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If you're as tired as I am of the negativity and pessimism of some on this forum join me in focusing on the positives from this year. New coach with a single-minded approach to changing the culture and ensuring that those who can't or don't want to play at elite level are gone. The continued improvement of Nathan Jones. Good signs from some of our younger brigade: Howe, Grimes, Blease, etc. An aggressive approach to the trade period and a determination to get the right people on the bus. Feel free to add others. Whingers and pessimists can use any of the 50 or so other threads.

Good call. Clark, Watts and Jones to me are our three biggest shining lights of the year. Clark is an out-and-out star. People scoff when I say he was in AA form, but he was. The problem is that people who don't support MFC don't watch MFC games unless their club is beating playing us. If you'd watched his whole year, you'd see that he was ripping defenders to shreds with leading, contested marking and goal-kicking that should have had him in AA contention. We can finally structure a forward line around someone, and Clark is a perfect FF to lead us in coming years. Could not be happier with that move from Neeld. Jones has stepped up this year. It's still a bit sad that he's our best mid, which tells you why we lag behind other clubs, but personally he has lifted his game to another level. His contested ball work is great, his kicking is way better than it used to be, he tackles hard, and he's developed leadership qualities. Kicks goals, too. I'd like to see him eradicate the Superman stuff which pops up most weeks, but he's helping carry one of the worst midfields on his shoulders. I've never seen a single player cop as much ridiculously unwarranted crap as Watts. If he was anyone else, or had been picked anywhere else, he'd be far more highly rated. He's made so many positive steps this year, improving his contested work and marking, getting far more involved in matches, and settling in to a position he's more suited to than FF. With Clark in the forward line, we can afford to play Watts back, and that frees up players like Grimes to move up the ground. Watts is going to be a great player for us.

This doesn't look good maybe they have put buddy on ice till finals or buddy took it upon himself to do it

No it is not the simple option, it is THE ONLY option. How can you evaluate something before you know the result? You have to use hindsight to look back and see what were the options and what were the results. How do you evaluate your list with out looking at it and comparing it with others and comparing it with the opportunity picks that you both had. If we had only low picks there would be more acceptance of a poor list, but that was not the case. We had several high picks and in the best vernacular I can find "fu-ked up." PS. Hopefully our next selections and development, are better.

The term has been used a fair bit recently so i'll have a crack. Blind Freddy can see when we win the midfield battle on the day we have no forward structure. I say get cloke+ viney+caddy+toumpas/boak and we are good as gold.

The Membership scarves were a huge improvement on the 2011's!

One last shot despite the battle being lost? I'm really tired of the constant negativity. Give it up. Give the guy a chance. Get some long distance goggles and try to see the bigger picture.

I get sick of posters using this "flat track bully" term, personally I can't wait for the day when we are a team of bullies!

To me he represents everything that is wrong with the MFC....he is a flat track bully.....plays well against the poor young teams and goes missing against good opposition. Spends half the game playing for free kicks instead of just getting the ball.... Not to mention he is gutless.....he will pick a fight with the youngest kid on the opposition. I was disgusted when I saw him at 1/4 time against the Suns chesting some of the young sun players and mouthing off..... 1 good quarter against a team of kids.....someone needed to remind him we had only won 2 games at that point. Put ur head down and play the game....

The money is not an issue - Green gone frees up $400-500K/year as will Moloney or Sylvia if either of them go. Davey has one year left and is on $500-600K/year. We have money to burn for the next couple of years might as well spend it rather than pay 92.5% of the cap or give it to players to beef up their contracts when they dont deserve it. Cloke playing 40-80metres from goal leading up to the wings with Clark playing 0-40 out and being dangerous around the goals will be great for our structure.

Step 1. Sack Schwab because North Melbourne have a purple patch Step 2. ???? Step 3. Premiership Awesome.

In case it slipped your notice this is how we got in to this mess in the first place; Daniher hung on to players for too long, didn't get rid of players when they were clearly not up to it, and only played a small core of his preferred players. We allowed players with dubious ability to stay on the list for years and we still do, you know who they are and if we had delisted just a couple more each year and turned over the list a bit more we wouldn't be in the situation we now are. How in God's name did we allow Godfrey to get to 100 games; I liked Ward but the same with him. There are some players on the list that have been there for 5 to 6 years and we're still not sure if they can play or not. Some times you have to take drastic action or you just wallow in the bottom of the barrel forever. There is a hard core of players at the club who are getting more experience and these players will be able to take the younger players with them and if we can get a few senior recruits it will round off the list a bit more.

Surely robbo's Herald sun could run a double page spread and use stats on Buddy's "Hamstring" injury and late withdrawls and then quote a anonymous source that says he has received his third strike. Robbo could then promote it on 360 as a major article backed up by rock solid evidence. Or do they just make up [censored] for articles on our club?

My optimism lies from watching the "Americas Game" series in the off season last year. Each show was about a the year of a Superbowl winning team of different years. Many went from easybeats to Superbowl winners in a year or 2 with some astute trading and buy in to new coaches/game plans etc. from players. I feel we can be in the same position as long as we can trade in some quality. Our list is young, we have the facilities and FD, all we need is for Neeld to prune the list and draft intelligently for his needs.

Um, actually, players will play for less in order to get the advantages of - higher football depatment / player development budgets, - greater prospects for success - greater exposure for marketing, media jobs, and coaching pathways. So poorer/weaker clubs will end up spending more salary cap money 'per player equivalent' to retain players than the wealthie/stronger clubs. It is counterintitive, sure, but free agency actually puts more salary cap pressure on the poorer clubs trying to retain players than on the stronger clubs looking to bring them in. For example, choose your own conversion rate and do the maths the way any player or their agent would; $100,000 per player additional football department / player development budget = $??,000 per player direct salary payments So, right now Melbourne are in a position to buy up big, and MUST go completely all-out to break out of their low-prospect status, and fast, because the longer-term effect of free agency will be a steady teasing apart of the successful and weak clubs, ad it will get more and more difficult to bridge that gap over the years.

Dear Buddy , Please remember when you were a child and the mighty Demons were your heros. Whatever you have done wrong- we forgive you. Come home son. We still love you.

Brilliant thread. Internal unity & sense of purpose is as good as I've ever seen it. Real sense of purpose thru effective communication. Absolute desire to tackle the real issues, change our culture & develop our whole list to play a gameplan built on elite fitness. Focus on the players positives no matter how big or how small but you have to earn your games. Our increased funding/investment into our coaching group again focusing on player development. Mark Neelds facial expressions his honesty. No F'ing short cuts from anyone. Go Demons

You're like a defense attorney at the Nuremberg trials. Give up already.

I think he should be offered a year at this stage. He's not our best, but he's responded to the call, gritted his teeth and got on with it. A year's contract will show whether he's just put the effort in to get another contract or whether he has started to get the best out of himself. By the way, I also think Joel Macdonald should be given another year.

Lynden is far from perfect, but he is a big lump who can kick a ball 60 metres. I like him playing off half back & can also be moved forward if needed. Other players get moved on before Dunn.

Do remember Clo He is also the bloke who nearly won the grand final on his own last year kicking goals from 60 metres out.

Thought Cloke was a complete sook last night, albeit pretty average disposal to him at times, his character hardly shone through when needed....give me the Mitch Clark style of approach to the game any day of the week.

You don't get it. Only two clubs had stated intentions and a clear need to grab a KPF early in that draft after the highly rated Tom Lynch was snapped up by GCS at pick 11. The rest went for midfielders. Those two teams were Melbourne (Cook) and Carlton (Watson). Both clubs erroneously baulked having been duped by the West Coast Eagles sting to paint Darling as Ned Kelly incarnate. Carlton supporters are similarly miffed that they passed up on Darling but at least they have a kid who looks like he might be okay. Melbourne just simply got the frights and stuffed it up royally, largely thanks to the worst recruiter to ever walk the face of the Earth.

PJ I think like you we all want Cook to be good however I think in the above you are trying to convince yourself that all will be well with some not so accurate facts. Yes Hawkins has taken a long time and yes he is in a good team. But Hawkins was good enough to get games at AFL level in his first year, from memory he kick 4 goals against us in his first couple of games. Williams has come into the Casey side this year had a month of,f in a coma for 5 days and has managed to put in some good performances in spite of what you describe as "scrappy VFL to deal with as well as the Casey midfield and windy mud soaked grounds". I would add that Casey is at the top of the competition and their midfield players are as good as any in the VFL. Williams and Fitzpatrick have managed to look good with supply from the same team but Cook looks very ordinary. As I said we all want cook to be good but after two years it is not looking great.

I think we can get ourselves sidetracked. It is not about this bloke or that bloke even though they are examples, it is about looking at our list and comparing it to the picks we had and deciding do we have a good list and did we draft well. I still say we drafted poorly, given our picks and I will not accept that every player who didn't make it, was the fault of poor development. Obviously some players like McDonald and Howe haven't suffered with development. Some have to have been poor choices. I admit I know nothing compared to the recruiters, but if I was the MFC recruiter we would have an AA CHB, Talia, on our list.

Lay off Sheedy - in February he predicted Izzy could kick 40 goals this year so he's only 39 off! http://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/gws-giants-coach-kevin-sheedy-says-league-convert-israel-folau-can-kick-40-goals-in-his-first-season/story-e6frf33l-1226262194535

Puke...

With our list and the front loading of contracts, I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't have 2-3+ mill left in our salary cap next year to front load a major contract or 2 or 3 - be it Cloke, be it Goddard, be it Boak.... Whoever is available we have so much cap room to fit them in for major deals without upsetting future contracts. I don't understand why people here are scared to offer big payloads to get us to our club that mya, just may help lift us up off the canvass. I don't care who we upset at other clubs, nor which of 'senior' players get a shake up because we will pay an outsider huge coin, our football club needs the best players we can get our hands on now, not what might be when our "window" opens - our "window" will open much sooner if we have better footballers playing, seems simple to me

MFC 2000 Pick 16 Scott Thompson (went home to S.A) ... was a class act and ashame he went home. MFC 2001 Pick 9 Luke Molan ... we went with the biggest & toughest under 18 footballers (injury cruelled him) MFC 2002 Pick 14 & 15 Daniel Bell and Nicholas Smith MFC 2003 Pick 3 Sylvia Pick 5 B McLean ... two very very good u18's performers tough and hard MFC 2004 Pick 13 Matthew Bate Pick 15 Lynden Dunn (Pick 15 was from Crows for Thompson) ... I had Matt Rosa in my top 10, and Brent Prismall is top 20. Was amazed both were passed up by the dees. MFC 2005 Pick 12 Nathan Jones ... was a great get. MFC 2006 Pick 12 James Frawley ... it was betweem Jack Riewoldt and Frawley for this pick. All good. Petterd at 30 and Garland at 46 were ok, albeit I thought Colwas going to be a fwd. MFC 2007 Pick 4 Cale Morton Pick 14 Jack Grimes 21 Addam Maric Morton lacked work ethic in under age footy (nothing changed)- I had Brad Ebert or Rhys Palmer at pick 4, Grimes was a great catch (when he fell outside the top 10). Maric was lazy in under 18's and big mistake MFC 2008 Pick 1 Jack Watts 17 Sam Blease 19 James Strauss ... we really wanted Ryan Scoenmakers. Got lucky with Blease who has rated 8-12 in this year. Strauss was rated 25-40. Not a great choice. Does the Dan Hannebery ring a bell. I had him at 12-15 so again thought we struggled. MFC 2009 Pick 1 Scully Pick 2 Trengove Pick 11 Gysberts Pick 18 Tapscott Ryan Bastinac at pick 11 was a lock-in. (?? Gysberts ... rated 20-25 region) MFC 2010 Pick 12 Lucas Cook ... sorry I had Shaun Atley at pick 5-8. Still in shock that we missed him . Prendergast lost me here. Keiran Harper, Ben Jacobs, Jack Darling and Lewis Jetta were better by a mile than Cook. I had Cook at mid 20's at best. MFC 2011 Pick 11 Traded for Mitch Clark. Good move. I had us looking at Devon Smith , Clay Smith or Taylor Adams. Looking fwd... 2012 draft ... 3# Toumpas ... pace, smart, leadership #4 Wines (skills, tough, Hayes like) or Mayes (elite skills) #13 O'Rourke (attracts the footy, Beams like without tatts) ,Kennedy (think aleft footed boomer harvey but better) or Gartlett (Cyril Riloi like) #25 Viney (tough, inside mid, loves MFC) OR 2012 draft (if GWS/Suns nominate Viney) #3 Viney #4 Toumpas #13 O'Rourke, Kennedy or Gartlett #25 Pongracic (tough tough tough midfielder)

why feel sorry for him? he has chased money his whole professional career, all in the name of funding the Mormon church. he is the one who decided to leave the storm for bigger money at the broncos and despite being the second highest paid player there decided to ditch the game he grew up loving and playing to chase even more money, this time in a code that was completely foreign to him. mercenaries such as folau deserve every inch of scrutiny they bring onto themselves

To answer the main question which seems to be about Jack Viney, he is going to be a quality AFL footballer. He got plenty of the football in a winning midfield dominated by Beamer, Dave Collins, Gysberts and Bate when he went in there. And young Jack was not overshadowed at the coal face by any of these players including some of the seasoned Collingwood midfielders.

All I can say: the thought of Travis Cloke on a hard lead outside 50. Mark. Swing around on his left foot with a quick, long, penetrating kick into a one on one contest to Mitch Clark makes me salivate. Get all his good attributes and don't need him shooting for goal. Hope it happens....

Jnrmac - were you the poster that had a go at RobbieF (I think) for saying the club is 'factionalised'? And here you are still bitter about Gutnick all these years later. He's a Demon that, like every board member ever, tried to do what was best for his club. Our club cannot afford to hold grudges - we don't have enough supporters. We need everyone. Move on.

I know I am only an armchair expert, but I am not alone when I say we have generally drafted poorly over the last few years.The media and most footy experts certainly agree. I am the first to admit I don't know how many times a boy farts after eating his breakfast, or whether he likes looking at girlie magazines, or whether he kisses his mother good night before bed or even if he says prayers before he sleeps. I certainly don't know how many short sprints a player can do before fainting, or what his reach is or whether he can play only inside or only outside or both, but maybe we are now over analyzing boys, to the extent we are dismissing good footballers. I don't go to all the TAC cup games, or even see every boy play live, but rather see a few of those games and others in you tube highlights. I read Demonland and learn a bit more about certain players. With that background, along I went to a draft function at the MFC, hosted by Chris Connolly a couple of years ago fairly confident in my mind that if still there at our pick 11 we would take Daniel Talia. During the function Chris told us we would not select him but rather Gysberts if there at pick 11. To put it mildly I was pretty shocked, but hey I wasn't the expert, who was I to argue. Today Gys is being spoken of by some on here as being tradeable and not having the right fitness or attitude and Talia is verging on AA selection having beaten many of the best forwards in the AFL. The next year at our first selection we took Lucas Cook who is yet to play a game, while many on here screamed for us to take Darling who looks a great player and has about 50 games up already. Cook is another being spoken about on here as in danger of being delisted. These two selections are but a couple of so many we seem to have got horribly wrong. Yes Cook may still make it as may Gys, but even if they do they are a mile behind the other two. Yes I know drafting is littered with mistakes, but we seem to have made far more than all the other clubs. Now I know drafting is not an exact science and many will say, look at the other clubs that also passed on these players, but that is not the point. The point is that we have had professionals in one of the most important positions in a football club and one would have to say overall, when looking at our recent drafting history, that we have failed miserably. We were told that we would fix up our midfield a few years ago and that we would now draft quick players with skill, who could play in the midfield. Feel free anyone to disagree with this next statement, "IMO we have the slowest and worst midfield in the AFL and the worst disposal of any club." How has that happened? It seems to me that we over analyze every potential draftee and thereby miss the best footballers. We have probably drafted some very nice lads however. We need to fix this problem right now, as if we don't, given our list and the opportunity we might get this year with high picks, we may be doomed to the bottom of the ladder for a very long time.

I started this thread back in April ... http://demonland.com/forums/index.php?/topic/29800-daniel-talia-another-recruiting-blunder/ Unbelievable what these chumps did with our recruiting. Prendergast and co have set this club back years with their "special" picks with huge "upside". Talia is one of the favourites to win the Rising Star award this year and he should be wearing red and blue. Not as bad as the Darling [censored] up, though. That will go down in recruiting blunder folklore.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it: "Low-risk big man plays poor game."

You'd think we'd be awesome by now after how many CEO's we've had in the last 12 years or so.... Great logic ADC... Lol

They have a heart that ticks. Sadly, we dont! Until we have GRUNDY & VINEY running riot!

Big Bodies is what we didn't recruit.

Can you please explain how the CEO has such an effect on team performance? I mean, should we stick Schwab in the guts next round considering our midfield is so poor?

A lot of strong bodies who run hard both into space and straight at the footy. They understand that footy is a contact sport played by blokes who are supposed to knock over other blokes.

Today didnt actually change my impressions. amazing huh

By having 2 power forwards 1 will be able to leave the 50m arc and get the ball themselves. Thats the wonder of it all. who needs mids when you got forwards who go and collect it themselves

Ha. Ha. No. They are FA's, and hold absolutely no value on the trade table. Try again.

We're certainly not analysing the same team. Since our man mountain went down, we can hardly kick a goal!! Our forward stocks are NOT okay until we get someone to support Mitch - Cloke is a gun, can play, doesn't need protein shakes, development, preseasons, etc. Further, his contract would be front ended and this allows the club to pay our developing players more when they reach potential. It's a win - win. We need to go hard and get Trav. I don't care if his old man comes along - can't be any worse than GWS's Homer.

Poor doesn't begin to describe our recruiting. And on top of it there's been a lack of development compounding the drafting.

Is it just that weve drafted poorly or that we had an imperfect blueprint to fulfill ? If you plan to get the wrong ( in hindsight ) types and suceed then the drafting was according to plan, just the plan was stuffed !! either way though...we got duped

Brought up to hate Collingwood, learned through my own experience to hate "Essadun"