Choko

Well it's an 8.40 game on the other side of the country, so it's hardly revolutionary that they are showing it live!

Does anyone know the url for Power's supporter blog? I want to learn some new words and phrases?!

I agree with Malthouse there. I thought our use of Watts was terrible against GCS. There are 2 reasons. One is that the sub should, in my view, be for an injection of a running player for best impact. The more important reason is that confidence is the key issue with Jack Watts. We have no choice but to persevere with getting games into him - either at Casey or in the seniors. Surely, against the lowly Suns, he should have been given a full game for his confidence. If he couldn't perform acceptably in that environment, back to Casey. By subbing him, we put him under enormous pressure to perform in the quarter he gets. I think it was poor decision making - and in fact I think our FD has been in the habit of making poor decisions in 2011.

Agree. Perfect sub.

I was there, and I have to say, we lost far too many clearances for my liking. Given that we are a more experienced group with bigger bodies and a more effective ruckman than GC, it makes me think that our clearance issues are either hunger or coaching related. I suspect it's coaching, in that our positioning, match-ups, setups are inferior. The worry is that last year McDonald was probably our best in this area. Of course McKenzie is coming back, but it's hard to see who else will improve that aspect of our game any time soon.

If Moloney was dishonest today when asked about it, or failed to demonstrate that he was remorseful or made an error of judgment, then I agree with the decision. If he urinated as suggested, then again, I agree. But if he was drunk in public and out too late then asked to leave and nothing more, I think this decision is overkill and really reeks of fake ruthlessness. I think you can still be a nominated leader despite a mistake. Neitz made one too, remember?

I suggest that a few of you should spend more time stressing about other things. We will win this one, easily. I am well ahead of myself!

I'm there, and I'm taking 3 with me. Do you know whether we should just show up and buy tickets at the gate, or book?

Mate, if we don't play 4 minutes they can't beat us. There is daylight between them and the AFL.

Careful what you wish for!

Those calling for Watts to be dropped are kidding themselves. There is only one thing we can do with Watts, and that is get games into him until we find out whether he will deliver. I smell the whiff of a Newton recall, but that might be because I am in Werribee. I really hope he is not recalled. In: Gysberts, Wonna, Macdonald (so Grimes can play half a game on the ball) Out: Jetta, Maric, Jones

Yeh, absolutely. But what actually happened is always relative to what could have happened and the context of the game. For example, if we had lost Davey, Green and Sylvia to injury in the first quarter, the same result would have to be contextualised quite differently. Similarly, their dominance was not really one quarter, it was the entire game less 20 minutes. The fact that they didn't kick straight most likely wallpapered the cracks a little and makes it look like we went with them for more of the game than we did. The reality? We were smashed.

Sorry - could. My mistake. The rest of what I said applies!

Oh please! You cannot be serious that if they had kicked straighter, we would somehow have won more centre clearances and perhaps lost by less or won! 75 inside 50s to 35. Smashed in every metric. By any measure, we got off cheap.

Behind all your posts RR, you really do speak a lot of spin. I think you do it to counteract the negativity and hysteria, but honestly, your above post is just picking convenient bits, making noise and avoiding the issue. The issue is that our club has sought to distance itself from criticism and scrutiny. Other clubs, all of whom are more professional, more well-resourced and have enjoyed more recent (20 yrs) success, have not sought to distance themselves from scrutiny. Really simple.

RR - of course there are hysterical supporters after a loss like that. And Bailey's calm demeanour, to those people, only makes it worse. Of course some supporters think that because we match up well on Collingwood, we should be belting most teams most weeks. But I am not talking about the hysteria. I am talking about the club itself setting and communicating goals. There seems to be an enormous reluctance to do so, and I think it stems from self-preservation. The good clubs do not accept mediocrity. Essendon broke every rule in its quest to be better. It may not succeed, but they will die trying. Worsfold has staked his reputation and coaching career on significant improvement, as has Craig. Carlton has put the acid on Ratten. If we don't improve on last year, then the club has left itself with the wriggle room to say "We lost a lot of experience over the off season. Our young players need more time playing together. Then we will win more quarters and be competitive for longer." Whilst that is all true, we clearly should be improving (and we might yet do so!).

RR - I have listened to the club messages, from fairly close. And I think you have too. You therefore know like I do that they (particularly Bailey) are actually unwilling to goal set or commit to any time frame. So yes, they have been selling the "grow with us/journey" message, but they are not willing to be judged against expectations at any point. The big issue to me is that we will have a whole lot of young players all growing up all at the same stage. That's not good list planning. It would be one thing if we thought 2012/2013 were the years, because we would still have Davey, Green, Sylvia, Moloney running around. But the big concern is that we will not be able to keep the list entirely together, there is a piecemeal forward line, we do not have a modern game plan (when do we ever lock the ball inside our forward 50) and the club continues to make poor decisions.

I think our match-ups for the 2 forwards were fine. That's why we should never have played a clearly underdone Frawley. We are meant to be improving, I'm sure you would agree. So the fact we had fade outs with McDonald and Bruce in the side is not the point. Not to mention, we have very rarely been smashed like that 3rd quarter in my memory.

Wallpaper over the cracks. This is not a balanced post, it's almost propaganda, TBH. Now we have pushed our "window" to 2014/15. Wow. And if we are taking Davey, Sylvia (and I think you forgot Green and Rivers) out of the side to contend in 2014/15, we are going to have one whole group of basically the same aged kids, with new kids coming through. There is no good list as imbalanced as that. Especially if we think that one of Moloney and Jones can't be in our best midfield. I agree that, with how terrible we have been the past few years, we cannot help but improve given the talent we have. And I am not in the 8 or bust group (although I think Bailey will find it very hard to keep his job if we don't make the 8). But there are some seriously concerning signs in the coaching panel and club decision making.

100%. The other thing is, our match ups were poor all day. Frawley should never have played, because he couldn't play on Roughie or Franklin, so Hawthorn were able to mismatch him on Burgoyne. Rohan Bail should not spend more time at centre clearances than other players. Rioli had poor match-ups, Trengove was the wrong guy to go with Bruce, etc... We had about 26 points kicked on us, and maybe twice got the ball out. That's structural, which is coaching. We really lost by 100 points yesterday on every metric except the scoreboard. This again proves the folly of Bailey's "winning quarters" mantra. We almost won 3 quarters yesterday. It's utterly irrelevant. As for leadership when the game was hot in the 3rd, well, when you mismanage your club and get rid of Miller, Bruce and McDonald all in one go, you need not wonder where the leadership is.

I think Daniel Bell's courage on the field is being matched by his courage off the field is going public with this issue at this time. There is a lot of money floating around in footy, and for a past player with serious health issues to access a CBA entitlement sits perfectly well with me. In this case, Bell is working collaboratively with the club, our doctors and even brain trainers associated with the club. The competitive nature of AFL clubs and the system itself actually culturally promote downplaying injury, so it's not as simple as saying Bell "chose" to put himself in danger. Miners "choose" to work in an environment where they can be buried to death underground, but they don't actually expect that to happen, and they/their families deserve some assistance if/when such events occur. Bartenders "choose" to work in bars, but if the noise makes them partially deaf, they also have a right to compensation. I think this Ange has a bit of time on his/her hands now that s/he has finished defending BATAS! As an aside, Belly is a really decent and nice bloke who really deserved more from his footy career. I wish him all the best in his retirement.

LOL! And we are the battered wife. This is such a bad, uninspired choice by the footy department, whatever the interchange rules.

Yeh, obviously they have many many KPIs. I have no issue with that. The only issue I really have is the repetition of the mantra about winning more quarters. I actually think the mantra of repeating any single stat is meaningless and over-simplified. Another good example is the I50 count: Posters here are just so wrong about that metric. I would rather be efficient than get it inside 50 more often. Remember, winning sides only kick 14 - 16 goals a game on average. So if we are going inside 50 40 times efficiently, and keeping the ball in there, it is more important than pumping it in there 60 times and having it turn over. Most goals in modern footy actually come from turnovers. So "getting the ball into 50" is not that meaningful. Not to mention, the 50 is just paint. Why is that important and not 60? or 40? Because there's paint there?

I have to put myself in the camp of people that don't like the "winning more quarters" analogy. I agree it's important to set goals and reset, and quarters are an easy and logical way to do that. So I think it's OK to goal set, but as a KPI, I think it measures very little. One of the biggest problem young sides have is stopping a run on. So we can be good for three quarters of a game, and in one quarter have 8 goals to zip kicked on us. Look at Q3 vs Hawks last week. So in theroy, we can win 3 quarters and lose games. Have we "won" because we won more quarters? Or there's a wind or 2 injuries, so losing a quarter by only a couple of points may in fact be a good result. The biggest weakness with counting quarters won is that, even in our terrible years, we would win quite a few second halves (basically Robbo would kick his 5 in junk time!). Problem was, those second halves were uncompetitive because the opposition had won the game by quarter time. So I am far more interested in competing well in the heat of a game than in junk time.

LOL. Next time please tell us what you really think. I do agree to the extent that Mike is irrelevant now.