http://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/7415/newsid/96416/default.aspx

"THE TWO STANDOUT performers from Monday’s game against Collingwood were undoubtedly Mark Jamar and Brent Moloney, with both players reaching career-best disposal figures. But when you drill down even further into the statistics, it becomes clear that individually they have been brilliant in 2010, and even more so as a ruck-midfielder combination."

Nice little article with a couple of interesting midfield stats and lots of well-earned praise for Beamer and Russian.

Loving Moloney and Jamar's form.

The football department has got it right with all the choice of senior players (over 26 y/o) we have kept in order to guide the youngster. We delisted lots of senior players over the last few years and decided only to keep those who could genuinely add to our starting 18 structure.

If you look at our senior players (over 26 years old), they all contribute and all are important to our team:

- Moloney- really leads the midfield

- Jamar- real monster in the ruck. We rely so heavily on him

- Green- is absolutely critical to our forward line until our young forwards develop

- Bruce- is a really clever defender. Uses all his experience to generally beat his opponent. Also is filling a hole at half back until Strauss/Cheney develop

- JMcdonald- huge amounts of leadership

- Davey- our best player

- Warnock- our best defensive defender

The only senior guys who aren't doing great guns are Rivers and Miller, but both are still in our starting 22.

Loving Moloney and Jamar's form.

The football department has got it right with all the choice of senior players (over 26 y/o) we have kept in order to guide the youngster. We delisted lots of senior players over the last few years and decided only to keep those who could genuinely add to our starting 18 structure.

If you look at our senior players (over 26 years old), they all contribute and all are important to our team:

- Moloney- really leads the midfield

- Jamar- real monster in the ruck. We rely so heavily on him

- Green- is absolutely critical to our forward line until our young forwards develop

- Bruce- is a really clever defender. Uses all his experience to generally beat his opponent. Also is filling a hole at half back until Strauss/Cheney develop

- JMcdonald- huge amounts of leadership

- Davey- our best player

- Warnock- our best defensive defender

The only senior guys who aren't doing great guns are Rivers and Miller, but both are still in our starting 22.

I would include Colin Sylvia In theis list of seniors

According to the article:

"Looking closer at centre bounces in particular, the figures start to become even more compelling. There have been a total of 327 centre bounces over the 12 Melbourne matches thus far - Jamar has been involved in almost 80% of those bounces, Moloney just over 70%.

Youngsters Jack Trengove (32%), Jordie McKenzie (38%) and Jordan Gysberts (11%) have all been thrust into the middle this year, showing good signs for the future of the Demons’ midfield success. Interestingly, Tom Scully has attended only nine centre bounces in 2010 as he has been used primarily off the wing."

This actually bothers me. This all looks great in the light of possibly Moloney's best game for the club, but our centre clearances have been poor over much of the season, especially in games where we've done poorly. Opposition coaches don't tag Moloney, because they know he's unlikely to hurt them, unlike Davey, for example. Interesting too that if Sculgove had played against Geelong, Thompson planned to put a hard tag on both of them.

Would be interesting to compare the Scully & Trengove figures to the young mids from other clubs - Dustin Martin, Melksham, Cunnington, Bastinac. Scully & Trengove were always the obvious 1st & 2nd picks, well ahead of these guys in the draft, but may have had less time at centre bounces. Not to mention others like Ziebell & Hannebery & Stephen Hill who had not played much before this year due to injury.

The club seems to show much more faith in what's left of the worst midfield in the comp in 2008 & 2009, than it shows in the young talent that was drafted specifically to improve that midfield.