titan_uranus

Byrnes might not be one of the AFL's best players, but unfortunately he's one of ours. Didn't play well the first two/three weeks, but then again, neither did anyone else. Thought he lifted for the GWS and Brisbane games, and I felt he was slowly settling into his role as a FP/HFF. His foot skills were noticeably better than most. With Bail, McKenzie, Nicholson and Strauss in the side, Byrnes has places available to come back in.

I'm a big Fremantle fan, they're a great side I reckon. Watch out for them in the second half of the year, with Pavlich, Sandilands, Walters and Hill to come back, and maybe Morabito too. Already 5-1-2, if they keep getting wins without their stars, imagine how well they'll do when the A-team is back.

IMO is behind McDonald and Frawley. Different role to Watts, so no issue there. Garland is more versatile. Whatever we do with Sellar, I just hope it doesn't involve continual switching between back line and forward line. We need to decide what he is and stick to it. On the evidence of the last two weeks, he's a defender, not a forward, and given we have Clark and Hogan to come in to support Dawes, I don't see the need for another tall KPF to get a go. Thus, he plays as a defender until McDonald is ready, and then he has to show he's better than McDonald to keep his spot.

And for a team like us, ripping that core out hurts far more than for most other clubs. The impact of those seven players can't be understated.

What's your point?

I saw a bit of that too. I also saw him really struggle to place himself in the zone a few times when we had them hammed inside their defensive 50 switching play meaninglessly, but that's to be expected, really, in your fourth game. I saw a lot more from Toumpas than in his previous games, but he still has a lot of learning to do.

Gee thanks bub, if you hadn't told me I wouldn't have known a 34 point loss is a loss. FFS. When you're as bad as we are, there can be good things in a loss, and there were today. If you don't want to see those because you're turning into a Range Rover style one-dimensional 'SACK HIM' fool, so be it. But you're being silly. This is another example of how you let your bias influence reason. What I see there is Dawes standing up for Neeld, who is having to defend himself. Neeld says we have to continue to reinforce the effort aspect of football during training, Dawes cuts in and says 'that shouldn't be on the coaches, it shouldn't need to be coached, it needs to be the players who drive that'. All true.

I don't really know enough about Casey's form to know who is pushing for selection. In terms of outs from the MFC side, Toumpas seems likely, whilst any of Bail, Strauss, Nicholson, McKenzie or Dunn warrant being dropped (in that order, too). But I don't know who is able to come in for them.

Dean Polo? You mean Luke McGuane...right? He did a fair job on him, but I don't feel one game like today's is enough to change what I think is otherwise a fair perception that he's a pretty limited played. I see more upside in Tom McDonald. More games like today's might change my mind, I guess. You can't have Davey everywhere. If he takes the kickout, he isn't up the ground to deliver inside 50, which IMO is more important. We don't need a precise laser kick to get the ball out of the defensive 50. We need a plan. Currently it involved Lynden Dunn turning it over on the 50. Something new is warranted. Agreed. The hard running was a highlight. Disagree. Not because I don't like Dawes, because I do, I'm a massive fan and I thought he was great today. I can't wait to see him get some support and form a two/three-pronged forward line, our first in ages. I disagree because I think the Pies have upgraded in their personal situation by getting Lynch. They needed someone to give Jolly a chop out in the ruck, and Dawes wasn't doing that. They couldn't fit Jolly, Dawes, Lynch and Cloke into the same team, so they had to let Dawes go. Lynch is doing exactly what they need, playing second forward and rucking. I think the move of Dawes from Collingwood to Melbourne was win-win, really.

You added that in in your edit at 7.24, which was whilst I was writing my post (i.e. meaning that it wasn't in the original which I quoted). Your original comment, before you added the second half, was rude, unfair and uncalled for, and I didn't take it out of any context. You went back and added that in, which I hope is an indication that you realised your previous post(s) were out of line.

Wow. Didn't see that coming. He's not underrated. He's a hack.

"I've had some very severe ankle injuries in the past, and I never reacted anything like that."

How do you have any idea how he felt? As the master pointed out above, Michael Hurley went down hard with his rolled ankle a few weeks ago. Last year Luke Ball went down like he'd done his ACL only to come back out on the field (he later did do his ACL, but from what I heard that was the second tackle, not the first). It's insulting and unfair to effectively call him soft because he got injured.

You're pathetic.

When Clark comes back, this will be Dawes' job, surely. I felt Dawes had to play both FF and CHF today, had no support at all. We're bad for a lot of reasons, but I don't think our lack of targets 50-80 is the biggest one.

Much better performance, probably the best one of the year over four quarters. The talls seem fine. Dawes is a great pickup, imagine if he had some support. Clark will give him that, Hogan in the long run. Watts should play forward in the meantime. In defence, Sellar started OK but he's still not great. Jamar smashed Stephenson in hit outs but still doesn't do anything around the ground. Davey getting involved in the middle makes a significant difference. His kicking inside 50 was vital to us holding possession and scoring when we took it forward. Howe doesn't do enough. His second half can't mask his first half, which wasn't good enough. He can't get away with attempting/taking a speccy each week and a nice goal from the boundary. Must get involved more. When we put in an effort like we did today, it makes it a lot easier to identify our true problems. To me, what stood out the most was the number of sub-standard players we have in the side. It's not hard to see why we're lacking in skills when we have Dunn, McKenzie, Bail, Nicholson and Sellar in the side. I like M. Jones and Terlich a lot, but they're also not the highest quality kicks. Put Clark, Viney, Grimes and Sylvia back into the side and put in the effort from today, and we'll get a few more wins, and look a lot better. Huh?

6 - Garland 5 - Davey 4 - Magner 3 - Dawes 2 - N. Jones 1 - Terlich

You know, actually, it is. Today we actually gave a stuff, but it's our bottom group which is killing us. McKenzie and Nicholson are firmly in that bottom group. Neither of them are AFL standard. They're not the only ones, sure, but they're part of the reason why we're stagnant.

Where the hell did I say that? It's amazing how ridiculous you sound when you try to read your biased crap into anyone's disagreeing view. What I said is that Neeld is only saying what is fair, and that I don't necessarily believe that, since he hasn't come out and said 'we're going to win', that he doesn't necessarily think that.

3-5 years. But from when? From when he took over? That would make 2013 the second year, meaning he's referring to next year as the start of our competitiveness. From now? Maybe. But it's not clear in the article what he's saying. What is clear is this - we stink. What do you want Neeld to say? 'Look, we just lost to the Gold Coast by 10 goals, but I have every faith that we can come out and beat Richmond this week, we're that good'. If he said that the same people who don't like him now would say things like 'he's delusional, he can't even see how bad we are'. Kevin Sheedy and Mick Malthouse are two of the all time great coaches. Both of them are awful in front of the media. What Neeld says to journalists is borderline irrelevant.

The Bulldogs really aren't much better than us. One area they are clearly focusing on is contested possession and clearance work; even when they aren't in the game, they seem to always be competitive in these stats. McCartney seems to be doing what Neeld is trying to do - teach them how to play their long term, flag-winning gameplan now, and sacrifice short term results for long term success. I think he's drilling in the effort, tackling, contested ball and that kind of thing now, with the hope that their youth will help bolster their speed and scoring over time. Will it work? Only time will tell. But as far as their list goes, theirs is about the only one in the league I wouldn't say is definitively better than ours.

Do you genuinely believe Neeld isn't thinking about winning? Do you genuinely believe we are literally only planning to be competitive? Saying we plan on being competitive is not mutually exclusive with thinking we're trying to win. Can we please just be fair and accept that what Neeld is trying to do is attempt to avoid mockery by saying 'we can win' despite our form indicating otherwise. I don't particularly agree with our continual falling back on our inexperience, and I don't particularly like Neeld continually saying 'it's a rebuild of a rebuild of a rebuild'. But I'm not that stupid to read his comments there as saying we're not trying to win at all.

Merrett ought to get suspended for his sling tackle on Hurley (edit: based on Trengove's suspension a few years back, anyway). Clarke ought to get suspended for his charge of Kavanagh. This is similar to the reaction to Jetta's suspension a couple of weeks ago - some people view that as the type of aggression/intent we need to show, others view it as a 'cheap shot' and don't like it.

We have to have hope. Brisbane's about to just beat Essendon. You read that correctly.

If that's your attitude, I'd rather you don't attend at all.