Who are they in Navy Blue? Bentick hard at the contest, Edwards and Hartlett are young but yet to play the game, Waite has agression but misguided, Carlos has the works but means nothing when your opponent walks all over you. Scotland maybe the only one the oposition respect in this area?

We have a lot of young polished players for the future, so this draft we desperately need to recruit the hardbodied, aggresive, take no shit types for our midfield. The hard workers, no more polished outsiders or athletic types. Do this and i say our improvement will come on in leaps and bounds.

We need to turn the tables and intimidate our opposition.

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Mjonc signing off at 8888

i tend to agree, i think we have a few on our list that need to be given more confidence by the coach, edwards, andersona and hartlett. We also need kennedy busting packs open! it was good to see ackland clean up one of the blokes standing in front of fev last night, it took them half a game to realise thats what needed to be done! i thiought the forward line opened up after that!

Been saying it for years now......when you have Brown, Hall, the Scotts and others of the statue in your team it makes players walk taller.
When Baker was giving it to Murphy we needed someone to deal with him....Fev aside we dont have anyone else who can look after themself much less others.
Santy will be ok once he gets smarter and more selective about who he tries to rough up.....

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"When you have the attitude of a champion, you see adversity as your
training partner."
- Conor Gillen

Yes, agree.

Who was helping Murphy against baker last night.

Why wasn't baker pounded into the ground every time he got the ball. Sure, he might get a free or two but it sends out a message.

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Number 17 - come on down!

I don't think our hardness is an issue really, our main problem is our method of play.

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"We used to sit around and talk about how bad the game plan was." Anthony Koutoufides

The Play of the Round: an Absoloute Classic.... never seen something like it before.....


The Ball gets kicked deep into our defence, and is slowly rolling towards the boundry line..... Holihan was chasing it ( Jogging), whilst his oponent Del Santo runs past him, grabs the ball from the boundry and casually runs into an open goal and kicks it.......


I just couldnt beleieve my eyes......How soft Can u get?

My play of the night Ackland killing that bloke that sat in front on Fev to block up our forward line, there needs to be more of it!! If teams are going to do that.... early in the game get a few popped up on his head and get Kennedy ( because he is useless anyway ) or Ackland to just go up with knees and all and destroy him. Unless he is dumb he wont be there again next time.

Agree about tough blokes, we need someone to help Murphy, poor kid is being hammered by dirty taggers. What he wouldnt give to have Neck Stevens back!

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Matty Kruzer you star!

Oh my god, I couldn't believe it when I saw that passage of play... screaming 'chase him down' at the tv - but it looked like Houla gave nothing. I've been behind him ever since he joined the club, despite his demeanor being the exact opposite of the title of this thread. Alright, your not built with the Paul Kelly *swans not singer* mindset, you haven't got the balls that Teague has... as least work on polishing the parts of your game that you can highlight. With Houlihan's build and style of play, you'd think he'd put extra work into his speed and acceleration - to break the lines, avoid potential clashes *which I reckon he avoids like the plague* and chase down opponents.

I'd be interested to watch that part of the match again, see if he perhaps covered the length of the ground quickly or something, anything to point to exhaustion. I know Del Santo is a quick player, and a quick fella may not have ran him down, but to me it looked like Houla was just plain struggling.



Eddie Betts would have dragged down Del Santo's sorry ass the moment his hands touched the leather.

I think its time to get rid of "silky skills" Houlihan. Just too soft when we really need a bit of grunt - and if we are looking at "soft" players, go no further than Thornton. His pathetic attempt at a one-handed take gave up a gaol, and the less said about his "flash" 360 dergee circle then pass back into the corridor 40 metres out that gave up another said it all. How many times does he follow his opponent to the mark, fall over or just chooses the wrong option. Just as wallace gave gaspar up because he's too old, we need to get rid of the 'softies" the better. Just look at murph as an example of putting the body on the line - smaller and lighter than both the two mentioned.

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one you knock back is one you never have

You only picked out two *admittedly stupid* errors by T-Bird last night... but you don't see those sort of errors regularly come from Thornton. His 360 switch plays are a little unortho, but most of the time they come off, and he's the oldest, and most likely the coolest head in the backline. *with the exception of Lappin when he plays in defence*

Houla does a lot of very good things that must be noticed.

All he has to do is bust a gut in those situations mentioned.

Hard nuts

THORNTON, BENTICK

WIGGINS, STEVENS

EDWARDS, HARTLETT, ANDERSON, AISAKE, JACOBS

Real Hardnuts:

FEVOLA, SCOTLAND, WALKER, MURPHY, WAITE, SETANTA

Ackland and Cloke should be, but are not showing it.

Yeah we need a couple more real hardnuts; hopefully Hartlett and Edwards do some damage soon...but I think there's more to it than just that, although I agree that Murphy should have had some assistance from team mates to curb Baker's personal attack...someone should have run through him!!

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

Aside from the fact he was getting stuffed over by Baker, I reckon that with a season or two of footy behind him that Murphy will actually have sufficient mongrel about him that fools like Baker will think twice before pretending to play the tough guy.

In terms of "fly the flag" type players we do seem to have too few. Fev, Scotland, sometimes Carrots. Carlos, for sure, and T-bird rarely taks a backward step. Would be nice to have a genuine enforcer at the club, a la Jonathon Brown, who doesn't even need to do anything and you know not to mess with him.

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Hmm ok a few points to mention here:

Firstly, Houla has worked a lot on his endurance and had been running a lot prior to that and just didnt have the speed to catch him. Plus, he wasn't expecting Carlos to just follow Gehrig instead of blocking the direct path to goal. Secondly, everyone is quick to point out his faults, but no one mentions how good his delivery was on Friday night. I think every time he passed the ball to Fev it ended up being a shot on goal.

Also on the hard nuts, Simpson at least remonstrated with Baker after that incident at the end - problem was it was in the last minute of the game. We weren't physical enough at the contest and that will have to change - I dont necessarily think it means bringing in new players, these guys can show they mean business, they just have to do it.

Yeah, Simmo has a bit of fire in the belly.

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People get banned for abuse around here equivalent to a slight touch on the back with the hand , and this sort of arrant nonsense and piffle is allowed.

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"Hence you will not say that Greeks fight like heroes but that heroes fight like Greeks"?

Winston Churchill

in the past year or so, guys like Nathan Jones, Shannon Hurn, Shaun Higgins, and Andrew Raines have been drafted, all kids with a ready for football size about them, and they're the type of kids who have more guts than brains at times, jumping into packs head first etc. And yet all 4 kids can run, and all 4 of them have the skills and the engine to play 4 quarters...I'd like to see another ruckmen, or a tall midfielder (Waite, Embley type player) taken with our 2nd pick...And with the first we need a hard, gritty engine-room...a Daniel Kerr type to get the footy with Bentick, who can feed the footy out to the likes of Gibbs, Walker, Simpson, Murphy, Stevens and Houlihan....


gone are the days where we have Anthony Franchina, 'Dusty' Darren Hulme, Adrian Hickmott, Craig Bradley, Andy McKay, Fraser Brown, and Brett Ratten on our list...gosh we had some tough-nuts...

though i still believe that an elite ruckman will provide more clearances than a tough hard-ball get winner like Sam Mitchell or Daniel Cross....sure some hard bodies around the ground does make the others stand tall but having Dean Cox or Aaron Sandilands running around would have me feeling stronger and safer than Steven Baker, or The Scott's ever could.


Nic

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Cuck Follingwood

sorry about the double post guys but i just read this one again...


i'm not one to bag the boys, i got stuck into guys like Prendegast and Corey McGrath from time to time, but as much as i love Hoops, i'll never forget that moment in the Optus Oval farewell match against Melbourne when he had an all or nothing contest with i think it was Phil Read, right in front of the members wing, and he physically stood back from the contest in order not to take the hit, Read kicked long to their forward-line and Ben Holland goaled....

Its a shame because his talent is paramount.

Nic

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Cuck Follingwood

Waite!
He just has to learn to use the aggression correctly, even better if he learns to use it off the half back line. Opposition midfielders will be looking over their shoulders with him available to run from outside the square.
We need to teach our youngsters, unfortunately we have never had a coach you was very good in this area.

Others would be Kennedy (when he gets bigger/confident), O'hAilpin and Cloke.

This must stop and be prevented in happening to Murphy - his team mates need to rough up the opposition to prevent this from happening

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For some silly reason, you people want to assassinate him, and it's just rubbish. You people. All of you, ALL of you!

refer to the other thread....


who do we have to strike fear into the hearts and minds of the opposition????? houla???


more reason to bring in hartlett, an angry young man, and a massive unit like sammy jacobs.

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Back like a raging case of pubic lice