Demons1858

Out: Wagner is depth so he will miss out. Either ANB or Hannan will likely miss also as neither did much. In: Hibberd and Lewis. Think Lever has had enough niggles post returning from knee surgery, to suggest he just needs to have a couple of injury free weeks on track and return without worrying about re-injuring something so he can focus on getting the footy

Won't be captain next year, but its got nothing to do with 1 free kick in a career of highly disciplined football

What to do with Nathan Jones? Easy, keep playing him and give him some short stints in the middle where he is best. Do we really want to batter are young on ball brigade for 100% of 22 games in a season?

Think we cut him some slack. Always played disciplined footy and he was standing up for a mate. Lets not get too hysterical. Not easy playing intense footy and staying on the edge without going over occasionally. His record is excellent in that regard

Awesome video clip of Viney putting him down. Seems like he knew Walters he was coming but didn't want to let on until - bang down he goes. Hilarious

A lot to like about today's game. Has some natural football smarts, is clean with his hands, and has a piercing kick. Small forward position isn't an easy role to play though. There aren't too many small forwards that play consistently aside from Walters, Ablett, Betts, De Goey. Others tend to be in and out of games, so hope he can continue to develop and play other positions. Spargo and even JKH (in his first season) both looked promising at times but are now in the VFL as they aren't elite forwards or able to play other positions when things aren't going their way

Other get moved on before ANB. Showed he can be of value when in form, clearly no in form at the moment and so is on the fringe. Some like JKH, have shown less

Like Pretty's game. Solid mark and has a defenders nous. Going to be good for us in the long run and would like to see him continue to develop with the season all but done. Same goes for Baker, the only true wing man on our list given KK can't get on the park. Give Lever an extra week or two rest, prefer to see him come back at peak fitness not after the recent ankle and knee injuries

Seems the football department got a bit ahead of itself at the start of the year. Development coaches don't always make great line coaches. Max Rooke and Brendan McCartney were deployed as line coaches (after success in development roles) and it would appear that they and the players haven't excelled together. So they go back to their previous successful roles. If none of the coaches have their noses out of joint , then we move on. Think Max will be the one that might be gone at seasons end not Brendan.

Hey Spud, just logged back on after a break. Nostradamus you say. No, just a realist which doesn't always go down well on this forum when most a predicting top 4 finishes back in Feb when I posted my concerns. Years of seeing the impact injuries have on the aspirations of footy teams made me pessimistic about the year. Was at training early on in preseason and reported that around half our key starting 22 was missing injured/in rehab. Pretty sure we didn't manage that very well. The break has led some changes to the sports science and medical departments and misso has moved aside. Thought this would have happened at the end of last year but better late than never.

maybe they don't have a viable plan b is the other possibility

Now preuss is missing with the same injury he carried into last week ... how about we play a fit side and let injured players heal ... Jetta started sore and only got worse!

He's not back yet ... all words at this stage

Or poor management by the club more likely

Goodwin has played games before although there are examples of other coaches that do it more than him ... I don't read into anything he says on the injury front. Also don't read into training reports from those with rose coloured glasses or deliberately trying to misinform. Doubt Preuss will play and suspect that they want to keep st.kilda guessing about our final team and whether they will need an extra tall in defence... all the smoke and mirrors is a waste of time and supporters get misinformed in the processes

Paying big developing forwards on potential hasn't worked in recent times e.g. patton, boyd, daniher, and cameron to a lesser extent. hogan would be one of the exceptions

Sounds like we have our own version of lawyer x amongst us. will be hard to take the training reports seriously.

Collingwood don't have the money, going by the fact Beams caused team mates to take a haircut last year.

Assuming someone has a misogynist view based on a pretty basic observation is key board warrior stuff. Play the ball

Missed any earlier discussion on this but it seems your actually saying the club deliberately mislead supporters last year about Viney and his injuries. Thats a disappointing outcome if true. Don't want to hear another poster stifling debate about the communication and management of injuries with worn out statements about posters like 'we are not medical professionals', 'we are not on the inner sanctum', 'I will place faith in the leaders of the club to manage injuries'.

You make references to government, corruption and bring misogynistic. Are we still talking about footy injuries? It was a one off review after a spate of foot and other injuries. When it comes to injuries we are poor at communicating and managing them. Feel free to keep your head in the sand though

The findings of the review into our sport science team PJ announced last year haven't been shared with members which is disappointing given we would like to know the outcome before launching into another season. Most agree we have had a spate of foot injuries, reoccurring injuries, examples of poor injury management and deciding when players are match fit and right to play AFL. LDVC what would you expect to happen to the leader of a team that has had a review announced into their teams concerning performance in a ruthless results based industry? My views is they are respecting his tenure and don't want to pay out his contract. He wisely has seen the writing on the wall and looked at other opportunities with his family. Seems like good timing and all the best to him. He joined us when no one else wanted to

Don't need to understand medicine. This is a results based industry and the sample size is big enough to make judgements. Worth noting that Peter Jackson launched a review last season of our sports science and Misson is now moving on at season end.

Not trying to be dramatic but will be pretty happy just to make the 8 this year given the predictable slow start we are going to have. My hope is that we can be the bulldogs of 2016 and finish strongly. Way too many injured and under done players in the lead up to round 1. Could they have been better managed? Jones, Melksham and Viney had been in rehab for a ridiculous amount of time. AVB and KK have reinjured themselves. JSmith playing out JLT injured. Max and some others didnt look fresh. Misson is leaving later this year so good time for some fresh ideas

Might be a touch optimistic GCDee. While many are becoming available and/or passing tests,, I'm not sure we can carry more than a few players with niggles/little match practice into round 1 when the intensity will be high. We are going to need to finish the season pretty strong and hope for some luck and better player management with injuries.