Its Time for Another

Curiouser and Curiouser. I thought this was what the Essendon players had been charged for. If not this, what? Weird the headline is about Trenners and not them. Jackson was very adamant from the beginning he was in the clear. Ooh Ahh!! Just noticed that is my 400th post.

Strangely Yes.

No place for racism like that. Leave the ranga's alone.

I don't have the stat's but I am guessing that over the journey, a lot more players have stayed at their interstate clubs than have left. Eg two of the biggest names Franklin and J Brown. The Swans & Lions are basically full of players from interstate. There must be a large percentage of interstaters in the interstate teams as well. If you look at the total I'm sure more stay than go. Jesse is apparently loving living in Melbourne. Mitch is from Perth and is staying even though he's not at the club. "At the moment." After that interview last week it wouldn't surprise me to see him rookied and playing next year. What would that do for Jesse. Quite a lot, I would say.

Agree with this. Bennell has better height, pace and skills and had advanced further earlier. I thought Nev was going to be one of those players caught in the middle. No height but also no speed. So no good as a small defender and no logical alternative position. I was frankly surprised they kept him and didn't rookie some others. How pleased I am to be proved wrong. Bring it on. But it makes you wonder what Roosy would have done with Bennell. I'd love to find out how much of this improvement is due to Roosy and how much is due to Rawlings. Roosy seems to be the consummate communicator on simplifying the game and giving players roles they understand and execute. I wonder if it is Rawlings who gives them the role and Roosy has shown everyone how to communicate it. Whatever it is, it's working a treat. Nev and the rest of the back 6 were unbelievable on the weekend. Mind you having one of your first full pre seasons has got to help a player not blessed with pace. Can't be doing Rawlings any harm when the discussions are going on about Roosy's successor.

Funny you should mention Guerra. I was talking to a Hawks supporter who said he was a very poor kick. I wasn't aware of this. It was in the context of me mentioning how I'd noticed how bad and un Hawthorn like, Shoenamakers kicking is.

You do know that Skilton sacked him saying he was going on a youth program and Alves wasn't in his plans even though he was the Captain. Sound familiar. He got a call up from Barassi to go to Nth and couldn't believe his luck. He wouldn't have played anywhere that year without that call. He told me this himself.

Sydney won't be an option. Absolutely no salary cap space for someone his price plus don't need him. Hawks need him desperately and have the salary cap space.

The comment that worried me the most was something along the lines of "I'm looking for 100% improvement all the time or improvement 100% of the time. To me that was a give away. Setting a standard that can't be reached. At the beginning of the year it was "I'm looking for improvement." Now there's clear massive improvement he's moving the goalposts. It's not just 100% improvement but it's also the chance of a Premiership. What does that tell you. Tell's me he's gone. I don't especially blame him. He's been the player most under the pump for his whole career being the last line of defence being bombarded and not able to compete properly no matter how well he plays. Week after week, year after year for 8 years. But on the other hand, that's all being fixed now and as others have said we are probably one of the teams with the most upside over the next 3-5 years. Could you say that about the Hawks who's window is closing week by week. I believe they are the most likely destination. They have a desperate need for him with Lake about to retire, they have plenty of room in the salary cap. They are a great Club, although most of their stars will be gone in 2-3 years and they'll be doing a major rebuild by then whereas we've done ours. I wouldn't go to Freo if I was him. They are also going to need to go through a rebuild over the next 2-3 yrs. They already seem to be dropping off, although there is a lot of season still to go. Plus they are Freo which means interstate travel every other week.

I think those instructions are greatly exaggerated. There were only two danger games that year. At it's worst I don't think it would have been more than those two games and one of them was lost after the siren, the other was lost well before the siren but probably would have been lost anyway.

Coaches create Game Plans and Game Plans create predictability so players know what to do, where to kick to, where to run to etc. If they don't understand and/or believe in the Game Plan the team doesn't work and they look second rate. Last year I was told that Howey had lost confidence because there was no way of knowing where or how the ball was going to be delivered into the forward line. So he would gut run doing leads and they were ignored. No one knew what they were doing so their confidence collapsed. A player told me that playing this year is a lot easier physically than last year because the team has been taught the Game Plan to the level that they all know where to run to etc. He said it is a lot less taxing to run to a spot and actually have the ball kicked there whereas last year they were running to spots all over and the ball wasn't kicked there so then they had to gut run somewhere else all game. That is coaching, that is why players who didn't look like AFL players are beginning to look like AFL players. Thank you Roosy.

I have one concern about the Roos succession plan. What will happen if it doesn't work. He says he believes in it because it worked at Sydney. But Longmire worked and developed under him for most if not all of his 8yrs there. He was able to develop him and observe him over many years including getting him to coach the team during NAB games. He won't have that luxury here. Kirk is about the only assistant I can think of that he knows really well and has an understanding of how he thinks and acts and what he would bring to the table. But that's still very different to him actually doing all the different roles a Coach has to perform. Who else does he know that would be available. Rawlings is one, maybe Dew, but he seems to have ruled himself out. Neeld was the most highly regarded Assistant when we got him but we know how that turned out. I can't see how Ling could get the gig. He is completely untried. What happens if he picks someone and they don't work out. He's only here for three years. Does he stay on or what happens.

I had forgotten that the team was so inexperienced. Northey was a great coach, who for some reason was never given the respect he should have by the Clubs he coached.

Unfortunately that game at the Western Oval is still my footy watching highlight. Everything everyone else has said. I was jumping up and down and carrying on so much when the final siren blew that I lost my very expensive glasses, never to be seen again. No pun intended. My highlights of that season besides that game were the run of six wins we had to have to get into the finals. No one thought we'd be there that year. I was invited into the Pies Social Club at Victoria Park by a Pies supporting friend who invited me assuming we would lose. Oh how sweet that win was. Then the momentum kept building. We were major underdogs for all those games and the finals. I kept going to every game thinking it would probably be the end of the finals dream and week after week we kept winning against the odds and the momentum kept building and building and the dream got a little more real week by week. My other biggest memory of that series was the noise each time the team ran out onto the G against North and the Swans. Deafening. Everyone there who wasn't an opposition supporter was supporting the mighty Dees. The Swans were looking invincible that year. They kicked three scores of over 30goals in a row and everyone thought they'd be unstoppable and we flogged them. It was like a dream. I went to all the training sessions at the Junction Oval during the finals. I couldn't believe how scrawny Robbie was with his shirt off. Almost anorexic. Couldn't believe that was the body that did so much magic. The feeling at those training sessions was unreal. There were several thousand to each session. I have no doubt we would have been flogged if we'd made it through. Brian Wilson, Ricky Jackson, Robby Flower and someone else were injured and wouldn't have played. We were bashed up and exhausted and Grand Final day was a freakish 32oC. They were cruel conditions for the team that had played the PF and a huge advantage to the team that had had the week off. It would have been ugly.

I stand corrected the big Gawny is in for Frawley. I guess they will use Pedersen as a permanent forward or perhaps put him in the backline and put Garland up front and have Gawny as the second ruckman resting in the forward pocket creating havoc.

I agree but as I understand it he didn't play at Casey last weekend so would be a big call to go into the Firsts. Would love it if he did.

I reckon this story is a bit of a beat up. Jacko would be completely negligent not try to have a chat to Bomber. He and the Bombers have said he won't be coaching there next year which means he is theoretically available. You'd think as a matter of course PJ will have some sort of discussion with everyone mentioned on this forum. He'd be negligent not to. I bet like me and most of the rest of us, PJ is hoping that Roosy will work his way around to deciding to take the job on as the Dees, long term, Senior Coach rather than a 2-3yr consultant setting up for a successor. Since the Adelaide game, if not a bit earlier, its becoming pretty clear that he is getting some serious traction with his coaching and after only 7 rounds we are all starting to see the signs of a Paul Roos coached team. If they keep going like this, by the end of the year coaching this team is going to be a much more appealing proposition. Why would you give that up to step away just to be the Director of Football with a massive pay cut. There would be no place for a succession plan under Bomber so he would need to go straight to being Director of Football or out the door. Doesn't make a lot of sense when you think about it.

Not sure the logic behind Director of Football when he's reportedly earning $1.6mill. A little Club like us can't be paying big money to Directors of Football so he would have to take a massive pay cut which would open up alternatives at that money whereas at that reported price I doubt there would be anything out there besides AFL CEO. Whether he wants to coach or not is an entirely different matter.

That is hilarious. You sure that's not Cyrol Rioli from a couple of years ago. If he was a Dees player he would probably do this standing on the spot without actually taking off.

Slow News Day

This is closer to the mark. I believe the Leadership void started under Daniher. Jolly wrote an article a few years ago saying Daniher had an inner sanctum of favorites and if you weren't in that group he virtually ignored you. He said Daniher would walk past him and ignore him. If the coach was doing that you can be sure those inner sanctum players who should have been the cultural leaders of the club were probably also acting elitist and not leading the junior players. That's certainly they way it looked over those years. Those players used to go missing every year for a month eg '06 when we were on top of the ladder around round 18 and then lost every game. None of them stood up. I have watched Sydney closely in intra club games and their leaders are out there directing players exactly where to stand, when to go, when to stay on their man etc. It's like they have 12 or so onfield coaches. You can see them doing it constantly during games. That's leadership. That results in unbelievable development of Junior players. The coaches are only part of the equation. Daniher never developed a leadership culture like that. Bailey didn't really have any leaders to work with. Neitz was the exception but he used to go missing during those down periods. Neeld tried to recruit older players to at least bring it into the Club, mostly off field. Roos has a lot of work to do.

Salem missed the preseason with a thyroid condition which caused him to lose 6 kilos. He is slowly working his way back to fitness. Get your facts right before you start condemning players.

Point of the thread is good players we have traded who have been transformed by going to new Clubs. So far he has done what he has always done. No transformation. Even worse. As for the rest of the season who knows. Im not commenting on it, it hasn't happened. As you say lets see. But not a great start.

Which side of the fence.