On 11/08/2012 at 12:44, KingDingAling said:

Add a fit Clark, Frawley, Watts, Jurrah and Davey to this side next year and look out.

A lot of Improvement from Trenners, Tappy, Blease, Strauss and Gysberts.

Add a few drafts picks and a gun recruit or 2.

Another pre-season under Neeld and Craig, more improvement in conditioning, skills, fitness and game plan.

And the most important one of all, Improvement in changing our mentality, easy our biggest weakness.

Trenners is still a real concern. He must relinquish his 50% share as Capitano (to Nate Jones) and focus but otherwise 30mins lack concentration and comeback in last qtr suggests improvement. Nt getting excited but certainly not getting frustrated like some o f you cats outs there.... Go to the snow RR and chill !!

  On 11/08/2012 at 12:52, Range Rover said:

Do what you like. Everyone's a bit over your banal and miserable postings. Even your stable mate Tonatopia is coming in from the cold.

Rrov, I support our team, always have. I believe we hdve a very promising list. Our players can play great footy, we have all seen it. You seem to lose sight of that fact.

Today, I can see some improvement from neelds coaching, yet I am a long way from 'believing' in him. A long way.

But after today, I think we can enter 2013 without any excuses or reasons for not winning, and it is 'this' mindset that has warmed my heart. For next year, it is on, and this is why i am excited. No more second guessing. Either neeld can coach us to more victories than losses, for which I will be ecstatic, or we wallow in misery again and he will be gone.

It is up to neeld in 2013. Time to deliver. Excuse free footy, AT LAST!

  On 11/08/2012 at 12:13, Thomo said:

In case you watched a different game than me today, Melbourne got smashed by a team that will not play finals.

This thead is an example of why this site has become so poor.

Melbourne get smashed and you say it is a great sign?

For the first half we were beating them in most of the key stats and were using the ball ok, we just have a completely non-functional forward linen

The amount of inside 50s with Clark in there, we would kick a lot more goals.

In the middle they had: Dal Santo, Montagna, Hayes, Goddard.

Guys that were a bees dick away from Premiership players. They had more quality and it showed when it counted.

I'm baffled that some people can't take positives out of that win. This has given me belief for 2013 and beyond.

  On 11/08/2012 at 13:18, Demon SeaMan said:

Trenners is still a real concern. He must relinquish his 50% share as Capitano (to Nate Jones) and focus

He must? Dunno if you have listened to Neeld much, but he seems pretty happy with Trengove, and if anything suggests that Trenners focuses too much on doing the 1% stuff, and is too intense.

Trengove still managed 22 possessions and was one of the leading possession winners on either team in the first half.

In an ordinary year he is still top 3 for disposals, and top 2 for tackles... and high up on whatever 1% stats Neeld seems to track internally. Tell me why would giving Jones a share of the captaincy make things better for anyone?

  On 11/08/2012 at 13:36, Oucher said:

He must? Dunno if you have listened to Neeld much, but he seems pretty happy with Trengove, and if anything suggests that Trenners focuses too much on doing the 1% stuff, and is too intense.

Trengove still managed 22 possessions and was one of the leading possession winners on either team in the first half.

In an ordinary year he is still top 3 for disposals, and top 2 for tackles... and high up on whatever 1% stats Neeld seems to track internally. Tell me why would giving Jones a share of the captaincy make things better for anyone?

Either you choose 1 captain for 2013, or you include jones and have 3.

Having 2 captains dosnt make much sense to me.

I think grimes can do the job himself, he seems perfectly suited, a real standup lowkey champion.

From my playing days, having one fixed captain gave more clarity.

merge thread?

Grimes and Trengove slowly but surely warming into the role. Tommy Mac, Bleasy (sign him up!), the Jones boy and Big Spence. Straussy and Tappy getting more of it and Blokes like Dunn, Jetta and MacDonald battling their guts out to stay on the list. Fighting qualities being shown by quite a few of the others as we stay competitive in games for longer.

That was a good fightback in the last when so often in the past we have fizzed out. Hoisted the white flag.

Get Watts, Clark and Jurrah into that side, add some class through the draft and through trades. Add Jack 'effing' Viney! .... and we start winning games of footy.

Can't you just PM the cheap shots - really annoying to read straight insults when trying to understand what happened in a game played 9000 km away from me.

  On 11/08/2012 at 13:36, Oucher said:

He must? Dunno if you have listened to Neeld much, but he seems pretty happy with Trengove, and if anything suggests that Trenners focuses too much on doing the 1% stuff, and is too intense.

Trengove still managed 22 possessions and was one of the leading possession winners on either team in the first half.

In an ordinary year he is still top 3 for disposals, and top 2 for tackles... and high up on whatever 1% stats Neeld seems to track internally. Tell me why would giving Jones a share of the captaincy make things better for anyone?

IMO I don't like the dual captain thing never have.. However for what Jones epitomizes as a hard worker, in/under, guts, determination and consistency and the fact he has a bit more age/experience on his side I can't see why he's not a better candidate than Trengove. I really hope Trenners is what we think he can be but for a season or 3 let the boy concentrate on his game... Also liking Strauss ggame and welcome back Neville 'show me the cash' Jetta y'day..... Exciting times

Agree. It was all Saints for the first 10 minutes, for a 10-minute burst in the third, but beyond that I'd go as far to say we dominated them in great patches... unfortunately, as a far more experienced team, their "domination" of the Dees was far more damaging, and the team dug itself too big a hole.

But there was a lot of great things to come out of that match. It was actually enjoyable to watch.

  On 11/08/2012 at 20:28, Range Rover said:

Grimes and Trengove slowly but surely warming into the role. Tommy Mac, Bleasy (sign him up!), the Jones boy and Big Spence. Straussy and Tappy getting more of it and Blokes like Dunn, Jetta and MacDonald battling their guts out to stay on the list. Fighting qualities being shown by quite a few of the others as we stay competitive in games for longer.

That was a good fightback in the last when so often in the past we have fizzed out. Hoisted the white flag.

Get Watts, Clark and Jurrah into that side, add some class through the draft and through trades. Add Jack 'effing' Viney! .... and we start winning games of footy.

They say behind every dark cloud is another tempest the likes of which will destroy the earth for good .

You learn that when you barrack for Melbourne .

Neeld is on the right track. And the players are starting to pickup there work level in areas that they haven't won previously. Blease is a good example, pushing him harder to better his game. Neeld seems to be making progress on players who he tinks will make it. As for the others, well another club may await.

  On 12/08/2012 at 02:49, Biffen said:

They say behind every dark cloud is another tempest the likes of which will destroy the earth for good .

You learn that when you barrack for Melbourne .

"Life. Don't talk to me about life"

I would say that we are finally seeing what happens when Blease, Strauss, Tappscott, Grimes, Trengrove, TMac, Jetta, Howe all play together, add Watts to that mix and we are finally getting all our players together on the park, how often has that actually happened so far in these player's careers? I remember seeing not so long ago that Blease, Watts and Strauss had only had something like 2 games together in the same team, I think we are starting to see something from all three and that if they can all play together consistantly we can see some huge improvement. The same goes for all the others I have listed, Tappy's coming good, TMac is a revelation (despite his brain fades) and Grimes and Trenners are steadily improving (whats happened to Trenners Goalkicking tho?). I know it is an "excuse" but the fact is we have had a terrible run with injuries to some of our most valuable players, (Blease, Strauss, Tapscott and Grimes have missed more than a full year each!) and when they all get out on the park feeling fit and confident we see some much better footy from this side... with some luck hopefully it will continue in a more meaningful way next year.

Saints' bench at the start of the last quarter must be one of the best ever - Hayes, Goddard, I think it was Montagna, and Riewoldt injured. They definitely took the boot off the throat, because their percentage is not a problem for them.

Not saying that there weren't "good signs", just not to get too carried away.

A "good sign" not mentioned so far was the sheer quality of Trengove's clearance work in the last quarter. Particularly liked the "third-man-up" hitout down Blease's throat for a goal.

Glass Half Full

  On 11/08/2012 at 12:20, Range Rover said:

There are plenty of other threads where you can go and bash our first year coach, Thomo.

This one's for the true believers. The fans who understand what he's trying to do, the hard road he's taking us down, and can see the first rays of a new dawn glimmering on the horizon.

This time next year we will be beating St KIlda.

hear hear

  On 12/08/2012 at 04:34, Akum said:

Saints' bench at the start of the last quarter must be one of the best ever - Hayes, Goddard, I think it was Montagna, and Riewoldt injured. They definitely took the boot off the throat, because their percentage is not a problem for them.

How long were all four of them there for? My guess is no more than 2mins, this is modern football, all players spend time on the bench, they all played a major part in the last quarter (Riewolt obviously excepted) so I don't think its "taking the boot off the throat" and percentage is an issue for them should they end up on the same points as Essendon or Fremantle, remember Freo play us round 23 and they could catch the Saints with a reasonable flogging, its too close for any team in contention to not think about percentage. If they had come out and kicked 15 goals in the last term we would be talking about how freshening those stars up for the first couple of minutes of the last quarter allowed them to come home like a train.

After paying my membership for 35 years, I will reserve judgement until round 8 2013. Let down far too many times to get any level of excitement yet. Results equate to wins.

Yesterday was one of the worst games of football I've seen.

Not only were both teams poor (and we weren't just poor because we're playing a B-grade side, we were also very poor at executing the basics that have no correlation with talent), so was the umpiring.

However, I'm glad someone found enough positives to start a celebratory thread.

I haven't posted for a few weeks because Demonland has become so heavy, whingy and depressing but I had to add my 20c worth. For the first time in a long time I saw some signs of new life.

Endeavour and ticker were not an issue for most of the game

Nev Jetta was ferocious at times.

Blease played four quarters,

Grimes leadership - a really good leader emerging here..

Players actually the game on and spreading - yes, I actually saw both defensive andattacking spread!!!

Don't get me wrong, we are still horrible at times, but what I saw gave me the best hope I have had since the Bombers win. The forward line was non-existent for most of the game but we have some good players injured.

  On 12/08/2012 at 06:45, Maldonboy38 said:

I haven't posted for a few weeks because Demonland has become so heavy, whingy and depressing but I had to add my 20c worth. For the first time in a long time I saw some signs of new life.

Endeavour and ticker were not an issue for most of the game

Nev Jetta was ferocious at times.

Blease played four quarters,

Grimes leadership - a really good leader emerging here..

Players actually the game on and spreading - yes, I actually saw both defensive andattacking spread!!!

Don't get me wrong, we are still horrible at times, but what I saw gave me the best hope I have had since the Bombers win. The forward line was non-existent for most of the game but we have some good players injured.

We're actually getting our hands on the ball, remember the first couple of games we had something like 120 possessions less than our opposition, well that's changed. Sure we're making mistakes but they will diminish as we get some better players back and the others develop their skills.

I'm starting to see the way we will play in the future and it gives me confidence that finally we may have one.

The reason the boys lost yesterday was simple. There was nothing up forward. If there was a Mitch Clark/Liam Jurrah type up there to finish off the work in the midfield, there would have been real scoreboard pressure put on.

Put frankly, and I know the mouth breathers will jump on me for saying this, I don't expect us to win any other games against teams other than GWS in the run home as, quite frankly, we have no forwards. The mids can put on as much pressure as they like; they might even kick a few goals. However, unless there is someone to finish off the work done by them, we are on a hiding to nothing.

It will be interesting to see how they go next year. Get someone who can kick 3-4 goals in that forward line and notice the difference. A bit more intelligence going into the forward 50 (i.e. looking for blokes on leads rather than trying to bomb it on top of Mitch Clark's head) will make a lot of difference too.

  On 11/08/2012 at 13:48, tonatopia said:

Either you choose 1 captain for 2013, or you include jones and have 3.

Having 2 captains dosnt make much sense to me.

As much as having 3 captains.

  On 12/08/2012 at 05:31, Rogue said:

Yesterday was one of the worst games of football I've seen.

Not only were both teams poor (and we weren't just poor because we're playing a B-grade side, we were also very poor at executing the basics that have no correlation with talent), so was the umpiring.

However, I'm glad someone found enough positives to start a celebratory thread.

Yes. Just hope there not getting ahead of themselves.

We are a lllooooooonnnngggg way off even the middle rung teams. Depressing watching MFC.

  On 12/08/2012 at 08:13, Colin B. Flaubert said:

The reason the boys lost yesterday was simple. There was nothing up forward. If there was a Mitch Clark/Liam Jurrah type up there to finish off the work in the midfield, there would have been real scoreboard pressure put on.

Put frankly, and I know the mouth breathers will jump on me for saying this, I don't expect us to win any other games against teams other than GWS in the run home as, quite frankly, we have no forwards. The mids can put on as much pressure as they like; they might even kick a few goals. However, unless there is someone to finish off the work done by them, we are on a hiding to nothing.

It will be interesting to see how they go next year. Get someone who can kick 3-4 goals in that forward line and notice the difference. A bit more intelligence going into the forward 50 (i.e. looking for blokes on leads rather than trying to bomb it on top of Mitch Clark's head) will make a lot of difference too.

No we have nothing in the midfield to move it forward.

And its hardly out of the ordinary saying we will only beat GWS for the rest of this year. Its been said ad nauseam on this site for months.

  On 12/08/2012 at 08:18, Rhino Richards said:

As much as having 3 captains.

Yes. Just hope there not getting ahead of themselves.

We are a lllooooooonnnngggg way off even the middle rung teams. Depressing watching MFC.

No we have nothing in the midfield to move it forward.

And its hardly out of the ordinary saying we will only beat GWS for the rest of this year. Its been said ad nauseam on this site for months.

Looking at the second quarter, we actually overtook them in forward fifty entries. I don't downplay the problems we have in the midfield but to be honest, there is a skeleton of a midfield there. At the moment, there is nothing as far as forward line (that is due to injuries).

I agree that saying we will only beat GWS isn't out of the ordinary. I was more referring to someone having a go at me for not 'being a real supporter' and then telling me 'to go support another club.'