People just aren't prepared to accept exactly where our team is at the moment and who is being played through the middle especially.

Stevens, and to a much lesser extent Koutoufides, are not available at present and especially Stevens, he is ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL to our set up and structure in the middle. Since Nick went down we have a 19 year old, 20-gamer leading the way through the middle. Little to no support to speak of. I mean real fighters. Real tough nuts with some sort of class and consistency. Bentick - has limitations, Simmo - good player but really should support a good cast of midfielders, Hoops - similar to Simmo, Walker - not used enough in there, Russell - used defensively. Otherwise we had a 1st gamer and a kid who is playing his 1st for the year.

A younger, more inexperienced group of midfielders will not be seen on the field this year for any team. Have a look at the key ball winners for the aints - Dal Santo, Harvey, Montagna all 25+. Ours, Whitnall with low 20's, T-bird with 20, then Murphs who racked up pressured stats with a tough Baker tag. Again, a 19 y.o, 20 gamer were talking about getting the best tagger in the game.

Dont say we didn't try. Dont crack the shits (OK maybe be shitty!). This result was expected. The aints still had a decent side in especially through the middle. The highest possession winners are f'n good players. Games are won there.

The loss of Stevens has pretty much condemned us to a bottom three finish and if the dees (definitely) and ferals (less so) start to get their act together, then another last finish is not impossible. Nick was going to carry our midfield this year and give our youngsters a chance to get experience with his work at the coalface. We are in trouble fellow supporters unfortunately. We needed everything to go absolutely right for our team to get perhaps 8 wins. This included not losing Stevens and even Kouta for extended periods.

This is going to be a long year and with a caoch that is past it we are in deep shit!!!

At least, thus far, we are playing better than in recent years and our better players are our up and comers. There is genuine promise and upside to our team and real scope for improvement. This is what we can pin our hopes to. But forget about 2007, its about 2008 and beyond. Im not talking about tanking, but trying to be a realist as to where we are at.

I just cant accept the constant barrage of negativity and misplaced criticism. I hate that we are still an inferior side compared to others but dont carry on like we should be playing as if we have a premiership list!

Rumour file of 3aw this morning said that Pratt offered a 4 year deal at $800K per year for Paul Roos to fly south.

While I dont think this will happen, if the Pratt looking for a new coach bit is true - we are on the right track..

I mentioned in the Talking Players forum under "the coach: Denis Pagan" that it will be either he (Paul Roos) or John Worsfold that Pratt will try to lure to the Blues, if we were to search for another coach.

Rumour file of 3aw this morning said that Pratt offered a 4 year deal at $800K per year for Paul Roos to fly south.

While I dont think this will happen, if the Pratt looking for a new coach bit is true - we are on the right track..

That's how we got Swann. Dick wants the best ... and usually gets it. The cheque book will be out big time.

This was our third game in 13 days and we ran out of legs. The MC brought in two runners but they were kids and couldn't keep up in the last quarter.

That is the most piss weak excuse I have heard in a long while. I got an email from the club spouting this crap. We played one Sunday game, followed by a Saturday night game and then a Friday night game. St Kilda had played 3 games in 14 days and played in Port the week before.

3 games @ Telstra Dome, 1 game @ Subiaco over the past month of footy = the TESTRA DOME surface is killing us.

6 weeks ago we where the fittest team in the comp, now .... you work it out!