qwerty7

got to give hannan his credit, he is getting us back into this game

typical dees... hope we turn things around soon otherwise last week's win truly means nothing.

From MFC: "This was an extremely early detection and Jesse is expected to make a full recovery and will return to football this year."

how much time left??

frost's run often goes unnoticed. paul roos once said that frost was one of, if not the fastest in the team.

and effective in eliminating one of the umpires

I think they will be without Cameron, but I reckon Lynch will get up for next week. Not looking forward to playing a fired up Adelaide, I hope we come prepared.

Tom McDonald to ruck I think

Following the Richmond game, I felt so deflated and began to think that perhaps our season was over given injuries and the loss of games that we really should have won. However, after careful reflection, I think our situation whilst undesirable and not ideal, is not as dire as it seems. It is going to hurt not having a ruckman for the next 6-7 weeks and will no doubt cost us some games as it already has, but I think with preparation and adjustment to our structure, we will be able to handle our next six games. I think a ruck combo between Frost/Pedo/Watts will make do and particularly think Frost has a relatively good leap to compete in the ruck contest. Pedo will be pumped to come in and I think he will give it his everything for us over the next few weeks. I have a lot of confidence in our midfield and have enough confidence in our forward line – I am cautious though of our backline and this seems to be a real issue for us. Whenever an opposition team enters their inside 50, you can almost guarantee they will score a goal; we are just fortunate that our high-pressure style is good at limiting the amount of inside 50s for our opposition. Our conversion rate and ability to capitalise inside our forward 50 is somewhat concerning but my answers to that over the last three weeks come down to this: Geelong game we were down our most important forward in Hogan and another forward in Watts as he had to take the ruck responsibilities; Freo game we were again without Hogan, but out of all the games, this is the most inexcusable; and the Richmond game, well we were down two key forwards with again Watts taking ruck responsibilities and Smith down meaning that it was only Hogan and Garlett the Richmond backs were having to defend. Three weeks in a row we have let one poor quarter of footy cost us a game and at some point, it is going to click for the players. With Lewis back in the team this week, I think he adds the composure and leadership we so desperately need. I love Jones and Viney, but they should have stood up more in the fourth quarter as Cotchin did for Richmond, leading his team along with Riewoldt to victory. There is only good that we can learn from the injury struggles we are currently facing and it will only make us a stronger, more resilient and capable side.

With Clayton Oliver, anything is possible

Both Lewis and Hogan deserved suspensions, but what bothers me is the consistency of the MRP and its obviously flawed system. The Lewis decision, whilst I don't like it, I can understand it given his previous bad record (which would have expired had this incident occurred a week later ). The Hogan one, however, is just one week too severe if the MRP wants to maintain a consistent approach in how they evaluate these penalties. Thomson gets off with one week? Varcoe one week? Both these incidents were on par with Hogan's, if not worse! Is it simply because Hogan's fist was deemed closed that he gets the extra week? If so, then what a joke of a reason! Additionally, to rely on the medical reports of the opposition's doctors is just crying out bias, especially if you play a bunch of sad losers who want to get back at you by stripping you of some of your best players. There needs to an external doctor, neutral to both teams, to evaluate the level and severity of impact from an objective perspective - not one who works for the opposition's team. I am happy to admit that both deserved suspensions and would accept them - particularly Hogan's - if they had valid reasoning and were consistent with the rest of the MRP's decisions, but they just fail to meet this criteria. ALSO, does anyone know if we are thinking of appealing Hogan's?

Just heard on SEN that the general consensus was that Lewis would get 2-3 weeks and Hogan 1 week. Hope they are wrong.

Oops! I got the days mixed up... Haha kidding, but good news!

I was passed on the info from a friend and should have realised he would have embellished it with the today and certainty of Ralph's comments... Sorry for that, but I wasn't trying to take the 'pizz' or get everyone's hopes up. To suggest a ban from a hardly sinister comment is quite frankly ridiculous. I think you all need to relax, I was just so excited that I failed to check the validity of the comments before posting. AND, even so, what I said isn't entirely false excluding the 'today' aspect. Ralph was still very, very confident that Jesse will be signing on with the Dees, so I think that is still something worth posting.

Just heard on SEN from Jon Ralph that Jesse Hogan deal will be announced today!!!

From what I heard, he didn't directly say that Hogan would be signing a four year contract, he simply said that his gut feeling is that Hogan will stay. It does seem promising that he mentioned it today though as it coincides with what his daughter posted.

what's the facebook page called?

From the AFL website: He also said he was confident of retaining young key forward Jesse Hogan, who is contracted until the end of 2017. The club is keen to extend Hogan's contract and are hopeful talks will resume after they were put on hold until the end of this season. "Jesse's management and the club said that they would look at it at the end of the year. We are now at the end of the year," Goodwin said. "One thing I do know about Jesse is he loves his teammates, he loves playing with this club and I have got a really strong relationship with Jesse. "Our focus is to make Jesse the best player. He still has 12 months to go in his contract and I know we are going to work really hard to retain Jesse and we are really confident that he wants to be a part of Melbourne." I think these are the most promising comments we have heard thus far regarding Jesse's contract. I'm now more hopeful he will stay.

I think this is more alluding to the fact that the Hawks don't hold back when it comes to the trade period, so much so that they will chase after all the guns in the competition. If not, I would never watch AFL again if Hawthorn were to land Mitchell, O'Meara, Hogan and Fyfe in one year.

He also said that presently there were no indications that Jesse would leave. It is a 50/50 issue and I don't think we have anything to be concerned about as of yet. If he hasn't signed before the 2017 season begins, that is when we should start to be worried.

Frosty almost did - maybe next time...

I think this is purely coincidental. What about some of our other great wins and other matches throughout the year that we have had with Hogan in our side? 3 goals against GWS, 3 against North, 2 against Collingwood, etc....If he didn't kick those 7 goals against St. Kilda in Rd 6, we would have lost by a lot more than 39 pts. He was instrumental in our improvement in 2015 too and was extremely consistent - hence why he won the rising star. People are ridiculous in how quick they are to discredit someone with exceptional talent. I'm not saying he is perfect and doesn't have issues he doesn't need to work on, but what I am saying is that he has still had an incredible first couple of years for someone who is only 21 years of age by comparison to the other superstar key forwards of our competition. We need Hogan and I wouldn't turn down his signature any day. I get why people are frustrated - I am too - but he is a kid and still will improve immensely in the years to come.

puts it all into perspective. give the kid a break because he is an integral part of our future and if he left, we would be wondering what the dees could have been with him in our best 22.

Fair point. I'm sure initially he took up the job for the attractive salary, but I think now he has a genuine interest in the club. He seemed emotional in the final press conferences and to finish off the year like so, is a huge travesty. Our worst loss under his coaching, yet our year has been so much more than what we put on display today. I expected to lose today, but not to the extent we did and actually thought we would be competitive. Oh well, bring on 2017 and I'm hoping that maybe Goodwin's more modern approach to football sees us improve even further on what Roos has already established for us.

Dating Jack Watts' girlfriend's sister I think. Having said that, I think Hogan is off to Perth based on his disinterested body language.