Jerry Lundergard

Bring on Petterd!!!

I actually would love to see Valenti in for the rest of the season, especially considering our midfield stocks are depleted. But i do question the effeciency stats. There were a few occasions when he was moving the ball on by foot, although the ball eventually got to the intended player, it didn't hit him flush on the chest(he ain't on his Pat Malone there!). To play a quick a game style of quick ball movement through hitting targets, we need to not be wasting time settling on kicks that land within a 5m radius of a free target and allow teams to get numbers back, or opposing players to close in and apply pressure.

I am glad you are not our coach.

I actually thought there was a decent number of Dees supporters at the game yesterday. It sh*ts me though when you have moron Doggies fans call up the radio and blame the bad crowd on our fans. You are 2nd on the ladder, and it's your home game, you should be able to get 30,00 of your own supporters there yourselves.

If you actually read my post, i did state what my personal preference was for Frawley. The trade was only a side note suggestion. I wouldn't want the club to shop him around, but if another club came forward with a good offer, would we not have a think about it, considering we now appear to have a bit of depth on that area?

We now have a nucleus of three tall defenders, two(Garland and Martin) of which can play on smalls and bigs. Add to that Rivers if he is ever able to get on the park again, and i am starting to wonder where Frawley might be able to squeeze in if all are fit and available. Personally, i'd like DB to maybe remove the shackles from Frawley a bit and let him play as a running half back flanker. From his first game he always seemed to enjoy taking the opposiiton on and having a dash from the backline, and although his kicking action is ungainly, he seems to hit targets. Wheatley is playing this role at the moment and he doesn't hit targets as often as he should, so it could be worth a try. I feel we really lack a bit of pace running the ball out of the backline breaking the lines. Of course the other option is putting him up as trade bait, weren't the Saints keen on him at the draft and again last year? It would seem a waste of our first round draft pick be a depth player, but he is still young and will improve, so i will take the abuse i will receive on that point also.

I caught the tail of someone calling up the afternoon show on SEN today to say that he had some mail from a real estate agent that Jeff White is putting his house up for sale and heading for retirement to the Gold Coast. Could be a load of shite, but this guy had no real motive to call up with that kind of info, so there may be some truth in it. Retirement may be imminent.

Don't you mean yes then?

6. Garland 5. Martin 4. Dunn 3. Bruce 2. Johnson 1. Green

Safe as a House. Garland - Goes without saying, the kid is a gun already. Martin - On his performance today you can't help but get excited about him. Give him the rest of the season for sure. C.Johnson - Like many, i thought he was gone. But there is no reason why he should not play out the rest of the season. Wonamaerri - Our leading goalkicker so far, no way he will be dropped. Dunn - Improving every week as our no.1 tagger, and should continue with this improvement for the rst of the year. Warnock - Gives his all against some tough opponents every week, and should be retained for the last 7 to continue to forge a good bond with our other young backmen. Miller - A fantastic resurgent effort this year and will hopefully continue with his good form onward. Bate - No reason to drop Bater. He is turning into a more consistent performer every week. Jones - Although i am not always happy with his disposal, his age, effort and our lack of depth through his position gets him a game every week. Bruce - Obvious choice. An experienced and consistent leader of the club. Green - See above. Anyone not mentioned IMO may not be safe. I would like our rucks to be, but they have White breathing down their necks, so one bad game could see them tipped out. Morton i would love see play out the year, but he is still seeming to lack confidence, and the shher size of the boy counts against him. Sylvia and Juice need consistency with effort and play. Wheatley on stats alone should be in, but he turns it over a heap. I'd love Buckley to stay in, but he seems to get dropped back for accountability issues. Whelan and Bell may have the likes of JMac and Pettard to contend with and Bartram and Valenti both have dispoal issues which need to be addressed and may see them in the gun as well.

I must admit i am quite surprised and impressed by essendons resurgence of late, and good on Matthew Knights for sticking it up all he detractors after the beltings they were copping earlier in the season. However, i beleive we are in a better position than the Bombers in terms of a rebuild, simply because we are developing a new spine, whilst half of Essendons spine are still carrying a their young team, and will most likely be gone in 2 years time. Look at last night for example, 9 goals between Lloyd and Lucas, while Fletcher still holds down a key defensive post. Now i know Bombers supporters will throw names at me like Nash and Ryder and say these players will be ready to go when the others leave, but they won't have had the two or three years of experience actually being the main man in the gun in a KP role like some of our guys would have. And as they win more games, they ate less llikely to be in position to draft the best new talent.

I actually think Bell would be a good matchup for Hahn, who is one of their most important and players and sets their physical tone for the match. Bell needs to have the acid put on him to go out and match that physicality of Hahn and curb his influence. You would think with Bell being in the postion that he is in would relish an opportunity like that.

I have read many people talking about the upside of Nat, that he will learn the game and develop into a superstar, he hasn't been playing for very long, etc.. My personal take on it, is that Watts is the player who has more upside. My reasoning? If you can remember from last years carnival, Nat was such a standout that Carltons head recruiter actually stated that if Nat had have been available he would have drafted him over Kreuzer. Now a year on, a year further into his development, and many have question marks over whether he should be taken at No.1. Did he just look better last year due to the quality of player around him such as Morton, Masten and Palmer? Now Watts is a kid who grew playing basketball for Sandringham, helping them win an U/14 national club championship and then advancing on to elite training squads such as the AIS. He has only just started playing TAC footy(instead of school footy for Brighton Grammer), and to my knowledge didn't participate in any elite football squads before this year. Now he decides he wants football to be his No.1 priority(Can you beleive he wouldn't want to play in the NBL? ), and he rolls out for Vic metro playing as a key foward and wins the player of the carnival. Now i stated in another post that i grew up playing and watching basketball at a decent level, and athletes like Natanui are a dime a dozen in the hoops world, but it doesn't mean you can play the game. I don't beleive that Nat is definitely in that camp, but to me he is a bigger risk than Watts. Watts will be a gun and has huge upside, he's our man.

Just finished watching the game and i would still take Watts with our first pick. He had terrible delivery today and WA players seemed to dropping back in front of his space all game, he had limited one on one contests, or leading opportunities. He did take a couple of nice pack grabs and also competed to bring the ball to ground, seems to time his jumps very well. I still beleive his upside is huge due to his body development, and the fact basketball has been his No.1 sport up until recently. Natanui is obviously freak athlete, but i was not completely sold on him. When you grow up playing and watching basketball you see freak athletcism on a regular basis, it doesn't always translate to being a good player. For me, Nat may fall under this catergory. Rich was sensational early, but floated out of the game when checked more closely. So if he is clearly not a standout, then the KP player is the one i would go for. Other players that impressed me were Hurley, Banner and Vickery.

In: Morton, Frawley Out: McLean, Davey As much as i love Garland as key backman and look forward to seeing him there in the future years, this could be a good game to experiment with Garland down forward or on a wing/HF. The Bulldogs rotate alot of players through their forward line, so we need to have some versatile backmen who can play on bigs and smalls which Martin and Frawley can do, but which may leave Warnock without a matchup if they go small. Garland is probably the perfect matchup for Murphy, who has always played well against us, even when we were beating them, so if we went this way we would definitely have one defender too many. I'd like to see Dunn have a crack at Cooney. One of the 3 best mids in the competetion this year, and we want Dunn to put the clamps on the oppositions best midfield player week in, week out.

Davey has a history of getting injured against the Bulldogs, so i am happy to see him sit this one out.

A panel will give their votes at the end of the season. Games played has no bearing as Mark Murphy won a couple of years ago, even though he only played about half a season after the Lions stitched him up.

He knows he has 5 on the bench, he can't figure out who to drop. Isn't it interesting that we have only won 2 games, but we are struggling to find players to drop. Especially when you consider potentially we have the likes of McLean, Rivers, Moloney, Petterd, Grimes, Frawley, Morton, Newton, Marric and even Jeff White all pushing for selection when fit.

I was going to post a similar thing. We are a much improved team over the last 8 weeks(Saints game excepted), and i think the stats would look far more favourably for us in this period.

You will never ever question his courage in putting his body on the line for the team, i can tell you that much. If you can get a copy of his debut game against the Swans, that should get you excited.

Paul Cahill from SA looks like a good tall as well. Good overhead and great speed.

There surley would have been a a couple of thousand more people tempted to sign on the back of Jimmy as well, but maybe thought they would cool their jets till next season when they can reap the benefits from buying a full membership. I am convinced we will be pushing up toward 32,000 next season.

Going into next season, the only elder, experienced players left playing regular footy for us might be Bruce, Green, Wheatley with JMac and Whelan aslo possibilities. That is not many. You still need some experience in your team for some guidance and support for the younger ones, and as i would no longer like to see any of our young players traded, and with more coming into our team via the draft, i am proposing a trade free off-season. Let DB continue to work with this current list of players, as the improvement it is beginning to show, andwill only improve over the summer with the continued development of our much written about younger crop of players.

Don't forget about Ricky Petterd too Mike.

Might be a bit early in his career to go with this but it i'll go with Colin Garland. I reckon if we played him foward he would kick goals, or he could play off a wing.