whatwhat say what

Out coached, outplayed, outwitted. Just a disgrace of a football side.

We are lucky not to be 4-5 goals down. I was expecting a close loss but I think it could blow out to 6+ goal Essendon win. Theyre slicing us apart from half back and winning all the contested ball through the middle.

The amount of space and run they can execute off half back on is appalling. no pressure.

We are gutless under a scintilla of pressure.

How are we so continually poor? This is just embarrassing.

i'm sailing the sea of terror of losing. 7.13.55 to 10.3.63 with daniher booting 5 straight, including 3 from outside 50. i can just see it happening and it scares the bejesus out of me.

Say "I told you so" to those who doubted my terror.

Still terrified of losing.

alongside kent, garlett, and to a lesser degree harmes, he provides genuine frontal pressure. the more we have doing so in our front half, the better. at one stage, he was touted as a likely top 5 pick in his draft year because of his ability at underage level to run and carry, and do something useful with the pill. i remember watching his underage year and he, grundy and toumpas were the classiest players from south australia by far. hopefully he continues along the path he's on now to becoming a regular afl player.

exact same as watts. however, he is under contract - but all contracts for the 12 still-at-essendon players can effectively be considered null and void as a result of the suspensions.

he wasn't as bad as people are making out, and the stats bear that out. according to them, he went at just on 70% disposal efficiency. better than bugg, pedersen, viney, frost, vandenberg and o-mac. equal third for contested possessions for us alongside vdb, and third for clearances.

Between them, Hawthorn, Geelong, Sydney and West Coast have won all bar one of the last 11 premierships, with the Pies on the first Saturday in October 2010 (as opposed to the last Saturday in September - same as in 1990). The only teams other than those five to play off for a premiership in that time period are Port Adelaide as a bit of a surprise in 2007 (albeit they had won three years previous, so it can't be that much of a surprise that they were still in contention), where they were destroyed by the Cats, and Freo - who have a bit of Port circa 01-03 about them in that they're there or thereabouts albeit not quite premiership ready it would seem. What was that about an 'even' competition? As midnight oil sang...the rich get richer, the poor get the picture.

if dunn doesn't get picked with a tall defender going down injured, then his career is officially in jeopardy.

his run-up to kick is not nearly as bad as everyone says. it is being critcised primarily because it starts so strangely with the ball held over the wrong foot - but then he has the stutter and from there it's actually super-steady and perfectly balanced. he's going to be helped massively by the limited rotations of modern football, because teams are going to start going long. look at kennedy for meth coke yesterday - he was unstoppable once they got their quick ball movement happening. admittedly the bears were absolute gash, but no one would've been able to stop kennedy with the amount of ball he was being presented with. people criticising hogan's second efforts need to watch that gif of him floating back and killing the contest in the last seconds. he impacted the contest and ensured it was neutralised. he's one impressive unit to be as starved of opportunity as he was in the first half, move up the ground to get involved in the third, and then utterly dominate the last.

i live in absolute fear of losing this game.

i'd say the only certain change is o mac out injured for dunn. o mac wasn't even that bad yesterday. we desperately need some outside pace - when garlett moved up on to scully on the wing we finally had someone who could run and carry with the pill, which is why you'd think garlett would be a chance. i personally can't see pedo or frost being omitted; the forward structure with those two plus hogan and watts is working okay, and the pace of frost is an added dimension. harmes might be in trouble for brayshaw's re-inclusion in the side, but if garlett goes for his hit (which might happen but would be pretty ridiculous as there was nothing in it), then he stays. as such, i'm thinking changes are minimal: out: oscar mcdonald (injured), harmes in: dunn, brayshaw

Swan gone for ten weeks apparently. Good chance to miss both our games? Tom Lynch from the Suns will miss a few. Nasty roundhouse to Baguley's scone.

He wasn't at his best today but to call for him to be dropped is ridiculous. He also wasn't alone in turning the ball over repeatedly. Some of the mistakes Vince made were just as bad.

gerard whateley has called that if clayton oliver doesn't get the rising star nomination this week it would be a surprise...you could hear sellars maclure snort in derision in the back of the box. weitering's debut was good, but oliver's was better.

my favourite player.

6 - viney: he's a ripper 5 - watts: continued on his fine pre-season form 4 - t mcdonald: i panicked big time when he went off carrying his soulder 3 - n jones: a bit rough in patches, but he's still our best player 2 - kennedy: fantastic replacement for the toump 1 - oliver: we have got an absolute beauty on our hands here

jeepers creepers that was a tough game to watch.

we'll know at 12:10 whether or not avb is in - final teams need to be submitted an hour and a half before the bounce.

bontempelli (4), cripps (13), kade kolodjashnij (5), zach merrett (26), then salem (9) for mine.

so nervous. most of my non-dees mates reckon gws will pump us. hells bells, that better not happen. ps: series 3 of hannibal is incredible. amazing show. such a shame it wasn't allowed to go for the intended 5-season arc to tell the full story. mads is amazeballs.