Its hard to show a great game plan when you don't have a dominate key forward to strighten you up, plus when your an average side and confidence is low. I reckon we have some good skills in the side (Strauss, Wona, Sylvia, Scull, trengove, Maric, Davey, Grimes, etc) but they are low on confidence atm or bloody injured!

Game plan will reveal plenty when we get some players on the paddock and some key forwards to have confidence kicking too.

Kids are young and don't have the confidence yet to execute risks and skills to a high standard.

However if the skill errors are from Moloney, Jones, Bruce, green, Sylvia, Maca etc then thats a different issue.

neither do I, he is in the same boat as Spencer, and so many before them at this club, they have the required number of centimetres but absolutely nothing else to bring to the table

Jim Stynes bought nothing to the table for nearly 2 years. Let the kid play a season of footy or perhaps even 1 game, before you write his career off.

Great to see a couple of more reasoned posts. Not that it's about rose-coloured glasses, but some of the wrist-slashing and player-slamming that's going on at the moment seems well wide of any sense of the reality of where we are.

The Fitzpatrick references above highlight what's going on with the club at the moment. He was thrown to the wolves in the first few games, and was universally panned on the boards. But then, he starts getting mentioned in dispatches from Casey. Playing a work-in-progress like him hasn't helped at all with our results. But in the longer term, or even the shorter term, may help enormously with his development, and move the club forward.

And all this discussion about game-plan. Even if there was one that the players were able to execute (without having to think about it first ....) , the revolving door of players through choice and injury is surely hugely disruptive in the heat of battle. This is not (yet) a settled side.

Overall though, the fact that with all the inexperience, and all the players out or out of form, we were still able to manage 26 scoring shots seems a big plus to me. If we can do that every match of the season, there'll be much to be positive about. Heck, we may even win some games ...

But probably not in the shorter term. Too many disruptions, too much inexperience, too many players out. But .. it WILL come.

B

Yep but lets not squash him by panicking & exposing him too soon, he's only played under - 18s IMO.

Give him time with Casey.

If we play TOO many kids at the one time in any team we Will get slaughtered.

On Jack Fitzpatrick I couldn't agree more. To throw him to the wolves now would be wrong. He's about 10kg off the weight you would want a 200cm player to be at and he needs a year or two of coaching at a level or two below AFL before he's ready. That's a fact of life. If we want him to reach his full potential then give him some time. He's fast for a big man and he can take a mark but there are so many things he needs to learn. This is no disrespect for the kid but he might even spend some time in the Casey Reserves before the season's out (possibly even at CHB) assuming we ever get to a point where our list is at full strength. It won't hurt him one bit - all part of learning.

Brad Green , I think maybe 56.

Cameron Bruce, rookie list

Aaron Davey, Rookie list

Liam Jurrah, pre-season draft, didn't make the first draft...

do i need to go on....

Isaac Weetra

Heath Neville

Micheal Newton

Cameron Hunter

do any of us need to go on!

There seems to be much frustration about our pre season results, injuries ,lack of game plan etc etc. which are reasonable points for discussion and debate.Every now and then when you get totally frustrated and unhappy that the new draftee hasn't become a superstar overnight or we are not progressing as quickly as a team as you would like ,stop and give a thought for Jimmy and his battle with cancer and it will help put a bit of perspective on things.

My first wish for this year is that Jimmy can overcome his battle with cancer as he is an exceptional human being! If Melbourne improve this year that is also great.