My personal opinion is leave Murphy as captain at least until the 66 game rebuild is over - maybe a year after that. Let the next, which will likely be Doherty, take over when we are on our way up and up

Murphy has grown to another level as a leader under the Bolton reign and for mine will be leading us in 2017.

Hopefully an October where we keep all of our best 22+ at Carlton in 2018.

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Essendon-Only team to have ever been found guilty of salary cap breaches in a premiership year!

Top half of the bottom six. Games into young blokes. The plan this year has clearly been to build from the back. I expect that to get better again and for us to start to see some green shoots of an offensive game plan as well - having us consistently able to put 11/12 goals on teams. It would also be really nice to see just one coast to coast goal this year.

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The only way for some people to understand is for them to be on the receiving end

Left wing moralists
In self serving denial
They shit me no end

What I expect every year - To win the flag!

Your wish may come true in 3 years - hang in there!

With you there Sheik.

Reckon we'll end bottom 3 , more development and intergration of the youngsters and refinement of Bolton's game plan.
Another list clean out the last of the big boo boos will be cleaned up at last.
We will be able to land a big fish or two as FA with new cap space mobility .
Go draft some ripper talls especially if we decide to trade out Gibbs and Krooz moves on too.
We'll have at least 3 top 20 picks in a strong deft pool.
Should be the last of the lowly years.
Go Baggers

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Go Blue Boys

One of Gibbs, Cripps, and Murphy to request a trade.

Hopefully we'll stand firm again.

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Never argue with idiots. They drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience!!!

After Monday and Tuesday, even the calendar says W T F .........
Visit http://fromthemoshpit.com/

I would like to finish 10-13 on the ladder, which would be a pretty significant improvement on last year in every way.
To do that, we need to jump 1-4 places.
Essendon* will probably overtake us.
Freo tanked and if they get Sandilands, they will probably overtake us but I will say, no. If they do the AFL needs an investigation into how they did it.
Brisbane won't.
Suns shouldn't.

So that puts us at 15th. We need to jump over at least 2 clubs who are on the slide. Who will they be?
North? They would have to drop 5 places on the ladder but I think they will do it. They put all their eggs into the 2016 basket and now they have shot their bolt IMO. Mind you, we say that every year and they always manage a reasonable season. Not next year.
That's 14th for us.
We finished below Richmond by one win. We threw away a couple of games we might have won. If we improved marginally more than they did, we will overtake them. They traded in OK with Prestia but lost Vickery, which to me is not inconsiderable. Yarran would be a big bonus but I can't see him getting back to his best in one year. If we win Rd One for a change, it would be an 8 point game on the ladder against them.
That puts us 13th
Port and Melbourne finished two wins above us. If we win two more games next year and they win one less we have them covered. I think Port is more likely to slide than Melb.
That puts us twelfth or eleventh.

To finish there would be good. To win 10 games would maybe lift us to 10th. We can only do it if we keep Gibbs, Murphy, Cripps and Wright all on the park PLUS we get service from a couple of others. Levi has to kick straighter. Charlie Curnow has to play 15 games and Jack the same. I will be happy if McKay plays a few games but any more than half a dozen would be a bonus given where he is coming from. We need natural improvement from Phillips, Boekhurst and Cunningham. Buckley needs to lift just a little.
BUT
The biggest change has to come from the coach. He told us he wants to play bold footy. He told us that next year he wants more outside run and carry, which should tell us who we will pick at #5. The games we won and almost won were won when we ran with the football and tackled hard. Players like Buckley and Armfield need to be freed up and others who are not so hard at it like Boekhurst should get more outside ball. Pickett will be a bonus but I am not hopeful he will be ready if his injury is still troubling him. He was a punt. if he plays half the season, we will be a lot better and people will pay to see him.

The backline should come together better next year if Marchbank plays a lot of games. Rowe is solid and had a good season last year but he can't be in our best back six if we are to improve.

Every club tries to improve. Not every club does. i thought we did OK in the trade period. The players we picked up all came high in their drafts. If our #5 this year gets to play a few games and has an impact that would be a special bonus.

We have to learn to play for more minutes every week. That will win us a couple of the close games we lost. And we kicked ourselves out of two games we should have won.

Put that lot together and suddenly we are on the move.

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Let slip the Blues of war (with apologies to William Shakespeare) (and Sir Francis Bacon, just in case)

Development. Development. Development. And lots of excitement from our growing group of elite young talent.

In terms of ladder position. Can't see us finishing beyond bottom 2 next year. And yet we're heading in the right direction.

It's going to get worse before it gets better.

Sent from my XT1033 using Tapatalk

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#DonTheStash

19th would be a pretty @#$%&! amazing achievement but considering our recent history it may not be impossible!

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“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus.”
Turkish Proverb

We're [REDACTED].

I expect verbs to have another solid season on TC.

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Formerly: Ackland the Wonderkid / Army the Wonderkid / quivering mess / molsey / Tony Lynn Fan Club

Verbs to be sakced.

8+ wins would be nice.
Not surprised if we win less / finish lower than this season tho.

Just watched the Geelong win.
If you want to know what we need to do to improve next year, even with the same playing group, just watch that.
Run all day, put pressure on the opposition and tackle everything.

Armfield's pace
veritt ran and competed and if he had have brought that game every week he's still be on the list.
Gibbs. Well we now how he can play when he feels like it. If he brought that game most weeks he'd win the Brownlow.
Simpson's run and courage.
White's best game for us. Hard at it and showed he has a tank. He is not a class act but you know what you get with him. And he is reasonably versatile.
Rowe's blanket job on Hawkins was ecellent as was Touhy's job on Motlop. I think Geelong decided after that game they would go for Touhy and we decided Motlop wasn't a fait trade...
Cripps grunt and clearances.
Docherty run and cool head. Should be the next captain.
Smedts played his first game for the year and did OK. He got caught a couple of times by the pace of the game but there is no doubt he can play and if he stays fit he will be a handy pickup.

Interesting to look at Gorringe in this game. He had a nice cameo but there must be something that is lacking in his game because he should be able to get a game based on that effort. Maybe he isn't far away and if he can improve just a couple of percent, maybe there's a tall outside player in the making.

I go back to what I said before. if Bolton lets them run and carry the ball, they will win more games than this year. When he plays a stoppage game we lose based on the last year's results.

Smedts, Pickett, maybe Petrovski-Seton will give us additional run and Cunningham was just starting to get the odd game. That's a fait injection of pace.

My glass is half full. bring it on.

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Let slip the Blues of war (with apologies to William Shakespeare) (and Sir Francis Bacon, just in case)

Good post BS.

Just goes to show we have a better list than some give us credit for.
Bolton worked on our Team Defence over the last preseason.
It showed on the ground but not the results in 2016 but we faded away.
Another preseason under their belt and a more attacking game (Bolton's words) for 2017 and we are really developing:quickly.

I'd add Boekhurst to the list of fast players. He too has an area of his game to sort out as did Everitt.
If he does he'll be a star of the game. If he doesn't, he follows the path of Everitt.

McKay will pass Gorringe, but like you said Gorringe did show something against Geelong.
I thought they didn't pay him enough respect and he found himself as a loose man in the forward line.
He doesn't like body contact...see point about Everitt.

We will also improve our stoppage game with Cripps Gibbs and E.Curnow getting support with the addition of Murphy, Palmer and C.Curnow.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

My Geelong supporting brother in law came to Sydney for the weekend. We snuck the same game on and we really enjoyed it. He forgot about the result.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue