Dees2014

Me too. Would have preferred Dunn. Must have been a close one.

We have a fantastic opportunity this year because of our relatively easy first half. By mid year we could be firmly in the eight, then I think 50k could become possible. Time to wake up all those dormant Dee's supporters on a wave of early season success.

One of those moral dilemmas I would have thought. i would suggest they are more than welcome as long as they are current Essendon player, not the 34. That I think will make the point without bein confrontational.

I would believe that if we could detect any sceric of contrition from Essendon, and more transparency on what actually went on. Heppel sounded very like Hird when he last appeared on 360 when Whateley demolished him. The same pat lines about "we never took anything illegal" but could not say what they took. Facing reality they are not. Until they do, they will never be able to move on from this saga.

Try iview online - you can replay it anytime.

I'm surprised that we are surprised. Four Corners, which incidentally IMHO did and excellent job with this story, made it very clear the players (and their parents) were systematically mislead by Essendon from beginning to end. In a sense it is even more morally reprehensible than the systematic drug cheating itself - clearly they were prepared to gamble on the long term health of these young men when they should have been in their physical prime, and then they were more than happy to cover it up in order to save their skins....... And they are still at it. Time for another round of ASADA infraction notices me thinks, but this time target the real culprits. i understand WADA feel most of their objectives have been met, and don't feel they can afford financially another round of going after the real cheats, given their busy (and expensive year) coming up at Rio, and in additional sports such as Tennis and Athletics. I understand they feel they have made their point very successfully with Essendon. They also feel that when the likes of Hunter are successful, that the raft of litigation which follows will catch the real culprits - the AFL, Essendon and Hird in the legal netting. Lets hope so....

Can't see how they could be left out. Likewise ASADA, WADA and CAS. Should be interesting. Blow the whole scandal apart I suspect. It is such fertile ground as there are still so many unanswered questions which the guilty parties never want answered.

I sympathise with your sentiments, but the fact remains we have done nothing yet of distinction on the field - plenty off but not yet on. When we do which I expect for most of this year (I'm predicting a top 6 finish), it will be all the sweeter to see these so call experts eat their words, although with some of them, don't bank on it!

Yes as we saw at Geeling, they do work well together, and it also allows us to have another strong marking forward to help Jesse when Max rests up forward. There were also occasions last year when Jake showed considerable agility around the ground for a big man which was good to see. I think having Max AND Jake in the same team considerably strengthens it in many areas, particularly now there are limited rotations.

Quite agree. And I have posted accordingly on the Guardian site.

Can I give a view from a PR perspective. I think it was quite smart of the club to trot JH out at this stage. 1. he had a poor last NAB cup game and needed to "clear the air"; 2. he had been under attack from one of the club's all time great forwards, appropriately, with considerable wit, defended himself and if anything added to his attractiveness as a footballer; and 3. speculation continues as to his future, and he managed not only to clarify his thinking, but at the same time declare his excitement about the club and his commitment to it. Well handled by the club and Hogan I would say.

Yes, it was definitely stated (words to the effect): "tune in next week for the inside story of the greatest scandal in Australian spirt - Essendon Bombers" on the ABC, that can only be our Tracy, unless saner lights like Gerard Whateley over rule her power as executive sports producer on ABC news and current affairs. I fear the worst...

"Four Corners" next week could be interesting. According to the ABC promotion, it is "a rare insiders view of the greatest scandal in Australian sport". Wonder if our Tracy is the source again? If she is, it will be the lowest ebb in the very distinguished history of Four Corners. Let's hope they are not so stupid.

Well I was mostly agreeing with you, except perhaps your comment that the Ox was mostly on the money. I think his comments were at best unhelpful, at worst mischievous. I tend to agree with OD - media driven for headlines. I don't think that can be described as "on the money"

I think we need to be realistic about this. The kid is only early 20s, played 20 odd games, and attracts media attention which only the AFL elite get. It is a lot of pressure for a young guy, and he seems to be handling it admirably. The Club also should be commended in this. They say they want him to concentrate on being a better footballer, and that after all is where it should be at. From his news conference, I would say he is being well advised as to how to handle the media, and has sense enough to follow it, unlike Tom Scully. Hogan seems like a quality kid. Let's all get behind him, win more than we lose this year, and make the club so exciting and admired, he won't want to leave. Comments from ex players like the Ox do not help this. He should know better, but unfortunately it is reality in the hothouse world of AFL journalism. JH will just have to learn to live with it, which he seems to be doing very well. So nice to have a professionally run, smart club for a change. The contrast with the Neeld era could not be greater.

I agree. I am a huge fan of Bernie, he is absolutely critical to our success as he is so so talented. My only reservation is I notice this year he appears to be not at all as fluent in his kicking style as he has been in the past. Almost forced. As one of the best kicks in the side normally, I hope this is not an issue.

I think this talk about hogan on one game is a bit ridiculous. He has proved himself to be a very savvy footballer and even yesterday he did some very clever things. We need to understand that young guys are going to have off days, but I would rather they have them in the NAB CUP than in the season proper. He will be great for us. I have no doubt. Remember, he is much much more likely to sign if he thinks we will be successful. We are a long way to that now!

Watching GWS today, I would be hugely surprised if we were troubled by them. The last thing we want is complacency, but our talent should ring through...

I think we should all relax and celebrate three wins in a row. A win next week, and in the season proper against GWS and the appalling Dons, make it six. My guess is that has not been achieved for ten years. Enjoy and celebrate. Roos will deliver.

Yes Cards, one of the things I really liked about the Grimes game is he constantly pumped the ball into the forward line at the top of the square. It resulted directly in two goals, one from Van, and the other from Pederson. Let's hope it continues, as there was not much consistency in that field apart from that. I think Grimes might be a real plus for us this year.

Whilst it was more than encouraging that we won on Saturday, and won well, there were a few holes in our game plan. To me, the most worrying was the way we are using, or not, the sublime skills of one Jesse Hogan. Some might say he had an off day, but I think it was more how we used him. After watching the video several times, time and again we bombed it into the forward line with little system which certainly did not use hogan's skills to great effect. More than one occasion he expressed his frustration to his team-mates. I think there will be essentially three reasons why Hogan will resign: 1. he is convinced we can win a premiership in the next 5 years 2. he feels he can achieve optimum personal development by staying the the demons, and 3. he is competitively compensated. i would suggest, even if we get 1 & 3 right, if our game plan does not include Hogan as an integral part, we will be looking for a new full forward in 2018. By these comments I am certainly not suggesting Hogan should be the central plank of our game plan - no one person is bigger than the team, and there has been no suggestion whatsoever that Hogan himself thinks he is. In fact everyone who has anything to do with him says he is very very team oriented. But on Saturday, there were at lease half a dozen times when a with a little more thought, our mid fielders could have given the big forward at least some chance of marking, and no doubt ensured we would have doubled our winning margin. Anything else, is just pure waste.

Gawn was outstanding today and dramatically demonstrated how important he is going to be for us in the next ten years or so. Very very few can match him in the air, either in the ruck or round the ground and his disposal is not too shabby either. One of the interesting issues for me is how are we giong to play him when we have to conform to the 90 interchanges per game (which incidentally Port were adhering to - we had I think 135). I suspect Max will be seen much more resting down forward which begs the question how is that going to work? Pedo presumably rucking round the ground? Or maybe Frost? It certainly adds to our marking strength in the FF line. Max taking screamers in the square sounds great to me....

I disagree on John Coates. He is heavily involved in WADA and is Chairman of CAS. He is on record consistently about standing up to drug cheats and along with John Fahey, has consistently said that Essendon should take their medicine if they are found guilty by the international sport tribunals. The Olympic sports in Australia are the ones that insist on consistency in drug enforcement. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the individual sports international organisations, particularly the IAAF. I THINK Coates has done an admirable job in creating as much as possible a drugs free environment for Australian Olympics sports.

I think it is good that our young players feel free to express their desire for leadership roles. It doesn't mean they have to be granted, at least not yet. It gives Roos and Goodwin the opportunity to coach Maxy in leadership behaviours over the next couple of years which can only be a good thing.