John Crow Batty

The players had the chance to collectively claim they were duped and would have copped a light penalty at the beginning. Most likely served in the off season. Too late for them to claim that now. Of course Hird would have had to resign if that was the case.

On reflection, I was quite satisfied with our overal performance. We withstood their pressure well. Inexperience and lack of smarts in fighting out the full game hurt us real bad at the finish. Players could have been expecting the game to go much longer. The quarter was quite short due to lack of goals. We desperately need a strong onfield leader who can focus the players in the heat of the moment. No coach can provide dynamic leadership at urgent moments from the sidelines. I believe that will make a huge difference in resolving many of our strange lapses which seem to occur every game. This game was an improvement on last week and I just hope we can add to it next week.

Jones and Dunn's leadership ain't worth an average leaders toe jam.

Where was Nathan Jones at the penultimate bounce? Shocking captaincy.

One of the best quarters by Watts for a long time. Worried with Grimes on Membery. Way undersized.

Article from Tim Lane in The Age this morning. The lot of the Melbourne fan has been tough lately and the outlook for Sunday is bleak. An opponent they haven't beaten in their past 10 encounters, at a ground where they've lost their past 20 games. In fact the Demons have never won at Etihad Stadium. Okay, they have won at the ground itself but not under its current name. The Demons' last win either under the roof, or with it open, was in August 2007. The venue was then known as Telstra Dome, and the Dees romped home against the Bulldogs. Only Nathan Jones and Lynden Dunn of their current crop represented the Demons that night, although Daniel Cross played against them. Prior to that time, the Dees had displayed no obvious symptoms of Docklands-phobia. When the ground was known as Colonial Stadium they loved it: Death Valley it may have been to some, but Melbourne won 10 of 13. By the time Etihad won the naming rights, their record stood at a break-even 16 wins and 16 losses. Since then, the Dees have won 37 games in five cities with a couple of draws thrown in. One year they even won an end-of-season exhibition affair in Shanghai. But at the venue on the western edge of Melbourne's CBD, not a single premiership point has been garnered. The longest string of losses at any ground in the competition's history is University's 28 at the MCG. That was immediately prior to their dropping out of the competition, so you see Melbourne is moving into the stratosphere … or the subterranean equivalent. So long as it's not your own team involved in these things, there's ghoulish pleasure to be had in discussing losing streaks. I feel qualified to write about them as in one dark winter during childhood the teams I supported in northern Tasmania's two competitions both went without a win. The worst day of all was one in late July, so wet my brother and I weren't allowed to go to the footy. Relying on quarter-by-quarter scores on the radio, our hopes were sky high as "we" (Launceston) led at the last change and it was obvious we were coming home with the wind. Eventually the final scores came through, given by the ABC announcer with the teams the wrong way round: Launceston 6-12-48, City-South 4-25-49. In the big league it's hardly surprising University holds just about every record in this category. After a promising start in the VFL, winning 25 of 54 games in their first three years, the students lost their last 51 games in the competition. There have been other extended feats of glorious failure with the Swans, despite two recent decades of success responsible for the modern-day benchmark. Their 26 straight defeats in 1992-93 is the longest losing streak of the past 40 years and one that almost put paid to the competition's first expansion venture. The Sydney-siders eventually broke through in Round 13, 1993, not having run a team closer than 25 points in their previous 15 encounters. A 10-goal third quarter against … yes, Melbourne, was like a cloudburst after an endless drought. It would be the Swans' only win of the season, although failure on such a scale actually helped kick-start the northern venture. It was Sydney and Brisbane's non-competitiveness leading up to those disastrous two seasons that prompted the introduction of priority draft picks and various other game-changing leg-ups. The same can't be said for the losing streaks Fitzroy endured in the 1960s or the 1990s. The earlier one, a forerunner to the hard times ahead, was most famous for the solitary win that punctuated it. Across five seasons from 1963 to 1967, the Lions won only 10 games, fewer even than University in its worst five years. Through the long winters of 1963-64, Fitzroy achieved just one win in 36 games: a win so famous as to warrant a book. Ken Piesse's Miracle Match recounts how – with playing-coach, Kevin Murray, away on interstate duty – the Roys achieved a monumental upset over the year's premier team, Geelong. The worst era endured by any club though, and by a big margin, is St Kilda's first five years in the VFL. The Saints won only two of 82 games in that period, losing 48 straight before experiencing a win. In the last of those 48 games, a round-robin final in 1899, Geelong beat the Saints by 161 points, 23-24-162 to 0-1-1. It was by far the biggest score and biggest flogging the competition had known to that time. The historic first win came in the Saints' next game: in the opening round of 1900. Naturally it was against Melbourne. And it occurred in circumstances to resemble the Siren-gate affair of 2006 in Launceston. This time – with scores level at full-time – the Saints came out on top, successfully arguing that Melbourne had scored a behind well after the three-quarter time siren. On Sunday, 115 seasons later, the Saints and Demons will go at it again. This time it's the Dees who hope history's tide will turn. Perhaps there's another drought-breaker in store.

There is a large apartment development by that said developer near my place. There are dozens of owners suing the company. Apparently concrete cancer and shoddy work everywhere and the buildings are only a couple of years old.

Or tiring in the last quarter.

I say, invest in current favourites at reasonable prices. They will be old, rare and expensive by then.

Perhaps four of those top 8 sides were not well fancied as top 8 sides at the beginning of the season. Injuries, every team has them. We played relatively well first half of last season and comparable so far to this season. What worries me is how we play out the rest of this season. I don't want to go through the second half of last season again. Finishing off strong is the line in the sand for us.

When a guy like Cloke kicks four in the first quarter, we were locked in to play a spare man in defence for the rest of the game. No one can beat him when he is firing. Oxley's impact was fairly neutral until the last quarter when we visibly tired. Up to then we maintained scoreboard pressure. One of our best scoring runs for the season. Old bugbears like poor delivery and lack of forward pressure undid a lot of improvements elsewhere. I do not think it was a coaching mistake to play that way. Their better ball movement would have killed us going the other way if we did not play a spare.

It is clear to see why Mr Selfless is now using the blame WADA strategy. He knows he has support of the rabid Essendon supporters but for how long and under what circumstances? If he can get away with his strategy of blame shifting, he may be able to position himself indispensable as the future saviour in the minds of the mob.

If drugs were allowed in sports and given the competative nature of sport to win, I can imagine what sort of freaks will be playing sports at all levels in 20 years time. Frankensteins all over the place.

I thought Watts was really trying hard and attempting to respond to criticisms. That he is applying himself is a positive. Still needs a VVS Laxman moment to finally turn his career.

Overall, the game was a step in the right direction and hope it was not because it was QB week. I just hope we can build on it next game.

Loose men only take uncontested marks because the ball is kicked to them. Poor hard leading and attack on the ball by the forwards aside from poor delivery.

We tired badly in the last quarter. Going wide from half back when we had many loose players down the middle resulted in poor forward line entry and not enough hard leads by forwards. Again missed set shots when it counted in the last quarter. Turnovers hurt us. Some improvemnent in a few areas like clearances and general competitiveness.

That's part of the the problem, as soon as something goes against us we go into a melt.down.

Come on everybody, let's hold hands and hug each other. Let's help lift this dark cloud hanging over Essendon. It's WADA fault and not mine that we are in this unholy mess. http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/black-cloud-back-over-essendon-coach-james-hird-20150607

That will be Neeld and Craig.

Same story every year. There is at least one other side that are doing it tough. Problem is they move on after a season or two. They don't like our company.

Not up to it or just $oftcock$? Even ordinary players can put up a contest. See Carlton today.

Can't expect us to beat Carlton on the effort they put up today. Come to think of it we can't beat any club that has a crack.

Good win by the tigers last night but obvious Freo didn't come to play.