Motlop and Carlisle would fill some holes. What would we need to give up?

In regards to my last post I don't actually rate Frost, hence the Carlisle comment

There's a large view that we are gifted the QB clash ... and it's my view that we aren't gifted the game.

Eddie often will make a pointed reference but he isn't telling the football world that his club profits from the game as well.

There is another element to this.

Collingwood has a unique deal with the MCC which means whenever they play at the MCG, as home or away team, they get the Ponsford stand area behind the goals as their social club. No other club has such a favourable deal. Eddie may not be 'gifting' us much at all.

Coaches votes:

10 Bernie Vince (Melb)

6 Jesse Hogan (Melb)

4 Max Gawn (Melb)

3 Jack Viney (Melb)

3 Jack Watts (Melb)

2 Colin Garland (Melb)

2 Dane Swan (Coll)

Almost a clean sweep! Good to see Garland get a few.

Heard today Jesse is now a hot favourite for Rising Star.

This is the 5th time in 15 games Hogan has received votes from both coaches, i.e. 1 in 3. Amazing for a key forward in his first season of AFL footy.

My guess for the current B&F top 3 is 1. Vince 2. Hogan 3. Jones

Although the 2 games Hogan has missed might cost him second place.

In regards to my last post I don't actually rate Frost, hence the Carlisle comment

I don't rate Frost as a forward, but reckon he'll be a gun defender.

This is the 5th time in 15 games Hogan has received votes from both coaches, i.e. 1 in 3. Amazing for a key forward in his first season of AFL footy.

My guess for the current B&F top 3 is 1. Vince 2. Hogan 3. Jones

Although the 2 games Hogan has missed might cost him second place.

His one weakness at the moment is that he never lays tackles. I'd say in the majority of his matches he's failed to lay 1 or more tackles. This is a work rate thing. Gun otherwise.

I don't rate Frost as a forward, but reckon he'll be a gun defender.

Me too. Has the right attributes. An exciting prospect.

As I said, according to the AFL stats this is the case. Feel free to look for yourself. 9 marks, 1 contested. Footywire agree. Funnily enough, Cale Hooker took the four CM I said he needed and is now in second behind Hawkins.

Amazing what happens when you bother to look stuff up instead of posting mindless snark, isn't it?

Yes i did look it up as well, perhaps it was just the way i wrote, but i was just saying i seemed to remember him taking so many marks i was surprised he was only awarded 1 contested. I ll have to watch the reply again. Oh what fun that is!! Since he has only played 15 games, are we still waiting for a breakout game from Jesse? 19 contested marks and 12 goals!??

Loved Vandenbergs tackle smash on Pendles just before half time.

Wow, I heard the crunch from my seat, no wonder pendles got up sore after that one.

That is how it works dc.

I contacted the club last time this came up and the response was:

Thank you for your email.

If you purchase a home and away membership, all of the money from the membership goes to the club.

Please let me know if you have further questions and I would be happy to assist.

Kind regards,

So as Macca said this greatly reduces our revenue from the QB game.

It isn't as lucrative as most people think, or Eddie would have us believe.

But I did enjoy that we had a 66,000+ crowd on QB and their home game on Sat was only 37,800k!!

I think you'll find thats a pretty generic response.

My understanding from a long time ago is that memberships that offer away games as well do split the money in an away game. From memory it might only be around $3 per game but its something. I also seem to recall that we generate around $750k from QB but can't verify that number.

I just love the fact the team is seeing the fruits of their labour. If they go out with manic pressure and intent then they can pull off unlikely wins. Bulldogs, Richmond, Collingwood & Geelong is quite a collection of scalps looking at the ladder right now (5th, 6th, 8th, 11th) and shows that we can match it with mid-tier teams when we bother to show up. It's all a learning process and they're slowly learning that effort and intensity is sometimes enough to win the game, even if your skills aren't quite up to par.

Certainly makes the two Saints losses and the Bombers loss that little bit harder to swallow though. I'll be a little devo if we drop the Carlton game...

I just love the fact the team is seeing the fruits of their labour. If they go out with manic pressure and intent then they can pull off unlikely wins. Bulldogs, Richmond, Collingwood & Geelong is quite a collection of scalps looking at the ladder right now (5th, 6th, 8th, 11th) and shows that we can match it with mid-tier teams when we bother to show up. It's all a learning process and they're slowly learning that effort and intensity is sometimes enough to win the game, even if your skills aren't quite up to par.

Certainly makes the two Saints losses and the Bombers loss that little bit harder to swallow though. I'll be a little devo if we drop the Carlton game...

I'd be devo too if we lost to Carlton, but the thing is I'll half expect it. We're far too inconsistent at the moment, which Roosy often explains is the byproduct of having such a young side.

Can't wait until we are actually consistent and know what to expect week in, week out.

I just love the fact the team is seeing the fruits of their labour. If they go out with manic pressure and intent then they can pull off unlikely wins. Bulldogs, Richmond, Collingwood & Geelong is quite a collection of scalps looking at the ladder right now (5th, 6th, 8th, 11th) and shows that we can match it with mid-tier teams when we bother to show up. It's all a learning process and they're slowly learning that effort and intensity is sometimes enough to win the game, even if your skills aren't quite up to par.

Certainly makes the two Saints losses and the Bombers loss that little bit harder to swallow though. I'll be a little devo if we drop the Carlton game...

This was the point I was making last week - that our improvement makes the drop offs that much more infuriating and disappointing.

I would love for us to not play poorly - but we are not there yet on this journey. And to be perfectly honest - I am not sure that us being 9 and 8 would really be a good thing - we are still an embarrassment against the best 4 teams in the league. We need to add more talent and skill, and continue to build.

Nathan Buckley said when he team was about 8 and 3 that he was not sure he wanted the team to make finals this year and be top 6 because the fixture they would receive in 2016 would be a burden they would not be ready for (the fixture is based around grouping the teams 1-6, 7-12, and 13-18).

Now, Nathan Buckley doesn't have to worry about that anymore (lol) but he makes a good, if slightly misguided, point about teams getting ahead of itself.

I think we have seen a true indication of this group as it stands - there is still a ways to go for us to be considered a competitive, mid table team.

We probably should have beaten Collingwood by 8-10 goals. Of course, not many were predicting that before the game but we looked like winners all day ... it took us until the last quarter to put them away.

A number of players are starting to emerge or improve from last year including quite a few players who have been on our list for quite some time ... specifically Gawn, Watts, Garland, Jetta, Dunn, Howe and also the relative newcomer in Viney. At various times, most of those 7 players have had big question marks against their names. So to see them all start to play well is quite heartening.

When you add in the new players and draftees, a solid, cohesive team is perhaps starting to blossom.

Add in Petracca and hopefully Trengove along with another fruitful off season of trading & drafting and we may push for finals next season. A decent free agent or 2 would help as well. To be a finals contender we're going to need 24 - 28 genuine AFL standard players.

The team needs a genuine hunger for wins right now however - and self belief. If we can take that sort of attitude into all our remaining games, we should be able to snag 2 or 3 more wins. We have an absolute need to finish the season well.

What is often true is that a 7-9 win season can be the most frustrating of all - lots of what if's and lost opportunities ... and a 7-9 win season doesn't necessarily lead to better seasons ahead - we still need to recruit well and our existing core group of players need to take another step.

Good post.

In addition to individual player improvement, we should get a "whole-is-greater-than-sum-of-the-parts" improvement from combining better as a team next year.

Still yet to see that this year on a consistent basis. Which is part of the downside of massive list turnovers, and why I don't think it will be so massive this year.

There have been a number of games this year when our structures have completely fallen apart, and we've lost all cohesiveness as a team. In the games we've looked really bad, we haven't been able to pull it back together. But there have been some games - notably against Geelong & last Sat - when we've almost lost it but we HAVE been able to pull it back together.

I think we've got a very competitive group of players. But it's our team structure where we're vulnerable. That's where I've been very critical of the "spare man in defence" problem, which completely throws our structures out, and it needs a quick response.

If our brains trust can work out why this happens - and, more importantly, what to do once it does happen - then this "7-9 win season" will be a transitional season. If they can't, this will be a "nothing" season, neither here nor there.

Certainly makes the two Saints losses and the Bombers loss that little bit harder to swallow though.

In a way.

The bombers game is still a very tough pill. We should've smashed them. Not just won. Obliterated them. They are a trainwreck and we found a way to lose by kicking 7-18. The Saints are up and about so I can handle losing to them a bit more, even if we did play abysmally in the second meeting.

This was definitely a well timed win and performance for the team and for Roos himself. He deserved the heat after the last few weeks which were well below where we should be. It was starting to look like the season would tail off in the same fashion as last year, so this win provides confidence that we can get something out of the last few games.

It would be huge for this group if we can knock over North this week.

You're wrong on Grimes and Peterson (!)

Lol on Pederson.. that's what you get for typing on a tablet.

Lol on Pederson.. that's what you get for typing on a tablet.

How's the view from your glass house?

It's Pedersen, not Pederson.

His (Hogan) one weakness at the moment is that he never lays tackles. I'd say in the majority of his matches he's failed to lay 1 or more tackles. This is a work rate thing. Gun otherwise.

.

Interesting - and surprising to me - 14 tackles in 15 games, average 0.9. I reall thought that I had seen more tackles than that. Certainly a lot more contests, both marking and jostling his opponent(s) out of the play.

Still 105 marks, average 7 is great.

In a way.

The bombers game is still a very tough pill. We should've smashed them. Not just won. Obliterated them. They are a trainwreck and we found a way to lose by kicking 7-18. The Saints are up and about so I can handle losing to them a bit more, even if we did play abysmally in the second meeting.

This was definitely a well timed win and performance for the team and for Roos himself. He deserved the heat after the last few weeks which were well below where we should be. It was starting to look like the season would tail off in the same fashion as last year, so this win provides confidence that we can get something out of the last few games.

It would be huge for this group if we can knock over North this week.

I agree the Druggers loss was a disgrace - they were down down down for the count: did we take them too easy? Sure we kicked appallingly and played their FF into form. But it was a bitter pill to swallow (so to speak), a real jab in the arm (so to speak).

Winning s week would be massive for many reasons.

How long since we have beaten Norf?

How long since we won two on the trot?

Go Dees!

Carey, Locket, Dunstall, Lloyd, Kernahan, Tredrea, Ablett Snr and others all averaged somewhere between .7 and 1.4 tackles per game.

Tackles is a non issue for a power forward like Hogan. It should never be a topic for conversation.

Carey, Locket, Dunstall, Lloyd, Kernahan, Tredrea, Ablett Snr and others all averaged somewhere between .7 and 1.4 tackles per game.

Tackles is a non issue for a power forward like Hogan. It should never be a topic for conversation.

I disagree Prodee. As long as Hogan takes more contested marks and kicks more goals than anyone else he does not need to tackle, but should he drop off bring out the knives.

We can still talk about his awesomeness.

I disagree Prodee. As long as Hogan takes more contested marks and kicks more goals than anyone else he does not need to tackle, but should he drop off bring out the knives.

We can still talk about his awesomeness.

He will never "drop off" and you should wash your mouth out with soap for even suggesting it.

Carey, Locket, Dunstall, Lloyd, Kernahan, Tredrea, Ablett Snr and others all averaged somewhere between .7 and 1.4 tackles per game.

Tackles is a non issue for a power forward like Hogan. It should never be a topic for conversation.

I cannot agree with this. Hogan's pressure is a clear weakness and it is very important in today's game. Roughead and Franklin both average over three tackles per game.

I cannot agree with this. Hogan's pressure is a clear weakness and it is very important in today's game. Roughead and Franklin both average over three tackles per game.

Roughead isn't the best comparison given the variety of roles that he plays compared to Hogan.

Brown never averaged over 2 tackles a game. Riewoldt avages 1.5 for his career, peaking at 2.5 in 2012.

Agree that it's more important than it once was, but it's pretty low down on the list of things for him to focus on I would've thought.

I can't believe the nitpicking sometimes. We have a young key forward, probably going to win the rising star and likely to kick 40 - 50 goals in his first season. So what if his tackle count is a bit down. It will improve.

FMD!

the Hogan tackling talk is a non issue, as others have already pointed out

If thats what anyone is calling his weakness then he is better than we all thought