FarNorthernD

Fitzpatrick is fun to watch and could be a player i wish Watts was better overhead, but played well Gawn will be very good but needs to work on strength and endurance Love Terlich

I live well north of the Brisbane line so watched game via foxtel. Watching footy on the tele is inferior to live but I can faithfully report that Gerard Healy is a certified,100% anti-Melbourne [censored]-head.

It is not about trust. It just so happens that it is in their interest to keep us viable and competitive

Individually our board members look outstanding. CEOs and self starters with a variety of talent. Somewhere it has fallen down as a collective As others have said the AFL does seem to be on our side this time although I think we can thank our lucky stars that this came to a head towards the beginning of the media agreement rather than towards the end

Roos has not coached since 2010. His premiership year was 2005. The game and training methods evolve quickly and I wonder if he is still up to date. This is apart from feeling that he isn't exactly chomping on the bit to coach us. In a perfect world Coach. Clarkson Back line. Wellman (thank you Mr Burgundy) Midfield. Ratten Forward. Drovers dog. As long as we can find a decent crumber any idiot should be able to make Clark, Dawes, Hogan and Howe into a potent force Of course, this ain't going to happen and my guess is Eade will get the top job

Milne not playing can't hurt our cause. You would think he would be worth at least 3-4 goals against us. NB I often have these thoughts when a key player is out for the opposition and generally it makes no difference to the result

I was a more enthusiastic Neeld supporter than most here but 3 year contracts to Pederson, Jamar and Jordie did make me wonder. Bizarre

I think most of us want to see our next generation playing finals footy in the VFL Was there a problem in the past of players not being insured past the end of the home and away games? And there is the other issue of if Hogan does his knee in the first elimination and then half of us will be questioning why the club didn't put him in cotton wool. After all we knew he could play already

I can't believe we are seriously talking about this. As a number of other posters, as well as our President, have mentioned he suggested that we merge or move interstate. At the very least he is anti-Melbourne. Lets pick people who really don't have the Clubs best interest at heart. We may as well propose a 3 way President ticket of Caroline Wilson-Jon Pierik-Gerard Healey And what's worse he would wear a god awful, hand made blue and red jacket to games Apologies if others have expressed similar sentiments. Have only read the last couple of pages

For some reason I thought Don was going to see us through Jim's passing and then, because of circumstances, the tanking affair whilst actively looking for a successor. I had the impression that he never saw himself as a long term President. He has the Clubs interest at heart and I hope he finds a highly qualified replacement

Very nice to read everyone discussing the game, who should play and who should play on whom. No other nonsense See you all at the game Go Dees

Wow, first bit of good news since.........? Very happy to take it

I would like to see Gawn blind turn around Ballantyne and kick a goal. Perhaps for good measure Max could give him a mouthful as he ran back to the square. This would be an ultimate highlight for me combining my dislike for Hayden, the comedic height difference between the two and my hope that big Maxy will one day become a star And yes I appreciate Ballantyne is unlikely to be playing in the Freo back line on Gawn

Dawes certainly has a presence off the field. He has a big voice, is a huge man but, most importantly, makes uncommon sense when he talks. People are going to listen when he speaks On the field we have been in short supply of 'presence' amongst the bigger guys for years. T. McDonald, Jamar, Frawley, Garland, Sellar, and Watts are all decent players on their day but are not going to drag a team kicking and screaming out of mediocrity Hopefully Chris along with Clark will be able to inspire where others have not. Apparently Hogan has a presence already and I can see Gawn developing an arrogant confidence as he improves and gets fitter. Add Jones and Grimes and Viney I don't know how many genuine leaders you need. Is that enough? Geelong seems to have about a dozen of them

I have no idea about Shannon's leadership abilities and I am fairly ambivalent towards him as a player, but I do feel confident that when he has the footy that the next bloke to have the footy will also be wearing red and blue. This is more than I can say about a lot of our team His stats are better than I expected; Ave 15 disp, 4 marks and just under 3 tackles a game So to answer the OP, yes we probably did miss him

Yep the difference between the top half dozen clubs and the bottom 6 seems greater than ever. More blowouts and fewer nail biters, which is exactly the opposite to what the AFL are trying to engineer But then maybe it just feels that way because I barrack for a club on the wrong end of those blowouts

I'm not that greedy, 187 will do

We do have something in common with them after all. Melbourne have been producing the same standard of football for the last 7 years too

I am a Neeld fan but to the end of 2014 is long enough at this stage

I would like to see Spence play a number of games in a row. Give him some consistency at this level. As HH implied Jake is a competitive unit and can only get better We know what Jamar can offer, he is a known quantity

Spencer, Dunn and Kent are going to be tired boys by Sunday night. They are picked to play both AFL and VFL this weekend. One way to get games into the players I spose

Neeld seemed happy with Col towards the end of last year. If he picks up from where he left off last year and averages the stats above over the course of a season all will be happy. I think he has already shown consistency, just has to repeat. He was on the right path and after an almost injury free pre-season will be better still

Average AFL wage is around $250,000p.a so $375,000 is way unders. On the other hand $1.5m is too much for any player Neither figure makes much sense

No doubt Neeld has his own ideas as to Jacks value. He would highly value his disposal but would be not so enthused by his lack of 'grunt'. But he will only get better as a footballer and it should be a priority together his signature on a long term contract. Apart from anything else we don't need the high profile distraction of drawn out negotiations And yes there will be plenty around here who regard his lack of intense physicality as more of a problem than I do

I quite like how in this mornings paper he has said he wants to build his contract worth through the season acknowledging that it isn't ideal, but that he needs to maximise his earnings. None of this "don't want to be distracted by contract negotiations and concentrating on playing football" that is normally trotted out. No one can begrudge footballers trying to earn as much as they can in the short amount of time they have in the game (inc a certain ex MFC No 31)