Demon16

it's interesting because at the draft function C.C made it quite clear we were very keen on Melksham with that pick and seemed a little disappointed he got taken before our pick. no swaps now though thanks.

i really think if we were trying to implement it as general tactic it would be more evident in every game we play. or are we generally that much worse than the rest of the comp that we struggle to implement it consistently? i'm not saying i necessarily want to play that way btw, i would love it if D.B had something up his sleeve.

Tom Harley mentioned in the telecast on friday night that we are the only club in the competition that doesn't enforce a press. does anyone have concerns about this? or are we happy we are trying something that 16 other clubs are not? no right or wrong answer btw!

you're spot on, they should be able to fire up themselves. for whatever reason though, most footy teams can't and the coach needs to motivate to some extent. sad but true.

combine that with the gather into one hand, then spilling it, then the slow recovery once Betts was on the scene and it finished in an ugly passage for chip. he has no confidence right now it seems.

I saw this incident and quite a few other times when he held back. I'm sure most will disagree but i thought Frawley was horrible last night

disagree with this.....Garland is very hit and miss.

you guys really should get a room.

we had a crack and didn't throw in the towel. But for those that watched last night's game compared to today's will realise what will happen in the next three weeks.

combine this with Bate's uncanny ability to hit an opposition target with every possession he gets, and we have 2 senior players who shouldn't be part of our current development.

exactly.workrate.

i understand your points and believe it or not i enjoy getting your perspectives. i look at the game a little differently. i think the one thing lacking most in our game is consistent workrate. workrate gives you the contested ball stats you want to see, it gives you the defensive pressure that has been the cornerstone of essendons success this year, it enables you to apply a press effectively. even you guys must have scratched your heads when you look at how thin the age argument is when listing the bomber mids. IF our senior players do not have the ability i can live with that, but they have no excuse for not having the required workrate. you guys see them as not being good enough, i see them as failing to work hard enough. I think it all stems from attitude, motivation, and obviously training hard. We had a good workrate last year, this year we have gone backwards and i think it is more than just losing Junior and Bruce. i have no problem with anyone looking for answers to our problems, i always like to hear theories, i just don't think it's right to make excuses for every poor performance the team or players put in.

1000 apologies, so sorry to upset your thread. A clever person might have picked up on the comparison i have been trying to make between our midfield and Essendon's, their success with an average midfield Vs our lack of with an average midfield, and garner the reason is not purely about a player's ability. please continue to over analyse with this rubbish if it makes you feel better though.

no you didn't mention midfielders but i asked you to look at Essendons. my point being the midfield is the most important part of modern footy as we all know, so why does a side who has what i believe to be an inferior midfield, an inferior defense, we'll call the forwards even..... perform 7 consistent, competitive games of footy? our mids are just as experienced as theirs but ours can't perform 2 weeks in a row let alone 7. that has nothing to do with youth, and more to do with attitude. We are anything but an honest footy side, thats why North always beat us. We get very happy with ourselves after a win or 2.....the reason we always stubble over the line(if at all) against weaker opposition. We are a soft footy club, have been for a long time.

you've named 3 midfielders there and one of them gets bronx cheers from his own supporters.

That is where we differ. i think you are accepting that what our senior players are producing is as good as it gets, i disagree. i think your making excuses for their poor performances. Run through the bunch of "gun" midfielders that Essendon is trotting out and tell me why they are performing so much better than us, and it ain't because their youth is a year ahead of ours.

i completely agree with the younger/smaller bodies and the inconsistency etc, but i really think most people on here are not complaining about the kids, they are complaining about the leaders of this club and the way the team throws in the towel.

it's an interesting topic and i'd be happy to discuss. culture seems like a load of crap.....it should be a load of crap.....but it's not. there are too many consistent theme's for almost every football club over the years when players and coaches have come and gone. lets take a club like Essendon; yes they were no good last year with an average list, but with that same average list they have put together 7 pretty impressive performances in a row. when is the last time, even with a mature list, that you have seen us put together a start to a year like this? For Melbourne it plays out like this.....great first up performance, very good second, very good third, get happy with ourselves and lose to a team near the bottom of the ladder. then start the usual talk about rebounding and bouncing back. why is it so?......

yuck......makes that card look a whole lot worse.

If someone has the time could they please find the stats on how many teams have appealed, failed, and recieved more weeks? i don't think it's many. could only happen to melbourne.

Loved the card except the main show. Man Jake Shields just looks like a battler. i thought he got rocked a couple of times but it was just his normal stiff stance! GSP does need to finish someone and he also needs to man up when he gets injuries, he seems to get the sulks a bit. Aldo and Homminick was an awesome fight, Homminick a little stiff not to finish Aldo in the second after Aldo looked in deep trouble. was odd the way he gassed so early, but he came back well as champions do. loved the welt on Homminick's forehead......What Tha!!!!! The Dragon was great and Randy wasn't. Amazing that even when Randy grabbed him in the clinch he couldn't hold him.......he had nothing. farewell to a legend. Fantastic they sold out a 56,000 odd stadium. next card looks the goods too.

all i know is that i love the way we play in full flight.....it's pure football. Can we play that way consistently in years to come?.....i don't know, i hope so. can our game style be shut down easily? when we don't execute well....yes, but i think this will change when we gain consistency. i think one of the reasons we can play this style of game is because we have a very good defense, much like Geelong did. is it possible Collingwood play the boundary, and forward press to protect what i believe is a suspect backline? is our quick ball movement off half-back and up the middle the reason we did so well against them last year? It's round 4 of this year, we've had some big injuries pre-season, we are still a young side who is a long way off playing consistently for a whole season, we've started slowly and we've won 50% of our games. any danger we could assess when we're halfway through the season at least? anyone remember praying for a win early last year?......any win?

agree about the choke, but really if you had have told me this was going to be a stand-up fight i would have said Daley wins easily. not a big fan of either of these guys, but i gotta take my hat off to Diaz. after his time in the ufc i thought he was just an average fighter, but he's better than that. i still think he'll be back in the pack if Strikeforce and ufc merge at some stage, but he'll be part of some big fights.

from what i had seen leading up to the draft, and i don't know my way around BF, Gys was around 10 places higher than tipped.

i think Gys was also slightly left-field after we earlier took the "safe & certain" Scully and Trengove. without looking at the stats i would say our teen picks have generally been very poor.