sue

While we and presumably Roos know have important a win might be, it is possible that Roos plans to concentrate on everyone knowing their basic role first so he won't throw players around just to increase the chances of a win. Once he is confident they have learnt their basic role, that may change. I hope this doesn't offend some posters, but for the moment at least I'd back his decisions over the opinions of us spectators.

Sometimes it seems like the less hope the player with the ball has of getting rid of it, regardless of prior opportunity, the more likely he is to be pinged. Especially if his acting skills of pretending to punch it away aren't Academy Award standard. What I hate is the third and fourth bloke jumping on the pack and tackling the tackler to try and protect his teammate on the bottom from being pinged. If they paid a few frees for tackling the tackler who does not have the ball we'd have less piles of players and it would be clearer to the umpire if the guy with the ball has any hope of getting rid of the ball.

I saw a couple on Sat night which should have been redone. But I don't think there is anything systematic.

Yet again? If only we had been in enough winnable positions in recent times to be able to say that. Crikey, I'm starting to sound like OldDee.

I reckon if our half our players were hit by a meteorite during the warm-up and someone here dared to give that as a reason we lost the game, they'd be howled down for just making excuses.

And they were right to say that after we played Port. It took at least one more match for it to become clear where were were at, but extrapolating from the first two was sadly easy with the 2011 performance to 'build' on. With a new coach and some new midfield players I'm not coming to any conclusions even if we get trounced by WCE. Sadly, you will I'm sure.

Except those who confidently announce he'll never play again. But you are right - none of us especially has the slightest idea.

One swallow does not make a spring, nor one match a reason for despair or elation. One theme of those who are depressed by last night is that we couldn't beat a depleted St Kilda which it is well known to be a basket case like us. But where is the hard evidence for that? They have just won 3 in a row I heard a commentator say - (admittedly one against a tanking team but with players not wishing to gamble with their form before finals). When did we last do that? St Kilda may well surprise some who have written them off over summer. I'll wait for more of the season to unfold before making any conclusions. When we have some talls in and see how we go against teams which are shown by results, not media waffle, to be also struggling and how we stand up against the mediocre and good teams, we'll be in a better position to judge.

I think Roos means more experience than just working under a senior coach for a year or two.

And better than many posters believe too I hope.

Well Redleg, you had the advantage of being at the game. Not clear how bad he was on TV until much later. I'm not going to defend Roos religiously all year, but it may be that the medical advice was he'd run it out so was left on longer than an uninformed spectator would expect. After all you don't have to be a star coach to realise an injured player should be moved/taken off. It would be surprising if an experienced coach like Roos would make such an elementary mistake. Surprising, but of course not impossible.

Loosing 2 talls (when you don't have many to start with) during a game is not given much weight in your analysis. McDonald is not mentioned. But even if you can maintain we were no worse off than them, remember we only lost by a few goals. It wasn't a 10 goal thrashing. Two weak teams played a close match. Sad we lost but not too surprising.

Re McDonald, it's always easy to be wise after the event. Do you think Roos doesn't know to move an injured player playing on their game-winner? More likely it wasn't clear how bad McDonald's injury was initially.

What a difference winning or losing makes. If we had won (which may have happened if we had kicked straight, didn't lose Fitz and most importantly lose McDonald keeping Riewolt in line at a critical time) there would be far less hand-wringing about the mid-field not being on top of the newbies of St Kilda, poor individual efforts and things that went wrong. There would be discussion of it sure and of other deficiencies, but less hand-wringing. Instead we'd be focussing on the amazing skills of Watts and how he looks like a potential superstar now. Those who react like those gutted 12 year old kids are showing the same level of maturity. We cannot expect wins as depressing as that is, we are looking for improvement, who will cut it in the longer term and who won't. I saw a bit of both last night. But whatever happens there won't be linear improvement for the team or individuals, there will be ups and downs. We won't know until well into the season if we are on the right rack. No point in spitting the dummy at round 1.

Doesn't fit with Roos' view about the need to develop senior coaches. Where is Ling's development?

Forward pocket at city end south.

What I like about you OldDee is that you never miss an opportunity.

Article in the AGE about Dank's performance at Crown: http://www.theage.com.au/afl/body-count-will-grow-says-dank-20140321-hvlcq.html He likes making snide comments. Has he ever given a meaningful reason why he won't talk to ASADA except in court? I would have thought if he has nothing to hide .....

Just because it changes over time doesn't mean it gets better to watch.

If it was so well documented and Essendon had all the details, you'd have to wonder what Ziggy was drinking when he wrote that review.

My bad. But what is the answer to my question Redleg?

Anyone know if he was obliged to be completely silent on what ASADA told him, regardless of them not specifying a particular club? His defence would imply he wasn't obliged to say nothing.

Whatever they want to do in the longer term, they couldn't do anything now just because of Ms Hird's show. Burnside is right on that.

I had a look over at Bomberblitz for the first time in ages and I can't find a thread where they discuss all this. Do I need a trip to the optometrist or have they banned discussion on the topic?

Why would Ms Hird do what she did now? The story of Samson bringing down the temple on himself and the Philistines springs to mind.