Same old, same old...

[lamby29]

Not good enough Melbourne. I was very optimistic about our chances this year, but if we keep up the form we showed today, then we can welcome Colin Sylvia Mk II to the club in November.

Anyway, I'll give a comment on all 22 players who were wearing the Red and Blue today:

Heffernan: Disgraceful. Lazy. Soft. Will probably keep his spot but MUST LIFT. 1/10.

Bizzell: Good old Biz, once again he was amongst our best. 7/10.

Holland: Ordinary debut... although he did set up a couple of goals. 2/10.

Thompson: So-So. Still needs to lift. 5/10.

Miller: Good. He needs to improve is disposal, but was certainly one of our better players today. 6.5/10

Nicholson: Oh dear. What a hack! Has to be dropped for next weeks match, but will probably play on Big Richo. Watch us lose by 60 points if this happens. 0/10.

Neitz: Ineffective. 2/10.

Ward: Disappointing. Was hard at the pill, but not one of his better games for the Demons. 4/10.

Jolly: Crap. Did a couple of nice things but was soundly beaten by Everitt in the ruck. 2/10.

Yze: Our best player by that far it's just not funny. Superstar. 9/10.

Johnstone: Got a lot of his possessions in garbage time, but was one of our better players. 6/10.

Green: Certainly wasn't our worst, but I expected more. Couldn't get near it on the wing. 5/10.

McDonald: Very poor. If Read shows anything for Sandy tomorrow... Junior must go. 2/10.

Robertson: Ordinary. Had an OK last quarter but had a rather forgettable day on the whole. 3.5/10.

Brown: Decent. Very couragous. 6.5/10.

Williams: As he is ND's lovechilds he won't be dropped, but how long can we keep this pretender in the side for? 1.5/10.

Rivers: Excellent. Probably our best player behind Yze and Davey. He'll be a star in defence for the next 10 years. I guarentee it. 7.5/10.

Godfrey: So-so. Kicked 2 goals, but made a few costly mistakes. 5/10.

Wheatley: Encouraging. 18 possessions is a good return. Well done Wheatley. 5.5/10.

White: ****house. Got smashed in the ruck and was far too slow around the ground. LIFT WHITEY!!!

Davey: What a great debut! Thanks to North Melbourne and 14 other clubs for overlooking this marvel. Our best player behind Yze. 8/10.

Whelan: A typical Whelan game. Very overrated by Demon fans. 3/10.

 

[The Shev]

Good

Bizzell
Rivers
Davey

Ordinary
Green (except last quarter he was good)
Wheatley
Johnstone
Miller
Godfrey
Yze

Bad
Neitz
Robertson
White
Thompson
Jolly
Brown
Ward
Nicholson
Holland
Whelan
Heffernan
Williams
McDonald

 

[demon21]

Very disapponting performance today had a great chance to get of to a good start but we play pathetic. White and trav have to lift got so much potential but time and time again they just dont deliever.

 

[footyman]

I gave up yelling much out after half time, reality is the club has a lot of things that need to be addressed.

I'm going to target one player a bit - Simon Godfrey. Now I know he tags, but to me he is not a player who is capable of winning a centre clearance. So in my view, we need our best four players in the centre. Best for reading it off hands of the ruck, best for evasiveness and best of disposing of it. Mitchell is a wonderful stoppages/clearance type of player, same with Crawford, but we had Godfrey, J McDonald, Thompson types in there. Thats where a Brock McLean type will be handy because he's got the qualities to line up in the middle (I'd be stunned if he didn't play next week).

If Collingwood hugged the boundary line the other night, we were just as bad. Not much corridor footy today.

Lack of running to contests and poor skills from our 'better' users of the ball was a letdown.

Time to bite the bullet with the host of short people like Williams, Whelan, Ward, Brown and say we can't put them all in. Whelan has not improved since his first year, and that is just completely unacceptable that he can be allowed to do that by our coaching staff. He's played 69 games now, I think its a disgrace he's played that many. Williams is terrible, but he's nearly going toward 50 games of AFL footy.

Rivers was our best by that far its not funny. Really good development from him over the summer, looks an excellent prospect.

It's only round 1, today was disgraceful, but in 6 days time we're back and hopefully don't have to watch crap like that again.

And I can't remember what else I whinged about during the game, except umpire #16. He's useless.

 

[Demonheart]

I think it's about time we were realistic about our playing squad. I won't talk about our kPP's much because we all know about that. Our biggest problem is our lack of match winners across the ground and the continued poor form of our top players. There comes a point when injuries can no longer be a valid reason for underperforming, we made the mistake of carrying chronic injured players in the 90's. Players like White and Johnstone have to begin to perform or they're out, I know its very early in the season to start talking like this but how long can we keep this going for?
The core of our team for the last couple of years has been McDonald, Ward, Whelan, Brown, Williams and Godfrey, good honest players but not premiership quality players. I'm also beginning to understand why the bombers traded Heffernan.
I'm not saying "get rid of them now", what I'm saying is at the end of the year if we have another crap season we need to sit down and honestly look at our list, and decide which players are going to take us to the highest level.

I pick on White and TJ because they are very skilled players and for various reason's have underpeformed for the majority of their careers. The other reason is that these two players would still attract alot of interest from other clubs ie first round pick, and lets face it, considering their contribution recently we probably wouldn't miss them much.

 

[The Shev]

Exactly. Too many average players who make up the core of the team and our stars aren't performing enough. If this year is another shocker and we manage to survive as a club, trhen we have to re-structure our whole list.

Trade the stars who don't perform and get some valuable youngsters.

Delist the players who are no longer up to AFL standard.

Trade/delist several other players, namely the W faction at this stage.

Build our team around youngsters like Thompson, Bell, McLean, Slyvia, Armstrong, Hunter, Rivers, Davey, Jolly, Jamar, Smith, Miller, Ferguson, etc... There are some talented guys there, but we need to make sure that there are more of them around in a few years time.

Our current list will not win a premiership. Losing Powell, Woewodin, Farmer, Schwarz, Ingerson, Lyon, Viney and Tingay in the last 5 or so years and not being able to adequately replace them has hurt us bad.

 

[BT]

Heff: 0 Never looked like it today, needs to regain confidence at Sandy. McLean in for him.

Biz: 6 Not brilliant attackingly but was serviceable considering he copped a nasty knock.

Holland: 2 Tried hard for little effect, he might be better of improving his fitness at Sandy too

Thommo: 5 Faded but had areal go early on, would've benefitted from some help from our senior midfielders.

Miller: 6 Like Thommo was better than decent while the game was there to be won early on, again faded & needs to work on that.

Nicho: 2 Started ok but conceeded Thompson 6 shots at goal (his first goal was kicked on Holland while Nicho was getting his head wound seen to) although 1 of those was a mark to Neitz. Whatever happened to the man in front rule? No help from the midfield either, still poor.

Neeta: 1 Don't think injury hampered him that much, Jacobs just killed him early. He got killed in defence too, he might be better for the run.

Wardy: 2 Unsighted!

Jolly: 2 See Ward!

Yze: 7 To many poor disposals, but a huge improvement on last season already.

TJ: 4 AWOL when it counted, hopefully stung into a lift as shown in the last qtr.

Green: 5 No influence on a wing, better up forward.

Macca: 3 No influence anywhere!

Robbo: 5 Fought back in the 2nd half, anonymous in the first.

Brown: 5 Below par but closer to it than most.

Willo: 0 Awful, drop him for Gus NOW!

Rivvo: 6 Got swamped in the last quarter but he & Biz were the last of our defenders to fall. Genuinely good effort in contests.

Godders: 5 Has a go, his indecision in the 3rd qtr was awful.

Wheats: 6 Promising effort from Paul, could be an UP year for him

White: 3 Some of his hitouts were very good, unfortunately there weren't enough of them. Cheap kicks at the end, he's not a forward.

Davey: 6 Does the basics like smothering, tackling, chasing & crumbing, given some support he'd really top a team off.

Whelan: 2 Did very little. I agree with Lamby, overrated but not our worst.