Rogue

What is it exactly that you're suggesting 'everyone' doesn't understand? If it's that the AFL is more willing to bend the clash jumper rules for Essendon (and Collingwood) you're a bit late with the revelation, since it's been mentioned from the first post.

Round 10 injury list James Frawley (foot) - test Clint Bartram (knee) - test Brad Green (lung) - test Stef Martin (quadriceps) - test James Strauss (leg) - test Josh Tynan (foot) - 1 week Leigh Williams (virus) - 2 weeks Jordan Gysberts (jaw) - 2-4 weeks Liam Jurrah (ankle) - 2-4 weeks Neville Jetta (ankle) - indefinite Michael Evans (back) - indefinite Rory Taggert (back) - indefinite Max Gawn (knee) - season http://www.melbourne...96/default.aspx Someone normally pops up a thread about this each week so I figured I'd post it.

Exactly. The clash jumper issue is the real one here IMO.

Too soon to tell. I'm certainly not inspired by Neeld so far, though; the more I've seen the less I've liked.

How does going there show the Club that supporters are holding them to 'account'?

I don't remember specifics, but I remember Buckley commenting on it (as I said earlier in the thread).

I reckon that's rubbish; Neeld was an assistant who wanted a Coaching gig and these know they might only get one crack. Beggars can't be choosers and he wasn't going to turn down a gig if he got an offer. Wilson's article in The Age today supports the idea that he was happy to go with whichever AFL Club offered him a job first.

How so? We have showered him with resources that DB and ND would have only dreamed about. I assume you're suggesting he was conned by our list, but f he misjudged our list that speaks to his footy judgement, doesn't it?

Right now I reckon it's pretty hard to tell whether Neeld is any good. Think about his 'achievements' so far; mull over what you think he's done that's worth a pat on the back. I think a poor Coach could have done the same things Neeld's done so far tbh.

What? The text says that the club is a dead duck, not Watts... http://www.theage.com.au/blogs/harden-up/and-the-winner-errr-loser-iswell-im-not-too-sure-20120521-1z07v.html#ixzz1vWtmJJht

Exactly what I was thinking.

I don't know that it's strictly accurate that every player has said this, but yeah, it sounds right to me. TJ and Simon Buckley spring to mind.

Robertson was probably best 22 because he knew how to find the footy but ended up on the ground punching the turf far too much, and certainly didn't work hard enough defensively. Yze was in no way best 22 when he got cut - he was a shadow of his former self; I remember thinking it was quite sad. I can't really remember whether White was tracking as badly but he didn't get picked up anywhere else and if we wanted to hang on to our other ruck prospects we couldn't keep giving White the number one ruck mantle. We tried to hold on to Bruce but he thought the writing was on the wall and didn't end up doing much at Hawthorn. I don't know if we missed much, tbh. Sure, McDonald was a decision we'd probably take back in hindsight, but it wasn't a horrendous one at the time IMO. He could just as easily have been completely done, so the Club probably made a decent decision based on what they knew about his fitness.

Hmm, to be honest I'm not sure. I think hope's really important and, despite us being pretty bad under DB's reign, I generally kept hope that we were going somewhere. Even in games where we got pounded I'd see something, whether it was some efforts from younger guys we were putting games into or a passage of play where it all came together and we moved the ball quickly through the corridor and scored quickly. If we were rubbish and I had no hope we were on the improve then I'd probably become very apathetic, but I'm not there yet because there's residual hope from a couple of years ago. I think that the sweeping of a new broom can take time to pay off so I've not written us off in the medium-term yet, but I'm not sure how long it's reasonable to be waiting to see that progress. Unfortunately generic 'messages from the President' that I could draft in my sleep don't do much for me. Haha, there are always options. I'm at the stage where I'm thinking there are more attractive options than going to the footy, but I know there's a large gap between merely flirting with the idea of doing something other than get to the Dees game each week we're in town and actually skipping games.

Ah yeah, fair enough. I'm disappointed but, for better or worse, I'm a Dees supporter and that won't change. I'm certainly getting a tiny bit apathetic about it, though, which I find pretty sad.

Me too. I'm posting this because there's no way this could be posted too often: This is the post you replied to: I don't see that jumbo's post was necessarily about Schwarz's 'foibles', as you call them, since you could certainly argue that Schwarz had enough to overcome with his injuries and his Dad etc. Even if Schwarz's 'foibles' were part of what jumbo was referring to I don't see that it was deriding Schwartz.

What exactly is 'getting behind the Club'? Are you failing to 'get behind the Club' if you still pay for your membership and rock up to games because you express frustration to a mate in the office corridors, down the pub, or to posters on Demonland? Conversely, what if you thought the Club was on the wrong track; should you do anything? If so, what?

Didn't the Club say that DB was the right man for the job? No offence to McLardy, but the message is interesting only in that it occurred; the content was pretty stock standard yada yada.

Pretty great that you didn't spell Rigoni's name correctly either time.

I'll be one of the 5000. Will you?

I agree. Even some of the worst games we had gave me some hope for the future, because I'd see us play good footy, if only in patches. I struggle to think of many moments from this season that have heartened me.

Is our list pretty much the same as last year? Off the top of my head I'd reckon it's better, but even if you disagree, it's surely not much worse, right? If so, why is it that those performance indicators assert we were better last year?

160.

That's really lame. When you're thrashed you know it's coming; those narrow losses hurt more at the moment the final siren sounds because you've had some belief you could win. You don't have belief you can win at the 25 min mark of the last quarter when you're 10 goals down, so the final siren isn't so crushing.