of the AFL world, we have been seen as being far too big for our boots in recent years. GT was in a way clever at getting most of the hostili...

If my reading of this is correct, then the Tribunal have absolutely created a horrendous precedent that the AFL will not be able to live with. Yes they will be able to live with it alright: it will never be applied other than to players like Baker against whom the AFL has taken a set. If it had bee...

O.K. another scenario:- Gram has the ball on the wing and kicks it to the space he knows G is going to lead into. Glass, who is playing in front of G sees the danger and cuts across in front of G, who cannons into his side and they clash heads, resulting in G leaving the field with blood from his f...

Am I crazy or just completely one-eyed to be so opposed to most of the so called experts opinions that I've heard interviewed so far. To me its bleeding obvious that they've got it terribly wrong. I guess the question I would ask is, have you or the so-called experts seen a detailed transcript of w...

Grammy has the Ball on hbf, Roo leads wide with Glass on his tail. The ball is at least 70 m away when Roo starts to lead. Roo stops dead in his tracks and Glass runs straight into him and hits his head on Roo's shoulder, splitting his lip. As the ball wasn't within 5m of this, is Roo reportable fo...

Go Sretnias Go wrote:Ric Lewis, Policeman and a former Representative of the AFL - that's the way they think - couldn't lie straight in bed either.

Didn't spend much time in bed, methinks: allegedly preferred to sit up into the wee small hours staring into a glowing screen, holding on firmly to his credentials.

We seem to be forming a consensus on this forum that the whole case hinges on the meaning of the word "block". That said, I'm sure I also read somewhere that Baker admitted that what he did was illegal and would have led to a free kick if the umpire had seen it. Under one interpretation of...

We all know that Farmer has some problems with his behaviour outside of football (and many posters on here clearly think it is reasonable to be highly critical of him in relation to these problems) However, I think it would be fair to say that he seemed to be a most unwilling participant in this who...

I have a suggestion at how we can elaborate on this "block" defence a bit further (isn't it fun playing at being a criminal barrister?). It seems that Baker admitted to an illegal shepherd (according to some articles I have read, he seems to have said something like ("yes, it was more...

Thanks for posting the article, Peanut!!

It appears that Mr Lewis knows a bit more about contact between bodies that might be deemed to be "unreasonable" under the circumstances that I had realised!!

Leigh Fisher would be borderline in our top 22 if we had all 38 listed players available. But we don't, and I can't see why you wouldn't have him there. If we are talking about players who are not the Messiah, how about Ferguson? Some of the posters on here - most of whom I am sure haven't seen him ...

A further thought: Bakes can perhaps argue that what he meant by "block" in his evidence was not a bump or a shepherd, but simply an attempt to run towards the ball along the same line as Farmer.

The issue here is that Baker put himself in it by acknowledging that he initiated the contact. This may be the case. Does anyone know if Baker's admission included him saying he was seeking contact, or whether he simply claimed to be trying to stop Farmer from entering the forward 50? One might arg...

I agree with you sRr: the role of Kirkwood in instigating the case ever coming before the Tribunal in the first place is the weak point in the AFL's case. Baker was accused - on the basis of the evidence of someone who was lying or was deluded - of deliberately elbowing or hitting Farmer. He gave ev...

In his few games in 2005, Gwilt showed that he was a lovely long distance kick. Raking left boot. correct but his decision making is pathetic. But, remember, he played all of his games this season in a period when none of the players were on top of the new game plan. So his uncertain behaviour with...

Won't comment on whether Kirkwood's prior access to testimonies will be one of the grounds, but thought likely But that's a purely technical point, isn't it, given that Kirkwood's evidence was rejected by the Tribunal. Surely more to the point is the fact that Kirkwood's evidence was the main groun...

Can we still name Baker in the team pending the result of the appeal? If not, then he would presumably be forced to miss the game against the Eagles regardless of the outcome of the appeal.