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It's not the concept of removing players I object to, it's the slobbering, blood thirsty attitude some people have to delisting players. We need to continue to steadily improve our list through turning it over and internal improvement. We do not need to "cull" players as if they are some out of control pest destroying our crops. Our number of delistings won't be any larger than most other clubs, or any larger than our own in the last few years.

My mate and I were at the game yesterday and sat next to an old man.He was sitting at the end of the row of seats so he had to stand up to let us through.I cheekily said ' hurry up, we want to see the game."He replied " if I was younger I would give you a good hip and shoulder!"I had my Demon scarf and hat on but he didn't, so as i was sitting right next to him I asked who he barracked for."Melbourne" he saidThis is good, I thought.Anyway as the players warmed up we exchanged comments about various players.Then he (we still hadn't exchanged names !) said he hoped we were going to win because it had taken him 5 hours to get to the game!He had travelled down from Kerang on the bus and the train.This man's name is Roy.He said don't tell me I'm crazy because everybody else has! And it turns out he is 85. Roy was hoping we were going to win because he wanted to sing the club song at the end of the game.( so did my mate and I!) Well we lost didn't we ? But think of the long trip home for Roy.After the game he was going to have a feed and a couple of beers ( he wouldn't have one at the game as he would have to go to the toilet ) and then go home on the train and the bus.He would get home at 10 pm.On ya Roy, a really nice bloke.

Lol. . When are the umpires going to get offered a one week suspension?

Pedos hands. Now there is something you'll rarely hear in polite company.

If we had snagged that game after playing like that this place would have been raving about how we can still win while playing so poorly... You know we would be. I am not satisfied with how we played for 40 minutes but the apocalyptic tone is a bit much... Again, some of you are just wilfully ignorant about where we are coming from. Our list is still impaired. This is not a 14 game fix...

can't take a mark in his hands, only ever does chest marks. Was the same when he was at the pies. Still, brings much to our team and is vital for us.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/collingwood-president-eddie-mcguire-demands-compensation-from-afl-after-low-sunday-night-crowd/story-fni5f6hd-1226971447732 He has to be kidding right? Will the hawks ask for compo after drawing 17k to a sunday twilight? how much would we be due considering our total lack of blockbusters/friday nights/saturday arvos/home games v victorian clubs over the last 8 years??? what a [censored].

Don't be a dingbat DingAling. Firstly, Collingwood don't give us anything. Despite what Fat Ed might spout in all his media outlets, the AFL makes the fixture not Collingwood. Secondly, the Queens Birthday game seems to come at the expense of home games against Essendon, Carlton and this year Richmond as well. Considering the money lost on not getting those games/a fair fixture compared to the money coming in for QB I'd say it's a zero-sum game. Eddie is a whinging whining moron. Of all the leg-ups Collingwood have got financially over the last two decades he wants to have a whinge about one game where they still got over 40k? A game that was against a fellow Vic team who also have around 50k members? If you want to know what it feels like to need equalisation Ed, how about you play 7 of the 8 non-Vic sides and North & the Dogs as home games next year and see how you go. If you want to blame anyone for the lost revenue blame your supporters for not showing up to the game. Whenever other clubs draw low crowds it's their and their supporters fault for "not being innovative" or "not turning up to support the team" regardless of time slot, weather or opposition. Seems the opposite rings true for this fat whinging moron.

Alternatively, we could just delist the players who aren't making the grade, the same as every other year.

Don't ask Saty, even though Neita said there was a disconnect, he heard that everything is perfect! Just kidding. Seriously, was an amazing ep and he's a great bloke. He's always sitting level 3 and 4 at every Dees match. He still Bleeds Demons and I couldn't respect him more.

I bet they show his great hit on Luke McCabe. Still one of my favourite best ever plays

ROLF. I mean, ROFL.

Good post inanunda, and highlights the biggest problem facing the future of the AFL. As a contact sport, tackling is central to the game. The rules surrounding possession/tackling/dispossession have no consistency of interpretation. NIL! It is literally a toss of the coin for each tackle as to whether play on or holding the ball will be granted. What other game allows a 50/50 result that is impossible to guess, for its key defensive act? The following situations, which we see a plethora of times every game is just killing our spectacle : 1. a player takes possession and is IMMEDIATELY tackled, by two players, who force him to ground. He had no opportunity to dispose before the tackle, and none after.....the decision.... Holding the ball. 2. A player takes possession, takes a number of steps, looking for disposal options, gets tackled and loses the ball in a manner other than kicking or handballing...... the decision..... play on. By all applications of logic, this disparity is irreconcilable. And yet, it's never been more prevalent.

It is no coincidence that as soon as Roos starts implementing an attack plan, the same old errors come to the fore. When we were solely defensive and ultra-conservative (up until the Pies) our turnovers were limited and not so costly. Now that we are layering our attack onto our defence it's back to the abattoir, butchers everywhere. Consider it two steps back after taking three steps forward. If it's a case of people trying to do things beyond their skill set, it can be fixed by better decision making, which is easily done with Roos' playing your role model. If it's a case of players simply not up to executing the basics of accurate disposals then not much will change until those players are moved on for those that ARE able to do it. We will probably know which it is in another 3-4 weeks. No improvement means it is probably the latter.

In a way Im glad PR is gutted. We have been for a long while and its beholding upon the FD to get very 'matter of fact' with its dealings with the list. There will be undoubtedly those players for whom PR and the FD can see ( still ) a good outcome and then there's the rest. The eternal problem is in trying to fix the list theres only so many changes ( practical ) you can make without effectively diluting your momentum to nothing ( again ). I expect a lot of wheeling and dealing to get as many journeymen players to our club as is possible. They dont need to be super talented , or possess 'elite; skills they just need to be honest footballers who come to play. A team , a plan, a style can be built on this whilst the so called talent emerges. Paul Roos showed in that presser hes hurting like a Demon. Now it will get ugly for some players

This is the rule, and it has been pretty consistently applied since it came in. Yesterday's was an almighty howler, and ended up having an effect on the result of the game. It's that simple. The AFL know it, the clubs, the media and the public know it. Carlton lost a game against Geelong recently due to umpiring, and the discussion was short lived and glib. The football world needs to bring the state of umpiring to the forefront of discussions. From the holding the ball interpretation, to head high/ducking confusion, to DRS, it is a woeful mess, and sullies our game.

Heard from a pretty solid source last night that Adam Tomlinson wants to come back to Victoria at the end of the year and Melbourne is his preferred club so he can play with his best mate Dom Tyson again. Not saying it'll definitely happen, (unsure on his current contract situation) as the right trade needs to achieved but I'd be very happy with him lining up alongside Hogan and Dawes in our forward line next year

I found our performance against the bulldogs similar to the Essendon game. Smashed early, then made an unlikely comeback from a near impossible position. Something we had not done in recent memory. This time we lacked a little class and luck to finish off the job. It is a fantastic sign that we are now capable of keeping ourselves in a game when things are against us. My biggest issue is still our poor clearance work. Forget about the umpires and skill errors, we dominated when we had a purple patch of winning clearances in both games. And got trashed when we lost long sequences of them. If we could just break even on clearances we would have won easily. Biggest offenders are Jones and Viney as always who can get the ball but choose to try to bulldoze their way out of congestion rather than looking for the next option. Sometimes just a tap or knock on can be the better option if they can't break free. These bad habits have to be eradicated.

We've come a long, long way when a 6 point loss can be described as "diabolical".

The AFL should take a good hard look at themselves when they start complaining about the "ugly" footy they have half the league now forced to play. They took the cream of the nation's talent and divided it between two franchise teams for 5 painful years, and we're now seeing how detrimental that was to the league as a whole. Their greedy thirst for money and billion dollar broadcast rights will cost them in the long run, with so many teams now filled to the brim with diluted talent; packs of players who simply do not have the skill and class of players due to insanely shortsighted draft sanctions given to GWS and GCS. This will be a lengthy, painful mistake that'll take the better part of a decade to iron out in the league as a whole, and that'll be right around the time they start proposing a 19th and 20th team to [censored] it all up again. This mess is the AFL's making. We bottomed out at the worst possible time. Not only the introduction of two new teams, effectively taking every shred of talent in the country, but with the introduction of free agency strong teams will now remain strong as they cherry pick any sign of talent from lowly teams, who will be destined to remain cellar dwellars.

Why? We've got a raft of players on our list who haven't shown much and been given 6 years to do it. The kid is not even 20 yet.

Am I alone in thinking our season is tracking as well as could be expected, both within the club and among the general football public? I'm happy that Roos is driving the team to win, after establishing a base level of competitive news and resilience that hasn't been there for more than 5 years. Roos is frustrated because he is impatient and hates losing, not because we are beyond help.

I'm guessing that Riley's contract was more than 1 year as the club knew his leg injury would take some months to improve enough for him to play. It would hardly seem worth it to Riley or the club to come over from SA for only 1 year but don't really know.

Spot on Nasher. Some pretty sertious over reaction in this thread - but each to their own. My take? Negatives: Apart from a bright first 5-6 minutes (which we failed to convert into goals) we were woeful in the first half, on a par with how poor we were against the bombers. Poor decision making, rubbish kicks and poor set ups and stoppages I was surprised to red during the week that we were 18th in clearances. Not for long though. They smashed us at stoppages in the first half which is a real worry. It was obvious watching it and i saw the stats and half time and they reflected how badly we got beaten in this area (can't remember the numbers but is was a huge differential) I thought Roos was out coached in the first half and the the doggies had it on their terms The forward line took a while to adjust to no Frawley If Dawes was a keeper he would be called iron gloves The bail decision was the worst decision i have seen this year. No small feat given the standard of umpiring this year. Made more annoying by the fat that when i bellowed my disgust two even louder bulldogs fan yelled i didn't know what i was talking about and that had been a rule for years. Morons. The same two btw who screamed at the throwing decision (a t the far end of the ground) in front of our goals. A decision that was subsequently proven correct by a crystal clear replay on the score board - and when i pointed that out the response was along the lines of 'nothing like waiting for the evidence to make a call'. Moron The bail decision got into the head of Dunn who cost us a goal for not rushing it through When we got the lead we should have moved heaven and earth to ensure they couldn't clear the ball from the next bounce. They cleared it and that goal was the real winner Positives: I'll give more positives later but one that stuck out for me was that we were 37 points down in stoppage time of the 2nd quarter. 37. And we headed them and should have won. In the last 5-10 years year that would have translated to a 10 goal loss. Like the game against Essendon we showed terrific resilience to force our way back. The loss is gutting but that is progress. The losses will sit in the bank and can be drawn on in the future as can the fact that we can fight and get back on terms. We lost that game in the second quarter not the last.

After the last month I am of the opinion that Paul Roos and the new FD are getting the best that this list has to produce. The problem is that for a large number of them their best is marginal AFL ability. We are still two to three draft periods away from having a list that is capable of pushing into the top eight. We just have too many VFL level talents. Poor skills cost us the last two games the errors were committed by the regular offenders. They have to be replaced.

I have absolute faith in him that he will no doubt turn this club around. Its already working.

Gotta love a loss, 14 pages of hand wringing, again, listen to Roos's presser, sums everything up perfectly, not sure what some posters expected, finals?...maybe the coach is 'just a naughtly boy'......I expected about 5 wins this year, and then a harsh reassessment at season's end by the Footy Dept

Disagree. If you look at the head on he can be seen clearly running across the goal, but is then grabbed and turns left for one step and takes it through. exactly as Dunstall described it. He is under pressure especially as he was actually being tackled by the jumper when he went through the goals. It was a horrendous decision. Matthew Richardson descibed it as a shocker. It then affected us on 2 more occasions where we gave away goals instead of rushing the ball through.

From this presser there can be no doubting Roos emotional commitment to the cause.

Seems most of the negative comments are based around one moment... He dominated Jones today, pretty much handed him the sub vest and his drive from the back line was almost back to his best... Not many key position defenders, destroy there opponent while pulling in midfielder stats.. Clearly opinions here are skewed because he hasn't extended his contract... I get it.. Its the old push him away, so it doesn't hurt when he leaves... He will be missed, regardless of any opinion here...

Chad Wingard ( currently 182 cm, 77kg ) says hello.

Silly thread. What about the [censored] delivery he gets? Monster forward - star and leader.

Wow. You're a tough marker. Yesterday he was moved onto Dallhaus who was carving us up in the second quarter. After Grimes went onto him he went right out of the game and Grimes kicked two goals himself. He was one of our best yesterday.

Yeah, he should change the way he plays, it's clearly not working for him.

Robbed of the brownlow poor old nev

All this Toumpas talk. Don't get it myself. Dane Swan played 30 not-particularly-noteworthy games in his first 4 seasons - that's four seasons. The only point the "Wines is ripping it up" argument establishes is that different players develop at different rates. As was posted above, the time to judge a player's career is at the end of that career. We only have to look at what has happened this season to players like Dunn (never going to be anything), Jamar (he's finished) and Pedersen (whoever drafted him should be shot) to see how true that is.

C'mon RF, he's been playing forward most of the year, and is 2nd on our goal kicking. Are you implying that even when playing forward he still costs us goals? There were a lot of contributing factors as to why we lost yesterday. Frawley is a long way down the list of them.

That's a good way to put it! We have got the bends reaching the dizzying heights of recently arriving at the ankles of some clubs...

Spot on hardtack. The bullies are at least a year ahead of us in terms of development, a point made a number of times by Roos this year. They have a much better mid field and are a terrific clearance team. The're so strong in the middle that they could afford to let Cross go - one of our best mids this year. The dogs are a better side as was evidenced by the fact that despite the same number of wins the bookies had them as clear favorites. Lets not forget the week we beat Essendon (a bottom 8 feeder at best) they beat the Maggies who are every chance of making top 4. Do we have a top 4 scalp? No. So despite a very poor first half a 6 point loss to a better side is no cause for cliff jumping.

Oh, yes, we must bow to our betters that give us oh so much... If we had a fair draw and regular home games against other Melbourne sides we would make money and we wouldn't have to be in a position to be 'given' a game by The Benevolent One. The NFL is the most equal game in the league - it is the best run, it makes the most money - and it is a bastion of Socialist Sports Inc. A beautiful mix of Communism and Capitalism that would be a inspiration to modern day China... If we are headed down the same path - and I hope we all fight for that - then running over idiots like Eddie on that path is something we are going to have to do. Equalisation isn't 'stealing from the rich' - it's not a Robin Hood allegory - its the realisation that there would be no league without the beggars at the bottom and the aspirants in the middle. If Coll, Ess, WCE, Freo, Adel, and Haw want to start their own league go and do it - my money will be on the AFL they leave behind.

I don't believe the story about neeld overriding viney We took toumpas because he was the most highly rated player at the time and we aleady had an inside player in viney At this stage it hasn't panned out but you don't always win when you bet on the favourite, I still hold a good deal of hope for Jimmy and I reckon the coaches and players do too

Magnificent last night....

So on the basis of one game by Salem and one game by Mcrae, you are hailing one and writing the other one off; you're a good judge aren't you. I haven't said Salem is a dud, or not up to it, I think he will be a very good player for us and if you think Liberatore isn't then you haven't got a clue.

Bernie is close to my favourite player at the club but we only got him because Adelaide wanted to get back in to the draft.

What a stupid thing to say. I'm sick of hearing that tosh. They have to play us and should play us twice. We should get home games against the large drawing teams and we don't. And Friday night games and less Sunday games. You have fallen for Eddies cra p big time

I hope the AFL puts fat head Eddie back in his box. How dare anyone from Collingwood complain about fixturing. Try making a quid when you play at 4;40 every second Sunday including Mothersday. The filth are the recipients of millions each year from a benficial draw which clubs like us and the doggies do not get access to. His complaint, if he has one should be with his own supporters who cant be bothered turning up.

And that's because of his contract situation, which is a little of his doing, but it makes him an easy target. He smashed the pants off Jones, but a blunder or two is all we see.

Maybe I am a sap but I am still looking at the Geelong game... Bump this when we get flogged but we played terribly today and got beaten because God smiled on a teenager with a long last name.

Things you'll find on Demonland after a loss: No matter how he plays Watts is potted. One possession out of his 15-20 will be a turnover or he doesn't win a one on one contest and we spend pages dumping on the bloke and focusing on that. Toumpas will be blamed, directly or indirectly, for the loss and for our horrid drafting, even when he isn't even in the side. Everyone will ask for 'Player A' to replace 'Player B', even though 'Player A' has been not been doing much in the reserves side and offers little in the seniors. But they will be 'the answer' to our pace or disposal problems. Our horrible drafting Still horrible drafting We could have had Wines etc etc If Frawley has even an average game everyone will tear him down, claim he is gone and that we can't wait to get MORE top end picks, even though 90% of the posters have whinged about how bad our drafting has been. Some of these aren't necessarily wrong, just terribly predictable. We lost because we still aren't that good of a side. Yes, the Roos factor has allowed us to double our win tally and be WAY more competitive than we would have hoped for this year. But games like today still highlight how far we have to go and that we still need to be awfully patient, even when we have a right to demanding some success from our team. Our time will come, even if it's still a few years from now.

That's one of the better sources I've heard around here in a while. You might as well have said you heard it from Judd's grandmother and you would have had the same credibility.