darkhorse72

Overall he played with more touch than the bulldogs games that i watch on TV. Didn't spill easy marks, and there were a lot of fumbles after the first qtr. First qtr the whole team look brillant as the dockers didn't bother to chase or harass at all. Looked like a huge tanking effort by them, they were woeful. The boys moved the ball really well and found lots of space with clean delivery and it was looking great. After qtr time, the dockers pretty much ran with our boys restricting their space causing the confidence to drop and clangers to skyrocket, and those short useless hand passes reappeared. As for Newton worked up and down the wings when the ball was in the dockers 50 to present as a target constantly, which doesn't show up on the tv. As I posted before except for the first qtr there were little opportunity to a nic clean lead up the guts of the ground, spent some time on the bench over the match as well. Too much sudden sideways movement across the centre that just confused the forwards, or they held the ball too long in a run so by the time they kicked it the forward for example Bate in the last qtr was marking a kick outside 50 whereas he started leading from the square and should have gotten it 30-40 out.

Since I got to watch a game live today, my view on Newton is different. He presented well most of the day which would have been shown on TV because we often went sideways for the easy possession coming across half forward screwing up the forwards and Newton's run at the ball. You could say the same thing about Sylvia in the last qtr, but the players kicked the ball over his head and had to run back with his opponent to contest for it. And often the delivery was awful.

Yes, tried to catch up and chat with Miller but he was always busy with someone so I only got his signature on the jumper. Got to all the players to at least get their autographs on my 150th jumper (going to get it framed now) but as you can imagine with 200 people there they were very popular. I got to speak with Baily after the players left as he and connolly hung round longer. The only disappointing thing was Jimmy wasn't there, so maybe at the aftermatch function at the game. Another initiative they have done on this visit: Is for 100 dollars, ten people will go into the rooms while the players warm up on the ground to go through all the planned match-ups with Chris Connolly, before joining the boys in the room for Baily's last address to the players before they run out. Should be brillant and one of the best $100 I have ever spent.

All good clubs put faith in their players and spend time and $money developing them, as they all have the talent just need the right coaches to get it out of them.

Thanks guys Also Bruce said he never expected to play AFl, only got the phone call after he finished exams, with the invite to tryout and then ended up on the supplementary list as we all know.

Hey All (my first post so be kind) Great event for us WA supporters to have the players for a dinner last night with all in attendance including the coaching and support staff. Since we very rarely ever get to meet the players as they often leave straight after matches for flights home it was great to catch up and finally meet a lot of the new boys. (The last time they did a group event Viney was captain ) We also met some of the old boys such as Darren Kowal and Dean Irving. To some this will be old news and some rehash. Anyway since I read a lot of the boards here with adding too much, I thought I'd give some of the conversations I had with the players and coach. We had Bruce and Junior on our table which was great and I asked them about the differences in coaching from Neale Daniher to Dean Bailey. The biggest change besides all the new development skill coaches is that Bailey has set plays whereas Daniher had a general game plan on moving the ball - which explains a lot of the players decision making processes during his years. Mark Jamar is really enjoying being the main ruck and his performances are starting to show it and he loves playing footy (he was the only player who mentioned this). He says he will play as long as he can even after AFL. Chris Johnson - starting to enjoy his footy after getting a real chance and was really happy with the change in management (coaching) so I think he's about to come good. Which is great for us and him. When I spoke to Bailey about Chris he said they're really working on hitting targets with his kicks but he's found like last week, and with a lot of the players they will often hit a hard target but screw up the easy ones! I was a bit embarrassed as I didn't recognise him as I've only seen 3 games on TV over here this year as they are always on Fox (which I don't have), thank god for radio streaming over the web. And hadn't seen a lot of him in the last few years when we got good coverage as he never got a game. Colin Sylvia - one frustrated boy about no being able to get his game going and maintaining the required consistently. I didn't raise the issue he did, so he's working on it and it'll click for him soon. Nathan Jones - talk to him about the hard time getting the main tagger most weeks, but he'll get there. Junior - his body is getting there, and hopes to play on next year. Cam Bruce - enjoying the footy but with all his running as he averages about 15 km a game, its taking a toll and he's taking more than a day or two to recover each week. Paul Wheatley - congratulated him on his great torp last week and a pity it didn't come off. He said he did let the boys know that was where he was going. Would have been great with one of the big boys running off the back of the square to crash the pack and take a mark in the centre. I spoke to Bailey for a bit as I raised the fact that the Dee's under Daniher had no set plays. He said he was very surprised as well when he took over which is why I think the boys have taken so long to adjust. He also mentioned even back in his playing days at Essendon even then they had a few basic set plays with Sheedy. We spoke about how the boys are improving and like us he gets frustrated at those good passages of plays that get turned over by the last fumble or missed target as we're about to set up score! But he is happy that those turnovers are no longer resulting in goal by default by the opposition, like earlier in the season as we're getting control of the ball back. Only chatted briefly with the other boys while getting autographs. But the young boys a lot bigger than I expected especially young Morton who is going a big size (hopefully powerful) midfielder in a few years. Otherwise there were about 200 people there and we raised about 7k on the night for the club. Now to enjoy my only live game tomorrow. Cheers Kane Anything else I remember I'll add later.

Bravo old chap, a job well done

I know of the guys that joined up this week (Our amateur footy coach) and he doesn't support the Dee's but he loved to watch Robbie Flower from the origin games when the Vic's came to WA ot play in the 80's.

Hey all One of the young blokes from my local club played in the WA country v city against Rich and Natanui. He said Rich was great while not a dashing midfielder he knew how to get the ball and picked out the right option everytime. and while Natanui was a freak in the ruck he couldn't read the play and had little awareness so got crunch a lot. Country won in the end despite