DeeSpencer

To be honest I wouldn't be opposed to giving him a few more rounds of the Brock McLean treatment.

Brisbane were missing many more than we were today as well. We are right to be disappointed by the margin and ease of the loss. It's 22 men on 22 men. We had arguably the best key defender on the field in Frawley. We had the better ruckman I thought. We had a range of reasonably talented players. Yet we got walked over. These are the blow out losses we feel we don't deserve anymore. It was a practice match. Experimenting with some things etc. You can't blame Roos and you can't hold it against the players in preseason. But everyone should feel disappointed about the result regardless of the oppositions talent.

My highlight of the day. Parking along the nature strip outside some crazy housing development (who buys these things) whilst some nuffy from a private security or something waved his finger and shook his head at everyone. No ticket and got out of there in no time as well. A much improved parking situation for the unplanned Casey fields, good job! Low light of the day. Seeing so many overweight, unwashed, tattooed and plain ugly Hawthorn supporters. Clearly not the genteel people of Hawthorn but some part of the overfed masses. A saw a few women wearing Hawthorn jumpers that were modeled on Stewie Dew early 2008.

If he can actually get some proper training and development working on his fitness, spread, speed off the mark, kicking and marking outside he could be something. Right now he's a very promising kid and we have to accept some good and bad games. But he's probably already the most natural clearance winner we've in a long long time. He hasn't at all looked out of place against Richmond and Geelong and now add Hawthorn. Didn't really influence the game much today but he's one that can actually learn something from the game.

I'll say one thing. Umpires are reluctant to pay frees for holding the ball when players get the ball and try to escape congestion even with incorrect disposal - happened a lot today for the hawks. Compare that to getting the ball under pressure and getting trapped, the ump naturally wants to ping you. Umpires are also unlikely to pay free kicks against forwards in marking contests but are always looking to ping defenders. If you give your forwards a lot more chances they'll get more free kicks. Thirdly getting in the right position to get the ball - leading up at it in front, first to the contest, escaping pressure is also makes you more likely to get a free.

Fitz was Fitz. 30m out directly infront set shot - behind. Marking contest, fails to get his hands out and on the ball, spoiled by Kyle Cheney. But it's very hard to be a forward in a game like this and he was deep forward. He actually seemed to go ok when in the ruck and took a couple of grabs around the ground. No exciting runs or anything. Maybe some of the biggest worries again today were the high draft picks expected to improve under Roos. Trengove, Toumpas and Grimes. And probably most concerning Watts. Under hard physical pressure he offers nothing.

I bet you didn't say that half way through 2012. Seriously [censored] off with your mindless drivel.

It was a moderate breeze at least at nearly a 45 angle towards a wing and slightly favouring the end we kicked to 1st and 3rd. Was strong but pretty consistent and not blustery. The Hawks didn't have any trouble with it.

Wouldn't have changed the result obviously. At worst would've padded the scoreboard but probably would've given some more confidence to the ball movement as well. For example when someone kicked to Pedersen who slid for the ball, had the ball deflect from his legs after dropping the mark and rebounded for a Hawthorn goal. There were plenty of times where a kick towards Fitzy or Pedersen resulted in a turnover and shot on goal at the other end.

What was he thinking putting McDonald on Roughead when we had Frawley available. Oh wait it was a practice match.

Thought before the game - who would get a game from Hawthorn from our team today. Backline - Frawley, maybe Dunn in from. Midfield - Consider Spencer v McEvoy, Vince, Tyson. Forward line - only Howe. And it showed. The players fought it out in close for the first quarter when assisted with the wind. But the second quarter the Hawks just opened us up and from then on it was a procession. We just have too many players with glaring gaps in their game that will take a long time to fix. Issues: - Midfield spread was shot - Backline didn't have confidence to attack and defend - Forward line couldn't work out how to get to the right spots - The handballs around the pack broke down due to pressure - The kicking from half back broke down due to lack of work rate to run from all 22. Positives - Few and far between. Spencer, Dunn, Frawley, Howe probably beat their opponents. Vince plays at a higher speed than most of our mids. Tyson wasn't physically intimidated in close.

You're wrong. As he was ineligible to play in his first year due to the mini draft status he's signed for next year as well. Ideally we get him extended by the end of the year so we don't go through Frawley all over again with Hogan. But this injury shouldn't stop him from getting a run of games at some stage. I hope his agent advises him if he's happy in Melbourne it's better for his footy to just sign on and not have to deal with contract speculation as a 20 year old key forward next year.

Cause you don't go booking expensive MRI's after every player has a bit of a sore back from copping a knee into it. You let him rest and wait a few days and then if it doesn't settle you get a scan. It's not like he hasn't been able to walk, he's just had some persistent soreness.

Todays game brought to you by the North Australian Aboriginal Family Violence Legal Service. Yes seriously. Beautiful big oval. Not helping the single camera set up though. Wonaeamirri's out there. Looking quite rotund.

"Looking to see the latest and greatest in remote NT footballers" = Looking to see great talent who's radically different cultural values will likely mean they don't have a hope in hell of making the AFL. No thanks. But nice attempt. Not sure why we can't get some kind of footy on this weekend (even channel 7 or fox picking a couple of random practice matches would've done me). Oh well, it will make tomorrow's match even better.

He leads well in space but I don't like him as a contested mark. Plus at the moment he's looking at being the second ruck as well. Howe should play deep and be the main inside 50 target, just hope he's improved his body work. Fitzy a nice decoy. Pedersen has to be the one to take some marks leading up the ground as a target from half back. Hope his own hammy issues are resolved.

When people say Pedo runs hard do they mean he covers a lot of distance with a high work rate or do they mean it's hard for him to run. Could argue it's the latter.

So it can be traumatic not overuse? That would certainly be a good sign. Correct me if I'm wrong but if it's traumatic as soon as he's settled they can probably get him back to heavier training compared to be more cautious. Still think 3 weeks is very unlikely but within a month would be great.

The bones themselves on MRI can show signs of stress without a fracture. In a sense we could've got in early. A stress fracture would require a longer period of rehab. Just a stress reaction may mean as soon as the pain is gone things are much better and then it's a matter of how quickly they get him back to fitness and how much core strengthening they want to do. From my limited knowledge I don't expect him to be doing much training for at least 3 weeks and from there I think he'd need close to 3 more until he can play.

http://www.physioroom.com/injuries/back/lower_back_stress_fracture_full.php http://journals.lww.com/ajpmr/pages/articleviewer.aspx?year=2007&issue=11000&article=00012&type=Fulltext I'd say at least 4 weeks off the track and out of the gym, lots of time in the pool. After that it would probably take 3 or 4 weeks for him to be fit to play. It's 2 week until round 1. If we can have him back safely and healthy by round 6 it will be a great result.

Come to think of it would gifting Strauss and Blease the first 5 games of the season hurt us that much? The upside of a skilled player from half back and fast game breaker at half forward is huge. The down side is the difference between Strauss and Clisby/Terlich in terms of defending/hardness/ability to rack up the ball and that really can't be too much. And the difference between Blease and Bail/Byrnes etc at half forward is pretty negligible. I look at Geelong last year where Caddy looked awful for most of the first half of the season as he struggled to adapt to regular AFL and the team. But the second half of the year he looked a great pick up. I think we need to give guys a long chance at it even if we are tearing our hair out at selection each week.

Something like that. Might actually have to ask the VFL not AFL. Seems a bit unfair when Richmond had a practice match of their VFL team. Also I'd like to congratulate the club/AFL/Casey Fields for the game being free entry according to the club website. And so it should be.

Get just one of Dawes, Hogan or Clark back and surely we can go with Fitzy and Howe and spare us from Pedersen. Even if Gawn gets fit and plays 2nd ruck/forward then Fitzy might be the CHF. I'm hoping like crazy it's a new and vastly improved Pedersen this year. Or he can keep drawing soft ruck free kicks and bombing goals from outside 50.

You're giving him too much credit. Barrett wouldn't know the difference between a stress fracture and a normal fracture.

Footage of the injury