Thornton on Charman wasnt exactly a winner was it?...
Houlihan on Wirrapunda ....
Murphy on Judd

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

God forbid we should lose a matchup!


Parkin has cut the strings this year and we will have an interesting year for it, Setanta will lose more than he wins this year, but grow, Gibbs ditto, eg Johnson...

It's a developemental year, that is what Messers Bradley and Ratten are there to ensure.

The question on Pagan is how many wins to keep his job.


Should be a poll....

Yep.

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Oompa loompa doompety dee
If you are wise you'll listen to me

Theres an old saying, "dont ask the question if you dont want to hear the answer" EB?
Elwood was only giving a response to the question that was posed.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Yeah, cough, in context, I'll just STFU!

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Oompa loompa doompety dee
If you are wise you'll listen to me

stupid poll

Has pagan improved this year? - of course he has - given the low base we were coming from the previous few seasons, we were bound to show some overall improvement.

Yes, the team has improved - but FFS, how many early draft picks do you need to improve?
In murphy (1), gibbs(1), walker (2), kennedy (4), Russell (9) we have 5 top 10 draft picks. Lets not forget - stevens, fisher, scotland, lappin, houlahan, simpson, Fev, thornton, kouta - who would ALL get a spot in the top 22 of any AFL side its not too horrible a list. Add to that F/s's in whitnall, waite, blackwell, and early draftees - grigg, hampson, bower, hartlett.

Yet somehow we are still expecting a bottom 4 (or in some quarters spoon) finish? Is there even another team in the comp with more top 5 picks than the blues?

Another question is "Is Pagan worth his current paycheck?"

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There's so much I could say...

Don't worry Budzy - if he's being overpaid at the moment, we'll just have to ensure that his pay in his next contract is a reasonable amount

Most proffessional people who are on $600k p.a. usually have to perform otherwise the get the Khyber Pass.

In an ideal world, Pagan should have got the Khyber ages ago.

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Cheats never prosper (except in the AFL)

But as Pagan has performed, there's no reason why he would have been given the Khyber. He managed to survive the attempt at destabilising the footy department, and things are now developing well. The young players are developing nicely, and morale is up. Go Blues

I would love to know if Thornton & Russell think he has improved?

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Cheats never prosper (except in the AFL)

Yep, I would too CR. But I'd say that Russell wouldn't be too unhappy about becoming a fixture in the midfield. And Thornton would be pretty happy that he's been relieved of the burden of taking the opposition's gorilla each week while he's on a salary negotiated when he held the whip hand.

But I haven't heard any gossip for a while about discontent amongst the players this year. Seems to be happy families now, doesn't it?

What next contract?

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

Is that you Sticks?

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Cheats never prosper (except in the AFL)

The contract that he gets after the blue boys make the 8 in 2007

Both Thornton and Russell have no real reason, at least from what we know, not to be happy with Pagan. Russell could already have been dropped once or twice this season but Pagan has stuck with him thus far. Why Thornton would have a beef with Pagan (unless something major happened behind closed doors about which we don't know) is a mystery, Thornton has barely missed a game since Pagan has been at the club and as you say now has a bit of help down back.

It'd hard to say whether or not Pagan has improved as such but we do seem to be playing a more attacking, exciting brand of footy this season, even if we are too Fev-centric. Pagan must have some sort of say in how we play so for this I think he deserves some credit. He has embraced the notion of youth more than he has previously (although admittedly this has been somewhat forced upon him), and has kept faith in and given big roles to players like Russell and particularly o'hAilpin. I am a bit confused about his use of Kennedy though like I think most others are too. There have been some bad match-ups: Houlihan should never have been on Wirrpunda, Lance on Lucas wouldn't have been my first option but he has beaten him before so you can at least see the logic, Thornton on Charman on the weekend was a bit worrying but apart from maybe throwing Cloke back what else was a realistic option? As it turned out Cloke kicked 3 goals and Charman didn't really influence the result (at least as a forward) so I don't think Denis should be blamed too heavily for that matchup.

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Formerly Blues-Back2003.

Yeh he should have put Walker on Charman...
And Walker on Wirra....
And Walker on Judd....

FFS different shit needs to be tried in a developing team. It was interesteing to see how Murph was gonna go on Judd. It didn't work that day but big deal, we were never gonna win that game anyway. Oh yeh, who the @#$%&! else in the AFL can take on Judd? And as for Wirra, its like his 2nd game as a forward. Who was to expect that performance. Houla is capable of taking him on in different circumstances.