binman

What is the key concern - stress fractures?

Just heard on SEN that the club is concerned about possible stress fractures - test tommorow. I assume the problem was that mark in the first quarter where he came down stiff legeed and then went off after slotting the goal

Bang! Panned out just as i had predicted, love it. Go dees. The 2012/13 season commenced today

Spot on rpfc. It was a terrific performance from the dees and they will take heaps from it as i do. It panned out exactly as i hoped it would. We hammered a team who had the same number of wins as us. Last years win against GC - now there's a win i took no positives from, quite the contrary. Imagine the negativity if we had put on a similar spirit less performance. Today we played with heart and squeezed the life out of' em an Neeld will have heaps of positive plays he can highlight in the review

Smith for the Scorps looked a goer

I agree old dee. He was poor defensively against the pies and this continues to be his problem. Morton ok but neither player offers enough physical grunt. This game is not about the furure it is about the now. I have no doubt Neeld has picked the side he thinks will maximise our chance of winning this particular match. We will physically smash them on Sunday, of that i have no doubt. That doesn't necessarily mean we'll win of course but i think we will and the line, which is into 21 points is luxury

So far so good in terms of my predictions. No way is this evidence of tanking. Quite the contrary - Blease and Morton wouldn't bruise a peach and we will be looking to do some serious bruising.

Better would be wire to wire. Not sure what the odds are but likely to be around $2. I am super hopeful (expect is too strong a word unfortunately) we will jump out hard and go on with it. I doubt though we will smash them as conditions will make scoring difficult and our percentage suggest a team that struggles to get big scores (though the number of goals we got against Coll was positive). That said just checked the line and it is 27.5. I expected it to be longer to be honest.

Thought of bumping the Training Load thread or creating a new one but there seems to be so many new threads of late that it is hard to keep up or keep across stuff. I'll put my thoughts here instead: Season 2012/13 starts this week I reckon this one of the most important matches for the dees for a long time. If my theory is correct about them training them super hard them on the track for the first half of the season, easing up in the second half and getting some wins to move forward with, we should see the proof on Sunday. I think we have some evidence already of the team being fresher in the last couple of games before the bye with us winning (remarkably) our first second half quarters for the season. We definitely looked fresher than Collingwood, you could really see it, meaning they (the dees) probably actually eased up 3-4 weeks ago. I suspect they will have planned the training load so they are close to cherry ripe for this game. They will have heaps of time into working out how to ensure they come out of the bye in tip-top mental shape (which has been a problem for many clubs after a bye, at least last year, seems to be less of an issue this year). Fascinating timing of the team bonding trip to Torquay ie before the Collingwood game rather than during the bye break. Of course this isn't their grand final but there is no way on gods good earth that club will accept a loss here (and this has nothing at all to do with Scully). For the first time we will play a side that is physically weaker than us in the midfield and I expect us to absolutely smash in. I wonder if that's why Bate has been brought in to the squad - to maximise our muscle and strength advantage. I expect him to play. I also expect Maloney to have his best game for the year. Happy for him to be a flat track bully this week. Spewing Tappy is out as no doubt he is. McKenzie to go with Ward and wear him like a glove. Frawley to monster Cameron. I also reckon they'll pick Davey, a wet day and we will desperately need someone to crumb under Clark's feet (hasn't he been crashing packs - love his DeetV highlights package). I have posted before that there is a really strong sense of unity coming from the club and that perhaps the air has been cleared, some issues dealt with and Neeld may have slightly tweaked his approach. The players are playing form and the talk from everyone is much more inclusive. We will be focused on this game and i have no doubt we will come to play. The first 20 minutes will be very instructive. The rain will help our cause and the GWS will come out of the game knowing they have played an AFL game. Worth noting that they played in really heavy conditions last week, played super well (though the tigers were definitely limping towards the bye and played accordingly) but it will have taken a bit out of them. to have to back that up with a trip to Melbourne and more tough conditions will be hard work for a young team. Huge game and i will be devastated if we lose. The pre season has finally finished at the 2012/13 season starts on Sunday. J Riv said as much. Go dees. Smash them

No way the odds should be even, jeez if i saw the dees at 1.90 i'd throw the house at 'em (well probably not, its not mine). That said a wet slippery day and the Giants fired up, the line could be a good bet. GWS have been a great cash cow this year, super reliable in terms of making their line.

Boak

Top work. Have been looking for an avatar and i've found it!

Boak would obviously be a good get, but i reckon his asking price will be pretty bloody steep. Caddy will be cheaper (and prob not as good i suppose) and he fits the right age profile ie we would get 10 years from him if he stays ft whereas we might only get 6-7 from Boak who is 3 and a bit years older i think. to be honest i haven't really seen much of Boak either so i'm not in very good position to judge value

I doubt it (though as i said i don't really have a sense of how good he is). What about 13, Ricky Bobby and Bate (and they promise not to touch Viney).

I see in today's Age Caddy is yet to resign with the Suns (whereas many of his team mates have). Now we know he wanted to return to Victoria last year IIRC we tried a last minute deal to get him. Two questions. Would we want him and if yes what would it take to get it done? I haven't seen enough of him to decide if we would want him, but we are definitely in the market for quality mids. He had injuries last year but has had 2 (?) pre seasons and would be a relatively known quantity. Would be a ready to go recruit in the right age range. If we did want him i could see several trading scenarios (assuming we finish 16th and GC last): We give GC our late first rounder (giving them picks 1 and 13ish and possible a priority pick) and a couple of players (say Dunn and perhaps Bate or Petterd who is a QLD boy) to get the deal done. We give GC pick 3, a straight swap (giving them picks 1 and 3 and possible a priority pick). Might need to chuck in a player to get the deal done We can't get a deal done with GC, he goes into the draft , we do some variation of the above deal with GWS for them to let him slide to us (they prob wouldn't be super keen on a player determined to go home to Victoria). Blease could be in the mix for trading with GWS perhaps An interesting twist to the above deals would be factoring in Viney. In any of the above scenarios we could chuck in another half decent player (perhaps Martin) for them to let Viney through to us, allowing us to take him second round. In this scenario it would be pretty hard for the AFL to prove any Viney related trading. Thoughts (partic on whether we would want Caddy)?

Ok. You are so affected by Scully leaving and how he chose to do so that you hope a young fella trying to make his way in life is injured so badly that it ruins his career. Right. I'm no psychologist but i would reckon by any measure that is a pretty unhealthy level of anger. TimD are you in the house? Anyway each to their own.

I am passionate about the dees and footy but I could care less about Scully to be honest. He left in bad circumstances and evidence strongly suggests he lied. Neeld believes in the reality bus, i believe in the karma bus. And by that i don't mean i hope someone lays him out on Sunday. Quite the contrary i have no desire to see him hurt and less desire to see one of our players get weeks for hurting him (or even be distracted at all from trying to win the game, a game i reckon is one of the more important games for the club for years). If people want to boo, go for it i say, but as i said i could care less about Scully (one might say he is persona no grata) and i couldn't be bothered. I'll save my passion for the inevitable poor decision we'll cop (perhaps a 50 for shoving Scully over - the umps will be watching no doubt). What i will say is we are a funny lot, footy fans. We had no probs luring Templeton, Moore and more recently Clark to the dees with huge offers but go bananas at a player who dares leave our club for top dollar. Yes it would appear Scully lied, so perhaps that adds a bit to the equation but i do recall Clark telling the bears he had to return to WA for family reasons and Freo said at the time they thought he had verbally committed to playing with them. I'm not calling him a liar by the way, just pointing out the potential inconsistency. As Grant Thomas has said lying is part of footy DNA .

Scully came from the hallowed earth of the MCG? How primordial. Perhaps there's Wurundjeri story or myth that could be applicable. Something to do with Snakes, Suns, earth and karmic retribution

Yep absolutely. Ticks all the boxes for a high vote getter in the Brownlow - prolific midfielder, respected, tough (ie goes in hard which seems to be valued by umps if you look at winners over last 20 years or so) and is in a team that is winning (a critical factor and one that will count against Ablett). Great chance and i'll be splashing the cash.

Good to see we haven't been sucked in by Sheeds and are remaining calm and clear headed

Yes quite true however in non-diplomatic usage, referring to someone as persona non grata is to say that he or she is ostracized. Such a person is for all intents and purposes culturally banished, so as to be figuratively nonexistent. Not speaking about someone would be consistent with being non existent and a person being ostracized .

Yep the tread topic is "Scott Thompson may win the Brownlow". So to clarify, your contribution to the thread is you don't care if he does as he became person non grata (sic) when he left the dees. I presume you mean persona non grata btw. As a persona non grata i would have thought he wouldn't be spoken of, someone whose name should not be mentioned. Which, given you also don't care if he wins a Brownlow or not, begs the question why you bothered posting then (or indeed even opening the thread given the title might have given you a clue that it was about a player who is, to you, a persona non grata)

Sheeds is a beauty, gotta hand it to him he knows how to spruik. Also no a bad way to legitimise a new club - create a traditional rival. That normaly takes a couple of decades he's done it in 12 months!

Perhaps Ben Hur could stop posting on Demonland and write his own blog instead. Given his unbelievable level of football knowledge and acumen it would become an internet sensation and be a must read by any serious footy person. Clubs could scale back their investment in recruiters and opposition analysts and just read his blog - think of the money they would save. Just look at his thoughts on Cameron - the best player in the league in 5 years and Watts just a good average player. Genius wasted on his fellow Demonlanders. He deserves a much bigger audience!

Yep i absolutely agree. Our midfield is by far our biggest problem, it must be close to the worst in the league at the moment. In fact not close, it is the worst We need a bit of grunt obviously but perhaps more so we need some speed and players who have great hands and are top shelf kicks of the ball. Like a smaller version of wattsy (who has the best hands in the team and is also the best kick - i know i've said that before, i just can't stop) I know everyone needs that but we won't climb the ladder until we improve in the guts. We have enough big guys