drdrake

Isn't it great to see all these big names linked to GWS, they must have been knocked back by so many players that the only players even considering going are basically kids, that will add to the kids they draft. No dis-respect to Scully or Ward or even Walker you are not talking match winners here, you are talking a hot and cold forward and 2 young players with potential that if the rumours are true GWS are willing to pay them more than best players in the AFL.

Would love to smash Hawthorn, I still have memories from Dean Bailey's first game as coach. It was as real as it gets, I think after this game we all knew that we needed to completely rebuild our list. Then the next week against the Bulldogs, would love to return the favour to them on Friday night.

If Dunn plays what position does he play? I cant see him playing up forward with Sylvia, Jurrah, Howe, Petterd, Green already in the team.

Thank you Richmond Thanks for taking Craig Cameron from us. Our recruitment department has never recovered.

At some stage we need to give Sam Blease a taste of AFL football, he has been in the best 2 out of the past 3 games at Casey and playing the Bulldogs suites his style of game. When you consider that we will have Tapscott, Davey, Bail back in the next couple of weeks plus MacDonald, I just think this week is a perfect time to give Blease a run.

You will find 3 names from our club may be offered around come trade time Bate, Warnock and Maric. I know one club that would consider Warnock where he can play with his brother, Carlton need another key defender and I think if the right trade can be done he will get there. I would accept a second round pick for Warnock and our fourth round pick.

I think only one change and it will be for the injured MacDonald. The team will look like this Strauss Frawley Garland Nicholson Rivers Bennell Scully Moloney Jones Sylvia Watts Petterd Jurrah Martin Green Jamar Trengove McKenzie Gysberts Morton Howe Blease Tapscott will come back via Casey could work out 2 games at Casey before we head to Darwin. Bail is only 1 week away so our bye week we might have a couple players back from injury playing for Casey

For the last 3 years the Bulldogs have struggled to beat us, I think in 2009 they only beat us by 7 points and we should of won that day.

This Venture is going to fail, get ready for the Great Southern Sharks when the AFL is forced to cut its loses and move this team to Tasmania, I will give them 8 years in Sydney, then down to Tassie. They might be the first interstate club to sell home games to WA and SA, this will be there only chance to get decent crowds at games.

The next two games are must wins to have any chance, if we lose against the Dogs or Power we have little chance of making the final 8. Win both and we only need 3 wins from our final 7 matches.

I'm not concerned about the Tom going or staying issue it will be resolved when it is. I have one point though, GWS would be mad to pay a young player like Tom the amount of money that is rumoured. It is poor list management, what the Gold Coast has done is picked a super star in what is more than likely his last contract, front loaded it to make sure when all the young players come through there will be enough money available to keep most of them. Bock is the same, the other players GG17 got either had enough of there club, were paid unders by there club or not wanted by their club. Say the rumoured players and money is true for GWS, with a player like Tom he is only going to get better over the contract period. In 5 years the contract is up, you have a number of young players that will be putting their hand out for more money and Tom would be wanting a similar deal to what is rumoured as he will be one of the best midfielders in the competition. It will be imposible for GWS to keep the list together by paying young guys 23 and under big contracts to move over the next 2 years. They need to target guys that are 25yo plus coming into their last or second last contract period, this is why I'm more concerend about them attacking Col Sylvia.

I think the 22 will line up Bartram Frawley Garland Strauss Rivers MacDonald Scully Moloney Trengove Petterd Watts Howe Bennell Jurrah Green Martin McKenzie Sylvia Gawn Morton Jones Sub Gysberts Toss up between Garland and Nicholson, I think we will go with Garland. Bennell is very lucky but we need that small forwrad pressure, last week we went in wit Watts, Gawn and the rest are more mid size forwards that offered little forward pressure. I like the back line it looks a strong defensive group, we need to hope Frawley can hit targets this week. Put our hard players in the middle to start, Moloney, Sylvia and McKenzie need to work hard to win early clearances.

At some stage we have to start to think about our delivery into our forward line rather than our delivery out of our back line. We get Grimes back, hopefully Strauss can continue to improve, Garland and Frawley are good enough by foot still have their moments like Monday but generally OK, I'm impressed by McDonald I've seen him a few times at Casey, big boy can mark and kick. This goes back to the mindset of our coaching department, they want to start our attack from deep in defense. Tapscott is a forward and if I was Cook, Watts and Co I would love for him to be pumping the ball into our 50m arc.

The forward line is one area we have some depth more the mid size players with Sylvia, Green, Howe, Dunn, Bate, Petterd, Jurrah. Our tall otpions are limited to a resting ruckman, Watts and Cook so we need to continue to look for tall fowards but the real area for concern is our small forwards Aussie, Maric, Bennell, Davey and Tapscott, we need someone to stand up from these guys. With the players we have I would love for us to line up Howe Cook Tapscott Davey Watts Jurrah Sylvia into the middle of the ground, Davey back front and square and the bull Tapscott to give us the hard edged long kicking HFF. Get Tapscott out of the back line, we want him getting kicks on the wing pumping it long into our forward line or from outside 50m slotting them through.

I find it funny reading the votes and Changes for next week posts. In the votes people have Morton, Bennell and MacDonald which I thought all did OK on Monday, this you switch to changes and people have these three out off the team for Sunday.

If I was GWS, this is the guy I would be going after he is a goal kicking midfielder that is tuff

I thought Joel MacDonald was OK yesterday

I think you can add Bail to the improve list, injury aside he was good before injured.

Sitting in the stands yesterday, the last quarter turned to the how bad are we conversation. Then it was suggested that if two or three forwards stayed inside our forward 50m arc instead of pushing up on the wing specially if we had the footy on HBF, the defenders would be at least mindful of these men and maybe not press so high and if we get through the press it would be a certain goal as we have a couple of loose players up forward. Yesterday we had several occasions we beat the press to look up into our forward half and have no one there, it forces you to stop short kick hand ball turn over and a goal to Collingwood. You imagine if we had Jack Watts and Liam Jurrah as these two players, the defenders will respect them and push back to them creating space with in the zone. The next part is the crumbing forwards, we had none yesterday, they need to work up to the wing and work even harder to get front and square. Dean Bailey, please simplify you game plan this week, ensure we have options to kick to, and teach the players to get front and square, this is very basic football. One other thing our players ran around like junior footballers yesterday, the ball got kicked to the wing we all ran to the wing, we had 18 melbourne players around the footy and only 12 Collingwood players, when they won the footy they had loose men that created more lose men that created easy goals. 4 players don't need to go to the ball carrier.

What difference does a key forward make if you can't get the footy inside the 50m arc. We need to get the footy deep inside 50m at least 50 times per game. You could have Wayne Carey at full forward but if you can't supply him he is wasted.

Mid season and if you look at our win lose record we are not far away from what most of us would of predicted when the fixture came out last year. I had us with 5 wins till mid year and the teams that I had a certain wins we beat. I was hoping to pick up a win against either Sydney or North, I had us losing to Hawks, West Coast(Subi), St Kilda, Carlton and Collingwood, so as far as the win/loss assessment we are 2 points away for what I predicted last year. Most of us on this site know that our win/loss ratio is important but not the only KPI for the 2011 season. We have to show continued improvement and development, in our wins and draw we have certainly shown this. Our loses on the other hand remind me of 2008/9 we give in, we can't stop teams scoring against us and we can't get our ball inside our forward 50m arc enough to have any chance of winning games. We have seen the debut of 5 players Tapscott, Evans, Nicholson, Howe and Gawn, we can all see positives with these players that should help us push higher up the ladder. We have seen Jack Watts improve, unfortunately not as the Key goal kicking Forward that we all hope for but he is getting his hands on the footy and growing in confidence. We are getting more games into Trengove, Scully, Gysberts, McKenzie, Strauss, Bennell, Jurrah, Jetta, Maric, Morton and the rest of our younger players. Again we have seen enough to known these players have ability. Moloney, Sylvia are having good years, Sylvia IMO is still our most damaging player he has the ability to kick goals and hit targets. Jones and Rivers are two other senior players that are trying hard but both have areas in there games that continue to let them down. Green and Davey have been big disappointments this year, unfortunately for Davey he might not get a chance this year to redeem himself. Green has 11 games to show that he is able to lead this club on the first 11 games we have to say that he is struggling and on current form shouldn't be captian in 2012. The next 11 games will be about will he stay or will he go and I'm not talking about Tom Scully. The Coach needs to improve to keep his job, we as supporters can cop losing matches but we all can see that our set up and structures are very poor. We can't zone, we can't stop teams scoring against us and we can't get the footy inside our forward 50m arc, these are the same issues we have had since Dean Bailey took over the coaching role. If he can't fix this over the next 11 games he will not be coaching the Melbourne Football Club next year. We heard from Bailey they key areas we had to improve were stopping teams scoring against us and getting the ball inside 50m more, we heard this at the start of 2010 and we saw improvement, we heard this at the start of 2011 and it hasn't improved in fact gone backwards. The next 11 games I had us down for 7 wins when the fixture came out, we have to improve a hell of a lot to acheive this.

Dear All, We got smashed in the midfield, please stop trying to re-structure our forward line. The issue we have, besides Blease, we don't have any midfielders left at Casey. Petterd was our best Midfielder on the weekend but I doubt he would play this role are AFL level. With this in mind for the first week ever I have no idea what changes will be made. I think Jurrah needs a week off and Jetta will be injured so we have two changes, Jamar will not be fit this week.

He won't play, both Bennell and Strauss did enough last week to keep their spots. Would love for these two to really keep improving and cement there spot in the back 6. You imagine Tapscotts hardness in our forward line something that we lack, we have talent up forward but no grunt, this guy will add talent and plenty of Grunt.

GWS is going to be the biggest disaster in the history of the AFL. The reason Tasmania doesn't have an AFL team is the AFL want it as a fall back when GWS fails. I can see the Gold Coast playing finals in the next 5-6 years, with the rumoured players going to GWS they will be 10 years away. I can see a lot of players getting homesick and my gut feal is the other AFL clubs know this and will be picking of their players after their first contract expires.

I picked the time based on our first round draft picks and Priority picks from the last few years. McKenzie is stiff but I ran out of spots and he isn't a player that you play as a sub.