drdrake

Common sense, the bloke hasn't done a pre-season in 2 years, has had long spells off legs. Most injuries you can get moving on your feet pretty quickly, even knee reco your up walking straight away. The injury this guy had he basically meant long periods of moon boots limited walking let alone running. He is a mile behind the competition fitness wise. The issue the club faces is managing him over the next 6 months, he will want to be on the track all day everyday to get to the level needed, his work loads will need to be monitored closely to minimise the risk of another foot injury, my opinion any more stress related fractures in his feet would almost certainly end his career.

Yep, the club needs to re-sign him and try to off load O McDonald

Pretty good forward line out for the season injured J Smith McDonald Garlett Hannan Weiderman AVB With Tim Smith on the bench Really disappointed for J Smith, he looked good in pre-season, what a massive mistake putting him back on at Casey fields back in March,.

Interesting with the start of the vision, to me both clubs players were cheating, in that both Melbourne and Collingwood players were on the attacking side of the contest. Melbourne had 1 player set in a defensive position and I think the pies had 2. Both clubs had 4-6 players on the attacking side. Basically whoever won the ball at the contest was going to transition into their attack very quickly and whoever lost the contest Melbourne was going to be severely exposed. The fact we didn't work hard enough from the contest is a secondary point. I have seen this all year we have players one the forward side of the contest and very few on the defensive side. Week before there was a ball up in our back pocket, easy tap not one Melbourne player between to contest and the Goal line, open goal resulted. To me we are trying to play the old Richmond and Bulldogs style of just move the ball forward at all cost, that explains why players more players are forward of the ball. Issue is we turn it over we have no mids in defensive positions. This footage showed by Roo's the players positions for Melb need to be switched 1-2 players forward of the ball and the rest setting up in defensive positions. Win the ball then work hard to be a option. Pretty simple U12 stuff

When you turn the footy over like we do making basic skill execution errors you will not win games of Football, no leader in the history of the game would improve our results from this year, we just give the Footy away

Need to stop blaming individuals, the bottom line is our team just doesn't have the foot skills required to win games. We can win the football just can't keep it. This goes to the type of player we drafted and traded for over the past 5 years. Funny, Paul Roos and the Eagles evolved the game back to an ultra defence contested ball game 10 years back, the Eagles have added the element of highly skilled kicking and possession footy, Clarkson saw this coming mid last year changed his game style, we didn't and this year is the end result. It is a skill issue, not leadership

Ben Brown is a hit up leading forward, doesn't take big contested marks, he needs to ball to hit him on a lead. We can't hit the side of a barn going into our forward 50m. Skill and speed that is the only type of player we should be looking at. If you can't keep the Footy no point having big hit up forwards

Yep, lets get another key forward that our mids who can't kick can miss. Speed and skill to replace our fleet of slow and unskilled both in the mids and small/mid size forwards

You can't defend when you turn the footy over the way we do. That is the bottom line, we work so hard to win the ball just to turn it over

Roos can't comment as the players we drafted fitted his game style, big body footballers that will win around the contest. That was the case you win the contested ball you win the match. The issue we face is we win the ball at the contest but don't have the skill to keep it. The other afl teams know this they just sit back in our defensive 50m arc and wait for the easy turnover and rebound from there. Our players aren't unfit, they work so hard to win the ball get it forward then bang the ball comes straight back out, we don't get a breather. The bottom line is our players are so far behind AFL standard in the fundamental skills of the game, kicking, handballing and Marking, I have never seen an AFL side even in our worse years that miss the target by hand and foot as much as we do. We have 3 players flying for the ball with no one down both forward and backs. Last year we scored this year we just don't have that scoreboard pressure

Be nice to see another kid, Jordon, Chandler or Bedford. Time to see more fresh faces

We really have 2 players that the opposition would be worried about ball in hand Salem and May, Lever is a good kick but just needs more games. The rest you know will miss targets on a semi regular basis, that is bad 3 players out of 22 that line up each week

Kicking, we just can't hit targets, absolutely disgrace that full time professional well paid players can't hit a target 20m away. We tried to put the ball into dangerous spots but the downside is once we missed the turnover was a goal, that was the difference yesterday, we worked hard for our goals, the Eagle got cheap goals due to our turnover and it wasn't Eagle pressure it was just pure skill errors.

Or we get to the bottom of the run and think wow that was an awesome run, dwell on that awesome run for a while add a handful of bad runs because we are thinking about the awesome run we had. It is a glaring issue for our team once the ball leaves that 5-10m of the contest our defensive pressure is terrible we allow teams to run away from the contest, our mids and forwards don't work hard enough outside the contest.

I reckon he is almost there, just needs to hang onto a couple more marks and kick those easy goals. He bashes the contest when he can't mark it and has shown he can take a good high contested mark. One more pre-season and he will be a 30 goal a year forward

Weiderman- Nearly there game Fine line between a good game and bad game, kicks those 2 goals that he one in the first and one in the second he has a good game, missed both badly and it goes the other way.

Disagree with this as we don't have any decent small medium size forwards. You have a giant of a man that is strong and aggressive leave him inside the forward 25m, if you are kicking long like we are you need someone to kick to. Weiderman and McDonald work from 25m out up to the back half and run up and back. The main issue is our small forwards, we play an extra mid around the ball so we always play 1 forward short, that forward pushing up doesn't work to get front and square up forward so it is always an out number once it hits the ground, then you have 3 forwards jumping at the same ball against 1-2 defenders leaves us 2-3 short one ground.

Lever if Fit comes in for Petty Chandler or Bedford for ANB, lets face it ANB offers nothing add some kids that add a bit of speed to our forward line JKH for Hannan Lewis for Brayshaw move Jones back midfield and Lewis down back, Brayshaw has been woeful Pruess for Smith at least Pruess will ruck and offer something

Key forwards, our entire forward line needs addressing. Our small/medium size forwards offer nothing no defensive pressure limited skills. I would hate to be a key forward in our team, we bomb to the same spot and three of your team mates compete for the same make with no crumbing forwards at your feat. Then when you offer a good lead the incoming kick misses you.

We just run forward of the ball and dont run the other way

Smith, hannon, anb woeful

Would rather do a Carlton and trade our 2020 first round pick to get another top 10-12 pick in 2019.

We need a top end midfielder that has speed and can hit a target, or a Half Back, or forward that have the same attributes. All we want to hear is elite speed and skills. We need to inject this from the draft our core group is 22-25 years old adding most likely a top 5 pick plus a mid 20's pick is what our club needs When is 2m Peter a free agent

We are coming up against a small quick side, Lewis will come in fro Wagner I reckon that will be the only change although Mitch Hannan would want to start getting a kick, if we had a small forward that was capable of coming in he would be dropped

Skills are just terrible We dont have 1 forward that can mark or apply pressure