Toast

Dear Captain Obvious, If you are a player who has not enjoyed the benefit of a full pre-season would it not be difficult to cement a role/spot/position in a team who has? Would it also be plausible that one's match fitness might also be hindered? You are the one suggesting that players like Tapscott are using their interrupted pre-seasons as an excuse for not performing well. Yours Sincerely, Someone who actually has a concept of the importance of a full pre-season for individual players

In one thread you scoff at the suggestion that Luke Tapscott's failure to thrive is due to a lack of a full pre-season, and now your trumpeting the importance of pre-season match practice! Make up your mind!

I like it!

Super impressive. I loved the way he worked up the ground also, he was prepared to spread far and wide for an opportunity. Seemed poised, confident and a part of a team. yes, yes, yes. I really got a feeling with so many new players on the ground and from established players like Jones and Watts that there was a feeling of a corner being turned. I'll qualify that by suggesting that it might not lead to a swing in our win to loss ratio. But it feels like there has been enough of a turnover for us to get over the horror of seasons past.

I don't think there is a single professional involved in footy at a national, state, or even country level who would agree with you. The importance of player preparation during the pre-season is universally acknowledged as a cornerstone of modern footy. Given the pace and hardness of the game it is virtually impossible for players to build up a fitness base during the season proper due to significant amount of muscle recovery that occurs post match. It is absurd to suggest that Tapscott has had a clear shot at showing us his worth or that he is out of ‘’excuses’’, such an assertion highlights your lack of knowledge about the player himself and the modern game. Some of the hip and shoulders he dished out last year were some of the highlights of our pathetic season. I am positive that his penetrating kick,love of the contest and potential versatility are a lot more important to our coaches than how much older or younger he is compared to Jack Watts.

It's interesting (read worrying) that the Five things I want are all fundamentals of footy: - Leadership: Not just from our co-captains but from our established players and experienced recruits. There has been a serious leadership vacuum at our club since JMac's awkward sacking. - Hunger: A simple hunger for the ball and therefore the contest. Sadly lacking during the Bailey era and yet to appear on the field under Neeld. - Skills: Our lack of skills is what separates us from the top half of the ladder. The question is: have we drafted unskilled players and, if so, can we work on the skills they have? - Spread: It's the buzz word, but it's the buzz word for a reason. It seems we recruited players with this in mind which is what I'll be looking for tonight. -Delivery into the forward 50: Surely with targets there the duty falls upon our mid-fielders to delivery effectively into our forward half.

I'm with you Robbie. Cale's failure to thrive at Melbourne says a lot about our inability to develop players. People can blame our recruiting all they want, but at the time Cale was universally seen as the obvious pick at 4. I would suggest that the vast majority of recruiters would have thought him a good choice. Yes he had his shortfalls but they were exposed further because of the lack of support and importantly leaders he had around him. Time will tell.

I think all of these ideas are in some way connected. I think our belief will inspire confidence which in turn will impact upon our skills. It's a long shot, but I'm running with it. I remember after Cale Morton's first game a few of us on Demonland took particular notice of a one-step kick across his body which hit his teammate lace out fifty metres away. This is back when Cale was riding on the confidence he had as a highly-rated junior. He lost his belief and seem never know where to be and what to do afterwards.

Dr I hear you. The club has been so bad for so long it is difficult to maintain the enthusiasm at times. But, probably just like you, I've been a Dees supporter all of my life and thus like to take a long term view. By purchasing a yearly membership I am not simply wanting to ''buy-in'' to or pledge my support for that particular year, it is more of an acknowledgement of my ongoing support for the club as an entity. It's thanks for the pleasure and an a tip of the hat to the pain the club has provided me. It makes me feel like I'm a part of something, and given our poor numbers, something rare. I want to be that person in the crowd on Grandfinal day knowing that my long term support of the club contributed to getting us that next premiership cup. Your displeasure with your seating arrangements is understandable but I have to say at the same time (with respect) it comes across as a little fickle. The money you pay as a Trident member (respect!), does indeed entitle you to a good sea,t but its not the way I'd chose to look at things. I'd rather think of it in the above (perhaps romantic) terms and think of the message it is sending to the players as they prepare for another season. I wonder how you'd go explaining to one of the players that your support for the club as a member hinges upon the seats you are allocated by the club. I imagine after spending the time and effort they do devoted to the club and their careers, such a comment would be difficult to comprehend. I agree entirely that we are due some on-field success, but I can't help but think that the self belief within our players begins with us and the belief we show in them.

If, over the past months, you've been reading this forum and have felt as helpless as I have about the issues our club has been subjected to, then I'd like to suggest that the one thing you can do is be a member. I just renewed my family membership and even though I know the club could have done with my money earlier, I wanted to make a post - investigation statement, that no matter what, I stand by my club, our club. Our club needs our active support and whether you like it or not the biggest indicator of club support is membership numbers. I feel proud to be born into supporting the club that invented the rules of this great game and I am equally as proud to call myself a member. I am sick to death of the oft-quoted statistic of our supporter to member ratio. It is a cop out we rely upon as some sort of consolation for our low member numbers. We, as vocal supporters of the club, must contribute to a culture which says you're either with us or against us. If you're not a member you're just a barracker and surely there's nothing worse than that...

Thanks for asking WYL and maybe just what I need... We tanked. Big time. The club officials that is, not the players, never the players. I think, and it has been suggested to me by someone who has had access to the AFL, that the whole investigation proceeded without Vlad's approval. It was Adrian Anderson acting off his own bat. This is the simple reason why we have been singled out. The AFL know they are in a no-win situation. We can take this whole scenario to court and comprehensively not only win but reveal the absurdity of the whole investigation in the process. I, like others, believe the 'investigation' has in fact, been for the majority, a negotiated stand-off, with both parties looking for a way out of a situation that should not have eventuated while saving as much 'face' and money in the process.

Now now Jack don't present yourself as the diplomat now mate. You personally locked then deleted a thread on this very topic I started a few months ago! You also ignored information provided to you about a poster who was deleted for 6 months for calling someone a pissant. I imagine you find my post 'boorish' because you are sick of me and others finding flaws in the loosely applied protocols that apply to the mods and their mates and the rest of us. I've said my bit and feel the better for doing so. Isn't that what this forum is all about? Bring on Round 1.

As insightful and articulate a response as one normally receives from a 'Life' member. Good for you stinga, just keep having the same conversations with all your virtual mates on here and tell yourself that life is good. Just wait for my above post criticising the Demonland status-quo to be removed and deemed "off-topic". I'm just waiting for Rhino to slap another warning on me and to tell me that Whispering Vlad is 'very unhappy with me" for publicly questioning how this place operates. The fact is that criticism of Demonland is all deemed Off Topic.

The double standards on here are glaring and damning upon those who maintain them. Whispering Vlad is completely unwilling to accept that they even exist, kind of like his name sake and 'Tanking'. Maybe in a couple of years he'll come 'round and announce an investigation into the personal vendettas some mods have over posters? Or he'll take interest in the protection rackets that look after others who sprout violence and racism only to be banned for a mere month! Oh I know the chorus will come: "The mods do such an amazing job, with little or no acknowledgement whatsoever'. This may, in part, be true. But there is a reason that this entire forum runs off the back of 30 to 40 obsessive posters and new comers with questions and opinions outside the norm are bullied into submission or banned for long periods of time for insignificant indiscretions. That is because this place is being run like Melbourne was in 2009 and Essendon was in 2012, its a boys club, all else need not apply.

Ball rarely in Tiges centre half, so nev compared to Aaron's game a little quiet. Davey looking great, no doubt spurred on by the all-stars jumper, will the Dees jumper have the same effect?