poita

I just don't understand our selections this year: Tyson misses two weeks and has to return through Casey. Viney misses six weeks and is fit enough to play AFL, but only fit enough to play as sub. Newton is dropped twice in a month and recalled the following week twice without playing a game at Casey. Michie and Riley come in and out of the team on a weekly basis without seemingly doing much wrong in the AFL or anything different at Casey. Fitzpatrick stays in the side even when there is no match up for him. Howe and Lumumba remain undroppable irrespective of lack of form and effort. I would hate to think that either sits higher in Roos' thinking than Grimes given recent performances. Given how ridiculous our sub choices have been this year, I predict that Spencer will be the sub and will be brought on in the third quarter to replace Gawn who doesn't have the fitness to ruck for a full game.

The quality of players inducted is declining each year. Akermanis is the only modern day player who comes close to being worthy. Bell & O'Loughlin were good, but hardly great, players. The number of players being inducted for longevity alone in recent years is ridiculous. I think they should look to induct 8 - 10 players every three years, instead of finding 5 - 6 every year. Neitz and Lyon are every bit as worthy as most of the inclusions from recent times.

A lot of talk that the next legend named tonight will be Tony Lockett, but Carey, Blight and Dunstall are amongst the other names that have been mentioned. Not sure if any Demons are in line to be admitted to the regular Hall of Fame, perhaps another of our premiership stars from the 50s & 60s?

Sounds to me like Roos is (once again) deflecting blame away from himself for an abysmal performance by both the players and coaches. I would have liked Roos to also come out and say that the coaches failed to react when the game turned ten minutes into the second quarter, even though we were sitting on a comfortable lead at the time. Instead they waited until we were two goals down before they changed anything. If we'd made it to half time with a lead, I suspect the second half would have been far more competitive. If Roos doesn't think that certain players are up to the task, then he needs to stop playing them and get games into other players. Howe is clearly one who has been terrible all season, but seems to be undroppable.

He's been awful for the most part. Coasts along at half pace, trailling his opponent by 5 metres and as soon as he takes possession he can't wait to slam the ball wildly on to his boot or give off a hospital handpass. He's clearly not accountable enough to play as a genuine defender, and doesn't find the ball enough to play midfield. After Howe gets dropped, Lumumba is next in the firing line for me. Why anybody thought he was worth more than $300K a year is beyond me. I'd rather give that money to Garland.

Hard to see how Frost will play again this year. Probably Kent as well. I can't see the club rushing back young players for a couple of meaningless games at the end of a non-finals season, given how conservative they have been with other players this year.

I was thinking the tip down the road would be nice and fruity during summer. Of course, when you have seemingly unlimited resources, you can probably afford to put a roof over all five ovals and keep the stench out.

A team kicks 3 goals in a game of football, and 21 of the 22 players are still at the club the following year. That's just sad.

As nice as the three wins have been, I suspect our percentage is more reflective of where we are at. The fact that our percentage is more than 10% below St Kilda, despite having the same number of wins, is damning and shows that we still don't have a group which is prepared to work hard enough for long enough. Regardless of our win / loss record for the remainder of the year, it would be hard to judge this as a successful year if our percentage doesn't finish above 80. Oh, and despite breaking 100 twice this year, we still have the worst forward line in the competition.

What a load of tripe. We could have got any first year coach in to produce a 7 win - 24 loss record for a third of Roos' salary. We have been paying Roos mega bucks to come in and fix this sort of stuff, not throw his hands in the air and says it's all too hard. We have a significantly stronger list than two years ago, but I'm yet to see the fundamental improvements in attitude and performance of the entire group that we were promised.

No chance of a big crowd this week, but I'm still expecting to encounter feral Collingwood supporters in the MFC reserved seat areas. Any chance the dopes on the gates might keep the riff raff out this time?

Aside from tackling / shepherding / chasing / etc, tasks which always seem to be optional for this group of players, it simply amazes me that a group of fairly seasoned footballers cannot get their hands on the football when the pressure is on. Every other team has players that are capable of racking up possessions, meaning that they are at least stopping the opposition from taking the ball forward and scoring. Our leading possession getter is (unsurprisingly) Nathan Jones, who rates 65th for average possessions. Cross is next at 96. Even Carlton, for all their flaws, have 6 players in the top 100 for average possessions. When Port started scoring late in the second quarter we should have pushed players back, maintained possession for a few minutes and soaked up some time. But we couldn't get our hands on the football at any stage.

On a wins per $ basis, Neeld would be a far better option than Roos. I'm not sure what Roos has been doing for the past 20 months, but I won't be complaining if Carlton are still in the bottom 4 after 20 months under a new coach. What any of this has to do with Eddie is anyone's guess.

Totally agree with this. We got 24 points up, then our approach completely changed. I don't know if we got tired or lazy or both. We stopped running, we were short passing, were second to the ball, and were trailing our opponents. We were basically inviting Port back into the contest. At the point the coach and the senior players should have realised the game was turning and should have acted. I wouldn't have minded us playing with 9 defenders for ten minutes, just to get past the inevitable period where Port realised we had stopped and started bombarding the goals. Instead we waited until Port had kicked five quick goals and completely taken control before we did anything.

I have no issue with McCarthy getting nominated. He's had a great year, and probably could have been nominated three or four times by now. The problem is the practice of nominating average players who have one very good game (eg McIntosh, Honeychurch, Gregson, Hartung) over players like McCarthy and Hogan who have made a solid contribution every week. Plus the fact that it is much more difficult to play key position or ruck as a young player, than it is to get cheap kicks on the flanks. Ten possessions by McCarthy and Hogan in their positions equate to about forty possessions by McIntosh.

Is there really a major problem with the father - son situation as it stands? Big deal if some players fall a few spots lower than they would on an open market. I think the romance of watching sons come through the system and ultimately playing for their father's club is well worth keeping. The system that delivered Hawkins and Ablett for third round picks is long gone. I would hate to think we would have overlooked Jack Viney because some stupid arbitrary system forced us to give up 2nd and 3rd round picks, when we felt that he was only worth a 2nd round pick. The academy situation is much different, and there definitely needs to be safeguards in place to stop successful sides such as Sydney from stockpiling some of the country's best talent at little or no cost.

Whose idea is it to play games in Cranbourne at night at this time of year? Surely the club can't be pushing for this.

Don't disagree with this, but I feel like the members and supporters are being played at times. Most people aren't stupid, so to say that we have a young list / team when that is not really the case, just comes across as a highly paid coach making excuses. Talking about injuries and fatigue, when there is a clear lack of effort, serves no purpose other than to cover Roos' arse.

Howe's performances in defence this season have comprehensively proven that he is not a defender. He is atrocious one-on-one, and loses his man far too often. As we saw with Hawthorn last week, opposition teams will play through Howe's man whenever possible because he is so unaccountable. I don't think he is a particularly great forward either, for many of the reasons listed by others above, but he does bring something different to what is very a one dimensional forward line at present. I think he should start forward, with the ability to push up the ground if he is struggling to get a kick. That said, if his workrate doesn't improve markedly, a stint at Casey might be on the cards.

Possibly slightly off topic, but I'm curious about the NRL's equalisation measures as it is clearly a far more even competition than the AFL. After 7 rounds of the AFL season there are already six games between top and bottom, and a number of sides already seem to be well out of the finals race. After 10 rounds of the NRL there are just four games between top and bottom, and any team can beat any other team on its day. As not angry anymore stated, the NRL has had clearly more different premiers (7 v 5) and grand finalists (11 v 8) than the AFL in the past decade, despite having less teams in the competition. Clearly the absence of the draft, free agency compensation and trades is not causing problems of equalisation for them. Maybe the salary cap on its own is sufficient, or is there something else at work? It also seems to me that the Holden Cup competition requires NRL clubs to do more to identify and nurture young players, rather than the AFL system which effectively outsources responsibility to the TAC Cup and other competitions. Whilst under 20s can still be signed by other clubs, the original club would still be in the box seat in most cases. So would we be better to get rid of the VFL alliances and reserves teams, and run (say) an under 21s comp along the lines of the Holden Cup? Hence the AFL clubs could take more responsibility for the development of young players.

Injuries may account for our lack of skill, but they hardly account for our lack of effort. Anybody with two arms and two legs can chase / tackle / shepherd / etc. Our players simply choose not to put in.

Roos may not have created the ruck problem we currently face, but he certainly has done nothing to fix it. In fact, we are going to be stuck with Spencer next year because Roos inexplicably gave him a 2 year contract, presumably on the basis of an hour of decent football against Carlton last year. Pedersen has been by far our most effective ruckman this year, and at this stage I would suggest that a Pedersen / Gawn combination is the only one worth with any medium term value. Both can have some impact up around the ground when rucking, and can contribute when resting up forward. Jamar and Spencer are clearly not up to it, Fitzpatrick is not a ruckman, and King is many years away from being a factor. FFS even Cameron Wood is a better player than any ruckman on our list.

Every time I read threads such as these which are filled with people wearing rose-coloured glasses trying to defend the indefensible, I wonder if they were the same people talking up Neeld before he was moved on. I'm not sure why some act as though Roos and his methods cannot be questioned. It is 10 years since he won his premiership - the game has changed several times over since then, and Roos was found out at Sydney in his last few years. Should we be asking these questions now, or should we wait until we lose 10 games in a row, and another bunch of free agents walk out? What happens if Hogan decides he is sick of playing in a losing side and walks when his contract ends? Is that the time to ask questions, or do you think it might be a tad on the late side?

Agree with all of those. Dawes should never leave the forward 50. At least when he drops chest marks in the goal square, Garlett can swoop. Watts is the one who should be running all over the place chasing kicks, not Dawes. We are much better with him kicking inside 50 than 90% of his teammates. Howe has comprehensively proven time and time again he is not a defender. Hogan can do whatever he wants at this point. Just make sure his teammates stay out of his way.

I could write pages and pages about that pathetic performance, but I believe our biggest is problem at present is as follows: Nobody (with the possible exception of Nathan Jones) is willing to stand up and be the one who takes the game on. Everybody else wants to take the 20m sideways kick to an teammate, or give the hospital handpass, just so they don't get credited with the turnover. Vince gave two hospital handpasses in a minute in the last quarter - the first resulted in Howe being caught holding the ball because he had about four blokes surrounding him when he took possession. Lumumba is another who is always desperate to make it someone else's problem. Inevitably we turn the ball over because the recipient is under more pressure than the handpasser, or we are forced to kick down the line to a contest, instead of allowing our forwards to compete one out.