On 11/06/2012 at 12:52, Dr. Gonzo said:

Rivers has been great this year.

Jamar is rubbish, and I don't know why we gave him 3 years. We should have given him 1, 2 at most but he is a constant underperformer. Can't kick, can't mark. ONLY thing he can do is get his palm to the ball in the ruck, pity is he can't do a bloody thing with it once he gets the tap. I like the big Russian and loved his words during the week, and yes you can't shank all your older players but cold hard facts, he's been playing for close to a decade (has it been a decade?) and he has played one great season and 9 bog ordinary ones.

Moloney and Sylvia are just schizophrenic. I can't make up my mind what the hell we should do with them and I'm glad I'm not the one who has to make the decision. I can see arguments for keeping both, trading/delisting both or keeping one and trading/delisting one. I feel they both will end up staying but it wouldn't surprise me if Sylvia is gone. Moloney I think Neeld will keep just so there's someone to provide some bodywork for the kids that will come through.

EDIT: Forgot to mention Green - I like Green as well and he has been a very good player for us over the journey, and I'll never forget his game as a kid against Carlton in 2000. But he is gone. At his age and the way he is playing the only way we can justify keeping him in the side is if he can contribute a couple of goals a game. He had 3 opportunities today and blew them all. I have a feeling most of his remaining career will be played out at Casey.

Couldn't agree more with you there, Doc. The only think I'd say is I've made up my mind on Moloney (GTFO), but not yet on Sylvia.

  On 11/06/2012 at 12:52, Dr. Gonzo said:

Rivers has been great this year.

Jamar is rubbish, and I don't know why we gave him 3 years. We should have given him 1, 2 at most but he is a constant underperformer. Can't kick, can't mark. ONLY thing he can do is get his palm to the ball in the ruck, pity is he can't do a bloody thing with it once he gets the tap. I like the big Russian and loved his words during the week, and yes you can't shank all your older players but cold hard facts, he's been playing for close to a decade (has it been a decade?) and he has played one great season and 9 bog ordinary ones.

Moloney and Sylvia are just schizophrenic. I can't make up my mind what the hell we should do with them and I'm glad I'm not the one who has to make the decision. I can see arguments for keeping both, trading/delisting both or keeping one and trading/delisting one. I feel they both will end up staying but it wouldn't surprise me if Sylvia is gone. Moloney I think Neeld will keep just so there's someone to provide some bodywork for the kids that will come through.

EDIT: Forgot to mention Green - I like Green as well and he has been a very good player for us over the journey, and I'll never forget his game as a kid against Carlton in 2000. But he is gone. At his age and the way he is playing the only way we can justify keeping him in the side is if he can contribute a couple of goals a game. He had 3 opportunities today and blew them all. I have a feeling most of his remaining career will be played out at Casey.

I think Sylvia had a crack today, and that we forget he is only a few games back from a busted back.

He could well come home with a wet sail in the second half of the season.

  On 11/06/2012 at 12:59, Undeeterred said:

I think Sylvia had a crack today, and that we forget he is only a few games back from a busted back.

He could well come home with a wet sail in the second half of the season.

I've been waiting for Sylvia to come home with a wet sail since 2004.

The only thing I've gotten so far is a few drops of wee on my head.

  On 11/06/2012 at 12:59, Undeeterred said:

I think Sylvia had a crack today, and that we forget he is only a few games back from a busted back.

He could well come home with a wet sail in the second half of the season.

That's true, problem is he always does come home with a wet sail (particularly when contract time is up). There's always an excuse with him, that's the problem. Last year he busted his jaw, this year his back, previously he had OP. I am so frustrated by him because he could be an absolute gun. He needs to hit the scoreboard to have worth to the side and at the moment he's not doing that.

Colin wasn't too bad today...He spent a lot of time keeping Harry Obrien (spelling) quiet...

Trouble was it negated a forward...but he did work hard from what i witnessed..Coaches instructions maybe.

Sadly i hardly noticed Beamer.

  On 11/06/2012 at 13:07, why you little said:

Colin wasn't too bad today...He spent a lot of time keeping Harry Obrien (spelling) quiet...

Trouble was it negated a forward...but he did work hard from what i witnessed..Coaches instructions maybe.

Sadly i hardly noticed Beamer.

O'Brien did a pretty good job of keeping himself quiet, and Beamer frustrated me to no end today.

Moloney has to be put on the trade table.

We should throw him and a 1st round pick to collingwood for steel.

We need class player's like this running with jones for support.

Get it done MFC

We must get some class mids now.

  On 11/06/2012 at 14:00, BIG JIM said:

Moloney has to be put on the trade table.

We should throw him and a 1st round pick to collingwood for steel.

We need class player's like this running with jones for support.

Get it done MFC

We must get some class mids now.

He is an unrestricted free agent. No players will be coming our way if he leaves.

  On 11/06/2012 at 09:33, JJJ said:

3 more years of Jamar in the ruck makes me want to vomit.

Every time Clark went into the middle we looked better.

People who are bagging Cale have NFI. Sure he had a howler in the 3rd but he was pretty useful today. If only others on our list were as smart.

Mark Jamar is a very good technical ruckman, but also very predictable with his tap work, despite getting a lot of them. His work around the ground though, is VFL standard. He ALWAYS goes to ground when contesting the ball, he ALWAYS undershoots his marks. He is woefully slow. He simply CANNOT be our no.1 ruckman in the coming 3 years. Stef Martin gave us much more when he was rucking last year, with his mobility, his leap, and his ability to get the ball in hand and give it out. Jamar is simply not good enough......

  On 11/06/2012 at 12:52, Dr. Gonzo said:

Rivers has been great this year.

Jamar is rubbish, and I don't know why we gave him 3 years. We should have given him 1, 2 at most but he is a constant underperformer. Can't kick, can't mark, can't use his size in packs or to protect our ball players. ONLY thing he can do is get his palm to the ball in the ruck, pity is he can't do a bloody thing with it once he gets the tap it just goes straight to bhis feet or to the opposition. I like the big Russian and loved his words during the week, and yes you can't shank all your older players but cold hard facts, he's been playing for close to a decade (has it been a decade?) and he has played one great season and 9 bog ordinary ones.

Moloney and Sylvia are just schizophrenic. I can't make up my mind what the hell we should do with them and I'm glad I'm not the one who has to make the decision. I can see arguments for keeping both, trading/delisting both or keeping one and trading/delisting one. I feel they both will end up staying but it wouldn't surprise me if Sylvia is gone. Moloney I think Neeld will keep just so there's someone to provide some bodywork for the kids that will come through.

EDIT: Forgot to mention Green - I like Green as well and he has been a very good player for us over the journey, and I'll never forget his game as a kid against Carlton in 2000. But he is gone. At his age and the way he is playing the only way we can justify keeping him in the side is if he can contribute a couple of goals a game. He had 3 opportunities today and blew them all. I have a feeling most of his remaining career will be played out at Casey.

I think they gave Jamar 3 years because Spencer is rubbish and likely to be delisted. They will go with Jamar and Martin next year until they recruit and deveop another ruckman.

Gawn won't be ready to shoulder first ruck for years.

Years.

Jamar having three years is great.

  On 12/06/2012 at 01:06, rpfc said:

Gawn won't be ready to shoulder first ruck for years.

Years.

Jamar having three years is great.

yes

yes

and

yes

And as good as it is to knwo we have Russian for 3 ...its nice to know we have the likes of Gawn following on

  On 11/06/2012 at 13:03, Jaded said:

I've been waiting for Sylvia to come home with a wet sail since 2004.

The only thing I've gotten so far is a few drops of wee on my head.

Yep, fair enough.

I think at least he looked like he was having a go yesterday, which is more than I could say in other weeks.

My bro who is a Collingwood supporter said we would come down to earth today. He was right in a sense (though I think he was implying a 15 goal thrashing) in that the result of the game showed the boys have a fair bit to go before they can consistently match it with the big timers. I think the game also reinforced the need to do some trimming of the list at season's end. Some blokes who put in some decent cameos (thus the pressure being eased for one week) versus Essendon were exposed against the Pies.

Jamar & Moloney's performance is very weird this year. I think I understand that Neeld has made it a non-negotiable that our midfield focuses firstly on it's defensive approach but surely this wouldn't be at the expense of the opportunity to be first at the ball? Why then, did we get absolutely thrashed at the centre clearances? Jamar & Moloney have been playing together for so long, they surely know where the ball needs to be directed and where it's going to go to?

What isn't working and why doesn't it seem to be being worked on?

very very true

  On 12/06/2012 at 04:35, jimcor said:

Jamar & Moloney's performance is very weird this year. I think I understand that Neeld has made it a non-negotiable that our midfield focuses firstly on it's defensive approach but surely this wouldn't be at the expense of the opportunity to be first at the ball? Why then, did we get absolutely thrashed at the centre clearances? Jamar & Moloney have been playing together for so long, they surely know where the ball needs to be directed and where it's going to go to?

What isn't working and why doesn't it seem to be being worked on?

Jamar & Moloney both had ordinary patches last year as well (Jamar moreso than Moloney) so it's not just the new game plan.

As to the game, there were two things which really stood out to me;

1) Collingwood's desire to continually run and rpesent options for their teammates all day meaning the ball was sat in front of them while they were 5 metres in front of their opponent allowing an easy uncontested mark. Meanwhile our players stood around like statues for most of the day meaning the ball was kicked on top of their (and their opponents) head allowing the easy spoil/mark from a third man up who outnumbered our players and made it appear as though we were kicking to 2-on-1's all day.

2) The Collingwood players' structure around the contests was impeccable and had our players looking daft particularly in the first quarter and a half. They threw the ball around like a hot potato while our players ran around like the nerdy kid gassing ourselves out while the bullies toyed with us throwing our ball around. They knew exactly where they had to go and exactly where their terammates were going to be and just opened up the play brilliantly.

Far too many whingers and complainers on this forum. Yeah we lost yesterday but we were far from disgraced. Our effort would have beaten a lot of other teams on the day. We were playing last year's grand finalist and were able to match it with them for three quarters. Is it so hard appreciate just where we are in terms of development? Is it so hard to be thankful that in the past couple of weeks we've seen the team have a real go? Is it so hard to recognise that Neeld has things under control and is working through a process that will result in long term success? I went home happy that I'd seen us have a crack at the pies and to have stood up. OK we were not good enough. Did anybody really think we would win that game? FFS get over it and enjoy the ride.

  On 11/06/2012 at 08:22, Wadda We Sing said:

Im all for trying new things, and correct me if Im wrong, but did Rivers go forward at the beginning of the last quarter thus the filth kicked 4 straight early in the quarter thus killing any chance we had??

Well a lot of people scream for the coach to make a move so

our drafted KPF is at CHB

our sweeper defender is a midfielder

and two defenders from last year were thrown forward.

there is one thread that should now be banned from this site "neeld wont make a move"

cudo;s for trying something coach - wasnt going to be left wondering

I have been strongly critical of Mark Neeld’s coaching, but I am pleased to see that he has made some significant changes as others have noted. Surprisingly, a few posters have attacked my observation of these changes and have insisted that Neeld has not changed. Seems like a case of ‘damned if you do, and damned if you don’t’.

  On 11/06/2012 at 11:51, Jack7 said:

A very poor coaching decision to put 2 players behind the ball in the first quarter,allowing the Pies an extra 2 players at each contest.They killed us around the stoppages for this reason and just kicked over our spare 2's heads for goals.

This mistake was rectified at 1/4 time when we went man on man and from then on,we lost the game by 7 POINTS!!!!!!!

So why does Neeld do that

When we are man on man we have looked competetive this year. Very poor coaching from my perspective

  On 11/06/2012 at 09:43, big_red_fire_engine said:

We would have lost that game last year by minimum 80 points.

Alot of players learnt in the first quarter what big game football is and now realise how much further they need to come.

Give us two quality mids and we win that game.

The difference was they had Swan and we had to make do with Moloney.

  On 12/06/2012 at 20:23, jackaub said:

So why does Neeld do that

When we are man on man we have looked competetive this year. Very poor coaching from my perspective

He was slow to react but unlke Bailey ,at least he did react.

Things picked up when he bagan to coach from the Bench-which means the players respect him .

Some good signs.

  On 12/06/2012 at 11:24, Hardnut said:

I have been strongly critical of Mark Neeld’s coaching, but I am pleased to see that he has made some significant changes as others have noted. Surprisingly, a few posters have attacked my observation of these changes and have insisted that Neeld has not changed. Seems like a case of ‘damned if you do, and damned if you don’t’.

Could you please list those observations that have wrought such criticism?

  On 11/06/2012 at 10:31, Hardnut said:

I can't explain why you can't see what a lot of others can - I'm positive about the future, provided there is a dramatic improvement in the training and execution of basic skills.

A lot of others? Rash generalisation there.

Grant Thomas now knows that his initial comment regarding a "complete change in game plan" was way over the top last Monday week.

It has evolved as Neeld had promised and players knowledge and confidence is now starting to result in a better understanding. It's gaining traction. As the team progresses further tweaks (layers will be peeled back for the players) will come to fruition.