4jacks

add Blease to that list as well IMO A great list that one.

Here's how I saw it (whoever i randomly noticed, for better or worse): Frawley had a shocker, plain and simple. Struggled against LeCras, generally a bad day. Junior McDonald got a fair bit of the ball, had several clearances which were all long bombs to the forward line... not helpful. Bennell was really really good early, but dropped of late... like much of the team. Several fast, evasive runs out of the backline. So classy. Scully got a fair bit of it, some of his kicks were beauties and some struggled. Incredibly fast. Maric put on some good pressure in the fwd line, just hardly got a kick. Tried hard though. Also fast. Petterd was very quiet. Strauss had some smooth disposals, but was put under way too much pressure when kicking in. THERE WAS NO MOVEMENT FROM ANYONE. It was like we were forming our own zone. WTF? This looks like a major weakness of our game at this stage. We just battled to get it out of the back line. If this keeps up, IMO we could ruin Strauss' confidence... how is he meant to get it out of there? Jamar and Spencer did fairly well against Cox, Nat and some random guy. Spence just battles with disposal though, is a liability at times. Martin played forward and looked lost, just battled. Where does he fit in? He's not a forward. We don't need another tall back. IMO he should be back-up ruckman, has a great leap and better disposal than Spencer. Miller presented well at times, but went missing for large stretches. Cheney struggled, had one great tackle though i think. Bail did a few good things but didn't show a heap. Trengove didn't get much of the ball, but looked so classy when he did. Always has oodles of time. Played a fair bit in the middle, good to see. Bate had a few good moments, but was quiet... first hit-out, acceptable. Hughes hardly got a touch. Not sure about him. Davey had some trademark runs through the middle, played forward at times... faded later on. MacNamara.. meh. Played on Hansen I think, didn't do much. Moloney got fired up and generally played OK... not his best, but when he got going in the third, we looked much more likely. Jones was very solid, some good grunt as usual. Warnock.. did well against NikNat in the second, otherwise not a heap. Dunn played quite well, good chance for Rd 1 now that Sylvia has gone down. Played middle and forward at times. Just generally... TOO MUCH HANDBALL. The Umpires struggled. Inconsistent at best, very frustrating. We need Watts ASAP as a target around CHF... delivery just breaks down too often. The set-up for kick ins needs a heap of work. Was our defensive coach on holidays all summer? If Hawthorn play a zone in Round 1, we are no chance whatsoever. We didn't run out the game. 2 1/2 quarters of passable play, then we struggled. Was it the heat which suited West Coast? Who knows. Need to eliminate the high bomb out of the centre square. Just gets turned over too often, esp when there's no-one to mark it. Too many freak injuries... aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh it's annoying. Great turnout, 5,000ish apparently. Beautiful day for it. Took 25 minutes to get out of the carpark... needs improving lol. That is all.

jizz. Great imagination, great story. Loved it... except for the "ladder-leaders Collingwood" bit. Never good.

Our backline will easily cover their forward line, it's clearly our main strength. Their midfield is classier, but the difference isn't huge and we have a better ruckman. Their backline is a bunch of sh1tkickers, if we can get decent and consistent delivery in there we'll post a decent score. 3 wins seems overly pessimistic, how do you see us actually going backwards from the past two years? Won't happen unless our injury list is huge by mid-season (which it may well be).

Grimes not playing? Bate + Wonna both playing, yay! Also Davey, Green and Bruce back in as expected. Otherwise, no surprises except for Hughes... but I guess he had to get a game at some point. West Coast seem almost full-strength save for the Big Q and D Glass i think. Should be a good game, looking forward to making the road trip.

[censored] all... Davey gave nothing away that we didn't really know. Hadn't heard any news on Jurrah's operation, said Watts is a week away from VFL. That was about it.

The Age... what a joke, I expect better from them. Bartram? PJ? Dunn? Where are Scully and Trengove? What about Stef? Bennell? Of course the forward line won't have any firepower when PJ is down there you fools. Scully and Trengove are "ready-made players" apparently, but yet they can't get a gig. Poor. The AFL.com one was pretty accurate, however.

Best so far IMO... except that Jones is missing, I reckon he'd come in for either McKenzie or Cheney, providing Bate, Davey, Bruce etc are all fit and playing. Tough call. However, the fact that Morton, Jurrah and Watts are all missing is fairly sh1te.

I like it.

So true, love it. Surprised they didn't mention Watts when talking about Jurrah and the forward line in general... it seems LJ's one poor game has moved the spotlight away from The Messiah 1.0, at least for now lol.

No. 16 of course, the only way to go... although I did temporarily want a 9 after what I saw last Saturday... I am quite annoyed that they changed the colours... got it halfway through last year and now it's going to look decidedly purple and bright red... ah well. Would've preferred the new colour scheme, I'm a fan of it.

Pfft this guy has little to no idea what's going on. Petterd a KPB? Unlikely to even play in the backline. Warnock, Strauss, Bennell, Cheney all missing entirely from that assessment. Our backline is the strongest part of the side at this stage. He also said Miller was likely to play backline. Not going to happen. Neither is Blease a forward. Cred = none.

Second that, at the praccy last week I remember Grimes grabbing a contested ball in mid-air and doing this little shake thing, while still in the air, so as to avoid being tackled. At that point there was in fact no-one near him, and it was a tiny and instinctive thing, but it had the hallmarks of a champion in the making.

It's funny because that midfield looks good even without Grimes and Morton...

Put Frawley in the first group IMO. The man is a beast now and will hopefully relish the chance to play on (and dominate?) the better key forwards each week, as opposed to being pulled from the ground against Fevola and Reiwoldt last year.

At the intra-club yesterday I heard from Wonna himself that he was a chance for the Freo game... told it to another fan who was standing right next to me. Not sure if he was just being overly optimistic for the other guy's sake, or that he would simply be physically able to play, but that's what I heard.

If Obama is coming to the game, you can probably add 10,000 to the crowd, more again if it's (hopefully) his only public appearance in Melbourne/Victoria. Given Hawthorn has 50k members, I reckon we'd want 45,000+ without Barack... hence 60,000+ would be very achievable IMO. Agree with the scarf comment, Obama seems to always be wearing either a red or a blue tie. Would also be stoked from the point of view that Brumby (f-wit) is trying to get him to the Pies match... awesome. And then, imagine if we won! The publicity would be huge, we'd be looking at 35,000 members... jizz. Too bad we're playing Hawthorn. All in all, not sure which part of it is most exciting. Go Dees. Go Jimma.

Not so sure about height. Saw him today after the intra-club, would say 195cm max, possibly less... he wasn't a heap taller than me (190-191cm).

Go easy on comparing us to Carlton. They didn't have 'tons' of good picks because of their salary cap cheating in the 90's (although I can't say I know much about that, a bit before my time)... e.g in the '01 Superdraft they basically only got Waite, and he was a F/S selection; the next year only Fisher and Simpson (thanks Wikipedia). Then in '03 and '04 the trade periods are full of Carlton trading picks away for absolute spuds (except H Scotland). As a result their list is not nearly as even or talented as ours after the top 6-8 players, where they do beat us, obviously. Agree with the better heart and spirit though. I prefer that model (Y)

This is how I see it: (teams to be somewhere within their group i.e. Geelong 3rd-5th) The contenders: St Kilda Bulldogs Close behind: Geelong Adelaide Thereabouts: Collingwood Brisbane Hawthorn Fighting for 8th: West Coast Essendon Carlton Average: Sydney Melbourne North The battlers: Freo Port Spoon: Richmond

Agree with that, except for the over-rating of the Hawks... they have a strong list and will be smarting about last year, don't write them off too much I reckon.

Look on Google Maps or something I'd suggest, but for a start you get off the freeway at Berwick, which I think is road C407. Head south, and turn right at the big roundabout (there are two or three) about 5km down the road. Hard to miss from there I reckon.

Loving the Bell Curve, it makes the poll look more believable. I reckon 8 wins should be the par... cbf working out who we'll actually beat. I look at it from the point of view that we were tanking last year and could've won 6-7 games easily - Richmond and West Coast for a start, and then possibly even St Kilda or Carlton - Frawley had both Fev and Roo on toast before being dragged. Add natural improvement to that, and an actual desire to win every game possible, and 8-10 wins is very achievable, hopefully finishing 10-12. I also say that because I have $50 on us not being Bottom 4 with an Essendon fan... c'mon Dees, pull through for me. Incidentally I also have a slab of Crown on the line with the same guy about whether us or them win a flag first.