rjay

Sure hope so 'Jack', but who will be our Haddin? Jamar maybe or will Vince step up at his new club?

Yep, I think he is treating the players as adults. Amazing what that approach has done for the Australian Cricket team with Lehmann in charge.

Interesting to know when they take time off. Given that they have to work on list management, draft and trade at the end of the season when do the other coaches take a break. My guess is there would be no ideal time, some may miss the first few weeks at the start of pre season which wouldn't have been an option for Roos. Anyone know what the other coaches have done? Also remember Roos was not just doing "On the Couch" last year, he was still working for Sydney.

Short but sweet...

I hope so, he needs to settle in a position and it looks like the midfield. I could still see him rotating forward as a resting option but that would be it.

Chicken & Egg

Good, I reckon he can play and if he keeps at it he could make it as a mature age recruit in a couple of years.

He says, "I wasn’t trying to deceive people. I was basically trying to survive in what was a very grey area." Only trying to survive in one race? or the sport? it seems he survived pretty well. Drug free? Hard to believe.

A one off????

No, he (with his team) picked players he thought were starved of opportunity, had a bit of ability, a willingness to work hard and were somewhere around the 22 - 25 yo mark. This player wasn't picked by him, hasn't shown a capacity for work and is about to turn 27.

Hogan doesn't play that way and I would be very surprised if we used him like that. He covers a lot of ground and should continue to do it.

I think Howe will be playing more a floating, high half forward role 'Jack'. Apart from Dawes the others are very mobile and they will probably rotate a bit with Clark doing some time in the ruck.

I think the ducking the head thing has overtaken this thread. Pedersen needs to work harder, and involve himself more as a team player. At the moment he plays as an individual and goes when it suits him. As 'Robbie' and 'old dee' say his is a VFL level player, he needs a big shift to be anything more than that. At 27 the clock is more than ticking.

I think Fitz might be worth a go at CHB, we need a tall, tall defender, but he won't rotate through the ruck from there. It's a full time gig.

I think you are right.

No, but I am interested in how you would judge your opinion to be correct over the term of a career. It did seem a bit premature to judge Toumpas as you have but you may well be correct. I hope not and haven't seen enough to say you are but I have held similar opinions on other players in the past.

Just asking, you seem to have wavered on your opinion. If you are so strong in your opinion you would have taken up the bet, you backed down. Hold your opinion if you have it and back it up, you may well be right. Set what you consider to be a reasonable measure on Morton to B grade, 'binman' considered it Brownlow votes over a few years but you might have a different measure. I am interested in how you would measure it. It does have to be over his career though and not just 2014.

Hope you are wrong 'Robbie' but his performance to date says you are right on the mark. At 27 yo going into next season he's had plenty of opportunity.

So you think he will come good down the track now? are you back peddling?

I can and have.

This is where stats don't tell the story. I don't think they keep stats for the number of times he didn't involve himself in the play or go to help a team mate instead of meander around the back line showing little endeavour or purpose in his play unless it suited him or the ball fell his way. A major improvement in these areas would make him useful.

However his best game for the year was against the Cats, go figure.

It's the ones he doesn't have that hold him back though. He lacks awareness and vision, his reaction time is slow and he doesn't have natural footy smarts. The lack of these attributes have been obvious from when he started at the club and should have been to recruiters. To much issue is taken with his attitude which whilst it's not great similar attitude problems have not stopped many other players current and past.

'steve', I think it is other. He's just not that good, and whilst he would have and could have been better with the right mindset I don't think he would have been much better.

Watson, the only Essendon player to publicly admit to receiving injections of the contentious peptide AOD9604, told ASADA investigators that Dank explained to him there was "good" thymosin and "bad" thymosin. So Dank gave him the "good" stuff.