drdrake

I have just got back from the West, we need to add skill and run into our team. Bate and Petterd can give us marking mobile half forwards, Maric today deserves another chance and I think he is a better option than both Aussie and Bennell. Maric can run in the midfield and it a leading forward, Morton and Dunn need to be dropped, upgrade Nicholson or Evans, Scully is still 5 weeks away. Move Grimes into the midfield, from the limited time he gets in there he is a very good clearance player. We need to stop trying to win games from the backline, we need to win from the midfield and get the footy inside our attacking 50m arc. Bartram Martin Frawley Garland Rivers Tapscott Trengove Grimes Jones Green Watts Bate Davey Jurrah Petterd Jamar Sylvia Moloney Gysberts Bail Maric Nicholson In Maric, Nicholson, Petterd, Bate Out Aussie, Bennell, Morton, Dunn

This is great by the club, to keep all these guys over the next 10 years, they need to increase their earning potential from outside the club. The best way is to appear in the media, get a regular spot on a footy show, a column in a paper or get on the TV coverage of other games.

The heat should be on our football department, after 4 games in 2011 we still have spells in games were our bad footy comes back and our bad footy isn't getting any better. When we are off we stink we are rubbish. Every team has bad periods through a game or season, the thing we have to do is remain competitive whilst in a bad period. At the moment we get smashed, I would have expected that the gap between our good footy and bad footy would have narrowed in four years but in fact it has got greater because our good footy is better and opur bad footy has remained the same. Off-field the club has worked to re-build the club but we have to understand that with out success they can only take the club so far. The next 6 weeks will show to what levels we can achieve in 2011, we play West Coast, Adelaide, North, St kilda, Carlton and Essendon, IMO we have a chance against all these clubs, we should be aiming to win 4 of the next 6. If we come away from the next 6 weeks with 1 or 2 wins, the club should put extreme pressure on the Football department.

On the flip side how many games did we enter into our forward 50m arc more than 60 times, it would supprise me if the answer wasn't 0.

Yep and give Taspcott the same amount of AFL games as Hurley and we will have a very good footballer. Hurley is a good footballer, hopefully Tapscott will continue on but I still think Watts has a bigger upside than Hurley. I would also love Hurley, along with Rich and a few others from that draft but we picked who we picked and hopefully Watts will continue to improve and in three years we are talking about a star of the competition no just a good player.

My belief is that you Bomb long because you don't have confidence to hit a leading target, or you feal that you are under pressure and you don't look.

Hurley is a man, was drafted to play straight away. Like Rich, Hurley will improve but what you see know will be similar to what you will get for the future. Watts has unlimited potential, it has been a slow process but if he can realize his potential he can be a star of the competition. He is two years behind Hurley in his development, but I have full confidence once Jack hits 22/23yo, we will sitting back with big grins on our faces, some will also have egg on theirs.

Imagine you play for the MFC, you are running down the wing and you look up and see Jack Watts and Liam Jurrah, Jack is on a good lead if you hit him he will be 40m out. Then the other option is Jurrah 25m out from goal standing still, which option would you take? Turning ther footy over 25m out is less risk and I think that is the issue, we are not playing well players are not taking the right option because they are fearful of turning the footy over and getting hurt on the rebound. As we start playing better and I hope it is from this week our confidence grows and you will find we will start taking the best option, and not think about turning the footy over.

One thing that is for certain, GWS will not get with in 10 goals of any team next year. This club is going to be a bigger flop than the Brisbane Bears. With in 10 years the AFL will relocate this club to Tasmania and it will go done as the biggest mistake by the AFL.

What Forward line, unless we get a clearance or controlling the football inside our 50m arc our forwards are pushing up the ground. I agree playing him deep forward is ideal to beat his tag but until we can get our supply to our forwards up he is wasted there. The other option is off half back at least if they tag him it is one less forward we have to defend. Ideally if Davey gets a heavy tag you want a Sylvia to dominate so the tag goes to him. Col is harder to tag because he is so good at marking overhead.

The times I saw Watts on a good lead, we decided to kick into the middle, this happened 3 times and all three times we missed the target in the middle turned the footy over. It seemed more the style we want to play, Jack was a good option on the flank but we want to get in to the middle og the gound of half back.

The club was backed into a corner and had to make a statement. To any supporter they would know that this penalty for Beamer will hurt him. He loves the club and being Vice Captian would be a dream for him. He deserved what he got and I sincerely hope through his actions on and off the field over the next 6 months he can get back this. This is Character building and to me this guy is all class. Get on him for the B&F he will respond in the best way he knows how, with very good footy. What the clb has done is responded to an issue and put it to bed quickly, it will get media attention tomorrow, gone Wednesday and will be mentioned in the broadcast on Sunday. The matter is dead.

At the moment he is playing mainly as a lead up forward, playing this role requires a couple of thinks you work hard to present your team mates kick the footy to you and more importantly your team mates kick the footy well to you. Lets face facts we have been very poor as a team for all but 5 quarters of footy. For three quarters against Hawthorn we struggled to get the ball forward of centre, Yesterday we played a quarter and a half of good footy the rest was bad and Sydney was the same. As our midfield gets better so will Watts, IMO he is thinking to much of where he should be running to, rather than playing on instincts. In other words he is playing like a robot, he looks tense, to me he is more worried about his postioning in regards to team structure then winning the footy. I think he should be played against the Gold Coast, play him deep forward besides Jurrah, our midfield should be able to get the supply lets try him close to goal.

The club needs to make a statement, he deserves to be kicked out of the leadership group. That is all the punishment he needs.

If we serve up what we did yesterday they have every chance of beating us. For most of the game we looked lazy, we gave the opposition no respect. If we can play like we did in the second and third quarters we win easy, if we play like the first and last they will beat us. This is an issue our good is good but our bad is still extremely bad the gap between the two hasn't narrowed, in fact got further apart because our good has improved.

All drafted in the past 4 years.

If we don't play 4 good quarters of footy they can beat us. The first 3 games has shown we still have a big gap between our good and bad. Look at yesterday we had a quarter and a half of good footy and the rest was bad. If we can't sustain our good footy for longer periods of time we wil get beaten by most clubs, including the Gold Coast.

You want to be a leader you act like one both on and off the field. Make him earn his spot back in the leadership group through his actions.

If what is alledged is fact it will be a test for the leadership group of which he is apart off. The first thing would be kick him out of the leadership group, you can't have a leader of your club doing this. That would hurt Beamer more than any suspension.

No change, the balance of our team looks good

I would love to see Davey spend more time closer to goal, but until we get all our early draft pick midfielders up and playing he is required in the midfield. This week we see Morton and Gysberts come in hopefully they can improve hold their spot. Scully and McKenzie get fit and we are starting to get some quality through the midfield. Then we can afford to have Davey spend more time up forward

To me it looks like we are correcting our midfield numbers, It was mentioned that a few players ran out of legs, we drop 3 forwards and introduce two mid's and a small forwards. The team looks a little bit more balanced to me. We will line up as Bartram Garland Frawley Tapscott Rivers Grimes Davey Sylvia Trengove Green Watts Dunn Aussie Jurrah Martin Jamar Moloney Gysberts Morton Jones Bail Sub Bennell

Did we set a new membership record today? With all the focus on our poor on field performance against Hawthorn our membership tally has crept up to 33,359, I thought last years total was 33,358

No we don't we have no one that can run with a high quality midfielder, you watch Simon Black smash us this week,we are lucky he will have no support around him but he will get his 25-30 touches and no one will be able to stop him. Move Bennell or Bail to the back pocket. If he doesn't work out bring in Strauss or Blease. Bartram is the only player with the right strengths to be a run with player, he is quick, tackles strong and has the endurance, he can win the footy, disposal is a concern but in the midfield he will have more handball options than he currently has in the last line of defense.

AS a stopping midfielder he was very good, his job isn't to get the footy its to stop a highly damaging midfielder getting the footy and he still gets a lot of the footy down back, the problem back there is if turns it over it will cost us a goal.