Lid on 2018 - have we gone to soon? Nervously hanging out for Friday

Next home game vs norf. FFS.

15k @the G.

etihad to close half the bars/food stands

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Dodoro has found some gems, no doubt about that.

Jake Carlisle was great for us (until the end).

Hooker was a late pick and became AA (despite Adrian’s best efforts to trade him to Gold Coast).

Raz and Zerret in particular were masterstrokes.

Ambrose has turned into a very good defender also.

He deserves credit for finally giving Walla a go also.

The problem though, is his track record speaks for itself and what it says is that he cannot pick quality midfielders for ■■■■.

He can claim Zerret who has turned into a very good outside player and probably Hep even though he was a pick 7 (does have 2 reasonable flaws though) but that’s two legitimate quality midfielders over the course of about 10 or 12 years.

Who else has he brought in?

Jake Melksham? Monfries? Howlett? Myers over Rioli? Hocking? Kade Klemke?Lonergan? Tom German? Elliot Kavanagh?Eades? Prismall?Ricky Dyson? Kepler Bradley?, Tom Hislop, Leroy Jetta?Anthony Long? Taite Silverlock?Colyer?Alex Browne?Luke Davis?Ariel ■■■■■■■ Steinberg?J.Merret?Kommer? DVU?Hams?Redman?Houli?Reimers?

He cannot pick midfielders.

So prepare to be disappointed again this year when he uses pick 9 or whatever on a flawed utility or half-back flanker who ‘we think will eventually become a midfielder’

He’s also a dinosaur.

List managers need to be able to utilise every available tool to build the list required to be successful. Time and time again Dodoro has shown that he is either unwilling or unable to get trades done and that is for both players and/or picks.

I’ve mentioned it before but Melbourne moved heaven and earth to get in ahead of us in the Parish/Franga draft because they knew Oliver was the superior player. I think we knew it too.

Hindsight is wonderful I know, the point is he can’t pick them late and he does nothing to trade into the top of the draft where the cream is (not just the Oliver draft, all of them).

Dodoro like EVERY ■■■■■■■ RECRUITER AT EVERY ■■■■■■■ CLUB finds a good/very good player every know and then.

And that’s the point, it isn’t enough. Not even close.

So if the bloke responsible for assembling the list is immune from the heat when what he has assembled has amounted to a consistently mediocre side then how the ■■■■ can anyone expect us to improve?!?!!?

Of course this frustration will all but disappear when the club announce we have secured the much coveted signature of Jasper ■■■■■■■ Pittard.

FFS Essendon.

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Still mathematically possible!

Not sure which was lamer, our game, or the two peanuts walking around wearing ‘Make America Great Again’ caps.

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His miss today. Yikes.

It is still a vexed question for me. I agree with you about Howlett and Stanton, but BJ and Jobe are still essential to keeping us competitive, even last year we relied on older harder players to keep us competitive enough to make us meaningful opposition.

I agree with you in principle, in fact my post above advocates for all out on playing younger players. But it is a question of how deep do we cut and who do we bring in and when, while not slaughtering them as uncompetitive players in an uncompetitive side. Here are some of the options in my opinion:

James Kelly - can we do without him yet? I suppose the time is coming, Kobe Mutch could come in here at some time.

Brendon Goddard - has been immense this year and we are not ready to give him a push yet IMO. Looking forward Ridley might be a go here, but not yet I don’t think.

Josh Green - Begley might come in for him next week. Jake Long if we can get him on the senior list before the end of the season.

Tom Bellchambers - Leueny is probably the back up still - Sammy Draper will be ready for at least a taste by next year.

Jobe Watson - this is the most emotional one, still need his strength and possession getting ability, but losing his kicking is a problem and we don’t know if it will come back before the end. Myers the only mature / strong replacement. Dylan Clarke maybe in a year or two. Jobe will leave a hole in our side and if we could have got Patrick Cripps in that draft, it would have been a major help, but we didn’t.

Travis Colyer - could need a rest. Looking at the heat map on the AFL Ipad App, he looks like he has been playing back pocket and rotating in the mid-field with Bags, with Bags getting more possesion midfield and Trav more in the back pocket (perhaps there is a succession plan going on just quietly or the App is wrong).

Mark Baguley - if not Trav, do we have an adequate replacement yet? Might need to start experimenting if we haven’t already. I think Trav is a good idea for nullifying the oppositions outside midfielder, but can he learn to operate in the tough confines of the back pocket?

James Stewart - he is coming along OK but there are good alternatives - Begley, Francis, Brown, Lav.

Michael Hartley - not old but Ambrose comes in when fit, although I like a Brown/Francis forward/back rotating combo too looking to the future.

All these things should be tried, but we can’t do it all at once without compromising our competitiveness. So in answer to your question, while keeping Stanton, Howlett and Hocking in retrospect hasn’t helped our list and may have taken a several games away from younger players, I don’t think it was the end of the world. At worst it may have stopped us from picking up some late picks who may have been a chance, but in truth we could have used our zone picks to get another player or two, but we chose not to. I think we did a pretty decent job getting McGrath, Ridley, Begley, Mutch, Clarke, Draper, Stewart, Green, Dea, Kelly and McNiece into the side and none of them look like a write off yet and, other than bringing in McKenna in earlier, playing Langford in more games and maybe Mutch would have debuted (this is probably the only semi major consequence) ; I don’t think any of the returning players have limited the younger players opportunities too much and I think our draft picks wouldn’t have been much better, and it would have done harm to dishonour the 10 returning players by not giving them an opportunity.

Myers is a tricky one, especially with his contract extension, but I think we needed mature strong body depth at least for this year (if Jobe goes down for instance), if that was wise going into the future, only time will tell.

Go back to the2015 draft and look how many of those picks are playing. I remember the blitz was spot on when we they where saing Redman, Morgan WTF.

Time for dodoro to go!

We have a team that has the mental toughness of a pea. It’s been going on for too long. We’ve lost to the bottom team so many times over the last 15 years. This year though, it’s not about a lack of ability. It’s about the lack of desire and effort to win. Once the fans get a sniff of players lacking effort and desire, then the sh*t is going to hit the fan.

I talk about mental toughness. The analagy I also reflect upon when it comes to mental toughness, is John Aloisi in the 2005 World Cup qualifier when he took the penalty shot. Many people look at that piece of action and think glory!

I read an interview with him about prior to the shoot outs.
Guus Hiddink asked the players who wanted to take the penalties. 5 blokes put their hand up. Guus then asked, who wants to take the last one.
Aloisi had no hesitations.
He said, “I’m taking it. I want to go down in history as the hero who put Australia through to the World Cup, or the villain of the nation.”

Now that sort of mental resolve is absolutely admirable. A situation that many people never wish never to be put under, with that amount of stress. I honestly question the mental toughness of our team, to back up after last week’s loss.

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be thankful people like you, so you don’t cop the good of vitriolic hatred after saying the above
otherwise you’d cop
you hate essendon
you should go barrack for richmond
and so on.and so on and so on.

funny that hey, you’ve pretty much said exactly what i normally do, maybe just added sugar coating, but look at the different reactions so far hey.

You might wanna remember this post of yours, the next time you flame me for pointing out the exact things you just said.

You were a complete fkhead Anzac Day. You couldn’t just let people have their 5 minutes in the sun. Apart from that, I can see why your so miserable about this club

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The difference is best exemplified by the fact that WOB called Anzac Day the best day of his life, and you called the team pitiful cripples. It makes a difference to a lot of people, even if you then added that you were happy, even if you were right. Positivity after a win buys credits for negativity after a bad loss. Being right doesn’t get you the same credits. That might not be fair, but there it is.

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I think everyone can see wob is a spur of the moment kind of guy.

Watching today’s game was bad enough, then i found out via this thread that Myers and Colyer are both contracted through 2019. That encapsulates so neatly a big part of the reason why we haven’t been able to get out of the basement for 15 years - we are the AFL champions of letting borderline and obviously limited players rack up a decade on the senior list before moving them on.

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I haven’t read all this post so apologies if I missed something but just on Stewart I think you’re wrong (or harsh)
Those 4 names you listed as good alternatives.
Begley - hasn’t played a senior game yet so can’t count him
Francis - still can’t get fit at all
Brown - he’s about the level as Hartley, barely AFL standard
Lav - always injured

I think Stewart is one of the few shining light this year. Decent kick for goal for Essendon standards, got football smarts and is very mobile for his height.

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Chances are we’ll beat c__wood this week. But watch us repeat yesterday’s crap vs the aints and norf.

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I’m done for 2018 unless they start playing the kids. I wouldn’t mind watching an 18-22 yo kid stuff up a game but when it’s guys like Goddard and Watson what’s the point?

Saints will ■■■■ us by 10 goals. You know it.

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Yeah DP, I’m not sure why you keep implying that you being a w@nker on Anzac Day is now justified because we lost to Brisbane.