Not sure whether Russell was ouststanding. According to SEN best were Prender, Sporn, Longmuir, Chambers.

I think it was a case of our defense and midfield feeding the forwards really, really well so there's hardly a player on the field you'd be disappointed with.

Having said that Box Hill are a young but talented side, so they don't have as physically mature bodies as most of the Bullants side (Oldest player for the Bok Choy's is 24).

From what I can tell, Blackwell and Russell were super, ditto Bower. Setanta played in defense after playing on the wing last week, demonstrating a level of versatility and is clearly looking to round out his game.

Deluca I think played in the ruck, can't confirm that but the stats match up (individual hit outs were not read out). Played against Max Bailey and broke even (not much) but did plenty of link work around the ground (big thumbs up).

Batson kicked another bag of 5 in the ressies and Aisake earned another best naming along with him (fair to assume for ruck duties), ditto Jackson.

Hopefully the Carlton officials can put the squeeze on their Bullants conterparts and Jackson, Batson and Aisake can force their way into the seniors.

funny that

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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!

Alot of this is going over my head - just seems to be arguing out of management textbooks for mine... but

Problem #1 at Carlton is our disposal skills.

We have the highest clanger count in the league. If this was materially better there is no other reason why we wouldn't by 5 and 0.

Skills have killed us. Sure there's some moments of madness where we have no forward line but solve the #1 Problem and it's a different ballgame.

What this says to me is:
1. Perhaps Pagan has misread the list development over the pre-season and we spent too little time on skills under pressure / in space

2. Once this improves the team / list will be in a very different position.

If 2) happens too late this year we will be staring down a barrel. Many of us lament the loss of form of certain key defenders but with foot turnovers in the modern game, goals can often result very quickly.

One final point, a Development Plan for any player in Year 6 of his career is irrelevant if the guy still can't kick.

Here's the details from sporting pulse for those who can't be bothered checking the TalkingBullants forum (and there appears to be a few).

2006 TRUenergy VFL Seniors

Box Hill Hawks 2.5 2.8 5.12 8.13 (61)
Northern Bullants 6.2 17.8 24.12 32.15 (207)

BEST:
Box Hill Hawks: McGlynn Carse Gilham Ball Bull Height
Northern Bullants: Prendergast Sporn Longmuir McGrath Morrell Deluca

GOALS:
Box Hill Hawks: Boyle 2 Bailey McGlynn Gibson Franklin Rudolph Johnson
Northern Bullants: Prendergast 7 Longmuir 5 Morrell 4 Bryan 3 Sporn 3 Blackwell 3 Smith 2 Chambers Harford Houlihan Russell Hooper

JK has obviously been holding the Bullants back.

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He probably would have kicked 10 if he was out there.

lol......good one!

It's very interesting that Dean Polo (pick 20 in the 2004 draft) is starring tonight in his first game for Richmond.

Never played one senior game in his first year and 5 weeks of football.

Wonder what his development plan is?

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Very gangly type, ala Trent Sporn. Same size too, went and checked before I made a goose of myself.

Shows you what Trent would have been were it not for a cruel and unusual run of injuries. Yes I meant would.

Hell of a debut though, and you wouldn't expect him to maintain that level of form, but he's doing well and nice to see a player coming through that's creative by hand.

Looks like Pettifer won the game for the tiges...

you'd have to be either mad or stupid to celebrate a good reserves win/performance from Russell as a victory for Pagan.

Do you read about Doering having a good game for Bendigo and think "yep, Brittain was right"??

Molsey - development plans for players in year 6 is futile under this environment.... especially when there were years 1-5 to have a crack at getting it right... but, according to Danny, the strategy has been not to bother because he wasn't a high enough pick or didn't dominate quickly enough

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Love Cricket? Love me

That tells me playing VFL reserves doesn't hurt a players development. 8 games last year.

Just on the topic I totally agree its the coach's role to get the best and develop talent no he's not the total reason a player fails to make it but he has the major say as much as the player himself. The best point in this is Jobe Watson who was drafted as a centre-man/onballer. Sheedy tried to make him into a CHF and when this didn't work he's finally given him a chance to play where he's best suited. 99% of people on here would have thought Jobe Watson was shit before this season and I have read a few posts that say this. Now he playing like he did when I say him play and dominate in the U/18 champs in the centre and knew he was a better player then what people thought. So if Sheedy hadn't given Watson the chance this year in the centre and he was delisted at the end of the year who's fault would it have been?

Then lets talk about Brent Staker

Let's compare his performances pre-elevation vs post-elevation. I'd say what they've done has worked, he was the one feeding our forwards yesterday... the reports on the game were glowing. I'm not sure if you were (and I'll freely admit I wasn't, but probably should have been) but that's what's been said.

One piece of play said that he delivered the ball to someone along the wing, rushed forward and received the ball, ie. a 1-2 from HB to HF and ran into 50 and slotted a goal.

That's the sort of stuff we recruited him for, pace, skills and a touch of flair.

I dont know how poor old dannyboy is going to defend that today .


Good luck Danny

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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

I dont know how you could defend him.

He's been shit for a 4th year now. He clearly has no passion for the club or the game anymore and is riding out to retirement.

Sack him and get some fresh blood in I say, but i know there'll be plenty who disagree.

yes and you'd play all the kids have us lose by 150 points and praise the development.

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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!

Surely we could at least have a forward line structure

It is so obvious that the flooding doesn't work yet it's persisted with

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"You are being watched. The government has a secret system. A machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it." - Finch

Yes but we could accept that '

I'm convinced that playing players in the Bullants is worse for their the developmentas the competition appears to far off what is expected at AFL level

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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

Congratulations you have denegrated an AFL coach on a football match you would have been lucky to see 20 minutes of footage for (at the time of posting).

What a joke.

Those who bothered to watch before foaming at the mouth would have a little more of an idea of what happened. We're still not built up enough to compete with the more physical sides in the competition, our decision making and kicking was poor, the skills themselves were fine (ie. kick action and so forth) but we didn't really direct our kicks.

To me it looked more like the old and the new game plans were wish-washing together. Sometimes we maintained possession to the point where half our players seemed to stall mentally. Then other times we just banged it long to nothing and surprise surprise Collingwood's 3 on 1 situation paid off.

Our defenders are working their arses off.

Our midfielders are not working hard enough beyond the stoppage for each other and their team mates.

Our forwards are not making space for each other, not getting creative when presenting a lead.

Some of it is coaching and game plan, but how complex can you be with the kids that are the core reason we're falling down?

A lot of it is placing undue pressure on yourself when you have the ball, or being selfish and self-preserving with your play.

Another side to it is the ability to run out a game, whether the cause be fitness or bench rotation, I would suspect both but what happens when Stevens goes to the bench, when Kouta goes, when Whitnall goes, Fevola... and you expect them to run out a modern game?

Yet another side of it is physicality, yeah we're tough, yeah we win a lot of contested ball and with the way we stuff up possession for each other we have to. But when it comes to going in and coming out with the ball when the real heat is on, only a small number of players in our team's midfield can do this. I'm not referring to inside mids, I'm refering to tackles not sticking, players being brough to ground to easily. It doesn't take a genius to identify that while some of our blokes can play AFL footy, that they just shouldn't be in such demanding roles given their physique.

Clearly as a result there is a bit of self-belief ebbing away with each game and I honestly couldn't tell you a single good reason why that would be happening.

Some of you will try to blame the coach for it. How can one man gee up an entire 22, week in, week out, if they continue to question themselves and most of their team mates? I don't think you can land that one on them.

Right now it's if you're in defense pass it to Whitnall, if you're in the midfield hand it over to Scotland or Stevens or run up the length of the wing. When you're heading forward it's kick it to Fevola.

That spells absolutely @#$%&! all to do with the coach. Do you think Denis Pagan would honestly sit there and say "Every time you go inside 50, kick it to Fev. I don't care if he has 3 blokes on him, kick it to him." What a complete and utter joke. He's not Wayne Carey, you've never seen Pagan throw another player that much respect in terms of being able to win the ball in a pack.

So why blame the coach for players playing like they're wearing blinkers? You can't blame Pagan nearly as much as you can the player with the ball and the majority of team mates presenting for him.

I could talk about this all evening and would probably end up talking in circles, but one thing stands clear:

The coach does not create the unbelievable errors we see out on the field by some of our players.

The coach does not tell his players to stand around after the ball goes past them.

The coach does not have a direct influence on the game.

The coach DOES attempt to provide a game plan to counteract and/or expose the opposition, while keeping in mind the strengths and weaknesses of his players.

The coach DOES attempt to instill a level of decision making in players of when to play on, when to hold up, when to chip, when to charge and when to bomb it long.

I suspect many will try to shoot down what I say, but it's perfectly sound logic and merely points to the players lifting this dismal attitude that the majority of players spiral into when things don't go the way they like it.