Brisbane Lions: Midfield but not much else

Green has pace and a freckle face. Green has flair. Green has orange hair. He's a very accurate set shot. He's got a good pair of hands & he answers to his team's demands. Bewick is more of a third-tall where he finds the ball but doesn't always answer to the call. One big mark a game is what gives Bewick his name. Slot him alongside Green and the Lions will look pretty mean.

Redden is not twice the player. Bit of an overreaction. I personally think he's made no improvements over the past few years while Bastinac at least has a reason for not performing as well. I feel Basti is a better inside midfielder than Redden. And to be truthfully honest, Adcock needs a big occasion to be a standout. He leads well and directs players well, but more than often not up to it especially with ball in hand. Gets caught too easily, indecisive and looks disinterested.

Paul D - this is a summation of Jon's and my discussion on Essendon list Me "yes they have more experienced players but they are players who have missed the majority of pre-season" Jon - " I am talking about the remainder of their original squad, not their top-ups" Me - "The bombers have 17 players who have played 10 or less games, (that is 17 of 34 when the banned 12 are removed)" Jon - " think you are stretching it when you say that 50% of Essendon’s list have no senior experience whatsoever. I count approximately 30 players on their list with some form of senior experience (including top-ups)" Is it really Jon who should be throwing up his hands in frustration?

Hear, hear Paul D!

Jon - You really do struggle to keep up don't you. Let's start with the Essendon list issue; I said "they have more experienced players but they are players who have missed the majority of pre-season" to which you responded "I am talking about the remainder of their original squad, not their top-ups" - so from that point forward we were discussing the Essendon list sans top ups - this should have been evident from my references to the list only being 34 players long, the 50% clearly refers to the 17 out of 34 I mentioned - if you got confused by that then that is your fault, don't try to pretend I said something I didn't. As for my apparent contradiction - that argument is as stupid as your analogy, if you read the remainder of the sentence you quoted from my second post it says "He predicts they will get somewhere between 3 & 6 – 3 wins he thinks are likely but won’t get more than 3 surprise wins" which is exactly consistent with the statement in my third post "Nick has stated specifically he sees 3 games that he is confident they will win and expects they will surprise in some others – just not more than 3 others – he isn’t predicting they will win just 3 games." and my statement you quoted above "“Nick said 3 to 6 because he thinks 3 is a possibility as much as 6 is ”. You started from a point of "unless you believe the Lions will finish dead last on the ladder 3 wins is not a realistic prediction" my argument is that a) given Essendons issues and the more accurate history of games won by last place winning 3 games does not necessarily guarantee last and b) Nick isn't predicting a hard 3 wins - he is predicting a range so to argue a case predicated on the team winning just 3 games is nonsensical. As for your analogy it is stupid because you may think that you will get 4 apples, you may be very optimistic and confident about that prediction but that doesn't mean that it is more probable than 3 wins - what you secretly think and hope for is irrelevant when you look at hard probabilities - Nick has studied the lists and the draw and identified 3 games he is very confident Brisbane will win - that becomes his low mark, he then looks at how many wins fall into the maybe pile and then calculates how many maybes he thinks they will get and adds them to his base and gets his top mark. The fact you think Brisbane won't finish bottom or you hope they will win more games is irrelevant.

Jon - he will, don't worry. Macca always gets the last word, mainly because everyone eventually does what you've just done - throw their hands up and walk away.

I love how you have decidedly misinterpreted my analogy as one accusing Nick of having some kind of secret agenda. That is a laughable conclusion to draw from my analogy. My analogy is plainly drawing on the fact that some people will not have read the comments and thus not know what you thought Nick thinks (which Nick has since dispelled):- "And Nick doesn’t predict 3 wins (“You’re right 3 wins is harsh, but what I’m saying is I think they’ll beat Essendon and Carlton twice and any win after that will more or less be a surprise and I don’t think they’ll have more than 3 unexpected wins.”) " Is that not what you said in your very second comment under this thread? Now that has changed to:- "Nick said 3 to 6 because he thinks 3 is a possibility as much as 6 is " Seems like a contradiction to me. For what it's worth, we now know that Nick predicts that 3 wins is a possibility, contrary to your "Nick doesn’t predict 3 wins" line. As for the Essendon comment - No, I did not contradict myself. My comment was in relation to your comment: - "Given 50% of Essendons list have almost no senior game exposure I don’t see how it is significant at all " Those top-ups ARE apart of Essendon's list, hence why I included them. We both also seem to have acknowledged that is plainly untrue. Your idea of "almost no senior game exposure" is also obviously different to my idea of "almost no senior game exposure". I have no time to deal with your decided misinterpretations of my comments any further. Don't even bother replying to this, because you won't get one back.

Jon - Your analogy is just stupid - Nick said 3 to 6 because he thinks 3 is a possibility as much as 6 is - to try and infer some secret agenda just to try and cover up your misinterpretation is laughable. The casual reader would know that when some says 3-6 wins they mean 3-6 wins - it is only you who sees a conspiracy. As for the 50% - there are 46 palyers on an AFL list - the bombers lose 12 which leaves them 34 17 of those players have less than 10 games experience - which means 50% have " almost no senior game exposure" (not no senior experience whatsoever - yet another misunderstanding). so now you are including the top up players which is odd as you specifically stated " I am talking about the remainder of their original squad, not their top-ups." - so now you don't even understand your own argument.

Anyway, I think I have said enough on this article. Happy discussing guys!

Paul D - I do not think any realistic poster would expect the Lions to make the top 8 this year.

The Lions were close to forfeiting a NEAFL match where they were almost unable to fill a Reserves team due to the injury crisis.

You might like to call my analogy patronizing, but that was not the intention. The intention was to allow Macca to understand my point in an easy-to-understand way. Also, what you just said contradicts Macca's point - which to what I understand, suggested that you thought that the Lions would win 3+ games with 3 "guaranteed" PLUS other upsets - so thank you for confirming your thoughts on that.

3, 4, 5, 6 wins, who cares. Still the same outcome. Lions miss the 8.

I think you will find there are several things fundamentally wrong with your comment above. Firstly, I never misunderstood Nick's comment about the 3 wins. I was merely pointing out that there was a fundamental flaw with his prediction considering recent ladder trends. A casual reader of his article who did not read the comment above would think that he thought 3 wins were quite possible. Perhaps I will explain this to you slowly with an analogy. If I said to a person that I predicted that I would have 3-6 apples tonight, the person who I am talking to would think that I could possibly have 3, 4,5 or 6 apples tonight. They would not know that secretly I think I would have I would have more than 3 apples. If that is the case, I should have told the person that I think I will have 4+ apples that night because I think I will have more than 3 apples that night. WE know what Nick thinks, but to the casual reader, they will not know if they did not read his comments. Secondly, I think you will find that the numbers I gave were an error or a misTAKE. A misUNDERSTANDING is when you fail to comprehend something correctly. I did not misunderstand anything in this regard, and the only time that happened was in regard to the comment you made (which I specified in an above comment). I think you are stretching it when you say that 50% of Essendon's list have no senior experience whatsoever. I count approximately 30 players on their list with some form of senior experience (including top-ups), making me quite confident that is comfortably more than what either of GC or GWS had in their first years.

No matter how good or bad the team is, the biggest weaknesses are in the coaching box and recruitment department. Losing Crisp was a disaster and totally unnecessary. Collingwood would surely have been content with the first and the second picks. Redden is twice the player Bastinac will ever be and clearly the best small forward at the end of 215 was Jed Adcock. Leppitsch does not have the team in synch - there were signs at the end of 2014 that things were improving, but it has been all down hill from there. If a coach can think of no better action than pushing miscreant players up against a locker, get rid of that player and the coach Merritt was offered to Melbourne at the end of 2014. Fortunately they were not interested: he is the best defender at the club by the length of the strait. Any strait. Players to improve this year : (perhaps, hopefully) Freeman, Bell and Cutler. Most over rated : J Clarke. He does try hard, but please don't let him kick it. It will all go pear shaped if : anything happens to Martin. The Leyton Hewitt award : Mitch Robinson. If they all played like him, Brisbane would be mid table. 6 - 8 wins