bing181

All you need to know. We finished about where we should have. Higher would have been a fluke, lower would have been under-performing.

"I understand Melbourne will be fined 50K, none of it suspended and Bennell be suspended for four weeks. Will be told to leave the state as soon as possible" "Bennell left the club's hub and went to a friend's place when not authorised. Four weeks at least gives the Demons a chance to re-sign him next year if they see fit."

https://twitter.com/RalphyHeraldSun/status/1307629635060998145?s=20

50K fine, Bennell 4 match ban.

Our list is a mid-table list at best, nothing to do with the coaching that we're not in the eight. We don't have the cattle, or anywhere near it. Bulldogs are in the finals because they're a better team (= better players, and more of them) - and watching this only confirms it.

Apparently in the hub with him. Or now they are and he isn't.

Perhaps. But the 7 players who could replace them are in the same boat.

Hard to argue with.

a) Tom McDonald. We've lost his 2-3 goals/7 odd marks/15 odd possessions per game b) Jordan Lewis. Hard, ruthless, experienced. Just having him out there made a difference and the players walk taller. c) Bernie Vince. See Lewis (though to a lesser extent.) d) Nathan Jones. See Vince

The logical extension of this is that you could put out a VFL-level side with great "attitude and instructions" and have them compete. Sooner or later you need good players, and to go deep into finals you need a lot of them.

Oh no we don't. Not past the top half dozen or so in any case. It's one of the problems here, supporters are constantly over-rating the quality of the team. We're a long way off it at the moment, and each week we're playing a handful of players who would not get picked up by other clubs if we delisted them.

Can someone perhaps start a thread following all this, together with info on percentages etc.?

Only in hindsight. Brown was poor against Swans, and has been mediocre all year. Still, hope he can back it up against his old club, hard to see him getting dropped on that performance.

If Harmes is available, worth including. In the absence of Brayshaw, he's a better mid than VDB or Melksham. Hopefully Hibberd as well. Hard to see any other changes, especially with injuries limiting availability.

Not really. Lockhart really ran out of puff at the back end of last year, and not hard to imagine the same thing here. Still a young player, and this is his first full season + pre-season. Not sure that Jetta is the answer, but with the injuries we have, hard to see what the choices are.

Injuries are starting to add up, so not many alternatives.

Also let's not forget that we're playing most of those games with shorter breaks between them.

There will not be a change of coach.

Woah. Hold everything. We can just sign up a heap of VFL players and other clubs' rejects, get them "in the system", watch them improve, and then stand back and wait for the premierships to roll in. This is going to save us a fortune on recruitment.

Not out there tonight, and players who were a big part of our 2018 success: Tom Mac, Jetta, Jones. Also, don't underestimate the loss of Lewis. That's a lot of experience/talent that has not been replaced.

Going to be an interesting end of the year. Apart from some of the names already mentioned, could see players like Hannan, Hunt, ANB, VDB all being on the chopping block. Some of the younger players could be cut some slack, but we can't go on carrying the 6-8 possessions per match rotating door players.

Not with this line-up. And it's not just me "underselling" the players, look at Garry Lyon's comments tonight re "ordinary players".

Delusional. It wouldn't matter who the coach was, no-one's going to be winning finals with this list - not in the short-term anyway. Not sure why it's so hard for people to face up to the fact that we just don't have the players. The proof will come when we cut a dozen of them and no other club picks them up.

About what we deserve, we're a mid-table side at best. The drop away in quality after our best dozen or so is like falling off a cliff. OK, a couple of youngies there who we can build with for the future (Rivers, Kickett, Jackson), but losing (e.g.) Jetta up one end and Tom Mac down the other is a bridge too far, leaving us with some real holes in the list. They could just about cull 20 of them and we'd hardly even notice. Not to mention the lack of on field leadership. No accident that we did well in 2018 when Jordan Lewis was still playing for us. Not sure how that's going to be addressed in the short term.

Nope. Could be a big list cull though. Given the players we have, mid table is about right.