11 players with less than 10 disposals last night. Who?

DeLuca
Prendergast
Simpson
Betts
Walker*
Scotland
Thornton*
Johnson
Wiggins
Bentick
French*

Davies with 11, mostly ineffective

Thornton and French are excused, they both work their butts off. Scotland needs to deliver heaps more to live up to his reputation. Walker is developing slowly but I'll give him time.

The rest explain our predicament - too many players that aren't up to it. They can try as hard as they like, but they aint footy smart or don't have the necessary skill to play AFL standard. Those that think we worked our way through the salary cap penalties are kidding themselves. We are 5 years behind Geelong & St Kilda. If you merged us with Collingwood or Hawthorn right now we still wouldn't make the 8. Last year was an aberration. We need low draft picks, plain and simple. The pain will be with us for a few years yet.

The below guys are apprentice carpenters, think they could be excused also

Simpson
Betts
Walker*
Bentick

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Mjonc signing off at 8888

I guess the thing that frustrates me the most is that everyone instantly blames our senior players. With 11 players getting less than 10 stats we're effectively playing Geelong with half a team.

I reckon Bentick might turn out to be the next Jim Plunkett.

Feel free to express your disappointment but to link Plunkett, a low skill skinny player to a second year former rookie is just a joke. Yes, they are both red-headed and wear the number 40 but comments like that are just freaking useless.

Indians need chiefs.

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Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

How generous.

The kid's still 18 (for another 4 days anyway).

Last year he played 15 games and averaged 9.5 disposals. Adam Cooney who's suddenly everyone's gun kid played 19 and averaged 11.7.

Cooney's a year older, a good deal more physically mature and spent the previous season playing seniors in SA.

This year Cooney's improved a good deal. What a surprise! Walker and Cooney are very different types of player and the type that Walker is takes longer to develop.

Walker's going to make mistakes. Is there a player who hasn't?

I have no doubt at all that he'll be a superstar long term but I also don't give a damn if he doesn't show a lot in the next couple of years.

Our indians are hopeless.

Kouta didn't come on till his early 20's, give Walker the same time.

He also manages to only get about 80 mins of game time on average. GIVE HIM A FULL GAME DENIS - IN THE GUTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They also need talent, and most of them don't have enough. I think Prenda can be excused. Why don't they give him game time, he seemed to be on the bench for most of last night

Gerry, important we get these labels right I think.

First year players excused.

Second year players:
* Bentick - solid in & under with great foot skills. Good tackler. Good talent.
* Walker - definite talent.

Third year player:
* Simmo - starting to come through. Talented. ALot of skill, one of the best kicks on the list.
* Norman - good 2004, worrying signs in 2005. Talent not in question.

Fourth / Fifth years who should be showing signs:
* Livo - injured. Talent still being assessed.
* Thorny - key position player. Almost first picked each week.
* SPorn - off the boil, a bit of a worry. Has talent.
* wiggler - has desire, talent in question
* Banno (effectively 4th year) - real worry, seems that Pagan is trying to teach him something but not quite sure.
* ADL (effectrively a fifth year player given age) - real worry, off the boil.

Key themes:
* Good talent in recent years, good skill, but just not enough of it.
* 4th / 5th year talent - real worry. This is where the problem is - the so called second tier that seemed to go missing other than Thorny. AGain, not enough of it in terms of number of players.

Is this season still going?

I'm more into Big Brother now. you can see nipples!

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Love Cricket? Love me

ultimately, they've played a handful of games in a shit team that loses.

Lets wait and see if they can play with a good team around them

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Love Cricket? Love me

Indians need chiefs?

agree Synbad.

But while I think Denis is the man for the long term, right now some of that leadership starts with him:
1. He has the ability to choose the leadership team
2. It is his job to make sure players needing development get the right development

The man at the top of the football tree has to set the tone - make changes if needed....if the indians aren't following his orders...the chief needs to change his style or change the indians not following his orders.

Well considering Campo obviously still has knee soreness and it's a long season why not spell him or get the knee seen to and then give the VC to someone else?

Why not make a statement (sorry if I sound like Grant Thomas) about the future and your faith in this future - Jarrad Waite for VC.

This season is gone people. We can start planning for 2006 in my opinion. I think our only goal now should be us going all out to win next week and then spend the rest of the season finding out who can play and in what positions. Who is the future and who might be better off elsewhere.

We now have a golden opportunity to play O'Hailpin, Bryan, Walker, Davies, Simpson, Wiggins, Carrazzo, Bentick, Russell, Betts and Waite for extended periods in set positions. Add Livingston at fullback for possibly the rest of the year and we'll know what we've got at seasons end.

Clarke, Bowyer, Johnson aren't the future but will come in and out of the team and I think Bannister and McGrath will also struggle for consistent games but probably will be retained or at least reasonable trade value at years end. Who knows one of these players might even step up and if they do that's a bonus.

Of all the players on the senior list I think Blackwell is the one that won't play this year and will be left to develop in the VFL. Russell I didn't expect to be used until the 2nd half of the season.

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The great are great to us only because we are on our knees. Let us arise.
--Robert Collier

Our youngsters are being crucified by senior players who refuse to man up.

now this is what really shits me ... davies has been in the system for 5 years and yet is STILL skinnier than me!!!

for those of you who haven't met me .... that's saying something!!!

as we've all acknowledged, the 2000 draft lot are NOWHERE near where we want them to be .... and yes darknavy ... that includes wiggo!!

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... an eagle flew out of the night. he was something to observe, came in close i heard a voice, bending stretching every nerve, had to listen had no choice ...

I agree with that completely. On several occasions last night Wiggins was forced to peel of Abblett in order to chase down other Geelong players that were allowed to run the ball through the middle of the ground without anyone within 40 metres of them.

The up-shot of this of course was that Abblett was then left on his own in the forward 50.

Come on though guys players aren't stupid - the team as a whole can't man up, the younger players might only be that but on occasions they fail to man up too.

Yes Campo, Stevens etc aren't the most accountable players in the world but as a team we're bloody unaccountable and that's a fundamental team problem not one which can be pinpointed to certain individuals..

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Formerly Blues-Back2003.

It only takes a couple of players to be loose on their man for the domino effect to start. When you're forced to make a decision between picking up someone else's man or stick with your own you're going to get burned no matter what you do.

Carrazzo has performed very well this year and has played as well on williams as anyone this year - fisher is another good young player
Walker will be good - waite is improving -thorton is very good
LIVO AND WIGGINS are improving- sporn is on a downer but will come back
Simpson bentick and davies need more time
The whole team has been bad the last two weeks but lets not start bagging our whole group of young players who are our future
3 years ago most carlton people were saying how bad fev and houlihan were - best two players last night