mauriesy

I don't think there's any game 'you really shouldn't'. It's a very even season, except probably for the bottom four. And we lost to one of them.

With all their new-found talent riches, are Geelong supporters throwing in the towel after losing to Collingwood and Carlton? They've got an experienced side and their losses are worse than ours.

I'm wondering whether everyone expects to beat the teams below us on the ladder and lose to the ones above. It just doesn't work like that.

I'm somewhat disappointed, but I'm not surprised and I'm not pessimistic.

At the start of this season, I considered our side to be statistically young and inexperienced, but with some quality recent draft picks that would provide some very good players. Given the change in personnel and rotation of the list over the past three years, I considered advancing to consistent finals football to be about a three-year program. My objectives for 2016 were: About 9-10 wins, an improvement of roughly 40-50% on 2015 Improving our scoring capacity from its previous miserly sub-70 points No 100 point drubbings, maintain any blow-out losses to below 45-50 points Developing our very young players to make them AFL finals ready by building experience, fitness and skill Developing the pride and determination around the club so that the players enjoyed their football Tell me where I've been kidding myself.

A lot of the coaches votes on Saturday went to Ebert, Wingard, Gray and Pittard. All midfielders. That's where we lost it. Sure Dixon got 6 votes for kicking 5 goals, but the midfielders got it down to him.

Maybe the 'diamond' is a figment of David King's imagination. He saw the pattern a couple of times and decided to make up a new defensive structure for the purpose of a story.

If Plan A is fluid, flexible and adaptable, you don't need a Plan B. Plan A is Plan B.

Hawthorn because they've been the benchmark in the competition. Then North Melbourne and St Kilda (at Etihad) because we haven't beaten them for so long either.

On the contrary, the further indigenous art gets away from boomerangs and aboriginal figures holding spears the better. I've followed the aboriginal art movement since Geoffrey Bardon at Papunya and it just keeps on developing. They are a very talented people and are doing some amazing stuff. I think the worst jumper for the indigenous round is the Bulldogs. P.S. I also have a soft spot for Namatjira. There's some of his watercolours in the exhibition at the Ian Potter Centre at the moment. He was very skilled.

Just nitpicking in the context of this thread, but it was two premierships ... 2008 and 2013. By 2014 he'd joined Sydney.

Written at the start of April ... "Hogan, who grew up in Western Australia, may be tempted by the offer to return to his home state with a club that is further along in its chances of securing premiership glory than the struggling Demons." Ha.

This is not a knitting competition. It's not a 'craft', it's the rigours, intensity and bumps of AFL football. Learning to play good football means understanding the speed of the game and the personal intensity and commitment required. Exposure to that can only be learnt at the highest level. Oscar is being exposed to it to make him better. In a game that we won by 10 goals FCS. He might also be a better player when he goes back to the VFL for a while. Tom MacDonald was exactly the same as Oscar when he first started. He debuted the year after he was drafted and hasn't looked back. No one even entertained a few years at Casey ... he was thrown in the deep end to a degree and he's probably better for it.

1. At least I realise it. 2. I'm not whining.

Are you saying it isn't, Mr Pessimistic? You need to lift your eyes from looking down at the ground in front of your feet and look up to the sky. That's where we're heading, even if you can't bring yourself to look up.

Yeah, but what you say whining on here doesn't really matter a jot.

Not according to mo64 and SWYL. You just go out there and win. At all costs.

I was referring to the OP who said "In what universe is this guy an AFL standard player? He is slow, lacks awareness, fumbly, easily pushed of the ball and just not up to it." Also, you and I are not 'the club'. None of us here are.

I get it. Our list is over-rated and needs to build a winning culture, but we're not allowed to think development is needed because we need to 'win at all costs'. I think that's it.

Who says? I haven't even rated it. However, the other day I was watching a replay of our 2012 'miracle' match against Essendon, when they were top and we were bottom. We were playing Nicholson (1 Brownlow vote, btw), Morton, Moloney, Magner, Blease, Sellar, Clark, Tapscott, Howe, Mackenzie, Sylvia and Garland as a forward, coached by Mark Neeld. If you don't think our list has improved from that time 4 years ago, you must only be able to see the clouds from the silver lining.

No team can ignore the future, even if they are playing for a grand final. I didn't say winning wasn't important, I said at our stage development is just as important. You seem to erroneously think you can't concentrate on both. We've got about a 30-70 chance of playing finals this year with a young list. Maybe 70-30 next year. That says to me that we need to keep on concentrating on developing players with the potential to take our list to the ultimate level. If we are to win a premiership it will most likely be when players like McDonald have got 50 games or more experience. Or do you think we'll win one with Dunn, Grimes and Terlich? We're crying out for another good tall KPB, and they aren't it.

Who said winning isn't important now? Winning is always an objective.

Who said we were?

I would have though we're well on the way from potential to success. That is unless you've either been asleep for the last two years, or have an underlying natural pessimism. It's easy to be a keyboard warrior here and continually be negative or slag off on players like Oscar McDonald, who has played four games. The delusion is thinking that by writing tough stuff on here you'll actually make a difference to the team and club. Earth to SWYL ... this is the internet, not reality. Time to get positive and get with the program. See where we're going and not just where we've come from.

Do you even know the meaning of the word 'potential'? It means "having qualities and abilities that will lead to future success". Are you telling me we haven't got 'potential'? I would have thought it's the very thing we are now showing in spades. It's not mutually exclusive with a winning culture.