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True, but he was the first English Captain to tour Australia!

I am really looking forward to seeing BBB line up for us at FF, how good will it be to see a genuine quality FF lining up for us, it has been such a long time in coming can you just imagine the excitement when he kicks his first bag of 5 goals at the “G” we will be delirious.!!!!!!

Is there an echo in here?

That claim may raise the hackles of some resident DL sandgroper anglophiles demonstone. Believe Captain William Dampier's party toured the West the previous century. Apparently not as controversial as bodyline but he did let a few bumpers go.

You're probably reading a bit too much into it at the moment. It's more likely the club realised the lack of experience in the FD. ...and remember, we were after Yze last year when there were no recent events. So he came on board as his contract ended with the Hawks. Williams for mine replaces Macca albeit a year too late as an experienced developer and mentor of players.

Might 58er be thinking of Lucas Cook?

I once asked that the Club stop sending a scarf with my membership pack but to send me current year cloth badge instead. Then I would be able to sew this onto my scarf. Thought it would look really cool to have years and years of membership on the one item and would eliminate the issue of too many scarves, too much waste.

When BBB was at North and producing some great footy kicking multiple goals I was thinking this is someone that would be good to have being tall and hard to match up against. Going back as far as 2014. However one player that l would hope be injured was BBB when playing North. Never in my wildest dreams thought that we could get him at our club. . I wait for the day that he runs out with the Dees as well DZ that is a thrill for me. I rate him highly.

I agree with all on the site, I believe that our top 15 players including B.B. can match it with any team, so providing these top line players hold form and continue to improve we are well on the way to finals. However if we are to really rocket back up the ladder our top liners really need a lot of support from our next 10-12 best players to step up and cement a place in our best 22. i am looking forward to seeing Baker, Sparrow, Jordon, Jackson, Kozzie, Rivers, Bedford, Melksnham, Harmes, ANB, Bowey, Laurie, Rosman & Nietzsche buy in and push really hard to make us a much, much, better team. I know that it is a big ask but these are the young men that will help our guns decide our immediate and long term future.

If he's good enough, he's good enough and if not, he won't get picked up by Melbourne. Don't forget that none of the 18 clubs were impressed enough to draft him when they all had the opportunity. The fact that he's Jeff Farmer's son is completely irrelevant and doesn't justify blind optimism.

He needs to do more when he gets the football, IMO he just lacks X factor. He works hard defensively inside forward 50 and applies pressure with tackles (which need to stick more). IMO he's just like 50 other players, nothing really stands out, which is needed at Kobe's size. So he needs to either build strength/power and become a pressure forward who causes chaos with turnovers or start to really hurt opponents on the scoreboard I basically think his skills are average and need to be pushing elite with his size

I got a blanket made up last year and it's great. It's a lot heavier and warmer than I thought it would be so it's great in winter. With all the different lengths, widths, styles and colours we've had over the years it's a bit of a hodgepodge which I like

Well when we got cook neitz was moved to centre half back, after cook was injured neitz was moved to full forward.

No worries DZ. Hopefully a bit less venom than regular game day :p

Enjoying the commentary on here fellas, keep it up...it’s like Game Day in Jan. Hope they hang on for ya @Gorgoroth

You obviously don't know which james cook their talking about, cook played at the Carlton 25 games then traded to dogs for 49 games, he was delisted by the dogs after kicking 32 goals from 19 games, Melbourne then picked him up in the 1999 preseason draft, he kick 2 goals in his first game 6 in his second, hurt his ankle in his third game, he got really fat and and out of shape, to a point that the club never played him again. He played 77 games for 139 goals.

And Ill join you DubDee in the fantasy stakes Rosman Will be better than Isaac Smith because he is about 3 com taller!! Seriously I think this bloke will be a huge X factor on a wing or up forward or wherever ! And BTW It's Time Tommo yes wasn't great on a wing but we prob didn't make it easy for him like GWS. I thought his switch to CHB a good success and believe he will be a very versatile foot soldier for us over the journey being able To play in many positions and be a solid contributor in most.

Why because he's the Wiz's kid Have you seen him play I have and there's a reason he wasn't drafted Long shot but sometimes fairytales become reality

To put this into perspective, you have to keep in mind that this poster also insists that Trump won the election, COVID-19 is a hoax/no worse than the flu and that there was no riot at the Capitol building this week. That's not "higher plane". That's a plane that lacks a pilot and has never got off the ground.

1. Clarry – figure out how to harness his full potential and get him working in tandem with the rest of the midfield unit and we’re well on our way 2. BB – kicks the goals. If he can win the Coleman we finish top 4 3. Weid – takes his marks and contributes 35-45 goals 4. Trac – aim for Dusty level 5. Melks – somehow rekindle 2018 form and provide the supply to BB/Weid Honorable mention: Lever – freed up to assume intercept role. Hoping for a Top 5 B&F placing Fritsch – finds his kicking boots Brayshaw – 2018 version please

1. Harmes - Was a damaging weapon with his ability to shut down the oppositions premier ball winners and hurt them the other way. Has the ability to hit the scoreboard and seems to be lost in the back half. Perhaps a return to a mid/forward role will be the catalyst required to return to form. 2. Wiedeman - The time is now for the weed to impose himself in the forward half and become a consistent threat. With Brown taking the number 1 mantle and defender, conditions are primed for him to cause headaches for opposition. 3. Brayshaw - We've all seen him at his best and want him to return to that form as soon as possible. Delayed start to pre-season with a foot injury so has a bit of work to do to catch up. Time for him to stamp himself as a starting centre square mid or at least in the first rotation. 4. Petty - Have high hopes for him as a key position player and suspect he will he more suited to the backline. Only had the few games to show his wares but displayed great hands and reading of the play. I believe he would suit as the second key back position allowing lever to zone off more and enable him to play his intercepting game more effectively. Has shown he is capable of holding his own and providing a target in the forward half. 5. Rivers - Love the kid and was stoked he slide through to us on draft night. Will be vital in the back half as our defence unit goes through a small transition period with the likes of Jetta and Hibberd moving into the end stages of their career. Apologies to T-Mac, Lever, Pickett, Sparrow and a more accurate Fritsch. Players like Gawn, Oliver, Petracca Langdon and May are crucial to our performance and I have high expectations for them to perform regularly.

Clarry __can take the next level by being more penetrating by foot. Maysie __ To follow up where he left from in 2020 He was superb. Jackson-- showed with a hand full of games he has what it takes to make the grade. Ben Brown -- is a vital piece and chomping at the bit. He will show why. Rivers -- 9 games under his belt plays like a 100 gamer. Amazing.

Our bottom 5 whoever they may be need to improve and make us a good all round team. No use having our better players dominate when bottom 5 or so do nothing. That is where we move to a to 4 side

Ben seems like a nice guy. He seems to want to develop relationships which is indication of a good team member. Fingers crossed that he can restart his career with the dees and provide support to the younger players. My new favorite behind Angus.

Get on board Brown for the 2021 Coleman medal. With a full 22 rounds and fitness , he will be a 70ish goal a season man.

Yep, good stubborn defense. Got too carried away with the potential $$ Gorg!

100% I'd be perfectly ok with that. Watt is great but there's no chance in hell he's been better. The work Donald does and the stuff he has to put up with on the line while doing it is crazy. He's just one of the true great football players. Textbook statement but it's true.

Alright! Time to put a massive SGM on the Bucs. Theres points to be scored! Antonio Brown 3 TDs. Sorry getting ahead of myself

This is a shambles. Where the [censored] is the run off???

Metcalf hits back at his coach with TD. Btw someone should remind him with no fans, we hear everything on the sidelines..

Hope these two teams just knock each other out :p But seriously what a pick 6 that was. 4 WR set and bam. When you pick Wilson off, you've usually done something pretty impressive.

Wolford cops big hit that jams his neck back into his body after starting very well, 5 to go in the first and looks like Goff is playing. Doubt he takes much under centre with that thumb.

Lever May Smith Rivers Petty Salem Langdon Petracca Harmes Laurie Weid Melksham Fritsch Brown Pickett Gawn Oliver Viney Bowey Jackson Brayshaw Hunt Tmac Jordon Hibberd

I'm in the boat and have voiced this quite strongly that I would only want him on the list if he's got the talent to contribute strongly in the future and not based on name. The fact some on here want him on the list purely on name shows exactly where the mentality we are as supporters and that's accepting mediocrity far too easily. In your time of watching him @Pennant St Dee what are the things he needs to work on from your point of view?

I can't take seriously any teams posted that include Baker, Smith, Lockhart, or Hore. At best they're VFL quality players.

The one good thing to come out of this crazy episode is that Trump has alienated a lot of his enablers and poisoned any chance of winning the 2024 republican nomination. Lyndsay Graham, William Barr and Mitch McConnell have all turned against him. His treatment of Pence has been disgraceful. When the pressure came on, Pence acted constitutionally. He’s the early front runner for the 2024 nomination. And another good thing is that Ted Cruz has tarnished his credentials irredeemably with his shenanigans in the senate. That guy is as dangerous as Trump!

To say the coach doesn’t win matches is ludicrous in the extreme. Are we saying that Roos didn’t mastermind Sydney’s rise or Blight didn’t win Adelaide a flag or Beveridge get the Doggies over the line. Clarkson says hi in 08. Some clown just wrote a thesis trying to say a coach isn’t important. A coach is paramount to success...period

The AFLPA was the worst thing to happen to footy. They are nothing but lazy primadonnas these days. No surprise that Dangerfield is their president.

Good lord jimmy, you seem not to have understood what I have said at all. Perhaps I was unclear, so i'll give it another go. 1. I just don't see how this theory can be correlated with our current state as a footy side. The theory is that the evidence suggests the coach does not play a very big factor in making a great team. Which to be clear, is not to say the coach is not important - the role of the senior coach in an AFL tis critical. But players make great sides, not coaches. And i don't need Sam Walker to tell me that. I have 40 odd years of watching the dees fail under some pretty good coaches (Barrasi says hi) and other teams win flags (Scott says hi) to come to the same conclusion . 2. The players aren't ready to perform consistently due to a variety of reasons. Sure, but at the end of the day they are professionals and just like i am responsible for my performance at work, not my boss, so are they. Once a game starts the buck stops with them not the coach. That said, I noted the coach is responsible for motivation and creating the optimal environment and of selecting the right players. And in response to you critique that 'I missed out' key responsibilities, also noted that it goes without saying that developing and implementing the game plan is a key responsibility of a senior coach. 3. You speak about it in such simple terms. Really? I wouldn't have thought so, but maybe I need to simplify things even more given it appears you've misunderstood what i wrote. 4. Using your example of the two games that in your view were the reason we didn't play finals last year, your diagnosis is that the players simply didn't 'turn up'..?! Where did I say those two games were the reason we didn't play finals last year? I mean, I might have at the time, given losing those two games were in fact the reason we didn't play finals (personally I think the dogs game was the killer), but not in this thread. And why are you using quotes around the phrase 'turn up'? Are you quoting me? If so, i'm not sure why given I never wrote those words. Perhaps they were paraphrasing quotes, if there is such a thing. If so, still wrong, given my 'diagnosis' for the two losses in Cairns was not 'the players simply didn't turn up'. What I did say was that the players were clearly not switched on. That is on them as pros. Unforgivable. Particularly the second game. But sure let them off the hook and blame Goody. I'm sure the players would love that. Or at least some. Steve may not so much. But the players not being ready to play a season defining game was not the only 'diagnosis' for losing those games. I also said the players were simply too lazy to stop Freo's spread, just as they were against the dogs, and against the Swans they played stupid football in the wet and windy conditions. I also noted that once a game starts it is 95%, maybe more, on the players. Sure that is subjective, but I stand by it and I'm glad to have Sir Alex Ferguson (and any number of other coaching luminaries) in my corner on that. And by the by the other 5% provides plenty of scope for the coach to be the reason a team losses a given game. 5. It's far more nuanced. Good to know, i'll factor that into my analysis of footy from now on. 6. Just as it was when we consistently played an underdeveloped and underperforming Oscar McDonald for the amount of time we did in our side. These things fall on Goodwin. Selection, gameplan, connection, player positions, gameday strategy, messaging, communication etc etc. You seem not to be able to let Omac go. Touching. I totally agree that selection, game plan, connection, player positions, gameday strategy, messaging, communication etc fall on Goodwin as coach. But not being facetious here (i promise) - it would be too simple to say it falls totally on him (noting that you didn't say that). There are many other pieces of the puzzle and other people who have key responsibilities, which is why we have spent big on getting people like yze to the club. 7. Honestly, use google to find the evidence binman. It's there. And if you didn't hear it, then maybe you don't watch enough football. People from Ross Lyon to Jason Dunstall and many in between have made comment on how easy we are to play against. What is this business about evidence of people saying we are easy to play against? You're right, there's probably plenty of examples to back up that argument. But that is not the the assertion I asked for evidence of. Your assertion I asked you to provide some evidence for was (my emphasis): 'there are many footy experts both in the media and or who work within the AFL who know full well that Goodwin's shortcomings as a coach in a variety of areas are the main contributing factor as to why we are a middle of the road side right now'. And, no i won't do the work to find the evidence. You can do that. 8. A head coach takes full responsibility for moulding a team over a period of time to play a certain way. He/she might well do and as Old Dee noted the buck stops with the head coach. Which is why, historically they get sacked when success doesn't come (by the by this seems to be shifting somewhat - Hardwick being the obvious example - as AFL clubs start to realise the coach isn't the key factor at play). But whilst they might take full responsibility, they are not in fact fully responsible for moulding a team over a period of time to play a certain way. Sure they are the most important element but as I noted there are many other pieces of the puzzle. For example Jennings had fair bit of responsibility for our game plan up to the end of 2018, McCartney was critical in terms of instilling a certain approach and guys like Yze and Williams will have similar responsibilities. 9. He has been too slow to make change to the list in general, positional change and change in the way play. I agree that under goody (and Roos) the club has recruited too many similar type players - contested ball winners. And that we have not recruited enough outside players or elite kicks. That's not all on him - again there is a team behind such decisions but he sets the agenda no doubt. But collectively they brought in Lever and May to address the defensive weaknesses you highlighted and last year recruited Langdon to fill a glaring gap. May and Langdon are probably in the top 10 players we have recruited in the last 50 years in terms of impact. And they went outside the square in selecting Kozzie and Jackson, two players with x fact that are a million miles from the glass eaters they have previously recruited. And in Rivers they have look to address the need for elite kicks, something they have continued to focus on this season with Bowey and Laurie. Rosman is another x factor selection and Brown represents another pretty big change to the list given it signaled Tmac was unwanted. So in the last two years, half of his time as coach, Goody has hardly been slow to make changes to the list. As for being slow to make positional changes and changes to the way play are we watching the same team? I mean seriously, it is actually quite remarkable how much our game style (not the fundamentals) has changed since Goody started coaching us. To be honest if you can't see that i can't be bothered pointing out how. But the players we have recruited give a clue, as does the scores we concede, how much we now score and our scoring to possession ratio, amongst a myriad of other indictors. And slow to make positional changes? Perhaps you mean positional changes during games. If so, then it is true he doesn't make many but it is really a subjective thing as to whether this is a bad thing or not. But if you mean playing players in different positions week to week, he has been anything but slow to try different options. Tmac from back to forward, Petty from back to forward, Gus from the center to the wing (and back), Jones all over the shop, Harmes mid/tagger/half back, Smith forward/back, Weed as back up ruck in 2018 and then not again, etc etc. 10. We've been losing in an almost identical manner for three years now under Goodwin, No we haven't. Goody has coached for four seasons. In 2017 and up to about the mid point of the 2018 season the common dominator of our losses was the best teams opening up and hurting us on the rebound by punishing us for our super aggressive high press and [censored] foots skills. We ran up big scores against the mid rung teams but the best teams not only beat us they did so by 5 or six goals. We then made significant changes to our game plan, stopped being so aggressive with our press and stopped running players of the half back line. From that point to the end of the 2018 season we became the hardest team to score against in the league. And in 2019 and 2020 we remained pretty hard to score against, which is reflected in the fact we have less blow outs (even in 2019 when we had so many injuries). Another difference to the way we have lost in the four seasons Goody has been coaching is that a factor in our losses in 2019 and 2020 has been our woeful inside 50 to scoring ratio. That was not such an issue in 2017 and 2018, when we were much more efficient, a fact reflected in our high scoring. So no, we haven't been losing in an almost identical manner under Goodwin, unless you mean the opposition has scored more than us in those losses, which if the case is an issue we have struggled with for 165 years. What i would say is there is certainly repeating themes about our losses (and many of our wins for that matter). Probably one theme that has been there throughout Goody's tenure is our propensity to give up runs of unanswered goals. And i would argue another consistent theme in our losses is too many lazy players who don't put in the required effort. Other themes include turning the ball over too much, gifting easy goals to the opposition and failing to hit targets inside 50. The other obvious theme in 2019 and 2020 is so much effort for so little reward. To be clear as senior coach Goody has a responsibility to address all these weakness and you could argue his game plan might magnify them. By the same token the player have to take level of responsibility and once the game starts most of the responsibility.

Now that's a creed!

The meaning is clear. We're going to push the envelope next season.

Nice work Hardtack!

Here’s hoping

Not sure how anyone could be negative about this trade. Brown is the most productive forward we've had since Neitz, and we essentially traded him in for a pick in the 30s. We basically traded Preuss (a 25 year old ruckman played 10 games) for Brown (a 27 year old key forward played 130 games for 287 goals). Even if Brown goes at 50% of his peak output, he'd still be our leading goal kicker! On paper, it's possibly the best trade the club has done this century. F*cking stoked we pulled it off!