SaberFang

JKH has to start. He's got an energetic flare that we will desperately need in the opening minutes next week. If we have a repeat of tonight's first quarter, no amount of energy you try to inject at half time will make a lick of difference. The players clearly lose interest as soon as they fall too far behind.

If this year we wooden spoon, can't get Dawes on the park, Clark retires, Frawley leaves, and Hogan still hasn't signed by year's end, I'd say we have a strong argument for a priority pick too. Might be a nice parting gift from Demetriou, given the draft tampering for his precious expansion clubs has robbed us of so much talent over the last 6 years (but admittedly our recruitment's been awful regardless of the expansion clubs).

Agreed, no idea why they slow it down. It gave WCE's talls a chance to flood our forward line and make marking (and scoring) impossible. West Coast on the other hand, every time we turned it over, ran straight towards their forward line in waves of 4 or 5 players and were virtually impossible to catch. They converted into goals about 5 times in this manner.

Just gut the team. I don't care anymore. Turf out as many players as possible (maximum delistings is 11 I think?) and start over. Trade out as many as you can for draft picks and start fresh. This might actually work with competent people in charge. Clearly the disastrous recruitment of the last 6 years has put us in an untenable position. We will not survive 3 more years of this. Mark my words.

This umpiring is absolute [censored] horseshit.

Got a sneaky feeling Vince will burst out of the middle and kick a goal right out of the gate.

Anyone hear PJ on the radio just then? Kept referring to the "5 year plan" with Roosy which Caro picked up on. When pressed, he became very evasive and denied he ever said anything about it. Also said the club's plan is to hire a young assistant coach (when asked if we'd go after Bomber Thompson).

"Last roll of the dice. " Bruce [censored] McAvaney. He needs to be muted.

I know it'll be a long two months but let's just think of everything up until round 10 as training for our midfield group to gel with each other. Bythen we bloody well should have most of our talls back and we can start looking at the scoreboard.

I wouldn't mind either if we see some really shocking turnovers that result in West Coast goals, if our players are trying to get creative. It shows they're trying new things and thinking outside the box, which is a trait we've lacked for many a year. Yes, Frawley fumbled that crucial handball last week that resulted in a Saints goal and gave them all the momentum, but it was great to see our backs heading forward and trying to compensate for our lack of talls.

I don't mind if we lose this one but it would be great to see the team highly defensive and keeping the scores within thirty points. That would be a fantastic result. While we have no tall forwards there's no reason our back line and midfield can't defend well and stop West Coast from piling on a huge lead. As Vince, Howe and Roos have all said, we need to lower our eyes to score this week. We can't beat their talls but we have evasive small blokes that can be fast and hopefully find space. Some accuracy from goal kicking mids wouldn't hurt either. Vince is a classy kick from a distance, last week just wasn't his week.

Nice theory, but the West Coast of 2014 is leagues ahead of the West Coast of 2013. They were crippled by season long injuries last year, just as we seem destined to be this year.

I saw them training from afar at about 10.30am but couldn't tell you any specifics.

Thank God for Roos at least. He will understand the exact perfect position for all our players the more he sees them play and their style of football.

It's where our horrible recruitment for 7 years has come to kill off any short term success now. Even the most basic AFL team has some depth if their best players go down. The cupboards are bare at the Dees and we have nothing but spuds. You could keep our twenty best and start from scratch with the rest and we'd still probably find success faster. We clearly can't rely on our 'senior' players Pederson and Byrnes to take up the mantle. What a depressing sight that must be on the field for the playing group. I would've felt more comfortable with Nicholson out there Saturday, at least he has speed and could have found space (we needed speedy free targets in the forward 50 but spent so bloody long kicking backwards the Saints flooded our forward fifty and made it impossible to target any small players). We will go down as a prime example of how a compromised draft at the expense of expansion teams can bring struggling clubs to the brink. Not that it stopped Port Adelaide from finding success, mainly because they didn't have idiots running their club for years on end.

The playing group will continue to spiral down into a black hole if we can't pull off a win. That's my biggest fear now. The scars must be deeper than even Roos is letting on, and Jonesy's reaction to the loss was pretty telling. It was genuine, heartfelt hurt. I've never seen him so dejected, and that he was so dismissive of all the clear progress (yeah, we lost, but the signs of improvement are there -- hardly a "couldn't have gone worse" result) just shows the mental conditioning these players now have. They expect nothing of themselves.

Great to scout out the talent (there's lots in the WAFL), but IMHO we're in a rebuild of a rebuild of a rebuild and this club won't survive 3 or 4 more years if we throw our hope behind young players. If nothing else, we'll struggle to re-sign any draftees that turn out to be superstars if we aren't winning anything. I've decided what I want at the end of this year is auctioning off our draft picks for already established, experienced AFL players. We desperately need to get as much talent from other top 8 teams as we can. If we can't win more than 4 games this year Frawley's gone and we'll probably have two top 5 draft picks, so throw them at other clubs and recruit established but upcoming stars (thanks GWS) that have been in the system already. Our list has zero depth and the key players we need fit just can't get there. The best thing to happen thus far with Roos' was his recruitment of senior players (not the idiots Neeld has ruined us with). Cross, Tyson & Vince have been an instant success and another 5-6 at the end of this year will help enormously. I'm sure working out a trade for Shuey is high on his agenda, and securing at least another 3 midfielders to improve our depth. That said, Michie I think will turn out great and Georgiou has been fantastic. So there's definitely gems out there in the various leagues that are already senior players, and would be very handy pickups at this stage.

Rumours based on what? I'd heard there might have been a few assimilation issues last year with his teammates, but Bernie's taken quite a liking to him so he can't be all that bad. It could just be a pessimistic attitude to his life at the MFC so far. It's probably a big part of what Roos is trying to fix.

FFS just go out and get 3 new key forwards at the end of this season. Sick of this crap. We have to assume Clark and Dawes won't play meaningful football this year, and as a result of so few wins for the MFC, Hogan will be jumping ship at the first opportunity.

Any chance Jordie might play this weekend? Just saw him having lunch with big Spencer! Another one Roos is trying to protect from AFL level footy until the develop?

Jones was definitely advertised to be on. Possibly pulled the pin after the loss.

What happened?

Realistically who do you think Roos will actually drop? He has stated repeatedly that he wants men in his team and not kids.

Except he's been putting up with this [censored] for 7 years. I wouldn't have a bar of it either. The atrocious turnovers are the reason we lost.Grimes is not up to scratch and the quicker he's dropped from the side the quicker he might shape up and learn to play basic footy.

That's 3 turnovers for Grimes. Really disappointing.