DeeSpencer

Not Blease. But with McDonald and Garland against GWS and Gold Coast for that matter we likely only need one of Dunn or Pedersen. We don't need extra height if the players don't use it. If we want Garland on a tall then keep Dunn, If we want Garland on a medium height player then keep Pedersen. Or keep both and use Strauss, Clisby and Terlich through the wing positions and play all 3. Either way Strauss has to be played. Suckling from Hawthorn took years to find his feet at AFL level. But when he did everyone raves about how much of a weapon he is with his kicking and how Hawthorn will miss him. We our backline we can't justify not playing Strauss.

They always say they don't discuss it but of course they have some inclination. I presume the guys get issued pay slips just like the rest of us. Plus some would share managers etc. Unfortunately Pedersen represents a horrible bargaining point for the football club. About 20 of our players will now be asking where their 3 year and 330k deal is.

Pedersen let Giles pick the ball off the deck and turn round and snap a goal. Plus he got another one on him. Although offensively Pedersen was pretty good and got a nice goal. All in all it was an ok game but he's still just depth and you have to question the use of having or playing depth players when you are as bad as we are.

Take hope from the Port rebuild. We will need every bit of a miracle.

The more obvious question is why not take one of our best tacklers and players at winning the ball and taking the game on in Terlich and put him in the centre square and then get Strauss in the team at half back. It seems if you are a small forward you'll get a game every week and I mean Blease, Davey, Byrnes, Kent, Tapscott have all got soft games throughout the season. So why not let a resting mid take one of their spots and get Strauss in the side. If you don't want Terlich in the guts then rotate Terlich, Strauss and Clisby through the wing position.

Yeah and I think they have a plan. Jolly will stick around for another year as the established ruck and the improvement over a preseason from Witts and Grundy will leave them nicely placed. Jolly has been as good as Jamar and is unreliable injury wise. With the 2 young guys a year older they won't need Hudson's cover. They'll probably look for a 4th ruck to go on the rookie list possibly recycled from another club or from a state league like a Hannath. Even if they did want Jamar why would they give up Witts. It makes no sense. Buckley is rebuilding on the run and Witts and Grundy will be key planks of the rebuild.

Jamar for Witts? Are you people insane. You really think Collingwood would go for that? A bloke the wrong side of 30 for a guy who's yet to enter his prime but has a tonne of talent. Yeah Grundy might go slightly ahead of Witts right now but they are both Collingwood's future and imposing ones at that. Jamar is worth a third round pick these days at best. Be realistic.

I'll save you from consecutive thread fail there! Jamar has 2 years left on his contract. (yeah massive face palm on that one thanks Tim Harrington). I don't think he'll be looking to cut a deal to prematurely end his career just yet. I think we look into trading him but we need experienced heads around the club. We thought we'd figured out the midfield future when we wound McDonald up. I love Gawny and Spencer has surprisingly been decent but it's no done deal. I think unless the offer is very very good we keep Jamar and get at least 1 position where we have depth and experience. Gawn will be a better player if Jamar is pushing him every step of the way. Not to mention Gawn is still at the age where an entire season as starting ruck is a big call. Sam Blease I think should be offered up to trade. A new coach will want to save him because they'll see the speed that represents a good talent but I just don't see any footballing skills. By that I mean chasing, tackling, pressuring, winning the ball in close, winning the ball in space and most damning knowing what and being able to execute when he does have the ball. He plays like a headless chook and isn't a natural small forward and has zero tank. I'd settle for preferably a decent B grade mid who can make an impact but otherwise a high third round pick would do me. I just don't think we have the luxury of the time to wait putting effort into Blease anymore.

I like him when he's in the contest, particularly against smaller or tall but cumbersome opponents. My problem with him is when he's on the edge of a contest and can't get into it and also his disposal. All in all though Dunn is a very small part of a our problems at the moment, he's a back pocket. But he's also quite possibly not part of the solution. Where's the young bid bodied midfielder who could be learning AFL by taking Dunn's spot is my question.

Oh please don't.

We can possibly blame Schwab for not locking down one major sponsor for a long term deal. Hopefully WebJet stay around which gives us some stability. If you want to buy some votes Mr Stockdale then show us a sponsor.

We shouldn't be aiming for a succession plan for at least 5 years. But what we do need is some young and talented assistant coaches. The best clubs have very good assistants and they are also always turning them over with smart operators, often bringing in freshly retired players to development coaching then bringing them up the ladder. If we get Roos I expect he'll know that AFL coaching is best done as a team and also with an expiry date to avoid burnout and I'd expect within 3 if not 2 years he'd have 1-2 assistants who could end up part of his succession plan without a distinct policy and he'd slowly give them more reign as he did with Longmire.

If he can't do a half decent defensive job on a resting ruckman (Giles or Brogan) or young Tomlinson then he probably never will. The other thing I'd be looking for him to do is use his strong marking ability to take some rebound marks. And it would make me happy if he actually looked like he wanted to work for the 3 year contract we gave him and not like it was all such hard work for him.

I think the AFL would prefer GWS to not go winless through a season. We are already a basket case getting help. The AFL are meant to be convincing us all is well in Western Sydney. As for the PP I think you'll find GWS would be the one club who doesn't much mind, it's not like they are short on top draft picks. In fact taking away the decision on Tom Boyd would probably do them a huge favour especially if they really are going to get Franklin.

The people defending him (and I'm not one of them) do have somewhat of an argument though. It goes like this: CC didn't hire himself we were the fools who hired him as head of the football department when most of the football world could tell an independent voice who didn't apply for the head coach would've been a much wiser move to support Bailey. We then moved him out of the FD where he did some good work in the community and was a passionate voice for the club. He also took the wrap for the tanking affair, which he had some roll in but never should've come to an investigation anyway based on the AFL rules and previous AFL ambivalence. Unfortunately that's another problem Schwab created. If Connolly had failed so poorly as head of FD why was he moved sideways and not moved on. Now he's done a good job in his new position and will be moved on for his previous failures because we didn't make the tough call when needed. We can no longer cater to different fan groups on a whim but at the same time we need to keep them involved otherwise we won't have a club. A difficult line for all involved and a key to our success.

I know they do but they had Cornes, Ebert, Boak and Hartlett last year. Despite the obvious talent there you wouldn't have said that's a strong midfield or any sorts. Or maybe you did but not many would've agreed. I'm hoping somehow from nowhere Jones, Sylvia, Viney, Toumpas, Trengove somehow come together as a core group next year from nowhere. We don't have to improve as much as Port but enough to win some games would be a start! And I don't think we shot BP but we certainly showed him the door. It's probably one thing Neeld did right. Even though he then tampered with the rest of the list filling it with spuds he kicked out BP and let Todd spend at least some picks on getting Jack Viney, Toumpas, Kent, Matt Jones as midfielders.

Port lost 107 v 73 Port team that day: FB: Jonas Carlisle Moore HB: Pearce Trengove Hartlett C: Broadbent Boak Cornes HF: Wingard Westhoff McCarthy FF: Ebert Scultz Logan Foll: Lobbe Ebert Cassisi Int: D Stewart, M. Thomas, P Stewart, Young The bolded names represent players who haven't played a large part in this season for Port. You'll notice it's very little change in the spine or better midfielders. Mainly just a replacement of the bench players and they even lost Pearce and McCarthy (RIP) who were good for them. What they did change: - New President - New CEO - Senior Coach - Fitness guru - Let disgruntled free agents go in Chaplin and Pearce - Let disgruntled out of contract young highly rated talent go for free when a deal couldn't be reached in Jacobs - Paid minimum prize for free agents/out of contract fringe players in Monfries, Hombsch (both who have been very good) and Stevensen and Campbell Heath who haven't been so great - Got a bit lucky with such a good young midfielder in Wines playing so well in his first year Anyway after we lose on Saturday (without Frawley, Dawes, Hogan and Clark for that matter) we should reflect on what can be achieved with a smart off season. We'll get a new coach. Hopefully Dave Misson can revatilise his program because the continued running tactic isn't working. We should tell Sylvia and Watts they can accept reasonable contracts or walk and we can target some smart acquisitions of players in the right age group.

Dawes' injury is unfortunate but if Jack Watts is ever going to put in an effort where he shows some heart playing on either Phil Davis, Tim Mohr or Josh Bruce then this has got to be the week to do it at CHF. It also lets us rotate the two big rucks through the goal square and FF. Of course Spencer at FF can be hard to watch but let's see how it goes. Besides from that Garland for Frawley is obvious and Terlich back in as well. Shame they still refuse to give Strauss a chance though. Or Taggert for that matter. I mean the game isn't going to be won or loss on the difference between Taggert and Dean Kent.

Now there is no heritage round because it's not as good for the brand as nice marketing campaigns such as Indigenous round, multicultural round and womens round I think we could make it a designated heritage game like the dream time game. Considering both teams have worn the same jumpers for years on end we could just wear the retro styled same jumpers but then use the game to honour past players of both sides. Maybe go decade by decade and play a short documentary of significant matches over the years between the clubs. Maybe get 2 past players to toss the coin. Maybe encourage the crowd to dress in the era celebrated? I'm just brain storming. Us winning and fans turning up are the main thing though. If it's 70+k and a heated match that will be a good start. I don't think there's any royal connection to QBday that will really sell it unless we can draft Prince George in 18 years time.

Yep I just don't understand why they have Maclure on. They have David Parkin do league teams where he pretty much reads out the teams and comments on some players returning or getting dropped which is very basic analysis yet they hire Maclure who offers very little. Robbo should've asked him why he comes on AFL 360? Is that just for the money? He should've got more heat for comparing Jobe and Lance Armstrong, that was a monumentally stupid thing to say.

When the balls in the air and your 6'4 it's your contest. When the ball comes out to the back flank and you are at CHF it's your contest to be the next marking target. Too many times on Saturday I saw Watts easily out marked and led to the football. I understand the seagulls on the chip theory and the benefit of waiting on the outside but I don't judge Watts for that.

He'd had a few kicks at Casey and we were a struggling side. It didn't hurt to play him. It hurt that when we did no team mates stood up for him or got him involved in the play. There was a genuine lets not give it to Watts feel in his early games. But what really hurt was we never dropped him. Yes he's gone back to Casey a few times but even this year when he was playing poorly Neeld subbed him out of a game, refused to back him publicly but also refused to give him his chance at Casey to actually earn his spot back. So many mixed messages can't be good for anyone. I look at Tom Hawkins who was under a tremendous weight from the public pressure. Geelong had at times sent him back to the reserves to work on his game and then got to the stage where they backed him. It was never up or down.

I didn't see it but isn't it usually Mark Maclure on with David King on a Wednesday? Not that I think much of the two of them but at least King is trying with his analysis, Maclure spurts nothing but crud. As for whether we should go for a coach and a designated chief assistant to take over the role I'm not sure we should be the obvious. It just ends up biting you in the back in regards to when the assistant takes over like Buckley and Malthouse. I do however, feel we need to improve the quality of our assistant coaches as well as our senior coach. So I'd like to see something like Roos appointed and Adam Simpson comes over from Hawthorn on no guarantee of the senior job but can be mentored by a different senior coach to increase his own job prospects. If it works out like a Roos-Longmire hand over then that would be great.

Bartlett has played AFL and worked in the AFL industry as WAFL playwr association lawyer I believe. You say Stockdale is more qualified on the basis of his business and political background, but in terms of football industry it's the other way round. I won't do it now but we should line the two up against the criteria in the Trotter report and see who comes out ahead.

thats my point they should be hit with the book regardless.Unfortunately Hird has the players all on board at this stage. If I was an Essendon player Id get a trade right out of their and sue them into another country for treating me like a guinea pig.