DeeSpencer

Have you seen the lad. Fair to say he's still carrying a few kg's. Plus have you seen the games he's played, even for a guy in Melbourne's forward line he hasn't racked up the touches. Not to mention at Casey they were openly working on his ability to run both ways. I really really like Kent but he's just not ready to get rushed into our team too often. He's had a taste lets get him back to Casey to work on things. Then he can come back better.

Pedersen played one good half on a bunch of no name Box Hill forwards with their midfielders practically kicking it to him. Why are you judging Sellar on touches when he played deep in defence on Vickery. Same for Strauss. Is doing a nice job defensively. Sure he isn't racking up touches but when he's got it he's been very good and hasn't made the simple mistakes that haunt our backline. Again I'm not sure of the logic behind dropping him. As for Kent I'm sure he'd love to play at home but an extra leg won't be enough to get him a kick against a Ross Lyon defense both individual players and as a team defense. He won't get the space to operate. I think the best thing for him is getting extra fitness through a solid game at Casey and becoming a two way runner. Putting games into him now and we risk him becoming a bit Blease like.

Kent doesn't have nearly the fitness to play in Perth against Freo. If he plays I'd only have him as the sub and this week I'd be keen for him to get some more full match time after some time as an emergency and sub for the dees. I don't see the point in swapping Sellar for Pedersen. Surely both are set to play on the reserve Freo ruckman in Hannath or Clarke. Pedersen played well down back for Casey in the second half but before that had been moved around a bit. From my point of view I'd rather stick to Sellar whilst he is going ok. I'm not convinced Pedersen is any quicker than Sellar. He's got better hands but Sellar is a nice kick I think. Fitzpatrick for Nicholson is interesting. I'd love to drop Nicholson but I don't see it happening yet. You'd have to cover his role on a wing/half back which I suppose you are doing with Watts so really it would be more Watts for Nicholson and Fitzpatrick for Bail. Obviously you'd move Howe up the ground as well who has been playing deep. And then go with a Fitzpatrick/Gawn/Dawes forward line with Gawn going into the ruck. I'm not convinced that will work. For me I'd keep it simple and go with: In: Watts Out: Toumpas In: Byrnes Out: Bail. Keep Bail if Byrnes is not fit FB: Terlich Frawley Garland HB: Strauss Sellar Dunn C: Evans Jones Jones HF: Byrnes Dawes Davey FF: Howe Gawn Tapscott Foll: Jamar McKenzie Magner Int: Nicholson Trengove Watts S: Jetta

19 touches, 3 goals (one stolen from Dawes, one he was lucky to get a second shot at), a couple of very nice goal assists. He played very well. But I don't see the fuss. The way I see it you can't really coach talent, you can foster it and develop it but that's about it. Davey showed his talent. But you can set standards and letting Vlastuin go was a huge no no. It's upset me greatly which is why I'm still going on about it. Because there was a moment in the game where Tapscott did it with Morris. Blease does it whenever he plays. And its correcting these simple things added in with some desire to win the ball they can very quickly take us from a debacle of a side to one that at least stays in games long enough to inspire some faith and get supporters through the door.

What's with the 12 years your junior thing about. He's 30 and had 12 preseasons Vlastuin hasn't had one full one yet. He wasn't out run he was out worked. Which is the reason we got Neeld in. The first step of being the hardest team to play against in the comp is to man up on a direct opponent. We (as supporters) shouldn't tolerate players not doing this. Now it was an isolated incident but it shows how far the team has to go.

Great work (or luck) from the Scorps getting involved in the first game at skilled under lights!

In principle I agree but it reminds me of Sir John Monash. Perhaps the greatest ever Australian who refused to command his troops like the British and send wave after wave of man over the trenches and instead planned his battles and enjoyed much greater success. Without trivialising war, I worry sometimes that Neeld is commanding our young players up over the trenches one by one to attempt his much loved game plan but instead we'd be better suited trialing a simpler game plan.

Firstly no Jurrah shaped place? What place would that be? A prison cell is the most suited place for Liam at the moment. Jurrah got his chance to play after he recovered from injury last year. Neeld couldn't save him from his community troubles. No Green shape place? I remember Brad playing most of last year and was tried both on the wing and forward pocket and found to have no agility or speed required to defend at all. He was all but certainly finished. As for Watts he started last year on the wing and did ok for a period, then play half back and did well. He'd previously played forward without great success. I'm not sure what other place there was to play. If Neeld has made any mistake (and it will likely continue this week) its playing him too much. The state of this current team is that you have to win the ball before you use the ball. So whilst we aren't expecting Watts to be a Mitch Robinson we have to see his desire to win the ball regardless of what position he plays. If he think he'll have it easier else where and just be able to rack up disposals then he should watch some footy in September. Because I've never seen a big final where you can get away without winning your own ball.

This was highlighted to me when I watched the Essendon game and we were trailing about 100-20 and the errors were Essendon 20, Melbourne 10 or something like that and I thought holy hell when we get the ball we aren't even trying anything to get something productive happening. Obviously the initial problem was barely being able to get our hands on it but the point remains.

Some much happiness in that post thanks RG! 1. That Nicholson is in the Casey group means we likely won't see him this week. 2. I've been waiting for even asked the club twitter for Neeld to get involved in training more. I thought there was a degree of mixed messages sent by Craig and the assistants largely running training sessions and then you get to game day and Neeld is addressing the players. I'm all for delegation but he's the boss and I think he'll get more respect from the players by being out there

I disagree. I think when he's not under pressure he's a nice balanced kick which is something we need. Yes he makes the odd mistake under pressure but that's because he's taken the game on as instructed by the coaches and often his mistakes get recovered (often by him). If you look at Geelong and Collingwood they move the ball at a fast speed and often make mistakes. Corey Enright does some crazy things when he gets himself into pressure but is so good he can get himself out of it or his team mates clean it up. If you trained Terlich in a Hawthorn manner of more methodical play from the backline I think you'd find he'd rarely make a mistake, but instead he's going for a flat out approach and making the odd error. He's also would have to be top 5 for possession for us this year I would think.

Oh and I should add Gillies being let go by Geelong isn't solely related to Rivers. Rivers and Lonergan are both getting on in years and they must have wanted to some contingency on the chance Taylor leaves. Their regular VFL defenders I believe are Ryan Bathie (former basketballer) and Mitch Brown (Converted forward who seems to struggle when he plays AFL). If they had faith in Gillies I think they would've kept him regardless of getting Rivers in.

The most straight forward way to sum up the Watts situation is to say that the rest of this season will dictate whether he should be traded/wants to be traded. If he improves on his hardness for the contest and intensity then it will be obvious to me he's a player worth keeping. The upside will be too much to let go especially given he's the age and games played where he should be right on the cusp of cementing a spot (and I mean within AFL players not in the 22, anyone can cement a spot in our 22). If he still can't work out how to defend an opponent and how to attack a contest with vigor then we may as well let him go because he probably never will whilst he is wearing red and blue.

I saw it live and on replay and their is zero ambiguity Clear as day Davey was with Vlastuin at Melbourne's CHF, both players began following the ball along the wing as Richmond moved the ball forward. As play unfolded they were what I'd class as a quick jog towards Richmond's goal and Vlastuin turned what was a 3m gap between them into a 10m gap, the ball was kicked to Vickery at CHF, Vlastuin saw an opportunity and began sprinting, got the handball receive and slotted the goal on the run. Davey quickened but couldn't catch him and trailed in behind. It was a blight on a game of a senior player who was with his opponent but through poor mental and physical effort let him get goal side and kick a goal. Now back in 2004 when footy was different Davey was great defensively because players played in positions and Davey would stalk and catch slow moving defenders/mids coming from the back half. Now footy requires constant focus and repeat efforts and Davey fails to give them over the course of a game. Now I really like Davey. He was a hard working dangerous small forward who then took his game to a new level peaking in 2009 with a brilliant season using his foot skills to help pick apart zones and create plenty of goals. But the injuries caught up with him and he has the rest of this year to show he can really be a solid contributer and get an extra year. I'm not at all against keeping our senior players but they have to play like senior players and train like senior players. Otherwise they are useless.

Well the ASADA report has nothing to do with Essendon's corporate governance and I don't think ASADA actually have any right to ban a CEO who wasn't informed on the alledged undertakings. Certainly WADA/UCI has never been able to sort out all the bad apples in cycling, they've barely caught half of them. The most dangerous line of the Ziggy report so far was the one that mentioned that AFL football clubs are no place for exotic substances and biochemical research. ASADA now has the job to work out exactly what the substances were and if they were violating the WADA code and who to blame for giving and taking them. Robson was clearly not across all undertakings of his business. For that he had to go eventually. But in some ways I feel for him because the Ziggy report seemed to say that he knew so little of it. The senior coach (the apparently naive Mr Hird) and head of the footy department (Paul Hamilton who already got the axe) both failed to tell him what they were sanctioning and both failed to oversee the mess they were creating. I doubt Robson and Jackson are mates but if somehow it went down I would think Robson wouldn't be a bad candidate for our CEO position. Yes he's made a grave mistake here but I always thought mistakes deserve second chances compared to flat out malicious decisions that don't.

But if you look at the Geelong guys who have played as much VFL as Gillies they should be ready to perform when given a shot. Gillies came and in and found big forwards too big, smaller types too quick, stunk when he got the ball (remember his point) and in the Essendon game was completely shot and barely moved after 3/4 time. If it was a matter of fitness then that's a massive slight on him. But to me he doesn't have size or speed and you need one but preferably both to play as a tall defender. If you go down the list of good key forwards you'll find they are all either too big or too quick for Gillies. Now Rivers can have the same problem but that's why he mainly plays as a third tall and has great smarts and skills to get him out of trouble.

I love it! Can only drive up the asking price and we can stop kidding around with this outside flanker and get in some hard running hard nose midfielders.

The one thing I'll say to the people who were running the club is they fixed the finances and eventually caught up with footy department spending and also changed the recruiting (although that may have been a Neeld idea when he got here). How many supporters where saying we aren't spending enough on FD when Bailey was in charge? I think we were all blissfully ignorant until things went pear shaped in 2011. How many where saying BP was a bad recruiter when he came in under Bailey and picks Watts and co and the next couple of drafts? I know I started calling for his head before the end but that was as much because I sensed he and Neeld wouldn't get along than because I'd written him off. The thing about recruiting is the head recruiter is only as good as his networks and it seems we stuffed up by replacing Craig Cameron with BP but I don't think we changed much else. Now we've got Todd in a recruiting/developing role with Jason Taylor as our head recruiter, a new head recruiting officer in Melbourne and I think Gary Burleigh still runs the West Australia section. Plus Kelly O'Donnell in pro scouting. Richmond where a shambles but they got their act together and made Francis Bourke their full time recruiter (who is well respected) and really beefed up the talent in their coaching and recruiting spending.

Preseason expectations change but in season how are we meant to demand victory when most weeks we've been smashed. Sure the tigers kicked poorly but clear as day we were much better against Richmond than Gold Coast

What compensation could we get for Sylvia if we don't pick up any free agents? St kilda got a first rounder for Goddard didn't he?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Cardwell http://demonwiki.org/tiki-index.php?page=Jim+Cardwell Seems like we've missed him since '75

That depends. A new coach with a new and more successful game plan could dramatically change my mind if I was a disenchanted player. I would let Frawley concentrate on playing now, we do have the entire month of September to focus on future plans by which time the football department might look vastly different.

I'm guessing on that one. But if you at the trend in APS sports that started with Cyril Rioli at Scotch the APS schools started justifying their sports scholarships that help their footy teams based on taking Indigenous kids. I know MGS jumped on board with Steven May who was actually recruited in an US college style pledge from both MGS and Scotch.

I had no point. It was more an observation. I won't apologise for calling a fair skinned person fair skinned. The rest of my posts in this thread explain my other thoughts.

Rohan Bail/Dan Nicholson/other expendable player to hit Ballantyne in the nuts.