AgRogers

Would suggest 8 goals is being optimistic

Side note: while Watts has been woeful and nowhere near enough physical presence, seems to be a bit restricted in his running. Anyone aware of any injury concerns?

Too easy for them to get around us in the midfield. Too many tackles not sticking. They seem to have way too much time with the ball. Running and body strength in desperate need of improvement!

Blease and Morton.....comical!

Apparently not. Clearly the boys still think it is the warm up...

Not playing to badly, but need to put it on the scoreboard. Can't afford to keep missing opportunities.

Great pressure from the boys tonight. Enjoyable to watch. amazing how things come off for them when the stop they flow in the other direction.

Sloppy from Green

Game has been going for about 3 minutes, and I have seen at least 5 of our kicks fall short of their target. Under no pressure. How are our skills sooooo terrible????

All up pretty happy with what I am seeing today, and must say have been a big pessimist this year. We seem to be working a bit more together as a team each week which is great to see. 3 glaring issues with our game appear to be: 1. Running. When every possession we have is contested and then other teams find loose men everywhere coming back the other way, it says we are not spreading hard enough when we get the ball, and manning up/chasing hard enough when we don't. 2. Tackling. Way too many of our tackles don't stick, and as a result we have two or three blokes trying to complete a tackle on the one opponent. This inevitably results in loose opposition players around the contest able to receive and run free if the ball does come out. 3. Kicking to advantage. As frustrating as it is that every time we go forward we are not kicking to an open forward or hitting up one on a lead,it is far worse that whe we kick to a contest it seems we kick to the advantage of the opposition. Surely senior AFL players should have enough control over their disposal to at least put the ball to the same side of a contest that our bloke is standing. These 3 areas have been consistent shortfalls of our play every game this year. At the very least if we can improve our running I would think we would have picked up the games against WB and the Saints. All that being said, I have been happy to see the improvement this week, just hope we can make some gains in these 3 areas and really pick up our competitiveness every week!

Without wanting to criticize any of our players, who do you expect will be on the trade table/delisted over the next few weeks? (more interested in discussing who we think will be moved on, than any disrespectful pots at players we think deserve to go but we know will stay please) As and example, IMO I expect either Bate or Dunn are likely to be moved on, but not both. Both can fill similar roles, but neither are in our best 22. Keeping one for back up to Pettard, Jurrah, Watts, Green if injured is ideal, but the second would be superfluous. Bate played a few good games in early 2009 (or 10...it's a blur) before being injured, and would be great if could get that form back. Dunn showed some good passion this year, and some diversity in the roles he can play. Thoughts? Who else to we expect to see departing?

This has thrown 2 football clubs into disaray. If Mark Harvey had the support of the playing group, this will be a hard sell to them. The Saints, well they thought they had a tough pre-season last year!! As for us, I hope the staunch confidence GL had going on on TFS means we already have our ducks lined up.... Very strongly worded reassurances that no-one we have approached has said no. A lot of space between the lines there...

Desperate for us to learn composure in traffic over the summer. The number of times we win the "in and under" ball, on to handball it to an team mates knees, or a foot above their head/behind them, or better still to an opponent, is shameful. If we happen to tick that box, then hopefully we could squeeze in kicking to the advantage of our forwards in our front half, which would probably help a little too!

AFL clearly wanted to give Port every opportunity to finish year with a good news story. And we are not good enough to overcome the resulting one sided umpiring against th bottom team. Pathetic on all parts.

Another shocking umpiring decision disallowing Howe's mark. About to be punished at the other end.

We make horrible decisions going forward! Composure and decision making two of the biggest improvements required over the summer.

Horrible delivery inside fwd 50 by Green. Great goal from Jones in the end though!

Cats were my 'One Tip Winner'..... :-( Fail

Does not excuse losses to Richmond, StKilda, North Melbourne, Bulldogs etc. Our prospects are still quite good as long as we can shake our culture of mediocrity/losing, however this season has been an unacceptable backward step!

Think you summed up the good pretty well, but possibly a little brief under The Bad and The Ugly. Hats off for positivity!

McDonald!!just kick the friction thing. You could see that coming a mile away!!

How on earth do we allow so many uncontested possessions while having almost none ourselves. It's just lazy running!!!

Harsh on Jones I think. At least went hard at the ball today. Agree with Green who was nowhere today. Would maybe give Davey one more week to see if is better for another run, probably at Maric's expense.

About 10 mins to go in the fourth and just saw Davey duck while standing on the mark as the Carlton player kicked over his head. Unbelievably soft!! Commentators didn't pick it up but surely must come up in the team review of the match!!

Still watching the game on tv, no doubt more pain to come from the comments here. We seem to be getting a reasonable share of the contested ball from the stoppages this week at least which is a vast improvement on last week. Biggest areas of concern appear to be a combination of horrific decision making and awful disposal. The number of times a player running in a little space hanballs to a player under greater pressure is ridiculous. If we can't execute basic ball movement, then surely you would at lest punt the ball 50m downfield to reduce the damage on the turnover. There was an obscene number of turnovers today where we kicked to a Carlton player in space, showing how much we are missing targets by. Completely unacceptable at this level, and must be demoralizing for the players winner the hard ball to begin with. On a separate note goal kicking was pathetic particularly in the first half, and I would like to think if we had been a little more accurate then maybe some confidence drawn from competing with a top four team may have seen us a little more composed in the areas above. We have a long long way to go, and while it was good to see some more heart this week, the team needs to be collectively using their head a truckload more before we will see any real improvement!!