titan_uranus

I think Barry Hall once got done for attempted striking, on Wakelin?

Look, you're entitled to your opinion, but I fail to see any basis for suggesting Evans is better than Grimes. I'm the first person to admit I think Grimes is mediocre atm, but mediocre right now has Evans well and truly covered.

Why is it one or the other? Why can't Garland simultaneously be suffering from a lack of a pre-season and be in bad form?

We've played well against Port, twice (once during their 8-game winning streak, if anyone's worried about calling Port any good). We were also competitive all night against Sydney, though not really in the game too much. Conversely, we were belted by Fremantle and Geelong. I'm not sure we are any chance of playing this like our Port games, so I'm hoping for this to go down more like the Sydney game. Competitive, not embarrassed, but in the end never a chance.

Not only is Robinson at best an average player, but he is one of the worst blokes in existence. The exact kind of player no club should ever take.

Good changes. Blease and Taspcott are done, I'd say. McKenzie is contracted for next year but worrying signs for him. Pedersen being dropped is an interesting one. His recent form hasn't been as good as his early season form, and I guess Gawn has been slamming the door down, but we'll see whether this one works out for us. This week is a lot about improvement on last week, IMO. I don't want to see players take a mark on the 50 and choose the 10 metre kick to a contest option. I don't want to see no-pressure out on the fulls, or handpasses that miss the target 5 metres away. If we can fix up those, we'll be far more competitive by default, and that's at least a start.

When I watched Clisby last year I saw a footballer. A raw footballer, but a footballer. Regardless of what he has done this year, I have never once had this feeling watching Terlich. There's controversial, and then there's just completely out of the realm of possibility. Do you really, honestly perceive a situation in which we put our current captain on the trade table?

Tank or no tank, you can't tell me St Kilda won't be fired up to win on Sunday for Lenny. I'd be livid if I were a St Kilda supporter and the coaches weren't trying 100% to win that game.

I'd drop Terlich, Blease, Tapscott and McKenzie, but they won't all go, mainly because I don't think we have four players to bring in for them. Cross comes back, Michie gets another shot, and I think M Jones has done enough at Casey. I don't see any point in giving Strauss four games. If he plays well what do we do, give him another year? Four games is hardly enough to warrant a spot on the list. I'd just accept that he's not going to make it and not play him.

Well then what point are you trying to convey by saying he's not the Messiah? It's a negative post about Roos, which begs the question of what you think he's not doing well.

OK. Let me rephrase. Explain on what basis you think Roos isn't working out.

If you can't see the work Roos has done in the 10 months he's been here you have NFI.

Roos' comments: "There's clearly some who might not be able to get over what's happened here in the past," Roos said. "You've got to go back to the mindset and we're waiting to get beaten. Of course if you're waiting to get beaten, generally what happens is that you get beaten." "Today was as frustrating a game of footy as I've ever seen," Roos said. "I haven't seen anything like that before in my time. "The mistakes were extraordinary. Extraordinary." "The winning component, definitely. There's a willingness to improve and there's a willingness to comply," Roos said. "But I think that lack of belief that we can win, or we're capable of winning, is far, far greater than what I'd imagined it could possibly be." "For us today, how many times would we have gone forward and the next thing you know, you go, 'blimey Charlie, how'd they (the Lions) get hold of that'," he said.

Obviously this is right, but it doesn't paint the entire picture. It's not just class on the outside. We also need brains in the back half. We need harder two-way running from half-back. We need instinctive players who know when to attack and when not to. We need players who are smarter than choosing the 10-metres-to-a-contest option, or the contest in the middle when there's a spare player towards the boundary. When we play well, your post usually sums up our losses. Today was a lot more than just a lack of class though (though it wasn't, by and large, anything to do with effort).

Blease has had 6 years to reach that ceiling. If it hasn't happened by now, it isn't going to happen. Bail is a much more complete player save for his horrendous mistakes. If we have to keep one (we don't, they're both OOC, but assuming), Bail is the one closer to being an AFL player. There's just too much Blease cannot or will not do.

Bail does far more team things than Blease. Blease IMO goes first. However, Bail is not helping his cause by failing to eradicate his continual mistakes. All year he's been running hard, tackling, chasing, pressuring, but all year he's been turning it over, making bad decisions and fumbling under pressure. He's in the same boat as Grimes. Neither is improving their skills and we all are patently aware of how much we need skill.

McKenzie is very fortunate to be contracted for 2015. Clark and Byrnes are gone. Frawley will join them. Strauss surely is gone. Nicholson too. To them, I'd add Tapscott, Terlich and Blease. That's 8 spots. Jetta takes one. Of the remaining 7, I'd look to FA or trading to bring in two. I'd upgrade Georgiou, and I'd draft 4 (or not upgrade Georgiou and draft 5). Bail, Clisby and Riley all get one more year (Riley maybe gets two).

Rockliff just confirmed that he trained with us for a week, we guaranteed him a rookie spot, but 'Brisbane got in first' (he was picked in the PSD before we could take him in the rookie draft). One of them is running, all day. Watts and Bail do this, which is part of why we keep playing them. However, Watts is failing us in a number of other areas and he can't keep playing like he is right now.

I don't know when the decision gets made, but if we don't finish bottom we'll finish 17th. Frawley will walk, so we'll end up with 1-2 or 2-3. We'll then have a second round pick at around 20. I can't see the AFL giving us a priority pick when we've already got that.

Surely we now know enough about Tapscott and Blease? McKenzie was on Hanley today. Hanley had 24 touches, 5 tackles and 1.1. McKenzie missed a goal from 10 metres out. He's not good enough.

Handball receives in the last quarter: 4-20 in Brisbane's favour. Maybe a tad that's due to injuries but mainly that's due to going into our shells when we took the 14 point lead. We were not able, or willing, to attack the game when we should have been throwing everything at a chance to end this ridiculous losing streak and get a morale-boosting win.

Aside from a 10+ goal loss, how much worse could today have been? Sun, no wind at all, for 51 points. Our opponent didn't score, not once, for 30 minutes. At the end of that period we led by just 7. We had a 14 point lead 7 minutes into the fourth quarter, to lose by 23. A 37-point turnaround in 25 minutes. We lose our 19th consecutive game at Etihad. We had more of the ball, again, but just 34 inside 50s. This is a negative. This is a step backwards. And to think there are people who think we have nothing to lose in these last 5 games.

The refreshed list (so far): Richmond - 11 (8-3) Gold Coast - 11 (10-1) West Coast - 11 (8-3) Adelaide - 11 (9-2) Carlton - 9 (6-3) Melbourne - 9 (4-5) Bulldogs - 8 (6-2) Brisbane - 7 (5-2) GWS - 6 (4-2) St Kilda - 4 (4-0)

Despite having 357 disposals to 333, we've had just 33 inside 50s to 58. It's not getting any better, even when playing weak opposition like Brisbane. We've also played this last quarter like we're coming off a six day break, instead of having had the week off.

To counter rpfc's view, I'd say a performance like today's is exactly how a loss in these games can have an effect and be a negative in a season.