Wiseblood

Slobbo has written an article stating the Bombers plan to offer Hurley a 5 year deal, worth upwards of 800k. Apparently his decision won't be based on money, but whether he is happy to play for the Bombers again. Still think he is 50/50 to leave.

So what is your 'source' of news? Everything at the minute points to us not chasing him, although as always there is more to it than meets the eye. It seems to change every day going by who you listen to. I'd assume these people know far more than yourself, though. I know that you'll cry if we don't land Prestia, but you need to brace yourself for the fact that it may not happen.

I can recall him saying that too - at the start of my post I did say that, if we were to go by the rumour from today, then it seems we are more interested in defenders. That could change tomorrow when someone comes out and says something different.

I'd like to get him as he can play that small defender role with Jetta, Wagner and Melksham. It may help to release Salem in to a midfield role, while also possibly doing the same for Hunt, who I think would look fantastic on the opposite wing to Stretch.

You may be right Desspicable - however, I think we need to make sure we bring in players who will contribute now and be relied upon to do so on a consistent basis. Vardy may be fit now but his history of injuries is terrible; with us now, hopefully, pushing for a finals spot in 2017, is he the bloke to take a punt on? I do agree that Watts can't be the long term answer, but can we get someone else who can help now without the injury history?

Well, if we go by this rumour today, it seems we are trying to add some further quality to the back half. They seem to suggest we won't be chasing midfielders, but looking to someone like Hibberd (along with the 'recruitment' of Melksham for 2017). What we do probably hangs on what we need to do to land Hibberd IF he decides he wants to play for us. If we get him for free then we can have a crack at others. If we need to trade to get him then it might limit what else we can do. I'd be a little disappointed if we weren't have a crack at Prestia, but the club may be very happy with our young midfield group and be backing Petracca, Brayshaw, Oliver, Stretch etc. to continue to improve alongside Jones, Vince, Viney and Tyson.

Is Dawes the one on the cart saying "I'm not really dead" before Goodwin clubs him on the head... ?

I'd agree that he is better than those listed, but, is he in our best 22? There is obviously interest from elsewhere, so should we focus on someone who might cost a little bit so he can play in the twos, or focus our energies elsewhere?

Pretty dodgy of him to be touring another clubs facilities in the middle of the year. Has a bit of talent, but at what cost? Would the Dogs just let him go for cheap or play hard ball? Do we even have anything to trade that would interest them...?

You are so terribly condescending in your responses, Steve. It's unbecoming. I merely asked a question, there is no need to be a complete [censored] about it. Eric Mackenzie and Nathan Brown, to me, are limited players who have already reached their ceiling in terms of what they can provide going forward. They might provide small relief, true, but do they truly improve on what we have right now? Are they any better than Garland and Dunn, who are languishing in the VFL? They have experience, sure, but I don't see either player improving us. They would play the same role than Dunn and Garland would fill, and clearly the FD aren't all that keen on it. I could concede that, in the short term, they could give a chop out to O Mac, but then so could the guys we have on our list already. Mackenzie has been surpassed at the minute by a kid with barely any games to his name in Tom Barrass. That speaks volumes. I took Hurley out of the equation above, not because I can't see the big picture, but because most just focus on him. I thought I was fairly clear in my suggestion that, if we recruit another key backman, they obviously need to be at a higher level than OMac or Frost. If the FD believe those two are ahead of Garland and Dunn, what is there to suggest that they would believe Brown or Mackenzie would be ahead of them as well? Not much. By the way, we've built up our midfield by recruiting players who improved on what we had. Again, do Brown and Mackenzie represent that? On what our FD has done this season, I'd suggest they wouldn't.

The 500k is intriguing. He is kind of saying "I'll only stay if you pay me more than I'm worth". If I were the Lions I'd let him walk. Not sure if he is what we need though. He feels like a very similar player to Ben Kennedy, and do we need another of his type? We probably have other areas to strengthen first before chasing someone like Taylor. He certainly has some talent, though.

I'm not ashamed to say that I'd cheer them. Their careers may not have worked out how we hoped, but they still gave their all for the jumper, and I'll cheer that regardless. Its a shame you couldn't do the same.

Yep, I get this feeling too. If, and it's a big if, we could talk Hurley in to coming over, the club may let T Mac go for a first rounder to free up the necessary salary cap room.

Why waste a spot on our list on a bloke who is injured all the time? Not worth it at all. We need players who are ready to go, not blokes who struggle to get on the park.

He might have, but because his news is positive on Hogan, I'm happy to say that Ralph is always spot on with his sources. Last week? He was always wrong and hadn't got any rumour right in 5 years.

Who is available that will be an upgrade on what we currently have? If we take Hurley out of the equation for a moment, as there are plenty of variables there, who can we realistically land that will improve us in the short or long term? Key defenders with talent don't just grow on trees or fall out of the sky into our laps. Edit - I'm not disagreeing that we couldn't use an upgrade in the back half, but I just don't see much out there for us. Hibberd would be terrific but he isn't a key backman.

He isn't the future. Never has been. The problem is that we don't have the right replacement as such. We all know his flaws, we all know that right now he contributes little to the senior side. But if you take him out, who goes in? Weed and Hulett just aren't ready. Pedersen is out. Dunn or Garland up forward? We tried, with little success. They even had to abandon the Frost experiment. Until there is someone to take his spot we might just have to put up with him a little longer...

You're just an angry man anyway dazzle... Agree re: Stretch and Hunt. They have exceeded my expectations and, what they bring to the side, are skills and attributes that we need going forward. Stretch, in particular, seems to find a way to weave out of traffic and give himself time, and then he takes the right option. The dash from the back half that Hunt provides is a joy to watch, and he is able to do it defensively as well. Two big positives this week.

True, but we could also very easily win the next two. At a guess, and knowing our consistency, we will probably go 1-1 over the next two weeks, but I'd be expecting to win both.

I can understand why they do, though. The one thing Pedersen has over Dawes at the moment is that he hits the scoreboard and he is willing to take the second ruck role, even though he doesn't necessarily do a much better job than Watts is doing at present. It would be terrific if, say, Hulett stepped up and made the argument redundant, but we might need to wait a little longer before that happens. Until then having either Dawes or Pedersen in the side makes little difference.

Careful stuie, I never said anything about Pedo whatsoever. I was merely stating that Dawes was woeful today and that he needs to do more, otherwise they will make a change, whether that's Pedo, Hulett or Weideman.

In all seriousness stuie, Dawes was horrible today. I have agreed in the past about his positive impact on our structure, but he was woeful today. He needs to do much, much more.

Spot on analysis titan, as always. It's always good to see a few paragraphs of a well thought out analysis of a game, rather than a sentence that just pots a player and gives little else. Your last paragraph is on the money, too. We are such a better side than we were two years ago. I saw a stat today that we have kicked 5 goals or more in a quarter 8 times this year, including today. When was the last time we did that? There are so many good things happening around the club at the moment, we just need to convert some of them in to wins.

I might be in the minority, but I thought VDB got better as the game wore on. It was good to see him getting a longer stint through the middle, where he is at his best, and had 17 touches to go with 8 tackles. Needs to kick it a bit more and make sure he takes the right option, but he was better than others today and seemed to grow in confidence in the second half.

It's because we are still learning to spread within that congestion. We end up getting too close together and that means the handballs don't create the right amount of space to get that free man and the kick forward. Thus, we can stuff it up or we end up bombing it forward. When it works we look terrific.