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As likely as Jake Spencer playing a crumbing role in the FP.

No...seriously. I will not buy Mission products EVER. Undercut by underachievers.

Thank Christ for that.

I think it is because of the seductive repercussions ie. Frawley being more attacking, Frawley going forward.

This is where your logic is flawed in the other thread too. Sellar doesn't have to be a better lock-down defender than Frawley, he doesn't even have to be as good - it's highly uinlikely that he will be. He just has to be adequate. The attacking benefits that Frawley delivers when freed of this limiting role outweigh any loss of lock-down - that's the crux or the argument. If someone really starts to get away from Sellar and the balance of benefits swings then Frawley and Sellar can switch because by definition Frawley is on a less dangerous opponent. BTW I'm not arguing that Frawley play forward here. Bob's example of the 2008 GF was a very good one Scarlett limited Franklin but Hawthorn still won.

id agree with this. but since the eddie ad on foxtel says that footy is the best thing god invented and ignores the great melbourne football club id say probably not. of course....if god invented footy - that makes the MFC god.

i think that its more of a case of, if they are destroying gws for 4 qs instead of just playing one and cruising, it will show that they are actually going somewhere, and their motivation will be to play as well as they can all of the time, and not just win even though they didnt play very well. if that makes sense.

I rang the Demon Shop regarding the arrival of the new Jumpers. I was told that they were expecting an announcement of the other Joint Sponsor within 2 weeks. Once that has been announced the sponsors LOGO for the front of the jumper must be approved by the AFL before the jumpers become available. They anticipate that to be 2 weeks after AFL approval. Adding up 2 +2 and I get 4 weeks from Monday when I rang. We may get them about the time of our first Intra Club practice game

Haha love it. I refuse to use Spicer's Paper or Nubrick (not that I ever knew what they were), will only eat Hungry Jack's when I'm heavily intoxicated, will never buy a Camry, will not use QBE for insurance, can't travel to Malaysia now, am not a fan of TAC, refuse to use Mission tacos, wouldn't touch a Collingwood sponsor (Macca's, Nike or Puma, Lexus, Qantas etc etc) and I don't know if I'll buy a Toyota while Vlad is the big boss.

Maybe they are jusy waiting for the tennis to finish Deelirious. But then when that finishes, we have a small window until the Terra Australis Great Southern Land Mountain Bike Epic being held between Feb 5 - Feb 11 which will draw the attention of AFL followers all around Australia. As soon as that's finished we have a couple of days until Valentine's Day, so perhaps we could have a campaign where Neeld and Craig are out for a candle-lit dinner and are being waited on by staff of <<insert new sponsor>>. If we miss that massive marketing opportunity, we will be right in the middle of the Sustainable Living Festival at Federation Square, so we will have to wait for that to conclude, which is actually the 26th Feb, the day after our 1st NAB Cup round. It appears to me that for the next 6-8 weeks, there is no "right time" to announce this new sponsor, so all pre-purchased jumpers will not be sent until such announcement. Am I being sarcastic? Abso-bloody-lutely. People still think that the announcement of the new Melbourne sponsor is going to be the biggest news in the AFL and should have is own week of celebration. FFS people, there is 22k-odd members who will be interested, and however many other people that barrack for Melbourne. Outside that, noone gives a toss. If we have one signed up, put it on our website. Regardless of what other events are on, we will get just as much coverage in the media. FWIW, if any other team announces a sponsor, as a diehard opposition supporter, I will often not use that company out of spite. I've never owned a Ford car, never flown Emirates, have gone off eating Mars Bars and flying to Tasmania. Perhaps it's as simple as not being able to get someone to pay what we are asking.

Maybe not a complete lost cause but we didn’t exactly sacrifice much to get him on board did we? My hypothetical version of the conversation between the interested parties prior to picking Sellar; Neeld – I’d like to get a big bodied defender on the list, whether its on the rookie list through the draft MFC recruiters – What about James Sellar, delisted by the crows? Neeld - What do you think Craigy? Craig – He fits your bill, big bodied and a defender, maybe through the rookie draft? MFC recruiters – by the time our last pick comes around there will only be [censored] house, skinny kids and Fev left, why not use that pick on Sellar? Neeld – yeah, go on then, why the F#ck not, we’ve got nothing to loose, we’ve got enough skinny kids anyway Craig – don’t blame me if he’s a dud! Basically if he turns out to be any good we've jagged one, and if he doesnt Casey will have a good enough VFL player

Jim Stynes has very little-nothing to do with the leadership group of the MFC.

Facepalm...

Even though a list continually evolves, it seems to me that we no longer have the luxury of spending years developing players and a structure. We need to be competitive now, and our drafting needs to reflect that. In this context, given the needs of the MFC at the time (ie, in desperate need of a full forward) Darling to my mind was a better bet than Cook AT PICK 12. This is not to suggest that Cook will not, in time, become a very good player. The fact that he was the under 18 AA CHF indicates that he was a very good prospect. That so called 'experts' were surprised we picked him at 12 also suggests to me there were some question marks over whether he would ultimately become an elite forward, unlike say Hurley, Watts, Riewoldt, Franklin and Roughhead. If not this, it perhaps indicates he was not as 'ready made' as certain other elite young tall prospects. In fact, I seem to recall most experts predicted he would go somewhere around 20 -25. But here's the rub. We don't need to draft kids exclusively. Old55, you seem to suggest that virtually all A grade KPPs are picked early in the national draft. I agree with you - hard to argue otherwise. HOWEVER, not all clubs spend first round picks recruiting such players. Some examples include: Leigh Brown (Collingwood - pick 73, 2008), Chris Tarrant (Collingwood - pick 44, 2010), Podsiadly (Geelong - pick 58, rookie draft 2010). Also some good forwards do actually get picked up late in the national draft (eg, Taylor Walker - pick 75, Bradshaw - pick 56). That said, I agree with the point you are making here. Now onto the other issue. Some have said, rather conveniently in my view, that Darling is a "mid sized" forward and therefore he didn't fall into our needs category at the time, principally because we had so many "mid sized" forwards. Some observations: 1. We picked another of our "mid sized" forwards in the same draft (Jeremy Howe), and we hadn't secured him at the time we passed on Darling. Conveniently though, this argument doesn't seem to be put forward in relation to Cook now that we have Mitch Clark. 2. Because Darling is only 191 cms, some seem to say he wouldn't be capable of playing out of the goal square. Interesting that, given that the following full forwards have won Coleman Medals: Neitz (191cm), Fevola (191cm), Modra (188cm), and Lloyd (192cm). Hurley (192cm) will probably win one too in due course. Darling IMO would've been capable of playing full forward for us - perhaps not this year, but certainly in the next couple of years. I think he's a very different player to Howe too - we could've had both in our forward line. And, as an aside, people here (quite rightly) absolutely love Howe because we know we got a little bewdy - not just right now, but well into the future too. I reckon the same joy would've been extended to Darling had we picked him. That said, we didn't - it's all hypothetical. Cook's a Demon, and I will now fall into line.

Gee WYL, you're not covering yourself in glory here buddy. You say that it is not the game of Chunk with such certainty. How the bloody hell would you know? Facebook? Twitter? Seriously mate. He goes for a surf on his days off, so what. I'm quite sure that if he had captaincy tasks that he needed to do on his days off that the surfing would take the back seat for a while. What did Green do on his days off in 2011? We have no bloody idea, but I'm quite sure he wasn't sitting by the phone waiting for his next possible leadership commitment. Come to think of it, what did Ablett get up to in 2011 when he had days off? From memory he was every-bloody-where and loving it. The media created a bit of a storm about his leadership role, but I don't recall the Gold Coast outting their foot down.

I think i picked that side based on height, weight and games, but yes ...Howe would be a certain starter. Interesting that he had a short session today. This could just be a good example of load management by the MFC. A couple of other quick observations: James Magner was running in the elite first group. He has endurance as well as strength. Clark shows promise. His kicking- short and long - looks a feature of his game, and I remember him nailing a goal from the angle outside 50m against us in a pre-season match last year. He also marked against Leigh Brown in the one-on-one duels. I know we paid a lot for him, but he could be a bargain.

You seem to engage in a lot of inductive reasoning, old55. Clearly there will be instances either way. If you disagree with the general point I am making, just say so. I am not putting myself forward as any particular luminary on AFL recruitment - I am merely making an observation, which may ultimately be entirely incorrect. Time will tell. But please don't engage in some anti-intellectual form of reasoning to demonstrate your point. It's too annoying to counter, and I don't propose to do so.

If you read my post earlier in the thread I said that with the arrival of Clark, any merits of a move forward for Frawley are seriously diminished. I was ctually referring to a discussion in another thread (16th March training - http://demonland.com...post__p__518129) where I suggested Sellar could free Frawley to play an attacking role in defence. The key point is that Frawley is wasted as a lock-down defender.

For this to happen Sellar would have to come in and be a better pure defender than Frawley right off the bat, McDonald would have to come in and do what Sellar was earmarked to do (whatver you believe that to be) right off the bat, and Neeld would have to be hit in the head - right off the middle of the bat. Not going to happen. (Although Freak's post did unsettle me...)

I'm not sure that I completely accept this - for it implies that the "moral based" argument is less than fully "rational" To me it is entirely rational to focus on the "positive" when considering the contribution of those who have a track record of quality service. Some would argue that to seek to find fault with legends /heroes is less than helpful - if not destructive. Well written Kento. I withdraw my comment completely. As you have said it was based on your first sentence taken out of context - and was therefore entirely inappropriate The thrust of my post was my frustration at the negativism of others - not your little factual error. Your opinions are well worth reading ( quite apart from the fact that they seem to be the same as mine!!)

This is not 'known' and can only be guessed at due to the 25% rule that allows players not in the highest 25% paid will be allowed full FA after 8 years service. RFA eligible - Moloney UFA eligible - Green, Rivers, Jamar, Bate (RFA not in top 25%), Dunn (RFA not 25%) So there are a few players entering UFA at the end of 2012.

I'll put it back to you, old55. How many top 10 or 12 draft picks take 4-5 years to develop into regular AFL players these days? Hurley, Watts, NikNat, Franklin, Roughhead, even Gumbleton (but for chronic injuries), all showed quite a bit reasonably early on in their AFL careers. Perhaps this was not the case a decade or so ago, but it seems that most top picks start contibuting fairly soon in their careers. I'm not suggesting for a moment that any of the above elite talls are not worthy of their selection. The intent of my comment (which I would think is obvious to any fair minded observer) is that most tall, long term development-type players (such as Cook) are perhaps better being picked slightly later in the draft. Even though everyone's going on about how Darling was overlooked by all clubs prior to being picked up by WCE, it'd perhaps be interesting to know where Cook would've landed had the MFC not picked him at 12. I suspect it wouldn't have been 13. And FWIW, I really hope Cook makes it. I have absolutely no interest in seeing him fail. Ideally, he'll be our CHF for the next decade, but, from what I read here, there are some slightly worrying signs.

Our backline ain't broke, so let's fix it by moving Frawley out of it.

Must be summer....

Yet if he were a what? Qantas Pilot, Rocket Surgeon, America's Cup skipper? He would be captain material.

Won't be far off the mark DeeZee. One thing that I have only just thought of. Neeld first said that the Cpatain would be announced in March, but he has now brought it forward because he basically knows how he wants the whole thing to look and he has a fiar idea of who slots in to where. Reading between the lines (and he may have said it anyway), but someone obviously has stood out basically from the start regarding their leadership, and it didn't take long for Neeld to make up his mind. To me, for a guy (Neeld) to be in the Club for the short time he has, I'm starting to think that there is only one logical choice. Think of it this way, Neeld's first main function that he attended was the Best & Fairest award. Now, before I go on, I don't buy in to this "blank canvas" crap, sure, there'll be some areas that he won't have a preconceived idea about, but leadership? C'mon. Moloney won the B&F, but doesn't have offield leadership qualities. Frawley is the same as Moloney. Rivers, while in the leadership group last year, I can't see how he will be in 2012. Neeld saw first hand what Jared's onfield leadership is like when the going gets tough, and they (Collingwood) no that he is a weak link in our backline. Captain material? No. He would be thinking anout Trengove, but there is so much to Trengove's game that needs developing. All premiership sides have stars, Trengove isn't one yet, we need him to be. If he focuses on football, he has every chance of being our best player. Green, well, Neeld would surely have sat him down and asked WTF happened last year (in terms of how Brad handled the whole situation). Were the areas that he needs to work on enough for Neeld to be quite positive that between the new Football Department, Game Plan, and a new attitude from Brad that he should lead this Club in 2012? I think it is quite possible, but not one of us on here can say anything with a definitive answer. That leaves Grimes. As I mentioned above, one of the first functions Neeld attened was the B&F. Having been at the Club for only days, Neeld would've sat back and saw Jack accept the Leadership Award, having played some 8 games? Surely any new coach would be watching how Jack operates around the Club after that effort. Then not only that, Jack obviously has the commitment of getting his body right - he was seen numerous times at AAMI Park in the gym, etc. He is the ultimate professional, the players obviously respect him, offield he is a very good media performer. I just feel that with Misson and Craig on board, one of their main priorities would be getting Grimes 100%. As I earlier predicted, I can see a potential Green/Grimes co-captaincy, and I think this would be the best way for the Club to go. But I won't be surprised if Grimes gets the gig on his own.

Irrespective of skill set, I think the most telling thing is a how we all debated how he'd come back after such a horrific injury. Questions were being asked by all of us because some players will never beat the mental battle. James from all training reports seems to have not missed a training in the rehab group, is now in full training and according to the Sun will play in the NAB Cup. It is that drive that makes me excited about his ability to play for MFC. His skill set is natural but his mental capacity was often questioned. The drive that he has shown to get himself back in the door for Round 1 is something I think will be pivotal in turning his career from a Pick 19 potential into a best 18 footballer for years to come.

Darling maybe for style of play and physical maturity, but how about list balance? He'd be just another good medium forward to add to the other 50 we have on the list. We needed to build up a supply of tall KPFs - which he clearly is not. Sometimes I wonder if people hav even seen him play when they talk about him playing deep as a tall forward.

Very keen to see your list of talented talls taken with lower picks.

According to Champion Data Strauss had a kicking efficiency of 75% under pressure in 2011 - the second highest % of any player who played at least 9 games.

For me Captains are bred from DNA....if it is there, it's there...so if Trengove has got it give it to him, and back him all the way..The idea of co captains to me only hinders the true leader...i know why it is done, but with a young group like ours and older players who i do not think will ever be great leaders...i think co captains may slow the process down...But it is just my gut feelings from outside. We all HOPE Frank Grimes is a great leader, but it is still an unknown...Jones is a dam good footballer, but he is a surfer when not playing...he is not Captain material for mine....he is a great worker and servant...but loves his free time....and good luck to him. Neeld and the Assistants are much closer than me....If it back fires the coach will burn...so Neeld i have faith will get it right.

I've read your take on Zaharakis a couple of times Ron. I thought I'd add my two bob. At the time I was keen on him, but I was also keen on Blease. During the TAC Cup games, they both performed well and both had similar traits in burning off opponents, breaking lines etc. IIRC Blease was considered to go a little earlier than pick 17 in a few of the 'experts' analysis or what we call phantom drafts. When we landed Blease I was pleased. The Strauss pick wasn't that surprising for me, because he had been mentioned on D'land leading into the draft. Somewhat positive. Like you, I have thought about it and without knowing the inner sanctum thoughts, maybe they saw similarities in Blease and Zaharakis and saw someone who might take the small defender role or half back role with a decent kick - like Strauss ?

I contend that no-one in their right mind would ever accept being a "care-taker" captain knowing that 12 months down the track you are going to be, in effect, made redundant; this would be he same as being told "there's someone we think will be a better captain than you, but we want to get another year's worth of experience into him first, so you'll have to do in the meantime." - that would be a kick in the guts to someone as passionate about the club as Moloney is. If the club considers him good enough to be captain of the club this year, then he should hold that position for as long as he proves himself effective.

I wish we would stop caring about how players would accept the captaincy to be taken off them... The highest honour is to be a captain of the MFC and if you it for 12 months or 5 weeks - you are a blessed individual. If Brent is captain for 2012 and only 2012 then he can be very proud that he managed such an achievement.

I disagree that it's a crisis. Sure there is no standout option, but it's not like we have NO options. There a quite a few candidates who could have a very strong case made for them: Jones: see what vanlo said. Frawley: All Australian full back who has stamped his authority on just about every FF out there. He leads by example in every game he plays, and will be around for the long haul. Trengove: Maybe a touch too young, but is red and blue, through and through. Moloney: Apart from one off field indiscretion in 2011, the role would be all his. Green: Leading under difficult circumstances in 2011, could be argued that he deserves another chance. Rivers: Leader in the back line, veteran of the club. Could be an interim leader while JT or JG continue their development. Grimes: Troubled by injuries, but by all reports a natural leader, and also a Demon through and through. Jamar: Strong on field performances in the past 2 years have changed him from a fringe player at the Demons to an all australian. I doubt he'll be selected due to a lack of leadership experience. I'm not worried about the captaincy, as I'm sure Neeld and co will make the right decision for the club, be it co-captains, or a standalone.

yes, but if it was a 1 point loss i may die out of sheer disappointment. and if its a 1 point win i may have a heart attack. lets do what the cats did, win by heaps the first time and then we can have a few closer ones. haha