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The club should act as an anarcho-syndicalist commune with no captain.

Yeah, succession planning is completely pointless...

FCS Threads like this make me really disappointed in our supporter base. What does a player have to do to earn the slightest piece of respect at this club? Brent Moloney - lifelong Melbourne supporter, forces his way onto Geelong's list 'the hard way' - through the rookie list. As a second year player he features in their finals campaign before coming our way in exchange for a first round draft pick. Battles the dreaded osteitis pubis that stalls his career completely for 3 seasons. Despite this, becomes starting midfielder. Earns the respect of his club, going beyond the call, not just on-field but as a clubman and becomes vice-captain. Even after losing it through an off-field incident, he earns it back 'the hard way' through dedication and game day performance. Wins the best and fairest and finishes ninth in the brownlow. Above all else, this bloke is hard as nails and has never at any stage taken a backwards step on the football field or done anything other than what is best for his coach and the side. Anyone with the slightest clue about how a football club operates would realise you give this man the captaincy without a moment's hesitation. Especially given there is nobody else on the list who comes remotely close to ticking all the boxes that the player in discussion has. However, most of you operate under the mindset of a desperate minnow club, and want to give it a bloke that has 2 years experience and - while clearly a potential star - has in no way earned it, and as we have all learned 'the hard way' could be off at the end of the year for whatever club can arrange an under-the-table payday for him. Not to mention he is one of a long line of Melbourne players that bolted out of the gate, and the vast majority never became anything. It's the exact same cretins spouting this garbage who wanted Brock McLean captain after the 2006 elimination final. That worked out well didn't it? Fortunately I know damn well those in charge at the club would never allow such an embarrassing injustice to occur - because they know how football clubs operate - and Moloney will be the next captain of the MFC, like he was born and bred to be. When Trengove, Grimes, Watts etc get to the point they can list an equivalent CV than Moloney, they will have earnt it.

Waiting another year to make a kid captain in his 4th year is not what I would call conservative. The kid maybe ready to be captain but it may be at the expense of his own development. Another year to let him completely focus on his own abilities rather than carrying a team on his shoulders makes the most sense to me.

I think its a year too early. Make him VC this year and let him focus on improving his game and becoming an A grader first.

This makes no sense. He left Collingwood because they offered him less than he wanted plus he wanted to play closer to W.A to be with his family. Why would he want to play for us and why would we want him to play for us.

Thats a monster wyl. A liquid lunch?

I was at training also this morning and had to leave to attend a meeting for work. So, here is my two bob's worth. The first drills were all about close in checking while giving/receiving handballs.The coaches were instructing the players that once they had handballed to a team mate, they should look for an opposition body to crash into to knock them off the contest. So player A would handball, be crashed into by a coach with a great whopping body pad, and then be expected to find an opposition player and likewise crash into him. All this had to take place in a small confined area. Leigh Brown was very vocal with his group and was making the players never stop moving at a stoppage. I thought this was intersting because a frustration over the past two seasons has been the lack of movement around stoppages during games. The other drill happening at the same time was similar, but seemed to be about how to offensively get out of a tight space. One tactic was particulrly interesting. The player with the ball would be approached by a tackler, and when the tackle was about to take place, the player with the ball would run straight toward another oppostion player. This meant it was two on one and there was a spare man to handball to. Once they broke up into the main game-play drill, the emphasis was on bringing it out of defence, and interchanges. They were instructed to not leave the interchange box until the player coming off was inside it. Players were instructed that an interchange should be occurring every 30 seconds during the drill so I reckon we will see higher rotations next year. When bringing the ball out of defence, they were only allowed to switch play from deep in the back pocket. The drill they were doing defintiely revolves around the half back flank area. Once at half back, the coaches were yelling to remind them not to switch play across half back. Not once was the corridor used when the ball reached half back, unless it was knocked there by a defender. After this drill they split up into various groups. Dunn and Trengove had shots on goal. Martin and Gawn were having overhead marking practice. Stef still looks but marked the ball almost every time. One group were practicing a drill where five defensive players tried to force the offensive players into an out of bounds area. There was a lot of short burst running and a lot of tackling. Jones loved every second of this but Bennell (I think) was struggling. Another group were split into three groups of four people. Again, in a confined space they had to string 10 handballs together or they had to complete the drill again. Dunn was also good here, as was Rivers. They were being instructed to hold onto the ball as long as possible and make a late decision of who to give it off to. Another group went into the back pocket area. I reckon they were practicing a set play. Take a mark in the back pocket, turn toward the boundary, then spot a player leading up the half back flank close to the boundary. One larger group did one-on-one marking practice, a bit like kick-to-kick at school. This was great to watch and gave real insight into players physical cabilities while a ball is in play. Howe was the stand out. Davis was very physical but would have given away a lot of free kicks with over scragging. One of the young train-with blokes was very good and aggressive. There were only 26 players there and a group only completed about 2/3 of the session on the oval. The three coaches Leigh Brown, Jade Rawlings and Brian Royal ran the sessions and I was really impressed with all three of them. I have been to a lot of pre-season training over the past 3 years, and these three blokes never let the drills run themselves. They are in there correcting, advising, changing. Even Brian Royal is a lot more vocal than I can remember in previous years. Leigh Brown comes across as a great coach; clear instructions, loud voice, high expectations. Lynden Dunn's kicking to position was a highlight. I don't think that I am ready for an intelligent Lynden Dunn - it sounds like an oxymoron to me. Matthew Bate is loving the physicality of training and is a stand out. During the game-play drill he was hitting bodies hard, getting up and having a second go, more like we are used to seeing Chip do. Our main back three - Frawley, Garland and Rivers - are great to watch working together. Very sure, very intelligent players. Even so I reckon Rivers might lose his spot to Tom MacDonald in 2012 IMO. Watts and Blease excel at running forward of the pack once our inside players have the ball, and find space very easily. The coacheds applauded this at times. I have to disagree about comment above on Gysberts. First, he didn't look as exhausted today so his fitness appears to be rising. I don't think he will ever be bulky like Jones/Moloney but I reckon he is a good 4-5 kgs heavier than this time last year. Morton looked composed, concentrated hard and tried his guts out at every drill, listening intently to instruction. He really is having a go. But in the game-drill his bumping/body work was almost totally ineffectual against anyone his own size. However, his tackling is looking stronger. One of the train-with guys was impressive. About 6'3'', white blond hair and built like a brick toilet. Very strong over the ball, aggressive physically and coped well with the level of training. I hope he gets a rookie spot. I asked three people but no-one, not even one of the club trainers could tell me his name. Howe is a brilliant mark. Regardless of opponent, he almost always won the best position, and would mark 3 out of 5. Very impressive. Nicholson's kicking was really poor at times and he was getting mad at himself during the game-play drill. There were a heap of faces there today I did not recognise, and these players were probably the permission to train blokes. Apart from the 6'3" bloke, none of the others really shone. Cheers. .

Thanks for clearing that up, Jack. Yes, seems Luke was one of those guys who teased us with the "will he ever step up and deliver" questions. If my memory serves my correctly, think Scott Thompson was also causing frustration around the same period. Both Williams & Thompson were thereabouts, but not quite. Finally, Thompson came good, just before he ran home to Momma, but Luke never quite got there.

Unfortunately you are spot on Chippy. now who am I? what day is it?

How could I have forgotten him!

I took one for the Demonland team and went this morning. They started off by splitting up into 2 groups, who then split up again into either blue or white singlets. From there, the game was to handball your way through traffic from one end to the other end of a coned-off space. So pretty confined handballing. Jones was great at this, as well as Stef Martin, Watts was pretty good too. There were a few players in there with pads hitting some blokes, keeping them under the pump so that was pretty good to watch. After that, it broke into a full ground match simulation type drill. I'm not sure what the focus was but there was a non-Melbourne staff acting as the umpire who gave the odd free kick away. Mitch Clark was great and was very physical even though it was a token pressure tackling rule placed over the drill. He even swore at the umpire when a 50m was awarded against him. That said, there were some good tackles including morton taking down Stef Martin which got a bit of support. Watts found a bit of space on the wings and the Frawley and Garland had a lot of the ball (mostly because the ball would start at one teams backline at every opportunity). There was a blond haired kid, about 6'3 who i think was called "leroy" looked quite good. He is a big guy and whilst his kicking isnt great, he moves really well. Can someone tell me who that was? There was also a massive emphasis on the interchange bench with players being strongly instructed to not enter the field until the player had fully entered the interchange area. They had a coned off area representing the interchange and this was a big focus. Big Gawn is horribly slow around the ground and I'm far from sold on him. He ran to the interchange bench twice and was encouraged many times to hurry up and get off as he was going at a snail's pace. Sellar looks good when he doesnt have the ball. He seems to read the play well but looks a little shakey under foot. Looks handy though. On a side note, at one stage during the game Jones was yelling at Gysberts to get out of the space etc. but Gysberts wasn't actually even on the field he was walking the boundary. Gysberts yelled back to Jones 'I'm off!!!!' There were a lot of people missing today. No Sylvia, Jurrah, Jamar, Davey, Jack Viney, any of our new recruits, Petterd, Grimes, Strauss, Tapscott, Cook, Joel Macdonald, Lawrence, Jetta and many others but it was a high tempo training drill. There were no running intervals which was good as I wasnt there to watch people run. The footy's were out for the whole session. After that, Jade Rawlings got a bunch of the guys to get involved in a drill where a team had to try and handball it 10 times without turning it over or going out of bounds. It was a tough drill because there was not much space. Rawlings was participating himself and applauded Jamie Bennell twice for his efforts. Martin was great at this drill and I think he may even become our number 1 ruckman in many games next season. Troy Davis is massive and has lost a lot of weight in his legs and hips which were needed. He needs to work on his kicking now. I moved across to another drill which was a contested marking drill involving Jeremy howe, Jai Sheahan (a training invitee), Troy Davis and some other training invitee. It was a basic drill where one of the melbourne staff would kick a ball in the air to a 1 on 1 contest. Howe was the pick of the bunch by a country mile and outmarked almost everyone. I noticed Troy Davis grappling far beyond the rules of the game and if it was a real game, he would have had 10 Frees against. The coach actually told him to watch his holding but this is a big concern for me. He naturally wants to hold the singlet and grab the torso of his opponent from behind. Howe then suggested to the coach that after the marking contest, the players shoudl fight for the ball when it hits the deck. So they tried that but howe kept on marking in straight out of the air which got a bit of a laugh from the coach. At the end of the session, Leigh Brown went one on one with Cale Morton something that would scare the hell out of me in a game. It seemed like a bit of a 'rough me up' session and Cale was hardly inspiring. Leigh Brown is retired but still a big guy. It was Cale's job to spoil Brown but most of the time brown either marked it or didnt get a chance to because of the poor delivery coming in. The other match up was Rivers on Jade Rawlings. Rivers did well but at on stage when the whole team was watching the drill Rawlings plucked one clean and the consequent cheers were pretty funny. Anyway, the session went for about 80 mins and then Misson, the fitness dude, told the players to head inside for a pretty cruisy cycle on the bike machine and then have an ice bath to which Gawn replied with 'Geezice baths in Casey, who would've thought'..or something along those lines. Trengove stayed behind after to have some goal kicking practice Anyway, my highlights of the session were: Mitch Clark, Dunn, Jones, Watts (only did about half the session though), Martin and that mysterious 'Leroy' guy. Low-lights: Gysberts and Morton still skinny. No recruits there to see. All in all, it was a good session.

Hey Joe Boy, So which one was you out of the four spectators there. I Stayed about an hour like you, I as getting burned and so was the dog. Training started with a bit kicking nothing structured then they split up into teams bout 15 each side BLUE & WHITE, they then moved into two teams of handball drills. They then switched over to different coaches to do another lot of drills. After that theydid a practice match with the wings and flanks moved in probably because of the 15 a side. It looked like all the permission to train guys were there along with Sellars Taggert & Tynan. I guess that's why a lot of the senior guys were missing. Luke Williams looks a promising type and very well built. Gawn & Martin were opposing rucks so it was obvious they are competing for the 2nd spot. I didn't stay there until the end but I think Martin had the better of him. As JoeBoy said Jones just trains his socks off,and it looks like his disposal has improved. I couldn't really say how clutterbuck went, I wouldn't know him if I fell over him. There was one guy there who looked anything but a footballer, not much of a body and clothes were miles too big, but he could certainly get the ball. perhaps that untidy description might ring a bell with Joe Boy.

I would love to know what contorted position you think Mitch could be in that would allow the '11' to be seen on his back (because that is the story) and also the vacant left-side of his chest...

I'm not really a fan of this move. I like the fact that after years at the Junction Oval we have finally come "home" (well as close to home as home can be be) and are now ony minutes walk from the MCG. I know our admin is set-up at the G and so there is a split there between the admin/FD but I would prefer that than moving out to Docklands which is a pretty horrible area of the city. As stated we have only just moved to the Bubbledome which is in the heart of the sports precinct and would prefer we maintain ourselves there rather than up and moving again. Our new FD has come in and said our new facilities are equal to anyone in the league so after all these years I guess the main issue is, if it ain't broke don't fix it. Is definitely something that I would want to see raised at the AGM as this is something that seems to have not been fully disclosed to the members. Most of our info comes from snapshots in the Hun or Age.

Will give us something to talk about during the lull, but not sure how it fits with our tennancy at the MCG and long term lease arrangement at Casey? Is it essentially just a move away from Olympic Park to the Doclands and that's it?

at his press conference yesterday, it felt like it was the first time that he admitted to the media that he truly thought he was on his last legs and that he was lost to this bloody monster. Sure, everyone is thinking the same thing and no doubt so is his family, that it's probably more likely than not that he will eventually succumb to it, but he refuses to lay down. Resilience personified. Big Jim has enough heart to fill the MCG 10-times over. Everything that is right at the MFC, is because of Jim Stynes. Jim Stynes means more to the MFC and its supporters, than any other individual in the AFL currently, or for a long long time, perhaps even ever. Jim Stynes is the MFC. He was, is and always will be. Keep fighting Jim, you continue to, and always will inspire.

Apology not required at all- I am sure we all would say thank you and Go LJ.

Given the recent recruitment of Clark and Sellar, and the number of young talls already on our list, I'd like to see the club stack up on pacy midfielders. It seems you can never have enough of them these days.

I agree with you totally WJ. I am very wary when people begin with the sentence, "I'm not racist, but......" The long history of antipathy towards our own indigenous people is deeply ingrained in the culture. It will take a long re-education and and openness of heart for it to dissipate. Hopefully in time it will be no more than a trace-element in our national psyche. As Pauline Hanson and John Howard discovered to their electoral benefit, it's very easy to pick the scab, and having done that, there are many out there who can't resist the scratching. Anti-aboriginal sentiment is still out there and still has it's own momentum. It's not difficult to find anti-semitism either. Both of these racist sentiments have a long history. For the record, I do sip cafe latte, chardonnay, and could be described by those wishing to give vent to their racist feelings, as a bleeding-heart lefty and a prisoner of political correctness. I do, on the other hand, also very much enjoy tea, beer, shiraz, pinot noir, water and have been known to make jokes which are not "PC". It's easier for those who like to make racial generalisations to also generalise about those who might take issue with their statements, by labelling them with such pejorative terms as "politically correct". Maybe "political correctness" had very noble beginnings. The term has been hijacked by those who use it as an all-purpose tool to devalue a view they don't agree with. PS. We all harbour racist feelings at times. It's the tribal nature of the human animal. It's whether we recognise them when they arise and how we deal with them that is the measure of our moral and social development. - End of Sermon

Indeed. By singling out four individual players at the club, pinpointing perceived deficiencies in the way they play and linking them by their race, Barry Dawson is guilty of racial sterotyping of the worst order. It's offensive and unacceptable anywhere. In the normal course, I would discuss a sanction against Barry Dawson with the other mods which would involve at the very least, the removal of his posts (which are an embarrassment to me and to the site), but I thought it might be better to retain them as an example of the sheer ignorance that racist talk entails. In the last century, we saw several instances of what happens when racist stereotyping is accepted and becomes rife within society. In the extreme cases, it led to the deaths of millions of Jews, Gypsies and others who were not to the liking of a pathological murderer in Europe, a million and a half in Cambodia in the 70s, a similar number of Armenians at the hands of the Turks almost 100 years ago and close to a million in Rwanda in the 90s. And we never seem to learn because fifty years after Hitler, the massacre took place on European soil of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in and around the town of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Today, there are parts of modern, liberal Europe where the old hatred of Jews thrives and there are countless parts of the globe where the killing and rape of innocents on the basis of racial and/or religious differences go on unabated. Our own Indigenous people suffered similarly when the white man turned up here and the killing began and went on until they were utterly decimated. Our former prime minister issued an apology for what our forebears did but it seems that it passed over some people's heads and that bigotry is still alive and healthy even here. But racism at the Barry Dawson level, whilst it might not kill or injure physically, is often deeply hurtful to individuals in a society - it's a cowardly form of bullying that we don't have to accept from anyone these days - certainly not here. You can criticise any individual player as much as you like on this site as long as you do so constructively but if you associate that criticism with the person's race or religion, you cross the line into an area that is grossly offensive and unacceptable and won't be tolerated.

I would certainly visit a back specialist.

Because under the AFL rules, GWS doesn't need to get permission for anything.