Interested in thoughts on this from other members

last year 2 wins, %53 7 100 plus point losses, several 10 goal plus losses.

this year 9 rounds in - 3 wins, should have beaten GWS, Stkilda, GC and the doggies, serious opportunity to win all of those games, only two comfortable losses to Sydney and West Coast, and only 1 loss of 40 points or more.

Defence has improved from 120 plus points per game to about 80

disposals are plus 100

contested possessions have improved out of sight

the improvement is almost unbelievable, injuries and luck have prevented us from winning a couple of games where we were the better side, could be 7-2 easily

Players like Pederson, Jetta, Cross, Vince, Riley have either been turned from non AFL standard to consistent contributors or taken from being well on the outer of their respective clubs and fitted in and had a great impact.

Roos has also enhanced the leadership at the club, Nathan Jones, and Chris Dawes appear to a couple of the better leaders in the AFL now.

could be 7-2 easily

Wut? .... No.

We couldn't be 7-2. You can't say "we should have won" this game or that game and chalk them up as a victory when assessing the coach. We're at 3-6, which is a super, super improvement on last year. Vince and Cross were both great players already, you can't give Roos all the credit for them continuing to play how they always played. Adelaide had to move someone on to cover their draft sanctions, Crossy was still excellent at the Dogs, but they have an embarrassment of riches in young, hard-nosed midfielders so they were able to move on the old warrior.

Has Roosy been absolutely brilliant? Yes, but you're adding sugar on top where none is required, the reality of the situation is amazing enough as it is.

Three wins is a bit early to be calling it Sassy. At this stage I'd have thought Ken Hinkley has that title. Have you looked at the ladder lately?

I think you have to win the cup to get that gong. There is no science to it.

I say 7-2 because we have won three and been in a position to win another 4 after 3/4 time,

Ken hinkley is amazing but considering where we came from, cross was delisted and Vince was told he wasn't required

Hinkley's probably more of a miracle worker, but Roos is just as capable of pulling a Port with us. He needs another few off seasons to get us the players he needs, but I'm confident if he can get us in the top half of the ladder next year he'll be seeing the job through to its natural conclusion. Caro Wilson was saying as much on the radio earlier.

Wut? .... No.

We couldn't be 7-2. You can't say "we should have won" this game or that game and chalk them up as a victory when assessing the coach. We're at 3-6, which is a super, super improvement on last year. Vince and Cross were both great players already, you can't give Roos all the credit for them continuing to play how they always played. Adelaide had to move someone on to cover their draft sanctions, Crossy was still excellent at the Dogs, but they have an embarrassment of riches in young, hard-nosed midfielders so they were able to move on the old warrior.

Has Roosy been absolutely brilliant? Yes, but you're adding sugar on top where none is required, the reality of the situation is amazing enough as it is.

The OP went too far one way but this is probably going too far the other way.

He didn't say we 'should' be 7-2, but that we 'could' be. And to an extent, he's right. We could have won the St Kilda game, and the GWS game, and the GC game, and the Dogs game. We were in each of those in the fourth quarter, either leading or very close, and played periods in each game where we were the better side. So we could have won any of those, just like we couldn't have won the West Coast game and probably could not have won the Sydney game.

But that in itself shows the improvement - we have been in 7, maybe even 8, of our 9 games so far, to the point where we've either won, led in the fourth, or at the very least been close enough to the lead in the fourth to feel like we could get there. That wouldn't have happened 7 times last year in total (maybe not even 7 times in the last two years).

We definitely deserve to have more than 3 wins to date. On balance, I think 4 wins would be a fair and accurate assessment of where we're at.

We literally could be 5 and 4 though - as we really should've beaten the Saints and the Dogs, and I think we deserved to win each of those games.

We possibly could've snagged the Suns game and probably should have, but I don't think we deserved to win it.

GWS beat us fair and square - they were the better team over four quarters.

That said, it's been a simply stunning and wholly remarkable transformation.

To my mind, Paul Roos is the Coach of the decade. I love what he's done for this club. Footy has meaning again.

Apologies to Ken Hinkley, Bomber Thompson, Alastair Clarkson and Leigh Matthews. But the reality is - no other coach in the competition over the last (almost) decade has been as influential in bringing back blood to my body as has Paul Roos been.

I love the bloke. He is just so bloody good.

The improvement in players like Pederson, M.Jones, Bail. Jetta has amazed me, its got to be down to Roos and Stone

Having Roos gives us a mighty advantage before we even take the field in a very intangible way. There wouldn't be many coaches, if any, who think they can outcoach Roos.

Loved the way Roos described Riley's inclusion and starting him on the field: really needed the hard, tough stuff from the get go and stun the Tigers. It worked! Loved the way he moved the team around a bit this year and how its worked. His thinking/moves make it much harder for opp coaches to plan their match ups etc Unpredictability is a great thing in footy.

Now not only do opp coaches need to work out how to beat the players they need to think about how to beat Roos. Tall order indeed! Especially for the 12+ coaches that have never coached with him or against him!

Pyschology doing its thing!

Hes OUR Coach of the Century

( No offence Danners but look what Roosey has had to do )

Give CPR to a lifeless corpse of a team !!! and got them up and about no less.......bloody miracle

The improvement in players like Pederson, M.Jones, Bail. Jetta has amazed me, its got to be down to Roos and Stone

Good call. I'd like to think that at the end of this season and next, there are good players out there deciding which club to play for who see how Paul Roos maximises the talent of almost every player he's ever coached, who is taking this team places, and who is the man to entrust with their immediate playing future when once upon a time they wouldn't have given us the time of day.

Anyone who can turn Pederson around gets my vote for coach of the year - if not decade.

Three wins is a bit early to be calling it Sassy. At this stage I'd have thought Ken Hinkley has that title. Have you looked at the ladder lately?

When you look at where Port were at the sacking of Matthew Primus to where they are now, if Port win a flag this year or next, Hinkley will be coach of the decade!

Unless Roos stays on and the Dees win a flag under him... that would be coach of century stuff right there.

Not wanting to be a wet blanket, but we're yet to come close to a top 9 team having only played two top 9 teams (Weagles and Swans), so we've had the easiest part of our easy draw, with the real tests to come as we play the top 8 teams over the second half of the year.

Liking who Roos and the boys have done, but it's only a start and our stats ...

wins from teams currently 16th, 13th, 10th.

losses from team currently 15th 12th 9th and 3rd.

improvement, but our early bad form and tough draw will require we keep improving rapidly to win more than 3 more games on the way home.

Not wanting to be a wet blanket, but we're yet to come close to a top 9 team having only played two top 9 teams (Weagles and Swans), so we've had the easiest part of our easy draw, with the real tests to come as we play the top 8 teams over the second half of the year.

Liking who Roos and the boys have done, but it's only a start and our stats ...

wins from teams currently 16th, 13th, 10th.

losses from team currently 15th 12th 9th and 3rd.

improvement, but our early bad form and tough draw will require we keep improving rapidly to win more than 3 more games on the way home.

Agree in part. I think the team is playing maybe 50% better now than they were at the beginning of the season. It helps having tall forwards I must say. Can I suggest if our current team played those games again then we would be 7-2.

We will need this improvement as we move into games with top eight credentials. On current form (both ours and theirs), and current injury lists, I suggest we would beat Saints, Dogs, GWS. on the way home in the second half of the season, I suggest the following:

R11: Port loss by 9 points

R12: Coll win by 20 points

R13: Ess win by 35 points

R14: Kangas (MCG) win by 6 points

R15: Dogs (ES) win by 12 points

R16: Dockers (Darwin) loss by 15 points

R17: Cats (MCG) loss by 35 points

R18: Power (AO) loss by 20 points

R19: Lions (ES) win by 50 points

R20: Hawks (MCG) loss by 25 points

R21: Giants (MCG) win by 30 points

R22: West Coast loss by 40 points

R23: Kangas win by 15 points

That gives us 10 wins for the year and would probably finish about 10th or 11th. That very nearly makes Roos a genius.

Roos has done a fantastic job, but really Ken Hinkley has shown last year was no fluke, has a team playing a exciting brand of football (it's a model I would love to show my kids on how to pass a football - in general their passes are worm burners which mean they travel the distance quicly and accurately), they could easily have been undefeated, and when he started the job, came from a position not much worse than the Dees.

For all those who are looking at "what if" for justification; note that we could also just as easily be 0 - 9 if a couple of things went against us in our wins (straight kicking for example).

Still Roos is worth every cent and more, for what he has achived with the team/club, regardless of the results.

Anyone who can turn Pederson around gets my vote for coach of the year - if not decade.

Not to minimise Roos' contribution, but Pedersen must have known at the end of last season that his career was on the line. He lost weight, trained very hard from all reports, and ran hard in the practice matches. Let's be fair to him, he's taken a GHL at himself, Td the C and he's BIT.

edit spelling

Agree in part. I think the team is playing maybe 50% better now than they were at the beginning of the season. It helps having tall forwards I must say. Can I suggest if our current team played those games again then we would be 7-2.

We lost two of those with 'our current team' against GC and WB. The only game in which we were severely undermanned was against St Kilda when we didn't have a forward line.

The others we played a good half, or a good '3 qtr performance,' strangled the game to death, or were blown away - and you can't say we 'should' have won them or even that we 'would' have beaten them with a few personnel changes.

We will need this improvement as we move into games with top eight credentials. On current form (both ours and theirs), and current injury lists, I suggest we would beat Saints, Dogs, GWS. on the way home in the second half of the season, I suggest the following:

R11: Port loss by 9 points

R12: Coll win by 20 points

R13: Ess win by 35 points

R14: Kangas (MCG) win by 6 points

R15: Dogs (ES) win by 12 points

R16: Dockers (Darwin) loss by 15 points

R17: Cats (MCG) loss by 35 points

R18: Power (AO) loss by 20 points

R19: Lions (ES) win by 50 points

R20: Hawks (MCG) loss by 25 points

R21: Giants (MCG) win by 30 points

R22: West Coast loss by 40 points

R23: Kangas win by 15 points

That gives us 10 wins for the year and would probably finish about 10th or 11th. That very nearly makes Roos a genius.

We have shaky depth, and our best 5 mids include two 20 year olds - they are going to slow down.

It is optimism in the extreme to think that we can keep this up for another 14 rounds. We are going to fall away badly and I won't say who it will be against but it may be in the games you have earmarked as games we 'should win.'

And Coll, Kangaroos, and the Dogs are better than us. How we will beat NM in the last round as they gear up for September I don't know. You may not rate them, but they are better than us and they have a history of beating us.

My only expectation is they go into every game with a belief they can win and show the kind of pressure and toughness they have shown since the Carlton game (bar a few quarters here and there).

We lost two of those with 'our current team' against GC and WB. The only game in which we were severely undermanned was against St Kilda when we didn't have a forward line.

The others we played a good half, or a good '3 qtr performance,' strangled the game to death, or were blown away - and you can't say we 'should' have won them or even that we 'would' have beaten them with a few personnel changes.

We have shaky depth, and our best 5 mids include two 20 year olds - they are going to slow down.

It is optimism in the extreme to think that we can keep this up for another 14 rounds. We are going to fall away badly and I won't say who it will be against but it may be in the games you have earmarked as games we 'should win.'

And Coll, Kangaroos, and the Dogs are better than us. How we will beat NM in the last round as they gear up for September I don't know. You may not rate them, but they are better than us and they have a history of beating us.

My only expectation is they go into every game with a belief they can win and show the kind of pressure and toughness they have shown since the Carlton game (bar a few quarters here and there).

Port Adelaide also has a young list - younger than ours. They seem to be able to keep up the pace. I disagree the side we had earlier in the year, even if it was largely the same personnel, is the same as we have now. We have seen major improvements across the board from our current players as they learn and start to believe in Roosy's game plan. The side is quite different in capability to the one which took the field in the first four of five games of the season. And as the season goes on it will only get better. The Dogs, also a young list, were SUBSTANTIALLY better the second half of the year last year than they were the first half. We can and will do the same.

I might also add there are some quite competent players starting to put their hand up in the twos: Tapscott, Bleese, Clisby, Kent, Fitz, Michie as well as the debut of Hogan over the next seven or eight weeks. The more they perform and don't get picked owing to success of the team, the greater the internal competition for places. Healthy competition is great for everyone - raises the overall standard, and that applioes to the reserves as well as incumbents in the ones.

Port Adelaide also has a young list - younger than ours. They seem to be able to keep up the pace. I disagree the side we had earlier in the year, even if it was largely the same personnel, is the same as we have now. We have seen major improvements across the board from our current players as they learn and start to believe in Roosy's game plan. The side is quite different in capability to the one which took the field in the first four of five games of the season. And as the season goes on it will only get better. The Dogs, also a young list, were SUBSTANTIALLY better the second half of the year last year than they were the first half. We can and will do the same.

I might also add there are some quite competent players starting to put their hand up in the twos: Tapscott, Bleese, Clisby, Kent, Fitz, Michie as well as the debut of Hogan over the next seven or eight weeks. The more they perform and don't get picked owing to success of the team, the greater the internal competition for places. Healthy competition is great for everyone - raises the overall standard, and that applioes to the reserves as well as incumbents in the ones.

Tyson and Viney are shouldering a lot of our midfield load and I do not expect them to keep that up - if they do then they are far more advanced that what I thought and what history tells us about 20 year old mids. Port and the WB didn't have two kids doing so much.

As for our depth - they are not proven at AFL level and if we lose a structurally important player (just as we did at the start of the season) you cannot replace them - even with 'good depth.'

The competition is healthy but the standard of our bottom 6 and the fringe players isn't exactly in the upper echelon...

We will require luck with personnel and superhuman efforts from Tyson and Viney if we are to have the kind of season you envisage above.

http://thenewdaily.com.au/sport/2014/05/18/paul-roos-modern-day-tommy-hafey/

Coach of the year depends on how far Port can go in September.

How Hinkley got overlooked as many times as he did still beggars belief.

Coach of the year depends on how far Port can go in September.

How Hinkley got overlooked as many times as he did still beggars belief.

ports list wasnt as bad as they played...just saying

Size matters

Im really happy this guy is in charge