Wiseblood

I choose to believe they went to goodwill with them but instead they got an Elaine Benes response, much like with her muffin tops, and she had no choice but to bin them as we don't have a Newman to eat them all.

We don't get it in there enough... yet. Roos has stated he went hardcore on the defensive side of things which was always going to hinder how we went going forward. He deserves more than a few pre-season games before we judge it too harshly.

Paul Johnson is a good comparison here. I was a fan of his when he came over and he had many of the same attributes as Fitzy, although he was bigger. He just couldn't translate good VFL form into good AFL form, something I think Fitzy will continue to fail to do. I just don't have any faith in him.

He gave away 5 free kicks two weeks ago against Freo, but I see your point re: this week. He is capable of multiple turnovers/frees against during a game though.

I wouldn't go so far as to liken him to that, but I agree with the sentiment.

We all know, going by this pre-season, that we can't put too much stock in what happens at training. Those bigger forwards would push him around with ease.

The problem is that Fitzy isn't a strong, one on one kind of player. Most of those mentioned above will beat him in a contest more often than not. Good on the club for trying something different but it seems futile to me.

Fitzy is very meh to me. Everyone is getting excited about him being trialled down back but he is in the same bracket as guys like Bail, McKenzie, M. Jones etc. He isn't a guy that will take us up the ladder. He is ok for depth but nothing more, regardless of where he plays.

Or else what daisy? You'll put him in timeout for 15 minutes?

For the second time, I wasn't talking about the mistake, I was only pointing out that it's meaningless who he was kicking it to - it's not important. What's important is that he made a mistake and he needs to learn from it.

I didn't say the act of kicking it didn't matter, it was who is was being kicked to. Wouldn't matter if Roos had come running out to the back flank. I said the kid made a mistake, which he did, and I said he'll learn from it too. I'm not sure how your views differ to mine.

Who cares...? The kid made a mistake in a meaningless pre-season game. He'll learn from it.

Speed is important - in their mind, not in their legs. Footy IQ is the key, and we haven't had enough guys with that over the past few years.

The second half of last year was a struggle, true, but basing it off match sims is a big stretch. We don't take risks because, right now, we don't have the capacity to do it. The good teams can, but we can't... yet. In my opinion Roos sees the need to retain possession because, as a unit, we aren't good enough to stop the opposition just yet. Blaming Roos and the gameplan is a knee jerk reaction of epic proportions. We are coming from so far back that's ridiculous. Roos is here to consolidate the list, teach them how to play football and lay the foundation. Goodwin will be the man to reap those rewards.

Are you sure about that? Think hard about this.

And you are basing that on a few pre-season games? Turn it up.

Why would you question it after one season? We were one of the worst defensive sides of the modern era, particularly in 2013, and Roos' mandate when he first came in to the side was to rectify this. He did that, and it was for the time being at the expense of scoring. The players needed to learn to run both ways and we achieved that somewhat. His biggest test is ahead in terms of keeping us sound defensively while also being able to score, something that may take some time, but your questioning of his tactics was unfounded and misguided. And don't use the NAB Cup as an example. We all know Roos sees it as nothing more than a chance to experiment. We'll all know once the season gets going.

I agree. What also annoys me Clint is that when people are agitated and annoyed about what's happening they feel the need to start a thread about it, rather than either posting it in the post match thread or in any of the other similar threads that have already been started.

Nicely summed up BD. If we look at who Roos has recruited since he arrived then there isn't too much to complain about. He improved us defensively as a side, something we were awful at in the previous years, and along with PJ they have stabilised the club off the field as well. If we look at the players who are potentially holding us back then it's easy to see that they have nothing to do with Roos. It is also not surprising that an average NAB Cup performance has us discussing something like this before the season has even started. We are the kings of the over-reaction on here.

Some opportunities for some of the lads to impress today as well. Another good game from Pedersen might seem him get a run in Round 1, while I'd love to see Dean Kent have a ripper as well. Of course I'd love to see the kids play well again too but I don't think they are in the frame for Round 1.

GRRR mentioned that he copped a football to the thigh area during some goal kicking practice (off a bullet like kick from Garlett) and he seemed to be in a bit of discomfort on Friday morning. They probably withdrew him as a precaution.

I'm with you here. I'll be watching Round 1 very closely to see how we respond and what the effort and application levels are.

If anything this pre-season has shown us that we can put little stock in to what happens on the training track or during the intra club games. We get WAY too excited over someone kicking a ball well or tearing it up in a time trial. Clearly we have a long way to go and it's easy to get blinded over the off season to this. We salivate over the reports, and don't get me wrong in that I appreciate them from guys like GRRR, but we can't allow ourselves to get carried away with someone looking the goods under zero pressure on the training track.

Just watched the Roos presser. Puts it in to perspective well. Clearly Roosy believes that we still have a long way to go to bridge the gap between our best and our worst, and that we need to get into the team mentality more than the 'I' mentality. Once we begin to do this we'll be a better team for longer.

Was he fuming? Controlled? Or not really concerned?