Best and Fairest

[wisedog 352]

Dean Bailey and the rest of the coaching staff have no idea about football as has been proven by their pathetic voting.

And Brad Green, if you leave you will have my complete understanding. In fact, I urge you to leave and go to a club that will appreciate you.

We are a joke, always have been, always will be.

With the amount of thrashings we've had this year, voting the best players is almost farcical. A few times this year, I wouldn't have known where to begin... Most likely you'll give the votes to the guy who racked up 30 possessions, not the kid who showed promising signs. As I said, it was a bad year.

[bjgc 0]

Dean Bailey and the rest of the coaching staff have no idea about football as has been proven by their pathetic voting.

I thought you loved Bailey?

[Swampfox 190]

Who votes for the B&F?

If it's the coaches then I'm worried because that list is out of whack IMO.

You will find that each club will have a different criteria for voting

players who hardly get a touch yet do what the coach has asked can often vote better than someone who kicks

5 goals for example

Notice that Warnock voted very well and even got the coaches award may give you a clue on what i mean

I wouldnt be too stressed about your particular favourite not doing so well

Its all about next season and cant wait for the bounce of the ball

[Dee tention 617]

Green won something!

Club leadership award! Is that hinting to something?

Going on the B & F. BROCK definite captain! Bruce, Green and Macca to follow.

[Yze_Magic 3]

I thought you loved Bailey?

I thought he was good.

Started off very well by trading TJ for pick 14.

Blooded some very good youngsters this year.

And then goes and does this. Not happy.

[Guest Schtacker]

Bruce came 5th in ology and land voting and that's about what he deserved ... good career, decent year, not best and fairest

Green was robbed blind

ah well....

[wisedog 352]

For the cynics among us, you could argue that this increases Bruce's trade value.

[LeBron James 41]

Feel kind of empty with this result. Brad Green really deserved it.

[H_T 3,049]

For the cynics among us, you could argue that this increases Bruce's trade value.

I'm sure this will become someone's focus shortly........not to mention anyone's name....

[Guest Schtacker]

Christ, I can only hope so.

But even if he is traded, the sad fact is that his name will be on the honour board alongside the likes of Flower, Lyon and Stynes.

Truly embarassing.

Can't you just shut up you moron. I've never witnessed such an ignorant, stubborn, unwarranted, continual attack on an MFC player - what exactly is wrong with you? I mean have you had yourself checked out emotionally or what?

Green should have won it but Bruce was up there - he has been up there every year since he came to the bloody club at pick 64. Stop making out like the world has ended. Commenting on what it reflects about our coaches and future is just plain ignorance, I would be surprised if you could even kick a football. God what are you going to do when Bruce retires just pick someone else and focus all your hate on him?

Pathetic

[Bobby McKenzie 2,385]

[

Get over it YM! Go and have a big cry and join up with the Hawks next season since MFC is such a 'pathetic club'. What a ridiculous comment about the coaches (EX PLAYERS WHO HAVE PLAYED THE GAME). But the GREAT YM and othern Bruce bashers know much much more about football ability. Get real mate.

[Tigers Dayz 2]

Congrats to Cam Bruce.

Just goes to show he has played the season in the way his coach, teammates and the rest of club has wanted.

I laugh at FW's who have slammed him during the year.

I am pleased to see the slippery, dickheaded, know alls, who have never played footy in their precious mummy/cyber lives, find that a spartan ( Courageous in the face of pain, danger, or adversity) has won MFC best player 2008.

I'd particularly like to dedicate Cams win to Yze_Magic and present YM the NBOTY (nancy boy of the year) for 2008.

[The Lobster Effect 893]

yeh i'm very surprised...

especially when you look at the demonland voting for player of the year

90.934 Brad Green

78.366 Brock McLean

65.765 Paul Wheatley

64.074 Cale Morton

61.772 Cameron Bruce

[Little Goffy 14,639]

Y'know, it's conceivable that Bruce did an awful lot of work at training and as co-captain.

It's also conceivable that his constant effort was noted as important.

Maybe even, some of those handballs into trouble were partly the fault of the receiver not working clear properly and waiting flat footed (looking at you, Matthew Bate).

I raised an eyebrow when I read Bruce had won it. But this ridiculous tirade of abuse at him and the coaches is just stupid. He worked damn hard and it was visible. His kicking at goal let him and all of us down, and his general disposal sometimes flunked out. BUT - he was one player who constantly worked to rectify his own errors, and had a first class on field and off field work ethic.

And it was his birthday on tuesday, so gotta be nice...

[Guest Schtacker]

I dont hate any of our players.

I am however sick of the MFC and its continual acceptance of medicocrity.

if I dont tell it how it is, who else will?

Nobody else on this forum has the balls.

What a load... every single time the player is mentioned, in any context, you follow up with some inflated dramatic bull5hit full of superlatives about how much you hate him. He deserves to have a BnF next to his name for his combined career contribution

[Little Goffy 14,639]

Also very interesting stuff in the detail - Brad Green receives the Leadership Award, as well as coming third in the Best & Fairest.

Clearly he's doing things for the club and the young players which somehow aren't been reported at Demonland.

[H_T 3,049]

Firstly, I'm quite surprised Green finished behind McLean. Cameron Bruce however finished off the season really well apart from the teams results. Brad Green didn't finish the season well IMO. Green's last 6 weeks were mediocre in comparison to how well his season started.

Bruce would have consistently polled well in the latter part of the year where Green whilst posting modest numbers - wasn't as influential and as hard at it as he was in the first half of the year IMO.

ANyway, congrats to Bruce, McLean and Green. 1st, 2nd and 3rd.

edit: McLean 14 games, Green 20 games, Bruce 22 games.

[Tigers Dayz 2]

Wow.

Now I have heard it all.

What about a comment on the NBOTY...

[Bobby McKenzie 2,385]

Congratulations on Cameron Bruce winning the 2008 Best & Fairest for the Demons.

As harsh as it may sound it probably feels pretty hollow to win the MFC Best & Fairest in a year where the club finishes on the bottom of the ladder.

I'm sure that Yze_Magic has gone completely insane on this news because it wasn't Brad Green.

Who cares? Most of us here support the Melbourne Football Club as a whole not just particular players.

No, not because Greeny didn't win but because Cam did!

[Bobby McKenzie 2,385]

Y'know, it's conceivable that Bruce did an awful lot of work at training and as co-captain.

It's also conceivable that his constant effort was noted as important.

Maybe even, some of those handballs into trouble were partly the fault of the receiver not working clear properly and waiting flat footed (looking at you, Matthew Bate).

I raised an eyebrow when I read Bruce had won it. But this ridiculous tirade of abuse at him and the coaches is just stupid. He worked damn hard and it was visible. His kicking at goal let him and all of us down, and his general disposal sometimes flunked out. BUT - he was one player who constantly worked to rectify his own errors, and had a first class on field and off field work ethic.

And it was his birthday on tuesday, so gotta be nice...

Agree wholeheartedly! Many of those so called errant handballs were the result of some of his teammates not reacting and thinking quickly enough. Well done to Cam. He was certainly the Best and FAIREST. He was in our top 3 for tackles, but never did anything untoward to an opponent. Come to think of it, in 184 games has Cam ever been reported? That's being a pretty good role model for the kids I reckon. Captain next year.

[Demon Disciple 12,274]

Me - A could been? More a never-was. But at the age of 38 definitely a never-seen-his-team-win-a-flag.

But i'm sure that if you had the chance to represent the red&blue next year, you would do so with more pride and determination than 80% of the current players. Like many of us on here would.

And yes, the world can be very cruel at times.

[DaveyJones'sLocker 647]

Seriously if Bruce wins the B&F over Green, then Green should leave and make sure the club gets nothing for him, I honestly think Bruce this year was very average. Got it lots of times and shanked it lots of times, possible Bruces worst year for the club in so many ways.

this post is soo funny in soo many ways! says alot about ur self and how much u know wats going on

It's so hard sometimes to be enthusiastic about this club and where it's going...

Very disappointing result for mine.

because a player u dont like won the B&F or because ur Fav player didnt win it?

WELL DONE CAM!! captain next year

[Chook 15,022]

Here's what I think. Yze_Magic sees the last ten years of Melbourne's mediocrity and finds the need to blame somebody. Cameron Bruce certainly has faults, many of which Neale Daniher valued - or at least didn't try to weed out.

Since Daniher was at the helm of some of Melbourne's most promising - yet ultimately unsuccessful - teams of recent times, Yze_Magic feels that he is blame for the problems that we now face. The fact that YM probably grew up during these years only adds to his frustration.

Old enough to have seen the unfulfilled potential of David Schwarz, Shane Woewodin, Travis Johnstone and others, yet not old enough to have seen Melbourne's real Dark Ages - the seventies and eighties, Yze_Magic feels robbed of success known by other Clubs during his formative years.

Who's fault is that? As always in footy, the coaching staff bears the bulk of the responsibility for the Club's on-field performance. But since Neale Daniher and his coaching staff are now long gone, blame falls to the only ones still at the club - the players.

But even those have become few and far between in recent times. Indeed, of the list that made the 2000 Grand Final, only six (James McDonald, Matthew Whelan, Paul Wheatley, Cameron Bruce, Brad Green and Russell Robertson) remain. In reality, it is in these six that the Daniher legacy lives on.

Cameron Bruce is arguably the most talented of that group. He is certainly the most highly-paid. But for whatever reason, he hasn't been able to perform as well as has been expected of him. This has been particularly true since his career-defining first four weeks of 2004, a month in which he shot to Brownlow-favouritism on the back of three electric performances against Hawthorn, the Dogs and Geelong, before being sidelined for six weeks as a result of a shoulder-crushing Brent Guerra tackle.

This brief flicker of hope in some ways epitomizes the entire Daniher regime, in which as often as we were spectacularly good, were were also at times astoundingly bad. When we were good, we played fantastic long-kicking, attacking football. Football that would often see us kick very high scores. Yet when we were bad, this same unaccountability gave way to a torrent of opposition scores. In 2005, we traveled over to AAMI Stadium to play a game of football. When it had finished two hours later, not one Melbourne player needed to wash his jumper, least of all Cameron Bruce.

In the midst of a seven-week losing streak, none of our leaders changed their ways. Not Neale Daniher, not Adem Yze and certainly not Cameron Bruce. The same kind of fooball that had led us to win ten of the previous twelve games had now seen us lose four in a row. Yze_Magic would have seen this and remembered it.

Now, in 2008, Melbourne is a different side. Yet every week that YM watches Cameron Bruce play for the Melbourne Football Club, he sees the same player that kicked eleven goals in three weeks from the midfield. Yet he also sees a player who never failed to go missing when it counted. He sees this player and thinks of the ten years that Neale Daniher had to change Bruce's ways - to turn his disposal from a weakness into a weapon. YM sees this player given the Captaincy and now another Best and Fairest, and worries. Could his poor disposal and softness in the clinches now affect those whom he leads?

The Melbourne Football Club has the opportunity to turn a number of young players into anything it sees fit. Yet while Cameron Bruce is leader, there is still a chance that it could repeat the mistakes that have dogged it for almost half a century. Cale Morton, for example, could become the next Robbie Flower. However, given his physical similarities to Bruce, he could also develop all of the same flaws that have caused Yze_Magic so much frustration all these years. In Bruce, YM sees two things; all the unfulfilled potential of ten or more years of Neale Daniher's regime, as well as the potential for another ten years of softness and disappointment.

[Don24 103]

Of course you do Yze Magic you have hated on bruce forever! Nothing quite like a sore loser.....just admit when your wrong....i laugh so hard at how pathetic you are haha. You have replied to this thread bout 10 times already tonight and you post every day! dont you have anything better to do with your life?? So pathetic.

And YZE Magic apparently you "call it as it is" ?? how come your stupid enough to say Nat was a lock at the #1 pick when it will quite clearly be Watts.....and more importantly....calling it like you see it?? haha You put Sylvia as runner up in your b and f!!!!!! He had a [censored] year and butchered the ball just as much if not more than Bruce! he was lazy and lacked heart! Did anyone else see Danny Frawley give the coach killer of the year award to Sylvia for being the only one on our team to not man up for over 5 minutes during a game where we were suppose to being playing man on man. He sat there and just pointed at others to man people....great leadership Colin!

YM you really dont get football do you...

[Straight Sets Simon 23,113]

Names in bold are the ones that IMO should be in a different spot.

Cameron Bruce 75 A little lower

Brock McLean 60

Brad Green 57 Higher

Matthew Warnock 47 Lower

James McDonald 46

Brad Miller 40

Cale Morton 40

Clint Bartram 39 A lot lower

Paul Wheatley 39 Higher

Austin Wonaeamirri 39

Matthew Bate 38

Lynden Dunn 37 Lower

Colin Garland 30 Higher

Chris Johnson 25

Paul Johnson 24 Higher

Jeff White 24 Lower

Matthew Whelan 23 Higher

Nathan Jones 22

Colin Sylvia 22

Aaron Davey 20

Daniel Bell 19

Mark Jamar 18

Brent Moloney 16

Simon Buckley 14 Higher

Stef Martin 12

Russell Robertson 10

Jared Rivers 9

Nathan Carroll 8

James Frawley 6

Addam Maric 6

Adem Yze 6

Ben Holland 5

Shane Valenti 5

Michael Newton 4