Just a quick note that when Young Marc Murphy went down did any of our senior players come in support him in a proper and aggresive manner?Did our captain come in and throw his body around when he was supposed to?I think Synbad's picture is becoming much more clearer to me that we need proper leadership and we need it fast! Atleast Fev came on after his cut and went in like a pitbull! Well done FEV! Showed mature leadership!

i have seen Fev twice come in a stick up for murph. Fev is just simply a star.

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"I can't wait to win a premiership with this club" - Fev

I believe Stevo also came in when Murph went down so some of the guys did step in

The commentators made mention that it was on behind play after Murphy went down.

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"We used to sit around and talk about how bad the game plan was." Anthony Koutoufides

Stevo was very agro at the perpetrator, especially considering it was his mate Carr from Port days. Noticed them having a chat and a laugh later in the game though.

Seriously though - what's expected? For someone to come in flying the flag is one thing but how do you protect your teammates from that stuff?

The days of the Mal Brown fix-up are long gone. These days the umpires are so stupid they only see the end of the altercation, meaning the retaliating party ends up with a free kick, 50m or even worse report against their name.

How is that good for the team?

Port came out last week to prove they were not soft and simply paid dirty. Well now they're without Medhurst for a week (no great loss some may say). We can ill afford to lose blokes like Fevola, Stevens and especially not French through suspension.

I think when the time comes Setanta may be the type of bloke to come in and have a bit of niggle with the dirty players, but it'll be to his detriment in the long run.

Setanta won't be able to help himself. He could be exposed if a smart player winds him up enough. Saying that I want to see Santy out there playing good footy and boxing heads if necessary.

Thornton is good for a barney. Hartnett has a bit of mongrel about him. Bentick won't take any shit the longer he plays. I hope Kennedy and Bower will be able to serve it up.

Current crop of senior players bar Fev aren't really enforcer material. Whits is tough but not really agro. Stevo is ultimately a fair player even though he will stand up for teamates. Kouta is not a bastard. I wish he was because he's be truly formidible. Laps is Conan the Destroyer.

bollocks

i hope setanta never loses that side of his game or his attitude.
we need hard men, and by all reports Kennedy could also be what we are missing.

im not talking about running around belting everyone

but some one to perform a role like J. Brown does or B. Hall

dare i say it, someone like Hamill

you get them fronting up to the likes of Carr and Carr will run away like the coward that he is.

We need some hard men - not ones that go around belting the tripe out of people, but a couple that will let people know we are going to take that shit.

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Got to love the stare Down by Setanta on Llyod

Fev will back up his team-mates, as did Livo last week against Melbourne. The last player we had who had true mongrel about him was Hulme.

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"One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people's minds." - Frank Zappa

All you need to do is hassle the perp for the rest of the game. Make it the team's job to crash into that player every time he goes near the ball and put him off his game. Don't know too many players who can put up with that type of treatment for four quarters.

You know you've won when they are taken off or they starting throwing punches in retaliation.

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No we dont...Fev aside there isnt much agro amongst our blokes and players like Josh Carr would just laugh at most of ours even if they did try and assist some of our smalls..the fact is you need a big Jonothan Brown type enforcer with some handy assistants like the Scotts, Martin Pike etc to keep the bastards honest and away from your star juniors....Brown as we know isnt all talk either and has missed a few matches due to suspension...it was probably a good investment at the time, as it might have made a few players think again about whacking into the Brisbane little blokes, knowing they would be getting it back...

re: Crashing players..we dont really have those players....Kouta is a nice bloke, Barney French a gentle giant, ADL...another gentle giant.....Chris Bryan being a Frankston lad would be my choice as enforcer material...seen him deal with a few unruly types in Bullants games....
Trouble with Chris is he cant seem to deliver as a footballer on a consistent basis unlike the blokes I want him dealing with ie Carr, Milburn etc who are good players as well as aggressors...
You cant carry a enforcer for that reason alone anymore they have to be able to play.....maybe Josh Kennedy can offer us some more grunt in this area....Josh has that look about him that he wouldnt take much crap from anyone and I hope that is part of his game cos we need it...

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"When you have the attitude of a champion, you see adversity as your
training partner."
- Conor Gillen

Waite has the potential IMO.

But the hardness we're talking is of the ilk of Voss and Ricciuto. Neither are dirty players by any means, but you wouldn't want to @#$%&! with them or their mates.

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Voss is hard at the footy but left the
rough stuff to Brown and his henchman the Cray bros....

Riccuito can mix it with the best and carved up half of the Port list in the famous pub car park brawl......he is exactly the player we are missing....what I like about Riccuito apart from being a brilliant player is the way he leads from the front in this area but never seems to get reported or lose control....

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"When you have the attitude of a champion, you see adversity as your
training partner."
- Conor Gillen

It's all just media beat up with these enforcers. Mathew Allan threw Riccuito around like a teddy bear in a final a few years ago after he decked Campo. Was Allan perceived as a hard man? No he wasn't.
When Murphy went down Stevens and Scotland remonstrated while the rest of the team actually had to get back and man up as Freo were going forward or should they just forget the game and have an all in?

We had bigger problems than needing protectors last week. Freo were way harder at the ball in the first quarter and that along with their harder running won them the game.

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"We used to sit around and talk about how bad the game plan was." Anthony Koutoufides

Agree they were harder at the ball but part of that was some of our blokes being timid.....I'd like to see French do an Allan and fling Carr round and do a bit more..Scotland and Stevens...please....Carr must have been petrified...not..

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"When you have the attitude of a champion, you see adversity as your
training partner."
- Conor Gillen

You have to figure out whether it is is part of a plan - the type where Wallace has nominated a player in the past for treatment (and usually a young star on the rise). I say in the past because Terry told us last week that he doesn't do it any more, so we have to accept that

If Murphy's influence is dulled by being decked, "standing up" to a bloke like Carr is not going to do much to reverse the advantage that Freo obtained. If "standing up" means to put him out of the game by fair or foul means, that would do the trick of course. But someone like Carr, or Pickett, or the Scotts are not going to be intimidated by anything less, so what is the point. In fact, you play into their hands by losing your focus on the ball and the game. And they are tough enough not to succumb to fair attempts to even up like bumps or shirtfronts in play. I'm sure there are heaps of AFL players who would be delighted to give Pickett what he has dished out to others, but few, if any, have managed it.

I think if I were an AFL coach, my response would be to return the favour by targetting one of the other side's youngsters. A sort of Mutually Assured Destruction scenario. So you'd ask your bigger players to try to maul one of their young players, or target one of them as he was drawn into a melee. Or look for an opportunity to clean them up in play. Then their younger players feel hunted rather than protected, and the retaliation from their senior players will lead to them forgetting about the football and going on report.

Not a nice thing to do, but then again deliberately trying to intimidate a young player is not nice to begin with. Remember when Wallace had his senior players wrestle and jumper punch a young Michael Gardiner, or when Wallis and another Scum player strangled a young Brad Green behind the play in the 2000 GF and put him out of the game with an injured neck?

If the Tigers go hunting Murphy's head, why not try to do the same to Tambling or Oakley-Nicholls? If Essendon* do it, why not go after Monfries? And perhaps it might be a good idea to leak the plan so they know what will happen.

FRANCHINA [/img]

We did have an enforcer by the name of Hamill but unfortunately as we all know he has gone to St Kilda.

We need to find a player like Hamill to protect our young kids otherwise all clubs will attack our kids without any fear of reprisals.

Kennedy!

Yes I realise the irony in this comment.

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I have no doubt that Kennedy may be able to do this in a few years but he is a kid himself.

Who will protect Kennedy?

We don't have anyone in the side at the moment that has an aggressive edge about them but the senior blokes have to make a stand if our young kids ar targeted. I'm not saying that they have to snipe anybody but make it clear that if anyone is prepared to target any of our players, we won't stand for it, the problem is how do we do this without an enforcer.

The leadership group have to take responsibilty for this and if that means that someone has to do something out of charachter, then so be it.

Bring back Hulme