robbiefrom13

Have to remember, though, Petracca, Trengove, Viney, now Salem - that's a lot of midfield talent we should have been moulding together. Jones and Tyson don't look too fit either. What we don't have is the fit cattle. Kent and Jetta provide a lot of strength and dash, some competitive power, and they win the ball and link up mid-field-style in their parts of the ground. All of these fitness issues add up - and in time it's likely they will clear up. Mostly, at the moment the team looks mentally defeated. We begin trying to build up from a long way behind, and then get serially clobbered with injuries - small wonder we're mentally brittle. Against the Hawks we began well, but Hawthorn were full of confidence and we just couldn't hold together mentally ... stopped running, playing like it would work... Also, MacDonald's comment about teaming together is obviously true - and forced team changes - especially to key playmakers - obviously undermines our attempts to build cohesiveness and trust. So, we are struggling at the moment, especially playing stronger guys who do play together cohesively, and who are full of confidence already, and even more so playing us. Against top sides, with our team depleted as it is, we are bound to fall apart, and yes, it stinks. We have to just weather it. When we get our players on the park, or play slightly less outstanding teams, then we can look to see what Roos has been making of the team.

you really are having a day out!

yes but in the light of 1973-1987, it's hardly a usable quote any more, surely!

seriously interesting choice of words there. Sums up quite a bit of Demonland, I think. (not a good time to be making such an observation, I know...)

What do you suppose you look like, using such language?

!! But what about giving the Hawks a shake?...

Robbie Flower's hero John Lord played in the Reserves from time to time. Didn't seem to mean much to Robbie.

I'm not sure "bombers" is ever going to have a nice ring to it again. but yes - the licence has to go somewhere. Clean living place Tasmania - breath of fresh air after we get through with Essendon.

How would that help him? The ball is not going to be delivered to him the way it is to Gunston. It might persuade him he needs to leave...

When WADA/CAS finishes with this, they are likely to have some pretty tough things to say. The AFL will want to survive with some credibility, and a fall-guy will certainly help them. Besides, Essendon will be sued from pillar to post for the next who-knows-how-long, as well as being terminally discredited - more for what happened since they were outed than for the original doping regime. Essendon may not be saveable. The AFL needs to be. Club overboard!

Most of the criticism of Essendon on here is criticism of the club, not the players. I'm quite sure the players are frightened and doing exactly what they are told. It is Hird, Danks, Reid, Little et al who should be slaughtered. Yes, the players are guilty, and have ignored clear responsibility that lay with them; and yes, they have surely lied. But it is the sustained and systematic doping, together with the too-clever-by-half waivers and off-site cloak-and-dagger arrangements - and then, when caught out, the attempts to evade scrutiny/regulation (including the efforts of collaborator Demetriou, not forgetting the lawyers and press) - that is the real outrage here; and that was not the initiative of the players no matter how much they have stupidly and illegally gone along with it. So I would like to think that WADA will deal with the root cause and source of this monstrous, calculated and systematic, anti-sport programme. Essendon Football Club, united in support of its rogue operators, collectively sacrificing their weak-minded players to the club's "whatever it takes" reckless and defiant ambition - that's got to be the real target at CAS. So, my question: Is WADA going to appropriately deal with the club and its officials - or just punish the 34 players? How likely is it that a 2 (4?) year ban will be imposed on the club, in the event of the Appeal being upheld? Can life bans come out of this - as several of us on here would consider right and necessary - or has the scale of Essendon's misconduct exceeded the scale of any punishments available to CAS?

There's a lot of "no one's" post here, Ash35 - haven't you been listening? And plenty of clear-enough assessment of the media coverage, too. Essendon-like denial, Ash... (Ash probably does deserve some respect for his courage and usual civility in posting here, though I do wonder what he imagines he might achieve. But this post was insulting and disrespectful, no matter what his tone was. I object to such insinuating and context-denying posts. I think his "not that it counts for a lot around here" is unnecessarily dismissive and implies we are wilfully ignoring a consensus of reasonable commentators. You'll need to do better than that Ash. And we are willing to talk with you if you do - but join in our discussion, if you come on. That ought to mean, don't dismiss out of hand major threads in our discussion. That sentence of yours that I've quoted was crap.)

"you believe"! One of the really great posts, right there! Frosty M Demon...

love it!

I don't think WADA can afford to lose. Somebody is going to be finished here.

...going...

going...

give it up! This is so insulting - to so many people!

Wrong question (whether meant as a joke or as a genuine inquiry). Instead, (can I suggest) ask "what was it he did that got him picked?" The selectors would have an answer, I am quite certain. "Selection" is selecting - it's not a process of rejecting/punishing; it's not a TV elimination game. Slightly different point - my question: what's wrong with so many of us on here, that we are so negative, so anti our own players? So focused on punishment rather than on growth? Sure the team's been down for a while, but maybe what's going on is we have been infiltrated by TV-land's love affair with bullying and drawn-out rituals of exclusion/elimination. Some of us sound like our default is to hover in judgement and barrack for destructions. Real wise-guy knockers, marketed as supporters. Change channels/mindsets, snipers - Roos is in charge, and he still does not see it the way you do. (Even here on Demonland, requests for a dislike button go unheeded: the forum still won't facilitate split-second disapproval...) Or walk away... success ain't gonna grow out of denigration.

no 50, just 35.

How many thousand Essendon members? He'll tell them what they'll be pleased to pay for.

Your deep down suspicion is crap. Not funny, but crap.

"MUST" have - but still gets picked. And, under that sort of pressure, you can only imagine you'd be doing your darndest... yet he doesn't. So, have the coaches been telling him what so many on Demonland think is so obvious? Until he gets dropped, I will still think we have to be seeing it differently to the coaches. And actually, I thought he did reasonably, yesterday, and nowhere near as much a liability as Grimes for example, or as much a disappointment as Jones and Hogan, for example. We got smashed, and I reckon Watts was about half-way down our list. In a belting like that, his position surely was "the graveyard". No mistake about it in my thinking, we lost the game in the midfield, and all our forwards apart from Garlett failed to rise to the occasion. But next Thursday I'll look at the team with interest, to see how wrong I got it.

Supporters will be cheering him on in his 100th later today. Just warming up for it are we? Right behind our guys? Pleased to have Roos on board, are we? Is all this stuff you put on here something to do with your idea of being tough? Give me Jack any day...

Most disappointing thing for me is that we will run out to play Essendon, as though they are sportsmen like us, competing at the same thing as us. What a sham! Everyone seems complicit in the denial, even us. I just can't get onto that page. "Get over it"? That's Essendon's line.