RalphiusMaximus

I'd suggest putting in on YouTube and linking from there.

Strauss is a great kick when he has time to set it up, but he needs to get more ball. If you draft a guy to be a distributor then he has to get 20-30 touches a game to use his skills. He's lucky to get high teens. If he can't increase his output then he gets the chop. Tapscott needs to be used as a half forward with a license to go for goal. We need to see if he can be damaging on the scoreboard. He's another one who is supposed to be very damaging by foot, but so far we haven't seen much evidence of it. His long kicking is rarely in evidence and he has a terrible record on set shots. His defensive game is ok, but he's a little hamstrung by lack of pace. Needs get more ball and has to be damaging with his kicking. Taggert I haven't seen play. I hear many good things about him, and he has had a few really good games for Casey. Given the number of injuries he has had I'd be willing to give him another year to see if he can get his act together, but I think that's all the charity he will get. Has to get himself into the senior side and have some sort of impact.

He was discussed on SEN in their "Not So Obvious AA Team." Suggested by a caller and got some serious backing. Sadly I can't see the actual AA selectors agreeing. We're just not trendy enough.

I find it funny that he's come out and said exactly the same things that Neeld has been saying for the last few months, and suddenly people are saying it's no BS, honest and to the point. I also liked Watts saying he wants to be around to see things improve having spent five years here. A good sign.

According to the SEN people Watts was pretty good today. Would have been nice if he'd kicked straight, but aside from that they loved him.

You do understand that this comment can be applied to most of our games this season right?

We'll never know if I was wrong about Neeld because the board made a shocking call and sacked him.

So you're saying that sacking the coach wasn't the answer?

A free to Saint Nick! Who'd have thought!

Or of course if our forwards had kicked straight.

But I thought the recruiting had nothing to do with Neeld?

I'd call that a major negative given that a few years ago we had one of the best back lines in the competition.

He's clearly lost the players. Just look at how Watts is kicking. That's an obvious and self-evident declaration of no confidence in the coach.

Great catch Yarra. You had this one well before any of the news outlets got onto it. Also congratulations to Mitch for a well earned promotion and best of luck in the game.

Sheedy is someone who could convince me not to buy a membership. Nasty, spiteful, self important old has-been. I'll pass. There have been a few slightly left of center names tossed up. Knights for one has been mentioned in one article. I wouldn't mind seeing Gary Ayres get a look. However, given the way the board is talking, I suspect we might well see Choko get the nod.

The players should have performance-based contracts. Right now they'd be paying the club to let them play.

Looks like they want to exploit the saints lack of pace. I doubt if we'll be doing too well at the bounce, but I would say they are aiming for the Geelong win the ball at HB and move it quickly up the ground. You never know, it might work. Except for that little problem we have hitting targets by foot...

You speak for the majority of supporters now? I don't think so, for the simple reason that I speak for the majority of the supporters and say that we had not lost faith and felt that the short-term pain would be worth it in the long run. As the voice of the majority I feel obligated to tell you that while we had not lost faith in the coach we have now most certainly lost faith in the administration of the club.

Do you know how many violent crimes are committed by people who are on bail for other violent crimes? Our judges work off a checklist for this crap, the same as they do for sentencing. "Tie's to the community" check, "Family" check, fine, he can have bail.

HE can certainly put his hand up for it, but he's simply a continuation of the same group who have run this club into the ground. Bring on the rival ticket I say! Also, how interesting that he's claiming that the work Neeld did will have us playing finals in two or three years, but they were still happy to sack him.

Wow. Did not see that one coming.

Interesting little article from earlier in the year talks about his u18 season a little. Personally I think we have to send a card or something to the WA selectors. As you say, there's no way this kid would have slipped so far if he'd been picked for WA. Aside from his willingness to take on opponents and a pretty good kick, he's willing to put his body on the line. How many times have we seen him run back with the flight and get a hand to the ball in front of an oncoming opponent? Sooner or later he's going to get flattened doing that, but we love to see it.

I couldn't agree more. If you went to a builder halfway through construction and complained that the house wasn't livable yet, what response would you get? As for the timing, this screams "self-preservation" to me. What are the odds that the AFL told them exactly what they wanted to happen for the club to get more funding and that McLardy and Neeld's heads were at the top of the list. This is a board who are desperately trying to save themselves and sacrificing anything that can possibly help them to do that. Six including Rookies. Robbie Campbell, Addem Maric, Michael Newton, Cameron Johnston, Tom McNamara and Austin Wonaeamirri. I'm not sure which of those were rookies and which regular list.

Soooooooo, it's ok to blame Neeld if you don't like the way we recruited, but you can't give him credit for the good ones we've picked up? When will the bashers stop?

A bit of a rundown. Said he felt the players supported him and the fact that the whole team turned up at the presser was a good show of support. Said Watts is developing fine, pointed out his attack on the contest last game. Took one minor swipe at the club saying he was hired to do a job over three years and got half of that to do it in. Refused to back down on appointing Trenners and Grimes as captains. Repeated the same thing that they had a set of criteria and the two of them were streets ahead of the rest of the club. Recruiting. Said that they had turned over 14 players and they couldn't have drafted 14 kids to replace them. Had to get them from somewhere. Once again said that Hogan and Toumpas were recruited for the long-term. Ties in with the fact that he was given a three year contract. Said he would probably be envious of whoever was coaching next year with Clark, Dawes and Hogan running around the forward line. No, he would not change his approach given his time over. He did what needed to be done. Was attacked pretty hard on Rivers and Moloney. Shot down the questions on Riv pretty easily. Refused to get drawn on how petty Moloney was being. Not much else said really. Refused to give them a sound bite of him rubbishing the club, the processes or his sacking. I wish we could have had something new but it wasn't that great an interview by the panel and he played a straight bat to most of it. Wished the players and the new club luck