Je Roos Salem

Saw them training today. The second half of the session seemed to be drills with just the players who will play on Sunday with a couple of exceptions such as Salem.(Watts was a no show) Grimes and Jamar left the session early so I assume neither will be selected

People had high hopes for Newton yet he can't even make a squad of 25. Also pretty stiff for Fitzy and maybe Toumpas especially since Stretch wasn't good last week. It's like that tunnel ball has ended Fitz's career even though he showed some form in his 2-3 games

Donate my membership scarves to the op shop so that they can keep a homeless person ashamed during the nights

I think Dawes and Howe are printed on the whiteboard and all the other players are magnets

Be surprised if there's a 'If we don't beat St.Kilda' thread.

He got one in the last 5 minutes when everyone had tuned out

Good opportunity for him as the Lions have a very weak forward line and if they put a ruckman down there then maybe It'd be good to bring Fitzy in. I didn't see Tom do many set shots at training but he did a lot of snaps and was struggling, Toumpas was brilliant though and actually coaching him on it. Agree. One knock on Watts is that he hasn't used his height enough, and he looks athletic enough to have a decent leap (And he's a handy basketballer too)

Garlett's been fantastic. Complaining that he's not Rioli is futile. Even if we got Rioli he might have gotten lazier and not had Garlett's approach. He's the sort of player we've been missing for the past 3 years, a fast small who actually has a ping at the goals and constantly applies forward pressure. Also, he and Hogan haven't yet been goalless this season, that's quite an amazing feat for one, let alone two of our players

I overheard Viney tell Brendan McCartney "JKH is out too" (even though he was training) which made me think they'd said something about Hogan being out beforehand. Actually you're probably right about the maintenance thing as i don't think Vince was there either.

Not sure if anyone's mentioned it but Hogan was a no show at training yesterday and Howe stood on the sideline/did some light jogging

I'm not really fussed with our inaccuracy. Wasn't an issue in Geelong. As long as we generate the shots. One of my pet peeves in footy are players standing around with the ball inside 50 and then getting caught while trying to find an option or trying ridiculous precision kicks that get turned over. Given we aren't the most skilled team by foot it's good when guys like Garlett or Vince just have a crack at the goals. We had several narrow misses and it was only the T-Mac set shots that dealt the fate

Agree, I've always liked and defended Garland but I'm starting a see a player down in confidence and not really providing us with what we need. He's failing to impact contests and is making poor choices. Definitely should explore the market with him and it won't be a huge shame either way

T-Mac actually wills himself to the ball. Need a plan B when Hogan's out of the game and Dawes continues to give us nothing. Promising signs in that 4th term. Get him in front of the posts at Gosch's this week and let's see what he can give us next week. Doesn't have to be the whole game as he can still be a handy defender, this is by by no means a permanent move I want, but at times this year he's ran inside 50 anyway, I'm sure he's feeling more confident around goal than before

6. 'Crash and Burn' ie Vince 5. Maximilian Gawn 4. A high voltage Watts 3- TMC 2- AVB 1- Neville "the devil" Jetta

As much as I want Howe to be dropped, he is likely to stay in because of his versatility and there's not really a better replacement

It's not just Cross though. Viney has struggled and Jones is also making poor decisions by foot regularly. In their defence there seems to be a glaring lack of talk in terms of leading and spacing the field to find targets though. Essendon did this much better. And we didn't kick it high into the vicinity of Hogan enough.

1. Through my dad via my Grandma (also through my older siblings back when we all went as a family). Never felt tempted to support another team, it'd just feel wrong. I'd had a friend change to Essendon and it made me sick 2. Schwarz. Loved the number 5 because of him and used to wear it. Only saw the latter part of his career and was really upset when he retired 3. I can't recall much of 2000, so probably either the Freo comeback game or the 1-point win V Brisbane in 2008. They were both beautiful wins and the whole crowd were jumping up and down and roaring at the end, making 20,000 sound like 100,000. Even though we were bad, we were playing exciting footy, Jim was onboard and that frustration and pessimism hadn't crept in to the players or supporters like it has now. 4. Any time from 2013 onwards (maybe 2012 too). I didn't watch 186 and mentally binned it, and I felt excited about getting a new coach (retrospectively regret). Just seeing the team I grew up loving becoming unrecognisable and questioning why I was bothering to show up. Seeing slow players kick sideways and show no heart. Starting to feel increasingly frustrated and depressed. 2013 v GC and NM and last year against GWS were the worst for me. Also in 2007 when I played footy and kept finding out we'd just lost by under a goal on the car radio, made me choke up. 5. Sometimes I wish I would walk away, but come gameday I just wanna go (I don't have anything better to do anyway). The game will still happen and I feel like I'm involved. I may not love it like I used to, in fact I have more moments of frustration than of love. Sometimes I'm loud in support, sometimes I'm mentally cursing the players and just giving up on barracking. But I like seeing footy and the score being 0-0 at the start. It's not so much that I love the club, but I love what it means to me. I can't see success coming as soon as others but I really hope it takes me by surprise.

We just needed 9 more behinds for it to be perfect

One point of difference today was that all our first years had poor games which is a rarity. I didn't think T-Mac was as bad as others think and he nearly won us the game. 28 disposals, 10 rebound 50s, ran very hard when moved forward. Just needs to work on his kicking for next time, looks like he was trying to kick it too low

The only shepherd I saw today was Watts inside 50 to allow Hogan to mark and get his first shot on goal. We rarely get that from Dawes or other forwards

I hate how we're still looking for Jones all the time and his kicking was really poor today, as was most of our midfield's

Essendon really got away with it due to our incompetence today. They played one good quarter. We let them use that spare man and work it through the middle in space too often, they never had much to kick it too. I could see Watts visibly frustrated at a kick in near the end, I think our chemistry still needs a lot of improvement. Based on what we've seen in the past month this had all the ingredients for an easy win but we really just blew it

It's all gone into an hourglass which won't expire until September 2016

Happy to farewell Bail and Jones. No Spencer makes sense given the conditions although that should've been the thinking last week. And it feels so weird to see all the tipsters in the Age backing us.

Blame the weather and/or Dawes