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Can I just say to the parents worried about their kids following the Dees - it is the experience they have with you at the footy that determine their desire to keep watching the footy and going for the Dees. If they just see their Dad gnash teeth and get angry (and stay angry) that is what keeps them from wanting to go, or wanting to watch the Dees, not a two point loss 'Riewoldt's team'.

In and Out: Latter reaches of our 'midfield' group turnstile. Oh, and Dawes I guess.

Garland won't get much, neither will Grimes, Watts maybe a little more but Howe might get a first rounder from some idiot who wants to get 'people through the gates'... Frankly, I don't mind keeping all 4 of these players, my issue is replacing the 36th to 40th players on your list with players who are in your best 18. Trading Grimes for Pick 43 doesn't interest me. Getting Dangerfield in FA however...

And Hogan should have kicked 7 - he was unstoppable...

Again, so much inertia when the pressure is up, and it is the older players feeding that inertia too... We played well but the last was full of sideways kicking and lack of adventure. It is such a shame because a win is great, but this loss will take away from Jimmy Toumpas' excellent game on a very good player in Montagna. But 415 touches for 42 Inside 50s tells you everything...

Revisited - still BS. We were inert in a tight footy game, where our most adventurous players went into their shell in the last quarter. To say it is symbolic of our pathetic club is to give in to your own neurosis and allow the players off the hook for the sideways, non-adventurous play in the last. And of course, the inability to kill a contest on HB with 30 secs to go...

Do you read yourself? The options are either we win or the emoti-plosion in the OP is correct? Get some perspective. If the above really is true, then a win over St Kilda in mid-2015 isn't going to matter...

Yeah, ha ha ha... (cough)

...he says 5 mins to go in the second term...

Another disadvantage of being at the game is that some have no idea what they are looking at...

Different styles of play but Tyson is a much better footy player than Vanders - I think we get too caught up with what we have just seen. Tyson was excellent last year and is our second best mid when all lined up and in form.

If Tyson is still not 75% then ANB would get the nod from me but my thinking would be similar. Garland's actions were very impressive and I hope he is out for only a few weeks. His absence is somewhat mitigated by the presence of Fitzpatrick and does allow Grimes to fill Garland's shoes more easily. If Fitz can get rid of those brainfades and be less passive when the ball is around him - shepards, blocks, def/off movement, then he will be turning his athletic gifts and length into plusses that set him apart and will find him a career in this league. But he has to get it going in the next month - I think he is drinking at the last chance saloon and closing hours are upon him...

Gawn has played one game... Best of a bad lot really.

I don't think you have watched much of Varcoe... He has played more than one good game, and I think you made up your mind a few weeks ago and are only looking for things that happen to solidify that opinion. You're welcome to it, but I am in my right mind and I am saying that I think he has been good for this team.

Updated.

Won the clearances. 47 Inside 50s. 220+ Uncontested Possessions. Kicked 6 goals in about 15 mins from the end of the first to half way through the second. Beating a goods midfield in clearances, getting near parity on I50s, getting league average UPs, and kicking goals in a hurry. That would not have occurred in one game against a good team for half a decade.

There is a very smart footy player in my team that I cannot play in the forward line - he ends up just going to the footy and we end up having an extra body around the stoppages and a 5 man forward line. Now, he understands what I want him to do but he just sees ball and tries to go and get it - moth to a flame. Another bloke can't play forward because he thinks it gives him licence to act like Gary Ablett Snr and never leave the 50. When he plays wing he gets forward anyway but also plays up the ground. I end up telling my HFF he is a wing so I will have an opponent for the wing on the other team... Was Oxley supposed to be manned up by someone like the above? I am not sure. Perhaps, Roos felt that the entry into the forward line was the problem, not so much Oxley not being manned up. Perhaps, we should have lowered our eyes and looked to where our extra number was. I will say this though - as a CHF - I hate it when the coach says 'we will have our loose bloke aswell' - I am biased of course but it makes for sloppy footy and a bloke ten metres in front of me or constantly on my shoulder...

And we were such as great team in the years he was on said show... We should just be glad he was talking about us - we spent two and a half years effectively irrelevant to the competition.

How are you fatigued with this - it's not like we have had a great many games in the last few years where we could say that. Honestly, you yourself expected no more than where we are. I was appalled at qtr time and thought here we go again... And then the next two quarters had some of the most enterprising, exciting footy I have seen since 2010 - destroying a good team that was, minutes earlier, destroying us. We all want to win, you don't have to 'apologise' for that, as we don't have to 'apologise' for seeing the progress and pointing it out.

The (hilariously...) funny thing is - as the French(?) poster above alludes - we win that game if we don't make some of the most laughable mistakes with and without the footy, from seasoned AFL players who should know better (and a couple that wouldn't know better...). But to lump it most of that at the feet of a(nother) scapegoat in Toumpas is unfair. The hardest part of footy is getting it - he is starting to come out of his shell and I like his instincts to spread - we need that.

I have no problem with how he plays - he breaks our mould, he relieves our inertia. If you have ever played a game of bball with guys who will never drive and just pass around to each other - you put up a terrible 3 and have no chance. HL drives, he 'does something' in a team that struggles to do anything at times. Sometimes he screws up and it is all on him, sometimes he screws up but it is because another player didn't push to get there because he isn't used to a player even trying to get it to him there. I think we can all agree that HL demands more from those up the ground and I am ok with that...

It's a credit to him that he has lifted the expectation in ten games to the point where being beaten is an aberration...

I am not saying that 'if we win the UP count, we will win the game.' I am trying to explain to people why it is so important for this current Demons team; our fortunes are defined by our willingness to run, spread, and get 'cheap' footy. The way those fortunes turn on a dime is the sudden lack to do those things - to get UPs. If we were around the AFL median of 226 (ie found another 40 easy touches a game) then other KPIs would become important in explaining why we are winning or still losing - but right now, our fortunes in games are directly related to the times in games we escape our inertia and run and be bold and the times we worry about what our opponent is doing with the footy and ignore our desire to go and get that footy. This is why we have been so up and down in 2015.

I talk about this a bit - it has a huge part in what happens when bad teams are evolving into good teams. They don't trust something they haven't seen. It's why Brayshaw will push and spread and back himself and his mate to get him the ball - he hasn't been around for the last few years for that to constantly blow up in his face...

Been through a similar transition with my team up here in Canberra. Going from a group that was winless and losing formulaically to one that now hands out some big defeats, it was a struggle; I remember games when you would put together a terrific period of play and then some players seize up and it's almost like they felt that they have never been in this position before so they didn't want to do anything to screw it up. And when you don't want to take risks, you give yourself up to inertia. And when enough have that mindset - the team will worry more about their direct opponent than getting the ball or helping out or spreading. That is how I read Roos' comments.