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Of course he is. Stupid thread.

One midfielder is supposed to prevent an entire red hot team running all over the top of his team? A bit of help would've been nice. This argument is pointless and goes round in circles with middle to poor clubs. When Richmond are struggling Cotchin is the worst captain in the league, when they're winning he's suddenly a great leader. Why wasn't this brought up when Jones destroyed Richmond? Or whenever he kicks a clutch goal (rarely misses, unlike Cotchin)? We beat Geelong and Carey is comparing him to Selwood, we lose to the Bulldogs and now his captaincy is questioned. What a joke.

This criticism of Nathan Jones is bullshite of the highest order. How many players/captains have carried the weight he has through such a period of [censored] up performances? I've lost count of the number humiliating defeats I've sat through where the only bloke putting his body on the line all day was one N.Jones. A fact quite often acknowledged and admired by opposition supporters. I don't know how vociferous or not Jones is as a leader but actions speak louder than words and Jones' actions over the years have constantly provided an example of selflessness,courage and loyalty that, unfortunately, too many of his fellow players have failed to follow.

Good day for 'Demonland' to be down for a while I guess...

see you next week mate haha!

People seem to have very short memories. P Roos took over when 100 point smashings were not uncommon at all. We would lose pretty much every week by at least 10 goals. We were absolutely deplorable and the culture of the club was just as bad. Paul has come in and is working through these issues. I for one never thought the rise would be fast due to the damage done by the previous administration and coaches. What we have now is a team that at its best is actually pretty good (see Cats, Pies, Dogs, Tigers games from earlier this year), we couldn't have said our best was anywhere near that good 2 years ago. The problem we have is that our worst is still pretty bad, but we are seeing far less of it than we were. Roos and the great coaches he has around him are turning the club around both on and off the field, the job wont be complete when Roos finishes up but he should have a group ready to continue to the push when he does. The worst thing the club could do now is either go with a youth policy or remove the coach. The instability it causes would kill the club. There would be no coming back.

The umpiring was disgusting but the fact remains if you're at the ball first the frees will go your way. The Dogs wanted it more and were rewarded, often unfairly.

The over reaction on this site is hilarious, for both wins and losses. After we beat the Pies people talk about Jones as the best leader in the comp, how many flags we will win etc. Then we lose and suddenly Jones is not a leader, we need to de-list half the team and we will be finishing last forever. I view yesterdays game as a sh*t happens kind of day. They are challenging for top 4, we are just trying to see the season out. I imagine we have also set ourselves for this week as it's probably the last realistic game we can win, plus possibly the GWS game if they are out of the finals race. The Dogs yesterday reminded me of the day we flogged the Swans, everything went right for them and they just played with a super human confidence. I believe that as soon as they are removed from Etihad in the finals they will crumble anyway.

What makes me gag, is that we go into these games with zero initiative. We just amble in and see how the game pans out. It's as though we're trying to get away with as little as possible. Everything is a reaction rather than dictating the terms of the game. It happens time and time again. The worst game was Essendon - when they were inept but we wouldn't set the tone of the game. Same when we won against Brisbane - when no side wanted to take the initiative. We were just slightly less horrendous than them. When we do the same against a good side we get dacked in spectacular fashion. Odds on to do the same against Carlton next week.

Just like the musicians on the Titanic.

It's almost immaterial what anyone thinks of Roos as a game day coach anymore. Whether he goes the +1 in defence at the right time, whether he is bold enough in his positional changes, whether he is reactive enough etc. It's plain as day when reading between the lines that he will be letting Goodwin hold alot more sway next season, and it is on Goody's shoulders that alot of our fortunes will lie. Roos was always about addressing the the bigger picture in the main - culture, playing list etc. In spite of yesterday, and my disagreement with some of what he says and does, he's been a major asset to the club in this regard. He is a proud man, and he will be doing everything in his power to prevent a repeat of last season where performances taper off and nothing is gained. The Carlton game has come at a good time for him and the club. The players need a shot in the arm. A figurative one. Not an Essendon one.

This is the Bulldogs. A team that lost: Their Captain Their CEO Their Coach Their leading midfielder with a season ending injury Shaun Higgins a 30 goal fwd Their longest serving player, Gia No-one wanted to go there, no-one wanted to coach. They were a basket case. Half the players in their team I didn't even recognise their names. What they have done this year is extraordinary. For posters on here to say 'well its the Bullies and they are well ahead of us' and somehow justify this loss as being part of learning curve is simply insane. Why can't we be like that? Why don't we demand that our team performs like that? How is it that Alastair Clarkson assistant coaches can move to clubs and instantly invoke a strong system based style of play? (Wait til Carlton does it under Bolton) Why do we acccept such putrid mediocrity? Why isn't Roos being questioned more? He is not above criticism and for mine he deserves a pasting for the tripe that has at times been dished up this year. This club has got to get tougher at demanding excellence. Yes its partly the cattle but system based football doesn't depend on cattle. Its about effort, running and pressure. I fail to see how some posters can let Roos off with these club killing performances.

Spot on. But they revel in it. The moment things go wrong they splash themselves all over the site with dribble. We need to thank all the gods that the site went down last night as we may have had a few jump off a cliff otherwise.

Look at them come out of the woodwork again. We have too many supporters who love losses like these as they can jump up and down and rant and rave about this and that. Knock yourselves out guys. The game means nothing. We played a side hungry for finals and we literally have nothing to play for. In the context of our season and where we are headed it means nothing. Move on quickly, if you can. You'll feel better.

That pretty much sums it up. The funniest free kick was the one to Garlett I think it was who got a player holding the ball, everyone stopped and about three seconds later the umpire realised it was a free kick and then decided to blow the whistle. How that can happen in professional sports is beyond me.

I see 3 problems from yesterday. First, I feel that the Dogs are coached far better than us. They know where to go and what to do instinctively, while we react. Second, we will always lose when we play poorly skilled players, who continually stuff up disposal. Third, our coaches box let down the team yesterday. When the Dogs got their first 3 goals, we should have thrown in an extra man in defence. We did this after they got 8 goals at about the 29 minute mark of the first quarter and you could then see the change immediately. They stopped the free flowing footy and started going sideways. We caused some turnovers and for about 2 quarters outscored them. Then we go back to normal defence and wham bam and with the help of some pathetic umpiring, they massacre us. On a side issue, I think if you look at the stats over a number of years, the one side that smashes us with the umpires, are the Dogs. It happened again yesterday, for about the 20th time that I can recall, over about the last decade. Of course it didn't affect the win but again yesterday I think they got about 7 goals from frees and 50 metre penalties. They got numerous holding the balls while we couldn't and at one stage as usual the frees were about 17 - 5 their way before we got a few softies, when it was all over, to end up 19-10 against. We clearly do nothing about it. Eddie would be on the front page of the Sun.

You close down Jones and Vince and you close down Melbourne. Hodge gets to have high standards and spray to odd mistake and inert player because they are odd. Can one imagine what Jones would look like if he baked all the mistakes and disinterest from that first half? He would have had a coronary.

Seriously though, how sad is it that this club has turned us against our most committed, hard working player? I hate this club.

Ahhh the second one was clearly Hogan's error but let's just charge it to the whipping boy's account eh It's not saying much but Watts was one of our better players, including a genuine contested mark inside 50 that he went back and drilled with a good kick

I loved Hogan in the middle, that move highlighted his class and I thought Grimes was excellent when he came on. Still not sure why he was the sub in the first place but the most composed I'd seen him for a while.

The last bloke that deserves to be questioned. One of the better leaders in the competition. Just needs help.

Pet hates, Handball to stationary team mate who is about to be tackled. Handball to the feet of a team mate. Kick to the only opposition player in the middle of three teamates. Kick to a cluster of opposition players with no teamates in sight. Giving away soft free kicks inside opposition forward 50. Undisciplined 50 metre penalties. Fix the above and we would have been at least a six goal better side yesterday. Edit : - fix typos

Sacking Roos now will do nothing but put us back another two years. It sucks. We suuck. But ride it out. Because changing the coach won't speed the process up.

No it isn't. We are a 6 and 13 team playing the worst team in the league. Two bad teams playing each other is never a Grand Final. We have much work to do with this list to get a Final let alone a Grand Final. Utter embarrassment is what we would feel if we lose to Carlton this week, that's all.

Team football. We're shithouse at it. That is all.

Another miserable day as a demon supporter, which I do NOT accept or excuse, but I'll have a crack : - For our best 22 we would be looking at Frost, Kent, Pedersen, Petracca, Salem, Trengove, Tyson and Vandenberg. We all know the dead weight that would be ousted for these players. I don't know why some people are claiming we have a had a run-of-the-mill injury list this year, we have been crippled all season. - For some reason we have played 3 fantastic quarters and 5 abysmall ones in the last fortnight. The inconsistency is agonising, but at least we can see that there is a good side buried in there somewhere. - I hate using the umpire defense, but fair dinkum today was one of the worst I've ever seen. They cost us 6 goals at least. - Hogan kicks goals no matter what. - The Dogs are seriously good, they've won 8 of the last 9 and are now 4th on the ladder. I underrated them heavily before today. They were as good as the Hawks today, and ripped us apart with their rebounding, speed of ball movement and punishment of errors in a similar way to when the Hawks smashed us earlier in the year. - We've still won 6, many of them great performances. We could have easily snagged another couple too. As bad as today was, don't go down the path of rewriting history. - We have a chance next week to atone with a very weak opponent.

When Grimes and Trengove were co-captains people were screaming for Jones to have the job. Now he's got it and they question him? He's won the B&F for how many years running? Been the only player who consistently stood up through the worst years in the clubs history, remains among our best midfielders, Puts in a huge amount of work training with the youngsters and setting standards at the club. Of course he's the right man for the job!

Do we have to hear this after every bad loss? It's actually disrespectful to Hogan.

I would hit the absinthe pretty heavily if I were you

WTF did Michie do wrong?

Bit harsh on Michie. He has been one of our best.

The man is already a legend of the club - 3 best and fairest, never injured, kicks crucial captains goals, great mentor to young mids, always at the bottom of a pack. Give him the respect he deserves.

It's all a learning curve. Next season we may try and different tactic and beat them. Or we may beat the Saints twice instead of the other way around. You have to take a macro view not a micro one. At the start of the season most of us said we expected between 6-8 wins. Beat Carlton next week and we are bang on where we expected. Beat GWS and we have doubled last season's win tally. Unfortunately we will see incremental improvements I think. I'm going to go early and say I predict 10-12 wins next season with the possibility of finals depending on injuries, fixture etc.

Don't believe it for a minute. And who is asking for a short term fix? It's been 9 far king seasons. I am asking for people to get angry and demand more from our so called leaders. Let the players know hat is is unacceptable instead of the "side is tired so we'll give them a few days off midweek"

Our grand final, our most important game in a decade, blah, blah, blah. These sort of things have been posted most weeks and they are just so off the mark. It's another game, hopefully we win it but if we don't we move on... Sad as it is, I'm over this season and looking forward to how we set up for next. The only joy I will get for the rest of this year is Geelong missing finals and Hawthorn finishing 3rd.

olisik is a troll don't feed him

Appalling performance, truly woeful. The worst bit really is the third quarter showed what could have happened if we tried harder the rest of the game. We were clearly capable of running, transitioning and scoring, and we were able to stop them doing that too in the third. The fact they scored 24 goals in three quarters is an embarrassment. Doesn't matter who you are or who the opponent is. That's 186-esque. Not a lot of use in singling out players but Lumumba was insipid, must be dropped this week. It's all well and good to defend him by noting he tries to create movement but he's damaging the side while trying it. We'd be better off without his destructiveness.

What frustrates me the most is we have good wins, yet we don't seem to learn from those wins and build on them. Every week it's back to square one.

Their clearance work is great because it relies on not having to think. As soon as they get a good possession they give it off in one of about three directions, where they know a teammate will be. Just get & give, without having to think. They know where each other are without looking, let alone thinking. If they get it to a teammate who's 5 metres away from the stoppage, they're away before the other team works out who's got the ball. Many of their clearances follow this same pattern. We have no idea where our teammates are. So at clearances, one of our guys gets a possession, he's got to look up & find where his teammates are, by which time he's tackled and off balance. The very best teams (Hawks, Freo, WCE and now Dogs) have that kind of system at clearances.

That's unfair though, he didn't miss the target - it was a long handball that arrived at Hogan's knees which cost him a crucial second of breathing space. It wasn't perfect but Hogan should have done better with it. Watts gets graded on the harshest curve.

they aren't even worth criticising anymore

Why lump Grimes in when he was the sub?

I dunno, what gets me is the stark difference between the third quarter and the other three......we actually had them rattled, they couldnt buy a goal...we looked to be playing with so much confidence and aggression......but it disappeared as just as quickly....

Mark Robinson ‏@Robbo_heraldsun Aug 11Sydney, New South Wales @jamesmag23 that's a pretty good reply, James. But to my question, did you get injections in the stomach? Can you answer that? jamesmagner ‏@jamesmag23 Aug 11 @Robbo_heraldsun no Mark Robinson ‏@Robbo_heraldsun Aug 12Sydney, New South Wales @jamesmag23 thanks If you ever needed an example of why Mark Robinson is not a quality journalist, read the above exchange carefully. By asking two questions in his first of the above tweets, he has no way of knowing what James Magner's simple, but clever, reply of "No" actually means. Which question did Magner actually answer? Robinson may have followed up seeking clarification, but if he was doing his job properly in the first place, he wouldn't have to.

Correct Biz! We handball to players too close, under pressure or simply handball poorly. ATM I'd rather see the turnover occur a further 50 metres away and give us some chance of regrouping. ( Or, heaven fordib, even winning the contest 50 metres closer to goal)

But through excessive and unnecessary handballing we more often than not turn the ball over deep in our defence.

Exactly, and it started with applying pressure which is something we didn't do in the other quarters. The thing about pressure is it requires no skill or talent, only effort. The ability of Melbourne players to pick and choose when they make an effort is second to none.

Our teams ability to handball to a stationary target and then let an opponent run past and tackle is second to none. Lay a shepherd Protect the ball carrier Run into space if you want the ball. Basics.

So our star studded backline got: Lumumba 37 dreamteam pts Dunn 39 Garland 43 Grimes 45 Howe 58 Disgraceful, dumb, soft, inept, insipid and frankly useless. McDonald got 126 but caused at least 4 direct goals. 8 goal 1st qtr 10 goal last qtr Its back to square 1 for this bunch of soft hacks. Clean out coming. Lumumba has to be dropped. Cant carry on like this without some consequence.

I've been channel surfing a bit but from what I've seen he's been quite good, running the ball forwards and hitting target, he's a nice kick.