On 21/04/2010 at 07:45, loges said:

Can't believe that Hille didn't try and work him over physically friday night.The way he just let him stroll out of the middle with the ball at the first bounce was unbelievably weak.I understand footy has moved on a lot but how do you reckon Carl Ditterich or John Nicholls would have handled the situation

I can't believe How soft Essendon have become!! In all my years of watching Essendon have always had some mongrel in them. Not know, Matty Knights has coached it out of them-makes no sense. I hope we SMASH Essendon Later this year! B)

  On 21/04/2010 at 07:51, why you little said:

I can't believe How soft Essendon have become!! In all my years of watching Essendon have always had some mongrel in them. Not know, Matty Knights has coached it out of them-makes no sense. I hope we SMASH Essendon Later this year! B)

I will be there with my mate Round 15

Jack Watts will be playing by then and hopefully have 6-7 games under his belt. I personally think Watts will be a superstar with MFC as we are starting to get our forward line together. Sylvia, Petterd, Jurrah, Green, Watts and Bate (when all fit). Defenders will be cautious around that bunch. And all the young kids rotating through, Me like B)

  On 21/04/2010 at 09:22, Sturmmann said:

I will be there with my mate Round 15

Jack Watts will be playing by then and hopefully have 6-7 games under his belt. I personally think Watts will be a superstar with MFC as we are starting to get our forward line together. Sylvia, Petterd, Jurrah, Green, Watts and Bate (when all fit). Defenders will be cautious around that bunch. And all the young kids rotating through, Me like B)

I am hoping it is as entertaining as the day Matty Lloyd knocked himself out right in front of me....a beautiful piece of work B)

Can the administrators please remove this thread and all other negative threads regarding Jack Watts for at least the next 12 months

enough is enough

  On 21/04/2010 at 10:26, Deebate said:

Can the administrators please remove this thread and all other negative threads regarding Jack Watts for at least the next 12 months

enough is enough

why stop there, lets remove all negative comments on the whole site

This is a democracy people and people are entitled to thier opinion and this website allows the expression of opinions within the rules.

Most would agree that:

A) Jack Watts at this particular moment is deemed not to be ready for senior footy

B) That the club is in the best position to make that judgement

C) That Jack Watts is not at the peak of his footballing powers

D) That Jack Watts isn't going to get us a final's berth and his development is foremost

People have different ideas and reasons as to why reason A is apparent. I don't see why these reasons can't be discussed.

There is a lot of stress and hyper-sensitivity about this issue and whilst I think some of the Watts criticism is unfair or silly. I think some of the rebuttals have been unnecessarily personal and over the top.

I can understand the stress as we have invested a lot of hope in the kid and many believe that he is a big key to the clubs future success.

I have my own ideas on why I think A is true and I have no need to re-hash them again. I trust what the club is doing with him this time around and I believe in Bails.

  On 21/04/2010 at 10:28, Sturmmann said:

why stop there, lets remove all negative comments on the whole site

Remove the whole site..??!

Maybe make up a Jack Watts seperate forum site dedicated just to him

  On 21/04/2010 at 07:45, loges said:

Can't believe that Hille didn't try and work him over physically friday night.The way he just let him stroll out of the middle with the ball at the first bounce was unbelievably weak.I understand footy has moved on a lot but how do you reckon Carl Ditterich or John Nicholls would have handled the situation

He didn't stroll out of the middle with the ball. He fumbled, chased, fumbled again, chased again... and eventually found himself at the edge of the square with the ball in his hands and no idea what to do next. Had he been tackled while attempting to take the ball it would have been a free, so they just went for the ball instead.

pretty simply really;

short term - NikNat owns Watts

mid-to-long term - no one knows

watts v niknat, so how's the weather?

/end

  On 21/04/2010 at 03:09, Enforcer25 said:

Well, to take that logic, no one knows if NicNat will be the eagles superstar.

He could plateau or have a massive injury.

Honestly, this speculation just irritates me.

HT has already mentioned that Watts is off the greenseas and he'll be all the better for it.

Let's revisit this in a year's time when it's actually a bit fairer to judge.

what happened to best available, back to your cage.

So all this thread is doing is showing just how much people want a key position forward or 2 so we may get better reward for bumbs into the forward line under pressure?

FWIW: I think a better comparisons should be Jack Watts vs Scully and Nic Nat vs Trengove (mainly as hypothetically we may not have gotten JT if we had taken NN... so maybe that should be NN vs Scully & JT?)

5 pages of this cr@p. Honestly, mods! Going in circles

stop being a sook, im just replying to a big mouth, FWIW JW will never be the player NN is, NN is going to be a once in a generation player,if i was BP i wouldv taken JW because his Victorian,JW will be a great player but NN is one out of the box,if we took NN hed looking for a way home after this season, Watts the point.

Let's not downplay the importance of Jack Watts - I reckon we need him to become a dominant KPF for us to win a flag. And there's every chance he will - he's got the size, speed and skills. Dominant KPFs usually come in the top 5 picks in the draft - I don't expect us to have any of them prior to our next push for a flag - and even if we did, in some years e.g. 2009 there's no suitably qualified KPFs. I'm completely happy with our choices, if we didn't pick Watts we'd have no-one coming through and very limited opportunities to address it.

West Coast are in different position, they have Josh Kennedy - another top 5 pick, and didn't have the opportunity to pick Watts. They have Naitanui who has every chance of being a very dominant ruckman. Dominant ruckmen come from the rookie list more often than from the draft top 5. I'm very happy to have Watts in the hand and source a dominant ruckman elsewhere - maybe we've already got him in Jamar, Spencer or Gawn.

(Jamar/Spencer/Gawn/trade for a ruckman/rookie a ruckman) + Watts > Naitanui + nothing

  On 21/04/2010 at 13:18, RalphiusMaximus said:

He didn't stroll out of the middle with the ball. He fumbled, chased, fumbled again, chased again... and eventually found himself at the edge of the square with the ball in his hands and no idea what to do next. Had he been tackled while attempting to take the ball it would have been a free, so they just went for the ball instead.

Hille stood there looking at him didn't even contest the hitout. As I said originally weak

  On 19/04/2010 at 07:39, 2014-Flag said:

Reassure me someone. Show me evidence to the contrary.......

Brendon Goddard. http://www.saints.com.au/season2010/news/newsarticle/tabid/5315/newsid/92593/default.aspx

  On 22/04/2010 at 03:29, Bailin Out said:

pretty simply really;

short term - NikNat owns Watts

mid-to-long term - no one knows

watts v niknat, so how's the weather?

/end

Actually - its not Watts v NikNat and it never will be (how's the weather?)

The real question is Melbourne ( including Watts) vs West Coast ( inc NicNat)

If Melbourne wins the flag before West Coast does, then our recruiters will have won.

End of story....

  On 22/04/2010 at 03:59, old55 said:

Let's not downplay the importance of Jack Watts - I reckon we need him to become a dominant KPF for us to win a flag. And there's every chance he will - he's got the size, speed and skills. Dominant KPFs usually come in the top 5 picks in the draft - I don't expect us to have any of them prior to our next push for a flag - and even if we did, in some years e.g. 2009 there's no suitably qualified KPFs. I'm completely happy with our choices, if we didn't pick Watts we'd have no-one coming through and very limited opportunities to address it.

West Coast are in different position, they have Josh Kennedy - another top 5 pick, and didn't have the opportunity to pick Watts. They have Naitanui who has every chance of being a very dominant ruckman. Dominant ruckmen come from the rookie list more often than from the draft top 5. I'm very happy to have Watts in the hand and source a dominant ruckman elsewhere - maybe we've already got him in Jamar, Spencer or Gawn.

(Jamar/Spencer/Gawn/trade for a ruckman/rookie a ruckman) + Watts > Naitanui + nothing

excellent post

you are dead right, if we didn't pounce on the KPF we would have been looking down the barrel of many years without getting one, or at least not one with such good credentials. We had to put our eggs in that basket and I'm glad we did.

  On 22/04/2010 at 04:21, hoopla said:

Actually - its not Watts v NikNat and it never will be (how's the weather?)

The real question is Melbourne ( including Watts) vs West Coast ( inc NicNat)

If Melbourne wins the flag before West Coast does, then our recruiters will have won.

End of story....

I think this is a very good point.

One other question I'm interested in though - would people trade Trengove straight up for Naitanui?

It's irrelevant whether I think it ended up with us getting one and not the other.

NAITANUI or TRENGOVE?

Just interested in people's opinions...

  On 19/04/2010 at 12:21, Hannabal said:

You've been called out on a self-indulgent, [censored] thread and cast yourself as an overly impatient supporter with little to no knowledge of the subject at hand and no real understanding of developing a young key tall in the current AFL environment.

You've done yourself no favours in the credibility stakes.

... A bit visceous.

I never leave posts because so many people like you make scathing attacks on the opinions of others.

For example I like Watts and expect he will be great. Yet he is prone to criticism because he was a no.1 pick and has not shown the public why yet.

Lets keep debate constructive

  On 22/04/2010 at 04:28, Keyser Söze said:

One other question I'm interested in though - would people trade Trengove straight up for Naitanui?

It's irrelevant whether I think it ended up with us getting one and not the other.

NAITANUI or TRENGOVE?

Just interested in people's opinions...

who would you take? NN will poll 13 brownlow votes this season, you guys underestimating how good the panther is.

Jack Watts Will Be A STAR,

  On 22/04/2010 at 04:31, 45 double agent said:

who would you take? NN will poll 13 brownlow votes this season, you guys underestimating how good the panther is.

In his 2nd season... and you are overstating how many brownlow votes he'll get.

I think his skills are far from elite and will stay that way.

If I had a draft pick and it was between those 2...

I'd choose NicNat.

His athleticism is incredibly rare and I'd back our other skilful players around him to mop up and make up for his lack of class and nous.

But this is purely a hypothetical.

I'm happy with our team as it is.