drdrake

Garbage, no more positive spin we lost to a team that is also severely undermanned. We talk about our forwards being out the Saints had there starting midfield out. We may have controlled the footy but we rarely moved it well. The Saints just sat across half back allowed us to stuff around with the footy in our back half until we finally turned it over then the just ran hard to score on the rebound. West Coast will do exactly the same we need to control the footy in our forward half or we will always get hurt on the rebound.

Dawes has only had 1 year of this crap we have endured it for a hell of a long time. I dare to say our frustration levels are well above his. I'm resigned to the fact that this week could easy blow out over 100 points and the major concern, if we can't find a way to stop them scoring it could be well above 100 points.

M Jones was a hell of a lot better than Bail, Bail works hard and battles just can't kick

I don't think we can keep them to under 15 goals, I fear that we are facing a 100 point loss

He is right, until we get an even contribution from the 22 players each week we will struggle. That is what I read from his comments rather than the superstar comment. Footy today is a team game that if you have a couple of weak links you will get beaten. We carry to many weak links into each week and until we can either get a healthy list that sees out best 22 on the park or we can find another 5-6 players that are AFL standard we will struggle.

I think we can all agree that our best 22 is an OK AFL team, the problem is outside that we have some very average players that shouldn't be playing at AFL. The difference on Saturday night was the bad turnovers, turnovers that we should had been scoring but resulted in a Saint Kilda goal. Toumpas in the first quarter should have hit Watts 35m out directly in front, he kicks it 15m short under no pressure, Saints kick there first, we could have put them away in the first quarter but that goal sent us back into our shell. We need to hit that kick and until we can we will struggle.

That is interesting, you would have thought with the players we have brought into our club and the players they have out or left the club we would be ahead of the Saints in both these stats.

Round 1 hasn't been kind to us, 2007 V St Kilda was the start of the downward spiral for the club, 2008 V Hawthorn 104 points, 2009 V North close match only 34 points, 2010 V Hawthorn 56 points, 2011 Draw to Sydney, 2012 V Brisbane 41 points, then Port last year.

The only confidence I take into Saturday is that we could have beaten St Kilda twice last year, from memory our stock standard first quarter flops gave them a good advantage with both games us fighting back to stay in the game but Beau Wilkes or what ever he calls himself towelled us in the first game. Our midfield is better our back six and even forward line isn't much different to last year. They have a number of players out but so do we. It will be if our new look midfield can smash there undermanned mids.

5 days to go, looks like the only players that aren't available are Clark, Hogan, Dawes, Jamar, Garland and Riley with question marks against Viney on his fitness. My team Georgiou Frawley McDonald Grimes Dunn Terlich Trengove N Jones Vince Watts Pederson Toumpas Fitzpatrick Howe Blease Spencer Tyson Michie Cross McKenzie Bail M Jones Blease could easy be Byrnes or JKH, but I'm giving him first crack at this small forward role.

Agree Old Dee, both look lost and panic. Tappy just has no tricks and the position he is trying to play you need to have something or at the very least pace. Strauss just doesn't have any impact. From this game no one really stood out only one thing did, we lack talls. We have no spare tall defenders for Casey, none even if we are fully fit our Key defender stocks are extremely light. You know once Dawes, Hogan, Jamar and Gawn are fit we have he tall forward ruck stocks but down back we have nothing outside Frawley, Garland and McDonald. Shame Viney didn't play means most likely no round 1 for him.

I still think his best position will be high HFF pushing into the midfield and I think this will be the role he plays this weekend

Sign Vince to 4 year deal, Walker must be a restricted free agent soon

It will be 8-10 weeks

No, we have others that can fill that role. Fitzy proved last year that he is capable, Howe is a gun and Pederson looks fit. Watts will spend time in the forward line like most of our midfielders and if you look at our goal kickers our mids are kicking goals. Watts needs to be settled in the role he has being prepared for.

Today would have been a great day to announce a new sponsor for the club. The hits on the website will be going through the roof.

That's not reality, that is your assumption.

Just on a side note, do we know what players are down to play for Casey tomorrow?

You would expect a spike before round one, a lot of people leave it to the last minute.

29114, forget about 30K by the start of the season, we should have 30K by the end of the week. with 2 weeks before the season we should be pushing for 32-33K before the season starts.

I think we are scoring at around 50% once we get the ball inside our 50m arc and that is with out half our forward line out. Just think once we get full confidence in our ability to move and control the footy and we hit the inside 50 mark 55-60 times with a full forward line, it should result in 25-30 scoring shots that will win most games

I always like to put an estimated revenue figure, work on a red and Blue membership at $199 as an average. The extra 3,781 represents around $752,419 revenue

28,582, should hit 30K easy by round 1, you would hope we hit the 32K mark from this position before round 1 and then based on team performance against Saints and West Coast 40K is a realistic target.

2011 just finished off an unbelievable period of trading and drafting blunders.

It's all about confidence, at the moment players are gaining confidence to hit targets. Going backwards and sideways is stage one, keep the footy learn how to control the tempo of a match, then when you have control of the match play on your terms. It is only our second match against a team that has thumped us over the past 7 years. We have played 2 top 6 teams from last year and currently have a percentage above 100%, have to be happy and we will only get better as our confidence grows and key personal get back.