Its Time for Another

I like what you've done here. It's interesting to go a step further and discuss what people think the players need to do to reach their potential. Players who are best 22 and have not reached their potential (15) Low Scope for Improvement (5) Gawn Needs to stay uninjured. Has shown form in all areas of play. Could kick more goals. Viney First of all has to get his foot right. We don't want another Trengove. Still plenty of upside development on decision making and disposal efficiency. Even for his position. Tyson Has to fix disposal. If he does that he's an A grader. If he doesn't he could be out the door in a couple of seasons as others pass him. Frost Complete drop of form is a real worry. Before that I thought he was showing good development in reading the play and playing one on one. Obviously needs to improve decision making and disposals. T Mac Showed he has the complete package to play in the forward line. Great leading patterns, very strong contested pack marking, accurate kicking. Just needs more time there. Medium Scope for Improvement (6) Oliver Obvious one is kick to handball ratio. Otherwise more of the same but natural improvement for such a young player. Lever Probably one on one contests as he builds a stronger body. Plus perhaps decision making and disposals although I'm not as critical as others on this. Hogan Running at the ball instead of trying to out muscle defenders. More time in the forward line and less roaming too far up the ground. Getting a good of games in a row to build up consistency and form. Harmes Skills and consistency. Showed improvement in both but hopefully there is more to have him cement his place in the 22. Hunt Fix the final kick into the 50. Look up and find targets to deliver low accurate passes to instead of running in and blazing away with high kicks that aren't effective. There was definitely improvement with this at different stages. I'm confident he's already shown he can do this. Neal-Bullen Skills. Cut out the turnovers. Keep using his elite endurance to get into space. Large Scope for Improvement (4) Brayshaw No injuries. Also needs to improve his final kick inside the 50 so it is low sharp passes to leads not blazing away. He also showed improvement with this. Petracca I really hope he drops at least 4kg's so he can build his tank and improve the consistency of his involvement and give himself the chance to play more onball. Salem Improve attack on the ball. Build his tank. Play more upfield so we get more of the benefit of his razor sharp kicks as last kick into 50. O Mac Build mass so can compete better one on one. Less brain fades although I think his general game improved quite a lot this season. Needs to have a natural progression of improvement in everything. No reason for that not to happen. Players who are not best 22 and have not reached their potential (12) Low Scope for Improvement (2) Bugg Agree with others that he is probably underrated however we've probably seen his best and in time is likely to be a depth player. vandenBerg I don't think he's had a chance to show his best yet. Hasn't had a full preseason and is still starting in rehab this pre season. Fully fit I think he has a higher scope for improvement as a tough defensive forward. Medium Scope for Improvement (6) Hannan Needs to lift his involvement and consistency. Has the makings of a great package with speed, contested marking and good goal scoring (although I expect this to improve with more experience) I think he could be Large Scope for Improvement. I suspect he's a big reason why Watts is gone. Kent Needs to be injury free and move beyond his previous best level. Main improvement if he gets back to that is consistency for 4 quarters and goal kicking accuracy. His forward pressure at his best has been missed and made him an integral weapon. Stretch Needs to be able to compete more strongly, improve defensive pressure and decision making. Some say he's bulked up from those first photos but if you look at the photo where they are putting their heart rate monitor straps on he doesn't look like he's bulked up that much. He still needs to. JKH Has to improve his level of involvement in games and his decision making. Doesn't seem to know where to run in AFL games but can in VFL games. Personally I think at his height he has to have speed or an ability to read the play so he doesn't need it. I don't see it. King Hasn't even played a game yet so too early to tell his upside. Has apparently bulked up over the summer which was his major issue. He's only 200cm so not going to challenge Gawn as the no. 1 ruckman but hopefully will develop into a Forward/second ruck. Johnston Haven't seen enough of him to know. Worry for me is that like JKH he is short but lacks speed so therefore needs to be an elite reader of the play. Don't know if he is or not. Apparently great forward pressure but don't know about goalkicking. Large Scope for Improvement (4) Weideman Firstly needs to continue to bulk up. Secondly seemed to have less of an idea where to run this season than last season. Not sure if that's a drop in confidence or confusion trying to learn his role in the wider forward structure. Hopefully the later and hopefully he'll fix it. Hopefully gets his confidence back in front of goals. Dropped off this season. Is very important for the future forward line structure. Especially if you know who goes back to Perth. Balic Not sure why you've put him here. I'd say medium at best. Has had 2 seasons and although had injuries and homesickness hasn't shown a great deal to show he'll be elite. Maynard Haven't seen enough to know. I have a feeling given his age there will be a lot of pressure to come in and start performing early. Showed a bit in his baptism of fire v GWS but also looked a bit lost. J Smith Showed glimpses in his first game that he could be a freak combination of height, speed, skill. Looked loss in his second stint. Hopefully he can come back and develop his confidence.

You missed the headlines in the press last week about the VRC agreeing to allow men to attend the Cup with no socks. Was discussed in the papers and on tv. Personally I can't stand wearing shoes with no socks. Too uncomfortable. It's a magnificent looking trio of potential. If they all reach that potential next year watch out. Personally I'm not going to feel the bloke in the middle is truly a Dees player till he makes more of a long term commitment. Have had that feeling in my guts since the day he was drafted. I understand all the players including him and T Mac had reason not to commit long term in the past years but that era should be gone now.

But its not red and its not a leg.

Essendon player circa 2012-13 Pre season

Yeh you're right. Couldn't remember. '74_'77. Not a great period in the Club's history. Won't ever forget the last game of that season against Collingwood. Cemented my lifelong antipathy towards that club. We had to beat them and Blues who were top of the ladder had to beat Dogs who were bottom and we would have made the finals. Blues and Dogs drew so we missed out. That result came up on the scoreboard just as our game finished and the Collingwood players jeered, clapped and laughed at our players. They had just won the wooden spoon but the next year made the drawn Grand Final and beaten in the replay by Barras's North. So sweet.

31 was why I started following the Dees before he defected. 2 Flower I moved to Melbourne and started going every week in his debut season '73. Only missed one year in his career when I lived OS in '82. Poetry in motion. Most of his career was lean especially the first years but this was the best centre line we've had in my time. 2 From memory Tingay had it and Jonesy has been a worthy 2

I thought he defected and went to North chasing the Premiership he got in '77 but I met him and he explained that Skilton became the coach at the end of '76 and even though he was the Captain sacked him saying he was rebuilding with youth. (Sounds familiar). He was devastated and thought his career was over but then got a call from Barassi asking him to come to North. No wonder he did a cartwheel on his wing when the siren sounded and he won a Premiership at the end of that season.

I stand corrected. Didn't realise number of rookies decreased between 38 to 40 on primary list. Unlikely we won't use all 4 draft picks although if there's not anything much around at 47 and there's someone like a ruck who needs to be developed as a rookie or a delisted free agent eg if Spencer doesn't get picked up, we might not use it and go the extra rookie. I get the feeling they had planned to do a deal with some of our picks for an upgrade and didn't make it happen.

We all see what we want to see. Last time I checked a month goes for 4 weeks not 2. Rd 20 first of the final month v GWS a game we desperately needed him to stand up in. Stats were 8 disposals 1 goal 2 hitouts. Ditto Rd 23 11 disposals 1 goal 2 hitouts. The last month sums him up perfectly unfortunately. He wasn't even in the team for the two rounds before it. Dropped. FD didn't regard him as best 22. Before that Rd 16 10 disposals 0 goals. Rd 17 12 disposals 0 goals. The cherry picked games you mention were the 2 great performances out of the last 8 rounds. Pedders is 30. There is no time left for him to be so inconsistent. I expect he will start round 1 next season and hope he continues on the form of your 2 games but unfortunately I'm not confident. His history shows he can't do it consistently and that's why I don't have him best 22. I truly hope he proves me wrong.

I agree. I put them in that category because they are already performing at a consistent AFL level even though there's still a lot of upside whereas the others in the second category haven't got that consistency yet. Some might argue Petracca has but he's a long way off his potential. I don't agree with you on Gawn. He had that season last year but was cruelled by injury this year. Are we worried enough about whether he can recapture his best to put him out of this category? That's a different issue.

A certain R Flower managed to go all right with one of these shoulders for most other career although it probably would have robbed him of a Grand Final appearance if we'd made it in '87. Saw his Open Mike interview again recently and he said he struggled to play a month later in some rep game. Kent is an interesting one. Year before last he was shaping up as one of our key players. His forward pressure was the best in the team and he had a few games he blew open with those fast dashes and goals but injuries and form have brought him down. Really hope he recaptures it and fulfills the glimpses he's shown.

Attitude alone won't save Pedders. His problem is consistency. He's admitted this himself. He covered himself in glory for a few weeks and then dropped off badly at the end of the season. I don't know if that's an attitude problem or something else. If he knew he'd fix it.

I'd like to agree with you and without question his best is best 22 but his problem which he has admitted and which Paul Roos mentioned is his inconsistency. He had a purple patch and I thought he'd really finally arrived but then in the last month he vanished again especially when we really needed him to stand up. That's the reason I don't have him best 22 and that's the reason he'll be gone if the Weid come through. The only hope is that he works out why he played so well for those couple of games and can make that consistent.

There's 36 on the list now including Smith. Plus 4 draft picks makes 40. Plus 4 Rookies makes 44. A list can be up to 47 with a maximum of 6 rookies which means there's still room for 2 more rookies. So stop being your namesake and check your facts before blasting away saying "Wrong" when you don't know what you're talking about.

I like many on here and in the press are expecting the Dees to substantially improve and at least make finals next year. The improvement other than Lever's inclusion is expected to come from assumptions that many of our players who haven't reached their potential yet will do so next year. For instance Jon Ralph wrote this week the Dees will win the flag if Petracca kicks 40 goals. So I thought I'd go through the list and break it down into players who have reached their potential and those who haven't reached their potential yet but we hope are going to next season. I've also loosely broken them down into positions but that is very fluid. It's also a useful exercise in working out list weaknesses for drafting. Will be interested to read people's opinions. I have included Oliver in players who have reached their potential because he's already playing at an outstanding level even though he clearly has a lot more improvement to go. So arguably he could go in either. Whereas I have put Tyson in the not reached potential yet because I think there's such a knock on his disposal that if he doesn't improve it he could well be moved on in the next couple of seasons. So arguably hasn't reached his full potential. We are all hoping and expecting future stars like Hogan, Petracca, Brayshaw, Hunt & Salem go to the next level next year and be consistent high level performers to push us deep into finals. But the fact is "hoping" is the big question. None of them are there yet and whether some or all of them do or don't will decide the future success of the team. Players who are top 22 and have reached their potential

Why not? We have 4 Rookies and can have up to 6. We have the list room for 6if we choose to.

DemonAndrew would you mind explaining the difference. I was talking to a couple of journalist mates who are from NSW and don't follow AFL. They were laughing about some of the weird AFL centric terminology and calling the draw a Fixture was one of the things they brought up. They said its a schedule not a Fixture and wondered why it was called that.

I haven't seen him play drunk as a forward or defender yet. But I know where you are coming from. I've played both drunk and I was definitely safer as a defender than forward when drunk too. I have to admit though playing drunk wasn't performance enhancing in my case. Managed to break each little finger in each of the two games I played like that. Retired from being a drunk player after that. Unfortunately not too many people seemed to notice a difference which could mean I was a good drunk player or a sober player who played like a bad drunk player. Alas in my case it was the later.

Thanks Drunkn. I guess you never know where that break will come from. No one I know has any idea why Sammy Frost fell so spectacularly out of favour but I guess if that continues next season and Dec continues his outstanding second half form an opening is there. Was very surprised after the way Frosty was treated that he even got a year extension. Do you have any idea what happened there.

Hey Drunkn interested to hear what you see his role being over the next couple of seasons. Lever coming in has further filled in the big man structure and if Weideman starts to play in the firsts by the end of next season where does Dec see his opportunity and what role? I'm interested what players in his position generally and him specifically are thinking when they've just been at a Club for a year and a gun player comes into a role they might have played in which pushes them a bit further back down the pecking order. Is it a matter of working really hard to improve so that he is better than some of the incumbents like O Mac or Frosty or even eventually T Mac or is it something else. Even replacing Pedersen might be a challenge in 2019 if Weideman is in the team with Hogan and T Mac up front.

We already tried that for 7 years. Didn't work.

I read something a while ago that there are discussions going on with the MCC about setting up training and FD facilities in the redeveloped Great Southern Stand which is going to happen soon. Apparently there is enough space under it that it could be accommodated there. It could have an MCC and maybe community aspect to it. Otherwise mentioning being close to CBD surely could only mean something over the rail yards. Eddie's suggestion for doing this seemed to receive favourable feedback from the Govt.

It is a great option. Makes total sense. Should be done but unlikely to be. They just opened a brand new $30mill training and social/function facility adjacent to the Glass House and overlooking the Olympic Park oval. The function centre is a revenue maker. We blew our chance on this one over 10 years ago when it was offered to us and we knocked it back saying we couldn't afford the $10mill fit out and Eddie jumped in and sold the naming rights to Lexus for an upfront fee of $10mill which covered the redevelopment costs. I hate to have to say Hats off to him.

That's the spirit.

You are clearly incapable of being able to separate getting Lever and being able to judge whether it was a good deal or not. You are like someone who buys a car from a dealer for $10,000 when you only have $1000 because he offers you finance and you only have to start paying next year. Then next year comes and you're in shock when the first bill comes. The fact is we were always getting Lever, they just gave in and gave away our first rounder next year. Calling people bleating and others babies because they are capable of seeing the difference doesn't reflect on us it reflects on you. Shame people can't express different opinions on this forum without others resorting to denegration when they don't agree.