binman

Next step is celebrating mediocrity. I have a lot of experience in that department having followed the dees for 40 years. But seriously i predict we'll be celebrating Watts unique skill set for years to come and the early knocks on him will be seen as a weird anachronism. My prediction is that he will end up being a better player than Hurley and Natanui. Both those boys are near their best already i reckon, certainly in terms of how big they will get. Watts has more upside (though i suppose Natanui will improve his reading of the game) and will continue to get a fair bit bigger. He won't fully fill out 'till he's 24-25 and when he does he will vindicate his number 1 draft selection

I absolutely agree. I don't understand this obsession with him being a KPF (i include Neeld in this). So that's what we drafted him for - so what. Why (partic at this stage) force him to play a position where we won't get the best out of him? He is such a good user of the ball (in a team of mainly spuds when it comes to effective use of the ball) i would rather he has 25 kicks per game (and 3-4 goal assists) than 8 and one goal as a KPF. He also doesn't get nearly enough credit fro how unselfish and team orientated he is. Last night he sounds he gave several goal assists in a game where he could have been excused for trying to shore up his own chances of round 1 selection with a bag of goals. I recall people happily comparing him to Hird. I for one wouldn't mid a player of that ilk running around for the dees. In any case static KPF's are a thing of the past and we spent 600k per year for a big lug in Clark so we don't need him in that role at present

I'm in as The Phoenix (i rise from the ashes)

I totally agree. This is a huge bugbear of mine. There is 50 times (almost without exaggeration) journalists covering footy than say 20 years ago and there is wall to wall coverage (something the AFL carefully orchestrates and to my my mind is a big part of the problem) yet the analysis is woeful and so often the media seem to operate in 24 hour cycles of rubbish and are amazingly lazy.The real concern is when footy fans swallow the media rubbish without applying some intelligent filtering. I'll say it again, i was critical of Watts before last season, partic in regard to his intensity. I thought he had a good season last year and worked hard on his deficits. There seem to be general consensus on this at the time and his numbers clearly support it. Now all of a sudden he's "out of form" after 3 NAB games (i thought he was ok against the Hawks BTW, certainly no worse that some others) and under pressure. Just nonsense. As an example of the rubbish that gets trotted out the headline in todays sun is " Watts must earn his place back". This despite the article quoting Need who is adamant he has not been dropped so therefore has not "lost his place". So Watts is the new easy target. I thought Trengove didn't play well against the Hawks. What happens if he doesn't fire in the next few weeks, does he too come under fire?

That'd be me! Nah only joking

i can feel a funny sense of deja vu coming on

You're right - sounds a bit fishy

Thanks for that. Some of the issues the communities in central Australia face is eloquently described in the range of charges listed in that doc ( all of them. not just Liams). Tragedy piled on tragedy. One potential positive out of this awful situation is that it might open eyes (including mine) to the scale of the problem in remote Indigenous communities and provide some real insight into the barriers Indigenous Australians face.

Yeah too right and whilst we're at it lets get rid of paid: maternity leave, paternity leave, compassionate leave, carers leave and even sick leave. All that leave is just plain [censored]. Employers are not welfare agencies! (oh except the ones that are - and they don't have enough money to pay for the namby pamby frivolous leave listed above)

Because he is in our best 22

Absolutely in our best 22 and would be shocked if the coaching panel don't share that view. Watts is a lock for Round 1 (unless injured).

Haven't heard of Peter Ryan before, but just read his article on Watts on the AFL site and liked this bit: "Perhaps when he thinks of the reaction to commentators' observations, Watts could be reminded of the line of American comedian Danny Kaye, who said of a former girlfriend: "Her favourite position was beside herself and her favourite sport was jumping to conclusions". That appears to now be what a key position number one draft pick needs to get used to through his first 50-odd games."

I agree Biff. In 5 years time any discussion about "should have" taken Hurley or Kit Kat will be a funny reminder of the lack of long term perspective that dominates football analysis at present

These puns are shocking!

Yeah it is. And for it to happen in a dull scrappy game against GC at the [censored] end of a dismal season gives it added poignancy. I remember seeing him come of in discomfort and thinking hell i hope hasn't broken his wrist. The post match reports seemed to suggest it wasn't that serious but for it still to be an issue 6 months later is a big worry. One positive is that he has been able to work on his aerobic capacity and i would presume his overall strength, at least in in his legs and core (obviously limited how much upper body work he can do). I don't reckon he'll take long to get his ball handling skill up to speed. Make no mistake he is an absolutely key player for us. In a team lacking real a graders or players with an X factor a fit, firing LJ is vital

A bit unnecessarily narcy i would have thought. And by the by we'll see if that list is halved in two weeks - how often does a a 2 week injury magically blow out to a 6 week injury (see Jurrah, amongst innumerable other examples over the last few years Melbourne). Also how did Evans hurt his back and why is it indefinite?

Just call me Kermit. My favourite time of year is pre season. We haven't lost a game, i'm always full of hope. My experience in following the dees has been the season usually provides more than its fair share of reality checks so i'm sticking with 11 wins in a row to start the year. P.S - how many games did Wet Coke win out of its first 11 last year?

Couldn't agree more. I listened to SEN for the first game and watched the replay this am. Watts's intensity was fine (despite what is being said on the Jack Watts thread). I watched the second game live down the pub and again thought his intensity was good. Sure Brennan out bodied him on one occasion but thats to do with his strength not his application. I was a pretty big critic of Watts' intensity in 2010 and felt he really needed to step up in this area to make it as an elite player (little lone fulfil his potential). As i have written previously i thought he was terrific in this regard last season. I can't quite understand the pretty negative vibe of many comments about his game (s) last night or where he's at

There seems to be a fair bit of similar nonsense on this site as well unfortunately

Nothing more heart warming than a blossoming love affair

Yep

Yep. Really, who does he think he is with a quote like: "I'll give Melbourne a nice heads-up - keep going after my players and I'll knock off all your sponsors," he said on Triple M. He's also seems to think he is the puppet master when it comes to the AFL as the following quote indicates: "And not only that, I'll go to the AFL and say they've obviously got too much because they're paying over the odds, so stop giving them money. "That's the way I roll on these things." Give me a spell Eddy, "that's the way i roll on these things", please. I know this is just media rubbish but he needs to be put back in his box. They give us QB? Is it not possible for the AFL to schedule us against say the bombers or tigers with us as a home game on that day. Or even alternate the home game with one of those clubs? Stuff collingwood - the G is our home ground.

Sorry chook can't agree with this. Sammy, like the rest of the team, has been busting a gut all pre season and again like all his team mates would have been dying for the chance to have a proper game of footy. Denying this reward will do more for his development than 18 minutes of quasi game time

My preparation is often improvised

Perhaps not but it would have been great to see some edited highlights of the game. As we move increasingly to an online, muti media future media such as dee tv will need to actually start producing some real content, not just silly interviews with our newest supporter from the US. Already clubs such as Man U, et al have 24 hour pay tv channels and whilst it is fanciful to think we would have something similar at the very least, in the next 2 -3 years, we should expect to see some serious online visual content (eg proper vision of training and practice matches, video analysis etc)