praha

So you think it's a travesty that the best player in a team that won only 4 games isn't in the AA team?

Hawthorn dramatically over achieved last year. You can't doubt that. They started playing awesome football, and the young players just got on an unstoppable roll. Everyone thought they were still 2-3 years away. St. Kilda had a great chance from 2004-2006 and ultimately blew it. 2007 they were adjusting to a gameplan, and 2008 saw them back up again. I thought Thomas did an OK job, but they did underachieve for a few years. They had a super team in 2004 when they started 10-0. I am still not confident they can take it this year though. If Thomas held the Saints back, then Daniher tied us to the ground, beat us, tortured us and kept us locked up in an underground dungeon.

2095 for me.... eerie.

Today is the first day of the rise. From here on in, we only get better.

Yes it is Phase 2. The start of the rise. And we won't be playing in the Grand Final next year.

If the Cats, Saints or Doggies don't win it, I want it to be the Crows. Anyone but Collingwood!

That picture has "captain" all over it - strength, anger, dedication. Not saying that other candidates don't have them, but that image is the sort of image that is used for decades and decades. I want him as Captain after Junior. 2010 will be his ultimate year.

He is contracted, so no. I wouldn't condone sacking a young player who is contracted, even if he is crap. May as well let him TRY and develop for another year.

No matter how bad you think the GC or WS will go, the AFL in banking on the teams only attracting 10-15k people to their games each time they play at home, which is an absolute certainty. They expect this for the first 5-6 years while the teams are building and their player payments are low and they only need minimal attendance to make a profit. The only way a team like the GC could fail is if it got something like 5k to its games each week, which is essentially the number of interstate supporters that travel around for every team anyway. The team will have AT LEAST 10k members to start off. The GC is a goldmine and the AFL is taking advantage of it. WS, maybe not so much a certainty, but the GC is in the bag. It will be where West Coast is now after only 5-6 years in the competition.

Sorry OP, but this thread is the pits.

Crows are the smokey. Put them up against the Saints or Cats in Melbourne and they can knock them off. Even the Pies.

Gingers.

Yeah, the music definitely added a whole new level of emotion to it. But that's because we are never going to be anywhere near as emotional as Robbo or his teammates would be. The music put us close to their level of emotion, which is good I think.

Oh please. If a player can't handle criticism, then he shouldn't give us something to fuel the argument with. What a load of crap. If you can't handle it, you shouldn't be a professional athlete. Criticism comes part and parcel, and considering we pay for membership and devout out time to watch and support them, we have a god damn right to be critical if they aren't giving back what we put in

I actually like Lucas. Maybe not one of the greats of the game, but a great at Essendon. Well done to him on a great career and a flag.

We all know it's going to Bruce. What we think we see on the field just isn't enough. We don't really know what he's like in the locker room, and Bruce might be more respected among the playing group. But I think it will be between Bruce and Davey.

No. I don't want to be another Richmond and keep old players signed up just to be loyal. His time has passed and is no longer needed. That's the reality of football. We can't afford to resign players who we know won't be around when we win our next flag.

12,000

For me, I absolutely hate it when Hawks fans start abusing their club because of their year this year. I mean, they've won so many flags in the past 3 decades. But then again, I guess after you've had so much recent success, you just can't except mediocrity. The current generation of Melbourne fans are sort of used to it, and I think that if we won a flag, and then crashed the following year to 10th or 11th, I seriously wouldn't care. I'd probably think, "well, we won last year." I just need to see us win something.

Welcome to Demonland Mr. Newton.

Anyone critical of this move, what exactly would you have us do? Do a Richmond and keep 3/4 30+ year old players on our list, instead of essentially replacing them with future stars? If Robbo, Whelan and Wheatley really cared about the club, they'd accept that they are no longer part of its success plan, and can no longer offer anything beneficial to the team.

We must be one of a few teams with a negative record against the Fremantle Queens.

Michael Newton - Achilles? Since when did achilles mean crap?

I haven't watched it or even seen footage of it since I actually saw it in person. I have no intentions to ever watch it again.

Robbo and Whelan are gone at the end of the year.