The halfway mark of the season and the bye.

Time for most in football to rest and rejuvenate but where to from here for Melbourne?

Apart from all the troubles we have during games, how do we keep up the morale of the players, particularly of our more senior players?

What do we do with our young blokes? Rookie elevations?

Yesterday, we gave away 13 goals 11 behinds by way of turnovers. How do we stop that?

These are some of the questions for mid season discussion - let's keep this to the football side.

Couch deserves to be elevated, and will.

Id find a role for him in the MFC side, ahead of McKenzie, Dunn, Tapscott, Rodan etc etc

in fact id have both Couch and Magner in the team. Youd then have 5 tough solid ball-winning midfielders in the clinches - (N Jones, M Jones, Magner, Couch, Viney) and the focus should then be on the likes of Sylvia, Trengove, Evans, Blease, Toumpas and Davey to get the pill in space and be creative and back themselves at every turn.

Of course this will only happen with a change of coach, and hopefully Neeld is sacked in the next week.

If Dawes is out, I want to see Fitzpatrick given an extended run and Gawn brought back as a second ruck.

Dunn can go have a month or more at Casey, give Taggert, Jetta and possibly Tynan a good run at Melbourne. McKenzie too can have a month at Casey while Magner gets a run.

Mitch Clark is finished in AFL. Foot is stuffed forever.

Put Dunn back in forwards where he should be.

Couch deserves to be elevated, and will.

Id find a role for him in the MFC side, ahead of McKenzie, Dunn, Tapscott, Rodan etc etc

in fact id have both Couch and Magner in the team.

..............

Couch got a couple of games last year and had absolutely zero impact. Having said that, VFL form should be rewarded at some stage; why else keep him on as a rookie.

No idea why Magner isn't playing tho'; butches it a bit...lol...but he does get it. The easy centre takeaways by the filth yesterday were alarming.

I think we have to fix upstairs first. Nothing will improve on the field until this is done.

Since Neeld said Clark won't play another game this year promote Clisby and just get games into our young players (not Sellar, Gilles, Nicho etc. - not part of our future)

Until the end of the year just play youth - at least it will give us something to explain the weekly thrashings.

Come the end of the year I think we should take a leaf out of GWS/Gold Coasts book and have a very young list but lead by some really good players. Sellar, Gilles, Nicho etc can be replaced by youth (draft) and players like Rodan and Byrnes can be replaced by actually good players/leaders - (Free agency - Dal Santo, Hayes, Thomas?)

Drop Dunn, McKenzie and Tapscott. Replace them with Couch, Magner and Strauss. Dunn doesn't come back, he's had far too many chances. McKenzie doesn't come back until he learns to kick (you cannot be a decent midfielder if you cant impact the game offensively at all). Tapscott doesn't come back until he has 3-4 weeks of consistently getting amongst it at Casey.

Keep Fitzpatrick in the side, whether Dawes is out or not (we need two marking targets forward of centre). I don't think Fitzpatrick is good enough but he has to provide a chop out in the ruck and we need someone to be forward at all times.

Gawn to play number 1 ruck. Jamar either to play FF if Dawes is out (last resort measure to ensure we have a FF), or to be dropped.

Play Howe as a forward. He got 11 disposals yesterday playing up the ground - may as well get his marking prowess closer to goal.