Drives me farking batty.
Not that I’m not already farking batty, mind.
Where’s my hat?
Bingo!
Sure hope so. May as well get something for them rather than keep them languishing in the magoos.
1 Like
Nope all end this year.
As does Goddard. Watson. Kelly. Bird. Jerrett and a heap more players of which we want to keep.
1 Like
Where are we? Nowhere, where are we going? Somewhere.
When will we get there?
soon.
1 Like
God I hope not.
Yep, I also have Baguley, Brown and Zaharakis on my list because I was considering trades / free agency.
I don’t have Goddard on my list, because I’ve been so impressed with his early season form.
We made 12 changes in 2016
We made 13 changes in 2015
None of those changes include the lads who helped us out excluding Dea and Kelly of course.
I just think Worsfold needed a year to see everyone together, and where the team was at. If we underperform (and we are currently 12th), then I think he will cut hard and try and build around the younger players that will be with us going forward.
One way of doing that is get a couple of extra picks through trade. I think Brown is worth something to a side that isn’t as over-flowing with AFL quality talls as we are. And Zaharakis could well go and make his free agency fortune somewhere else.
Of course, after we win this week, I’ll be back hoping everyone goes around again for another year in order to defend their flag.
2 Likes
Why? Just what has he shown to demonstrate that should be the case? Or is he going to be (yet another) one of those that Essendon just won’t give up on…
3 Likes
Just think him doing the short break and extra preseason and his attributes mean he is worth one last ditch.
Nup. Our persistent mediocrity has been defined by us blindly persevering with too many players (McKernan, Kavanagh, Steinberg,Hams, Long, O’Brien) who never looked like anything better than honest toilers. We need to be more ruthless, and guys who’ve had 2 or 3 years to prove their worth just need to be turned-over.
1 Like
I think there will be a number of changes, but I don’t think it is so certain they’ll all happen this year. I think of the 12 I listed that Kelly, Watson, McKernan (all the arguments that he’s needed for depth still apply), Morgan and one of Howlett/Bird (you need some depth) to survive. I’d be surprised if Zaharakis left, although I definitely agree that I could see Brown leaving. Not that I think we’d get diddly squat for him. And I forgot Bags, but on current form he’s probably safe (and he’s not that old).
So that would be 7-8 changes.
Although I generally agree with the sentiment, this is an example of the general sentiment being potentially silly in the specific context. Plenty of players have taken more than two years to come on, and frequently players taken deep in the draft are pretty poor. For all the shouted successes of the rookie draft, the hit rates across all teams are very small.
For Morgan, we obviously rated him to take him ~ pick #28 two years ago. He’s then been frustrated by injury. If EFC gave him another year because they rated his talent far above a pick #70 odd in the draft, that isn’t “blindly persevering” with a player. It depends a lot on how the coaches rate what they’ve learned post drafting, when he’s been fit, and what the recruiters think they can get out of the back end of the draft. Morgan at draft time certainly had a skill set that we still require.
.
.
.
PS. Why is McKernan on your list? He’s around for depth, which he showed the value of earlier in the year. Seems a pretty sensible use of the rookie list to me when you’ve got two rucks with injury histories, and a youngster who is still a few years off it.
2 Likes
I want us to target some mids that can impact straight away, if we can improve the midfield group by 10-15% I think we become a good side instantly. We will get some developmental improvement as that group Parish, Merrett, McGrath, Langford is young but we would certainly benefit from targeting players b/w 22-26. If we can bring in a few mature mids I think you will see us be more aggressive with our retirees/delistings.
Morgan depends on the rest of the season. Unless he ups his output I really can’t see him remaining on the senior list. Can see us giving him the Essington farewell tour - one year on the rookie list
7 Likes
I’d reckon most of them were kept around purely because of the saga…in case players were suspended. And of course, we delist most of them and we lose players to CAS.
We are just going to have to disagree on this one.
None of those players had the traits of Morgan. Elite pace and spearing long kick.
Hopefully he can string together games, have a crack at seniors near the end of the season and we can find out this year.
3 Likes
Doubt Kelly and Watson will play in 2018.
3 Likes
Yep I said this last year but keeping Kelly on would be batshit crazy IMO and without having a clue what I’m saying here Jobe strikes me as the type that could walk away at the end of the year.
I take the view that if we can cut close to 10 players without touching players who are still best 22 (like Kelly), then why would he be on the chopping block?
1 Like
Am i the only one worried about our list?
Say we lose our next 4 games and our season is “Over”. We should play the “kids” - however we don’t have many;
francis, mutch, begley etc
that’s it.
I’m pretty worried tbh.
Last Saturday showed me how far off we are. We lost to the Giants who were missing 8-14 of their best 22.
The difference in class was visible. How many times did their players look composed under pressure compared to our guys?
I’m not having a swipe at our boys but we have a lot of players who are very limited. Take for example Howlett/Myers/Stanton - when under pressure = throw it on the boot. The Giants players, even their reserve players looked better than some of our best 22.
We are a long, long way off.
5 Likes
Jobe could well, but he’s earned the right to make his own call