Ted Lasso

Asada will be taking notes.

alot of Vic teams can offer Danger good money, and i think Geelong will need to pay good dollars to retain Hawkins

Nominating 3 players for a much improved year. i'm going with Dean Kent Jeff Garlett Chris Dawes

Agree, you don't offer Jeremy Cameron 8 mil over 7 years unless you are pretty certain Danger is gone imo, i think he will end up at Geelong, but no doubt our monster deal we offered him last year would still be on the table, i was of the opinion that Danger was happy to come to us, the crows were the ones who wanted to back themselves to keep him, massive fail at this stage.

agree 100% the tribunal goes to hand out their verdict, on the topic of potential reduced sentences, the players have trained in an official capacity the entire time despite provisional suspension, two players played a game despite provisional suspension, the entire list threatened to boycott NAB cup despite that being the the first time they would have actually done something consistent with the suspension they are under. it would be extremely difficult to mount an argument that the players or the club have co-operated with the investigation and respected the process, i don't see how anyone including the AFL could think reduced penalties could possible even be considered.

agreed, it needs to be remembered that these guys aren't accused of something small, they are accused of using performance enhancing drugs and leaving the integrity of the comp in ruins.

IMO, if you're provisionally suspended from the AFL you shouldn't be training in an official capacity, they shouldn't be using EFC facilities, can't really stop them from gathering somewhere else and training but if it's official and the coaches are there to me that's crossing the line.

I didn't know anything, just that Todd was at a ton of poineers games, the media had it written down as an almost certainty and that Ollie even said himself he wanted to come to the Melbourne football club and wasn't at all daunted by the challenge, thought he and Jack would play well together.

we were so strongly linked to Wines that even when Toumpas became an option it was still far from certain that we wouldn't pass on him, just seems strange we knew Wines would play from the word go, improve our list right away, was victorian so no go home factor, we'd watched him closely for months, and Todd and Jack basically raised the kid he was there that often, to me it seems like we made a reactionary call based on the hype around Toumpas and it could well prove to be one of the clubs biggest stuff ups.

you very rarely see anything from the club before the draft saying this is our preffered option, unless like last year you have picks 2 and 3 and you can reasonably confidently say who the top three players are. but we were strongly linked to Wines for months pre draft.

Which is why i feel something went totally wrong in the process, for so long we were going to take Ollie regardless of what else happened, not sure why the sudden change at the last minute.

Man Dee the essendon players are provisionally suspended while the trial goes on, this is in effect until they are cleared, clearly it's up for debate what that actually stops them doing but I was under the impression they weren't supposed to even be training officially.

Crows think danger is gone. Should have taken pick 2...

I still think Howe is a forward, in our setup he'd likely be the 5th forward and would demand the respect of his opponent making him nervous to run off, Howe and Watts should be very difficult match ups for the 4th/5th defenders

Based on what i've seen of Brayshaw i don't think there is a huge chance of him getting close to playing round 1, stretch has a better chance and i don't think he is a huge chance either, both still have a bit to learn and no doubt will need to show some good form at casey

I'm sure they will, i think even the fact they are training at the club while provisionally suspended will count against them, my opinion of provisional suspension is that it acts the same way, they shouldn't be involved in AFL footy in any capacity until they're cleared. Essendon just don't understand how serious this matter is, and don't seem to care they're treating it like a joke.

Unreal, Jeremy Cameron just said he rushed his deal because he wanted to be able to go out fishing relaxed and not worried about it. haha champion

Sounds a bit conspiracy theory ish.. but.... i don't think the AFL were ever going to let all these kids walk out of a club they're already copping heat for, the AFL will be working on getting them to stay

Something i think the club would speak about is winning a flag with melbourne after all the hard times would mean so much more than effectively selling out to get one at another club, PAV played his whole career at an average freo side and stayed loyal despite big offers, he's now gaining the chance to finish with their first every flag.

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2015-03-06/dons-banned-from-drills

I agree, and i really don't think he is going anywhere, i think his manager has stressed to him the importance of this particular contract, it's the biggest decision he will make in his career and told him to really take the time to make the right decision here, which is totally fair enough and well within his rights. i think GWS are the ones who are going to offer him way overs if anyone does, and if that happens i'm sure we'd be well compensated but it would be extremely disappointing.

Watching the replay, the whole first half the side really went away from what they have been training in terms of kicking into the 50 with purpose, it's okay to kick in high to the talls if you're in trouble or under pressure, but if you have time and space they really need to lower their eyes and hit targets which is something they have really improved over the pre season, it's just a shame they went away from that at times.

IF jeremy desides to go we aren't going to let him go cheap, from a marketing sense he offers any football club a lot, combined with his huge level of talent. if we lose Jeremy i think we will get something good back anyway so it shouldn't be a huge loss but i think he'll stay on

Positives 1. Nathan Jones keeps on keeping on. 2. Jesse Hogan on the park 3. much improved team effort 4. Vanders and Newton start well 5. Jeff and H add a lot of Zip 6. still got some strong players to come back into the side ( Vince, Howe, Watts, Trengove, Petracca ) Negatives 1. we lost 2. lacked composure 3. lapses in intensity, when we were up we were the better side. 4. some of the skill errors were awful 5. thought the umpiring was a big ordinary 6. pretty sure picket started this thread to have a dig at Toump, despite him being okay and others clearly worse.

I thought we were alot more physical than i have seen us in the past, every player seemed happy to put his head over the ball, all tackling, all chasing hard and hunting the ball, the whole team looked quicker and quite dangerous in space. and to be honest, that should be non negotiable of AFL, the fact that is a positive shows how far back we were. others have knocked the Toump again, and maybe rightly so, but personally i thought he ran really hard, laid some tackles and when he had the ball he was happy to take the game on, and he built into the game, he just needs to keep on building. Hogan smashed contests, took marks, created alot of scoring options, i can't remember a 0 game player who has been more vital to the structure of a team ever, and this isn't based on hype, it's on what we have seen the kid do. I was quite impressed with frost when he went back, to me he already offers more than what frawley did. I thought we were the better team, but Fremantle sensed our lapses and went bang, which is probably something we still need to learn, seeing when we have the momentum and making sure we impact the scoreboard as much as possible.