Pirlo

Let's just hope this year is a step backwards (albeit a large one) for two steps forward. We're woefully underprepared for the rule changes, and that doesn't change. Leg speed and natural crumbers will be the order of the day when it comes trade time. Unfortunately, we have nobody of real use to trade so will need to hope for a JT first round special.

Went to the second half of the Tiges game after our game today. They will rip us apart with their leg speed, and will use their entries well with Riewoldt coming back. I've been to the four game in Vic this year, including down to Geelong, and broken my longstanding rule around avoiding replacement bus services at all costs. Wednesday night, PH the next day, trains back on...I'm seriously considering not going. We are a side bereft of confidence, belief, leadership, guts, and instruction at the moment. Everything that could go wrong seems to be going wrong. I'm sure I'll be roped back in by next Wednesday, [censored] that I am, so here are my changes. Out: Wagner, Wagner, Spargo, Hibberd In: O.McDonald, Stretch, Garlett, Kolodjashnij Hibberd is absolutely bang out of form. We know he's better than this. He needs to sort it out. He is costing us every time he brings it out the back 50. J.Wagner was ok but we have too many of his type at the moment. C.Wagner was abysmal. The less said about Spargo, the better. Stretch and KK aren't perfect, but we need two way runners and hopefully they'll play that role.

People ITT haven't watched him much. He's a Heeney clone in an inferior team. He would be perfect for us, but won't leave GCS and good on him for it.

May and Lewis are both back, right?

A three year extension was too long.

It is a genuine indictment on this club that fans can watch our players start the season so complacently and preach patience because "the players and coach are hurting too". That's the kind of rubbish we stood by for about a decade before we got serious under Jackson and Roos. I will be patient, happily, because most teams that make a deep finals run for the first time take a step back the next year. Teams figure them out and start paying more attention. But this start to the year isn't normal. This is far more than one step back. Three quotes stood out to me yesterday: A.Brayshaw: "Unfortunately some of our players aren't buying in and coming back to help defend" Lewis: "I think May would look back at the way he arrived at the club and wouldn't be happy with it" Goodwin: "We're going to try and turn this around" Would this kind of defeatist language have happened under Roos or Jackson? How could our recruiting team not realise that Steven May has dreadful standards before they signed him up on a high priced deal and, if there were concerns in his medical, why would they not have given him an off-season exercise plan? Brayshaw literally accused his teammates of downhill skiing after the game - does that symbolise a united playing group? For all the fugazi about the boys loving Goody so much, why has the top-down consistency that Jackson established eroded so quickly? Why have our players forgotten how to play football? Why are they putting in so little effort that two senior players blasted them for it on the same day? Goodwin insisted after the Cats game that we are not underdone, so what's the excuse? Where the [censored] are our captains in all of this? I'm just not confident in the culture of this club at the moment, and I never once had that concern under PJ and Roos.

Extended for three to make four. I agree he shou;dn't be in any danger yet, but what say we finish bottom four? And start next year the same way? The club can't afford to pay him out. Our financial position is built on six careful years of the Jackson administration slowly building modest profits. Talk of 70k is ludicrous, let alone the 50 they wanted this year. We have only reached 45 and that's coming off a prelim.

Why did we need to give him a four year deal? What was the rush?

He's a hopeless orator. Uses the kind of cliches that coaches insisted on using 10 years ago and offers absolutely no analysis beyond "we have to get better". That's a direct bloody quote from tonight. When we lost games like this under Roos, you felt like he was able to deflect media attention away and talk about areas that we needed to lift.

His decision to give Goodwin a three year extension on the eve of the season is just another in the long list of erratic captain's calls that saw him sacked at the Pies.

Nail on the head

So Jones and Viney are both unfit and missed most of the pre-season, but Jack gets a rest and Jones has to slog it at Casey. Right. Ok.

Out: Frost, Hore In: May, Stretch

Laughable overreaction

He was actually okay aside from that insidious drop that ended the game for us. I don't see anyone in the reserves that would do a better job than him, and he's far away from first in line to be dropped.

Jack Viney ran like Jack Trengove today. I fear for his foot, I really do.

The article in The Age suggests that Hogan has had mental health issues since what happened last year, and it certainly explains his dip in form after Queen's Birthday this season. Will miss him dearly, and feel like we were short changed (giving back pick 55 is a kick in the teeth), but its clear the club was hamstrung by a young man desperate to go home and decided that May was the man to bring in as a replacement tall.

That's what worries me. If he'd said from the start that they wouldn't be negotiating until after the CBA, then that's fine. As things stand, they've been at it for a few months and either the club aren't fronting the money (unlikely) or he just doesn't think he wants to stay.

I reckon he'll go, sadly, and have thought so for some time. Its the risk of drafting interstate players, not that the Bleeding Hearts who support Freo/WCE will admit (but, but, but we lost Dylan Roberton ). The narrative of "talking", "maybe negotiating" and "putting off talks" has been seen too many times and rarely works with the exception of players like Cloke who are openly after a payday that their clubs aren't willing to offer until they have to. Two things have led me to think this: He can write his own cheque here, for as many years as he wants. His manager referencing the reforming CBA is a positive, but then could also be the most convenient excuse for a person in the snake oil industry that is AFL player management. Every time he's been asked whether he likes Melbourne, he never really answers yes. I asked him two years ago whether he missed Perth/preferred Melbourne and he pretty much point blank said he missed and preferred Perth but likes Melbourne. At this stage, I think we're going to need a massive, massive year and to make finals - or he'll ask Mahoney to trade him. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy who'll hold us to ransom; loves the club for what it is and will drive a fair price for his own head. I just reckon he'd rather be surfing in Scarborough on his days off, rather than heading up to Torquay every six weeks and hanging out in the city when training is off. Club comes first every time, but if we go backwards/Goodwin ends up being poor - we could see repeats of 2008 doomsday scenarios :(. Lets just hope he does re-sign, and that Weideman is bloody good.

I'm as big a fan of his as any, but sometime you need to put your foot down and say that his attitude isn't good enough. Problem is he knows he has us by the balls, because he can leave and we need him to stay. Also, we beat Geelong without him.

Very encouraging, how Maxy went today, but one swallow doesn't make a summer. If he keeps on chipping away in the VFL and gets some form behind him then maybe, but Stewart is looking very comfortable at AFL level already.

With Patton still pencilled a spot at GWS, how about James Stewart as that resting ruck option? 21 years old, 198cm, can kick a goal.

I thought the Toumpas vs Wines debates were just parodying the ridiculous nature of judging a kid before he matures. Now it seems that they're authentic. 19 ... years ... old

People forget he's 20 years of age. It's amazing.

G'day guys, I post a fair bit on BigFooty but am in an exams period and found the temptation to stray from Demons talk too hard to resist. The board there, aside from the Dees board, is obviously rubbish - so I'm looking forward to contributing here until my final exam and beyond!