Yep very balanced. And therefore has no place whatsoever on TC.

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O say does that star spangled banner yet wave.

Yeah the bloke needs the full set of cards to promote and demote players on merit.

I think we have elite talent holding down key posts.

Probable three AAs this year. H, Weits and Walsh and if Doc plays like he did on the weekend rest of season he will be smashing down the door as well.

Need our best players training together week in week out and bring the intensity from training on matchday to compete with top four. Which we cant do with hobbled injury list.

Martin and Fisher to return soon will be huge and who knows what Kemp will be like in a month playing VFL has all the tools to dominate his position.

Lads need to start building belief next two games heres hoping they do. They deserve it due to bad luck and hard work they have put in.

Haha

Watch Essendon* for what a well coached team with fresh ideas looks like.

Less talent but clear game plan, tight and organised behind the ball but can change the pace going forward. Took a w hile to get it right but Caracella, Rutten are doing a good job.

Meanwhile our lot runs around like headless chooks most of the time.

Notwithstanding the prematurity of holding * up as some kind of benchmark (they are not), the above does show the benefit of surrounding a new coach with good personnel with fresh ideas, not the same stale and comfortable group as previous regimes.

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WADA medical director Dr Alan Vernec describes Essendon* FC drug case as biggest scandal in team sport the world of sport has seen. #WC2WB

#GUILTY

Early days but it appears that Caracella has made a difference

Off field set up is huge. We still have Barker.

Carlton’s team defence is ordinary. Melbourne wins because if it’s team defence. The most talented teams don’t always win.

Funny but a few weeks back we beat Essendon*

Must not have been as well coached 4 weeks ago

Sent from my SM-G991B using Tapatalk

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If you allow the Government to change the Laws in an emergency
They will create an Emergency to change the Laws

Didn't we beat them a few weeks ago?

Anyway, I have seen it all before with these drug cheating pricks
Points after 10 games below (excluding 2016 because that's when they played with top ups)

2014 20
2015 16
2017 20
2018 16
2019 16
2020 22
2021 20

Nothing much appears to have changed. Let's see how they go for a sustained period. Fingers crossed they fall in a heap as they usually do.

Once it started raining heavily, I said that Essendon* would win... My boys thought I was nuts... One gave up watching and hit the PlayStation...
WCE already had two injuries, it would become a run and gun game... the only style Essendon* can play, the only game WCE don't want to

WCE couldn't run out of sight on a dark night

Go Blues

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“Every single element of the Club has to be the best in the league, meticulously and methodically, and only by doing this will we be elite and challenge for number 17.”
Greg Lee

Speaking of run-and-gun. I am absolutely certain if we hadn't have sacked Ratts when we did, we'd have either won a flag (or few) or competed in Prelims/GF's in the ensuing years.

We had that run-and-gun list that had been put together a few years before its time. We just needed another year without injuries and perhaps a FA to complete the puzzle. Blinked a year too soon. Look what happened with the Tigers when they backed their man, their list and their style instead of torching him.

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O say does that star spangled banner yet wave.

And so we should, considering we are 7 years into a rebuild

My point was about beefing up our off field set up

Our defensive structures are a huge liability. Compare our set up to what Melbourne has been producing this year.

Those same poor defensive structures will cost Weitering an AA blazer this year. Bookmark it.

_________________
WADA medical director Dr Alan Vernec describes Essendon* FC drug case as biggest scandal in team sport the world of sport has seen. #WC2WB

#GUILTY

i subscribe to this theory.

The Amigos with Fev or Setanta ran amok.

Midfield group was pretty good.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

And Jamo down back was solid enough. Waite could be swung back....

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O say does that star spangled banner yet wave.

I do not, at least with the setup we had at the time.

On-field, Ratts benefitted from a generational midfielder who allowed his understudies (Murphy, Gibbs, Carrots etc) to reach their peaks as well. But when we got found out, there was never a plan B, an essential ingredient to taking that next step. Just look at St Kilda this year compared to last. The same thing, and this is after years gaining an apprenticeship under Clarkson. We had a team at its peak, good enough to sit at 5-6, but no plans to make it better.

Off-field we were (and some would say still are) way behind other clubs. List management was non-existent (with the exception of Wayne Hughes, who did nothing but call names out on draft day), leaving Ratts to take a more active role than a coach should, thereby contributing to the bad drafting choices we're still paying for today. And as much as we (rightly) bag the shit out of the Malthouse appointment, when he arrived everyone was contracted, leaving us with no options. No flags would be forthcoming without this area getting sorted out, regardless of who was coaching.

Player behaviour was clearly an issue as well. As much as we groan at giving away Garlett, Robinson, Waite and Yarran, their positions at the club were untenable at that time, let's not sugarcoat it. But who was running the asylum? Why did most of those guys (sadly, not including Yarran) suddenly "wake up" when they were in a different environment and become consistent contributors they never could under our regime?

Ratts may have thrived as a coach with a better support network around him at the club that his successors have enjoyed, but we'll never know. But to continue to look at his coaching career with rose-coloured glasses and assume it would've gotten any better is a big mistake IMO.

_________________
WADA medical director Dr Alan Vernec describes Essendon* FC drug case as biggest scandal in team sport the world of sport has seen. #WC2WB

#GUILTY

Fair enough, you make some good points. Perhaps there is a bit of wishful thinking in there as far as the possibility for "sustainable" success, but we may still have pinched one before things imploded if things broke our way on field. The list at that time was actually decent and the cultural issues hadn't yet sunk in. The players loved Ratts and played for him.

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O say does that star spangled banner yet wave.

Totally unsurprising

Unsustainable high pressure - forward 50 press - style gameplan.

Trap it in, trap it in, trap it in..... but dont kick goals .....and dont give a shit about how you enter F50...just get it there and trap it in.

Then wonder why you get hammered on turnovers, goals out the back and a "team defence" that looks all at sea...

...Pick way too many talls for said gameplan.... and wonder why you can only sustain the gameplan for 3 quarters.....

We are going absolutely nowhere, if not backwards, fast with this coaching lot.

Teams just absorb what we put up because they know we dont capitalise on the scoreboard when we are dominating and they know we are vulnerable on the counter attack

5 goal swings galore forever...

Unacceptable and wont be tolerated for much longer.

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*(grow - fun - gah)

Yeah but whatabout your whataboutism.

Teague "we're just waiting for that lightbulb moment. It's not too far away"

Just @#$%&! off along with Barker and the rest. The great big hope.

He actually said that ?!?!

The lightbulb will go off on his career soon.

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*(grow - fun - gah)

Yeah but whatabout your whataboutism.