You know, I watched the Crows v Bombers game and by gee the Crows are one solid unit! Their physical appearence is of well muscled lads that don't get pushed of the ball easily. Now compare the Crows guys to ours. WE ARE STICKS!! Scott Thomspon was a good build when he was with us ... not big but not skinny. Have you now seen the size of this guy! He is massive and has not been pushed of the ball easily. Ever since he has gone to Adelaide he just gets bigger and bigger. Even Nick Gill looks bigger than Brad Miller!!!

The Crows are masssive, the young kids are also strongly built lads eg Chris Knights, Ivan Maric and so on.. yet other clubs seem to have big bodies everywhere where as you look at Melbourne' we are just skin! I remember watchin the Essendon game this year with my gf and she has never watched footy nor take any notice ... but the one thing she said to me was ''boy Daniel Ward must be the most skiniest guy out there! I agreed whole so much. look at blokes like Cameron Bruce, Daniel Ward, Nathan Brown, Clint Bartram, Paul Wheatley, Lynden Dunn, Matthew Warnock and Ryan Ferguson. These guys just get pushed off to easily. and guys like Jared Rivers, Matty Bate, Michael Newton and Lynden Dunn are gonna be tried out for key position. Well, sadly they are just not big enough. Brock McLean, Colin Sylvia, Nathan Jones, Nathan Carroll, Brent Moloney, Daniel Bell are good solid hard hitting players but its just not enough. Knowing our luck its gonna take years before Frawls and Garland are big ennough for key positions. I'm sick of this losing weight [censored]!! We are soft as butter and this needs to change.

WE NEED SOME BIG MUSCLED PLAYERS!! NOT SKINNY DIPPERS.

Point taken, and yes we need some serious time in the gym over summer. Daniher and Bohdan had no idea.

Having said that, it's funny that we beat the Crows and were half their size, and that the crows have only won 2 of their last 8 games. So clearly, size is not everything.

But again, Geelong went into the season as the heaviest team, and look where they are now.

Didn't we slim down so we could execute the run and carry game plan that has served us soooooo well this year.

WOW my sarcasm has become so tuned suring this season.

What a wonderful decision that was to get our inside midfielders to slim down.

All of the West Coast players are just pure muscle.

They are not all big, but just strongly built. It makes a big difference.

U need 2 be fit and strong, able to run hard and break tackles without tiering early i.e jones and sylvia.

Our skill level is incompetent, our ability to apply pressure is [censored] weak cos we are unfit and yes physically we are not in the ball park

i feel sorry for Jones. At the end of last year he was an absolute tank.

It takes a lot of hard work, sweat and pain to get to where he was.

It's a big commitment to stay focused and achieve what he did at such a young age, then for Daniher and Bodan to tell him to lose weight (most of which was muscle), would not only be a slap in the face, but for the so called run and carry plan to completely backfire, making Jones give up something that he worked so hard to achieve would no doubt be in the back of his mind.

It would sure be in mine, and i'd be extremely pi$$ed for having put so much effort in to achieve something, sacrificing his reward for hard work and commitment, to receive nothing in return, except maybe a lack in confidence going into next year.

Big like cousins. He is a large man!

i feel sorry for Jones. At the end of last year he was an absolute tank.

It takes a lot of hard work, sweat and pain to get to where he was.

It's a big commitment to stay focused and achieve what he did at such a young age, then for Daniher and Bodan to tell him to lose weight (most of which was muscle), would not only be a slap in the face, but for the so called run and carry plan to completely backfire, making Jones give up something that he worked so hard to achieve would no doubt be in the back of his mind.

It would sure be in mine, and i'd be extremely pi$$ed for having put so much effort in to achieve something, sacrificing his reward for hard work and commitment, to receive nothing in return, except maybe a lack in confidence going into next year.

i think u should research wat ur talkin about abit more....

i think it is very hard to lose muscle and weight at the same time.....

muscular atrophy from my knowledge will only occure from prolonged periods of rest.... and if by losing weight he has been resting..... i would be concerned.... even though they may have lost alot of time in the gym i doubt highly it would be enough for atrophy to occur...

if anything id say jones has lost a few kg of body... thats about it.....

All of the West Coast players are just pure muscle.

They are not all big, but just strongly built. It makes a big difference.

Big like cousins. He is a large man!

Ben Cousins is a freak. I watched him play the other night I think he is even bigger than when he was suspended. I also noticed our lack of size last night. At first i put it down to most of our team being young and gangly however Jones and Miller just seem to have lost some physical presence, in that I mean size.

Its not a matter of body size size its a matter of ability.

The criticism of the "apparent" drop in body size is overblown.

How much weight has actually been lost by the players concerned on the list?

Nathan Jones struggled to run out games last year at his weight. He has been one of the few bright spots in this side and he has an improved engine to run this year.

Miller could be 120 kg of muscle and still would not be any good.

There are problems in this team and with the list. This aint one of them.

Nathan Jones struggled to run out games last year at his weight. He has been one of the few bright spots in this side and he has an improved engine to run this year.

Agree Rhino. I think if anything Jones is a shining example of when weight loss is appropriate and beneficial. He's still probably our hardest body despite his age and he is running out games unlike last year. To use him as an example of someone who shouldn't have lost weight is warping reality.

Jones has been a massive positive this year - his hardness and willingness for the contested ball has shown the deficiencies in others. will be a 200 game plus player for the footy club.

over the preseason, which should commence in october, each player should be given a football... it should go everywhere with them and they should become one with it....

our skills are the worst in the competition - the number of times that we hit an opponent on the chest is amazing....

Skills is what we need!!

i feel sorry for Jones. At the end of last year he was an absolute tank.

It takes a lot of hard work, sweat and pain to get to where he was.

It's a big commitment to stay focused and achieve what he did at such a young age, then for Daniher and Bodan to tell him to lose weight (most of which was muscle), would not only be a slap in the face, but for the so called run and carry plan to completely backfire, making Jones give up something that he worked so hard to achieve would no doubt be in the back of his mind.

It would sure be in mine, and i'd be extremely pi$$ed for having put so much effort in to achieve something, sacrificing his reward for hard work and commitment, to receive nothing in return, except maybe a lack in confidence going into next year.

Jones said he didn't have the tank to run out games last year, so needed to slim down a little over the pre-season.

Questions needs to be asked of our conditioning coaches, we hire a sprint coach and we are the slowest team in the AFL, our injuries whether soft tissue , joint our bone has been huge this year. I know that footy is now a running mans game but you still need to have a physical pressence about you. A few of us raise serious concerns when we appointed the new conditioning coach and these concerns have been justified.

You need someone who can condition a footballer to play football, not to be a sprinter or a long distance runner to do what these guys do best condition them to win the footy and to do the 1%ers. We get tackled to easy, we aren't strong enough to break these, we don't accellerate when we get the footy, break away from the contest with a burst of speed, we win the footy and get held up for another ruck contest until our opposition get their hands on the ball and run away from us.

You know, I watched the Crows v Bombers game and by gee the Crows are one solid unit! Their physical appearence is of well muscled lads that don't get pushed of the ball easily. Now compare the Crows guys to ours. WE ARE STICKS!! Scott Thomspon was a good build when he was with us ... not big but not skinny. Have you now seen the size of this guy! He is massive and has not been pushed of the ball easily. Ever since he has gone to Adelaide he just gets bigger and bigger. Even Nick Gill looks bigger than Brad Miller!!!

The Crows are masssive, the young kids are also strongly built lads eg Chris Knights, Ivan Maric and so on.. yet other clubs seem to have big bodies everywhere where as you look at Melbourne' we are just skin! I remember watchin the Essendon game this year with my gf and she has never watched footy nor take any notice ... but the one thing she said to me was ''boy Daniel Ward must be the most skiniest guy out there! I agreed whole so much. look at blokes like Cameron Bruce, Daniel Ward, Nathan Brown, Clint Bartram, Paul Wheatley, Lynden Dunn, Matthew Warnock and Ryan Ferguson. These guys just get pushed off to easily. and guys like Jared Rivers, Matty Bate, Michael Newton and Lynden Dunn are gonna be tried out for key position. Well, sadly they are just not big enough. Brock McLean, Colin Sylvia, Nathan Jones, Nathan Carroll, Brent Moloney, Daniel Bell are good solid hard hitting players but its just not enough. Knowing our luck its gonna take years before Frawls and Garland are big ennough for key positions. I'm sick of this losing weight [censored]!! We are soft as butter and this needs to change.

WE NEED SOME BIG MUSCLED PLAYERS!! NOT SKINNY DIPPERS.

well said dazzle, time spent in the gym for all melbourne players under daniher was NOT good enough. players these days need to carry a bit of extra weight for reasons stated, absolute madness that our strongest guys are weaker than some of the umpires...e.g. i saw ryan ferguson get out arm-wrestled by ray chamberlin on the weekend

i feel sorry for Jones. At the end of last year he was an absolute tank.

It takes a lot of hard work, sweat and pain to get to where he was.

Jones is actually counter to the "weight loss = weak" argument. He's been one of our best this year because of his ability to run. Losing some weight has been a positive for him.

This idea that everyone has got to be big and overly-muscled is simplistic at best.

Jones is actually counter to the "weight loss = weak" argument. He's been one of our best this year because of his ability to run. Losing some weight has been a positive for him.

This idea that everyone has got to be big and overly-muscled is simplistic at best.

yeah i think it can be simplistic maurie if you take it simply as 'bulking up', or putting on body mass. what i think the point is that many players in the MFC are WEAK, i.e. they get knocked off/ over/ away from contests far too easily and it looks pathetic, because it is!

Jones is actually counter to the "weight loss = weak" argument.

I never said that weight loss = weak, i just said that i feel for Jones because he needed to lose a fair bit of muscle, which is a lot of hard work to gain, and whilst he has had individual success, the team has gone backwards in a big way.

He sacrificed for the team, and got very little back from it.

i think u should research wat ur talkin about abit more....

i think it is very hard to lose muscle and weight at the same time.....

muscular atrophy from my knowledge will only occure from prolonged periods of rest.... and if by losing weight he has been resting..... i would be concerned.... even though they may have lost alot of time in the gym i doubt highly it would be enough for atrophy to occur...

if anything id say jones has lost a few kg of body... thats about it.....

To my knowledge

When you do lots of cardio or are attemptimg to lose body fat (referred to as "cutting" in bodybuilding terms) will result in some muscle loss

To my knowledge

When you do lots of cardio or are attemptimg to lose body fat (referred to as "cutting" in bodybuilding terms) will result in some muscle loss

care to explain

care to explain

Sorry I cant recall all of the scientific reasoning behind it but from what I remember if you do lots of cardio work (which I am guessing jones did if he couldn't run out a game last season) it is usually at a small cost to your muscular size

Why dont we get the [censored] eye boys down! They cant paint the players bedrooms and give them all lovely haircuts and facials!

C'mon if we're gunna play crappy footy we may aswell look good...

If your gunna attack the club on their conditioning of players Jones is not the best example.