Undeeterred

One of my favourite golfing quotes is 'It's not how, it's how many'. It doesn't matter why we are cr@p, the fact is that we are. The fact is that we keep losing and will keep losing senior players until we turn the ship around. It doesn't matter how many games we lost that we should have won etc, we didn't. And we're 17th, about to lose a key defender in his prime and gain another 18 year old with not much onfield leadership. Next year we will lose Cross, Jamar and potentially another free agent or two. We just don't have seniority on the list to keep bleeding experience like we currently are.

We're completely stuffed if we expect Tyson, Salem, Hogan, JKH and even players like Tom MacDonald to rescue us at this point. They need help and time and, whilst we might pick another young star this year, this time next year we could well lose Nathan Jones and drop another two steps back. My worry is that until we stop the bleeding at the top end of our list age-wise, we are never going anywhere.

Munga, you're absolutely spot on. I think it is why Roos will trade our top picks and people here will go absolutely mental about us giving up '10 year stars'. What we need right now is a very good player that is slightly under 'Pick 2' kind of stardom, about 5-7 years in, and a couple of solid Bernie Vince types for picks in the 20s-40s. We will get torched for a couple of years on 'value', but we can always go back to the well in a few years when we are mid table again. Plenty of 200 gamers come from picks outside the top 10 and there's no reason we can't find a few ourselves.

Also, mate, 'negative nancy' is not an inherently homophobic comment.

Well that will learn him!

Que?

I just want Ninthmond to finish 9th again. Will make up for some of the pain of our season.

Hope they at least have some fun together for the final session and play hackey sack or something.

If Clark plays for Freo I will absolutely spew.

I completely agree. Following this season from the UK has been utterly depressing.

Made the mistake of bypassing the Ignore on deeluded out of sheer curiosity. Won't do it again.

Typically Melbourne ham fisted list management if true.

For what it is worth, both of these issues have been giving me the irrites for ages. I use IE at work (no choice) and Safari at home.

Well at least most of the list will be right for a ripping pre-season. In the Amos or wherever some of them end up.

And if we were second on the ladder now, we'd all be saying how brilliant free agency is and how we never want anything to change. Just unfortunate timing, really...

One thing for us that's different to last year is that we haven't had a cricket score like that kicked against us, as far as I can recall... Nice to see it happening to other teams.

Amazing how little scrutiny Carlton received this year, really. I know there has been a bit of press but they deserve a bollocking.

I was too angry and dismayed to LOL.

It is an absolutely terrible idea. Grimes is our captain. How do you think trading him would go down in the playing group? Trengove and Toumpas have absolutely zero trade value and all the upside in the world. And both have made very public commitments to the club (Toumpas this week and Trengove after 186). How do you think trading them would go down? It is just pure idiocy and clearly, clearly has no basis in fact.

This is utter, complete bollocks. When there is no leadership and few mature players at the club, what possible benefit could be gained by bringing in five or six new players and trading out the captain and immediate past captain, amogst others. Complete [censored] stirring and will put us back another 5-10 years.

You look at that post and think, wow, really should have bailed out at that last sentence.

1. A touch melodramatic, methinks. 2. Most of them kind of already are, or will be by November. 3. It doesn't make the slightest bit of difference to their mental state this many years later.

I think a lot of the time most people on here forget that the players are people too. How would you go if your organisation kept putting out press releases telling the world you were doing a rubbish job? Not exactly confidence building material, is it? I just don't get the point of continually giving players a public bollocking, it is entirely self-defeating.

The issue is the players, and the worst possible thing the club could do for their confidence and drive is to go to the league the day after that and point out how utterly hopeless they are. I think we need a pick and should get one, but we shouldn't have to apply, and we shouldn't have done it today.

He is taking the [censored]