The fact that Cook hasn't got a game when practically everyone else has says to me that Neeld and co are not just blindly playing players "just to get games into them," which can only be a good thing.

I like the in's to be honest

Gysberts, Strauss and Tapscott need to deliver on glimpses of promise and the sooner the better.

I'm a Fitzpatrick fan, although admit that to date he looks bad at AFL level. He looks a different player at VFL where he plays with confidence

I tend to agree. Ins of players with upside like Gysberts, Strauss and Tapscott certainly feels better than when the Ins read, Bate, Petterd, Dunn

Hi Guys does anyone know how I can post an Excel spread sheet without it totally deforming?

Hi Guys does anyone know how I can post an Excel spread sheet without it totally deforming?

Only by taking a screen snapshot of it as a graphic then posting the image

Only by taking a screen snapshot of it as a graphic then posting the image

Thanks DC sounds like a job for another day.

I did a list of all the players who have been recruited since 2008

Just to see how they have played as a group.

Staggering how many have played so few games due in a lot of cases to injury.

I thought it might be of interest but looks like it is difficult to get it on without it scrambling.

Interesting that two guys with large numbers and seem to be able to get the ball Cannot kick i.e. Mckenzie and Trengove

Four guys drafted in 2008 Bail, Blease, Jetta, and Strauss have played a collective total of 93 out of a possible 336.

All of them have had serious long term injuries, The lack of games from these guys is IMO really hurting us all are in their fourth year.

They are averaging less than 6 games per person per year.

Now I know you can make stat's say anything you like but we have got very little from this group

Good to see Gysberts Tappy and Morton back.

Interesting to see how Morton goes, surely he is playing for his career.

Yes. sort of .

In the Casey player review about Morton:

"No doubt Cale will be working hard this week on the track with defensive coach Jade Rawlings on his left hand spoils."

I'm fairly sure this is in relation to a moment in the first half when Morton decided not to put his body on the line in a weak spoiling effort which resulted in a Frankston goal. I made comment on it at the time when watching the game, makes me sick to think we could have had Rioli or Dangerfield.

Surprised there's not more comment about us only picking 1 ruckman...

What if Spencer gets injured? Who will be backup ruck? Who will ruck the stoppages Spencil can't get to?

Sounds like a pretty ordinary plan to me.

And why not pick Fitzy and play him forward?

Either we're playing funny buggars and we'll pull a late change (Fitz is an emergency), or we're playing funny buggars and this is one of those "experimenting" games.....

Both ways, all we get is funny buggars....

Yep me too. no wonder our culture is weak! We reward a bloke who has in the past been highly suseptible to moments of hesitation, we get write ups like this and he still hasn't learnt and worst of all gets rewarded for lack of effort...with a game, gees we have a millenium of work to do Astounding!!

By most reports Morton had a pretty good game last week and we still need to field 22 players each week. It's a bit unfair, in my opinion, to condemn a person on a single mistake in a game of footy. Show me a player that doesn't make an error in 120 minutes of football and I'll show you a guy that doesn't like head. If we were picking players on their merits alone, we would probably struggle to put more than 10 players on the park.

Surprised there's not more comment about us only picking 1 ruckman...

What if Spencer gets injured? Who will be backup ruck? Who will ruck the stoppages Spencil can't get to?

Sounds like a pretty ordinary plan to me.

And why not pick Fitzy and play him forward?

Either we're playing funny buggars and we'll pull a late change (Fitz is an emergency), or we're playing funny buggars and this is one of those "experimenting" games.....

Both ways, all we get is funny buggars....

Sellar (196cm) should be more than capable of giving Spencer a chop out (remember the days when this was Dunn's job? Shudder). It's not ideal for Spencer to be rucking the majority of the game, but I presume the match committee has decided that a running midfielder will be of more advantage than Fitzpatrick spending time up forward with stints in the ruck.

Absolutely no backup ruckman.

Tall marking forward????

Surely Fitzy should have got a run on both counts?

The problem with this particular Morton incident is that it wasn't a skill error, it wasn't even a brain fade. It was just him being soft, which after all these years is still a big concern. He might have played well the rest of the game, and good on him but that moment was a real lowlight.

Thanks DC sounds like a job for another day.

I did a list of all the players who have been recruited since 2008

Just to see how they have played as a group.

Staggering how many have played so few games due in a lot of cases to injury.

I thought it might be of interest but looks like it is difficult to get it on without it scrambling.

Interesting that two guys with large numbers and seem to be able to get the ball Cannot kick i.e. Mckenzie and Trengove

Four guys drafted in 2008 Bail, Blease, Jetta, and Strauss have played a collective total of 93 out of a possible 336.

All of them have had serious long term injuries, The lack of games from these guys is IMO really hurting us all are in their fourth year.

They are averaging less than 6 games per person per year.

Now I know you can make stat's say anything you like but we have got very little from this group

There is no doubt that there are issues in this group. And clearly some duds that will be weeded out. And as you have pointed out some have suffered serious injury that has dented their development and their game times.

But in most cases, given the nature of AFL, few will be ready round 1 and may only debut later in the season. In addition they are unlikely to have the experience bulid strength as 19/20 yos to cope with a full season. We have seen it takes bigger and taller players time to develop. The same can be said for smaller player. Few if any are switch on contributing footballers week in week out.

Its even harder when MFC have had develop players with a void of capable senior player leading the proper culture.

If you really want to get smart and analytical about recruiting, focus on the quality (or lack there of) that we recruited 2000 to 2007.

There lies the bigger culprit.

Irrelevent ?

Spoke to my older Brother yesterday who barracks for Hawthorn and was on their senior list for 3 years. He asks, "what's wrong with Melbourne ?". I say it's certainly been a bad year. He replies, "bad decade". I had to laugh.

I then had to put up with hearing from Sheedy that if he coached Melbourne there would have been no tanking. Even Sheedy's trolling made my other Brother and I laugh.

We also had to laugh at the fact that we've been in the news virtually every week this year. And not just in the news, but major news. Compare us in the media to the Bulldogs that you never hear about.

Irrelevent ? Not when you're the source of selling more papers than just about every other club. But why am I laughing ? Come on Timd, you're a psychologist, give me some free advice.

I'm getting sick of laughing.

Surprised there's not more comment about us only picking 1 ruckman...

What if Spencer gets injured? Who will be backup ruck? Who will ruck the stoppages Spencil can't get to?

Sounds like a pretty ordinary plan to me.

And why not pick Fitzy and play him forward?

Either we're playing funny buggars and we'll pull a late change (Fitz is an emergency), or we're playing funny buggars and this is one of those "experimenting" games.....

Both ways, all we get is funny buggars....

Yep I've got us to beat the line in a multi (-20.5) but seeing that we only have one ruckman I'm not so confident. Our forward line does t look too flash either. Surely we will win by at least 5 goals? Surely???

There is no doubt that there are issues in this group. And clearly some duds that will be weeded out. And as you have pointed out some have suffered serious injury that has dented their development and their game times.

But in most cases, given the nature of AFL, few will be ready round 1 and may only debut later in the season. In addition they are unlikely to have the experience bulid strength as 19/20 yos to cope with a full season. We have seen it takes bigger and taller players time to develop. The same can be said for smaller player. Few if any are switch on contributing footballers week in week out.

Its even harder when MFC have had develop players with a void of capable senior player leading the proper culture.

If you really want to get smart and analytical about recruiting, focus on the quality (or lack there of) that we recruited 2000 to 2007.

There lies the bigger culprit.

Why play FItz or Cook at all?? Why not send em to the gym for 4 months and say "don't come out until you have stacked on 10kgs"

They aren't 'improving' at Casey, they aren't ready for AFL, they are wasting away and being demoralised no doubt.

Might as well bulk em up and get em into a decent pre season starting now.

Yep I've got us to beat the line in a multi (-20.5) but seeing that we only have one ruckman I'm not so confident. Our forward line does t look too flash either. Surely we will win by at least 5 goals? Surely???

Gold coast with 20pts are a monty to win the money. Only a fool would back the Dees in their current state. GC will be fired up to play and win at the G. Sadly we dont have the cattle to stop em.

The problem with this particular Morton incident is that it wasn't a skill error, it wasn't even a brain fade. It was just him being soft, which after all these years is still a big concern. He might have played well the rest of the game, and good on him but that moment was a real lowlight.

Yeah OK I get it

players need to be hard and crunch tackles especially highly rated draft picks

OH but sometimes those hard at it types get injured and cant be covered

Oh and some of those soft players become bigger and harder as they grow like Tom Hawkins or even a bloke named Watts

Oh and some dont grow big and crunch packs all the time like Robbie Flower or Keith Greig coz they're just not bloody big enough

BUT

I think that if you have the right squad there is a place for all of them

I agree Morton may well be playing foir his future and he may be soft but I still wish him well and hope he contributes to a victory as a begginning of the Demon resurgence.

Surprised there's not more comment about us only picking 1 ruckman...

What if Spencer gets injured? Who will be backup ruck? Who will ruck the stoppages Spencil can't get to?

Sounds like a pretty ordinary plan to me.

And why not pick Fitzy and play him forward?

Either we're playing funny buggars and we'll pull a late change (Fitz is an emergency), or we're playing funny buggars and this is one of those "experimenting" games.....

Both ways, all we get is funny buggars....

I'm not a huge fan of Sellar, but think he's been more than serviceable in two areas; as a backup ruck (when used as such) and as a negating backman on the opposition tall forwards. In an ideal world, he's a depth player to cover injuries to other talls, but we need him this weekend to play these roles, and free us up to play Spencer as a lone ruck and include another small for run and pressure/hardness (needed against the GC). With a fit and firing Jamar, Clarke and Martin, then Rivers goes back to defence and Martin plays the 2nd ruck/utility. No need for Sellar.

I'd like to see us take the approach this weekend of Spencer as sole ruck with Sellar filling in when Spencer rests, but to mix it up, I reckon Rivers should take some of the ruckwork in our forward fifty, and have Howe or Sylvia coming over the top. This would allow Spencer to hang back as the big man for the opposition quick kick out, and reduce his rucking load so that he can ruck for longer and make more impact when he does.

I agree Morton may well be playing foir his future and he may be soft but I still wish him well and hope he contributes to a victory as a begginning of the Demon resurgence.

We all want Morton to play well, that is why we are so hard (sometimes unfairly) on him.

There must be a clever linguist out there somewhere who is capable of coming up with a word that means the opposite to "blockbuster", because such a word word be perfect to describe this game.

It's a season-filler.

A "slump buster"

A "c#ck ruster"

A "dead rubber"

Blockbuilder

A Tanker.

"Meh"

High tea