scarlett

it's why he was dropped, one player that is made to go back, work on something and come back when he's showed he's worked on it. morton wont be a game changer, but he'll be a good player in a good team. gilbee like.

i've been smashed the last three weeks, players just not performing, well done wreckers, you've built a nice team there there, if you could get some more goals up front you'd be top 4 for sure. well time to start looking at next week.

yarran i'd forgotton about him, dangerfield would of shot up, redden's doing well, martins had a slowish start but still going strong, then all the gold coast draftees too, hurleys still got runs on the board, alot of exiting young talent starting to show through at this stage, hard to figure out the next 5.

I'm leaving the melbourne players out of my list cos lets face it we'll all be biased and they'll end up higher then some other players any way, but if selwood keeps up with his early season form he'll be leap frogging into the top ten you'd think, hurley's had a slow start, so its a bit tuffer now

kreuzer cotchin nic nat sidebottom fyfe

I'm hoping this doesn't turn into a whole recruitment development arguement, I'm hoping for a real good discussion on who you would rate the top twenty players drafted between 07-10. The reason i thought this would be a good thread is because so many different players have shot right up this year, like sidebottom he's playing great football at the moment, scott selwood from west coast he'd have of moved up the ranks a bit, but for my number 1 I'd have to think kreuzer, he's played a key role since drafted and has been consistant. some of these players really make watching footy fun again.

a good example is port last year, a rabble, apparently all the players were leaving, off was not pulling its weight and when they played they had no heart, looked like there was no effort, sounds familiar hey. now there starting to turn it around a bit and show something on the field. we'll be fine as long as we just keep sticking at it, every year there's a team down the bottom thats a "basket case" but eventually they work there way through it.

there has already been so much change in the FD change for changes sake isn't a good thing, I dont know much about how the board is going, apart from the debt reduction (jim stynes) what has the board actually done to move our club forward, this will answer your question to whether we need change or not.

read this after my last post, we can't judge cs on the debt demolition because lets face it that was jimmy, what he get judged on is where our club is going to go forward off the field, profits, loss, marketability, and so forth, any profit that we were expecting from the pokies can be thrown out the window so where does that leave cs? would of we got a second sponser if it wasn't for the energy watch scandal and everyone stepping in the help, can we put that on cs pro list or was that because of a desperation, we're in no position to answer theses question's with out all the information, but hey its fun to discuss isnt it!

well i think if the playing group have a problem with the administration i think they should harden up, what other player group in the afl, even state leagues get to pick and choose the board, sorry but thats not the way its done, you know what else, the board dont get to choose the playing list, the list manager and the coach do that, so if cs thinks he can coach, then go test the waters in the t.a.c or something and if the playing group think they are board members then retire and go prove it, let the board board and the players play its simple, they shouldn't have a problem because the only interaction they should have is cs "we signed a new sponser today for $1million" pg "thats great, we trained really hard today and got the most out of the session and will put in 110% on game day no matter where we play or who we play or how far down we get"

dappa dan your post's are normally more measured then this, you blame watts for playing soft tonight, but his role was loose man in defence, you then go on to say he did well to hit up stationary targets, so in the end he played his role, i am unhappy about the role he was asked to play, which is a contradiction to why he got dropped, but he played his role and would have got a tick in the box next to his name, so who are you unhappy with, watts and the way he played, or the coaching staff asking him to play this role. with somethings i think the coaching staff are doing thing right and teaching the group from bottom up, other things like this i think their not sure and just winging it, which doesnt look good. edit. your post above showed up after i posted this and is spot on, makes my post here look second rate, but i would still like to know who you blame for him playing a "soft" game tonight.

i'm sorry but didnt the board act after 186, we had lyon step in in a [censored] role that he handed over, talked tuff acted tuff changed the whole FD around and put people out on there ear. so to expect change again is just childish, if we were to change everything again and not give this new arrangement a chance then that would just tear what little fabric that is left of this club to shreds, we've had greg step into what gary's role was and he's been very successful in all his other ventures and he hasn't made any drastic changes so how bout we just let things settle and stop acting as if the end is nigh. buckle up because we have to wait for our kids to lead us out of this and teach the next generation, because we have already learnt the likes of bate dunn and petterd aren't equiped to do it.

with watts, he was sent to the vfl to "work on his role"(so i assume) which included contested ball and packs tackles ect, so when he was brought back in he was brought in to play loose man in defence, I'm not having a go at the coaching staff because he seemed to play this role well tonight, but what do people think his role will be going forward, is loose man his position because if it is surely he needs to learn to hold a man in defence and zone off to play this role, think rivers but with much better speed and disposal which wouldnt be a bad think, very valuable, or is he filling a hole right now which isn't going to help his development, i'm not after stupid one liners he'll make it or should of picked nicnat, it's a genuine statement so hoping for good responses

you make some excellent points with with the coaches passion to win games, after my conversation with a players brother (you can take with a grain of salt because i am not friends with this family just friends of friends and all ended up at a table one night but had a good conversation and didnt seem the bs'ing type), i just left the conversation feeling like yes, he has passion and wants to win, but got the feeling the club would prefer losing, i dont know how to put this but to generalise it lose playing hard then win playing soft and will sacrifice wins now for a competitive game later. if you look at carlton everyone called them soft or down hill then they got judd and he started playing inside hard football(more then he did at the eagles) and it rubbed off a little bit on the rest of the group, but you still cant say their hard like the hawks, so lets hope neeld can turn this team into the contested hard team he wants, then let the natural attacking flair that we've already seen from the players come out, other wise in a few years we'll be having this conversation about another coach and another group of new young high draftees. p.s nice to actually have a football conversation with someone on here rather then the normal harassment that some posters put people through.

old dee is that really the case, or is the FD getting the players to only play to practice specific parts of the game, I believe the coaching panel is getting each player to concentrate on one area of structures and so forth, the reason i believe this is the way we setup every week, i mean really watch over a few weeks each setup no matter where on the ground will be the same all game, doesnt matter if we're forward, centre or back, we're practicing, the problem is we keep practising and all it seems to be teaching us is to lose. I hope it pays off because I love when we win and havent had that taste for a while now.

rpfc that is a very wide post(by wide i mean you dont pin point what you want the players to do) i believe the players are trying to do what the coaches tell them, but are deviating at the specific plan they are practising at that moment, this is where i believe the problem lies, the coach wants to treat this 2 hours as a training run, and the senior players try and stick to it to a degree but they are senior players and have seen a game or two and see a chance to attack or maybe a better way to put it is see a better option away from the structure and deviate from it. so as a supporter we have two options, do we support the senior player seeing a different option and taking it(sometimes for the better sometimes not) or do we support the coach trying to teach the basics of what he believes will take us forward.(contested football, contested marking and so forth, and I dont believe this is his grand plan to just kick along the boundry and hope, I think he is trying to build, like i have said, the game is being used as a training run.) edit: auto correct spelling.

I've posted more times tonight then in my entire time at demonland, honestly i dont believe any changes in personal will make any difference, they're not treating game day like game day, its just another chance to train on another specific thing. when a player tries to do something different and attacks the game when he should be sticking to the structure there practicing it gets brought up in game review, doesn't matter if it works out or ends up in a score against, game day is getting treated like a training drill. is this the right way to teach a team to win? i dont know, but i'll be paying my membership again next year again hoping it is, and if it's not i'll be paying again the year after hoping we get it wring in 2014. so the cycle goes on.

hardnut I'm not trying to get into an argument but what don't you think is right about the learning process, we get to watch 2 hours a week and it seems to me that this 2 hours a week is the most important to us (supporters) but the the coaching staff and conditioning staff it just seems like another chance to train on something else, a few weeks ago I saw Dunn try and pass the ball on a 45 degree angle from the boundry to just outside the 50, it got cut off and didn't work out, but I saw neeld go nuts and pulled him off the ground, spoke to someone's brother who plays for the club and it got brought up during the review of the game, now you might think thats normal because he didnt stick to structure (and by memory it got rebounded and cost a goal), but another player (former leadership group) did a similar thing and it ended up being a goal to us, yet neeld brought this up in the review as well and apparently was as dissapointed with this as he was with Lynden's. This tells me Neeld doesn't want offensive moves just yet. Sorry to ramble on again i was getting at the point that there is a plan I just dont know if its the right way to teach it and was hoping to get your thoughts on the way you think we should approach it. edit spelling again, changed did to didn't.

how many essendon supporters sat in this same position and said the same thing about their midfield being horrible and no chance of improvement, west coast of '10 sat here and told everyone how there midfield turned it over too much and had no defence with no one to cover glass. These are drastic turn arounds but confidence size and fitness can turn things around, I'm not saying we'll jump up the ladder like these teams but improvement will come. I suppose it also depends on how much the other teams improve as well but I dont believe our improvement will jump up the ladder till our young players are our middle age players if that makes sense.

sorry hardnut to single you out, but all us supporters seem to need someone specifically to blame, how bout we blame the cohesion between playing group and coaching staff because lets be honest, are we really setting up our structures to win, i believe the coaching staff are setting up different structures just too practice them, most of the time they don't actually suit the stage of the game that we're at, just learning structures. what annoys me is as i said in an earlier post, is it the right way to do it? i dont know, but personally i think learning to win and accept nothing less is a pretty good way to teach attitude.

sorry, but so much dribble, maybe because its so close to such a bad display, but honestly the only reason to why everyone is so upset is because everyone talked themselves into having a chance tonight because of Sydney's injuries. Watch the games this season, we are practising our defensive set ups, different setups every match, one week we completely sat defensive side of our opponents as if it was in the defensive 50 at every ball up, the coaches the players, everyone at the club has said we know how to attack but have no defensive skills. We are learning on the run, its just such a sad state that the 2 hours all us supporters look forward too each week is just a side thought this year too everyone involved at the club. is it the right way to do things? i dont know, but its the way neeld is taking it, we gave baily years so lets give neeld atleast until next year to judge. I know I've paid my membership, I might be lucky to make one game a year but pay up every year, do I get angry at results, damn straight I do but the way some of you are carrying on is childish. It's two hours a week stop acting like your life depends on it, because if the players lives depended on it we wouldnt have any left. Sorry to be all over the place with my post but there are so many different angles to discuss, I dont post much but spend alot of time on here and understand what we're all going through, but the way people talk around here is just horrible, seriously I bet all the main doomsayers are still posting here next year paying their memberships. It says alot about our members/supporters, we stick tuff, makes the wins all that much sweeter. so in short, harden up princesses. (I note the irony starting this post with the line "so much dribble" then dribbleing on for so long. sorry.) edit. spelling.

jade rawlings and leigh brown are with him at the saints carlton game,

rpfc i just had the same idea, run both ns and rf league, but the top teams from each league have a champions league, could be onto something there, would be no keeper players in the champions league though, there's no way that all the teams wouldnt have some of the same players.

if promotion is the way we're going, from next season settings and scoring has to be the same across both leagues. it will be unfair to the coach's coming into the new league playing a different game. i know a few of us didnt get the rule changes completely for the first few games, imagine if 14 people know what's going on from round 1 and the other 4 get smacked in the face.

im gonna bank roll a whole new league and buy out the best coaches and form my own rebel league, sell advertising and make a fortune. i'd prefer this over the keeper league, but i've already traded in a young player thinking of the keeper league next year thinking thats what was happening, i think we need to sort this out before anyone else does the same thing.