Dante

You have to consider, was he unhappy over there, or was he not good enough, he seems to have a bit of ability so perhaps it was just homesickness. Some players think they just have to get drafted and then it all falls in to place after that, Mav Weller was a classic example, maybe in a different environment under a different coach and closer to home he will prove to be a good investment. He moves ok, he can take a grab and his kicking isn't all that bad, he has size and a bit of weight added could make him ideal for AFL. His grandfather was Ian Cooper a former Saints player and he seems to have, as he says in this profile, a strong connection with them.

Perhaps you'd like to list all the AFL clubs and answer your own question, what do they stand for, what do Adelaide stand for? What about Freo or Brisbane, maybe GWS or Gold Coast. What does any football club stand for, maybe to win a flag or to be successful each year. Maybe we could start up a focus group and see what we can come up with.

Probably waiting to meet the new coach and to get a picture of where the club is headed, I would if I played for Brisbane.

I'm the poster you're referring to and I simply said his form dropped after we extended his contract, I never said he stopped trying, that was an inference made by the other poster you're referring too. Thats the problem, things get taken out of context by him and all of a sudden it's taken as fact. ive got him on ignore because I'm sick of his grandstanding and derailing of every thread he gets on to.

I think you're right, he can't get a game because he's either injured or not good enough, same with Michie, if it hasn't happened by now it isn't going to happen.

Great news, we need to get all the key players signed up.

I wasn't defending what I said, merely pointing out what was behind my comment. You ingratiate yourself on the players and then post on here as if the talks you have are those of close friends having a chat, this results in you thinking that any comment on a player seems to be an attack on your circle of friends. Let me be clear, I don't care what the contents of your conversations are and I don't particularly want to read your self opinionated ramblings, I think it's rather sad that you feel the need to do this. Also, I get sick of you trying to dominate every thread and turning it in to an argument. You just don't get it, do you?

His performance in the Hawthorn match was dreadful and as a result he was dropped, he spent 3 games out of the side and when he returned, he had a 4 goal game and then his form went down again. I don't care if you had a talk to him or not, that may be a significant part of your life, talking to players but it doesn't concern me, or interest me. His form was poor and apart from you, I'd say everyone that watched him thought the same. I happen to like Jeffy and on fact he is one of my favourite players but that doesn't change the issue, he was terrible. My post was mainly tongue in cheek, but you seem to feel that you have to take up the defence of every player on the list, if they receive any criticism on here, take note they aren't your personal friends, they talk to you because you ask them questions. And I didn't at any stage say he conned the FD, they are your words, not mine.

Didn't you go to any games in the last half of the year? I would have thought it was obvious, even to you, that his form disintegrated after he signed his contract extension.

It certainly did that for Jeffy, then we made the mistake of extending his contract and he fell apart, pity we couldn't extend his contract on a weekly basis.

Well I heard they wanted to play him in the ruck because he was a bit of a jumper.

I was impressed by Hoskin-Elliot when I first saw him, so I watched him a bit and the thing that I noticed was, he didn't get much of the ball, he looked OK when he had it but it wasn't enough. I don't think that's changed, he looks ok but he needs to do more, besides where would you play him?

He shanks most of his kicks.

Sad to see Grimes end his career with us that way, he just couldn't get his decision making and disposal right and the number of times he kicked it out of bounds on the full was infuriating. He played 100 games for the club he grew up supporting so that's got to be the dream of any kid growing up. He was dreadful in the Casey GF and that wouldn't have helped but I reckon his cards were marked before then anyway. All the best Jack and hope you get a gig elsewhere.

The only thing I got out of the game was how good Clarrie is, he has the ability to get through traffic and dish off the ball without wasting it. Despite still being a kid, he showed poise and class well above this level. Can't wait to see him with a pre season under his belt and fully fit.

I think they do but he is also very popular around the club and his team mates love him, how would CP5 feel if we turfed Trenners out after they went through rehab together, what sort of message would that send. One year on a very low value contract will not break the club and if we replaced him with pick 96 what would that gain us?

i'm glad you mentioned that, he was obviously underdone this season and even so played well enough to kick 29 goals and he should have kicked at least two more goals yesterday. Let's not write him off yet.

We went in to this game looking like we were playing another home and away game and they went in to it treating it as a grand final, that was the difference. Unfortunately some of my favourite Melbourne players showed today that they will never take the next step and they will always be a little off the pace in games that matter.

If the Doggies win and I think they will, it will give hope to clubs like ours showing that it can be done and you don't need a massive supporter base, untold facilities, endless cash and all the help that the AFL can give you. They've done it all on their own and that shows that we can too. We are a couple of years behind them and need a few more players to top up but we can do that by the draft and if, as DA says, Track and Gus come on we will give it a shake.

Attendance of 21,790 must be one of the lowest at a Preliminary Final for decades and I reckon more than half travelled interstate and barracked for the Dogies. Be interesting to see what the TV audience was.

Why? i can't understand the love for this guy, his career averages are very ordinary, from every perspective. I watched him in the final against GWS and his skill level was atrocious.

Happy for the dogies, just shows that a real team can beat a manufactured one, despite the level of manipulation on the part of the AFL. Hope we can play them for the flag next year, what a game that would be.

How much is this causing other player contracts to be put on hold, I'm sure that there are other players who are in limbo and will be until the club knows how much salary cap they have left. We have to make decisions on the future of some players and some may have to go if Jesse stays and they may be retained if he goes.

Don't you think that upon finding out that what he'd taken was illegal he'd just accept the punishment? Irrespective of whether he's a friend of yours ot not, do you think he should benefit from the taking of drugs, innocently or otherwise? If an athlete at the Olympic games is given illegal drugs by his coach and wins a gold medal because of the performance enhancing effects of that drug, should he keep the medal. The rules are there to protect the integrity of the sport, so athletes can't rely on the, "it wasn't my fault, I didn't know" excuse. He was, according to Sheedy, almost going to get the chop from the club and then he turns in to some superstar, even his father thought he was having a late growth spurt. I'va said you get your head shot off if you stick it up over the parapet, well that's not true if your argument has merit.

The AFL dragged us through the gutter when we were accused of tanking, forgetting that there were other clubs that followed the formula as outlined by the AFL itself, it was ok to rest players, it was ok to send players off for surgery and it was ok to play players out of position. How would playing players out of position go nowadays, there are not any that have a set position anymore. We were found not guilty, fined $500k for the privilege and subjected to public disgrace whilst other teams walked off with their PPs and pointed the finger at us as cheats. I reckon the AFL owed us and any money or assistance we got, only made up for the lack of sponsorship and loss of revenue from a shyte draw we were given. We proved that you can get out of the mess you are in by astute recruiting and good personnel, Brisbane should be able to do the same, they've lost players due to their incompetence off field as well as poor results on field, they have a better base than we did so they shouldn't get any assistance, we didn't despite what some on here think. We only got what was due to us.