godees

I am not all that concerned about how well he handpasses.

He is not just a good handballer, he is exceptional. He will be a clearance machine with that weapon.

Out : Jetta

No way. He had an awesome game

4 goals and 4 score assists. it would be a joke if he didn't get it. I don't care what anthony did.

Absolutely agree.

MFC need to manage its year end outcome.

In consecutive weeks we have played two sides that have willingly flown the white flag.

MFC needs to be careful.

WCE yes, but Port had A LOT to play for. They are playing for finals and aren't going to get anything out of tanking games. That was a very very poor effort from them but i don't think they 'willingly' flew the white flag.

Bar the top top end, that is an absolutely rubbish draft.

I would love to see Dunn back as a forward. If he continues on in the direction he is currently going, he is heading straight out the door, but he is still young and he does have talent. And i agree that he never should have been moved out of the forwardline, he was quite good down there.

On the fringe by end 2013, in alphabetical order - Moloney, Morton, Petterd,

What!?!

Don't forget blease is waiting in the wings, and grimes and strauss should develop into midfielders. I want best available

I was up the other end of the ground for Green's courageous marking attempt and i haven't seen a replay, but wouldn't that be classified as tunnelling?

Did they end up bringing the rule in? and if not, shouldn't it just have been a free for taking out a plyer in a marking contest?

I know it wasn't deliberate, but it was incredibly dangerous and i was furious we didn't get a free (plus he would have taken the mark had his legs not been taken out).

Hooper will be an interesting one too. someone described him as looking like one of those stocky, rough country football who'd give you one in the guts behind play. Certainly doesn't look like a 17/18 from afar, and is a short guy, but really dominated the game i saw.

I would think essendon would draw at least 35k themselves, so im predicting a minimum of 40k. I'll go for 42,508

I saw the Vic country v metro game and players that really caught my eye were Toy, Scully, Kobe Stevens and Gary Rohan.

- Toy: will be a very very very good footballer...at the gold coast. i wish he was eligible this year. would take him ahead of butcher in a heartbeat

- Scully: enough has been said about him. natural footballer

- Gary Rohan: his ranga hair certainly caught my eye! not much has been said about him, but i loved the way he attacked the contest, presented, disposal was fine - ticked all of my boxes

- Kobe Stevens: I think he is a pretty safe bet to be at least a good footballer.

I didn't have the list of player numbers on the day, so there were others i liked/didn't like but i just don't know who they were

boy oh boy we have something special on our hands. i am so excited about jurrah. I only saw the last quarter and a half but every time he goes near it something exciting happens. Not only did he kick the 4 goals, but he also helped create a number of others. Took a mark 30 metres out straight in front, only to have a questionable hands in the back paid against him, so it certainly could have been more.

my sole motivation for going to the game was to see jurrah. he is going to be a star if he can stay fit, and a massive drawcard. he will bring people to the games (as he did for me today, hungover and all!). all of teh carlton/bullants supporters around me were wondering who 51 was.

Petterd was good when i was there, as was benny, but im a bit biased towards him. benny was taking the game on. didn't always come off but he was exciting. wheatley looked way off.

interesting people were saying it was a scrappy game early. casey really turned it on in the last quarter and played a really clean quarter. it was great to watch.

we have struggled the last few weeks getting closed down by hawthorn and collingwood. we prefer a more free flowing game and that is what essendon does, so i think we will go very close.

on butcher, i read somewhere he had, i think, 19 possessions on the weekend but kicked 2 goals and 4 or 5 behinds.

He certainly has a lot of talent. Surest hands ever, and is becoming one of those players who, when in possession, i am confident will do the right thing and something good will come of it. Good on him! Second time in three weeks that he has carried the rest of the team.

That type of lack of urgency was endemic today.

Exactly

IF they do not drop him theres somethign wrong with the club

and based on the melbourne website - lets hope they show some strength

i bet my life THEY DONT DROP HIM. we will see

speaking of changes

Robertson : needs to get dropped

Miller back in?

Martin : needs to come in for Rivers/frawley he never should have been dropped

Who do you mean by 'him'? If Watts, Bailey has said previously that they like to give the new players at least a couple of games, so i wouldn't be surprised if he played again against the dons. He probably came in a bit early, but you only have to look as far as maric for a recent example of a player who had a shocker in their first game for the year and come back to play well the following week.

I thought all of our tall defenders did a good job. Rivers beat Cloke (again) IMO (i don't care if got 20 possessions, he didn't affect the game) and Anthony's goals were lucky mostly (I wouldn't say he beat his man i.e. frawley/warnock or whoever). Brown and Fraser and whoever else they sent down there didn't do much either. If we struggled anywhere in the backline, it was at ground level and clearing the ball from the 50, which we didn't do at all well. As much as i don't like saying this (as he is my favourite player) Whelan may well be in the firing line.

The area that really cost us the game was delivery into the forwardline and, more so, the forwardline itself. The collingowod backs killed us. We didn't work hard enough to present, or to chase after they had inevitably collected the spill. Basic skill errors also cost us dearly. dropping marks or handballs, handballing to feet, fumbling or running over a ball on the ground. It happened over and over, and collingwood were really good at punishing us for it. The overuse of the handball, particularly in congested situations, was very costly, as was our inability to adapt to the wet.

McLean and PJ had shockers. And i demand PJ be dropped. He has had 2 hideous games in a row and shouldn't be selected just because he plays a position. Bring Martin in as back up ruck and tall back (or just let jamar do it all himself). please please please no PJ until he improves significantly. As usual, i wasn't impressed with bate's chasing. Does that guy even know how to sprint? We need forwards who will commit to the chase. Actually, i didn't like the way we stood off the collingwood players all day. We gave them far too much time.

Bring Miller in, played well for casey. and consider newton depending on how he plays next week for casey. Jurrah, petterd, and dunn should be considered. I didn't mind bell's game so he may survive another week.

robbo, robbo, robbo...please learn how to kick. I don't want him dropped though.

he is stuck in the past mo64, just as his credentials are, and his opinions no longer hold any weight. i can't stand him as a football commentator. i like the work he does outside of football though.

strauss hasn't had a great deal of it but every disposal has hit it's target perfectly.

Natanui (a dees supporter) posted this on bigfooty. i quite liked it:

Jack just walking to his the G for his debut... Nothin special for him..

If the two goals Butcher kicked in the first were 'lazy' then I'd hate to see how he would have kicked them if he was trying! One of these was a ripper, where he pushed hard up to the wing to mark on the lead, then played on and kicked the ball 40 metres to a team mate and then pushed past that contest to receive the ball and kicked a goal running through the 50m arc. The other came from a strong mark, with the 'fluke' being a left foot finish receiving a handball from a contest about 40 metres from goal. He played at CHF and contested the ball very well, often having to deal with Metro dropping extra players back into his space.

And, BTW, Scully is very handy.

nah, i meant his work rate was lazy on the whole, not specifically his goals. He did contest the ball well and i did like it how he always judged it well and kept the ball in front for the crummers (how do you spell that?), but i barely saw him get past a jog after the first quarter, and was really frustrated because i wanted to see what he was like overhead (and just in general), but he refused to present for the ball. I don't know if it was a coaching directive, but it was really strange how little he did. definitely has talent, but plenty of afl players have shown talent is not enough to make you successful.

Also, do you know who 34 for metro was? played in the backline mostly. I was very impressed with him as well.

edit: 34 was josh toy. he will be a very good afl footballer. that is the first time i have seen him and i don't need to see him again to know he will be a gun. was 2nd BOG behind scully IMO (hooper for country was excellent as well) and their class really stood out. I think toy might be bound for the GC which is unfortunate.

Interesting the comments about Butcher. I just got back home from the country vs metro game and was hoping to see Butcher do some good things and was very very disappointed. He kicked 3 goals (one was a fluke), but was very very lazy. Rarely presented, didn't work hard at all. Didn't look like he was trying.

No14 for metro, who i suspect is jack fitzpatrick, played a far more impressive game.

Scully, however, will be a very very good player. Started a bit slowly, but once they put him in the midfield, he did really well. His hands are incredible! Bruce needs to take some lessons from him. Will be perfectly suited to our game plan if we get him.

IMHO ... we can learn plenty from yesterdays game. Hawthorn are a very "smart" very well drilled side that push ever rule to the max.

I personally put this down to their coaching staff and something we must learn moving forward.

I hope our players sit down and watch and learn from this game. If you cant beat them ... join them.

Exactly. I was irritated all game at the way the hawks would creep up on the mark or not move back when the umpire shouted at them. They got away with it so they did it over and over again. it may be a small thing but it does make a difference. And that is exactly what we should be doing.

The umpires were particularly weak. Worst i've seen in our games this year. I counted 5 goals coming from obviously poor umpiring. And when you add our unbelievable catastrophes by robbo and the miller handball to robbo, we weren't really that far off.

3aw have no idea. our backline has probably been our biggest strength. Read this morning that we have the more inside 50s conceded than any other side over teh last 3 weeks, yet we have been more than competitive (43 point loss to geel, less than ten point losses to WB and WCE). The backline is doing an awesome job. was it that [censored] gerard healy? or dwayne?

6. Moloney - on the radio i heard he was going head to head with griffen (didn't realise this at the game) and kept him to 22 possessions and very little effect on the game

5. Whelan - back to his best!

4. Morton

3. Bate

2. Davey

1. Bruce

Next best: McLean

Surely tongue in cheek. Did he see the handball merry go round?

Did you see the game? it was our kicking that let us down not handballing. we over handballed a bit but for the most part we managed to get out of it. some of our turnovers by foot however...