Now let's be entirely honest....

[Mr Magoo]

I don't think the "brutally honest" comment was directed at you. See post #9.

You are correct.

As for not travelling that flash . Simply put - we are travelling okay but for one issue - our ability to convert goals. Do that and we win against adelaide and melbourne, and we kill the teams you mention and who would have known what would have happenned in the carlton games and the hawthorn game etc where in the periods where we dominated we just didnt put the result on the board. Not saying we definitely would have won those games but pressure and momentum are wonderful things in football and if a team is 30 points down rather than 13 points in a period where we have dominated in the game the comeback is never as easy.

Im not trying to put my head in the sand and pretend that we have the greatest team in the league but we probably deserve to be where we sit on the ladder. We wont challenge the front runners IMO because :
1.Structurally our forward line doesnt seem to be quite "clicking".
2. Our centre half forward for all his promise is yet to really hurt anyone where it matters on the scoreboard.
3. Goodes will never be the dominant full forward type and doesnt hurt teams as much playing up front and is better rotated through the midfield where he can hurt teams.
4. We have no one at the moment that you want to have the ball in their hands in front of goals. Every team needs a player (or two ) that whenever they take the ball inside fifty you can virtually pencil in a goal.
4. For all its culture, our team does not yet truly believe it is a contender. Deep down against the best teams they dont seem to have that overriding condfidence that they have the goods to beat the top teams.
5. Our top tier midfielders are not consistent enough across four quarters of every game.
6. We still seem to look to not lose ruck contests rather than win them.

How do we fix our forward problems - if I knew that I wouldnt be sitting in my office writing this. At the moment most of our key position forwards are very young and inexperienced (white , everitt, reid, tdl). Some arent performing as was hoped, some are performing but still not dominating where it matters, some musnt be performing to how the coaches want them to and some are clearly not cut out for key position roles. That leaves us with a quandry in the forward line that i can only imagine horse and his coaches are constantly trying to find a solution to.
As for the midfield , well they just need to perfrom consistently and this is either a fitness issue or a mind issue or both. They can do it, they have shown it at times in games but they also have shown terrible lapses when we seem to lose clearance after clearance for a period of time or even a whole quarter. That IMO is just mental attitude and belief.
Are any of the reserves players the answer - I doubt it. None of them have come in apart from reid and really shown a propensity to dominate at senior level. Maybe this is a maturity thing and maybe its a confidence thing but these guys need to look at how reid , johnson ,hannebery (and even smith before that ) go about it. All have looked to be confident and valuable contributors from the moment they entered senior football.

[Bloody Hell]

My main point was not missing the eight at all, I was musing that missing the eight would afford us to realise where we really sit in the scheme of things, but seeing as you wish to be brutally honest are you saying we are travelling flash? How about the fact we have fallen in, in most of our games that we won, indeed against the teams below us, 1 point vs North, a lucky draw in the end vs Melbourne after we let it slip, Richmond again, and Port we took an hour to get on top against a rabble then kicked away! Brisbane a brilliant half and a lack lustre one. West Coast and Dons probably our best wins.

My comments were geared mainly to structures and selection I see serious issues with both.

I don't think the "brutally honest" comment was directed at you. See post #9.

[BSA5]

For some reason I always remember the Goodes knee injury as a Rd 1 game against Hawthorn. I know this is completely incorrect (Rd 1 wasn't even against the Hawks that year), but I just can't help but think of the incident in that context. I really need to go back and watch some footage to reset my memory of it.

[Rob-bloods]

I have been watching from the sidelines and would hardly say your comments are brutally honest. Brutal honesty is telling someone the truth that they dont want to see. All you have done so far is push the point that somehow we are better off not being in the eight and that playing finals is not somehow good for player development. I believe that a majority of people would disagree with these two points.

Brutal honesty might be more apt if you were saying that we are not a top eight side and that our current position on the ladder flatters but I think you would be struggling to back this up with any hard evidence considering that we havent lost to anyone except for adelaide below us on the ladder.

Brutal honesty might be stating that we dont seem to have many a graders compared to top four teams and we need to develop them to really contend for a premiership and the only way to get a whole group of a graders might be to drop out for a few years to the tale of the ladder and hope that we pick the right draftees. But considering that this hasnt yet provided the panacea to a premiership , you could argue that this is not brutal honesty but mere opinion.

IMO the brutal honesty this year is that Collingwood and Geelong are that far above everyone else at this point in time that it would be difficult to see anyone else winning the premiership. Is it worth bottoming out as a result? I hardly see the value when GWS will get the pick of the draft for the next two years and unless you bottom right out its hardly better value finishing 9th or 10th rather than in the bottom of the eight - so what you get picks 15 or 16 rather than 12 or 13. Is that really worth missing finals for?

My main point was not missing the eight at all, I was musing that missing the eight would afford us to realise where we really sit in the scheme of things, but seeing as you wish to be brutally honest are you saying we are travelling flash? How about the fact we have fallen in, in most of our games that we won, indeed against the teams below us, 1 point vs North, a lucky draw in the end vs Melbourne after we let it slip, Richmond again, and Port we took an hour to get on top against a rabble then kicked away! Brisbane a brilliant half and a lack lustre one. West Coast and Dons probably our best wins.

My comments were geared mainly to structures and selection I see serious issues with both.

[On-Baller]

It wasn't 2003 he won a Brownlow playing in the ruck that season

Ah yes i stand corrected,it of course was 2004 after he did a knee injury in the ruck against WCE early in the season and it was feared he had done his posterior or anterior knee ligament.

That was the injury that prompted Roos to say Goodes would never play ruck ever again.

[Doctor]

Other than the bit about playing finals, because I think it's important for a team to play finals as often as they can, I agree with a lot of Rob-bloods' original post. Reid looks like he needs a rest or a spell in the ressies to get his confidence back. Goodes is obviously physically incapable of playing a full game in midfield anymore otherwise he'd be there wouldn't he? I'm a huge Jetta fan but he needs to do what he can do more often. I realise that he's the kind of player who will drift in and out of games and we need to allow him to do that but he needs to have more of a consistent impact when he is involved. We need a lot more from O'Keefe too though. That miss in the last quarter was unforgivable. His disposal generally has been way down on what we'd expect and he can't use his groin injry as an excuse any more.

[Triple B]

He hurt his knee in 2004 v West Coast.

I remember because I was on an Alaskan cruise listening on the net at US$15 an hour. And the $ was at about 60c ... lol

[ugg]

It wasn't 2003 he won a Brownlow playing in the ruck that season

[On-Baller]

Have always wondered about Goodes returning to CHB,not sure which season it was but maybe 2003 when Adam had some knee issues and had trouble moving off a straight line so was played at CHB for half a season and absolutely dominated,i remember a game down at Skilled stadium in particular where he was just unstoppable.

[Melbourne_Blood]

We had a pretty poor patch around this time last year ( maybe a bit later in the season ) and everyone from the media, to other teams supporters, to our own supporters ( including me) wrote us off, but we turned it around and finished off the year strongly. I think we can do the same this year.

[Mr Magoo]

I have been watching from the sidelines and would hardly say your comments are brutally honest. Brutal honesty is telling someone the truth that they dont want to see. All you have done so far is push the point that somehow we are better off not being in the eight and that playing finals is not somehow good for player development. I believe that a majority of people would disagree with these two points.

Brutal honesty might be more apt if you were saying that we are not a top eight side and that our current position on the ladder flatters but I think you would be struggling to back this up with any hard evidence considering that we havent lost to anyone except for adelaide below us on the ladder.

Brutal honesty might be stating that we dont seem to have many a graders compared to top four teams and we need to develop them to really contend for a premiership and the only way to get a whole group of a graders might be to drop out for a few years to the tale of the ladder and hope that we pick the right draftees. But considering that this hasnt yet provided the panacea to a premiership , you could argue that this is not brutal honesty but mere opinion.

IMO the brutal honesty this year is that Collingwood and Geelong are that far above everyone else at this point in time that it would be difficult to see anyone else winning the premiership. Is it worth bottoming out as a result? I hardly see the value when GWS will get the pick of the draft for the next two years and unless you bottom right out its hardly better value finishing 9th or 10th rather than in the bottom of the eight - so what you get picks 15 or 16 rather than 12 or 13. Is that really worth missing finals for?

[Sauce]

The majority on the site didn't agree with you, suck it up and move on. Or close the browser.

They don't agree with me because i am brutally honest. I have learnt that a footy fan hates it when his club is being attacked or being told some blunt truths..they hate it.

So suck it up.

[magic.merkin]

Oh no you are so negative, i mean how could you deny the kids a chance to play in the finals!111!!! I mean how pathetic that we don't aim for at least top 8 and give the kids a chance to play a real finals contender and get walloped..thats just isn't what AFL footy is about!11!!111!

BTW i was being sarcastic - i started a thread about not playing finals this year and i was smacked from pillar to posts by the old RWO firm.

The majority on the site didn't agree with you, suck it up and move on. Or close the browser.

[Doctor J.]

Oh no you are so negative, i mean how could you deny the kids a chance to play in the finals!111!!! I mean how pathetic that we don't aim for at least top 8 and give the kids a chance to play a real finals contender and get walloped..thats just isn't what AFL footy is about!11!!111!

BTW i was being sarcastic - i started a thread about not playing finals this year and i was smacked from pillar to posts by the old RWO firm.

Build a bridge Pie'n. So what, not everyone agrees with you. You know what, thats life!

[Sauce]

I really hate to say this but it might be better that we don't make the eight because we might just think we are more advanced than we really are.

Oh no you are so negative, i mean how could you deny the kids a chance to play in the finals!111!!! I mean how pathetic that we don't aim for at least top 8 and give the kids a chance to play a real finals contender and get walloped..thats just isn't what AFL footy is about!11!!111!

BTW i was being sarcastic - i started a thread about not playing finals this year and i was smacked from pillar to posts by the old RWO firm.