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Take it and run. Could use a rest. Lock him in a cage and poke him with a stick for 2 weeks.

If we do challenge this and lose, I'm boycotting the Hall of Fame dinner.

How good is it to have the love for footy & winning back. I was out walking the dog this morning listening to SEN and to hear people talking melbourne up and praising them bought a smile to my face and put a spring in my step. For this first time since the mid 2000's we are a club with some passion and direction and I couldn't be happier. The last few years I've gone to the MCG and almost dreaded going knowing what the result would be, now I can't wait for each week to roll past so I can get to the G to watch the boys and when they run out through the banner with the theme song belting out I know what I'm going to get from the 22 players. I'm excited for the second half of this year and beyond, bring it on! Go Dees.

with apologies to FB ( MFC) pilfered from there...but the sentiment is the thing here "Symon Brady My 8yo son, Cameron, seeing his first ever LIVE win. He chatted to Jack Watts at the race before the game and told him that he had never seen the Dees win a game live, Jack said to him, "let's change that today." At the end of the game when the players came down the race Wattsy pointed to Cameron and with a big smile gave him a massive thumbs up. Was the best sight ever! GO DEES!" I've lamabasted ol' Jack when I thought it warranted. In fairness applause also when due. Nice touch JW

He'll be super fresh for finals guys!

He did.

Today, we passed the 35,000 member mark. Members, give yourselves a pat on the back.

Roosy said on SEN this morning that Jack felt every time he went out play he should be best on ground because he was a number 1 draft selection; imagine the pressure he put on himself apart from all the external pressure applied by others.

Finally after 7 odd years, we aren't missing a heart anymore.

Give it a rest, he's improving all aspects of his game he had a great 4 quarters against the Tiges; from now on I'd expect he'll resolve all the problems you seem to find in him. Perhaps you'd like to send Roos an email and explain where he's gone wrong with Jack so far.

Especially if he has to then travel from Darwin to Alice Springs, which is where the match is being played

Well I'm proud to say I purchased my full membership this year( 1st time member) after we announced we had Roos. I live in WA - wont see a live game this year and are unable to make the annual trek to the G to cheer on the lads. Although it must be said I think I was a bad luck charm. * Smashed by the blues in the Bruise free affair * 60+ point belting on Queens Birthday. * Humiliated at home against the Bombers by 20+ goals * And our record in WA needs no explanation.

Medium impact? That is rubbish.

Seems some on here don't quite get how highly valued Matt Jones is by the coaches. His work rate in providing run and linking from half back is singular in this team, and it's very hard to remember when he didn't come away with the pill in a 'one on one' contest. He is the kind of competitor and role player that PR loves. Yes, he can turn it over, but this is a diminishing weakness, and matters much less than his qualities. However, that appears to be all some see.

The highlight with this post is trying to work out what the "censored" words are. I've tried to fill in the blanks, but I want to see if the poster and I are on the same page. Surely the mods can make it that any post that is having a go at Barrett escapes the censorship rules?

Nash/ i disagree with the medium impact bs.. it was a fairy tap. chapman efforts last week were worthy of 3 matches, delideo 1 and dawes none.. imo.

An actual post about Jesse Hogan's injury in the 'Jesse Hogan Injury Update' section........how refreshing!

Out: Pederson, Bail, Watts. Wait, that was last year.....

It's like the scene at the start of 'Flying High' where the grandmother gets frisked as she goes through security and behind her a bloke strolls past carrying a bazooka and numchuckers.

Very silly to challenge. A week off from port and NT is no big deal. Risk of 2 weeks and not playing against the scum on QB would be not worth it.

On talking Footy tonight.. just a heads up. 7.30pm 7 mate.

While I don't think he should go for it, it was stupid, so I wouldn't take the risk challenging it unless no weeks can be added on. The whole system is a continuous joke. He did a similar thing to Jaensch only lower and broke his ribs and it wasn't even looked at. Would you rather be Jaensch or Rance?

WTF? A couple of good wins and we get content and toothless? Delideo punched a guy in the face, after a goal had been scored and got off.. and Dawes' forearm push was half that. We have to appeal this, its only worth a reprimand..

Same article says that Viv Michie has yet to make his debut and Aidan Riley is going well at the Scorpions.

One thing we are missing is the fact that players are never 100% efficient (even 70% is good) and that even the best players make a few clanger type mistakes sometimes. The calls to drop a player, who wins his position and nullifies an opponent, because he makes a couple of clangers a game, are missing the point.

The quicker they acquiesce and call themselves the Casey Demons and let our people run the place the better for all concerned.

Not sure if it's mentioned anywhere but Dom was on the Sunday Footy Show. Very impressive kid, on and off the field. His old mate Damo Barrett was sitting 2 seats away and never said a [censored] word for the whole segment, the gutless piece of [censored] [censored] [censored] rat bastard.

The Pederson trade was not a stroke of genius. Neeld never got anything out of Pederson. It has been since Roos came to the club that he has been given a clear role and non negotiables to follow. He's a role player and doing it well, but that is all. It wasn't a stroke of genius on Neeld's behalf.

A belting here and there you can cope with over the length of a season if the rest has effort and desire. I was not confident of beating the Tiges, but I knew they would have a red hot crack and they did.

Probably my favourite thing is the anticipation of the coming game. I can't wait. The previous years left me feeling sick at the idea of watching, then spending game day wondering why I was yet again torturing myself by watching for the nth week in a row. I reckon there's a good chance we'll drop the ball a couple more times this year as we did against GWS, and looking at the draw there's a good possibility of a belting or two if we happen to drop it on the wrong day. I've seen enough this year though to know that even if that does happen, it *is* just temporary, we *are* getting better, and that we finally have the right leadership to get us where we want to be. Just having the light at the end of the tunnel has rejuvenated my will to support this team.

Mitch Clark

Class & skill

When will it not be a team's "lowest point in years" when losing to us? Eventually somebody must acknowledge that we are better than many think.

Good ol' player X enjoying the win. Solid effort, Herald Sun.

Lets not go there again or give any credibility to an unsubstantiated rumour. Check through the threads again and there were others 3-4 posters who were in that huddle when the alleged comment was made and they were all a lot more adamant then the poster who made that inference. FFS put it to bed

A fantastic win and a great game to go to. Saturday arvo, traditional Victorian teams, big crowd and a tough, hard contest. Oh yeah, and a win! That's what footy is about. At times it was almost hard to believe what I was seeing - a Melbourne team playing hard, tough, combative footy for four quarters, ferocious tackling, being hard to score against, structured and well organised, dangerous on the break...this is the kind of stuff we've all longed to see over the last 7 years. Great credit to the players for playing with that level of intensity and desire and to Roosy and the coaching group for getting it out of them. We did have our fair share of luck. This does not take away from a great performance and I still believe we deserved to win, but you do need a bit of luck to win the close ones. Richmond missed some really gettable chances, we had a few bounce through that could easily have missed and they only had two rotations in the last quarter to our three. But by the same token the Dogs had this luck the previous week. If it wasn't for some missed chances in the last quarter (including two posters), a couple dodgy frees and some freak goals, we would have beaten the Dogs by 4 or so goals. So we had no luck last week, but had a bit this week. For me though the most impressive thing in recent weeks has been our midfield clearance work. We all know we have had the worst midfield in the comp over the last couple years, and week after week we'd get smashed in the stoppages. The last two weeks we have played two teams whose strength is their midfield. Both the Dogs and Tigers have good depth and some star talent in their midfield and really it is the midfield that drives these teams. The fact that we beat the Dogs (slightly) and Tigers (comprehensively) in the clearances the last two weeks is quite incredible considering where we've come from. I am not sure what the key factor is, but obviously having Tyson, Cross and Vince makes a huge difference, as does the scintillating form of Nathan Jones and the rise of Viney. It's a new midfield indeed. It's hard to know the impact of the midfield coaches from an outsider perspective but we just look a lot more structured and confident at the clearances and have shown an ability to flip a few handballs out to release a free player (something we have not been able to do in the past). The coaches should get credit for this. However, one more factor that should not be ignored is the Russian. I haven't seem him ruck like this since 2010. We were still struggling in the clearances earlier in the year, but since he has returned against Sydney we have just gone to another level. His ability to get first hands and more importantly direct his hit outs to our advantage has been critical. Well done Russian.

This is a revelation a number of posters on here have had in recent weeks. I think it's a Demonland first, for the membership to collectively agree that the coach may know more than us.

cant believe Mark Neeld only signed this guy for 3 years Now we risk losing him at the end of 2015 Damn you Neeld!!!!!

You say that like it is fact - is it? First, second or third hand knowledge? I feel a strange sense of de ja vu but I see no reason to believe he is gone. Why are so many so quick to this judgement? We are a different club. I feel like we are 9 rounds old.

I'm glad we are getting to the point where the occasional clangers from Grimes, McDonald, and Terlich are what we are whinging about; that means we are progressing... But if I am giving patience to the awful way we deliver to Dawes from some of our best players then I am giving the same patience to the back 6 - especially when they are doing such an immense job defensively.

Not wanting to be a wet blanket, but we're yet to come close to a top 9 team having only played two top 9 teams (Weagles and Swans), so we've had the easiest part of our easy draw, with the real tests to come as we play the top 8 teams over the second half of the year. Liking who Roos and the boys have done, but it's only a start and our stats ... wins from teams currently 16th, 13th, 10th. losses from team currently 15th 12th 9th and 3rd. improvement, but our early bad form and tough draw will require we keep improving rapidly to win more than 3 more games on the way home.

A full back who can bounce the ball whilst running. A full back who can count how many steps it takes to run 15m. A half back captain who can kick. A half back captain who doesn't call for a kick across goal to him in a stationary position.

Did anyone see 'Kingy' interview Watts straight after the siren and the first thing he said was how people have been slagging him off saying he doesn't have a workrate? Yeah thanks DH way to just rain on the parade of the kid literally seconds after the siren in a big win in which he had a big hand. I screamed at the telly. He was trying of course to use it as a compliment but it was clumsily done, Wattsy all of a sudden had to go on the back foot and defend himself under criticism when he should have just been getting his back slapped. Really pizzed me off. 'Kingy' also made some comment in the last quarter along the lines of how Melbourne were up against the 60,000 strong crowd suggesting it was all Richmond, when there was a good 25,000 melbourne supprters there making plenty of noise Eddie also couldn't resist a couple of jabs, one was to make sure attention was paid to his old boy Dawes' alleged indiscretion and another along the linbes of how unsuual it was for the 'Melbourne members' (I assume he meant MCC members) to be making noise... who the F do you think has been forking out $550 a year to watch us get belted every week for the last 7 years you DH.. everyone who turns up to an MFC game is a Saint after the hell we've been through Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I've never understood this attitude. Yes he copped a whack or two, guess why? He was playing awful footy. Now for whatever reason, he is playing good footy. The fact he has come good in no way whatsoever invalidates what anyone said about him when he was struggling. What in God's name is the point in having a football discussion forum if you are just supposed to cheer everybody on regardless of what's happening on the field? I certainly wouldn't read this site if everyone just came in and talked players up without being honest and realistic about what they are seeing.

Would have been Clark *sigh* Could be the Hogan trade

Love to see the team selection list with just 'X'. That'd confuse the opposition.

Anyone else notice the love going on between Watts and George Stone? Last 2 wins coming into the change rooms there has been serious affection shown between the two. Stone hasn't been at the club long, so i think this is great that Watts may have formed a strong bond with one of Roos right hand men.

His greatest contribution by a country mile has been Dawesy.

I can see what you're saying re ruckmen but one of the big reasons our mids are doing as well as they are is Jamar is giving them first look at it. Having Gawn in the team poses problems for any defence and he is a talented second ruck. Leaving him out hands back one of the few advantages we have over Port and we will look to bottle the game up and make it a stoppage affair. Gawn is a must for me. Salem and Toumpas are vulnerable.

I couldn't wipe the smile off my face when I read this on my twitter feed. Here we have respect coming from a champion of our game. Not only supporters, but players are legitimately recognizing the Melbourne Football Club and our players. It's great to see.