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I also can't fathom the hate for Cross. Has a reputation for iffy disposal but in reality it has been ok in both games, just being judged harsher because he has had the most disposals of any of our players. His defensive work, leadership and manic attack on the ball make him one of the first picked imo. I do wonder whether I'm watching the same game as other posters at times...

I don't care if you want to personally attack another poster and just for the record I don't think many round here rate your football knowledge. You're certainly not a "must read". But to attack a player so as to score petty points against another poster who probably doesn't rate your opinion anyway is tasteless in the extreme and show you to be a person of both limited judgment and maturity. Ro Bail is one of my favourite players. I know him and his father. Both are terrific people. Ro has put his head over the ball so often for his club that he's one serious knock away from never being able to play footy again at any level. I happen to admire his courage. I admire his athleticism. I admire his discipline and application. He's not someone to build a team around but he's someone that the players are happy to play beside because they know he'll play his role to the best of his ability and get the most he can out of himself. As a person he makes you look silly. How about next time you want to score points against another poster you don't do it by way of denigrating a player who represents our club. Even better, how about you grow up and if you can't do that, just shut up.

I always thought Petterd was handy but nothing special as a player. But as a person I thought he was fantastic. His comments when he left the club were all class. He didn't whinge and responded that he understood the position the club was in and why they made the decision that they did. Good luck to the fella.

Yeah you guys are correct. Dawes is the reason we got smashed in the midfield on Saturday. (Sarcasm) Do we need a scapegoat each week? He wasn't great but only 3 players can really hold their heads up after that loss. Give him the chance that others are getting

Have not seen it posted here yet, but anyone come across this? https://thedemonshop.shopdesq.com/anzac-guernsey-pre-sale-1

I'll be blunt: I really enjoyed watching our forward line in Round 1. The inclusion of Dawes ruined this. I don't know if he's capable of being much better but I don't know what he was doing out there on Saturday, especially after the standard the 22 set in Round 1. (This also applies to Vince) Not to mention Dawes' inclusion seemed to misplace Watts who had a great game inside 50 a week earlier. I see us having better mobility and speed by building our forward line around Hogan, Watts and Garlett.

for a while there i thought a broken leg was one of the hardest things to come back from. now it appears it's feet injuries. ricky has been diagnosed with a lisfranc injury after 'pulling up sore' following the loss to footscray. such bad luck that kid. i liked him when he was at the dees.

Bontempelli went pretty much where concensus said. Were GWS and St. Kilda negligent, too? Rhetorical question - I think this is a great case of the art of recruiting rather than the science. It think rather than "due dilligence", it's more just a case of rating him less than others. Personally I'm stoked with the outcome we got anyway, of two players in Tyson and Salem. There's still an excellent chance both will be A graders - even if they're both the rung below Bontempelli, this is still a fantastic outcome from the trade in my opinion.

oh great, another 'pick any good player from any draft and ask we why we didn't select them' discussion these are always logical and fruitful James Hird went at pick 64 WTF Prendergrast WTF

Many professionals regularly attend seminars or events out of hours to learn about their field. I know I do.

It hasn't happened yet. Not even close. Like most level headed people said last week, while recognising our opponent on the day was pretty ordinary at best, it was just one game of football. I was very worried about the GWS game but I am still in shock that we went up there and put on a Neeld-esque performance. I just can;t believe I saw that same weak effort again with my own eyes. We haven't put together two wins on the trot for 3.5 years. That is an utter disgrace. Even if some miracle happens in Adelaide this week are we to expect them to come out and get flogged by the tigers the week after? I am sick to death of it. We are paying 7.25 this week FCS. How much longer must we endure having matches upcoming for which we have practically zero chance of winning? How many more years? We have supposedly the best coach in the game and a list that hes been fed high draft picks for NINE years, including EIGHT players from the top 5 of the draft (inc Hogan and Tyson) just in the course of 7 years! We should have built a premiership core with that advantage but alas, no, we have to look down the barrel of a bottom 4 finish YET AGAIN and suffer the pain and indignity of days like last Saturday. Meanwhile, the focus inevitably turns to the next trade/draft period and wonder how many years away is the dream of stringing two wins together. Grrrrr. Do you realise that in 2007, when we bombed out, sacked Daniher and began collecting picks for a rebuild, all of Hawthorn, Sydney and Geelong were up and about the top of the ladder. They have all stayed there in the 7 years since, despite having zero draft assistance (yeah OK Geelong might be done now after 3 flags). We have not moved an INCH, with all the players they can throw at us. What in the name of God is the fundamental difference between our dysfunctional club and the competition leaders? Why do we make sweeping changes to the list, coaching staff, admin, training venues etc etc etc and nothing even moves the needle. What is it going to take for us to put 22 players on a field that actually give a stuff about being out there? We've almost swapped the old 22 for an entirely new one and nothing has changed! I have just about had the sword, I tell you what, no supporter should have to endure this torture. /end rant

Terrible, I was happy to see him do well at another club. Wish him a speedy recovery.

Your grammar must be in Canberra then... Boom!

It could just be normalisation, though. And we haven't actually played 6 good quarters. The first quarter in the Gold Coast game was very average. If we played a top side it would have been a 5-6 goal deficit in their favour. The second quarter we dominated them. In the third and fourth we traded goals, including three patches where the Suns went on 2-4 goal runs. Against GWS, we played one good quarter. They smashed us in the second but simply couldn't capitalise. We were efficient going forward but were ultimately smashed around the ground. That equates to three good quarters of football, even though we've won 6 of 8, and I'd argue that the two quarters on Saturday almost completely devalue the progress made in the preceding 6 quarters, I don't care what Roos says. It was as terrible a lack of effort as I've ever seen, matched only 2 or 3 times in my 25 years watching this club. I can handle tough losses. The Saints had a tough loss against the Giants last week. The Bombers had a tough loss against the Swans. Port a tough loss to Freo. But our problem is that we either buckle monumentally at crucial stages, or simply give up too soon to make any chance of a comeback impossible. It's like there's a certain point where I'm just certain that the team will lose. Whether that's in the first quarter or with 5 minutes left in a close game. There's just something to is so damn evident that the team will lose. The Brisbane game at Etihad last year was an example. Once they kicked the first goal to get cut our lead to a goal, I just knew we'd lose. You could smell it a mile away. That's no way to watch football! I *hope* we will bounce back this week with a good performance. I am so sick of *hoping* for a good performance. I want to be *CONFIDENT* that I'll see a good performance. But I'm not confident. I'm confident I'll be let down. But I'm hopeful I won't be. That's no way to support football. This club is an indictment on this great game sometimes, and it has been for many years.

Its the mids. It has been for 8 years.

Agreed. The Bulldogs pre-season game suddenly isn't looking like such an anomaly. Dominant in the first half. Completely roll over in the second. The only difference was GWS had the quality on the field to take full advantage. All I want to see against Adelaide is a four quarter effort. If there is sustained effort then the side is good enough to be competitive.

He went on to be a decent player with Richmond, as he was at the MFC. No doubt he had his limitations as a player, but was the victim of some serious tall poppy syndrome on this forum at times.

Alan Jones interviewing Stephen Dank? What are the chances of any probing hard-hitting questions coming from Jonesy here? Besides, just because the interviewee on the programme claims to be Stephen Dank, can we even be comfortably satisfied that he is, in fact who he says he is?

Tyson & Jones collected 4 clearances out of a total of 86. That is an aberration and the chances of it happening again are minimal. Both those 2 normally average over 11 clearances between them per game and what also should be remembered is the high clearance figure for the game (86 - about 10 over the average) To me, that's the main reason why we lost the game. Our 2 best players (both midfielders) couldn't win anywhere near enough clearances (otherwise known as winning the ball out of the middle or winning the ball at the 'other' ball-ups or the throw-ins) Clearances 2014 Jones 138 (season) 6.3 (average) Tyson 108 (season) 4.9 (average)

I drove up to Canberra for the game with a crew of demon mates, optimistic of a good showing but mindful of my fathers words. "Never back a horse second up after a spell." And how right he was. Devastated by the lack of effort. Confused that professional footballers could not take clean possession. Confounded that leadership can disappear within 1 short week. Feelings of deja vu. Fortunately the beer was cold at the ground, the red wine flowed that night and was complimented by the cleansing of Olympic proportioned venting. I am not concerned about who is in or out I just want effort applied to the task at hand. So re-attach the heart strings and take it up to the crows. Go Dees.

As we strive to become better we need to play the best, not hope we come up against a team full of injuries and suspensions.

So Frawley has injured his breast!! Care factor?

Yeah it's great and we still got the shitter kicked out of us!!!

There is an opinion that McCartney had a lot to do with the rapid development of Bontempelli. macca has only been at our club since February- I think he will do very nicely with our group of young mids given a bit more time. I am rapt with the progress of Viney and Salem this year. Hopefully he will get into the ear of Toump and get him going as well.

I can understand completely. Who cares what the opposition does ? Hardly important. As long as we look good for a half we can just chill then hit the bar.

It's hard to face up to praha, but I reckon you're on the money. When GWS hit the front on Saturday I was as confident as one could be that we were going to get hammered from that point on. Our ability to capitulate is unequalled, and depressingly predictable. Objectively, it's quite staggering how fragile we are, and it makes supporting this team like a cruel joke. I have no idea when it will end, but this season so far tells me it's not even in sight. I compare it to the Hawthorn v Essendon game, where at no point until the siren went did I think the Hawks would lose. They're as predictable in the opposite way.

We had seven players who were moon descending in Jupiter last week . Looking back on it now,there was no way the Pisces and Libra charts were going to help. We were fooling ourselves astrologically.

It's also worth noting that being at the game and observing tactics, moves, game style, behind play structures, etc is considerably different from watching on TV, where the camera largely follows the ball.

Positives to come out of the game. 1. It revealed that we still desperately need more class/speed in the midfield; and 2. Shiel is absolutely gun. Why is '2' a positive? Well, it highlighted to the MFC how much we need him and, relevantly, he is out of contract at the end of the year. Get Aish too and we have a midfield.

Then Howe will never touch the ball. Howe needs to move and be unpredictable. If he's stuck deep he will never get to a contest, opposition defenders would give him no room to fly. It's been tried and it's failed before. He didn't have a good one on the weekend but has played some good footy at HB so maybe leave him there and watch what happens...personally I would play him on a wing or high HF, a great let out kick from defence.

I remap my keyboard. Underscore goes to Shift+[space] and em-dash to Shift+[hyphen] (amongst other changes). I do this because i use em-dash quite a bit in my work (writing), and underscore quite a lot because i am an old-school debian/linux user. Rather peculiar that my em-dashes have recieved so much attention.

That first line is spot on P-man. How many of us out there were predicting we wouldn't win our first 7-8 matches for the year? Instead we have come out and played 6 terrific quarters - it's just a shame the other 2 were very, very poor. I think we will bounce back from that this week and show it was an aberration - I'm not suggesting we'll win but, as you say, we have a very good recent record at the ground and I'm banking on the players coming out and making amends for the capitulation last weekend.

Yep, it's basically my life. I spend a lot of time thinking about, watching and being involved in my industry. Yet there is still time for the Footy, watching the odd favourite TV show and spending time with my partner. ...so I would think if you are serious about playing at the highest level then you would spend a bit of extra time watching what makes great players and teams and working out how you can get there. I sure hope it's not just a 9 to 5 job for these guys.

Accountants hold weekly out of hours meetings to discuss the latest in calculator technology.

Whatever, a lot more dash than our midfield

There is that battered psyche again... Lumumba gets angry when things go against him - our tenured senior players get forlorn. Anger is more useful, changing that mindset is one of Roos' main jobs in his last 42 games.

As designed by Dave Larkin

Tyson was 2nd in our B&F last year at 21 years of age. Salem was one of our best in the pre season and on the weekend at 20 years of age. How on earth would we have landed Bontempelli and Merrett instead? We were never taking Bont at 2. It's easy to be a hindsight hero.

The only problem 'Nasher' is that last weeks game mirrored some of our NAB form. In a sample of 5 games we had 3 good q's against Freo, 2 against the Dogs, I against Ess, an even performance but with some down periods (pretty normal in footy) against GCS and a q and 1/2 against GWS. If we are not switched on for the whole game we are not good enough to win. We can't afford to coast at any time.

I reckon last week is just as unreliable an indicator to the way things settle. We were absolutely putrid in the second half last week, and I'll be staggered if we are even close to that bad again this week. You'll never see Nathan Jones have another 11 possession game again, for starters. Just think we need to be careful of the "last week is the only thing we remember" syndrome.

About Essendon and ANZAC day match, many years ago 1982 to be exact whilst on deployment to Singapore[ I was in the RAAF] we were asked to provide a guard of honour for dawn service at Changi war cemetery. To watch Real heroes break down and cry openly, to hear them talk of their long dead mates buried there, it was very moving and a scene I will never forget. To mention Essendon and those heroes in the same sentence is simply discusting. Essendon are simply DIRTY LYING DRUG CHEATS, and a simple not guilty verdict dosnt wash it with me. On one hand you have men who gave all for their mates, and the other you have efc who took all and don't care about anybody else. Dawn service at Changi haunts me forever, and for the efc to even exist on the same planet is so very very sad.

Bleachers.

Newton is an inside mid with a beautiful left foot being played out of position.

You're an unusual campaigner. It's OK for Heeney to be playing (and countless others every year), but somehow Brayshaw at 19 isn't ready. There are some strange views emanating from the bleaches.

Terrible news. Good honest kid who has never got a clear run at it so far. Lung sists,chronic achillies, now lisfranc, give the kid a break! Gee we have had our fair share through the club, Bartram, Pettard, Clark, Trengove.

laughing at how everyone jumped off Ben Newton and other players cos of 1 game

That looks like an en-dash to me. Edit:- The en dash (–) is slightly wider than the hyphen (-) but narrower than the em dash (—). How's that for anal?

But you've never liked him. To point out a couple of mistakes in an otherwise exceptional game is mindboggling. http://demonland.com/forums/index.php?/topic/36757-im-officially-over-tom-mcdonald/?hl=mcdonald

Did you forget Howe's games last year as a forward? Some of his worst. Lazy, poor leads, terrible inaccuracy on set shots. Moving him to defence has been a stroke of genius. If he's unhappy playing his role for the team and thinks he knows better than Roos, he can [censored] off at the end of the year with that [censored] poor anti-team attitude.

Jack Viney was in utero when signed to a contract...