titan_uranus

Be prepared for Watts to do virtually nothing. He'll probably get a half or less, and spend most of it working himself out. He's a smart kid, he'll know he doesn't need to kick a bag first up. More important that he prepares himself after a long lay-off.

Ha ha ha....

Who would have thought that by Round 4 2009, John Meesen would be our first ruck? Have to say, I'm not entirely happy with this team. Too many players on the bench that should be playing, Bennell and Jetta are lucky IMO. Hoping for Maric, Spencer, Jones and Petterd. But that means Cheney misses out, which is unlucky for him.

I'll give you Hansen, he was pivotal. But Lynch and Ablett are average players. And how do you think Lynch got his 60 goals? A super midfield. Without that supply, Lynch would never have done as well as he did. Agree.

I'm the same. Still, when I opened the paper today to look at the teams, I habitually looked for Sandy first. It'll take a while to fully switch over to Casey for me.

Yeah I thought it was clear. The ball doesn't reach his boot the way it should, so he gets mongrels every second kick.

Well you could go another way and look at the premiers and their forwards: Hawthorn 2008 - Franklin and Roughead Geelong 2007 - Mooney and ??? West Coast 2006 - ??? and ??? So both arguments suffice. And at any rate, I think our midfield is more of an issue. A decent midfield would make our forward line look a lot better.

This is the opinion I've held on this issue, and I don't really feel like changing. Yes, it worked for Hawthorn. But they didn't have to tank. They used trades to get extra picks. And in some respects you could argue they got lucky with Richmond leaving Roughead and Franklin behind. Carlton's had 3 no. 1 picks, but not much of their other drafting has been totally succesful. Other success has come from trading (e.g. Stevens and Judd, potentially Warnock too), which happens much less often these days. And let's not forget Richmond, who had 5 picks in the top 20 in 2004. They selected who they thought were the best players available. Look how that turned out.

I don't think Buckley has the defensive capabilities to be a tagger. Bail I don't know enough about. They've tried Dunn in that role as well. Seems like we don't have anyone who can play a shut-down role and has decent skills.

What options are those hoopla? He's been tried forward: didn't work. He's played ruck for most of his career: still hasn't developed any consistency. His 3 matches so far have been poor. He doesn't use his weight enough. I'd much rather use Spencer than PJ.

Green. Someone who has both off and on field leadership ability.

Red jumper > white jumper IMO. But traditional jumper >>>>>>>> anything else. I too was surprised that we were in our clash strip. I can't really see a clash between the two jumpers. But at least it was a clash strip that doesn't embarass you when you see it being worn.

Yeah you're right, Adelaide's a better team than I gave them credit for. Dangerfield is a gun, Petrenko and Walker look the part too. Porplyzia's still young as well.

We've tried PJ numerous times in the forward line already. I always thought he was better suited to being a forward than a ruckman, but he's never really done enough when he's been played there. Plus his kicking for goal is poor. Playing all three would make us even slower than we already are.

So what you're saying is that we are in front of all teams except Geelong, Hawthorn, St Kilda, Western Bulldogs, Carlton and Richmond? I would say that Essendon, Port Adelaide, Brisbane, possibly Adelaide as well are all in front of us.

How long must we wait? You are making the assumption that he will actually play good football at sometime in the future. Most other Demon supporters have long given up on Sylvia. Very agile and very skilful? Have you seen any of the first 3 weeks? He moves like an elephant, he isn't getting enough of the ball to show that he's 'skilful', and he doesn't use his height, weight or strength to his advantage often enough. We're sure as hell not going to win the ruck with PJ in the team, so I'd like to see Spencer given a go in his place. PJ might run, but he doesn't influence the game at all. Petterd's being played out of position IMO. Totally agree.

Like everyone else except bjgc, I agree. a) The backline this year, over 3 games, has been far superior to the backline of the last 5. When we were any good, in 2004-06, it was our backline that continued to let us down. Now it is clear that we have a defensive unit that combines youth, strength, height and aggression. He's right about Moloney. Also right about the youth. You're wrong about Warnock too. He comprehensively beat Hale in Round 1 and Cloke in Round 2. Tredrea at his best is far better than those two, and he played a somewhat different role as well. But even the best defenders get beaten occasionally. Couldn't agree more. I'd take our position at the moment over Richmond's, and I'm sure they would too. At least we weren't expected to do anything this year. We have got to be a chance this week.

IIRC it was his brother Anthony. I don't think James played that day.

Forgot to mention this in my previous post, but another positive for me was the jumper we were wearing. So much better than the pyjama top we wore last year. The red was distinctly different and it actually looked good. Hopefully we'll wear that one wherever possible.

There have been some weird results so far this year. West Coast, Port and Sydney are good examples. Good one week, awful the next.

Can't agree with much of this Jaded. If you're trying to say that Lloyd, Lucas and Fletcher are their three best players, then you don't see much of Essendon. Fletcher is still great, but rarely gets the opposition's best forward, and has plenty of down days. Lucas is past it, and Lloyd has had one good game out of three. By the end of next year they'll be gone, but the holes are already being filled. Down back there's Pears, Daniher and Ryder (all of whom look the part and two of whom have played less than 15 games). Up foward injuries have hit hard, but they still have an ability to score goals and kick large scores. It's not their senior players that are winning them games. Lloyd aside, their win over Carlton was led by the likes of Lovett, Stanton, Watson, Dempsey and Monfries, who aren't the 'senior' players at that club. McVeigh and Hille are on the right side of 30 too. So when they lose their senior players over the next 2 years, the impact will be similar to ours. But they've got what we don't have: pace, skill and an ability to score goals.

Can't say I saw this one coming. Well done on waking up YM. Great analogy EB. No you don't. He is a sub-standard player who has never put in a 100%, 4-quarter effort. He doesn't run hard enough, he doesn't try hard enough, he doesn't play hard enough. He is continually given a spot in this team despite repeat mistakes off-field and poor performances on-field. His time is up. Should not play again.

Sylvia - drop him now Johnson - swap for Spencer

Good thread. The Age seems to agree with rpfc's thoughts as well, as the match report is overall quite positive and re-iterates the fact that we're well in front of where we were this time last year. My positives include: Bennell - he could really become a star in a couple of years. Has the class we so desperately need. Kicking 14 goals (almost 100 points!) Winning the last quarter - might be the biggest positive of the match. We didn't roll over, we didn't tire out, we kept at it and managed to double our goal tally with some hard work. Meesen not being the joke of a player I had previously expected.

McDonald will come in too. So: In: Maric, Spencer, McDonald Out: Sylvia, Johnson, Jetta Rubbish. Sylvia was yet again ineffectual yesterday. I would love to know how the club or whoever wrote that article came to the conclusion that Sylvia was one of out best.