rjay

Sign a 2 year deal at whatever average money is and get on with your development Sam...

At the moment I would say we only have one forward, Melk... ...and as you say Trac is probably more suitable playing mid but he's our next best forward. At least he's providing some forward pressure.

That's 5 in a row now. We've certainly dropped off but can we turn it around? At least Oliver is back on track... Just a thought on forward delivery & conversion. Is it the deliverer, the deliveree or both at fault.

That might be the theory but Stanley beat Grundy last game, he's more than a capable ruck. Then were do we leave Frost when he's not relieving Max, he can't just stay on the bench & unless he has one out of the box I couldn't see him being much use forward.

That's one thing I wouldn't credit Zac with...he's not a smart footballer.

Hey 'Chazz' if we really wanted to stop unnecessarily arguments we might as well close the site down.

I'm not sure why either are playing. Frost has been tried in the ruck before and failed so I hope we're not going down this road again.

It's not the obvious brain fades 'A F', but the times he loses contact with his opponent in transition. He finds himself in no mans land way too often. He had a few good games last year, last week was poor, let's hope he can turn it on this week.

Frost very, very lucky...

Agree 'dazzle', we've been flat as a tack... ...now that we know the new AFL rules I expect there will be plenty of gut punches & fines handed out this week.

I don't see it as arrogance but sometimes young players can get a bit too comfortable and forget to do the things that got them the praise. A bit of adulation can subconsciously or in some cases consciously go to their heads. Not a great sample size and he is coming off injury. ...but it's a real trap for young players. I'm definitely not saying he's an arrogant [censored] or anything of the sort.

I'm not sure about him becoming arrogant, that's your interpretation but he could sit back a bit and stop doing the things that make him the player he his. This is all part of armchair analysis and all of us hypothesise to a degree even those at the club on the front line.

I think any young player is in danger of drinking their own bathwater when they get pumped up by the fans and media. As I've said many players suffer a down year early in their careers often called the 2nd year blues (but not always in their 2nd year). I think he's a good kid and has been probably my favourite player since watching his first game with the club but he is only human... At the moment he's not doing the things that make him a good player and that could be for a number of reasons.

Better get your facts right then 'Smokey'... Big difference between what I said and what you quoted.

I hope you don't mean me 'Smokey'? He like many young kids is in danger of it...that's why many get the 2nd year blues. I trust with McCartney around this won't happen.

We received a reality check in last years prelim... How many reality checks do we need? I thought we would win too but looking at it dispassionately the writing was on the wall...we went in with no form. We were kidding ourselves and so were the tipsters. Then add Max's story to the mix then yeah the loss was there to be had.

Interested to know what the overreaction is. The reaction is not just off one game... Coming off the back of a very poor prelim final and no form in the preseason series we got what was probably the expected result on Saturday. If Max did have a general during the week then that tells the tale about his lethargy. Also a bit of how Pruess is thought of by the FD at the moment. I get some players may have been underdone but the one with probably the least time on legs in preseason was Melk and he was one of our best. Oliver's first game at AFL level was a 2 vote Brownlow game, he came into that game as a pudgy kid with a shortened preseason. Based on Saturday's game he needs needs an attitude readjustment following the AA and Gary Lyon pump up. I'm a big fan but he's a kid and in danger of drinking his own bathwater. He was AA last year but personally I thought his previous season was better. His ball handling was not as crisp, I put last year down to the shoulders and maybe the start of this year to not much competitive work in the preseason. Interested to watch the next few weeks...hope he doesn't get the 2nd year blues in his 4th year. May was a big loss, stupid act but on current AFL standards very unlucky to get a week...but they had key players out and blooded 4 kids. I don't think it's an overreaction to ask questions. The writing was on the wall as far as Saturday goes, even more than we originally thought. Is it going forward? Writing us off now would be an overreaction for sure, but unless we fix some area's of our game we're not going anywhere. It could be the season we drop back a bit or we could re load and take all before us.

No 'steve' we've moved that on to the Port game... According to Nathan Jones after last weeks loss "I think that'll burn a lot of players inside but hopefully inspires the reaction our fans will want to see and inspire us to play the way we want to play." Sometimes I really wish our players would just shut up and let their performances do the talking. As you say the intensity and aggression shown in round 1 didn't indicate any residual burn from the prelim, looks like they forget what they were burning about...

From first hand experience it most certainly would have...

I have played a few days after a general & was way off the pace of the game, just couldn't get going at all. If this is right it would have had a big effect on Max's game.

Not a chance 'joeboy'... Frost has been tried there before & failed. ...and you can't leave him forward when Max is in the ruck, again tried and a dismal failure. Frost goes.

They've got an excuse...a premiership hangover. We've got redemption, what happened?

I don't know what his problem is but for some reason he's been wearing a bandage up around his knee. He was wearing it at the start of the Casey game (so it's not from a corky late in the game) and it's a bit high up for his foot so I'm suggesting something else might be wrong with him. Could it even be a knee problem???

Limping, carrying injury or not. The real Jack Viney would not have put up with Max being pushed around without giving some back. He was very placid on Saturday & had absolutely no impact on the game.

Nice to see so many with their knickers in a knot... Let me simplify things a bit. 2 main points... 1. The writing was on the wall for the result we got yesterday, our form line was poor coming into the game. It was a bitter pill as I don't really rate Port and we should have accounted for them comfortably at home. 2. Is the writing on the wall for the season? Is this the season we take a step back? I gave what I consider to be a number of areas where we need to tidy up. Some we can fix now, but will we and are our short fallings going to hold us back. I don't know the answer to 2 but it's worth asking the questions and not just going into the season blind...like everyone I hope we can win it this year...please... Just a few points... Me too...and we do need him but there are no guarantees he will get back on the track of being the star he looked like being at the start of his career. Toby reminds me of the last small forward we just delisted. Hard at it, good tackle but doesn't get much ball and is not a goal kicker. We were a mile off a GF appearance as the Prelim showed. ...but it didn't stand up in the biggest games of the year. You don't think the Prelim was that...we can't keep waiting for a kick up the ...to get us going. If we do we will always be waiting. True, but the hype is there and I don't think we measure up to it. To be honest I'm not sure any team really does. I mean look at Lloyd's hyping up of the C/wood midfield. What a joke. However so many on here are ready to jump down anyones throat in the media or other posters that don't see everything just great. Of course we did and I'm sure you will agree that's it's still very much a work in progress. That's part the point here. I do think we overpaid for Lever though. That extra first round pick would have been handy. This is so true 'Earl' but there were many times when Frost for example just didn't move to pick up an opponent...he continually found himself in no mans land and some specific times I was watching it was when the ball came in slow. He had time to make position and he just stood and watched. Some of Oscars spooling attempts were incipit, that's what really upset me. He got a fist to the ball but it wouldn't knock...I don't know what off. Certainly it didn't concern the Port player who easily marked.