Jaded No More

So much love and respect for this guy. 10% talent - 90% desire to succeed. He and McKenzie are superstars in my eyes, not because they are supremely talented, but because they will die trying to be better than their opponent.

He irritates the crap out of me because he can do some brilliant things, when he chooses to. If he wasn't so mentally deficient, he would be an A grader. FFS, nothing annoys me more than talented people who don't think they need to work hard.

Dunn might be given the defensive job on Rhys Shaw, so I don't know if he'll get dropped. Unless Sylvia is given a defensive forward role again. If Frawley is fit and Blease gets up, then it's a simple out MacDonald, in Frawley. You have to put the talent out there, no matter how unlucky or unfair that might be for Joel. He is depth only. If Blease is injured I have a sneaky suspicion that Davey will get a recall. But after a win, our first one in about 94 years, we should make minimal changes. Nice to have a settled team for once. Too many changes don't often lead to victory. Edit: I forgot Bartram. If he's fit he will 100% get a game, as he should.

I can't stop watching the highlights. Help!

Nicholson's chase, slip, then recovery to smother the kick of his opponent. Beautiful desperation!

Everybody deserves a vote tonight for actually turning up and going hard. But when I think of a Grimesy's efforts in the second half I want to cry again. For everything he has been through with injuries and a very difficult start to his captaincy, he was simply inspiring. Absolutely the right man for the job. Jones as always was magnificent as well.

Defender or Casey. Now we know.

I did. Sad but true. Relief probably more than anything. Felt like vomiting for most of the last quarter. Nearly lost my [censored] when they called touched on the goal line. Who cares why or how we won right now. All that matters is that finally we have experienced some success. Regardless of how minor!

Dragged down Essendon to our level I see. We can't hit a target, and we are lucky Essendon can't hit the scoreboard. Half arsed sloppy tackling attempts all over the ground, Fletcher on his own in our goal square like some kind of sick joke. Flooding like the good old days because we are so desperate not to get smashed again. And yet we are not even a goal behind, so well done Neeld. You've managed not to count us out of the contest at quarter time. Football is utterly [censored] to watch these days.

Why the [censored] can't we hit a target????

Joel McDonald in all but guarantees Frawley out. Bummer.

I agree. He isn't soft in the sense of ducking out of contests. He just lacks serious intensity. Sometimes I wonder if he's fallen into a coma on the field. Then he does things like he did today, chasing the ball on the wing, looking back, seeing he is surrounded by crap, and deliberately taking it over the line. Carlton supporters around me were calling that soft, but it wasn't, it was being smart and knowing you're more likely to get a neutral contest by taking the ball over, then trying to thread the needle to a teammate. It's annoying because he's so damn talented. He just needs a shot of tequila every once in a while.

I wish for us to finish last*. It beats finishing 16th and having to pay a first round pick for Viney. If we're going to suck, and we are, might as well make the most of it. Bring on sweet sweet draft picks and Jack Viney for a second rounder. Let us at least excel at being horrible and get some gun midfielders out of it. Plus first pick in the PSD which is bound to have at least one "free agency case gone horribly wrong". *I do not endorse tanking. Finishing last must be a natural by-product of being crap.

When you are coming off a 101 point loss, anything is an improvement, but after 4 years of list development, you'll forgive me that I look at the scoreboard at the end of the game and I feel sick because I watched 21 players fall apart and kick 1 miserable goal in a half of footy. It's just not enough anymore to be happy about improvement so miniscule and so insignificant, that it doesn't even get us within 4 goals of our opponent. Who BTW played like crap, and had their own supporters booing them at 3/4 time.

I like it because I've been on his bandwagon for ages. Besides meaningless positives is saying we were equal in inside 50's at 3/4 time. Awesome I can hardly contain how happy I am about that!

6- Mckenzie 5- Jones 4- McDonald 3- Magner 2- Blease 1- Grimes Bail and Nicho worked hard but some of their ball use was woeful.

It's exhausting always being so disappointed. We were competitive enough for 2 quarters. But to be happy with that is to concede utter life defeat. I know some smart arses will bang on about meaningless positives, but at the end of the day we lost by a large margin again. We were invisible for a whole quarter. We got thrashed in the clearances. We are 0-9. So forgive me for not giving two shits about the positives because they do nothing to override the sinking feeling that the light at the end of the tunnel is actually an oncoming train carrying horse manure.

We don't even know how to lose with dignity. 3 OK quarters and then garbage. Our midfield makes baby Jesus cry. And if Watts showed any less intensity I'd think he was in a coma.

Joel Selwood. OMG do I love Joel Selwood. Also Jonathan Brown in his glory days. Amazing.

CARLTON CARLTON CARLTON, 100 TIMES CARLTON Please FFS I cannot handle losing to that scumbucket of a club. They sicken me.

I don't mind that we dropped the underperforming players, but FFS could those 'ins' be any less inspiring? We've spent years list managing to end up with so many average players. Depressing.

Yeah but I don't give a crap if Moloney gets shown up, I care if Taggart gets smashed into a pulp by Judd and any steps he made at Casey are shattered along with his confidence. Don't get me wrong, I want these lazy sooks out as much as anyone, but you keep getting rid of Bruce, Robbo, Yze and Junior and you are left with a bunch of kids who can barely run out a game, let alone physically compete. It has to be done gradually and it has to be done right. Neeld can't keep putting players out for public execution. I might not like Davey, but he probably makes Bennell walk taller. I may think that Moloney is a flat track bully, but I'm sure Bail feels safer when he's around. If you think that replacing these senior players with kids on Thursday night will help us get any closer to a win on Sunday, then you are sadly mistaken. We will still lose, by a lot, and damage a whole host of under-cooked kids. Besides, I want to get maximum value out of Sylvia, Moloney and Davey if/when they [censored] off at the end of the year. Playing at Casey won't achieve that.

Except that so far all Neeld seems to have done is further plunge us into the depth of despair. Our players act defeated before the first bounce. Kids who showed promise last year have regressed so far back into their shells, it's frightening. Nobody is doing anything positive on the field, not even the players we know are talented and tough and promising. So yes it is absolutely Neeld's job and I do not envy him, but I also don't think he's gone about it the right way. From the outside looking in, it seems like the players are either not buying what he's selling, or too shell shocked to process the message.

True, but where does the collateral damage stop? What if Frawley and Jones want out too? What if Trengove, Howe, Watts and Blease are sick of playing for a bottom feeding team? What if Clark thinks "well I got my millions and nobody else seems to give a sh*t, so why bother"? You can't throw the baby out with the bath water. There are ways of going about it, and for years now, we've gone about it in the least dignified way.

I am also happy to see them all go, but I am not happy for Trengove to keep getting smashed and lose whatever little confidence he has left, because he is 20 and surrounded by 27 year olds with no leadership skills. I am not happy for McDonald, Grimes and Frawley to see 197 forward entries because our midfield is not even physically mature enough to contest a ball up. I am not happy for Howe , Watts and Blease to keep playing in losing teams. I am not happy for Clark to get injured in the ruck. And I am definitely not happy to lose by 20 goals to Carlscum. There is two sides to every story. We can punish the senior players, and we should, but then we also need to understand that by doing so, we are also punishing the younger players who desperately need the physical support and the experience. We may not see the value in these players, but they do.