We don't necessarily expect finals, but we expect to win games and beat sh1t opposition. You can keep making excuses if you want but we're sick of them. No way we should be 1-4. You know that as well as the rest of us.

yes we should we are shit. Go if we had a barn playing for us a FF unless Murph had the ball we'd still miss!

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This type of slight is alien in the more cultured part of the world - Walsh. Its up there with mad dogs, Englishmen and the midday sun!

We do have some talent - no arguement
We were never going to make finals - not for another 3 years.
The coach is a disgrace - No imagination, No passion, More interested in protecting an honourable loss than winning a game.
I am sick of accepting shit and for god sake we are 4 years into a 5 year plan and we are no further along than when we started accept for the obvious fact we got some early draft picks. The draft picks are merely a sign of how bad we have been , not a reflection of actual improvement.

8 wins should have been the aim for this year. If we dont make that quota heads have to roll - Im sorry thats business.

Lets all keep making excuses and raising the few positives that arise rather than focus on the negatives that have been staring us in the face for the last 2 years.
Its a lot easier this way and we wont have to make tough decisions.
Being an optimist is terrific but we have to be realists in order to actually improve

I agree compltely.. unfortuinately you cant think of playters over 25 in this team.. theyre a liability to where we need to be in four years.
Theyre either not good enough or wont be around.

Its the core group of kids we need to be building up and adding to.

All this bullshit about how good blah blah blah is... when they wont be here in 2 or 3 years because THEYRE ALREADY STRUGGLING with the PACE of the game is ridiculous.

Were building game plans around players that are not up to speed.
Theyre being exploited by other coaches .. they may look ok at times but it makes no difference to the ladder.
Unfortunately Houla is in this group too.. even if he is under 25...

We need to sypphon out who will be here and make sure they get all the experience , the tutoring and care to make sure they will go ahead .

Theyre the future.

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I'm only expecting 5 or 6 wins.

So far I think we are on track.

In fact personally I reckon we are tracking ahead.

Murph has two 20+ possession games in his first 5 games (that is very very good).

Walker has stepped up a notch.

Kennedy looks absolutely brilliant to me (even before playing a senior game).

I expect Waite to keep improving.

Big doubts for me at the moment are key defensive posts, but we are yet to see what our young options have to offer there yet.

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sadly, yep.

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This type of slight is alien in the more cultured part of the world - Walsh. Its up there with mad dogs, Englishmen and the midday sun!

Can i just say that to me we were always going to be wrestling Richmond as the worst team.. and we had a full side they didnt... they just came off 2 interstae trips and we had the extra day and they should have killed us.

Pagan has no idea.. and we better make the hard calls if we are going to be where im hoping to be in three years.

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I've known for a while how poor some of our more seasoned players are -Houlihan, Stevens and Scotland defensively, Lappin sometimes with his kicking but what sickened and saddened me tonight was seeing how poor many of our young players were - Fisher and Waite stuffed up plenty of goals opportunites through either poor kicks or missed simple overhead marks. Russell was a lost puppy out there, no clue. Not sure what game most people were watching but Murphy IMO had his first really bad game - missed heaps of targets and even stupidly kicked the ball deliberately out of bounds - 1 comical incident was when he kicked the ball into a richmond players head, got the ball back and did nothing till he was tackled.

He looks to me like he could use a weeks rest (no footy at all, not dropped) to recharge. I could go on with guys like Saddington, French (very poor tonite), Thornton etc but I reckon most people realise many of our players are extremely limited.

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I wasn't going to go there, but I'm so glad I did

yeah but he also hit Lance, Fev, and others at least five of his kicks hit targets for shots on goal. Show me anyone else who did that tonight?

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This type of slight is alien in the more cultured part of the world - Walsh. Its up there with mad dogs, Englishmen and the midday sun!

Yeah sure, murph was far from our worst, in fact he was still probably one of our better players but that's an indication of how bad we were - it's so defeatist to say 'sure he stuffed up but he did it less than the other guys so its ok' - if we want to regain our rightful position as kings of the jungle we can only accept the best - mediocrity has no place for any team wanting to become number 1 (not saying Murphy isnt gonna be the best, he just wasn't tonight).

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I wasn't going to go there, but I'm so glad I did

he was better than most players out there, for both teams, (in terms of delivery).

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This type of slight is alien in the more cultured part of the world - Walsh. Its up there with mad dogs, Englishmen and the midday sun!

Tracking ahead, you're kidding. We have at least a reasonable list and we can't even beat Richmond. If you talk about players who have taken steps, and you're right there, we shouldn't be 1-4 and losing to shit sides. Look beyond the players, they're ok, and up to the coaches box. Surely that's not hard to see.

Round 5 2003 I was wondering where our next win would come from. Fast forward to round 5 2006 and I still feel the same. Only difference is a handful of youngsters.

Houla, Scotland, Lappin, Kouta and Stevens (to a lesser extent) play unaccountable soft football. All they seem interested in is getting touches -touches which 85% of the time go sideways. Meaningless crap!

If they held a tackle between them tonight I'd be shocked. They are never ever anywhere near their direct opponents. They continually set bad examples - they are not leading like experienced AFL footballers should be leading. They are playing for themselves, playing for survival.

Looking at them tonight they couldnt give a rats arse about our younger guys. Russell coughed the ball up on the wing in the 3rd quarter and it resulted in a goal to Richmond. The only player that went to him and told him to lift his head was Murphy. I thought getting rid of Campo would solve all of our problems! Boy was I wrong.

I'd like to start on Pagan and his weird flower up moves tonight. But I'd hate to turn this into a post of mojo proportions.

I'm just as pissed off as most of you but remember we are 1 to 2 years behind Richmond & Hawks and about 2 to 3 years behind the Cats and Dogs. Have a look at the Hawks or Tigers list and you will see their younger players have been in the system for about 1 to 2 years more than our youngsters.

Better still have a look at the Dogs and Cats their matchwinners have three to four years of experience.

Rewind the clock to last year this time and we would all agree Walker was struggling as was Simpson, Carrazo, Bentick, Waite etc this year our youngsters have all taken a step foward.

Early last year both Richmond and the Dockers cleaned us this year we could have won both games. We have steadied however we now need to take the next step and unfortunately this may not happen until next year.

Just remember how our youngsters were travelling early last year compared to this year.

It fu%^%^ hurts to lost but we must be realistic.

St kilda fans always used to think they were only one good coach away from finals.

That didn't work very well for 100 years.

Then they started using the draft.

(they are in finals now but the ultimate irony is that now is the most important time in 100+ years that they need a decent coach)

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Sorry but Stevens is easily the worst of the lot of them.

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"The ability to speak doesn't make you intelligent." Qui-Gon Jinn 15-05-2005

"there’s more chance of me becoming the full forward for the [Western Bulldogs] than there is of any change in the Labor Party." Julia Gillard 18-05-2010

Was at the game and have cooled off some what but i saw 2 extremely poor sides skill wise was deploarble and i mean both sides ... saw some shocking umpiring and decision making. And yer some coaching moves that bothered me but forget Richmond they where just as crap and made errors without pressure .. they did pressure the blues to making some of there errors and then would stuff up themselves after doing the hard work.

What i saw tonite was no one could match Richo and a move i would have made at quarter time was put banister on Richo as that is what Banister has been doing all last year and the games this year in the VFL.
Whits should have been kept in the forward line to keep pressure in the forward line to back up Fev and Waite we kicked 5 goals in the first quarter when whits was in the Forward line

Waite -ried hard but dropped several gettable marks but when got the ball was dangerous but could have done more and gotten more goals if he hadnt fumbled and dropped some gettable marks
Walker -as a shining light in actually contesting and working hard
Deluca - Send him to the VFL i was lucky to be with someone who works with the Bullants ... Says Kennedy has to be put in seniors well Deluca's place is there to be taken.
Kouta - does no running just jogs around if the ball is further than 5meters from him
Stevo - had a shocker and until late in the game hung back just didnt get involved
Houla - was more a hindrance than a positive on the ground getting in the way rather than going into space.
Murph - Missed some targets but was one of the few to hit targets as well still a class above even our seasoned players.
Scotland... got the ball keep in the backline so he dosnt blaze at goals instead of passing to a forward target.
Simmo - Worked hard pity a few players didnt shephard him and give him protection.
French - Useless
Maclaren - thought was okay not much i could criticse for what he did when he was on the ground
Russell - more time in VFL did not hit a target
Bentick - Quiet
Saddo - Quiet
Thronton - played like he didnt want to be there - lost
Eddie - Wasnt involved in enough of the play
Lappo - Dunno something not righ Crap disposal especially in first half better in second half but not the lappo i know
Bannister - Did okay deserves another shot but i think should have been tried on the most dangerous player being Richo .. may have matched up in mobility and more importantly kept Whits in the forward line
carrots - again didnt do enough i compare to games he has done more again more some poor decison making.
Fusher - Again quiet and not enough but wasnt too bad

So overall a pretty poor report card $^%$&$$$$*^E%^%E%

Changes
Outs - Deluca / Russell / Houla or get 3 Sumo Wrestlers to crash him till he understands what contesting is all about
Possibly someone else but not sure enough to bring in to cover.
Ins - Kennedy for Deluca / Backwell for Houla he may at least go in and get a hard ball get and hit a target / Magrath for Russell he just a lot better option at this stage

Also Sack the skills coach was emabarrising watching kicks go over players in space IE Bentick 45 meters out directly in front know pressure.

Big Problems - lack of going hard / lack or converting scores but Richmond suffer same problem tonite / Lack of hitting targets / Players doin stupid hand offs with opposition players within a meter of them / Poor decision making ..... The list goes on


What a friggin frustrating nite and too a team of hacks just less of a hack side to us ...... And Couple some silly coaching moves and lack of imagination
IE Whits moved to backline was silly when 1st quarter showed a much more dangerous forward line / And not enough trial on a better Richo match up ie Banno or Walks but walks was doin quite well in what he was doing already.
Some coaching moves may have been okay if our players actually did some hard work and .... Heres a thing hit a friggin target

Well i had my Rant ... disgraceful effort Blues

Played 5 games and played one real bad game and you want to drop him. I will let you in on a little secret the kid is going to play a few more bad games before he retires after 200 games with about 3 or 4 club best and fairests.

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"Hence you will not say that Greeks fight like heroes but that heroes fight like Greeks"?

Winston Churchill

The tone is set from the top.
we play ctrap cos our go to men play crap.

As for Murph another great performance for a first year player .. playing in a side that is a rudderless ship.
He was terrific till the last quarter when we running around without a head...

Russell cant afford to not hit targets from 15 meters out...
But then again.. its not just Russell....

Too many players at the top playing for themselves and not enough heroic acts.(Loved Bentick putting his body on the line in the first i think it was) Thats the kind of stuff that sets the tone...

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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.