Nasher

How about one of the callers telling us at half time of Port and Sydney that Port (while behind) were showing they could mix it with the best. They were a game clear on top of the ladder at the time!

It is just a little disingenuous to blame a player for the failings of others.

Exactly. He's a 19 year old playing a needed stint in the twos. There's no doubt he'll be back and establishing his place in our side in years to come.

I agree. Kent has had no continuity this year through injury and then getting rubbed out in the VFL. Would be a fixture in the side if not for that IMO.

Yup! I didn't think it was a realistic possibility, but what would I know?

The Dees are rooted because Mitch moves to Perth? The paranoia from some people around here is seriously alarming. I understand that this opens up the possibility that Mitch may sign up for one of the WA clubs, I get that, but this is a guy who quit footy to focus on recovering from a mental illness. Moving to the city where his support base is, is surely a logical and expected outcome. I suppose it shouldn't any more, but it always surprises me when people get one piece of information and draw the worst possible conclusion that hurts us the most, when there are other outcomes that are just as likely that are far more innocuous.

That is giving him too much credit I think. 1) He left as a free agent. I suspect he would have left whether the club was compensated or not. 2) The credit goes entirely to the club for the astute trade of the Colin Sylvia compensation pick to Adelaide for Bernie Vince. It was a good trade, but not one Sylvia had any input in to.

Final thoughts now upon reading VFL reviews: In: Kent, McKenzie Out: Salem, Gawn.

Please read last week's "changes vs Collingwood" thread and re-consider whether people thinking of removing Gawn for team balance reasons is "knee jerk".

Jeez Jerry. 2007. Most of us have loved him, hated him, loved him again, hated him again and loved him again in that time.

They need not; Pedersen rucks adequately to give the players 5 minutes a quarter rest. I think the bigger issue with Gawn is that he needs more than that. I do not see the hurry with Gawn. I love him - he's reasonably athletic for his size and he gets involved, and he's just so damn big. He's 21 and is years off his best though, and for every game where he has an impact, he has another where he offers nothing. I think for every game we play him we're rolling the dice as there's a 50/50 chance we'll get nothing from him; in a side that is already too top heavy, it just seems silly. Let him spend the next couple of years playing heaps of uninterrupted footy in the VFL and build his engine up, and whip him out when he's really ready to impact consistently.

Jumper numbers 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 12, 14, 18, 21, 23, 25, 31, 38, 40, 44, 45 and 46 are all firmly entrenched in the side at the moment - I'm disregarding any post that suggests leaving out any of those players unless there's strong justification (haven't seen any yet). Jumper 20 should also be in that group, but he's currently in such woeful form that I'm not sure and 39 is well on the way. The only realistic candidates for omission for mine are Salem, JKH and Gawn for mine.

Change Blease to Bail and it looks remarkably like our terrible forward line of the first couple of rounds. I'm a huge fan of how Pedersen's been in the last few weeks, but I don't want to go back to relying on him to be the only target, and I don't want to take Dunn away from the back line. I also happen to think the idea of dropping Dawes is silly, notwithstanding his poor return against Collingwood. If we want to balance the side a bit and leave out a tall, it has to be Gawn IMO.

Up until round 6 I saw that as steady improvement, but round 7 to me reads as a major setback. I wish we had round 8 to read. I've made my point so there's not much more I can say, other than I'll never be convinced that Roos will pick a player who can't perform defensively. Reading between the lines, I interpret "doesn't perform defensively" as "lacks intensity and/or doesn't follow instructions" (the latter being a cardinal sin in a well drilled side). Would you agree with that? I'm guessing not, which reflects the key differences in our views.

These are his last few VFL player reviews from Brett Allison, rounds 4-7: I just don't think a player who has "major lapses" defensively is the sort of player likely to be rushed in to a Roos coached side. I acknowledge that these reports are somewhat old and his most recent game has not been reported on, but I can only go on the information I have. Compare those reports to these: Those are the sorts of reports I'd expect to be reading for a player pushing hard for senior selection. I take your point on not writing players off prematurely, but all the players I'd written off (in particular Jetta) put in very strong VFL performances before being picked in the side. They earned their crack at proving everyone wrong. Nobody has been included in our side to date without very strong VFL performances and I'm not reading anything to suggest that Blease has.

Blease has had stacks of opportunity: in the VFL. If he can't do what is required of him in the lower level, I think it's backwards logic to then say he needs an opportunity at the top. Players like Riley and McKenzie have had to knock the door down to get their opportunities, so based on the VFL reports I've been reading, I doubt Blease is even in Roos' mind, let alone at the front of it.

I'm guessing it probably won't be.

All my posts in the past have been along the lines of "don't think he's any good, but has a crack so I would like to be wrong".

I don't think it was even that we were that defensive - our tackling was not as good as it has been and we could hardly ever put pressure on to keep the ball in our forward 50 (too many talls?). Roos mentioned this in his presser - he also raised the fact that our forays forward were always fast when they should have been slow and slow when they should have been fast. We also gave them a heck of a lot of the footy in general play. I don't think it was the defensive mindset that hurt, it was just the players execution on the day. I don't know if it's young players fatiguing, players overawed by the occasion, or just the difference in class between the two sides, but I certainly don't blame the game plan.

Yep. At that exact moment, I died on the inside, and so did the team by the looks. Absolutely bloody hopeless decision.

Adam, this is pretty normal for blokes over 200cm I'd have thought. I can't think of too many men of ruckman size who are any good below their knees. I reckon if we're relying on Max to impact contests at ground level, we're doing it a bit wrong.

I have the right to explain myself when respectfully challenged by a poster I also respect. Would not have bothered responding to anyone else. (Yeah, yeah, letting it go now)

He's well on the way; has been excellent since coming back in to the side.

Redleg, I have difficulty understanding "what people meant" if it's not what they said at the best of times (call it a disability if you like), but in this case I think what he said was such a long way off what he meant (and said in a subsequent post) that I couldn't make the same connection that you have. Judging by the number of likes on my post, I wasn't the only one.