poita

I've got a lot of time for Terlich, more so than either Bail or Riley, so I'm pretty happy with that news. However, Roos has handed out new contracts to Spencer, M.Jones, Jetta, McDonald, Terlich, Riley & Bail so far this year, most of them 2 years. You can't complain about the state of the list and then go around handing out multi year deals to a bunch of C and D grade players, most of whom have been in the system for four years or longer. Particularly given that Jamar, McKenzie and Evans will still be stinking it up next year. I hope we don't miss out on taking players in the pre season draft because we've moved too quickly resigning this calibre of player.

Sure, and Magner and Valenti dominate each week for Port Melbourne. Maybe we can get the whole gang back together.

No doubting his skills, but he has the clever knack of being where the football isn't at this point in time. I suspect it is easier to fix the skills side than the other, but time will tell. The question is whether he will ever be a genuine onballer at AFL level, or just a pinch hitting half forward.

I don't really care any more, but the biggest statement Roos could make would be to drop Jamar - 2 kicks & 1 mark on the weekend, and precious little more in recent weeks. If Frawley is going, we may as well make a statement and drop him too - I really can't see our compensation being affected.

All or nothing. The whole point of following the club is the combination of colours, song, ground, heritage, etc. Players come and go, but the other aspects have been fairly constant. I'd rather have nothing than some bastardised version.

I expected Pedersen and Fitzy to play this week, so no surprise there. But not dropping one of Jamar or Dawes is a joke. Five tall forwards, all as slow as treacle, and no crumbers is a recipe for disaster. Perhaps we'll continue on the recent trend of playing our forward line across half back and just build a wall to stop the Eagles moving the ball inside 50. Of course, that might work if Hurn wasn't capable of kicking goals from 75 out.

I'm sure there was something that made us give Westrupp an opportunity but, after two years of playing VFL reserves, I'll buggered if I know what it was.

After eight years of performances ranging from mediocre to diabolical, there are only two choices available to supporters. You pay your hard earned money, come along each week and respond in kind to whatever sorry excuse for a performance the players can be bothered serving up. Or you stay at home, spend your money on something more rewarding and, if enough people feel the same way, the club folds in a couple of years. I would like to have a club to support, and for my son to support, so I will continue to come along and make my feelings known in whatever form I deem appropriate. People who sit and accept the tripe that was served on Sunday are the reason why the club is in its current predicament - we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, so we won't make hard calls on selection or list management or anything else that might cause offence.

There's no point being a good kick if you can't find the football. Or have we forgotten Strauss and Tapscott already?

It's been a long, long time since we won a game, so those numbers are irrelevant. Eight losses in a row, soon to be ten, and it is impossible to argue that right now the team is in any way improved on its 2013 incarnation. So he should be for a million dollars a year. But what's he going to do about it? Play his favourites each week, recycle the same NQRs every few weeks, play the same loser brand of football all year and hope for the best? Let's be honest, we only have four wins because the teams we beat kicked themselves out of the contest.

Start by dropping Dawes and Jamar. Play Frawley in defence where he should have been since QB. Pedersen, Fitzpatrick & Clisby to come in. Bring a plank of wood to whack Howe with every time he lets his opponent out of touching distance. If Salem plays, put him in the action, instead of letting him die a slow death in a FP. Beyond that, I have no idea. I doubt we can keep the margin under 10 goals, even with a decent effort.

Correct. Everyone wants to love Roos, but as of today we are no better, and arguably worse, than at any time last year. And that is with a clearly better list than we had last season. For a million dollars a year I expect the coach to both win and lose with his team, not accept praise and deflect criticism.

It's hardly an irrelevant fact that somebody paying to attend our 11 home matches would have witnessed a grand total of 0 wins for the season. Do you reckon that somebody might think he had received value for his dollars and time, or that he might find something else to do next year?

100% correct. We are paying big dollars to a bloke who wants to do everything other than the job he is paid to do. He won't stay inside 50 and provide a leading target. He won't take the responsibility of kicking goals (on the rare occasions) when he takes possession within range. He won't crash packs and provide crumbs for our small forwards. And he is getting smashed by his direct opponents on transition as well. I would play Pedersen ahead of Dawes and, whilst being no fan of Jamar, I suspect he would give us more value playing out of the goalsquare than Dawes as well. For Dawes' sake, I hope he is playing injured.

Totally agree. Roos has been bitterly disappointing in the second half of the season, on and off the field. When the coach says repeatedly he doesn't see these results coming and blames everyone under the sun other than himself, you wonder exactly where his head is at.

Is the Jetta everyone is raving about the same one whose direct opponent had 31 possessions? Sure Nev looked okay with the football, in contrast to most of his teammates, but a defender's primary job is to defend. Possibly N.Jones aside, the analysis for the other 21 should be "was utterly sh1thouse".

The problem with this club is that we recruit the role players first and expect to be able to top up with superstars later. Many of our delistings at year end will be flanker / utility types that were generally recruited with high draft picks, presumably with a specific role in mind (Strauss, Blease, Tapscott, etc plus the likes of Maric, Morton and Gysberts in previous years). We then end up paying overs for guys like Vince, Dawes and Clark to fill in the gaps. The successful clubs, Hawthorn in particular, have taken genuine midfielders and key position players with high draft picks (Lewis, Hodge, Franklin, Roughead, etc), and then topped up with role players (Puopolo, Breust, Shiels, etc) from other sources. Jones and Frawley have been our only two genuinely successful picks in the past decade, both in terms of the type of player selected and the actual player, and that was eight or more years ago. Salem and Toumpas are too early to judge, but I'm not sure that either will be a genuine AFL midfielder.

Hawthorn's lowest score this year is 86 points against Port Adelaide in round 10. We've reached 86 points once this year, against Richmond in round 9. The chances of us keeping the margin under ten goals are so small that such a number hasn't been invented yet. Good luck to anybody thinking of attending.

Gee you're easily pleased. Dunn was woeful yesterday - the only one of our defenders to be clearly beaten. Riley & Kent do one nice thing and their next five contributions are shocking. Viney doesn't need an education, he needs to go and get the football. And none of which speaks to how bad the opposition were. Our defence has clearly improved relative to 2013, but we are six forwards, four midfielders and a ruckman off being a finals team at present, and that assumes we don't lose any more free agents in the meantime.

If we ever win more than eight games a year, I'd imagine some people would have our entire list as A or B graders. Jones is a very good player but not A grade. Vince, Tyson and McDonald are the only others who are genuinely B grade or above. Calling Jamar and Howe B grade is laughable, and probably Frawley and Viney are in that category as well on exposed form this year. The reality is that a decent portion of our list is not AFL standard (probably about a quarter), and the rest are either genuine C or D graders or unexposed at this level.

After Tapscott's completely useless performance last week, how badly would someone have to play before they get dropped straight away? That guy has more lives than a litter of cats. I'm not sure what Bail and Kent are contributing at present either. Great to see Blease and JKH back in - we will look a lot better with some leg speed in the side.

Jamar's hit outs never, ever go to Melbourne players. Most of the time he feebly waves his hand in the general direction of the ball so it falls at his feet. Our midfielders are always behind their opponents so inevitably the opposition take first possession.

Plain and simple, Tapscott is a very average footballer. He doesn't get enough of the football, he makes poor decisions, he is slow, and he doesn't stop an opponent. I actually can't see any value to him, unless you want him to shirt front the opposition's best player. Comfortably in the top three to get delisted at year end.

Given that MFC listed players fill the best players list each week, it seems logical that is the Casey listed players are not up to scratch. I'm not saying that the MFC players are superstars, but most of them have shown over a number of years that they are good to very good players at that level. How much are the top VFL players on? Surely the MFC can chip in the funds for Casey to go and buy some decent players for a fraction of the cost of running our own side. A key forward, a key defender and a Magner/Couch type in the middle would be enough to make the side competitive for starters.

Every team has their lower class of supporter, but in Essendon's case they are the majority rather than the minority. For a club that has done nothing for a decade, their supporters are far more offensive than those of any other team.