DistrACTION Jackson

I think over-use is a symptom of the players not being fully engrained with the system. Over time they will become better and better and we will find we start to dominate teams in the middle. We have some very good young ball winners in Viney, Tyson and Brayshaw.

Best players are Hogan, Brayshaw, Viney- we just need to keep turning over the old heads until the old heads are those three. Maybe then we will challenge for a flag or at least a final!

If we can get a first rounder off GWS at the end of the year for Howe I'd take it!

Haha we need something to get us through the cold winter months!

2017 Side: B: Jetta T-Mac Lumumba HB: Salem O-Mac Frost C: Toumpas Jones Stretch HF: Petracca Hogan Viney F: Garlett King Kent R: Gawn Tyson Brayshaw Int: Watts Neal-Bullen Vandenberg JKH That team is not taking into account any draft picks or trades in the 2 years. Plus we also have guys like Howe, Garland, Dunn, M. White, Dawes, Michie, Trengove. Good to feel we are on the right track.

Seeing as we beat them Round 1 maybe they learnt off us? Sides go up and down during the season due to many factors- increased/decreased training loads, all players playing their role/some off some on etc. We've had very good games and very poor games same as GC, same as Freo, same as every side. I think some people get a bit carried away sometimes.

I wonder if Barlow would be gettable. He seems to be out of favour as a pure mid and is being played of a HFF. Could do with him running through the middle!

Great to see King's form has continued in the seniors!

Seems like one of those fickle injuries where you can't be too cautious. Better to get him right for a long career with the Dees!

Yeah I really liked this. Missed the shot but then gut run to make sure he impacted the next contest. With Brayshaw, Viney, Tyson, Petracca and Vandenberg plus cameos from Salem, Toumpas, Garlett I am very comfortable with where our midfield is headed. Obviously helped by Jones, Vince and Cross.

I think he is more interested in running businesses than coaching.

Would be pretty happy to add Francis to our forward line if he is there at our first pick.

nice to see someone build for a debut rather than get gifted it

I think it's a teething issue. Try and attack more and the defence drops, try and defend more and the attack level drops. Some games we get it right and we have won those games. Again, I'm not happy with where we are at as a club but it's definitely not Roos' doing and PR and PJ have definitely improved the club in more ways than one.

Ok, but say we kept Neeld would we have attracted those players? And who is to say the improvement hasn't come from coaching. I am definitely not happy with some of the performances but there is definite improvement from 2 years ago. Another factor I think that hasn't been touched on is the fact that this season we are trying to be a lot more attacking, whereas last season we were completely defensive. I think this has contributed to our wins being quite comprehensive (GC- 25 points, Tigers- 32 and Dogs- 39), but has also contributed to a few beltings. Last season we pretty much fell over the line in our 4 wins, this year we have comprehensively beaten sides.

I agree. But the other side of the coin is that we are literally coming from nowhere. We were so ridiculously bad under Neeld it is amazing an AFL club could get to that position. What the stats do show is that we are more than competitive in a number of games, but yes we have had some really poor games against the best sides which we need to change. But I read people saying that the Saints have gone past us etc. when actually we will likely finish higher than them by the end of this season. We definitely need to continue to move on certain players but we also have to be careful we don't get to the point where we have only young kids. More smart drafting and trading will be needed for us to become more competitive.

With all this pessimisim about I thought I'd put things in perspective. I had a look at the difficulty of each side in the bottom 5's draw over the first 9 rounds. I ranked each team based on ladder position as at the end of the regular season in 2014- 1st is 18 points down to 18th getting 1 point. Results are as follows: 14- St Kilda 3 wins / 6 losses / 82% / Draw difficulty: 63 15- Melbourne 3 wins / 6 losses / 72% / Draw difficulty: 99 16- Brisbane 2 wins / 7 losses / 67% / Draw difficulty: 82 17- Gold Coast 1 win / 8 losses / 67% / Draw Difficulty: 70 18- Carlton 1 win / 8 losses / 63% / Draw difficulty: 83 As you can see we have easily had the toughest draw with the Saints having a very easy draw to start the season. Hopefully this relieves some of your stress knowing we are definitely on the right track. I'm predicting 7 wins for the seasons.

I would happily take a first round pick for Howe. Could bring in a good young mid for that.

Opening your cheque book and giving up everything for a player doesn't work. The Blues tried it with Judd and it netted them a couple of finals appearance and now on the back end a whole lot of pain on the way. We would have one gun player but miss out on a number of other options, in the end building a side that is unable to challenge for a flag but can finish in the lower half of the 4. The only way to build a premiership side is to draft well and trade smart. Roos knows this so I'm confident he will bring in more talent this off season but no way will he give up everything for one player.

Our first pick will likely be sitting around number 5 which I'd be more than happy to trade for Coniglio. Isn't he good mates with Tyson as well?

I think he is just speaking in general. If Lovett slides to our last pick we would probably take a punt I'd imagine. I don't mind the new system as I think most times it won't affect the side drafting that much.

A couple more wins in the next few weeks would see us pass 36K one would think. Lets hope we can get a win against the struggling Power!

Love the Bugler playing when we have won! I couldn't make the game on Sunday but caught the last qtr and a half and could hear him on TV. Awesome! Just picture this...... it's GF day and the dees have just kicked a goal to go up by 35 points at the 22 minute mark of the last quarter. Enter the bugler playing the grand old flag.... That would be the greatest day of my life (sorry to my wife).

They went with O'Rourke over Toumpas so I don't think that is 100% correct as he seems a similar sort of player. If they were simply drafting for competitiveness they would've taken Wines. I think Toumpas will have a strong second half to this season which he can build on to really come on next year, which is perfectly fine as he is still only 21.

Definitely not going to get carried away but very happy he played well. I think with another pre season he may start to get that speed back that he seemed to have lost due to the hip surgery. I still have a feeling he will turn out to be a solid AFL wing/half forward who can also have stints in the middle.