WELCOME TO THE MELBOURNE FOOTBALL CLUB - STEVEN MAY

[Jaded No More 67,822]

1 hour ago, JV7 said:

I know there has been a lot of talk about the condition Steven May arrived at the club and I am probably only repeating what has been said but I have a contact at the club who told me today the state May showed up in was nowhere near AFL standard. The club was staggered at the state he was in, he was overweight & unfit. The club had to literally halve his workload to the rest of the playing group because he's body couldn't cope with the program. Apprently the current situation is they are having to start from scratch and rebuild & condition his body before he can play again which could be 5 weeks away

So we did no due diligence and no medical before we traded pick 6 for him? 

[What 18,810]

2 hours ago, JV7 said:

I know there has been a lot of talk about the condition Steven May arrived at the club and I am probably only repeating what has been said but I have a contact at the club who told me today the state May showed up in was nowhere near AFL standard. The club was staggered at the state he was in, he was overweight & unfit. The club had to literally halve his workload to the rest of the playing group because he's body couldn't cope with the program. Apprently the current situation is they are having to start from scratch and rebuild & condition his body before he can play again which could be 5 weeks away

Pathetic if true.  I wonder if KK came in out of shape too, hes not exactly looking in good nick.

[John Demonic 5,532]

Maybe he's been smashing burgers all off season with Relton Roberts?

 

 

[DV8 2,271]

3 hours ago, JV7 said:

I know there has been a lot of talk about the condition Steven May arrived at the club and I am probably only repeating what has been said but I have a contact at the club who told me today the state May showed up in was nowhere near AFL standard. The club was staggered at the state he was in, he was overweight & unfit. The club had to literally halve his workload to the rest of the playing group because he's body couldn't cope with the program. Apprently the current situation is they are having to start from scratch and rebuild & condition his body before he can play again which could be 5 weeks away

Close to as i suspected, but worse.

# Mayb we did the deal,  Re Hogan and May,  a year to early,  as some have said the AFL preferred ?

Edited April 6, 2019 by DV8

[Big_Dee 18]

Even a unfit and out of shape May is a good player. Just wait till he is firing. Don’t write the guy off, the dees will sort him out. 

[JV7 2,348]

10 hours ago, Jaded said:

So we did no due diligence and no medical before we traded pick 6 for him? 

You'd like to think we did & the club just thought they could turn around his fitness base or May just didn't understand the condition he had to return in between end of season & start of pre season.

My contact said usually every player shows up in peak condition to a new club which has happened in the past at Melbourne. It was a combination of May not understanding the level required & coming from GC where they are a little behind in their programming

[titan_uranus 24,657]

16 hours ago, Jaded said:

So we did no due diligence and no medical before we traded pick 6 for him? 

What do you expect "due diligence" or a medical would have picked up that we didn't pick up?

He came back from his off-season unfit. We didn't sign him one day before the pre-season started, we signed him weeks prior. Plenty could have changed in that period.

We could also have made the decision that he's a talented defender (which he is) and that, fitness issues or not, we backed ourselves and our system in to bring him to the level we and the competition required of him. There are reports which suggest that he trained well enough as to bring his fitness up to the rest of the team's by February.

[markc 975]

 

He couldn't believe the difference from GC to Melbourne , the training , the expectations ( Even not having Player sponsor  )

Not trying to Justify how he arrived. Im sure he will catch up and be much better for it as the year goes on. Like all new players they do take time to adjust to the game play of the new teammates. From what I saw at GC his job was the nullify one player , where as we have more a Zone defence. 

 

 

[Jaded No More 67,822]

And yet despite their poor standards and lack of training expectations, they have won 2 games and we have won 0. 

[At the break of Gawn 4,419]

6 minutes ago, Jaded said:

And yet despite their poor standards and lack of training expectations, they have won 2 games and we have won 0. 

Perhaps the “Gold Coast standards” was just an easy excuse for a player that just has a bad attitude around keeping in shape over the off season.

[Nasher 33,607]

If anyone thinks this is an issue, have a read of his response to Lyon. It’s exactly what others have been saying: he didn’t understand the required standard, he saw how behind he was and worked his arse off to catch up (and probably overdid it, ergo the first injury), and knows better for next year. With an “I didn’t see Garry at training much”, which gave me a chuckle.

Like I said in another thread, if he turns up out of condition next pre-season it’s a different issue. For now, cut the guy some damn slack and stop looking for reasons to be upset. There’s enough actual reasons without inventing them.

[Watts the matter 1,235]

25 minutes ago, Nasher said:

If anyone thinks this is an issue, have a read of his response to Lyon. It’s exactly what others have been saying: he didn’t understand the required standard, he saw how behind he was and worked his [censored] off to catch up (and probably overdid it, ergo the first injury), and knows better for next year. With an “I didn’t see Garry at training much”, which gave me a chuckle.

Like I said in another thread, if he turns up out of condition next pre-season it’s a different issue. For now, cut the guy some damn slack and stop looking for reasons to be upset. There’s enough actual reasons without inventing them.

Disagree entirely, If you rock up to a new club, especially when you are the big recruit and a former captain at 27 years of age you should know how to look after your body. The first thing you do when you get traded is talk to the fitness staff and set up a plan for your off season (the club can't tell you what to do because of the ALPA but I would expect a new recruit to want to set an example to his new teammates). 

When you give up pick 6 for an older player we don't have time for him to be learning how to be an AFL footballer, we could have gone to the draft and found someone to teach.

The point Lyon and others have made, wasn't about if he was training his [censored] off in the pre season, it was questioning why a mature recruit is turning up out of shape. 

[Pates 9,625]

I remember similar things seemed to happen to former Melbourne players going to other clubs and turning up thinking, “wow so this is how fit you’re meant to be”. It doesn’t excuse him from coming to the club in poor condition, as a big name recruit he should be taking it upon himself to be touch with the fitness staff and/or senior players to ensure he doesn’t miss a beat. 

He admits he’s made mistakes and now it’s on him to try to make up for it. 

[jumbo returns 6,703]

Has looked disinterested and cgaf 

Shocking trade

[What 18,810]

Should have kept pick 6, and moved up in the draft to get Izak Rankine.

Oh well.

 

Edited April 7, 2019 by Petraccattack

[beelzebub 23,200]

28 minutes ago, jumbo returns said:

Has looked disinterested and cgaf 

Shocking trade

It might be a little premature to call this one but it certainly doesn't have the feel about that I was hoping for.

Was hoping for someone of very good ability, very good stewardship and raring to go.

At the very least I thought he'd be on the paddock.

So far....not so good

[Deesprate 1,323]

The implied sledge by Melbourne about standard at Gold Coast are complete BS, The Suns train as hard as anyone. Right or wrong May situation look and smell bad. Supporters will turn on you quickly when you don’t give 100%. The Lever and May trades are shaping up as disaster. If Melbourne has got them wrong it will set the club back ten years. The jury is out but so far this recruiting has been an unmitigated disaster. Stewie Dew is a smart operator maybe just maybe he sussed this guy out.

[beelzebub 23,200]

6 minutes ago, Deesprate said:

The implied sledge by Melbourne about standard at Gold Coast are complete BS, The Suns train as hard as anyone. Right or wrong May situation look and smell bad. Supporters will turn on you quickly when you don’t give 100%. The Lever and May trades are shaping up as disaster. If Melbourne has got them wrong it will set the club back ten years. The jury is out but so far this recruiting has been an unmitigated disaster. Stewie Dew is a smart operator maybe just maybe he sussed this guy out.

A tale of two cities also. Melbourne.. seemingly on the cusp of achievement, GC rebuilding and redesigning it's game.

Dew would be looking 2-3 years before repeat finals action and such.

Melbourne thought it just needed icing the cake. Seems the cakes stale and tasteless and the icing a bit thin .

Im just sitting over here watching. Have no real expectations of May now. Just hope he can play a bit.

Edited April 7, 2019 by beelzebub

[Sir Why You Little 36,670]

11 hours ago, Watts the matter said:

Disagree entirely, If you rock up to a new club, especially when you are the big recruit and a former captain at 27 years of age you should know how to look after your body. The first thing you do when you get traded is talk to the fitness staff and set up a plan for your off season (the club can't tell you what to do because of the ALPA but I would expect a new recruit to want to set an example to his new teammates). 

When you give up pick 6 for an older player we don't have time for him to be learning how to be an AFL footballer, we could have gone to the draft and found someone to teach.

The point Lyon and others have made, wasn't about if he was training his [censored] off in the pre season, it was questioning why a mature recruit is turning up out of shape. 

Agree entirely. This guy is just lazy

prove me wrong Stephen  you wouldn’t get a game at The $uns now  

 

[poita 3,877]

As much as I understand why we wanted to trade Hogan and why we wanted to bring in May, the whole deal had an off feeling from the start.

May never showed great enthusiasm to come here in the first place, rather we were his last pathway out of GC17 when Collingwood and others went cold (I wonder why that was). 

Reports of his initial lack of fitness and conditioning, coupled with his lack of discipline and lack of interest on field, make you wonder whether he is here to simply cash pay cheques or is actually committed to helping the club. 

Hibberd was able to turn things around in 2017 from a bad start, hopefully May can do the same.

[Wiseblood 24,637]

Lack of interest on field? 

This forum will make up just about anything to suit their argument. 

He rocked up unfit and then, owning his mistake, worked his backside off to rectify it. That's fact, and really the only one we know. 

Anything else is just hearsay. 

[Young Blood 2,280]

18 minutes ago, poita said:

As much as I understand why we wanted to trade Hogan and why we wanted to bring in May, the whole deal had an off feeling from the start.

May never showed great enthusiasm to come here in the first place, rather we were his last pathway out of GC17 when Collingwood and others went cold (I wonder why that was). 

Reports of his initial lack of fitness and conditioning, coupled with his lack of discipline and lack of interest on field, make you wonder whether he is here to simply cash pay cheques or is actually committed to helping the club. 

Hibberd was able to turn things around in 2017 from a bad start, hopefully May can do the same.

It's not abnormal for a player coming from a club with lower standards of training/fitness to rock up out of shape. I've seen those reports and believe that he'd be fairly disappointed that he wasn't starting at a level that would prepare him better for the season.

But where are the reports that he wasn't enthusiastic about coming to Melbourne? Is that because there were rumours that Collingwood were keen to get him? Don't know if that necessarily means we were his last pathway out. Unless you've had discussions with him or have him quoting as such?

He's played half a game or so. Guess we'll see how interested he is in playing good football when he's on the ground.

'

[DV8 2,271]

5 hours ago, Deesprate said:

The Lever and May trades are shaping up as disaster. If Melbourne has got them wrong it will set the club back ten years. The jury is out

We needed both players (Lever & May)  urgently... no problem there from me. 

BUT the two first Rnd draft picks for Lever,  was never OK,  in my book.

 

The May issue of coming in out of condition and unfit,  has contributed to our downfall so far this year.  I think He owes us supporters an apology, for has slack attitude.

I am really disappointed with the opportunity we have given him and how he has so far re-payed us.

 

The overpaying for Lever,  I blame on Mahoney.  he's blotted his copy book IMO.

[buck_nekkid 5,819]

The guy has played essentially one quarter of football with us.  Not sure what our expectations should be in this case.

I think we reassess where he and KK are at after the bye.  

It is hard to 'go early' and criticise the trades, as we have no idea what value they will bring.  On paper, they were excellent trades because (rightly or wrongly) the Dees saw that they had gaps to fill, and these guys were the most talented available for these spots.  Lever and May should be a powerhouse backline for years to come.  KK was steak knives.  We were trading in for specific skills based on a belief that the list was ready to do big things.  Unfortunately that has not been the case so far this year.  But May is a big lad, and looked in very good shape when I saw him at the G on round 1.  No defender would look good at Melbourne at the moment, with the system they are asked to play and the lack of accountability further up the ground.  If we get that right, then OMac and Frost will look like heroes. Lever and May will be gods, and everyone will be happy.

[jumbo returns 6,703]

2 hours ago, Wiseblood said:

Lack of interest on field? 

This forum will make up just about anything to suit their argument. 

He rocked up unfit and then, owning his mistake, worked his backside off to rectify it. That's fact, and really the only one we know. 

Anything else is just hearsay. 

And your posts are gospel?

Show me any, any snippet of interest and I'll back down

Tell me where I'm wrong