Lewis had 30 possessions on the weekend. Franklin's been injured.

Lewis was dropped from the squad and then reinstated when Vanderberg's appal failed.

see if more of our players would just go and get themselves rubbed out more of our kids would have 30 possession games!

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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!

Lets keep this in perspective.
Lewis averages more kicks, handballs, marks, clearances, first possessions and inside 50s than Adam Bentick.
He would be a walk up start in our midfield.

His trouble is the number 1 and 2 centre clearance players in the AFL play in his team in his preferred positions.
He'd be in our number 1 rotation. The kid can play.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

and has mongrel too.. and isnt scared to express it!
Confident kid.

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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.

but so can murphy walker and a few others - no doubt Lewis could get a position in our midfield given the dearth of talented midfielders - but murphy walker and a few others would also get a game at Hawthorn too
Have Roughhead and Franklin been so good this year - could you say they have out performed walker and murphy
Should we look at the context of the team they are playing in -as suggested Hawthorn core surrounding these guys have played better this year than the carlton core
Not pretending that we are going along nicely but also objective about relative strengths and weakness
Not saying either that Roughhead franklin or lewis arent going to be very good

Frank, i admire your positivity and am not trying to take positivity away from you...

But you cant point to Hawthorns kids and say.... "Seeeeee??? theyre not doing much better either!!"

Cos number 1 they are...

And number 2 if they wernt who cares???The fact remains none of us are taking the quantum leap really!!!.., and thats all we should concern ourselves with...

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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.

The Hawthorn kids aren't doing much better than ours.

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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!

Kennedy is a first year player. Roughead and Franklin are second year players. Kennedy is getting a taste, the others have tasted it.

Murphy is another first year player, and yeah, I think he's coming on nicely.

Back to Kennedy, I have no doubt that the experience he has had thus far, albeit only minutes, is going to prove to hold a lot of value for him as he becomes accustomed to the requirements to play at this level. There is no way known he could play 100 minutes of football week in week out. He runs a lot and afar to present himself, without reward; there is a lesson in that for him.

There will be a time in the near future, when the best for him will be to take what he's leaned in the firsts and practise to improve on his deficiencies in the seconds. He will need a breather, and that's part of the process in our attempt to fast tracking the kid.

Theres little chance that any of the players discussed in this thread would be given the same opportunities they've had with Carlton and Hawthorn in the better teams such as West Coast, Adelaide and Sydney. We need to keep that in perspective, and restrain ourselves with our expectations of kids 18 or 19.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

As opposed to the WCE, Sydney et all, Bondi I thought all we had to look forward to was our 18 year olds.

If the issue with Kennedy is that he is not AFL match fit to run our at least half a game, then he should be played for whole games in the VFL.

85 minutes sitting on pine is not developing his ability or understanding of the game. It's just giving him an unfamiliar view.

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This might sound extreme in the context of alleged sexual assault, drunken violence and a drug trafficking charge...

If last week's selections didn't disgust you enough, how would we feel about:

OUT: Kennedy, Blackwell
IN: Longmuir, Chambers?

I would downright vomit at that. Why do we need to go backwwards to go forwards when you technically shouldnt be able to go backwards when you come 16th?

ps Brisbane game on the weekend - 18 debutants in past 30 matches. I wonder which 'bottom' team will develop faster and get back to the finals quicker?

You could probably add Sporn to the OUTS as well. After 3 weeks of good form in the Bullants he 'once again' failed to impress in his allocated 23 minutes game time. Carazzo to replace him on the bench or 'minding' Nathan Lonie.

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Patrick Smith - Just another reason to HATE Essendon*!

I get the picture.

It is becoming really inconsistent and frustrating. I'm just trying to find some sensible reasoning behind Pagan's induction strategy, but having said that the key word here is "sensible". I can't make sense of it, and the inconsistency in the development program just baffles me.

The one thing I've been clear about all along, is that Pagan's use of the bench really needs the most serious attention, and the quickest to fix up. It's a no brainer.

If he is tanking, he is tanking. OK. But how does that explain a lack of game time for Kennedy, Russell, Blackwell, and not rotating in the middle? I can understand why Hartlett and Bower are not being blooded. That's obvious. They're injured. But whilst he has an opportunity to blood these guys in terms of reasonable minutes on the field and numbers of games, he's not.

I'm glad he's finding out a bit about the fringe players such as Chambers, Sporn, Wiggins, Prenders, to see what they can offer to our future but if he hadn't given Prenders game time on Saturday, he too would be in the same boast as Sporn and the kids. No time, no rotation, no experimenting equals no idea. It's a wasted opportunity. This is the season to try everything and anything with gusto and comittment.

We have nothing to lose.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

can i ask a question for those who remember this far back..........?

When Sticks was developing, was he playing at CHB or did he learn his trade as a forward/CHF?

Just interested is all..............personally i DO NOT want Kennedy to go to CHB. I dunno, i guess i'm still hurt with what we did to Livo.

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"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit"
- Aristotle

Sticks did his developing at Glenelg and was a walk up start..SANFL was strong back then and players just walked straight into Vic Clubs lineups...

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"When you have the attitude of a champion, you see adversity as your
training partner."
- Conor Gillen

Can't speak for his time early at Glenelg but he was definitely a forward straight up in 1986 when he came over and played as a forward exclusively for Glenelg in 1985 according to my 1986 season preview footy record.

Though he was a different kettle of fish to Kennedy - he'd played a lot of senior footy back when the SANFL was a high standard, didn't come over here as an 18 year old, and he was a legitimate superstar even before playing a VFL game.

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Congratulations CK95

I think he was signed on a form four when he was about sixteen and could have been playing carnival footy at CHF..dont remember him playing CHB...maybe some of our historians like Dom and Frank might know...

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"When you have the attitude of a champion, you see adversity as your
training partner."
- Conor Gillen