poita

I prefer my captain to be in the team's best 22 players, so that rules out Lever. An AFL defender should be able to defend players 15cm smaller than them, but Lever would rather point and yell at teammates rather than being accountable for an opponent. Maybe that works when you are a top 4 side, or when a younger Steven May was able to do the work of two men, but we can't continue to carry Lever whilst we are struggling. The leadership cupboard looks fairly bare to me, but Neal-Bullen looks the best short term option before the next generation comes through.

The effort was very good from the majority of the players, but the execution of basic skills and the decision making was woeful from all other than Pickett. It's a very sad state of affairs when a side that has been top 4 for three years running has to resort to under 8s level congestion to keep themselves competitive. I'm not surprised at reports that players are unhappy and considering their options when we play like this. It is a horrible brand of football to watch and horrible to play. Ultimately it is not a game plan that can be played successfully for four quarters week after week, which is why we've put in some horribly uncompetitive performances this year. Goodwin will receive credit from some happy clappers for keeping us competitive this week, but he is doing massive damage to our brand by having us play in a manner than nobody wants to watch, even our "supporters". Don't complain when we have the bare minimum of marquee matches and FTA coverage next year. He also deserves significant criticism for his handling of Oliver and other injured players this year. When you have different rules for some favoured types, and allow certain players to dictate terms, you breed all sort of resentment and unhappiness. Oliver was an absolute liability last night and has been for weeks. He needs to be "managed" for the remainder of the season. Ditto his mates Lever and Melksham. I know Van Rooyen had a poor night, but his substitution in the last night forced Gawn to ruck the entire last quarter solo. The poor guy could barely stand in the last ten minutes he was so tired from carrying the team all year. It was an awful decision, made worse by the fact that his replacement contributed nothing.

I think the frustration around Kentfield is less about how he is performing and more about a club that is clearly confused about where it is placed, both now and in coming years. On one hand we have Goodwin still picking injured veterans in a forlorn hope of making finals and Lamb making bizarre player trades supposedly to keep us in a premiership window. On the other we get a chance to get an immediate impact in a need area in the MSD and we pick a highly speculative project player. We need to fully commit to one strategy or we set ourselves up for years of mediocrity.

Absolutely no way Salem should play again this year. How many times has broken down and left us a man short? Tomlinson for May makes sense, but Hore is another backwards move. He's another who is likely to injure himself in the first quarter. I can't believe Melksham gets to front up again after two woeful performances, but it helps being mates with the coach. I'd rather see Howes or AMW get a run on the wing and KBrown up forward, than Melksham get another game. All in all, very ordinary changes.

Windsor has been fantastic to date, and hopefully he has more levels to rise through. I'm not convinced by Tholstrup, and I certainly didn't want us to trade up to get him. Not taking more picks in that draft, plus the McAdam misfire, are both major negatives to me. Great series by the way.

The biggest mistake we made in this draft was not taking another pick to bring in a young midfielder. Surely we could have found someone to take a punt on with a late selection.

It all depends on the depth we have in each position. There's no point playing May and Lever at half fitness when Tomlinson, Petty and Turner are options. Viney at full fitness is irreplaceable, but at half fitness you may as well bring in Brown or (shudder) Laurie. Gawn is a stubborn fool so I'm assuming he'll keep playing until his leg falls off.

That's exactly the problem with our list - we keep wanting to give players like Laurie, McAdam, Smith and so on more chances, even though they've proven time and time again that they're not up to it. You could say the same about Salem given his past three years. At some point you have to rip off the bandaid and move on.

Since round 8: 4 wins, 8 losses, percentage of 84.76% - only the bottom 3 teams have performed worse over that period. With one star player and one other best 22 player on the injury list. Simply embarrassing from players and coaches alike.

I doubt Jefferson could have less impact than Melksham has in the past two weeks. My only fear is that our ball movement and forward structures are so dysfunctional that playing him at this time could be seriously detrimental to his confidence and development.

Bevo has never been afraid of trying things and moving players around. Goodwin never makes a move until the game is gone. Their situations are poles apart.

We're playing kids, but how can you be confident that most of them will make it? McVee and Van Rooyen will be fine. Windsor can clearly play. That's it. I have real concerns about Tholstrup, Howes, Moniz-Wakefield and Turner. Bowey has regressed. Laurie is a bust. Woewodin and Brown are triers, but not sure they can step up. Kentfield was a bizarre swing and miss.

Any faint hope was lost in the first ten minutes when all our match ups were completely wrong and our players were just casual observers. If the Bulldogs had kicked straight we would have (deservedly) lost by 100 points. The sooner Goodwin, Lamb and their ship of fools departs, the better.

Terrible quarter from the first minute to the last. We have maybe three players who want to be there, the rest are clearly looking forward to going on holidays.

6 players with 3 or less disposals. Any chance Pickett and Chandler can do anything useful?

Should be ten goals down, but thankfully the Dogs are undoing the best efforts of the umps and ourselves to destroy the contest. Don’t know why we keep playing injured players, particularly when we have suitable replacements.

We've given him a decent go, but he's clearly not up to it.

It takes some serious coaching skill to get every single match up completely wrong. Well done Goody. Can't tackle, can't get a clearance, can't hit the ball to a teammate, can't man up, can't kick, can't take a mark. I don't know what we do at training, but it certainly isn't practicing basic skills or tactics. Add in McDonald and Chandler sleepwalking around, and a bunch of kids who are miles off the required standard, and the sooner this season ends the better. PS Bontempelli is the best player in the comp, how about we show him some respect and pay him some attention?

I'm guessing Laurie was dropped because his defensive positioning and efforts are well below the required standard, which might not be obvious to people who watched Saturday's game from the comfort of their living rooms. It was noticeable that he was not on the ground towards the end of the game, along with several other young players. That said, he is a little unlucky because I have the same concerns about Moniz-Wakefield and Tholstrup, and they seem to get multiple opportunities. Ultimately what I take from this week's team is that we love rewarding mediocrity, and that our depth is non-existent. 20 of the 22 who started in the terrible performance against Fremantle 11 days ago are playing this week. The other two are both injured.

I suspect he found that the offers coming from other clubs were nowhere near what he was being offered by North. Nobody is selling the farm to bring in a 190cm third forward.

Max's inability (or unwillingness) to counter rucks who block his leap at centre bounces is becoming a real issue for us. Clearly his foot injury was an issue on Saturday (realistically he wouldn't be playing if we had a suitable backup), but this tactic is something that has been successfully used against him numerous times this year. I also don't think fatigue is an excuse for the way we line up at centre bounces. It was quite clear that we were prepared to give up front position throughout Saturday's game, which led to us being second to the ball for the most part. Combine that with Max's erratic hitouts and it's no surprise that we were belted at centre clearances.

We may regret not giving some of our players more VFL games this year. In such a short season, the consequences of not being close to top form by round 1 can be significant. Some clubs, such as Hawthorn, I believe gave their players a lot of VFL games, so it will be interesting to see their early season form.

I can't disagree with those votes. We had a number of players do a few decent things and then disappear. The Giants players were more consistent across the game, and were clearly more influential when the game was in the balance through the third quarter and into the fourth.

The team is fighting for a finals spot, and their so-called supporters can't be bothered getting along to cheer them on. If you only buy a membership to get access to finals tickets, or attend only when you know you're going to see a win, you're not a true supporter.

First quarter was excellent, last ten minutes pretty good, but the rest was absolute garbage. As soon as we coughed up two soft goals at the start of the second quarter it was inevitable that we'd lose, and GWS went on a 12 goal to 3 run after quarter time. Gawn clearly wasn't fit. Good on him for having a crack, but our centre bounce work was atrocious once again and he was a major reason why. Not having a running player as sub was horrible coaching, and should never happen again. Our bottom 8 to 10 players are just not good enough, and most of them will never be good enough. We need to make significant, long overdue changes to the list in the next two months. Ditto the coaching staff, from the senior coach down. And finally, tonight's crowd was abysmal and says everything about the character of our so-called supporter base.