titan_uranus

Great call.

Honourable. Options are 1) to accept it and just move on, or 2) to not accept it, to whinge, to complain, to do whatever we feel like simply because we, like the majority of the AFL, wear a white alternate strip. So what if Carlton and Essendon don't? Hawthorn does. White is not a part of their jumper. Does that make Hawthorn and its supporters meek? No, they just suck up the unfair nature of the AFL and move on. I never asked you to be depressed. In fact, I welcome threads that are not 'we're f**ked, this club is doomed, let's sack Neeld' and so on. Feel free to be positive! But I really see no need whatsoever to re-open a debate that, as far as I can see, is just completely unimportant now.

I don't understand those who seem to think GWS will throw this match. If they want to test their list, why would you pick a winnable game to do it? Surely if you want to rest the stars and try out the fringe players, you'd do it against a Collingwood or a West Coast, where the result is a foregone conclusion. Surely, to get supporter interest and to give their youth hope, they'd give it their best shot against us? I think we'll win, purely because the game is here.

We'll get smashed. They have everything we don't have. Strong, hard-bodied, skillful mids, and 22 players who are ferocious and fight at every contest. And they run games out. That doesn't mean we can't at least try our best and be competitive early, or even late, or just at some point. I hope.

Wow, this hasn't been discussed before. I think the colour of our jumper should be the least of our concerns at the moment. We're wearing white. Let's accept that for what it is. We have a decent white jumper.

Nope. GWS will fade horrendously in the second half of the year. Might not win another game, maybe only one. GC is poor, no better than us. They will only win 1-3 games max. We will win a similar amount, maybe 4 if we play well against GWS x 2 and GC, and then snag a win against Port or Brisbane or something. Unlikely, of course, and we'll probably end up on 3, but that should have us above GWS and GC probably too.

Good OP. Gibbs is as soft as Watts is but no one cares because he generally avoids having to go into any contests because Murphy, Judd, Carrazzo and Simpson do that for him, leaving Gibbs to mop up across half back. At Melbourne, there's nowhere to hide. The biggest thing holding Watts back is people's ridiculous expectations, benchmarks, comparisons and criticisms.

Yeah I remember that kick. I can't remember which game it was (St Kilda, maybe), where he took that set shot from 40 metres out and it went all of about 25. But he's been running slowly/with no acceleration since Round 1. It's been frustrating, sad, and disappointing all at once.

Awful thread.

Potentially a fair call.

He's been like this all year. Reeks of OP to me. He has no power in his running, can't accelerate, and can't kick. Hallmarks of OP. If he can't run, he shouldn't be playing. He's not influencing games at all. Can't actually think of any game where he's been at his best.

Really disappointing end to the game. We really had a decent crack today. But our pathetic fitness levels and our generally poor skills ate us up late. We will not be competitive against decent clubs if we can't run out games, and right now, we are hardly running out three quarters, let alone four. It's so disappointing. Thought Bail responded fantastically, especially early. Clark and Jones again led the way for endeavour. Blease and Nicholson seemed to relish their chances. But there is still a lot of crap (Sellar is the slowest player I have ever seen).

Collingwood. No wait, Carlton. No wait, Essendon. No. Collingwood. Damn this is hard. But Collingwood.

The only interesting in for either side is McLean for Carlton, who is in the 18 so will start. I hope Davis plays. Will give us something to care about.

Yes, sorry about that one. I was just giving examples, it's obviously not a definitive list of the multitude of senior players who stink. Frawley could be better, but being a defender in this side is about as difficult as can be. Jamar is having a crap year by his standards. Deserves to be in the 'under-performing' list. You're absolutely right about Sylvia and Davey though.

I hate the trumpeter/bugler. I absolutely hate it and I wish we didn't do it.

I'm not trying to generate scientific, statistically sound results. I'm trying to gauge feelings. I tried not to write leading answers, I tried to provide possible positive answers, and I think I've done that. If you feel optimistic about the future, the option is there. There are options there to say either things aren't as bad as people think, or that we might actually be doing OK at the end of year. And I've got an entire question about positives. If you don't like it, fine. But I disagree entirely with why you don't like it. So there. Hah.

I'm a bit bored, so I thought I'd set up a poll to try to gauge general feelings across Demons supporters. I've asked some broad questions just to see what people think. I'm sure I haven't provided all the options/answers people would want or think. I'm mainly just interested to see what the main perceptions are. I've also included possible answers which I can't actually imagine anyone picking, but they're just there for a complete spectrum.

Says more about the rest of the side than it does about those two.

I get what you're saying, but you're so far off it's not really worth bothering. The fact is, it's not the results of the games that matter, it's the way we've played, and that's not something you can look at the wins and losses to measure. We've been absolutely insipid and devoid of effort in a few games (Sydney, West Coast, second half vs Hawthorn), and our skills have been deplorable in all eight. If we'd played with passion/intensity/even just a normal amount of regular freaking effort, we may still have lost every game this year, but we wouldn't be half as worried about our future.

Pretty sure he missed a game due to injury, a few weeks back.

Who cares?

Bail has shown potential. If bad kicking is your reason for getting rid of someone, virtually the entire side can go. Grimes has shocking kicking. Do you want to get rid of him? No, because he brings a lot more to the table. As does McDonald. Dunn should be on your list.

Nope. I still firmly believe we suck because these players, the majority of whom were drafted either pre, or during, Bailey's time, were mangled by Bailey and his team, and they're not really being helped by Neeld. Yes, we made bad decisions at times. But ultimately, most of the picks we made were backed by the opinion of the industry at the time, and that, not future performance, is the fairest way to judge drafting.

Isolating one incident does not get Neeld off the hook. Yes, quite clearly, our players are inept, and their ability on game day to play football is non-existent. That can't all be Neeld's fault: he obviously wasn't here whilst Bailey mangled their talent. But the coach absolutely has to be responsible for team performances, including effort/intensity. He just has to be. And since that's lacking, I'm not happy with Neeld. I'm far less happy with the players, of course, but Neeld has to wear some of the blame. These players are a disgrace. Almost every one of the 22 of them is gutless.