Lord Travis

Good to see Petracca and Oliver laying a decent amount of tackles today. If our mids improve defensively it will help us immensely IMO.

Another goalless quarter. We’ve got seriously game style and structural issues. We’re years away from competing again unfortunately. Our forward line is rubbish, and our mids lack footy IQ and tidy disposal.

Fair play to the coaches dropping Jones, Jetta and Jackson. It sends the right message that you don’t get gifted games due to your name or high draft pick - you need to perform. Smith is next on the chopping block if he has another poor game. Decent looking team on paper, though forward line still looks potentially shaky. Really need TMac to stand up as a target and hit the scoreboard.

Legend of the game. Vale.

It's a hard thing to police online unfortunately. The posts could be deleted or hidden, but that takes them being pointed out and absorbed in the first place. Until society improves it's attitudes, these sorts of racist and prejudice posts and comments will continue. Such a shame and I feel awful for people like Neville Jetta and Eddie Betts recently who have been targeted by scum. It would tarnish what should have been a celebration for them etc.

Shame to see Naughton injured. He's good to watch, good leap for a tall bloke and doesn't mind crunching people in his way. Wish we had a key forward like him. Doggies look to have a decent gamestyle built around owning the centre corridor and moving the ball quickly by both hand and foot. Their mids really work hard for each other to continuously move and create options or help sheperd etc. Bailey Smith in particular is a ripper!

Respect to them, those posts are pretty bang on.

From that extended bench I hope we take in Lockhart, Pickett, Brayshaw, Jetta. Smith should play forward or warm the bench.

I've donated in the past but can't afford more than a few dollars now due to job losses in the family. I hope others in more fortunate positions can help the club out.

I agree he could be a good player and I'd rather delist others. We're crying out for strong marking talls and he fits that need. However, if we're forced to cut our list size considerably due to COVID19 we won't be able to afford to payout others to sign injured players. I'd rather persist with him, but the unfortunate financial reality is he may get the chop come years end.

It depends on what the AFL does with list sizes. If clubs need to cut list sizes down due to the financial impact of COVID19, then we may need to clear out 10-15 players. If that's the case, Petty is gone. Anyone who is out of contract and isn't a star would be out the down, as we wouldn't be able to afford to pay out others instead. I like Petty and think he could be a decent player given time. He showed a bit up forward as a marking target, though his kicking for goal left something to be desired. His fate may be decided by COVID19 fallout.

He's shown patches of really good footy, but can't stay on the park unfortunately. Already 27 years old and averages only 9 games a year due to repeated injuries. Would pass due to that.

Fogarty is a decent forward prospect. 193cm 96kgs, so decent enough size and has mongrel to him. He is competitive up forward as a marking target and usually marks or competes and brings it to ground. Not that it's the best comparison, but on 2019 & 2020 form he beats TMac for both contested marks and goals. We could've got him cheaply a year or two back, as he was out of favor and being tried in defence for their reserves. Unfortunately he's come on now and would cost a late first or early second rounder. We probably don't have currency to get him without trading a decent player. Our forward line is currently the worst in the league, so getting a good tough 20 year old prospect as long term investment would be smart.

Rank is anywhere from 9th-16th. We are a bottom 8 team. That’s fact now. We were 17th in 2019 and currently sitting 14th. 2018 was an aberration, that’s been shown now. Our forward line is probably the worst in the league at this point. Woefully inaccurate set shots. No key forward contributing, inconsistent mid sized forwards, poor defensive pressure and lack of crumbing (Pickett potential, but is one game into his career). Our backline is good, our midfield is ok but lacks class and defensive accountability. Too many poorly coached inside see ball get ball types fighting each other. Coaching against us is probably the easiest job in footy now. Sit players outside the contest, watch our dumb mids all charge in bashing into each other only for it to come out and be cleared with ease by waiting opposition mids. Sit player on defensive 50 line towards boundary and gobble up long bombs to no one. We’re two-three years off seriously challenging again, but may scrape into the 8 next year onwards.

Would’ve been a great get a few years ago but not now at 30 years old and declining rapidly.

I agree with you that Clarry is a mile ahead of most other players, including some superstars, at the same age. Using your example of Dusty Martin being useless for 6 years or so... I'd strongly disagree with that. His first 6 years he averaged 24 disposals and over a goal a game. That's better than all our players current output bar Oliver (though 20+ more goals a year than Oliver, so you could argue otherwise), let alone that early into his career! The problem identified with Oliver is it's not an upwards trend. Oliver has remained at a similar level his whole career and doesn't appear to be learning any new tricks. His peak was 2018 in terms of actual impact, so he's actually regressed the past two years. We don't want him to plateau because he's capable of so much more. We want to see him take games by the scruff of the neck instead of just chipping away at it. It's not that we don't think he's a gun already, we just want him to keep improving because he's capable of being more.

He's a good prospect. He was very young when drafted, being right near the cut off and coming into the club as a 17 year old. He likely would've been a first rounder in last years draft had he missed that cut off. He could become a good midfielder or half back flanker due to his accurate and penetrating kick, burst of pace and toughness. He's well suited to half back flank but has actually excelled playing more inside midfield at Casey. I reckon he could become a well rounded inside/outside midfielder, which we need IMO. Both him and Sparrow from that draft are developing well, Sparrow more of a Viney type insider, Jordan a more rounded midfielder like a Bernie Vince.

We would’ve drafted him if we didn’t trade for May. Shame as he’s exactly what we need now. Missed opportunity in hindsight but at the time we thought a quality key defender was our biggest gap.

5 goals last week, 3 goals this week. Brown is out in form key forward it seems. Should play next match otherwise why did we bother signing him for short term.

Bailey Smith is a ripper. Only 19 and already looking a gun midfielder. I was a fan in his draft year. That 2018 draft looks to be the best of the decade. Shame we opted out of the first round! Doggies looking good in first quarter. Delightful to see lots of niggle!

Nibbler stiff to be dropped. Good to see Jones and Jackson out though, as neither warned a game this week. Decent ins this week, there may be hope yet.

None. Our development of players has been poor for decades now. We're the only club (expansion clubs aside) who has not produced superstars for decades. We've had more high draft picks and more elite young talent come into our club than nearly all others, yet we're still unable to develop them properly. Until we improve our culture and improve our development of young talent, we will continue to remain a bottom team.

I'd love to be as optimistic as some here, but fact is we're 6 wins from our past 25 matches with a percentage of under 80. Those 6 wins were mainly stumbling over the line against fellow bottom four teams in Carlton, Gold Coast, Sydney and Freo. It hardly inspires confidence. We're still a bottom four team and unfortunately it doesn't appear we will make significant improvement any time soon. Bombers by 4 goals.

The coaching group should play him in his natural tall forward position. Coincidentally it's also our biggest weakness at present, yet they keep throwing him into the ruck and not giving him a proper chance up forward. They're playing Jackson ahead of him. Jackson might well surpass him in years to come, but at present Weid is bigger, stronger, quicker, better hands, better tackler, better kick, better scorer. There's simply no reason to play Jackson ahead of him, and it reeks of favouritism and poor culture. It's been over a decade and we still haven't learned not to gift games to kids who haven't earned them. The club have ruined Weid's development. For his own sake, I hope he requests a trade and flourishes elsewhere.

Bang on. It's why I've been so vocal about Lockhart getting a game. We have one small lockdown defender in the team in Jetta, and he is slow and in poor form. Essendon have a bunch of quick smaller forwards who will tear us apart. Lockhart should've been brought in for match ups alone, let alone based on form after his great pre-season form. We'll struggle to defend them tomorrow, but we'll struggle even more to score ourselves with a completely impotent forwardline. We've got a lot of plodders in the 22 now. It seems like we've regressed 4-5 years again. 2018 was years ago now and the game has changed since then. So have the rules - we failed to adapt to those also. We've won 6 games in 18 months, with only two of those being by more than 7 points. Quite simply, we don't win and on the rare occasion we do win it's stumbling over the finish line against another bottom four team. This team is guaranteed to give it's supporters a heart attack! We're teetering on the edge of the bottom 4 yet again and instead of playing our best team to win, we are gifting games to kids and name players who haven't earned it. Our culture is still not fixed, and our game style and structures need a complete overhaul.