Everyone's had their oppinions on DP and his development of our players - the young ones in particular.

Now we're starting to see some signs of a future from players we couldn't possibly have thought 12-18 months ago.

Simpson - Skinny kid didn't look to me capable of handling the strength of the game
Bentick - Slow, short and passed by every other club several time in the draft.
Carrazzo - Poor disposal hampered his early days (and still does to an extent) but shows he now knows how to get it
Eddie - Again missed by every other team and, although probably won't play 150 games, will be a good player for the foreseeable future
Blackers - (this is my favourite) Looked like the biggest case of romance chockies since the clokes, but now plays well above his height and weight. Is beautiful to watch when in traffic

Then there's Setanta - Jury's still out but could well be very good in another 12 months.

All these kids were a risk, but most were developed through the 2s and from the bench. We all complain about game time and elevating rookies. It's a selfish thing because WE want to see them NOW. These cases prove that 'slowly, slowly, cathy monkey' and they'll all be better off for the experience.

I guess this better than making nothing from something.

Patience is definitely a virtue we need in spades. Trouble is, we've been being patient for 4 years pretty much. I fear we may need to be patient for aat least another 2 more seasons of frustrating footy.

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Camel, patience is still a virtue Blues supporters will need for at least 2 years, but as I said to my fellow tragic while watching the boys against to Doggies, at least now you catch glimpses of the developing skills of some of these kids.

2 years ago I would spend most of the games with my head buried in my hands, it was like watching a train wreck.

That is true. It is nice seeing a starting midfield with guys like Blackwell, Simpson and Bentick at the fore.

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Thats the beaty of watching the Blues these days. How good were the first 3 qtrs of the game?

The wins will come, and now we can all see were they will come from.

That'd be St Kilda

All these players with the acception of Blackers, could've been picked up by another club, could've been tossed back after 1 or two poor performances, or could've been played to death and destroyed for ever.

You've got to give credit where it is due and say DP and others have nurtured this group pretty well. Now we need them to find the best of Walker, Stevens, French, Lappin etc. After DPs press conf he was pretty p1ssed with NS .

I reckon we're 12-18 months behind the doggies .

12-18 months?

That would be good, but a little ambitious I reckon.

Good post. And I think the other important point is that we aren't going to lose too much from the team over the next few years.

Kouta hasn't done much this year and neither has Lappin. So retirements won't hurt the club too much. That means if we can add 2 or 3 new players to the team each year we should hopefully be improving the side. That's as many as 9 new faces within 3 years.

Given that we'll get pick 1 or 2 next year we might have a player who walks into the team like Murphy, hopefully we'll get 2 more picks in the top 20 who will be long term prospects and players like Harlett, Edwards, Jackson, Flint, etc who we have yet to see, their should hopefully be continued improvement over the next few years.

I'm optimistic that we've actually bottomed out in terms of performance, and are starting the climb back to having a competitive team.

Well, they weren't that good. Skills were awful but we ran at the bullies and had a real crack, and were level at 3/4 time. Level. We can be happier with that performance, but not satisfied. Never can we be satisified with a loss.

I know we've still got a really long way to go, and I too love going to the games to see glimpses, but we cannot appease ourselves with mediocrity. We do that, we end up like St Kilda or Geelong.

We have to strike the balance between acknowledging the encouraging signs, and instilling the ruthless desire of not being satisfied with anything less than a flag in the medium term.

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Congratulations CK95

You're a hard man to please bluehammer. I agree with you but with 2 wins on the board this year I have to take solace in the little things or I'd be a shrivelled shell of a supporter.

True the first three qtrs had heaps of clangers but we played good attacking football and did not simply scrap it out as we've done so many time before.

Now if everyone stops mentioning the 4th qtr I'll have it erased from my mind by Wednesday

Hahahaha no don't get me wrong, I took a lot out of the game and I thought we played a lot better than we have for the bulk of the year. And I do, like you, take solace in the glimpses I see. Without them I'd go mad.

The point I'm trying to make is that while we can take solace out of performances like that on Sunday, we can’t be satisfied with them as a club. This club built its success on being ruthless, and not settling for mediocrity. That attitude will get us back where we belong and we can’t take the Geelong or St Kilda path of saying ‘We got to a preliminary final, that’s a great result for our club’.

So what may have sounded harsh wasn’t meant that way.

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Congratulations CK95

Gomez didn't mind watching a good train wreck.

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

Winston Churchill

If only watching the Blues had been as much fun as the Addams Family.

It was kara mia it was - "insert whistful emoticon here".

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

Winston Churchill

Surrey - you cant seriously want us to finish a glorious 10th with picks 7 and 25 do you.

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

Winston Churchill

I think Steve meant get picks 1 or 2 THIS year?? Next year we're going for the 8

Disposal is still deplorable. Can't see it improving either

Yup, that's what I meant. Sorry was typing in a hurry. Was thinking of next draft when I wrote it....

Thank God.