DirtyDees DDC

We are better than them? They win premierships. Grimes, Jetta and Jones went backwards last week. Tell me..where is the development in Jones? So he's working on different roles ...good, but show us some results...show us that his ball handling improves or his kicks can hit targets. We lost by approx 117 points against that team in round 1 2008, and we are not getting any closer. They made a 72 point turnaround in just over a half of football last Sunday. Imagine the result if they kicked straight. There are reasons why we lost and I am certain the club had a good look at the footage this week, but please ...there are no excuses for that performance. I have to confess i have a bee in my bonnet about the Hawks. I've hated them since '63 since they beat us in the preliminary final. I was also there on THAT DAY in 1987 when Jimmy ran across the mark. I work with a bunch of awful supporters for that awful team that look at the fixture and go ' oh...we've got a bye in round 2, we're playing Melbourne'. Please Dees just be more competitive in round 18.

No......I'm saying that whatever happens this year, we should not make a commitment for 2012 before the end of the season. I am VERY critical of his performance last Sunday. We were down in so many areas, (fitness, tactics, leadership and skills) and a lot of that is the responsibility of the coach. He's got 3 jobs - win games; develop players and manage the team, and he didn't do any of them on the weekend. And it's not just our performance last week; thats' the 4th frigging time since 2008 that we have been thrashed by the Hawks. That would not be acceptable at Collingwood or Geelong. It should not be acceptable by us. It certainly wasn't acceptable to Jimmy.

Will we re-sign Bailey at the end of the year if the Dees finish 10th or lower? I don't think so; not with 7 other coaches coming out of contract. And not with Mark Williams and Dean Laidley waiting to have another crack. Bailey was found out last Sunday. We were tactically inept and he has failed to develop leadership on the ground. You can make the excuse that they had 14 players with more than 100 games experience verses 5 in the MFC, but we had 3 of our most experienced players in Jamar, Sylvia and Moloney at those centre bounces in the 3rd Q, and we did not have a clue. Fans are screaming for Scully to re-sign with the Dees ASAP. Is anyone screaming to re-sign Bailey at the moment? Even if we finish 8th this year (still possible considering our relatively easy draw) i hope we take time to choose the coach for 2012. I don't want to see him re-signed (or fired) before the end of the season.

Looks like Campbell brown will be missing fron the Sun's line-up next week. He's been reported for throwing his elbow back and collecting Callum Ward in the head. i suggest 2-3 weeks.

Totally utterly agree. Poor Tapscott. He could barely walk in the last yet still tried to run and cover a player on the wing. Yes he was too slow kicking out, but that can be fixed by coaching and leadership - two of the many things we were lacking tonight. Tapscott is just a 2nd game player and someone needed to tell him to use plan B or Plan C or ANYTHING. Instead we fall into the same old Hawthorn trap - they increase the pressure on our backline; we lose confidence and panic under pressure, and turn the ball over. When he kicks that ball out from full back - we should have 18 guys knowing what he's going to do and where they have to be. Tell me this ...if they score 9 goals in a quarter - doesn't that give us 9 chances to win the ball at the centre square and launch the ball into our forward line? Surely there must be other tactics we can use. Are we getting done at the bounce simply because Hale's arm is longer than Jamar's arm? And do the words 'man up' mean anything to the team? We continually give our opponents 5 to 10 metres and they continually led us to the ball . If things are going badly, let's try playing man-on-man for a few minutes ...please!!! Finally, to let them score a goal within 30 seconds of the start of the last quarter, after a terrible hiding in the 3rd and (hopefully) a baking from the coaches at 3/4 time, is one of the most shameful performances i seen from the club.

If Newton keeps this up, then it's going to be hard for Fev to force his way into the side.

Sadly the fly in the ointment is a big black and white one. They are light years ahead of everyone else at the moment, and partly because their 3 main rivals have slipped back. It wont be long before we see the headlines... 'can anyone beat xxxxxxxwood?

Roy Masters is a former Rugby League coach and a frequent critic of AFL. He argues that the NRL is a more even competition than the AFL; that on 'any given Sunday' you can pick almost any match from the NRLs' fixture for that weekend and guarantee that both sides have a fair chance of winning. He contrasted the NRLs' level playing field with the AFLs' 2009 season, where the top two clubs in St Kilda and Geelong were undefeated after the first 13 games. Not so in 2011. This season we have seen 5 of the 9 games finish with a margin under 6 points. Last night was a ripper game where a side widely picked to finish in the bottom 4 has nearly beat the second favourite for the flag. And they lost their best player in J Reiwoldt in the first quarter. The lead changed hands at least 5 times in the last quarter alone and it highlighted that fantastic feature of AFL where you can win (and lose) a game with just one kick. Maybe games are close because of the Sub rule or maybe the fitness levels of all teams are more even, or perhaps the fixture has paired up a list of evenly matched teams in the first two rounds. I think this means that the Dees have a decent chance of beating the Dorks this weekend. We wont start favourites and they have owned us for the last 4 years, but we won the contested possessions last week against the Swans who specialise in clearances and stoppages. The Dorks have pushed us off the ball in the past, so I'm interested to see if our new training facilities have turned the Dees into muscle men. Note that our two most junior players in Tapscott and Trengove are very solid builds. I suggest we need to 'enforce our opinions' tomorrow. It's a big match for Moloney. He's had good games in the past but struggled to get consistency. He played well last week and strangely the new game seems to suit him, as it looks like sides are kicking the ball more this year. They are using long bombs from full back and long bombs to a contest in the forward line. 'Position' seems to be as important as 'possession'. In the last quarter against the Swans the first two clearances out of the centre were long kicks by Moloney. Now i know He's been criticised for not hitting targets but one of those kicks ended up under Jurrah's armpit. Moloney could become one of the top midfielders in the league. Go Dees!!!

I have no problem with loans to related parties, provided it is done on 'arms length' terms; is transparent, and the amount loaned is no more than 5% of the total assets (a bit like the conditions for self managed super funds). This deal seems to meet all three requirements.

It was a great bump. And payback by Davey too, for what McGlynn did to Davey in May 2009 when he was a hawk. Davey mentioned that match last year on the Mangrook footy show. Aaron has a long memory.

Tell me... when you have a backline that can include Rivers (what about that kick into the man on the mark!!!!), Bartram, Martin, MacDonald, Garland and Warnock ...who else is going to kick the ball out of defence?!! No wonder we put Tapscott down the back, and no wonder we use Davey in the backline. Even Frawley is not the greatest kick. Grimes takes the kicks 'cos he gets it the most, and he's the best of an average lot.

Please let this match be better than last night's contest between Geelong and Sydney. That was a shocker. It's hard to believe they were the 2nd and 3rd best sides in 2010. Everyone seems a bit rusty at the moment. The skill levels are poor - even experienced players like Scarlett and Reivoldt missed marks, and the umpiring is far too technical and inconsistent. The talent pool is also suffering because of the new clubs - there were too many players last night (eg Gamble) who should not get a game in a top side. At least Melbourne appear to have good depth with Bate, Gysberts and Wonaemirri available but not picked. I suspect Trengove will be the sub if the club are concerned about him playing a full game after his injury. Good to see players like Maric and Jetta picked on their performance rather than just potential. They deserve to be in the side. This will be a tough match. Our backline turn the ball over too often; our centreline is slow and our forwards lack height. We also have guys like Garland and Sylvia picked out of position due to injuries. I know it's hard to judge form on the NAB cup matches, but the Swans definitely had a better pre-season - they did well against Collingwood and beat St Kilda. They are specialists at the clearances and have a gun forward in Adam Goodes. I hope our home ground advantage will give us the edge. If we play their close checking defensive game we could be in trouble. Go Dees.

I don't think he had a great game - too many errors (eg; the dropped mark in the 2nd qtr). Jetta and Maric must be dead certs for round 1. Jetta has upped his possession count and is one of the best 'chase and tackles' in the team. Maric is sneaking his 2-3 goals per match and is our leading small forward at the moment. Tapscott and Howe will also get a run this year. I think they'll play Tapscott in as many games as possible, subject to fitness, 'cos they need his boot. Strauss and Martin are not showing marked signs of improvement. They both look fitter, but that's all. I think both are out of contract at the end of this year. We got rid of Buckley who played last night for Collingwood and was in their best players. He showed pace out of the backline and hit targets. We could regret delisting him in 2009. We are playing Bate in the wrong position. We park him up forward and hope he can do something with our long bombs. He's a better player when he runs forward from midfield - as in 2009. Dunn and Moloney also had quiet games but Bate needs to show us why he should be selected ahead of Dunn, Petterd, Maric and Tapscott. One thing i learnt yesterday - torpedo punts are now called 'Barrels'. Good name.

In his article on March 2, Mike Sheahan did not say categorically that Scully has agreed to terms with GWS. Instead he says that 'Scully finds himself under enormous pressure as speculation mounts that he has committed to GWS from 2012.' There's a big difference between 'categoric' and 'speculative'. Looks like Mike has had a change of heart about his 'categoric' proof.

Thanks for the update Thomo. I wasn't 100% sure when he signed. When i tuned in thought they were interviewing Tim Harrington and i thought - gee this guy is good - great depth of knowledge. Turns out it was Schwab. Pity he was part of the group that gave too many concessions to GC and GWS, but that's another story. He also discussed the NAB cup and said we need something before the season starts, because it's too hard to go from your typical pre-season to a full scale AFL match - too many guys would get injured. I guess he's saying that the NAB cup is the bridge b/w pre-season training and a proper match, and we should view our performances so far in the NAB cup in that context.

Just listened to Cam Schwab on SEN, sounding very professional as usual. He talked about Tom and compared the situation with Jack Watts last year, where Jack was out of contract for most of the season. Cam said that that Tom is a terrific person from a very good family; very focused (all stuff you'd expect Cam to say, but it reinforces the general impression people have about Tom). It sounded like he had good lines of communication and was in regular daily contact with Tom. Cam stated that the media hype surrounding Tom and GWS was not a distraction to Tom (and i think he said the club too). Cam was concerned that Tom was being painted as someone he wasn't (could be a reference here the Mike Sheahan's article where he compared Tom to Nathan Buckley). He also talked about Fev and the scorpions. The club would prefer that Fev did not play with Casey, but it was up to Casey to make that decision.

This story tallies with Sheahans's article this morning. The implication here is that Tom has said he will sign with GWs at the end of the season. The word from sources close to his family is that reports in the media about Tom are bulls%$t. The club seems to be cautiously optimistic, or quietly confident. It could be that Tom's management has agreed that the terms of the contract offered by GWS are reasonable, and are discussing the offer with Tom. They have emphatically denied that Tom has put pen to paper and signed anything. If Tom holds a press conference this week, I hope someone asks him -'have you made a verbal agreement with your management to sign with GWS in 2011?'.

I think Tapscott has to understand that he has been recruited by an Australian Rules football club, not a weightlifting club. Everyone says to him 'gee what a great body' so he goes into the gym and does more weights. Maybe he needs to build up his speed and stamina so it will get him through 4 quarters of football.

I'd still rest Jamar and Davey. They are 27yo with at least 8 pre-seasons each. They are also our 2 most important players ATM. An Extra NAB preseason match will not make any difference - they both trained for most of this pre season. Let's see the kids a chance to show us if they are good enough; then bring back Jamar and Davey in 2 weeks time.

We got ambushed at a smaller ground by a side with the former defensive coach of the Demons. They killed us in tackles, clearances and forward 50's. Who on earth has 80 tackles in a NAB cup match? They played it like a regular game, putting huge pressure on our ball carriers and getting at least 10 goals from turnovers. The coaches have to work out whether our defensive errors were because the backmen lack skill, or whether they didn't get enough support from midfield. My disappointment was that when we did do something well, we relaxed. There were two occasions where we kicked 3 in a row - starting to look good - then they kicked the next 5 or 6. We are suffering from long injury lists for the past two years. I think we had 15 on the club list at the end of 2010 and 18 in 2009. We just haven't been able to get enough gametime into Strauss, Blease, Gysberts, Tapscott, Gawn an Fitzpatrick so they are ready to step up and replace Bruce and Junior. With all the talk about Hunt and Falau switching codes, we have to be careful that the NRL clubs don't start poaching AFL players. We have 3 guys in Moloney, Jones, and Sylvia that play the game like rugby league - They have this mindset of 'let's see how many tackles we can break in a game!!!'. It fails too many times. Good to see Maric do well. Our conversion from entries into the forward 50 was very good, and will get better when Petterd returns.

Makes sense. Use next week to rest a few of the seniors and then pick our round 1 side for the last pre season match (hopefully at Casey). I'd bring in Petterd, Scully and McKenzie if fit, and also rest Davey; keep Howe and Evans, and let's get Tapscott and Gysberts out of cotton wool. We could field a side with less experience than Gold Coast.

I was talking to a customer today who does a fair bit of work in footy in the south Eastern Suburbs. The talk turned to football and he said he had good news for me (being a Melbourne supporter). He said he knows a very good friend of the family. The rumour that Tom is going to GWS is pure Bulltish. Tom has not signed. Tom is very happy with the Dees and he is VERY close with his family here in Melbourne. Tom has either bought a place here with his sister or has gone into business with his sister (he wasn't sure but this tallies with an earlier thread)or is in the process of doing so. Moving to GWS? It's just not on. To Jrod, can you please reveal your source that says he will leave?

Let's not forget Christine Nixon and THAT dinner on Black Saturday.

Headline on the front page of 'The Sunday Age' this morning from 'Hey 17'. "The first time (we had sex) was the 24th January...you don't just come up for a cup of Milo, do you?" It's marvellous what a difference Milo makes.

Sounds like Ricky can't buy a thrill so he's reeling in the years. He'll need a Haitian divorce to get out of this one.