Delusional demon 82

The sadder part about it is that it was written with purposeful intent for the mainstream footy public either to 1. appeal to deluded essendrug supporters who still somehow feel agrrevied by a supposedly unjust outcome from this whole saga or 2. as sensationalistic garbarge to antagonise oposition supporters. All in the name of selling papers. And I thought the soccer tabloids in the UK were bad... an absolute rubbish piece of writing robbo! Wish they would just publish sections of the CAS finding day by day to tell it as it really is...unedited and impartial. Even then some people would still think it's ok for him to keep it...

And then you have no more derwayne ...brilliant

Seriously, the game is 2 months away and we're are already trying to psych ourselves out of it. There is no reason for negativity in February. This anxiety around melb dropping games it should win is at the heart of our mindset problems as a club and a supporter base and is both infectious and paralysing. I've been just as guilty of this kind of thinking before. The facts are we have everything to be positive about this season and they have everything to be concerned about. If the players bring the required effort then on ability we will win and win easily. But we fear the players won't turn up or we worry about what might happen if we should lose, we don't want to seem confident or positive and fear the embarrassment if we lose and look stupid... and so it becomes a self fulfiling prophesy. I'm not saying we should be more arrogant , but just back ourselves in and let the confidence build with an exciting young side. I'm too young to know but I doubt this kind of thinking would have existed in the swooper northey days

Does he think Essendon is the new Richmond? (9th)

Like seriously put away a side that we are supposed to ....then the last time i can think of was Carlton in 2004 beating them by over 100 points . Hope we one day rediscover that kind of winning mentality, hopefully in Rd 2

Oh oh... he's been out drinking with robbo again

Wow....and I thought I was delusional. Is this some sort of afl scam to make sure essendrug supporters take an interest in the season?

Spot on, all summer it's been cats, hawks and pies (I know they have been successful and well suported and that drives the demand) .... but you'd think the one day they allocate the dees they would put some proper thought into it or at least ask a melb supporter instead of a computer generated random selection from the past 10 years. And they do actually have our finals wins from 87 and 98 they've definitely shown some of them before Bottom line is that until we win a flag we won't earn the respect of the wider football public and media

Shame there is not anything from 2000 finals series, haven't been able to watch the norf prelim in years since I retired my vhs and it's not on you tube either. That 2nd quarter was the best. Would prefer if they showed more games from 10-15 years back , by the looks of it they haven't thought too hard for us as the other clubs have a much better selection and go back some years .

Bring back Wayne, and it will put a bit more humour back into Brownlow night.... "Essendon ...Blake Carraa-chella... 1 vote"

Love the way the article refers to " lowly melbourne ".... Some people in the media seem to forget that we actually finished above both essendon and St kilda last year. Didn't think we could still be as low as essendon is now....

Dream result would be 148 points ... 3 years on from R2 2013 and atone for that humiliation. Unfortunately won't happen even if we get on top early this side doesn't have the mindset yet to annihilate an opposition side when they're on their knees...

I can safely say this sorry saga is now more fu@#ed up than "derwayne" winning best commentator last year...bring on Rd 2

Sounds a bit like the Terry Wallace 5 year plan at Richmond. I'm sure they'd be happy with that 90 year premiership window . ..

Nahas and Thomas got a couple of junk time goals when the game was over... I remember being annoyned as apart from the opening quarter we had played well and the final margin seroously flattered them and those two were snapping goals out of their ar $es Really need to beat norf and the saints this year ..the 10 year winless streak against them is appalling... I can kind of understand the poor record against the Hawks but the other two records are embarrassing...

There would be a sense of irony if Sam W debuted on queens birthday ... However that never really played out the best for Jack watts. I wouldn't put it past the filth to target him with a special welcome to afl footy greeting... hopefully Viney is on the park

Great ruck work from the ox there! Surprised there wasn't more crow players tracking back... he had acres of space with only 10 seconds left .

Have never gone as nuts in a final quarter as I did that match... probably my best match day experience. But in terms of home and away only for 2000 I don't think you can go past the queens birthday demolition of the filth, the wiz kicking 9 goals in the second half, robbo taking speccys... brilliant! The game which revitalised our season and set off a run to the GF. Only one loss in 12 or something from then on

The adelaide game was Rd 2 2001, leoncelli on the run put us back in front with about 15 seconds on the clock after the crows thought they'd snatched it at the death. One of the few highlights from a poor season given the high expectations.

Still have that vision of Kruzuer waltzing leisurely through the centre corridor and goaling from just on 50. Just plain awful Pantzing carltank and essendrug are a must this year

Wasn't an overly memorable season by my recollection ... a lot of thrashings and a couple of really close defeats, but I do remember a great win over in Adelaide against the crows.

Perhaps the better benchmark for Patrecca is Cripps' first season. Hard to compare Hogan anyways being in the KPF role . Even Brayshaw was top 5 in the rising star so another Brayshaw like impact will be handy, but I agree with the other posts above that the extra year of development will push him a bit further than Brayshaw year one. Looking fwd to finally seeing them both on the park

Gawn will have the biggest individual impact in shaping where we finish in 2016, followed closely by Hogan. Given our limited and inexperienced ruck back up options (as Spencer is coming off long term injury and Max and Mitch King havent even played at afl level yet) if Gawn goes down with injury we are pretty much screwed...and the other extreme being if he can back up from 2nd half of last year and push close to AA selection we are very good chance for 8th spot.

You're spot on with both there - geez a fit trengrove would be massive . Really hope he can get back and make some sort of impact even if he lacks the pace he had back in 2011

Round 2 can't come quick enough to make some ammens for that shocker.