Deecisive

gratz to Jack, his a nice guy wish him luck.

Does look a likely lad

if Jack was running 6th in our b&F after 14 or so rounds, can someone tell me how long has Jack been in the rut for!

i would love to know if we can get to the point where we can get stats on players conversion rate of opportunities. for instance how often the ball was kicked to jack or his area and how often he got it/lost out. It would be a better stat than just kicks etc, it also comes down to realization of opportunities into worthwhile stats.

seems that many think Watts should go because he is not a chaser or a tackler hard at the football. Then how do you reconcile this with the way Hogan plays. his approach to football seems to centre solely on the marking contest. If he marks up the ground his always very slow to move the ball on and once oppositions spoil his mark he tends to sit back and watch more so than seriously chase and tackle. Today was a hectic pace game lots of tackling etc. one of the things that stood out to me was the marking inside richmonds forward line and their goal kicking both of these jack does.

the only concern i have with going after lever is that we will be paying him big $'s, then in the next few years we will have others throwing big $'s at Hogan and Trac, Hunt, etc. which means we have to offer them big $'s to keep them.

i for one will be disappointed to lose Watts, yes he is hot and cold but i think his kicking in the forward line both at goals and to our players is the best in the team. He obviously has not shone as many would have wanted a number 1 draft pick but I think he provides better value in our forward line than Kent and many others. Part of the problem with Jack is our delivery too him is often not the best, or his leads are not honored. It will be disappointing to see him putting playing against us.

the afl will let him play, they will say he was going for the ball, accident. To me he turned his shoulder into the GWS player and hit him high which left the GWS one very good player short all game. I also thought there was another gws player whitfield perhaps who got a bit of a elbow or shoulder to the head in the last quarter i wonder if that will also get looked at.

so when was the last time we were on the winning end of a trade with collingwood.... i dont think swapping Weid for a possible pick 6 even if it was offered would result in a good outcome for the Dees. Keep the boy and let him grow into the man/player we all hope he can be. no point starting again with another youngster and being another 1 or 2 years behind in development.

something like 3m tonnes of explosives dropped, about 20% of the population destroyed. I read somewhere that there have been a number of treaties between NK and the west and that at least 3 of those had been broken by the US, who failed to live up to their end of the bargain. Given the current climate where the current US president rips up agreements, trade deals at his leisure can you trust anything the US does at this time.

i thought one of the articles said that lever had been on $300k and the crows had offered him more but he still saw this as a low ball price.

Nothing is certain in football when it comes to trading. Hogan going home would depend primarily on if he wants to be traded back to WA. if he does the club will do what they can to extract what value they can out of the deal. There are very very few footballers on our list that are untouchable.

why would we not just take freo's pick 5 for Hogan and maybe swap some other back end picks, as he is worth more than just pick 5 as he is an established mature talent that lifts their side immediately. We then give adelaide our pick 10 and our second round pick.

A lot of sense in what you say oh bearded one, yes when you kick it forward in a hurry you take your chances, if you have more of your players around the ball then chances are the opposition will have more players ahead so the greater the chance of turn overs. I think people accept that is part of our game plan. I think what burns most supporters is the pitiful handpasses that dont hit a target 2 meters away. Or the dumb kicks and poorly executed foot passes that we see far too often, Hunt for instance running and bouncing, running and bouncing and then shanking the kick direct to an opposition player standing by himself, which results in a rebound goal. or the regular 'bernie' kick in the backline that inevitably results in facepalms from coaches and supporters everywhere. We need players with a real competitive spirit like Viney and Oliver, guys who battle all day long. we have too many players who will sit back and not run the extra 10-20meters to put pressure on a player, because they have already given up and figured it is not worth the effort. So if the opposition player fumbles or drops the mark we have no one there to pressure them. The sides I think play the best brand of football make you earn every kick, mark, goal or point, if you make a mistake, drop a mark, bobble the ball then they buried you. A lot of our players try to corral the opposition instead of attacking them, yes it probably is better percentage football but putting pressure on all the time may mean next time they opposition player may fumble because he knows he will get pressured by any nearby melbourne player. We are not that competitive as yet, i hope that some day we will be.

having numbers around the ball up's results in 1 meter handpasses as we everyone tries to pass it to someone under less pressure. We often have an extra around the ball and allow opposition players to play an extra back of two. So when we inevitably kick short out of the pack we usually find one of these spare opposition players cleaning up and turning our attack into their attack. we have too many instances where we kick into an outnumbered forward line.

i want players who want to try every time they run out onto the field, kent does not strike me as that and even hannan goes missing too often. These guys are paid a heck of a lot of money to play football, they dont realise how fragile that future is, if they dont put in they will lose their career and possibly millions of $'s for a half decent footballer with a 10 year career.

if we got the right offer he would be traded, it would be irresponsible not to consider any trade that benefits the club.

Start of the season with a highly billed revenge match between the dees and the pies, I would hope that this would see the player come out and start the season off with a bang not a whimper like they did after Jimmy died. I want to see real intensity in tackling, some of best side I have ever seen playing AFL always kept pressure on the ball carrier at all times, if they slipped or made a mistake they were gone. Our game plan seems to be corral them and box them in rather than attack so if they slip or make a mistake we arent always there to take advantage.

I just hope that this extremely close lose kicking us out of the finals makes the players think about how every goal can be important throughout the year, and that they remember not to get ahead of themselves, and lose to bottom teams.

a good idea, though i think that at least once a week after training between now every player has to sit down watch the replay of that last game, i know i replay it in my head often enough.

Tom forward, he kicks straight at the goals and his turnover at that end of the ground are not so bad. Melksham wing or half forward he has kicked a few goals when sent forward l would like to see him get more time there. Bernie maybe forward, if at all, when he gets the ball forward he has a decent long kick, again like tom reduce his turnovers that cost us goals. I would like to see Frost back in the back line, i think he adds a bit or run there, given a bit more time i think he will only get better. Trac more time in the midfield, his a big bodied lad who can make a difference.

The free kick count in favour of the eagles got them into the finals. I wonder if the would even have won if the umpiring had been a little more consistent for both sides.

Hot Pies and cold demons seasons over. time to concentrate on fixing what needs fixing. That includes who we draft, who we trade and who we get rid of. Players desperately need to improve their skills. Think up more appropriate training programs i.e. every time our players are meant to run they should do so at full pace bouncing a ball, or handpassing back and forth at tilt and then trying to do an accurate kick or handpass at the end. Practice spreading out when we go forward so we are not in one big clump. More practice tackling and learning to do it right, practice breaking tackles, practice kicking instead of handballs all the time, practice chasing i.e. give a player the ball and get him to run 30m with somone on his hammer chasing him.

I cannot see anyone giving a first round pick for a couple of demon also rans.

we seriously lack depth, having said that we have often been our own worst enemies in games, kicking it directly to the opposition, fumbling, failing to lay tackles, giving away dumb free kicks and 50 meters, etc.. If we could improve our skills and kicking/marking and tacking efficiency, i would suggest we would win a lot more games than we currently do. Turnover costs us biggly all year. maybe a lot more effort has to focus on our skills, and training under greater pressure so that players get use to it.