nutbean

He has again stuttered this year - some steps forward and lots of the same we have seen before. If he strolls after the ball and man and jogs to contests as he did on Sunday there is no position on the ground you can hide him. The most upsetting part for me is when he gets the ball in his hands something good happens - its all the other stuff that he doesn't do that I am finding increasingly hard to swallow.

The Dawes incident was one i was going to point to as well. Dawes attempt was very clumsy - was Merretts any different ? It's just the freakin consistency ( or lack thereof) that does my head in

It is not that - the whole problem with agreeing to move before seasons end is that it is non binding - more at the insistence of the new club as you wouldn't want to contract a player who had a career ending injury one game before the end of the season with his current club. Therefore dropping a player that you believe to be leaving would do nothing but put him 100% out of the door - if that's the clubs intention then fine - drop him. If they want to keep him then it is a poor strategy that serves no purpose. Ryan O'Keefe was strongly rumoured to want out of Swans a few years back towards the end of the season and then made it public at seasons end he wanted to get to Hawthorn. They didn't drop him at the end of the season - they did nothing and the deal didn't get done and he played in a premiership side.

Again go back and google his contract before the last one - his re-signing meandered as Essendon made a huge play for him. We all believe what we want to believe.

Ahhh you are right ! "Due to the hiring of the guru of bootstudders (I ain't no dud or spud when it comes to a stud) not only Jack Watts show more intensity but he will also keep his feet in more than 1 in 10 contests he gets to."

head is only sometimes sacrosanct

No one will get a priority pick whilst the reasons given for deciding are subjective and based on future crystal balling. "The MFC will not be given a Priority Pick - with Paul Roos going into his second season with the club, we expect to see further improvement from all parts of the playing group having already seen much better defensive efforts. Jesse Hogan will be a big bonus for the club and........and..... and... we expect him to kick 100 goals plus next year. Jack Watts will have a breakout season and find the intensity of Chris Dawes. Jordan McKenzie will become the goalsneak the MFC hoped he would become. Dan Nicholson's kicking skills are on the rise and we expect a big contribution as an Ablettesque midfielder. It has also come to our attention after reading Demonland that Jeremy Cameron, Dylan Shiel, Patrick Dangerfield and Nick Malcescki are all on their way to the club and despite being the biggest spud god ever put breath into Chip Frawley has re-signed with the club for 4 years at $2.59 per season. We will therefore not give the MFC a priority pick - after a close vote it was also decided not to remove picks from the club even though a very persuasive argument was put forward to the commission that the Demons were a shoe-in for the 2015 flag"

I disagree - not lazy (well most weren't - a few were cruising) . We were overrun at the end of the match - that happens. But we had enough of the ball and won enough tight contests for yesterday not to go the way it did. We were plainly insipid with the ball in our hands. Handpassed when we should have kicked, kicked when we should of handpassed and did both skills poorly. I am not sure if it was dumb, panicked, shell shocked or what. I listened to Roos presser and he was 100% spot on. His concern was not the effort in the contest - but he openly admitted that the extent of the problem of what to do in a winning position was deeper than he thought and he was gobsmacked with total inability to execute basic skills. Mind you Leppitch, correctly was only happy about coming from behind and winning and not much else.

Had a rethink since last season since things aren't going so swimmingly ? I clearly pointed the finger at the players but you kept deflecting to the coaches and the administration ? I know that you have to all parts of your club in sync to reach the ultimate prize but as horrible as the coach was last year there was this desire to absolve the players in what we served up under Neeld. Roos has been steadfast in his commentary that he can teach many things but ultimately it is in the hands of the players. We have certainly improved on the Neeld days but anyone thinking that we could turn this bunch of Lada's into Ferrari's just by having Roos polish their bonnets was in the rude shock we are having now. I am despondent after yesterdays match. But after going home and kissing the dogs and kicking the girlfriend ( and then kissing the girlfriend and kicking the cat - I'd never kick the dogs) I am now seeing things in a different light. I believe Roos can coach and be the architect of a good culture and front a good structure. He cannot kick the ball for the players and as your rightly point out - many of these players have to go and will go at the end of the year. There is reason he signed on the 3 years - 2 years just aint gonna cut it.

Like your post.... We have certainly picked some odd selections (as previously posted - Cook and Strauss we used picks well in advance of their rankings) but I have said this before - how is it possible to get soooo many sooo wrong. I absolutely believe we have been hamstrung by 1/ Poor development coaches or lack of focus on development 2/ our recruits being being placed in a team with poor footballers and poor leaders will certainly have a detrimental effect on your development. Of course Bruest is going to develop nicely having the likes of Mitchell, Sewell, Lewis and Hodge driving the ball into Roughhead, Franklin ( previous years), Gunston and Rioli. Makes it much easier for a recruit to sit in that forward line. If you are put into a well structured and well disciplined it makes it much easier to do the right things and run to the right spots - it also helps that when you do run to the right spots your teamate is going to hit you lace out. 3/ Poor culture - I firmly believe that even during our "successful" period of Daniher, close enough was good enough . We were happy to sneak into the 8 - when finishing in 8th was just over a 50% pass mark. We have had many recruits that have either shone brightly for a small period of time or more worrying - became pretty good footballers and then hit a ceiling and never climbed any higher. From yesteryear - the likes of Green, Bruce, White etc all were pretty good footballers - who never went that one step further and become stand-outs. This has continued and we need Roos and his cohorts to put a stop to the rotand put a structure in place where success is reward but improvement on any success is expected( ultimately it is up to the players) To me it is combination of all of the above 3.

Hindsight of the tallest order - we stuffed up Cook - we stuffed up Strauss - these were picks taken well in advance of where the so called experts of the day had them rated. You wonder where the papers get the ideas on where most players will be drafted - most papers are only feeding off recruiters and talent watchers who actually go and watch the games. ( Sheahan and Emma Quayles opinions are somewhat different as I believe both are avid watchers of the TAC - both rated Toumpas ahead of Wines). The one I find the most laughable is the thought of taking Dustin Martin over Scully. I understand that Martin is showing himself to be the superior footballer but not a recruiter in the land would have taken Martin over Scully at the time. I hope no one gives me the nonsense that recruiters are paid big dollars to be able to pick the right players. To espouse this theory is to suggest that recruiting is an exact science - it just isn't.

It does make interesting reading as once again it is mentioned in this thread and plenty of other threads that Toumpas was considered the pick of the 3 AT THAT TIME. Just spend a minute googling predraft articles and it is almost unanimous in the musings on who should be drafted where. Osilik - you do have 50 cents each way - being hot to trot on Toumpas at the time and then bemoaning our recruiting when it turned out all pear shaped a few years later. And all of those getting all excited about Gartlett - yikes. It just shows that the draft really is somewhat of a turkey shoot and any recruit that has come in the last 5-6 years into our cesspool is behind any other recruit before he even pulls on his boots - this is something that I dearly hope Roos is fixing. The only person who really got it spot on was C&B "One thing is for sure, 2-3-4 years now if we have another couple of also rans there will no shortage of experts saying we 'picked the wrong blokes'. " - what a prophetic post - Hey C&B - most of the experts post on Demonland.

Because he is not gone "officially". This same discussion was happening over on the Collingwood boards regarding Travis Cloke. "why play him when he is gone" - look how that turned out. I have stated that I believe he will move on but if I wanted to absolutely 100% guarantee that he is gone I would drop him right now because "he is gone" - no quicker was to push a player out the door. Until a player either makes it public beforehand or tells the club privately he is gone you will not see that player dropped ( other than for form reasons). As an aside - I thought he looked likely in the first half - very quiet in second half and the only player who remonstrated with Big sauce over his clash with Pedo. If he is poor leader as constantly pointed out here then he is not in a very exclusive club at the MFC.

I think you should make it simpler - those who can kick and handball - hallelujah ( it's a much shorter list)

you are certainly a bit of a ham HT.

Riley is the least of our problems

I can almost forgive the WCE game because it was so early in the piece. Yesterday was as inept a performance as I can remember. To get to so many contests - to get on hands on the ball as often as we did and to slaughter it/butcher it/ kill/ hack it as we did yesterday was soul destroying.

I wish I wasn't. Alas.....

The difference between being dropped and having knee surgery - one of them means that you can play in the seconds and the other means a bloke in white cuts into your knee with a sharp knife and usually means you cant play in the seconds unless they allow crutches on the field. Edit - I think his output will be diminished - on second thoughts - not sure it really will.

Cue Picket Fence.

The amount of substandard footballers that we have played over the past years is mindblowing. The fact that we didn't play footballers like Sylvia in the magoos IS the reason we are in the state we are in.

The problem for me is I have seen Col at crossroads far too many times. The light turns green and he is too busy chatting up girls and have a drinkee-poo to notice that the lights have changed and he should put his foot on the accelerator.

I once tipped against us in the tipping competition and felt ill the whole weekend. (FYI - we didnt win and I got the point in the tipping comp - it was a dirty soiled corrupt little point)

hmmm Jitch Jlarke?

nah...its been reduced to 1/ what we know 2/ what we think we know based on past experience 3/ rumour and Juddy's grandmotrher 4/ completely made up stuff based on completely made up stuff (anyone got ouija board handy ?)