Dodd finished in the top ten in last year's Doig, and Schammer was signed up last July until the end of the 2011 season - a pretty big investment in someone who you reckon isn't going to play another game.

If we were playing the same slightly underdone Adelaide team every week at Subiaco, and weren't going cop any injuries for the entire season then maybe I could see your point.

Maybe Jedediah but the suggestion that they drop MJ, is absurd.

And replace with Rhys Palmer?

Rubbish!!! finishing top ten in last years Doig medal just shows we had several top players out injured for much of the season. Dodd will remain a backup player from now on as injuries always play a part in the season.

Don't discount the new gritty attitude of the team on the ground, gang tackling, chasing down players, covering receivers and a better midfield and forward line.

I'm not saying we will beat the cats, saints, doggies or magpies this year, but we will have a better than even chance with others and have a chance of a low 8 finish.

But next year watch out!!!

Hey I think MJ is a top 10 player for us, but What i'm offering up with M.J. is if your looking for someone to drop he would be my pick before others because he makes mistakes he shouldn't for his standing as a top ten player.

A stint in the WAFL may improve his focus to stop doing the occasional lazy thing.

That lazy pass of his last week whilst NOT under pressure cost us a goal!

Jebbadiah you should go back and look at some of our wins from 2009. Dodd vs Betts in the Carlton game , Dodd vs Monfries in the Essendon game, Dodd vs O'Keefe in the Sydney game & the two derbies.

loved that game in '03 at Subi where Tequila got that goal on the run that turned the game around.
streaming through the middle, stepped inside 50 and pumped it straight through the middle.
One of the greatest comebacks in Freo's history.
His 32 touches against the saints last year were a pretty sure sign he hasn't lost it too.

But, hey, he's 24 years old now. Clearly not worth persisting with.

Freo doesn't need a 24 year old team man with 124 games experience at 17 touches a game, and a dedicated hardness at the contest.
Hell, they're a dime a dozen...

Seriously your talking about a game in 2003? For the record I go to every game then rewatch then on foxtel for a closer look at what happened that I may have missed and yes Steve Dodd has played some good games, BUT for every good game he's played he has backed up with two ordinary games!

That's the same for many dockers players and why we have finished in the bottom 8 for 8 of the last 10 years!!!

When will you guys realise that many of the players of the past 4 years are ordinary and only got games because of poor selection records of the Connolly/Schwab era.

Where as Hawthorn were prepared to finish last for a few years to get those draft picks we gave away.

We have now got the players we need and that means Schammer and Dodd will fall down the list as required players! if they dont we wont be a force.

Wake up guys!!!!

Oh and I had subbed Kepler for McPhee as my 2nd ruckman for this week Sox!!

We are one game into the season and we're starting to eat our own already.

Johnson had one sloppy disposal last week trying to set up Ballantyne ; it didn't cost us ultimately.
That's one poor one in round one in a generally strong performance across the board.

Michael Johnson is an integral part of the new forward structure and did his job well.

The other players on our list who didn't play last week will form the squad that creates the healthy competition for spots that hopefully we can maintain all year.

This Great Depth thing is , well... new territory for us unless we start to suffer the West Coast Injury Curse that befalls our neighbor.

It is always wrong to compare our backmen with our forwards on past seasons; For one , the defenders in the past two years have been under enormous pressure with far too much of the game time being played in our backline instead of us being in attack.

Johnson is a case in point , he should enjoy the new role of creating forward pressure rather than defending for grim death. That's a significant difference.

For the rest of our defenders the difference is being able to create forward drive with bold risk taking to create goal scoring opportunities rather than desperately hanging on.

To illustrate my point , how good did it look seeing McPharlin and Tarrant up around the centre line hitting targets.

Dodd has always played a nullifying or intense defensive role . I look forward to seeing him create scoreboard pressure for us. Same goes for Schammer.

Jebediah is right you guy's our list is deeper than it's been in years and now is the time to look to the future not the past .

Schammer and Dodd are good but, Palmer ,Pearce ,Deboer ,Ibbotson ,Hill ,Morabito , Vanberlo and BARLOW are all ahead of Schammer.
And ,Tarrent ,Silvagni ,Mcpharlin ,Duffeild ,Broughten ,grover ,Suban and Mcphee are all ahead of Dodd.

So if you disagree you are WRONG and living in the past.

He is not saying they should not play for us again ,just they are now way down our list of playable players.

It bewilders me that the same people that applaud Freo for showing faith in rookies that other teams overlooked can then go ahead and beat down other players on our list that the club has shown faith in.
I can only wonder, if Schammer and Dodd we're gone, who else might suddenly become a waste of space on our list.

Lets see if Byron Schammer gets picked for the St Kilda and Geelong games.

If you understand the role he plays you can then establish his value to the team.