I was having a look at the record at 3/4 time last night and worked out that 15 of the guys playing have been running around together since ratten started as official coach in 2008. a couple of others (garlett, robinson started in 2009). so this is the 5th season that ratten has had with largely the same group & to me when you have had a group for that long and you have the talent we have and the aspirations to which we have openly admitted to then losses like last night are simply unacceptable.

this the 3rd year in a row where i have frozen my @#$%&! arse off at etihad and watched a game in which we were either trying to cement a spot in the 8, playing for top 4, or getting to the top of the ladder for the first time in who knows how @#$%&! long and simply [REDACTED] it up. the first was v North 2010 ( i saw plenty of similarities last night) then last year v the bulldogs and now this @#$%&! piece of tripe of a performance!

the first one you tell yourself were still young and it happens bla bla, the 2nd one you get a little angry and then move on but last night was it for me and several of the guys i go to games with. it seems dramatic but i think some tough calls need to be made otherwise were going to be sitting here in a few rounds and next year and the year after talking about the same poor performances in games that should be consolidating our year but are instead derailing it! its later than we all think so we need to get our shit in order quick otherwise that flag we all crave will be completely out of reach.

If we think Grigg is the answer we really do have problems!

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#NewBlues beginning 25th August 2015

Grigg would make our side no worries!!!

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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.

Just watched rattens press conference, yet again stats stars and more stats. It's worrying that's all he can focus on. Winning in the inside 50's does not guarantee success. We were smashed, out coached and out played, just once I'd like to hear him say that.

But will we? The signs aren't great after 2 or 3 years ofit!

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"I had to eat"

What concerns me the most is that we were beaten with Waite, Kruze, Walker and Jamo in the side at the same time.

How we deal with team that stifle us is Ratts' next big questions.

What BM was trying to say.. correct me if im wrong BM... is that we used to win wooden spoons that landed us 3 number 1 picks and access to alot of early talent... plus the biggest name in the competition.. and now we dont win wooden spoons anyore.

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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.

Weren't we supposed to be cherry ripe after the GWS game, heavy training schedule and all?

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WADA medical director Dr Alan Vernec describes Essendon* FC drug case as biggest scandal in team sport the world of sport has seen. #WC2WB

#GUILTY

To give a different perspective on where we are look at this:

Last Night

B: A.Joseph L.Henderson M.Jamison
HB: Z.Tuohy N.Duigan J.Russell
C: K.Simpson B.Gibbs H.Scotland
HF: A.Walker J.Waite M.Robinson
F: J.Garlett S.Hampson E.Betts
Foll: M.Kreuzer M.Murphy C.Judd
Int: D.Armfield, P.Bower, D.Ellard, E.Curnow


Possible Best 22

B: Touhy Jamison Laidler
HB: Yarran Henderson Gibbs
C: Simpson Robinson Scotland
HF: Walker Thornton Garlett
F: Betts Kruezer Waite
Foll: Hampson Judd Murphy
Int: Ellard Carrazzo Lucas Duigan

Developing & Possibles: Armfield, Warnock, Dale, Bootsma, Watson, Buckley, McCarthy, Casboult, Mitchell, Collins, Davies

The rest can go. Stop stuffing around with average footballers.

Pressure on Shane Rogers and Andy McKay to recruit desperately needed players. Not easy but we need to do as much as possible. Free agency gives us an opportunity.

Add two players such as Boyd, Swann, Hayes, Barlow, Magner, Watson, Thompson, Kennedy, Ward to that side and watch the difference it would make!

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#NewBlues beginning 25th August 2015

Why stop at 2 players???

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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.

In the meantime put Duigan in the middle at the stoppages!

Let him create space and block for Judd, Murphy etc. IMO they don't get any protection at all.

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#NewBlues beginning 25th August 2015

Duigan is fumbling ... is looking like an old man when the ball is below his knees.
Yo can try it.. but thats typical non inside stoppages material

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Why on earth would any coach say that?

I thought it was a good presser and he gave good insight into where we went wrong.......... and remided us of all the mistakes made in the first quarter.

The points he made about us not have the energy and touch that we had in the early rounds rings so true. Lets hope we can find it again. The dropped marks and letting the ball out the back of packs, the overrunning of the ball, the four guys up in defense and noone down, the knock ons and the missed tackles just didnt occur in the early rounds.

That is the form we need to recapture.

Ratts also said we got hunted. That was 100% true. Everything they did was to make it impossible for us to play the way we wanted. From there they got lucky with our mistakes and our selections leaving us with lumbery backmen playing on their zippy forwards.

Thank God we got Kruezer with pick 1.
He is one of the only players on the list who genuinely goes hard all the time.
Should be VC to be frank !
We have all played football haven't we?
Leaders are the ones who go hard - not the pretty boys with skills but don't go hard all the time

I'm not trying to 'Gloat' with my winnings............. more so i'm trying to prove a point about how overrated we are. Same reason I backed the bombers at $7.
I'd much rather loose the money and see us win!

I don't think we've moved forward or progressed as a team at all. And that's the problem.

We are expected to win these types of games and we damn well should win these games. But as I mentioned earlier, there are some big time passengers in this side and it's the reason why we're failing.

At present, we're a good team playing terrible footy. We're certainly not looking like a premiership contender.


I LOVE Gibbs. But right now, he's playing like a B-grade footballer, not a #1 draft pick. But in fairness to him, i'm not sure if Ratts even knows where is best to play him. Do we play him ala Luke Hodge, running off the back? Or smack bang in the middle??? Deep in defense?
Who knows? But we need to do better with Gibbs.

Russell is another one. He looked like he just didn't care last night. And even though most said he had a good game last week, his disposal was god-awful. You don't win premiership with poor disposals!

Jeff too seems half the player he was last year. I think we're pushing him up the ground too much. He needs to stay at home to create pressure and keep the ball inside our 50. Dozens of times last night we bombed it inside 50 to have Waite and Hampson contest the mark........... betts and jeff weren't even in the arc. They were almost 50mtrs away!

Look, I could go on........... but what's the point. It'll just sound like i'm bagging the players and / or 'gloating' about betting against the Blues and i'll cop more flack from everybody on here,............... But we need to lift and lift now, otherwise we risk becoming like the Bulldogs..........full of potential, but just never quite got there.

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"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit"
- Aristotle

I have been sitting on the fence as far as Ratts goes but now believe that he just isn't the right guy to take us to the next level. We should be throwing the kitchen sink at Malthouse !

You have hit the nail on the head, i have posted this elsewhere. We do not have much depth, and no young good kids coming through. I know the players from the 2010 draft have been injured but we have drafted poorly in my opinion in recent years. Several of those names mentioned will probably be off the list at seasons end.
Now how we respond will be interesting.
Cant stand those St Kilda smug supporters, we have only beaten them twice in the last 10 years or so. Two years ago when we thrashed them by 10 goals we made them look slow. Last night we were made to look slow.
Pretty frustrated at the moment.

Couple of points....

1.Terrible decision at the selection table to not Play Thornton. He has to play each week for mine. Gives us an extra marking forward option as well as a backup defender. Kicked 3 goals last week and had nearly 10 marks from memory. Reckon he is pretty important to our structure and would have given us more in the air than Waite last night.

2. Shocking decisiong to leave Joseph on Milne for so long and reckon it just about cost us the game when it was there to be won. Tuohy had to go on him because AJ was just not up to it.

3. Forward line wasn't functioning at all and the Coaches refused to make any changes other than to put Murphy in there to help break his tag. Garlett had zero influence again as did Waite.

4.Lastly we seemed to have alot of HB flanker types in Russell, Duigan, Tuohy, Scotland, Gibbs, Armfield and even Bower yet their small forwards took us to the cleaners!! The side we played last night wasn't balanced and when you couple that with the Saints hunger we were in a bit of strife.

Look we need to be honest
Rigth now, we are a bit of a rabble
Forget ladder position - it is an even year, lose next week and we could be down the bottom half of the 8 with Geel/St./K breathing down our necks, so if we have a bad trot we could find ourselves on edge of 8

Lots of issues

Lack of hardness at the ball, which manifests in beatings at clearances
Inability to capitalise on ruck dominance, what are we being taught in there or is it all about intent (or lack thereof) or is it as Synbad would say about lack of proven clearance winners?

Defense exposed again as being brittle esp small defenders
We couldnt contain Milne 5 years ago and we still can't

Poor defensive pressure in our F50
What happened to the press?

Our F50 entries
Against GWS we kept kicking to pockets
And last night we couldn't find our tall fwds to save ourselves

Ball coming out of our F50 way too easily, see Ess game and again last night
This is connected to above

Are we carrying too many soft shells in this team?
Gibbs, Garlett, Joseph spring to mind
We seem to enjoy pushing and shoving and sling tackling players to the ground, but we don't like putting our head over the ball and being the first one in at a stoppage to win the hard ball

Lot of issues

Coach must take some heat for this as well as players

I've been saying it for 2 years now Ratten needs to go. He has no plan B. I know I've been like a dog with a bone on this matter but from what I'm hearing from one assist coach he doesn't listen to the other coaches tactics. The boys club eg Kernahan and Ratten is the reson he is still there.