In my defence

[bomberdonnie]

You sound like the man that you want to be sacked

[Windy_Hill]

As a student of modern warfare, I hear where you are coming from Filth. However, I think we have some structural issues with the team at the minute that has seriously unbalanced our war machine.

1. Lloyd's injury
2. Hille's injury

Perhaps all is not so equal

Having said that I am sure Sheeds is looking down the barrell of an honourable discharge

[Rossoneri]

As a student of modern warfare, I hear where you are coming from Filth. However, I think we have some structural issues with the team at the minute that has seriously unbalanced our war machine.

1. Lloyd's injury
2. Hille's injury

Perhaps all is not so equal

Having said that I am sure Sheeds is looking down the barrell of an honourable discharge

Very true Windy hence my dismay Quinn is still at the EFC. I count overall about 7-8 soft tissue injury's at the joint atm, with Licha returning yesteday obviously underdone as you do with 3 weeks off thus further f***-ing up the structure as the guys rotate in and out.

Rather than spending an extra $400,000 on teh football department, why dont we get 3-4 out of there and put in 3-4 new faces with new ideas?

[spikefan]

If you put your head up you gotta expect to get it kicked one or twice in my Goodbye Sheeds thread. So in my defence.....

Why would you need to defend yourself, the previous thread was fair and well argumented.

Nice military analogy in this thread, it worked quite well.


But for Quinn, I still don't know, modern sport medicine is so complex, it would be nice to have an expert judgement, non expert can only compare with the other sides.

[tom9779]

If you put your head up you gotta expect to get it kicked one or twice in my Goodbye Sheeds thread. So in my defence.....

But Footy IMHO is the closest thing you come to War or battle outside of the real thing. It is a blood sport and ruthless in its execution and its results. It sorts the men out from the boys.

Yesterday the EFC was involved in a major battle and lossed with heavy casualties. Consider:

- Both Army's are of equal strength, have the same logistics, artillery and air support ie start with equal strength.

- Both fight on equal terms as far as ground is concerned. ie no side has an advantage on being on the high ground.

- Both have Generals and a General staff to direct them and work out strategic tactics. However one General is in his 50th battle and another is in his 800th odd. One is a grizzled veteren of the fighting and the generalship: the other a young up and comer with youth, enthusiasm and it would appear the confidence of his troops behind him.

And so to battle. The old general has a bold new plan that has won him 3 early victory's early in the campaign with a narrow loss due to an outflanking tactic by an equally wily old fox who has defeated him many times before with similar unorthodox but effective tactics the old general has no answer for. Inexplicably, in the last battle, the old general reverted to tactics in the disastrous 2006 campaign and was heavily defeated with heavy casualty's and mental scarring.

In yesterday's battle, the old general still hadn't learnt his lesson and stuck with his slow, older moving tanks against the more modern, quicker version of his enemy and was consequently smashed in the core mini battles in the centre forcing him to manouvre out wide and come slowly into the kill zone, meaning that the enemy had plenty of time to pour troops and material into the target area thus repelling these ineffectal attacks, time after time after time.

Inexplicably, the old general had no Plan B and consequently his army was again heavily defeated with morale of his troops at an all time low as they peer back and see 2006 all over again, despite being heavily reinforced with fresh troops and logistics over the summer. On paper, the Army was more experienced and more talented to its enemy except for one thing........

A tired old general who has lost his troops against a young enthusiastic general who's troops played for him and stuck to his plan.

Hawthorn are a better team than us.

Guys like:

Hodge, Crawford,Mitchell run rings around our midfielders.

put that on the end of Franklin and Roughhead.(two awesome forwards, who after being in the system for now 2-3 years are hitting their straps).

Hopefully Essendon have their men in the middle for the next couple of years.

But take a reality check, hawthorn as much as I loathe them are a pretty good footy side

[Sismis]

The game was not lost in the coaching box.

The game was lost to team which trolled the bottom of the ladder for so long they couldn't help but dredge up som talent. That talent has also had a couple of years to gel. One of those players had a day out

Our midfield is still developing and we are consistantly being beaten in the takeaways.

Our defence is actually working very well considering how often the ball is coming in.

Our forward line has shown flashes of being awesome but is still lacking in consistancy.

I don't think there is any reason for morale to be low, We are well amongst it in a very even year. The next 2 weeks will be pivotal in which way we head this year.

[hillchaser]

Every since the sheedy posts started back in 2002 I've never once thought we should get rid of him until now. Your post is right. We are predictable, play all the old guys and don't have a plan B. Every other team knows that we don't know how to break down a man on man defence. Happens every week now.

That said even with a new game plan we still don't have the midfield to compete with the really top clubs.

PS: What the hell was hird doing playing on the wing. Hirdy's only defficiency at this point is his lack of speed.. so what better place to put him then on the wing !

[Ossie]

Hawthorn are probably a couple of years ahead of us in terms of this 'rebuilding' phase. Franklin, Roughead, Hodge, Crawford, Mitchell, were all very impressive yesterday and even some of their ... well, what I call hacks - Osborne, Sewell, Ladson ... are coming on as decent footballers. Theyr'e not bad. And that really hurts to say that.

EDIT: I just noticed Watson did play .. funny, because we were smashed in the midfield.

Also, play Hird in the forward line, please. He's too clever and not quick enough for this wing / half back business.