As I look through our list I cant help but get excited

There is a crazy amount of talent from top to bottom, and this is without our picks coming up in the National draft (3 in the top 21)

I have a strong feeling that the mighty Demons are going to blow the competition away in 2008. We will take everyone by surprise. We have so many kids who are just natural footballers and know the game.

There is no doubt we have the best young list in the entire AFL.

And now that we have cleaned out the dead wood, we only have a handful of players over 30 and they are all Best and Fairest winners (White, Neitz, McDonald, Yze) still capable of playing good footy. Its nice know our veterans are guns, instead of plodders (Ward, Bizzell, Brown etc.)

Dean Bailey is known for his player development. Under Daniher/Fagan/Riley/Royal we were the worst in the AFL in this area. Hence no superstars on our list. Poor old Craig Cameron keeps picking the best kids, but they were developed poorly

I can see us sneaking up on everyone and taking the flag next year

Remember, this is not Danihers Demons

These are Deans Demons

Everything changes now, and it will be for the better.

You are truly the Spiritual Maharaji of this internet forum!

And now that we have cleaned out the dead wood, we only have a handful of players over 30 and they are all Best and Fairest winners (White, Neitz, McDonald, Yze) still capable of playing good footy. Its nice know our veterans are guns, instead of plodders (Ward, Bizzell, Brown etc.)

Dean Bailey is known for his player development. Under Daniher/Fagan/Riley/Royal we were the worst in the AFL in this area. Hence no superstars on our list. Poor old Craig Cameron keeps picking the best kids, but they were developed poorly

Agreed YM, without being disparaging to the aforementioned players (and you can add ferguson and Godfrey as well) it had to happen to for us to move forward.

As every day goes by YM I am starting to question more and more the aptitude and ability of our former coaching and development regime, which I doubt had any fresh ideas since the first bounce of the 2000 Grand Final.

have to be positive, l think we will do okay but not make the top 8

I expect to make the 8.

I don't think we will achieve to the extent to which YM seems to think we will, but we have enough talent; showed it 2004/5/6.

ND shouldn't be the scapegoat that he is made out to be; the club never spent any money on recruitment or development during his tenure.

That is going to be rectified apparently and hopefully we will see a little more testicular fortitude and maturity out of players like Bruce, Green, White, Robertson, and Yze.

This will get us back on track.

But as with every team, it all comes down to INJURIES.

Depth mean nothing when your best, most important players aren't there.

I got half way thru reading with out looking at the author - but I worked out who it was.

YM, you should address the players at 3/4 time. We all visit this site on the off season looking for hope. Tell us in more detail where you see our success coming from next year and imbue us with optimism.

Rebuilding is going to be tough. I expect an improvement on last year, but a baby bombers mach 2 is asking for an awful lot.

Remember the baby bombers had an established coach who had been there for quite some time. Bailey is raw, it will take some time for his ideas to sink in.

top 8 would be a good enough turn around.

I got half way thru reading with out looking at the author - but I worked out who it was.

YM, you should address the players at 3/4 time. We all visit this site on the off season looking for hope. Tell us in more detail where you see our success coming from next year and imbue us with optimism.

i heard that bomber thompson actually utilised yze_magic before the grand final...

(as a guest speaker of course )

Yze_Magic jinxes every positive thing he prophesises about the MFC.

We will never never win a flag as he 'sees' it every year and it is jinxed.

My mission is clear. I have to kill Yze_Magic.

Yze_Magic jinxes every positive thing he prophesises about the MFC.

We will never never win a flag as he 'sees' it every year and it is jinxed.

My mission is clear. I have to kill Yze_Magic.

You beat me to it Geddy Lee.

I was about to say "Well, I can cross Melbourne off the list of Premiership contenders for next season".

Yze_Magic, and his predictions, are 15 other clubs best friend.

Don't know if I want to kill him though.

Yze_Magic jinxes every positive thing he prophesises about the MFC.

We will never never win a flag as he 'sees' it every year and it is jinxed.

Exactly what I was thinking.

Y_M: Why can't you just keep your mouth shut or come out with a thread "Melbourne guaranteed to finish bottom next season", nothing you ever predict comes to pass as far as I can tell.

He just wants to be the guy that can say "you heard it here first" when we finally do a Geelong and come screaming back into contention.

Personally I saw this year coming, though nowhere near as severely as it did, and I fully expect us to improve 100, maybe 200 percent, but we will have to have our share of luck to make finals, and a top 4 or premiership is almost impossible.

He just wants to be the guy that can say "you heard it here first" when we finally do a Geelong and come screaming back into contention.

If you take that many stabs, you'll eventually hit the target.

The Daniel Ward of Demonland.

Y_M reminds me of the "boy who cried wolf" only instead of yelling out false warnings all the time, he yells out false positives. So he's the bizarro world's "boy who cried wolf" I guess B)

Ah no, he's done it again! Well i don't have to worry about us winning the premiership in 2008, mind you i don't think that was ever on my mind.

I think we'll push for the bottom two positions of the 8 next year, but i just want to see more development from our kids and to see the older players pass the mantel on to them.

It's a possibility.

Certainly I think we can make some HUGE improvements on this season now past.

Some thoughts -

1) Not a single one of the delisted players were critical to team structure or performance - none had more than a tenuous claim to best 22 in 2007. Travis Johnstone we all have an opinion on, and I guess we have to modify our optimism based on how important we each think he really was or wasn't to team performance.

2) To replace these fringe players, plus Johnstone, we have picks 3, 14 & 21 plus a collection of late picks for CAC to play with. With the addition of Meesen, and presumably the elevation of Bode, we have six draft selections and two rookie slots, the most for the Demons in some years. Given CAC's performance in recent years, where more than 2/3rds of our picks since 2003 have played and shown promise at AFL level, I'd expect a few good selections from the '07 round.

3) Several high-quality players have been mauled by injury and made minimal contributions in 2007 - Rivers, Whelan, Bartram and Moloney come to mind. Nobody will be assuming all will be straight back and in top form, but it's a start. Several more players were impaired or sidelined by injury, from Mclean and yet again Sylvia to both Neitz and Robertson up forward, plus utilities such as Bruce and Petterd. And so on.

4) Going back to those good draft choices in the last few years... We can show quite a list of young guns at the moment. The following are all AFL quality players, while the jury is still out on CJ, PJ, Buckley, Bode and Garland (and Meesen).

Petterd, Frawley, Jones, Bartram, Bate, Dunn, Newton, Sylvia, Mclean, Davey, Bell, Rivers, Moloney.

Let's party (and hopefully draft, too) like it's 1999.

Yze_Magic jinxes every positive thing he prophesises about the MFC.

We will never never win a flag as he 'sees' it every year and it is jinxed.

My mission is clear. I have to kill Yze_Magic.

Ladies and gentlemen we have found a scapegoat.

He just wants to be the guy that can say "you heard it here first" when we finally do a Geelong and come screaming back into contention.

Personally I saw this year coming, though nowhere near as severely as it did, and I fully expect us to improve 100, maybe 200 percent, but we will have to have our share of luck to make finals, and a top 4 or premiership is almost impossible.

Sobering Thought

If we improve by 100% our ladder percentage will be 64.92%

arguably it'll be 132%