SaberFang

Wow, Carlton are an abomination. Makes our effort v Sydney look classy! Bodes well for us vs. the Bulldogs if Carlton beat them.

Well what happened to Gold Coast when Campbell Brown was wiped off their list for that punching incident? Or for Port with John McCarthy after his tragic death in Las Vegas? Let's put this in perspective guys. And it's irrelevant anyway. Once Hogan comes back, Georgiou can remain on the senior list via Trengove's LTI spot, and Jetta can be elevated mid-year due to the rookie elevation policy. Harmes and King will remain rookies.

Does seem a bit suss that Demetriou pulled the trigger right at the end of the Essendrug scandal. Sounds like that could reach a climax in June/July right as Demetriou's out of the picture,

Geez, loving the optimism here! Club does the right thing by sending him home to a familiar and safe environment to help boost the kid's morale, and we're on the club's back like a bucket of leeches. GWS sent Patton home to Rowville while his shoulder healed. This is perfectly normal behaviour for a football club.

So theoretically once Hogan's right, Jetta gets dropped back to rookie?

Yes but don't get your hopes up.

Two games.

The obvious ace up our sleeve is that we are the MELBOURNE Demons, and I can't see any scenario where the AFL would have 18 teams without one named after the city where the game began. We're also the oldest and founding club of the game. So I'd be a lot more nervous if I were a Saints, Bulldogs or Norf supporter. And who knows what'll happen to Essendon?

I think it'll work out okay. It's in his interests (from a broadcasters point of view) to get every team as competitive as possible. Broadcasters hate paying money for [censored] quality matches, likely explaining his support of a priority pick last year. He's focused on keeping his clients happy and it'll be even more of an issue going into next year's rights negotiations. The better Melbourne are playing ASAP the happier the broadcasters and the higher the AFL's asking price. If we're still losing every game next year in the midst of negotiating the rights, it makes it harder for the AFL to justify their asking price. Given he handled the last broadcast rights I'm confident this would be at the front of his mind. Better teams, better games, better product.

Maybe the year after next but there's a lot of water to pass under the bridge in his life before it would even be considered a possibility in his own mind. It will be interesting to see where he decides to settle with his wife after their marriage this October. Who knows what might transpire once he gets wedded.

Clearly the defensive side needs to improve before we focus on offense. Remember Freo were a basket case when Ross Lyon took over for a full season, because his game plan took a while to implement. When it finally clicked, they began suffocating teams. I don't care if we play ugly football, a win is a win, and we're overdue for some luck.

We can dream, can't we?

The Swan comparison is unfair because he didn't really spend so many years in a toxic culture under a succession of coaches.

They have Boyd to fill the void. Well who knows, maybe Patton will want to come back home. I ran into him plenty of times in Melbourne over the last two years during the season (while he was injured), so the club didn't even force him to stay up in Sydney during recovery. And the fact is they'll have to start offering low ball contracts to all their players showing potential, while player managers start asking for offers from other clubs. We will have more salary cap space this year than any other team in the league.

Patton, Dawes and Hogan.. now there's a forward line the rest of the competition would [censored] their pants over.

I don't really want us to go up against an in form TeX Walker, because they'll probably slaughter us. But it'd be damn interesting to watch him going up against Vince (albeit in the midfield). Robbo last night said they should play TeX because we will be a "soft kill". Hope that rustles the boys feathers somewhat and they come out hard like they did against Sydney. Hard contested football, show them we're not the easy beats anymore.

You mean like JKH's first career goal vs West Coast? Clearly the players had a stern talking to by the coaching group after that disgusting oversight. Remnants of the shithouse culture we've had for years.

Because he got concussed last week, didn't perform yesterday, and was mismanaged badly last year (like every other high potential draft pick we've gotten in the last 5 years).

Not an ounce of laziness in any of the recruits we've gotten this year. That's one thread they all have in common. Expect 7 or 8 more just like it at the end of the year.

Today I'm confident the players would have discussed this at length in the match review. Roos said a few weeks back he actually stands back and lets the leadership group run the review, pointing out good and bad plays. I'm sure it would've all been constructive criticism with a fair dose of reality check for Watts. He's not only letting the team down but he's letting down himself with the talent he has. Unlike Neeld, Roos is a coach who can get that into the psyche of a player and get results. He knows Watts is a project player, but would be disappointed he's going backwards every week.

Roos said Garland's injury wasn't too serious in his presser today. I'm still hopeful Riley gets in but it sounds like nobody impressed yesterday. Toump is probably still suffering side effects from his concussion.

Gosh watching that press conference in full reminds me how lucky we are to have this man as our coach. Inspiring, empathetic, encouraging, knowledgeable, straightforward and realistic.

Where's Marshmellow Franklin's fine for staging? Pathetic.

For all we know, Hogan insisted on being played despite knowing he wasn't 100 per cent. It's a symptomatic injury so medical probably relied on his word. If he voiced concern of any sort, they wouldn't have played him. Anyway, we've been patient enough thus far. If we have to wait until next season to see him, so be it. If we continue to be supportive and caring throughout this period, he will hopefully feel somewhat indebted to showing us a commitment in return for our patience.

The best hope for us this year is for GWS to remain a bottom feeder club that we can keep taking developed players from. They seem happy enough to keep taking our high draft picks and topping up their future super stars via the draft, in exchange for losing some of their better players. Pick 3 (Frawley compo) for Shiel please. Trade our pick 2 for another developed player + lower first rounder, ala last year with Tyson.