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Look, I'm as big a Morton critic as anybody, probably more, but this is a terrible post. -He was expected to go at pick 4, it wasn't a shock selection. -He didn't "run away" from him despite what you may have seen on YouTube, he was actually following the play when he ran off. -How would you know what his work ethic was like? Was always one of our best runners and I never saw him slack off at training once. I hated watching him play for MFC, but at least don't make stuff up about a guy whose career has just finished.

No game at Geelong, first time in many years. Thank God.

We are doing a fine job of it ourselves thankyouverymuch...

Rich is a gun mate, as is Wines. Both don't play for us. Let it go son....let it go...

Dreadful draw from a commercial point of view and the game at Etihad is just another kick in the guts. We cannot make any money from this draw and I'm sure that PJ is less than happy, there are two games where we will make a profit Collingwood and Geelong.

Just like Port round 1 this year an 'easy' game.

Headline: Worst Team Gets Worst Time Slots For Games. When we're a good - no - watchable side again and we're still getting draws that are commercially tough, then we might have some grounds for complaint.

They've deliberately given us a soft draw (especially early) so that we might start winning again. That's what the AFL wants (a competitive Melbourne). And with that the crowds will come. Can't please everyone I guess.

nah man, gun. There are many other 2013 videos i could post about Rich, but i'll leave it with that. He is a gun, still very young and you would love him at the Dees.

Round 1 2007 Melb v St kilda, Melb enter into the 2007 full of hope after beating St Kilda in the finals 2006 before going down to Fremantle. The club had high hopes for 2007 and we believed we would be in contention. This was the start of what has now been 7 years of hell. 2014 we need to win round 1.

You are an absolute tool.

That was between us and GWS with the latter obviously telling GC that it would be best for their chances of getting Martin that they play along. It wasn't 10 clubs coming together for a giant conspiracy of silence that Fox Mulder would think is a 'far-fetched'...

Before anyone says anything: NO, HE ISN'T AN OPTION FOR US.

I will say it again. Do not worry about the commercial side of the fixture in 2014. IT IS SECONDARY TO WINNING GAMES. WE START WINNING & FANS WILL BEGIN TO WATCH US ON TV....and go to games 2014 must be seen as stage 1. We are not ready for friday night. We should be but the last 7 years failed dismally.

JD I am not sure why you think Rich has not kick on. He is one of the shinning lights at the Lions. I am confident Roos would have him in a flash.

You are 'picking and choosing' your stats on this and I have removed all those that are not in the last decade - the simple fact is that teenagers picked outside of the second round have a progressively lower success rate. It is hard to find the stats on it without doing it myself... From 2004 to 2008 (not including FS picks and NSW scholarships like Walker which skew data, I have also removed mature age recruits): 149 teenagers were taken between Pick 1 and 30 with 99 of them playing more than 50 games and 43 of those reaching 100 games. 128 teenagers were taken between Pick 31 and 60 with 46 of them playing more than 50 games and 18 of those reaching 100 games. So the success rate of picking teens to play 100 games in the first 30 picks to the next 30 drops from 28.9% to 14.1%. (Note: Picks 1-10 is 38%, Picks 11-20 is 34.7%, Picks 21-30 is 14%, Picks 31-40 is 20.5%, Picks 41-50 is 11.9%, Picks 51-60 is 9.5%) It's just so fraught picking teenagers in the draft; it is little wonder that Roos is a 'draft sceptic' in the words of Greg Baum.

Wouldn't it be nice to start the season on the giving end of a smashing for once? I know, getting way ahead of myself, I'm just day dreaming.

You're right and most of us were pretty happy with his selection at pick 4 in 2007 and subsequently, with his debut season. It all fell apart rather quickly after that and its difficult to attribute what happened due to one single factor. I do know it wasn't from a lack of trying on his part. What I do find churlish are the cries of "I told you so," and worse still the claims that he was gutless because of that stupid footage of him appearing to be running away from an opponent when he was in fact following the football down the ground. It's so easy for armchair critics to claim to be smart after the event by misinterpreting the past or by plain making up stories.

I'm on my 3rd or 4th run-through on video of Salem, Bontempelli, Freeman and Crouch. I think they are really the only four we're likely to take. Obviously a big one could fall down, but from the position we sit which is just following the mock drafts these appear to be our best options. From that, and like everyone else all I'm going off is about 24 minutes of video and 3 TAC Cup games I went to, but I'd love Freeman to be a Demon. Watching the way he demands the football as the straight running kicker reminds me heaps of Stevie J. Even his kicking action is so similar to him. We've all bemoaned drafting players who clearly have or had talent, there is a reason we drafted them in the top 20, but it comes down to the desire to want to be great and work at it that now see's them delisted or worthless to us. Freeman is the complete opposite of that. He has an undeniable arrogance of knowing he's quicker than everyone else on the ground and I love it. We haven't had a true fast line breaker in years and years. He's a clearance specialist and as such isn't afraid of the hard ball. He fills our 3 biggest needs - a midfielder, hard body, outside spread. He has goal sense, and watching him kick it long into 50, to the preferred side of Tom Boyd trusting him to outmuscle his opponent is already giving me great vision of placing it on Hogan or Clarke's right arm and watching the aforementioned lean on his opponent and take a contested mark. That said, whilst I may claim to sometimes know a better structure for our team than Mark Neeld did round 10, me and I guess all of us just don't have the viewing hours ... If he's as consistent as his highlights package though, I'll be dancing in my own tears on Draft Day if we get 'Freo'.

$2.7 mill minus $500k does not equal $1mill. Forget the "recommendation" Jackson had plenty of better things to do than come to our basket case of a club. What company in their right mind would give a poor performing employee the most important and crucial jobs within a company in order for it to make money? That's how I compare giving us prime time games against the bigger teams.

The fixture is fair, particularly considering the onfield rabble that was this season.

Screw the AFL. And screw this whining sense of entitlement we have. If we play football that is AFL standard people will come to watch and we won't need handouts. If we don't even the Lord God above wouldn't be able to save us.

As posted elsewhere: Top 10 selection duds: 2003: Tenace, Clarke, Trotter, Dunn 2004: Tambling, Meesen, Russell, Egan 2005: Ellis, Dowler, Oakley-Nichols, Drum 2006: Gumbleton, Thorp, 2007 :Morton, Grant, Palmer, 2008: all still playing with original club 2009: Sheppard, Butcher 2010: Polec, and after 2010 it's too early to tell. Some of the above still have time. Some are debatable, Getting it wrong in the top 10 is common. Who are the likely "dud" we are all craving now: Boyd, Kelly, Aish, Billings, KK, Scharenberg. Lennon, Bontepelli, McDonald, Freeman, Salem? Come on GD, who are they and why couldn't Freeman be one. Most here are judging players on about 5 minutes vision out of say 1600 minutes played in 2013 (20 games by 80 minutes). It's funny how some get wedded to players on so little evidence. I don't have a clue who we'll pick but I know the FD will have their reasons. I also know there is no guarantee they will get it right.

Infuriating towards the league or the club? I imagine our Darwin games would have been at the MCG. It's not "MONEY" that talks. It's efficiency. Win games + build brand + build support base = prime time! It's not rocket science. Don't point the finger of blame at anyone but the club.

While many here are using the Morton and Gysberts delistings to rail on yet again for the one millionth time about our poor drafting - I'm past that and I'm breathing a bit of a sigh of relief that North and West Coast didn't turn them into good players and it all come down to poor development after all.

IF we get the player we really wanted at 2 with 9 and IF he becomes a good player for us and IF Tyson also becomes a good player for us we will have done extremely well in our trade of 2. This trade could then be an important link in our resurgence.

We have 8 home games next year, and of those, only 3 are against Melbourne clubs, two of whom are the lowest-drawing (North and WB). It's crushing commercially, as others have said. It looks ok from a standpoint of who we play twice, but we've had the easiest draw every year for the last 3 years and it hasn't helped. And I have to tell the mrs that there's no Queensland holiday this year.

I'm guessing over pre-season Nick Riewoldt will again be practicing his "exasperated/I've been hardly done by/shake my head around in frustration/give me an easy free" look for when Tom McDonald spoils a mark and then runs off him

Hmmm, our bogey ground! Would be nice to start off with a win and also get the monkey off our backs!

I've made plenty of mistakes that weren't a good idea at the time.

Mistakes are always a good idea at the time.

He didn't run away from Lade. Watch the subsequent 20 seconds that have been removed and you'll realise that it was selective editing to deliberately paint the wrong picture.

I'm finding in a way that having a pick in the vicinity of 9 is in a way even more exciting than having a pick in the early couple. Reason being I know we should still getting an excellent player, but there are so many permutations of who could be available and who we could like that the mystery adds another element. Can't it be draft day already?

Let's extend Hogan and re-sign Frawley first.

I am very happy to have Daniel at our club and believe that he will be a valuable contributor for us on the field and as a role model off the field for some of our younger players. As the thread title suggests, I welcome him to the MFC However, I also wish he could have finished with the Bulldogs as a one club player. I wish the same for Paul Chapman. They were linchpins of their teams who will always be associated with their original clubs. Whilst the circumstances are different, there was something very wrong seeing Dal Santo in a North jumper. Brereton in a Swans guernsey and Junior in orange. I understand why it has to happen but I still find it sad

Wow That is literally one of the more ridiculous posts I have seen on here and that is saying something.

Because it is part of Essendon's punishment? Let them be saddled with the low gate returns. Overall it is not bad relative to our under achieving. A huge bonus not to go back to Geelong.

It baffles me as to how a poster can be so adamant about who we should draft, despite never having seen them play.

Yeah the broadcasters will be lining up to show the dees in prime time.....

Hold your horses, people. We haven't won a 1st round (or second round) match since 2005. 0-15-1

Glad we are playing in Melbourne round 1 Would have sucked to be sent to Perth SMASH THE SAINTS

Anywhere any place anytime, I am over this looking at the draw and predicting how we will go, Saints and GWS fans are probably thinking the same. FFS lets just knuckle down and worry about week to week

I can only say I told you so......Now can I ask the question I posed yesterday in a thread which was unceremoniously merged with another thread which had little to do with my question, which is:: Who are the key match ups in our opening game against St Kilda and where are we going to win it?

He can run but that is about it, gets plenty of ball at WAFL level due to superior fitness and also finds a bit of the ball on the wide expanses of Subi. Oppositions sides man up on Shuey Hurn and Gaff. Priddis get the ball on the outside and Dalziell and Masten are allowed by opponents to get as much ball as they like because they are not good enough to hurt you. They either turn it over, give off to a team mate under the pump or go backwards looking for another player to set up. A no from me he is no better than players we already have

Scripted?? Haha righto then. If you say so. Will be shocked if Crouch goes before pick 15, but he will not be coming to MFC. Bank it.

Couldn't have described your post any better.

Morton was always regarded as a likely top 2-5 selection, no doubt. That said, we got it wrong and he was a crap pick. There's no other way around it. Just because the football world's consensus is a player will fall in a certain range doesn't mean that all recruiters follow suit, or follow the footy world's group think. A great recruiter may have said, nup, pass. Just another crap pick. Hopefully we start getting some right.

Yes, wait was that one too?

Played 120 colts , reserves and 1 league game for WAFL club back in the late 90's ( most of alongside Woey). Trained with Dockers but never had the skill or professionalism to go to the next level. Ended up playing 130 games for A grade amateur club but was cruelled by knee & shoulder recon's. Was lucky enough to coach an undefeated premiership side and be awarded life membership and Team of the decade for my amateur club. Now with 3 kids and a sore body.

Wrong approach.. You should be looking at our bottom tier best 22 players stepping it up.. It's these players that are going to bring us into top 8 contention.. Eg.. Evans - Avg 20 Disposals and 1 goal a game. Tapscott - Shuts down opposition forward each week. Kent - Kicks 35 goals as forward pocket.. Michie - Avg 28 Disposals and 1 goal a game Jamar - back to AA form Howe - 40-50 goals McDonald - AA CHB Trengove - Avg 30 disposals If things like the above happen, the 8 players you mentioned should lift their game regardless.. You're only as good as your bottom players.. need the whole team to step up..