DeeSpencer

The fence itself had nothing to do with slowing people's entry. It was the lack of gates and lack of staff available to wand people. If they are still wanding people the busy gates will still be very slow moving. Personally I liked the thinking behind moving security away from the entries. It saved lives in Paris and it alone doesn't increase the invasiveness of the security. But the temporary fencing was a terrible eyesore and not well planned. Time will tell, I really hope it's always something we won't have to worry about.

He really isn't. Salem and even Lumumba are better defensively. Part of the reason Grimes was dropped so often last year was his defensive work was struggling. He doesn't read the play quick enough these days and he's easily out smarted. He had a few really good plays on the weekend, and in the other 2 games. Most posters on here have given him credit for that. Anyway, the main problem with Grimes is the errors that come from him looking like a dear in the headlights. Not attacking contests, not evading opponents, kicking in a hurry or taking too long to kick. The errors themselves are bad enough, but the lack of confidence and effect on the team I think is almost worse.

It is. But they haven't been too far off the mark. I think he has until 2017 for a top 4 finish otherwise he won't see that 2018 year. The extension was for stability for this year and next.

Both. His awareness is clearly shot. And he lost all touch on his kicks so they reverted to a very mechanical action to stop the shanks, he takes along time to balance up. The burden of leadership, injury set backs and poor training methods just ruined him unfortunately. Watch the video above and Nath Jones isn't half the player Grimes is but he developed really well.

Richmond are a tough one. They have so many really good players and a few handy ones and then not a lot else. If they sort out a proper game plan and back in some new faces to replace the list cloggers they'll have a very good team. If not they'll be up and down again, hopefully we catch them on a down day again. North are heading for a cliff for sure. But if Waite, Petrie, Harvey, Wells, Dal Santo, Thompson, Firrito etc keep playing well then they've got enough good players in their prime (Goldstein, Cunnington, Ziebell etc) to stay a good side. They play to their strengths as well. Dropping a man behind the ball, contesting hard, kicking long down the line to talls and using a bit of creativity from Harvey, Higgins etc to then create goals. I'm getting this strange respect for the way they are going against the grain and topping up and backing themselves. Conventional wisdom says it just won't work but 2 prelims sound good to me!

Damn he was good. WAS. Quick over the ground, fast decision making, smooth kicking action. But how many times did he get the ball in congestion and have to work his way out of it with smarts not just run out of it? The game has changed. He's not as quick as he used to be. His ball drop now takes an eternity and his kick far less reliable. He's just not the player he was in 2009 unfortunately. He can't play half back and anyone suggesting he should I think is a fool. He's had a good preseason and should be considered for a wing role. An important depth player for now.

And Howe spent most of the year at half back because of it. Bringing the ball to ground in the forward is important and not as easy as it sounds. Dawes, Howe and Spencer did that well against the Cats and we had players in position to capitalise. It would be part of Frost's role. But speed and defensive pressure are too and we've seen that. I think he'll have to take some more grabs and kick more goals to become a permanent fixture. I don't mind the role I just think Vanders can do it almost as well in terms of defensive work and bringing the ball down plus he'll add a lot more other skills.

Essendon 0-1. Carlton 0-1. St Kilda 0-2 Beat: Geelong, GWS, GC, Brisbane, Collingwood, Dogs and Richmond. The way for us to go up without getting spectacularly better but getting far more consistent is: Win 3 out of the first 4 teams, which were embarrassing losses. Win 4 out of the 7 we beat last year. Beat 2 of Sydney, North, Port and Adelaide. Beat 1 of Hawthorn, West Coast, Freo 10 wins, % around 90-95%.

He's a saints man. So he's also coming at us with a perspective that he's own struggling side beat us twice last year. Jetta is a beauty. But injury derailed him a bit last year so it's patchy form last year and 2014 and that's all we have to go off. His impact on games is also limited somewhat as he doesn't have huge involvement away from the ball coming to him and his opponent. I'm with you on Tyson, but I also think he's been building through the preseason after missing a lot last year. I'm hoping he and Viney can stand up and with Jones control games and let Vince go to half back. I rate Tyson and Viney about equally at this stage. Both very good but needing to keep improving their weaknesses and bringing their best. It's not easy to make the step up from promising young player to consistent performer with a well rounded game.

Sample size is too small. A nick in a hammy in a debut season is not uncommon. An unlucky ankle injury and then maybe a second ankle roll that could be a 1 or 2 weeker. Injury prone I'd save for players who have repeated long term injuries or repeated similar injuries. You label Vanders injury prone and we start running out of players who wouldn't qualify under that label. It's the nature of AFL footy.

That I certainly agree with. The issue being we had 7 wins and some of those sides last year or the year before for Port went well over 12 wins. If we close the gap it's much easier to jump over those teams.

It's not a crew. It's one man with a decent well founded opinion....who also spends a lot of his time as a cricket writer and researcher. He justified it easily with the statement that there are a lot of good teams, and it's a perfectly fair point. The top 12 were well clear of us last year and so many of them (Coll, GWS, Geel) had strong off seasons. Simply there are good teams with more experienced talent than we have. We need the 1st to 3rd year young players to come on, and they are good and I think they will. But even more we need Jones, Vince, Dunn, Garland, Garlett, Jetta, Lumumba, Dawes/Pedo, Matt Jones/Grimes to give us their best, which they likely will. We know what we'll get from that lot, both the good and the bad. But our season might rest upon the 22-25 year old types in Gawn, McDonald, Watts, Ben Ken, Vanders, Tyson and Viney. If the experienced guys do a job and those guys make the step up to regular performers then we have a backbone of the side. Fools gold to think kids without 50 games or fully grown bodies, no matter how talented, will be able to suddenly lift us much higher than last years ladder position and more than 1 or 2 more wins.

Need 3 more panellists so they can vote for Salem, Oliver and Brayshaw. Only fair.

Terlich, Spencer (replaced by another mature ruck), one of Pedo/Dawes is 3. Agree with the 4 above. Trengove might not make it back or could be downgraded for one last shot. That's 8. Could be anywhere between 0-3 rookie upgrades, but I'd set the line at 1.5. Watts and the club lose patience with each other. Unexpected trade requests. I really hope it's competitive as well, but there's a long way to go and no first round pick. JKH is another who lacks physicality at this stage but he's meant to be a good runner and he has good skills as well. It's not easy to build fitness and competitiveness, certainly much easier if you have it and there's not much you can do with pure athleticism or height, you're a bit stuck with what you've got. But it's probably even harder to turn back kicks in to good kicks. So I'm willing to have some patience with those who can kick the thing.

Suckling's an amazing kick but so high risk he turns over a few. But I agree it's not a perfect comparison, I was just thinking a similar role without the same brilliance of Suckling. I'm trying to think of a similar player in a good side. Either way I don't think our focus on hardness and effort should preclude him.

He'd be a big upgrade, but I always worry about players who are obviously talented but rough around the edges and maybe not a perfect fit for a premiership team. Can he ruck? Can he kick accurately? Is he smart enough when the ball hits the ground and reliable enough in the air? He'll be 28 next Feb and probably cost a 2nd round pick still given I presume he's not a free agent. Hopefully Max King comes on and we don't have to find out.

Nath Jones, Bernie Vince and Salem are probably the only 3 mids on our list who kick as well as Newton. He's still worth his value for that alone. Port let him leave for a 2 year deal because they didn't think he could run and wanted to give him just 1 shot at it. He's got injured again but apparently had built his tank. He's without a position at the moment as he doesn't get win the ball or apply defensive pressure enough for any one spot. But a weakness can be a strength, he can become solid at any position if he builds his fitness. He's not quite to the same level but he can play the same role Suckling has played at the Hawks and now Dogs. Float around from half forward, wing and half back, use the ball well and kick some goals. If we only pick hard at it defensive players we might put a limit on the teams growth. We have to set the standard with attack on the ball and work rate but we can't pick a team of scrubbers either.

Whinge, beg or supplement the costs if we have to. Convince a player to do it for half the rate the others are charging. Do whatever we can to make sure we aren't left behind.

Plus Stringer and Bontempelli are incredibly marketable and you'd mainly stock them in Western Suburbs supermarkets. Saves on the distribution costs. Same with the Melbourne ones. I'm not saying they mass produce thousands of them, but at least sign a player up and have them available in a few Coles stores in the heartland area.

I kind of feel it's solving a problem that isn't a problem. Trees, bins and all the other things shown have done the trick for years. But for the Northern states without footy ovals it's a good idea. Hopefully he can make a few bucks and get more kids involved in the game. Very keen for his son to keep kicking a footy round with Gazza though. White's height with a bit of Ablett skill training. Get him ready for father son.

Because I don't know. Well I thought I did but I was starting to reassess with his form. Now the coaches have a smaller sample size to decide if he's improved or not. If Vanders isn't right and they have doubts over Frost, plus maybe they don't want to play Harmes or Brayshaw on a wing then there's a spot for him. I wouldn't play him at this weekend at all. But he's still in contention for round 1 and I really would've liked to have seen 4 quarters of him against the Saints.

15 talking figurines http://aflfootymate.com/ 2 by hawks, pies and tigers. Bogans will love these, so no shame there. No dogs, no team North of the Murray and no demons. Jones? Vince? Max Gawn? Hogan? No. Oh but there's a Heppell one. Good to see he can make some profit whilst out of the game. Is that legal? Very poor from the AFL and Coles and poor from Melbourne as well. Takes a lot to win a kid back when he goes to the supermarket and can't find his colours anywhere.

I'm looking at the positives. A lot of time in the ruck at Casey for Max King. If (and it's a decent sized if) his own body can hold up to senior VFL footy then his match fitness and development should get a good kick along. It is a shame the Spencil is out but he's a pretty tough character, if we need him hopefully he's rested up enough that he can front up and play. I think that would be a situation where we'd play both Pedo and Frost as well and use a lot of 3rd man ups. Get creative with Frost playing as an extra on baller in a lot of ways.

Had a look for an hour between 10:30-11:30. No: Dawes, Mitch King, Spencer, Viney from what I saw. Vanders walked off just as I got there. Newton came out to do boxing with Jetta. Giving the pads a serious work out. Rehab: Kent doing sprints. Salem on light duties. Weideman as well. Matt Jones and Garland on light duties. Almost everyone else was doing everything including Dunn, Lumumba and Brayshaw. Clarry came off after one drill and had a tight right hip. Physios got in to him pretty strongly. Then he did some boxing. Hopefully just some tightness that is all fine and a week off will have him feeling better before round 1. Usual drills all about quick ball movement. McCartney barking out orders when mids were going 5 v 3 from a stoppage and kicking to a 4 v 2 forward line. Dunn and Hunt managed to intercept a few and Macca was cracking that the forwards would trip over their pulled down pants. The attacking players then started to work it out. A definite focus on the player forward of the stoppage to run forward away from the stoppage as soon as the ball is won and then make his defender choose whether to run with him or attack the ball carrier. Similarly the focus for the outnumbered defenders was to go hard at the ball carrier to force a mistake. Hogan, Dunn, Frost, Gawn and Pedersen all did contested marking practice. Harmes, JKH, Garlett and Max King all were practising snapping goals. Hogan had plenty of shots at goal during various drills. Throws in one or two shuffle steps but otherwise very fluent run up and kicking wasn't an issue.

2 rucks: Hawthorn (McEvoy, Ceglar), Freo (Sandi, Griffen/Clarke) Maybe: WC ( NicNat, Lycett/McGovern), Geel (Smith/Stanley, Vardy), Saints (Longer/Hickey/Holmes, Bruce), Carlton (Kreuzer, Phillips/Casboult), GWS (Mumford, Lobb), Ess (Leuenberger, Jamar/Grimley/Michael), Coll (Grundy, Witts/Moore/Gault) No: Rich (Maric, Vickery/Griffiths), Gold Coast (Nicholls, Wright/Day), Sydney (Tippett, Sinclair), Dogs (Minson/Campbell, Boyd/Redpath/Roughead), Brisbane (Martin, Walker), Port (Lobbe, Dixon/Westhoff/Trengove), Adel (Jacobs, Jenkins), North (Goldstein, Brown) Seems a big mix, hard to predict where a lot of the maybe's will go. The main difference between years past is that the 2nd ruck/forward types are getting bigger and are ofter around the 200cm mark. Not all are necessarily better in the ruck than Pedersen but most are and some can play against number 1 rucks. It's still very early days for him but it's not ludicrously early for Max King to start showing more consistent form at VFL level and to push his case.