Crunch Time

[andrewb]

Right-o... I've been fairly patient up until now. Massive injury list, tough draw, etc, etc. But this game will be make or break for Knights for me. He's had the lads for five months and we're playing a team with just as much youth and supposedly far less promise. One which won six games less than us last year.

I don't expect a victory given our current form line, but if we don't at least appear competitive then we've gone significantly backwards from last year under Sheedy and Knights must go before he does any more damage.

Step up.

[Doctor Fish]

[tom9779]

Absolutely NOT.


i'm the first to admit I'm a bit of a critic of Knights. But I still want to see him get a full 3 years at the helm. Listen to him speak, he sounds switched on.

Every coach in the AFL would have struggled in his position. Taking on a new team, changing the game plan, being decimated by injury.

Heck even Lethal's lions were woeful when he first took the reins. And Matthews is the greatest coach I think the game has seen.

Right now he can identify everything wrong with the club and fix it.


I believe we have hit rock bottom, and are going to start getting better.
Albeit, I think we are at the bottom of a very steep mountain.

give him a crack.

[bomberdonnie]

Well said Tom

[Stocksy]

We were competitive for 15 minutes, does that pass?

[tom9779]

We were competitive for 15 minutes, does that pass?

well there are some positives to work with for next week.

[Stocksy]

We were competitive for 15 minutes, does that pass?

well there are some positives to work with for next week.

You are f****** shitting me right? WHAT positives? Where, Who?

Someone got a few touches, Someone kicked a few goals. There not positives, thats what they are paid to do!

Keep wrapping them up in cotton wool, keep handing them excuses. Good on you boys, you had a crack for 15 minutes out of 80, I think the positives that will come out of that 15 minutes entitles you to sing the song with your warm cup of milk.

[tom9779]

We were competitive for 15 minutes, does that pass?

well there are some positives to work with for next week.

You are f****** shitting me right? WHAT positives? Where, Who?

Someone got a few touches, Someone kicked a few goals. There not positives, thats what they are paid to do!

Keep wrapping them up in cotton wool, keep handing them excuses. Good on you boys, you had a crack for 15 minutes out of 80, I think the positives that will come out of that 15 minutes entitles you to sing the song with your warm cup of milk.

it was marginally better than last week. that is a positive.
(mind you in melbourne against a weaker opposition it needed to be).

[andrewb]

Rabble.

I much prefer Sheedy's method of playing one on one football no matter the cost than this shit.

That was last year's wooden spooner by the way.

Sorry Matthew, but you're not up to coaching AFL (mind you, you didn't do much in the SANFL or VFL either. Time to go.

[jimmyc1985]

Players were disgusting in the first half. They continued to play the same crap that they played in the last 45 minutes against Sydney. Our second half was OK - we got more numbers around the ball and players applied more physical pressure.

We're still not getting anywhere near enough of the pill though - 250 disposals last week, 259 disposals this week. Disposal counts on their own don't necessarily mean anything, but we are simply not getting enough of the ball at the moment, and this indicates to me that we're not working hard enough into space, not going in for the contested ball and not applying enough defensive pressure to try to force a turnover when the opposition has it. For the first 5 rounds of the season, we were getting well in excess of 300 disposals every week, and were at least competitive in all games except against Geelong. Without asking the players to play selfish football, the players need to be told that running around and getting less than a dozen touches indicates they're not working hard enough.

[andrewb]

Last year's wooden spooners, Jimmy.

Rabble.

Imagine how bad it would have been if Nash didn't play (as was the plan before poster boy Ricky pulled out).

[ealesy]

f*** off andrewb.

What Kevin Sheedy is allowed 6 years to f*** around with our list and leave it in complete disarray (simply given his prior history), but because Matthew Knights hasn't been able to change that around and rebuild the list in one pre-season and get the team winning games, despite having a crippling injury list and having to play 5+ players each week with less than 10 games experience, he is a f****** hack coach who should be pissed off?????

Get f****** real.

I'm a lot happier having Knights in charge even with our current results, than having Sheedy still in charge and have him try and turn Neagle into midfielder, Jetta in to a back pocket and still have Mark Bolton, Chris Heffernan and Scott Camporaele getting senior games!!

And sure, Richomd were last years wooden spoon, the operative word being last. That is the f****** past, they have improved this season, they have been playing pretty damn good football the last few weeks without getting wins, but they took the Hawks and Saints to the wire, without getting over the line.

[swoodley]

Well said Ealesy....too many f****** fair weather supporters on here at present.

Fact 1....at present we are shit...learn to live with it until we get better

Fact 2....we won games last year because of Hird and Fletcher...Hird is gone.

Fact 3....we will get better eventually (and until then, just suck it up)

Why don't some of you clowns stop whingeing and start "supporting" your team. You're starting to resemble f****** richmond supporters.

[jimmyc1985]

What Kevin Sheedy is allowed 6 years to f*** around with our list and leave it in complete disarray (simply given his prior history), but because Matthew Knights hasn't been able to change that around and rebuild the list in one pre-season and get the team winning games, despite having a crippling injury list and having to play 5+ players each week with less than 10 games experience, he is a f****** hack coach who should be pissed off?????

Agreed. Whether Knights 'makes it' in the longer term is a moot question, but i put the blame for our current predicament about 90% at Sheedy's feet.

[andrewb]

You'll note that I had no problem with us losing for the last five weeks. All I wanted was a bit of heart this week. The only noticeable absentees this week were Lucas (inj), Davey (inj), Michael (dropped), Rama (dropped) and Nash - who earned a last minute reprieve despite being told that he was shitter than Dyson.

We were 7-2 last year. We are 2-7 this year and just lost to last year's wooden spooners by a flattering 8 goals.

If you're happy with that then more to you:

http://www.saints.com.au/Membership/tab ... fault.aspx

[ealesy]

Why don't some of you clowns stop whingeing and start "supporting" your team. You're starting to resemble f****** richmond supporters.

Made the very same point a few weeks ago, we really are starting to 'eat our own' in a manner I have only ever witnessed Richmond supporters do in the past, and it f****** revolting.

Too many Essendon supporters who have never had to go for any sustained period with a lack of success. Spoilt little bitches who need to learn to suck it up and deal with the fact we have a shithouse list at the moment and it going to take a while to turn it around.

[andrewb]

Piss off. This is a thread about the coach. Not the players.

"Eating your own" is the endless Watson, Stanton, Bradley, McPhee, Welsh, Laycock, etc, etc threads we have to put up with every week.

Can you give me an example of a great coaching move today? How about last week? Or the week before?

[ealesy]

f*** off if you don't think taking pot shots at the senior coach when he is only 9 rounds into his career is "eating your own".

Suppose you didn't think that Richmond supporter was eating his own when he spat on Danny Frawley and that was his 4 year in charge?

And Knights doesn't have a whole heap to work with, so it pretty damn hard for him to make too many inspired amazing positional moves.

But how about actually playing our best defender (Fletcher) on their best forward (Richardson) for most of the game who was actually able to keep him fairly quiet, despite him being in career best form. It's not something Sheedy did in his last 3-4 years in charge, it was very rare to see Sheedy line Fletcher up on the opposition's best forward during that time.

How many times would we see Bradley get craved up by the likes of Pavlich, Hall, Tredrea etc, with Sheedy very reluctant to make a change and put Fletcher on them, despite the fact they were ripping us apart.

[andrewb]

Essentially what you're saying is that players are fair game but the new coach isn't.

Sheedy copped it after each and every loss. Knights should be no different. He put a stake in the ground and said we'd be competitive in three years but we have gone backwards since he has arrived.

I'll tell you what. If you can name one area (apart from the injection of youth - which was not a decision, rather a necessity) where we have improved since last year I'll get off his back.

[ealesy]

Essentially what you're saying is that players are fair game but the new coach isn't.

No that's not what I'm saying. What I saying is that most of the shit on here that is hurled at both the coach and the players is f****** revolting and smacks of a spoilt supporter base who needs to learn how to harden the f*** up and deal with the fact that currently we are shithouse and it is going to take a few years to turn it around!!!

Calling for Knights head 9 rounds in is f****** revolting, start a thread about how you want to kill Jason Laycock because he is f****** useless is revolting, regular threads backing the shit out of Dyson, Stanton, Watson, Laycock, Lovett, Lovett-Murray etc etc etc are f****** revolting.

And you talk about last year, well last year we still had James Hird, and nearly everyone of the games we won last year, James Hird and/or Scott Lucas had a major impact. Neither have had an impact at all this year.

So while it might not seem like we have improved on last year, the fact is that we are nowhere near as good last year as some like to think we were, we just had major contributions for two absolute champions, who we haven't had a contribution from this year.