Undeeterred

1 hour ago, JV7 said:

Anyone else been frustrated by Bernies 2nd half of the season ? Once upon a time when ever he had the ball I wasn't squirming in my seat, knew he'd make the right decision & execute it... Now I can't bear to watch him take the kick ins. So many uncharacteristic mistakes his made week in week out the last couple of months.. Don't know if his relaxed a bit since signing his new deal or his just getting old or hopefully just a form slump

Yes. Very.

3 hours ago, Nasher said:

Probably the most curious thing about Hunt's non-nomination is that he's got all the traits you'd think they'd notice: speed that he uses both ways, commitment to the contest, loves a running goal, and blonde good looks.  

It genuinely staggers me that the rest of the comp aren't fawning over him.  

Me too - he closed down a marking contest with someone like Casboult on the weekend, he came from miles back and spoiled a bloke a foot taller than him. Did the same to Peter Wright a few weeks ago. He's a genuine spoiling defender, as well as a running, goal kicking one. 

It's astonishing he's not more widely known, let alone praised.

10 hours ago, Leoncelli_36 said:

Stuie you are the one struggling mate. You constantly do. I am pretty certain you are the same Stuie that posts garbage all over the Facebook footy pages. First name xxxxxxx.  Last name xxxxxx Been reading your rubbish here and there for years.  Pedo has kicked goals.in all games he has played. He holds his marks. He is no slouch.  He actually has made our team better than  Hogan this year.  The stats tell you so. He was great against Geelong last year. Great against the GC this year. You have no idea. We don't have another big bodied forward right now and you wanna cast him to the wind coz he is 30. Remember how well the old youth policy worked when Schwabb enforced  it on the FD.  Get back on your meds and take a nap

Let it all out mate.

On 6/27/2016 at 3:33 PM, rjay said:

A lot of views on Howe....

My personal opinion for what it's worth is that Jeremy wasn't lazy but just not a smart footballer.

A lot used to call for him to play deep forward to take advantage of his leap and high marking...Jeremy wasn't smart enough, he got blocked way too easily and could never find a way to make space. He couldn't read the ball coming in and his opponents had an easy time against him.

Now that I've contributed to a thread I'm not particularly interested in I'm off to have a shower and forget about it again.

I'd say completely the opposite. Knew how to play, just so frigging lazy.

13 minutes ago, Wiseblood said:

So you've grabbed 2 pieces of play you didn't like, magnified them to make them look as terrible as possible, and then almost blown off his effort to take a hard hit for the team by backing back into a pack?  Well done.

While Jones is never going to be a matchwinner, I consistently see him getting to every contest and doing everything he can for the side.  Blaming yesterday's loss on him, just as WYL has done above me which is absolutely ridiculous, is short sighted in the extreme.  He might have made a few mistakes, no doubt about it, but much of his hard work on gameday almost goes unnoticed now that we are actually a half decent side.  He is constantly driving the team forward and doing everything in his power to turn the tide.

Again, as I said earlier, players missing easy shots on goal, players making turnovers, the selection committee bringing in players who aren't ready or played out of position are well and truly out of his hands.

His game was solid yesterday, but to lay the loss at his feet and label his game 'awful' is just plain wrong.

Don't distort my words.

You asked me to provide examples. I did, off the top of my head. I could probably go and find footage of him making one metre handballs to blokes standing still as well. Why don't you show me some examples of positive contributions, beyond the one I've just spoken about? Of the examples you provided, he did in fact miss easy shots and committed turnovers. Yes, selection is not in his control, but if you think having the two unforced omissions in would have changed the way we approached that game, you're dreaming.

What you'll find I have said in the post game thread is that we have a complete failure of leadership, generally, in this team. Jones is the captain - ergo, he must take at least some of the fall for this. He's not on his own.

Our leadership group is constituted of Jones, Garland (who can't get a game), Vince (who I think we can all say makes more very silly mistakes than someone in his position should), Tom McDonald, Gawn and Viney (no complaints on the last three). The fact that half our LG is 24 or younger, and one of other three can't get a game ahead of a pack of 19 and 20 year olds, says more about the current state of the club than I need to.

3 hours ago, leave it to deever said:

Handballing so much in the wet or when your four goals down in the last qrt isnt always constructive.

But is the only option if you want to at least try to keep possession, when there's nothing to kick to other than a sea of navy blue.

3 minutes ago, ArtificialWisdom said:

Does that mean that those who played the worst followed instuctions the best and will get the highest votes for the game?

Haha probably. 

Could well be the two hours in between the boys and 100 pints.

Think after the deflation of this week we'll get walloped.

Tom McDonald - absolutely [censored] outstanding

3 hours ago, Mickey said:

I've got one to add...

The last time we beat the wooden spooners... Not since Roos has been at the club. Saints 2014, Blues 2015, Essendon 2016

Oooo that's a yucky one.

12 minutes ago, ArtificialWisdom said:

What??? The AFL and media would much rather us have won yesterday! They love stories, and a late charge forcing North into winning Saturday night is exactly what they would have wanted. They dont want the 8 to be set they want every game to be of interest, the intrest in the Geelong - Melbourne game this week just dropped tenfold with that loss. There is no conspirecy to fix yesterdays result and if there was it would have been in our favor not against it. God I hate when people start to blame a poor performance on the AFL. Both teams played on the same ground in the same conditions and unfortuatly our team was flat, deal with it.

Maybe we told the boys to lose so we didn't lose our deposit on the Palladium for B&F night.

LOL.

20 minutes ago, Wiseblood said:

Burden of proof isn't on me.  I've explained my stance earlier.  What else do you want him to do?  If he had an 'awful' game, as you put it, then please explain why.

So have I.

The main job of a leader is to lead.

Jones had no influence on driving change on the ground yesterday, which is what I would expect from a captain.

In terms of actual play, he turned his back on Hogan who was 20 metres on his own, then sprayed the shot on goal, at a crucial moment when we really needed one. He dragged a ball under himself 30m out from Carlton's goal at another crucial point which cost us another one, and was flat footed on multiple occasions.

On the flip side, I can't recall much in the way of positive contribution other than fairly undamaging accumulation of possessions.

He did stand in the hole once, and got kneed in the back. The peanut behind me had a crack at him for not buttering up and putting in a second effort, which was a bit unreasonable. I had a go at him about it, given Jones could hardly move after that contest, but he was generally poor all day.

26 minutes ago, Wiseblood said:

No he wasn't.  

 

Yes he was. Shall we go on?

7 minutes ago, Django said:

Almost all of those points are Roos related for me, he's the head coach.

There's no doubt we still have big issues, but the improvement has been very good considering the age profile of our list, and how disgustingly bad we were only a few years ago. I agree with your sentiment about leadership - there's no arguing with the generation gap caused by shocking drafting for a lengthy period.

It's a time thing though. We've now drafted a solid crop that within a couple of years will start to fill those leadership spots far better than those before.

And Vince has been poor a number of times this year, but there is no denying that trading him in has been a masterstroke. Jones was one of our best yesterday. 

Those leaders have nobody to learn from. Just like last time we brought in heaps of kids and had no leaders. And the time before that.

Look at St Kilda. Their young kids are learning from Riewoldt, Montagna, Fisher. Ours are learning from Jones, Garland and Dunn.

And Vince has not been 'poor'. He has been abysmal on a number of occasions. Abysmal. Today was no different. Playing on with no awareness 30 metres from their goal, kicking into the man in the mark when we have blokes open inside 50 etc etc. Masterstoke? I'm not sure. He had a good year last year, but I wouldn't go as far as that.

And don't get me started on Jones. He was awful yesterday.

13 hours ago, Wiseblood said:

He didn't 'fail dismally'.  What else would you have him do?  

And by that, I mean - was it his fault that Hogan and Petracca completely stuffed gettable chances in the last quarter?  Was it his fault that Neal-Bullen and Weideman were picked, even though they were clearly wrong decisions?

Jones does everything he can.  He might miss the odd target from time to time, but wasn't the problem at all today.

Lead a team that has lost it's way, for a start.

He was awful yesterday.

Sure does smell like 1987.

Like incompetence followed by heartbreak.

1 minute ago, Django said:

How many other coaches could have taken us from atrocious to 10 wins in a season (and rising) in 3 years?

Only a couple of those pottings are Roos related. 

The absolutely single biggest problem we still have is a complete leadership vacuum. Jones goes missing and Vince is conspicuous by his complete and utter laziness and stupidity.

We've cleaned out the rest of our oldest quartile on the list (AGAIN!) because they are a pack of useless peanuts who can't play football and the last thing we want is the youngsters learning from them on match day. Kick a torp, Lynden!!! Said no-one ever.

This is a never ending cycle and is the reason why teams like Carlton, St Kilda and Port constantly fall quicker than us, then rise quicker again.

34 minutes ago, poita said:

People were asking a week or so ago about how best to pay tribute Paul Roos. Yesterday's debacle was the perfect way to remember Roos, containing as it did all the trademarks of his tenure:

• Inexplicable team selections that completely ignored form and structure
• Uninspiring and underwhelming match day coaching (did we do anything at all to change things up?)
• A complete inability to adjust our playing style to sub-optimal conditions
• A complete inability to turn a game that is getting away from us
• The continued absence of a plan B (plan A of course being that Gawn wins the game off his own boot)
• Leaders who go missing every time the pressure goes up a notch (looking at you, Vince and Jones)
• The unfailing optimism that C and D grade footballers such as Kent and Vandenberg will suddenly start displaying basic football skills on a regular basis
• A mediocre playing group that believes all the hype that surrounds it and doesn't think they need to come to play each week
• A coaching group that never sees these performances coming
• And above all, the unceasing inability of this club to give its long suffering supporters a glimmer of hope before taking it away in the cruelest way possible.

This is absolute gold.

I've tried since I got home from the game to get the energy up to post something in this thread, but now I don't need to.

17 hours ago, america de cali said:

Well it won't upset the post season holiday plans for the players anymore.

Or the coach

10 minutes ago, stuie said:

Kinda hard to care about next week, but I guess I'd go:

IN: M.Jones, Garlett, Harmes
OUT: Michie, Kent, vB

Jones should have been in for the Carlton game, baffling decision to bring in a rookie who we're clearly going to delist instead of him.

Garlett hopefully will be right to go, and we missed Harmes' energy on Sunday.

Kent out after a really poor game, but more so because he looked proppy on that ankle (?) he copped during the game.

Bringing vB out to just see if the forward structure works better with him out of the way a bit.

Leaving Weed and ANB in as they are part of the future and need more than 1 random game here and there. Plus, last time ANB played against Geelong he kicked 3.

 

I certainly don't. About the game, let alone changes on the fringes.

1 minute ago, Traja Dee said:

Apologies to everyone for my somewhat insensitive post but thanks for reading.  Believe me, I'm a genuine supporter, have been since 1976 (still remember just missing out on the finals that season thanks to Carlton drawing with Footscray) and the OP was a genuine question.

My perception was that the teams that finish 8th usually just make up the numbers, and I was wondering if making up the numbers still has some benefit for the team's mental state for the next season.

Soo, I've gone and looked at the numbers; i.e. all results since the 2000 season, and here's what I found.

Of the teams that finished 8th in the 15 completed seasons since 2000, 7 finished higher than 8th in the next season, 7 finished lower and 1 stayed on 8th (Essendon in 2003).  For those 15 seasons, 6 won the Elimination final, but only 2 of those 6 winning teams finished higher than 8th in their next season.  Mind you, those 6 winning teams include North beating Richmond last season and Carlton beating Richmond in 2013 (maybe it was Richmond just making up the numbers in those seasons...)

In the 9 finals series since 2007, 8th place has won 3 elimination finals (including 2 against Richmond), with the average losing margin (not counting the 3) being 53 points, a sour way to finish the season (the point of my OP!).

Of the teams that finished 9th in the 15 seasons, 8 went higher in the next season and 7 went lower.

Despite the Elimination Finals carnage in recent seasons, my conclusion is that whether a team finishes 8th or 9th in a season has no significant bearing on their prospects for the next season.

That said, I'll be watching the game this afternoon from 2000km away, cheering from the couch and crunching the ladder percentage at the end of the game. I'm tipping (and hoping for) a 10-goal-plus win, placing our percentage in striking distance for Round 23!

Go Dees!

Don't stress mate, nobody's worried about you being insensitive. We all just want to play finals and stuff the consequences.

When will this club stop thinking about next year, and start thinking about this year?

This has been our problem for 10 years.

40 minutes ago, Mach5 said:

 

He got dropped, so I'd assume the coaching dept agree with me.

Did you consider that he might have been dropped for other reasons?

Selfish and pulling out of contests? Complete nonsense.

22 hours ago, Ricky P said:

I've got a mate who's mates with Langford from Hawthorn and he reckons he just sees it as a job. Didn't wingaard say the same? I spose in the old days blokes like that would just play local footy with their mates but these days the cash is too good to pass up.

I suppose it's a case of finding what you're good at, and getting paid as much as you can for it. Like the rest of us.

It just wasn't something I'd ever considered footballers would think. But it's probably completely fair enough.

11 hours ago, xarronn said:

 

 

 

 

 

Undeeterred is right, he said that 5 Years ago.

We have 10 players from 2012, 7 players from 2013 and another 8 players who have been in the system with other clubs at least since 2013, but many much longer, eg Lumumba and Vince.

That's a total of 25. However, the irony is that many of the players who have been a mainstay, (or played big roles),  in the team for much of the year have only been in the system for two or less years - Oscar, Wagner, Brayshaw, Oliver, Petracca, Vandenberg, Stretch, and this week add Neale-Bullen and Weideman.

 

Amazing how quickly things have changed!!