Now is the time to investigate all areas of the club and with a new coach coming in we've got a chance to start afresh in all areas if we want to. One area I think needs to be discussed is our relationship with Sandringham. Sandy has been very successfull over the last 5 years and it's clear that they've benfited from the deal, which is great to see, but has it been the best way for us to develop our youngsters?

The positives for the relationship

-Obviously the main positive is our young developing players are in a winning environment, they also have to play very well just to get into Sandy's firsts.

-Finances, currently it's cheaper to have this setup instead of the Geelong way (Although the AFL have guaranteed that this will change next year)

-We're contributing to the VFL and to Sandringham who has alot of history and is an important part of Victorian football.

The negatives

-Only 12 players can play each week. Which means that if we have no injuries someone will miss out on playing firsts footy regardless of their ability or level of development.

-We don't have absolute control of how they're played. Sandringham use our players to win games for Sandy, not to get the best development out of them

In my opinion this is the most important issue and I'll grab a quote from demonland's latest Sandringham report to illustrate my point.

  Demonland said:

Jace Bode - easily his best game since coming to the club. He found plenty of the ball, delivered it well and showed heaps of courage. It's marvelous what you can do when you get plenty of time in a game and can build up your confidence

Up untill now Bode just hasn't had this opportunity, some could argue that he didn't deserve it, I'd argue that given we've drafted a young person then we should do all that's possible to help them succeed because we have a responsibility to that kid and it costs a heap of cash just to get a player onto our list.

Other examples that I can think of right now are playing Neaves as second to Jamar and Newton starting games on the bench or playing him on the wing. Jamar will be delisted at the end of the year (or traded if we can find a wood duck), Neaves has far more potential but playing him sparingly off the bench is not contributing to his development. The Newton case is a no-brainer, sandy was full of KP forwards so there was no room for him.

The AFL is going to make it affordable for clubs like Melbourne to have a stand alone team, let's not completely dismiss the idea.

  Jarka said:

The AFL is going to make it affordable for clubs like Melbourne to have a stand alone team, let's not completely dismiss the idea.

Didn't Melb's CEO Harris point out that Victorian teams were disadvantaged by the affiliate arrangement.

I don't think the Club is dismissing the idea - in fact I imagine they would prefer their own team.