Keyser Söze

"Like"?

I think some of the problem is that our kids don't yet have body to play a physical game. Setting a tone like that will instantly expose glaring weaknesses. Get some bigger harder bodies in the side and this may work.

Dumping scarves in bins on the way out? Weak pea-hearted effort by those supporters, but at least we know they'll be the first to turn up when we start winning again.

Not a bad call.

For a start, it's not just a problem for this one match. It is an ongoing problem. Injuries have made a difference, but only slightly. This is something we have been working to rectify for a few seasons and it may take a few more. Not many people recognize and fully appreciate the hole we were in, in terms of "list-composition". It's not a case of our middle and senior players not being up to AFL standard. It's a case of not having enough and in that group as a collective there is just not enough quality to carry a side full of kids. Bruce is capable, but considering his standing in the team, for us to be successful he simply needs to be a better player. And he isn't. Never will be. Jones, Bate and Dunn are perfectly capable players if they have superstars around them. They don't. (Yet.) Johnson, Newton, Bartram, Meesen, Bell are, in my opinion, not up to it. With all the list cloggers we've unloaded over the last few years, we still have a fair few still. It's going back to the notion I've seen raised on this board many times before, the one that we don't have enough "star power". We have a team full of kids and role players and until we develop some Abletts and Judds and then some A-graders, we won't be able to compete with the top 8 teams.

Outstanding article? Lazy journalism - find out the response favoured by the majority of excitable and overemotional supporters and fervently support their view. Connolly is just playing to the crowd.

I'm pretty sure we have the opportunity to make $500K out of one game on Saturday, provided people turn up. Whether it was tonight or Saturday makes little difference in my eyes.

Competition for spots makes me happy

hahaha I saw Enforcer25 (if it's the same one - how many can there be?) on BF a few months back have an epic battle with some other flogs over the issue of tanking. I think in the end he managed to pummel them into submission by exhaustion. I rarely ever read it though, because there is just way too much carp to trawl through.

You called it. I'm willing to subscribe to this theory.

That's probably true.

Good call.

100% correct about it being a media award, but I'm backing NicNat to be exposed as the year progresses and for the cream to rise to the top in Scully's case. Soon the media experts will see how much better Scully makes his teammates and that'll be the difference. Edit: It's the confidence that Bailey talks about, which will come with the kids playing 50 or so games together - with Scully it will be a lot quicker. They'll learn where to be in relation to him and be confident he will make the right decision and be able to get it to them.

As C&B said, E25 has summed it up pretty well, but it's not just the kids having a lapse and conceding a goal themselves. One of the kids has a lapse, his man gets away from him, a senior player leaves his own man to help cover, rotations are made and someone somewhere gets left open. OR one of the kids misses the fact he needs to be part of a rotation and the system collapses like a house of cards. This is why we look so incompetent at times. It doesn't take much in AFL footy to be made to look foolish. These won't necessarily be new concepts for these kids, but the speed of the game will affect their ability to cope with them. As well as a few of these kids have performed in the preseason matches, I think the intensity of H&A matches are much higher. Hopefully the adjustment period is very brief. It's a Learning Process and as long as we understand that, it is so much easier to find the necessary patience.

GFC is coming, we've only postponed it. Can't justify the money for something like Foxtel when all I want it for is a couple of matches a year. I'll survive somehow.

Too true

Ugh. That's disheartening. But logically, it shouldn't be surprising, I guess. Scratch that idea.

I think there is still some merit in the idea. International students and the like would come if they were given cheap tickets and as they would have no prior allegiances could grow to become demon members. It's a start, but the idea needs a lot more work and in the end probably won't be viable. (who am I kidding, I'm just scared of E25's reaction to shooting down his idea )

Yet it's still not on TV

Put a hell of a lot more on scully at 17-1. It'll be nice & handy if he comes through as I expect.

do they? I hate they.

Not listed, but I get the feeling he is too old for the award.

He will.

81-1 on Eskander's BetStar. I put $10 on him when the markets opened months ago. Long shot.

Not on free to air???!?!??????? My jaw just hit the floor. There goes my saturday.