Wiseblood

Very true. He needs to fix it, although his confidence is shot as well, which doesn't help. If we want him to be the superstar forward we all know he can be, then he needs to address this over the summer.

What's wrong with that? I've always been in the glass half full area, although I know that everything is not great. If it was great we would be playing finals. The year has been good, not great. I just don't like journo's who drop an opinion with nothing to back it up. It serves no purpose.

Excuse my ignorance, but is that a side you've picked, or the one that was actually picked?

Heard that - no evidence to back it up, just her thinking, which is about on par with the hand wringers of Demonland.

In: Spencer, Dawes, Terlich, Max King, Joel Smith Out: Gawn, Hogan, Viney, Tyson, T. McDonald

It also mentioned that if talks break down, Hibberd could go to the grievance tribunal and argue a breach of contract. Still lots of water to go under the bridge with this one. I still think our second rounder, eventually, gets the deal done.

It always is, dazzle. There is always someone who thinks their views are worth starting a new thread over. I do like how he claims not to want to criticise Paul Roos, yet the heading is 'dumb and dumber', which implies that he is doing this on a consistent basis. How quick we forget the wins when things don't go our way.

One of the dumbest comments I've seen here. Yeah Jonesy, it's your fault Weideman was selected and Hogan and Petracca missed a handful of easy shots on goal. How dare you not go over and take the kick yourself or somehow get magical powers that blow the kicks through the goals.

So you've grabbed 2 pieces of play you didn't like, magnified them to make them look as terrible as possible, and then almost blown off his effort to take a hard hit for the team by backing back into a pack? Well done. While Jones is never going to be a matchwinner, I consistently see him getting to every contest and doing everything he can for the side. Blaming yesterday's loss on him, just as WYL has done above me which is absolutely ridiculous, is short sighted in the extreme. He might have made a few mistakes, no doubt about it, but much of his hard work on gameday almost goes unnoticed now that we are actually a half decent side. He is constantly driving the team forward and doing everything in his power to turn the tide. Again, as I said earlier, players missing easy shots on goal, players making turnovers, the selection committee bringing in players who aren't ready or played out of position are well and truly out of his hands. His game was solid yesterday, but to lay the loss at his feet and label his game 'awful' is just plain wrong.

Burden of proof isn't on me. I've explained my stance earlier. What else do you want him to do? If he had an 'awful' game, as you put it, then please explain why.

No, it represents lack of experience. If we were mentally fragile we wouldn't have rolled the Hawks or kept Port at bay when they came back in the third term.

No he wasn't.

Bugg and Vanders are not 'ordinary' players. Dean Terlich is an 'ordinary' player. Bugg and Vanders will be our foot soldiers in the years to come. Vanders is coming from along way back from a season wrecked by injury, while Buggy has taken time to settle in a new side. Both will be valuable contributors as the side improves.

All we need is more experience, mate. I totally agree that minimal changes are necessary - another big summer on the track will help to improve us further. And I'm in the same boat re: this discussion around 'fringe' or 'ordinary' players. You don't need to be a star to be a best 22 player. As long as they play their role for the side then I'm happy with that.

He didn't 'fail dismally'. What else would you have him do? And by that, I mean - was it his fault that Hogan and Petracca completely stuffed gettable chances in the last quarter? Was it his fault that Neal-Bullen and Weideman were picked, even though they were clearly wrong decisions? Jones does everything he can. He might miss the odd target from time to time, but wasn't the problem at all today.

I was going to say the same thing. It does put things into perspective a little, but the loss still hurts. I just can't wait until some of these younger players have 20-30 more games under their belts.

For a 10 win side, we sure have plenty of ordinary and fringe type players according to you, AF. I'm amazed we win games at all.

I feel as though we've said 'this is the loss we needed to have' a few times this year. Not sure if this is one of them - to me, this is a win we needed to have, not the other way around. I'm disappointed but, like others, I can see the improvement this year and I'm excited for the off season for our younger players. What I'm thoroughly looking forward to are, hopefully, injury free pre-seasons for guys like Petracca, Brayshaw, Oliver and Salem. 4 talented, quality players who can slot straight into our midfield and improve it instantly. I know Oliver has played there most of the year, but with bigger tanks and more experience, they can all be in there more often and impact the game on a greater level. That goes for others like Stretch and VandenBerg as well. It's an exciting future, regardless of today's result, but the pressure for further improvement is most certainly on for 2017.

Don't be silly, Stuie. His kicking needs work, as does his second efforts, but he was our best forward by a country mile today.

I agree, and I also agree with PD in terms of getting carried away with VFL form, but I do feel slightly sorry for Nibbler. He is played as a pure midfielder for Casey, and when he gets promoted he spends the majority of the time forward. It's not easy to make that transition.

Never said you were our worst today, Viv. Just that you're not a particularly damaging player. I did say you had a better second half. Apologies for hurting your feelings.

I didn't see you bring it up during the previous fortnight. Why not bring it up when we get it right as well? That's right, it's not your go.

Quick, stick it in your structure thread. You know, the one you bring up to the front page after every loss as if you're some sort of oracle who takes pleasure in a loss.

Nah.

I agree with this. Normally I don't, but the Neal-Bullen decision still baffles me. We have Ben Kennedy, a bloke who knows how to play forward, languishing in the reserves and they ignore him for a pure mid. Bad decision and we paid for it, as Nibbler had little to no influence on the game. Weideman had no influence either, and while Michie had a better second half, he isn't a damaging player. Not much we can do about it but moan now, I guess.