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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.

Not true WYL. He came home for genuine "family issues". His father was considering a career change and massive pay rise.

Virender Sehwag scores a double ton in one day international v West Indies, breaking the all time highest score in a ODI. He is the second player to surpass 200 - the other being Sachin Tendulkar in Feb 2010. Currently 210* not out off 144 - still 5 overs remaining ! *Fox Sports

WJ this is what google translates says 'Out to teach. Also think of a new word today, although the actual done before, but then did not think that word. This semester has put it better than before, where a more complete system, the logical framework more clearly some, there are insufficient places than ever before when they encounter problems affecting the lectures effect, there are many ideas are not well implemented, Therefore, teaching himself to play 80 this semester. Six months after the lecture, should be better? :)'

I think he is referring to this then this the only apology you owe is for your first statement where you wrongly attribute your personal opinion to that of CS's.

Green was not Robinson Crusoe in having a poor 2011, he realised it and my mail is he sought advice from several people on how to deal with it. He has been a good servant to the club and IMO should get 1 more year even if it is in a co-captaincy role with a contingency plan in place to hand over to JT, Grimes or chip whoever they deem as the best candidate.

We gave Ana Ivanovic one. (and a jumper too etc..)

Help Help i am being repressed...

As long as we drop him if we make a GF then sure, why not.

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

Honestly, does finding out the teams at 6:15PM instead of ~5PM really make a difference? I'm against the idea in principle, but the difference in time is irrelevant.

I don't think that anybody outside the club would have the faintest clue about who should be captain. They are all just guessing based upon a combination of: a- Media conference performances, and b- Their favourite player. Anyone arguing passionately for a particular captain is delusional.

Only Kevin Sheedy. He's worked out the order he wants and is passing it on to the AFL to be announced officially tomorrow.

I suspect the man, already has better credentials than 90% of his team mates. Sports history is littered with successful, young leaders. We as supporters can really only go on his conduct on and off the field to which it's been bloody fantastic. Beamer on the other hand had the little hiccup this past season which, even though Neeld has a blank canvass, might not bode well against the criteria. I don't know WYL, he just exudes leadership cred and I believe he would handle the responsibility effortlessly. However, saying that, if the Coach believes it could effect his playing performance then I'd be happy to wait until they are more comfortable. He will be an MFC Captain.

Be brave, be bold, said it many times here before make it happen. I hate this conservative mental attitude by many folk - lets wait one more year, he isn't quite ready, its the same as near enough is good enough lets just accept mediocrity All garbage the kid is ready now, the generation around him see him as the leader, no else is close to what the kid will offer over many years. Be brave take a risk and reap the rewards or die trying, but atleast we had a dip if we do it now. If you want 'older heads' to surround him have Beamer, Jamar, Frawls and even keep Greeny in the leadership group to help him out.

Fantastic big game player!

Patience Grasshopper. Jack Trengove needs at least one more season under his belt yet. He will be captain though. But right now let him concentrate on just finding the pill.

To those saying he's just playing against boys, anyone think of the fact that he was bottom aged and playing against the best of the best in the U18 carnival? Really we should be talking about how this young bottom aged kid was able to monster older opponents...

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. .

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.