Melb 2010

[Demon Stalwart 255]

I read this forum constantly and occasionally post.

I read what everyone writes about bailey and how good our list is now and how we must be patient to achieve the Premiership we all so badly want, my kids also have a lot of faith in the way Melb. is going about rebuilding.

However for myself after 40 years of supporting Melbourne football club, experiencing all the ups and downs, the good, the bad and the accompanying heartache, with One pre season Night Premiership win under our belt during my time, being there when we lost at VFL park to Hawthorn in 1987 Preliminary final. Watching us loose to Hawthorn in the 1988 Grand final, and being there with the Melbourne players the day after, experiencing their heartache, and again when we got thumped by Essendon in the 2000 Grand Final with my kids in hand who experienced their first Melbourne Grand Final appearance and loss. We still and have have yet to see another sign of the Ultimate prize though we never waver in our support, for our team. Two wooden spoons in a row hurts.

I feel we deserve something no matter how small

I am not asking for much, but as Melbourne supporters living in the Geelong region. (Need I say more!)

All I ask of the Melbourne football Club is that next year, as a minimum they get off the "Bottom of the ladder"!

If along the way, they can manage to deliver defeats to the Geelong football Club, I would consider that a added bonus.

So if the MFC can deliver upon at least that much I will be happy and wait patiently with every other supporter to achieve our ultimate goal.

Of course, as long as it occurs is in my Lifetime....

[Pates 9,537]

You expectations are pretty much the same as mine, two years in a row of bottom of the ladder is enough for me it's time we started moving up and i fully expect us to do so.

[Bucks-Fan 1]

i expect a "minimum" of 7 wins

[gOLLy 401]

7-8 wins

[e25 5]

12th position on the ladder.

More Development.

The gameplan to become more evident.

[Deeoldfart 7,733]

I read this forum constantly and occasionally post.

I read what everyone writes about bailey and how good our list is now and how we must be patient to achieve the Premiership we all so badly want, my kids also have a lot of faith in the way Melb. is going about rebuilding.

However for myself after 40 years of supporting Melbourne football club, experiencing all the ups and downs, the good, the bad and the accompanying heartache, with One pre season Night Premiership win under our belt during my time, being there when we lost at VFL park to Hawthorn in 1987 Preliminary final. Watching us loose to Hawthorn in the 1988 Grand final, and being there with the Melbourne players the day after, experiencing their heartache, and again when we got thumped by Essendon in the 2000 Grand Final with my kids in hand who experienced their first Melbourne Grand Final appearance and loss. We still and have have yet to see another sign of the Ultimate prize though we never waver in our support, for our team. Two wooden spoons in a row hurts.

I feel we deserve something no matter how small

I am not asking for much, but as Melbourne supporters living in the Geelong region. (Need I say more!)

All I ask of the Melbourne football Club is that next year, as a minimum they get off the "Bottom of the ladder"!

If along the way, they can manage to deliver defeats to the Geelong football Club, I would consider that a added bonus.

So if the MFC can deliver upon at least that much I will be happy and wait patiently with every other supporter to achieve our ultimate goal.

Of course, as long as it occurs is in my Lifetime....

Agree with your sentiments Stalwart. I've been supporting the Dees for a bit longer than you, and I've been lucky enough to see some premierships along the way (but obviously they are now distant memories). All three of my kids have been one-eyed Melbourne supporters for all of their lives, and like yours, they will never waver in their support (we brought them up well eh!).

You are absolutely correct, two spoons on the trot is very hard to take ....... but I'm convinced we are about to come out of the bottom of a 'J curve'.

Bailey said at the start of this year that his aim was to have a more competitive team in '09, and this has clearly been achieved. Next year we will be setting our sights higher, definitely more competitive again, and with it more wins (8+ wins is not an unreasonable expectation IMO). I can honestly say that I have never been more excited about the medium and longer term prospects of the Melbourne Football team ..... and the exhilaration of the ride ahead of us will soon erase the disappointment of successive bottom of the ladder finishes.

[Toot182 7]

Bailey said at the start of this year that his aim was to have a more competitive team in '09, and this has clearly been achieved. Next year we will be setting our sights higher, definitely more competitive again, and with it more wins...

I think that we need to also develop consistency. Yes, we were more competitive - we had a fair few closer games than the previous year, but we can't play well one week and lose by say >20 then get p'wnd by 80 the next week...

[Al`s DEMONS 0]

a draw similar to this year would be nice. ( not in terms of sunday twilight games but in terms of teams played)

[Neita3000 37]

- 30 goals from Watts

- 50 goals from LJ

- Sylvia to win B and F

-Scully to win Rising Star

- For all our youngsters e.g. Blease, Strauss, Jetta, Bennell, Maric, Grimes, Morton, Watts, Trengove, Scully, Pick 11, Frawley, Petterd, Garland to show further improvement

- Anywhere but the bottom of the ladder

[Carn dees 108]

- 30 goals from Watts

- 50 goals from LJ

- Sylvia to win B and F

-Scully to win Rising Star

- For all our youngsters e.g. Blease, Strauss, Jetta, Bennell, Maric, Grimes, Morton, Watts, Trengove, Scully, Pick 11, Frawley, Petterd, Garland to show further improvement

- Anywhere but the bottom of the ladder

hahha if all of that happens i can assure you we wont be finishing last

im hoping we can finish any where from 13th upwards, personally iv got us finishing 12th.

Maybe even 8th, essendon managed it, You never no

Edited September 27, 2009 by Carn dees

[Sir Why You Little 34,511]

I am aiming for Position 8. After another Long Pre season & young enthusiastic minds, if the Players & FD are ALL in the right Frame of mind & Really Believe in themselves. We can start winning regularly.

The Hand Brake is off. "Infinity & Beyond" (Buzz Light years) Top Bloke.

[RalphiusMaximus 5,993]

I don't think we'll make the 8 next year, but 9 wins is very doable. I'd say 6 is the bare minimum. 8-9 is a good year and 9+ is an amazing effort.

[Diablo Deemon 220]

First I'd like to see some respect for the Red and Blue not so long ago St.kilda was languishing at the bottom an embarrassment.

Even Geelong has seen it's fair share of a history of failure yo-yoing up and down the ladder.

I want people to say demons followed by a great team, with great players, followed by winning and intimidating.

I don't think well get all the way to getting this by next year but I hope to be around 10th or so with 6-8 wins.

and the knockers starting to eat their own words

[Bring-Back-Powell 13,213]

I don't think well get all the way to getting this by next year but I hope to be around 10th or so with 6-8 wins.

6-8 wins would get you around 12th to 14th.

[Fugazi 53]

I'm just hoping for continued development of the young kids and improvement of game. I'm confident we wont be finishing on the bottom next year. There's no more priority picks to worry about, so from Round 1 we'll be coming out all guns blazing to win. It's going to be such a great feeling to finally WANT to win games next year instead of hoping we win no more than 4 games. I hated it, but we needed it to happen. So next year is the releasing of the shackles for the coach, players and supporters.

I'd like to see about 8+ wins because going by last year's results and how we played against some teams, we really could have gotten close to that number. With good pre-seasons pumped into our players and more added young kids from the draft, I see no reason why we couldn't achieve this. It's a big year for Bailey to show us finally what he is made of. I'm not expecting to make the 8, but at the very best I think we are able to get very close if we have a consistent season and everything falls into place in terms of how far our developing kids have come.

[rpfc 27,476]

Don't care about wins. And they will take care of themselves when you develop the right players.

Watts, Maric, Scully, Trengove, Grimes, Spencer/Meesen, Bennell, Petterd, and Wonaeamirri to play 16+ games

Strauss, Blease, Pick 11, and Jetta to play 8+ games.

I think we are good enough to win between 6-11 games but unless players look like they are regressing there should be no magic win/loss record that defines our future.

[Dappa Dan 2,188]

Off the bottom of the ladder. 6 wins.

Losing Mclean has disheartened me, and I think will have long running ramifications in the team. At 23 I thought he'd really be the one to take a tag, and do the bullocking. He was required for a couple more wins this season.

That said, I think our improvement will come from a large amount of players. With that in mind, maybe Brock's departure won't be seen as quite as damaging.

[mess 0]

Seems like most people have pretty similar expectations... I also think around 8 wins will be good, and at the very least off the bottom of the ladder. We could have no doubt won a couple more matches this year if the coaching staff had wanted to.

[two sheds jackson 3]

I actually find it almost impossible to predict how we're going to perform in 2010, or even give a rough estimation. I just think there's too many things happening that could really hurt us in the short term, and too many things happening that could really help us, and it's hard to tell how all these things are going to balance out.

Reasons why we might go backwards:

- With the expected influx of young midfielders into the side and the departure of McLean, we will have a real shortage of mature-bodied players all over the ground but particularly in the midfield, and could find ourselves being pushed off the ball alot and running out of legs in the last quarter, even moreso than we did this year.

- Without McLean, the opposition will be able to give Jones much more attention. I'd also expect Jurrah and Aussie to attract the oppositions best tall and small defenders every week from round one onward, and they might have some very quiet games before they adapt to it (if so, we'll no doubt get plenty of posts on Demonland screaming bloody murder about how promising youngsters always go backwards at this club and calling for the forward-line coach/fitnesss coach/drinks man to be sacked, so that should be fun).

- We are losing alot of experience this year. If we delist Miller, we will have nobody over 23 in the forwardline and only one 50 game player in Bate (I'm not arguing against delisting Miller, I'm just saying). This will lead to alot of trial and error, and even just basic things like not having anyone experienced actually out there in the forwardline directing traffic, telling first and second-year players where to lead and things like that, will hurt us at times.

Reasons why we might improve:

- We were dogged by injury last year, and by the end of the season we were fielding an incredibly second rate side even by our standards, and one that will hopefully be almost unrecognizable with the one we'll be fielding next year. It's not just that we'll be bringing in quality players like Garland, Aussie and Maric, it's also the fact that we wont have to play guys who aren't quite AFL standard like Newton, Valenti and Bartram (please don't bother replying and telling me I'm not exchanging like-for-like; I'm just trying to illustrate a point).

- Some of our most promising young players like Morton, Grimes, Wonna, Martin and others have had a few years in the system now, and it's no longer ridiculous to hope that a few might have a breakout year next year. This could make a huge difference, depending on how many kids improve and how much they improve obviously. If someone becomes an out-and-out gamebreaker, our situation is suddenly completely different. While we shouldn't bank on a kid blossoming into a star, it's not as unrealistic as it was at the start of this year.

- If we werent tanking, we probably could have finished with 6 wins or so. There'll be no real incentive to tank next year. So -and pay attention, because I'm about make the single most thought-provoking, sage-like comment in the history of football-related discussion- when you field your best available players and you play those players in their actual positions, you've got a better chance to beat other people at football.

Obviously there are still all the usual variables as well; the increased attention on Wonna and Jurrah might be balanced out or even outweighed by their improvement over the preseason, we might be even harder hit by injuries this year than last, a heavily fancied early draft pick whose not expected to make much of an early impact (e.g. a Watts or a Blease) might develop quicker than expected, Davey might follow up his great season with an absolute shocker, we might have a first year player come in and tear it up immediately like Rich has for Brisbane and Rioli did for the Hawks. I know it's always difficult to predict how your side's going to go, but I think it's truer than usual for Melboure in 2010. I'll have a wild stab in the dark and say 8.

Edited September 27, 2009 by two sheds jackson

[Dee1987 277]

I reckon a strong pre-season and a good run with injuries there is no reason why we couldnt finish in the 8!! But realistically i think we could finish with 9 mayb 10 wins!!

[#MYHEARTBEATSTRUE 27]

12-8th on the ladder....

[mauriesy 6,805]

Some interesting data from the last decade for teams that "load up" with draft picks.

Where a team has finished in the bottom three for 2-3 consecutive years, they have never done worse than 11th the following year (in fact 11th is a common result).

St Kilda

2000: 16th

2001: 15th

2002: 15th

2003: 11th

Collingwood

2004: 13th

2005: 15th

2006: 5th

Hawthorn

2004: 15th

2005: 14th

2006: 11th

Carlton

2002: 16th

2003: 15th

2004: 11th

2005: 16th

2006: 16th

2007: 15th

2008: 11th

Melbourne

2007: 14th

2008: 16th

2009: 16th

2010: ??

Where a team has finished with 5 wins or less for 2-3 consecutive years, they have never done worse than 9 wins the following year:

St Kilda

2000: 2 wins

2001: 4 wins

2002: 5 wins

2003: 11 wins

Collingwood

2004: 8 wins

2005: 5 wins

2006: 14 wins

Hawthorn

2004: 4 wins

2005: 5 wins

2006: 9 wins

Carlton

2002: 3 wins

2003: 4 wins

2004: 10 wins

2005: 4 wins

2006: 3 wins

2007: 4 wins

2008: 10 wins

Melbourne

2007: 5 wins

2008: 3 wins

2009: 4 wins

2010: ??

Three years is enough for teams to bottom out, then rise to at least 11th and/or 9 wins the following season. That's what I'd expect.

Edited September 27, 2009 by Maurie Lithen

[Dappa Dan 2,188]

That's an interesting post. I think it represents the vast majority of "groupthink" on demonland. We have a LOT of reasons to be positive about our next 22 matches. And a lot of reasons NOT to be positive.

I could echo every point you make, but instead I'll sum up how those factors influence my prediction,

I used to love doing a best 22. Back in the early-mid 2000s when we were ok and had a number of players in positions you trust. I don't enjoy doing it anymore because all but about 10 players I select grudgingly nowadays. And of the 22 selected EVERY week, I have no idea where they'll play. I'm thinking of Bruce, Green, Davey... guys who go everywhere, every week. Even one-ability wonders like Jamar have played whole matches in different positions. Many think this flexibility is a strong point. Personally I think it is, if coupled with a few known entities... eg a Johnathan Brown who'll be good for 4 goals, a Bartel who'll be good for 25 touches, a Swan who'll be good for 30 non-damaging ones. Where the list is now, we basically have NOTHING like this anymore. Even the first picked names get beaten regularly... Only some of the younger ones aren't tarnished by repeated form slumps. I'm thinking Grimes, Jurrah...

All in all I have serious doubts that a team with no confirmed stability to speak of can win more games than they lose. Think back to games when we had star players... Morton, Sylvia, Jurrah, Davey... they didn't (or rarely at least) end up with the 4 points.

Yes, putting players in positions for 10-12 rounds without shifting them will bring about results. Look at Bate who was given a role for 22 rounds and paid dividends. It could add the stability we've been screaming out for. But will they launch us into finals?

It's no for me. Still be great to watch though.

[drdrake 3,038]

The fixture will have a big factor in how many games we win. We showed enough this year to think we can win 7-9 games.

[Travman 0]

Yes, putting players in positions for 10-12 rounds without shifting them will bring about results. Look at Bate who was given a role for 22 rounds and paid dividends. It could add the stability we've been screaming out for. But will they launch us into finals?

You'd hope that the wholesale player-swapping that went on this year is a thing of the past. If they can play established players in set positions (sylvia midfield, bruce HBF etc) and surround them with a sprinkling of young players who can develop in various positions then that should be the right mix. Position 10-12 for me.

Edited September 28, 2009 by Sentra