Ted Lasso

Is it really possible that this years team could be as bad as last years was for the first 9 rounds? surely there will be some decent improvement and with such and easy draw i can't see us not winning 5 or 6 at least

No smashings, a few good wins and a couple of upset wins would be fantastic this year, Jack watts looks set for a good year!

Pay him whatever he wants! a premiership all australian quality midfielder, he would be close to a perfect get!

When you match talent with work ethic more often than not the player will prosper, in my opinion that's all neeld is doing and exactly why he got rid of some high draft picks last year.

We now have recruited quality tall forawrds, it only makes sense to go direct, get it in nice and fast for them as much as possible

B. colin garland james frawley dean terlich HB, jack watts tom mcdonald lynden dunn C, jeremy howe jack grimes sam blease HF. colin sylvia james sellar jimmy toumpas F. shannon byrnes chris dawes mitch clark Fol. mark jamar nathan jones david rodan int. jack viney matt jones james magner sub dean kent My favourite things about this side are that howe and blease drifting forward would be very difficult to match up, jack trengove on last years form will have a fight just to regain his spot given how well the mature age recruits have played so far and the back line has what i consider All Australian potential in a few of those players! Bring on round 1!

James Frawley is an absolute gun, simple as that! how many times he was our only player who beat his direct opponent last year was crazy.

if cale morton plays well at west coast i am not going to be a happy camper.

Fingers crossed for jamar and sylvia playing at their best and trengove and watts having break out years, that happens with our draw and we might give that 8th spot half a scare, any sort of improvement would be nice though

the thing i like about the dawes clark combo is they are very different, dawes will use his body more, clark can run and jump and take the ball at the highest possible point, add sellar maybe and howe to that and win lose or draw it's a headache with some good crumbing forwards like byrnes and davey around too \

I mean if he turns out to be solid but not brilliant and really only a fringe player i'd rather see them get more games into these young players but i have a feeling he and terlich will both turn out to be great pickups.

Definately worth a run, but not at the expense of a young player who needs as many games as possible without getting burned out

Totally agree, if dawes kicks 30-40 goals that's great but if he takes 1 extra defender off clark that's all i would hope for, it's another big target and a fantastic influence of a premiership winning forward on a young list and jesse hogan in particular

I honestly think Neeld is one of the better coaches in the comp, just doesn't have the list to get the wins yet, just listening to what the players say he has really changed the whole place for the better.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone here see james sellar or cam pederson in our best 22 long term?

Hahaha!

Sooo stoked to hear Trengove has his zipp back, feel like him and jack watts are set to explode in the next 2 years, and hold the key to us being able to push up the ladder

AFL Predictions: Brownlow Medal: Dane Swan Coleman Medal: Mathew Pavlich Rising Star: Brad Hill Grand Finalists: Sydney, West coast Premiers: West Coast Wooden Spoon: GWS Biggest AFL Story of the Year: Essendon peptides saga The Biggest Improvers: Carlton The Biggest Sliders: Saints MFC Predictions: B&F: James frawley Leading Goalkicker: Mitch clark & Shannon Byrnes 44 goals each Best First Year Player: Dean Terlich Most Improved: Jack Watts Final Ladder Position: 11 Biggest MFC Story of the Year: Mark Neeld re signed for 2 more years and a big free agency signing ( dale thomas, mark lecras or eddie betts )

I kinda thought at the time we had paid too much for hogan in barry, now i think he would have gone very close to pick one on what he has shown already, but also had a feeling there was a handshake deal to make sure toumpas was there at pick 4 for us, because he seemed to be a fair bit better a prospect than o'rourke from what i had read. but in keeping to the topic, i think both will be long term AFL players, but viney is a better player based on his good kicking to wines poor kicking and vineys explosive pace out of packs.

It's really hard to say what would be a pass mark for the team this year so it's really hard to know just how to judge Mark Neeld. I expect us to be a much better team in general this year, last year we weren't of an AFL standard in patches. 14 home games and an easy draw should give us a few more wins but need to be realistic. i'd say Neeld would need at least 5 wins, an obvious improvement in competitiveness and no massive floggings to be a pass but that's just me.

I consider Jack grimes to already be a strong B+ player if not A and have alot of improvement ahead of him if he stays injury free, the list has alot bigger concerns than grimes.

I wonder how many people think we payed overs for hogan now? would have been happy to fork out pick 1 for him on what i've seen.

Too many talls in the backline for my liking, really excited to see this team when they have played together abit and you throw trengove and clark back into it :D

Jeremy howe looks like he will have a big year

He came in and tried to get a team to play a gameplan that was almost the exact opposite of what they had been playing, that required more fitness than they had by a long way, it was never going to work straight away. Things did seem to be slowly coming together towards the end of the year though and he is saying all of the right things so he has me convinced he is the right man for the job. Think we might have a similar year to 2011 this year, look great in patches, horrible in others and with 5-6 rounds to go be a sneaky shot at finals but the youth of the side might keep us out.