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Levi: You're so good at footy Hoges Jesse: Thanks bro

And Picket starts another thread which criticises Toumpas. Talking of F Ugly.

No, I'm a fish biologist/ecologist. Botany is more of a hobby along with my other pursuits such as post-match wrist slitting, former recruiter bashing, and maintaining general MFC related angst.

I am only certain that Watts will not be dropped. If ever his importance to the team (even when out of form) was demonstrated it was on the weekend. He is just so creative, takes a good player, and works very hard. The flow of the game changed instantly when Watts came on. His 7 possessions with 3 goal assists was only part of the story.

Fair call. So lets hope for 11 am presser in Montreal tomorrow, which means 1am our time. It would be a nice touch if the presser was in French. James would get some value then from his paid vacation.

Could we have... dare I say it... got an early draft pick right?

McVeigh had 10 disposals in the 1st quarter and then Roos sent Toump to him in the 2nd. Only had 2 for the quarter. After half time Toump was moved off McVeigh and his onslaught picked up wher it left off at the end of the 1st. What was with that? Toump was very good in stopping JM so why wasn't he left on him at least for another quarter?

Very few of those you've nominated as flankers were drafted with the intention of actually being developed in to flankers; most of them just ended up there due to not being good enough to start in their nominal positions. For example, Jetta was described by BP as a grunt inside midfielder, and Morton and Toumpas were elite running midfielders as underage players, and Sheahan was supposed to be a KPP. Really I think the list of "flank" players amounts to a more convoluted way of saying we drafted too many crap players. I realise that's not the OP's intention, but that's what it boils down to for mine.

The only positive was Carlton's performance.

Hard at it, great tackle... I love that we're building a hard group of young players, we're going to be tough to play against in the next few years. Salem, Brayshaw, Viney already show it.

Wait, we have multiple players out there with poise, hardness, skill and resilience? Having young players like Salem, Hogan and Brayshaw out on the field makes me feel a little bit like Melbourne has lit a candle and can now start properly searching for the fuse box.

That's what I don't get...lots of if if if's. If they hadn't slacked off they would have killed us by 100 points. If they had kicked straight they would have killed us by 100 points. If they hadn't this and hadn't that.... If my sister had balls she' be my brother... Irrespective of the reason - we stemmed the bleed in the 3rd and came back in the last. All the rest is if and conjecture.

Very early days for them all though. I guess I'm just excited at the evidence of a potentially good player developing in to an actually good player.

Thanks to the Swans for leaving at three quarter time, and allowing us to get some cheap goals in the last quarter. If they were fair dinkum for four quarters we would have lost by 100. Another really poor showing by Roos with his selections and initial match ups. When we fail to get these things right we basically start with a 5 goal handicap. Jetta, McVeigh and Kennedy destroyed us all night. What does playing Watts as the sub achieve? If he's not in our best 21, he should be running around at Casey getting his hands dirty. He was decent when he came on, but what was the point? Spencer was disappointing, but what are the alternatives? Jamar would have been equally as useless. Gawn is still the most talented ruckman on our list, and irrespective of his poor form we may just have to give some games. Why wasn't Pedersen put on Tippett when we has was rag dolling Dunn? Dunn or Howe could have gone forward and done something useful. The Howe as a defender experiment hasn't worked all year, and is becoming embarrassing. We have too many midfielders who aren't prepared to be accountable for an opponent. Newton is the worst, but Vandenberg and Tyson are close behind. Roos has gone too far the other way with Vince, and now he doesn't look interested in getting the ball. I love Cross's work rate, but he is painfully slow and can't kick over a jam tin. Jones is a shadow of his former self too. JKH needs a long spell at Casey. I have no idea what his role is meant to be, but he isn't contributing anything at the moment. Even Bail would be more value as a half forward. Pass marks for Salem, McDonald and Hogan this week. The rest need to pull their fingers out pronto.

They tried to take Frawley as well. Lets go hard.

Our leading goalkicker last year was Dawes with 20 goals. Both Garlett and Hogan will probably surpass that before the bye. Trading for Garlett and giving up a packet of chips in return (pick 68) was great trading.

He is an example of good recruiting and good development. When he came to the club, he was a skinny kid and couldn't find much of the ball in his early games (although when he did, he looked good). Now, he is bulked up and his form is on an upward spiral. The way it should be. One instance in the second quarter last night, he was being chased and just as the Swans player (I think it was Rohan) was about to tackle him, he did a little shimmy to the left to buy himself more time. It was class and poise on show! Those who criticised the Tyson/Salem deal are looking sillier by the day. They combined for 50 possessions on the weekend and that's even with one of them playing well below their best. Well done to the list management and recruiters on this one.

Flogging a bit of a dead horse here, but thought I'd go through and analyse the drafts of years gone by. When you look at it in the cold light of day, our drafting was so utterly deplorable between 2006-12 that it truly beggars belief. Have a look at this (position of the player in brackets): 05 - N.Jones (mid), S. Buckley (mid/flanker), Bartram (flanker/mid) 06 - Frawley (kp), Petterd (flank), Garland (flank), Weetra (flank) 07 - Morton (flank), Grimes (flank), Maric (flank), Cheney (flank), McNamara (flank), Martin (ruck), Woenemirri (flank), Valenti (mid) 08 - Watts (kp/flank), Blease (flank), Strauss (flank), Bennell (flank), Jetta (flank), Bail (mid/flank), Jurrah (flank), McKenzie (mid) 09 - Scully (mid), Trengove (mid), Gysberts (mid), Tapscott (flank), Gawn (ruck), Fitzpatrick (ruck/kp), Joel MacDonald (flank), Newton (kp), 10 - Cook (kp), Howe (flank), Davis (kp), McDonald (kp), Nicholson (flank), Evans (flank), 11 - Taggert (mid), Tynan (flank), Sellar (flank/kp), Sheahan (flank), Couch (mid), Magner (mid) 12 - Toumpas (flank), Viney (mid), Kent (flank), M. Jones (mid), Terlich (flank), Stark (flank), Clisby (mid), Hogan (kp) 13 - Salem (flank), JKH (flank), Hunt (flank), Harmes (mid), King (ruck), Geourgiou (flank) 14- Petracca (mid), Brayshaw (mid), Neal-Bullen (mid), Stretch (flank), Oscar McD (kp), vandenBerg (mid), White (flank) The thing that stands out to me looking at this list of names is the bizarre oversupply of flankers that we've drafted into this club over the years. Obviously there were hopes that some of these players would eventually turn into AFL midfielders (e.g. Jack Grimes, Cale Morton, Sam Blease) but clearly player development at the MFC has not been up to snuff. When you look at who runs through our midfield in 2015, besides captain Jones, Father/son Jack Viney, and 1st year Brayshaw, it's a moneyball list of stop-gaps and who's who from other clubs: Lumumba, Garlett, Cross, Vince, Tyson, Newton, Michie. While I admire them all and cheer them on always, they are a rag-tag bunch of discards and wantaways from other clubs, some of which couldn't get a look in at the more successful clubs. I guess its not a really big surprise why our team has been so bad. The core of a good midfield has to develop and grow together over a number of years, think Judd, Cousins, Kerr, Cox. What about Voss, Lappin, Black, Ackermanis. Or Lewis, Mitchell, Hodge. Try on Ablett Jr, Kelly, Bartel, Johnson and now the competition gold standard: Mundy, Fyfe, Barlow, Hill, We haven't had the continuity and development of these other top AFL midfields. The only one who's been there forever is Nathan Jones, nobody else has stepped up to the mark to join him which is a sad indictment of our drafting and development (and of course bad luck). The drafting false dawns that have blown up in our face, whether it was down to bad recruiting, bad luck or a combination of the two is amazing. Here I'm talking about the rebuild years between 07-09 that completely screwed our list forcing us into the infamous rebuild of the rebuild. 2007 - 3 picks inside the top 25 we take Cale Morton (a skinny running player, supposedly with good skills but he was not properly developed + quesitonable attitude = epic fail), Grimes (cruelled by injury early on but then completely failed to develop into an AFL mid), Addam Maric (a forward pocket). 2008 - another 3 picks inside the top 25 and we take Jack Watts (a skinny tall player who is tried in every position on the ground but cannot make any one of them his own), Blease (a selfish outside mid who constantly battled injury), and Strauss (a skilled flanker that was cruelled by injury). 2009 - should have seen us finally get it right with this time 4 picks inside the top 25 including a priority pick at #1. We end up with Tom Scully (an undersized outside midfielder who has done nothing at AFL level at both MFC and GWS), Trengove (a promising midfielder now cruelled by injury), Gysberts (another gymnasiophobic midfielder and ultimately a dismal failure), and Luke Tapscott (a flanker cruelled by injury). There was another hiccup with the drafting of Toumpas instead of Wines in 2012 which has set our development as a competitive list back by a year but that topic has been done to death so I will not add further to that. Man, how it does anger me though. The penny seems to have finally dropped since Jackson/Roos and their recruiting team have taken the reins. 2013 we took Christian Salem (but also picked up a virtual draftee in Tyson). Salem has me puzzled, I would have thought this kid had midfield written all over him, but I'm a little dismayed that he hasn't spent many minutes in there to this point. I truly hope that he will become a midfielder eventually, he ticks all the boxes, skilled, aggressive, committed. I wait in hope for him. Tyson was great last year but has gone backwards this year unfortunately, wish we knew why, surely he's carrying something. And now this years we're addressing that gaping hole in our developing list having drafted 4 potential midfielders in Petracca, Brayshaw and Neal-Bullen, and vandenBerg plus Stretch as a potential outside mid/winger. Unfortunately two of these guys have already suffered injury woes but hopefully Neal-Bullen's is only a minor setback. If we can hang onto these guys and develop them properly I can honestly see our future, dare I say it, premiership winning midfield consisting of the likes of Tyson, Salem, Petracca, Brayshaw, and Viney. Add to this list one or two players each year through development of our current list (e.g. Kent, ANB, vanders, Stretch), shrewd trading (in the mold of the Tyson/Salem trade), and competent drafting and we can raise the level of competition for spots in that 3rd world midfield of ours. There's going to be a hell of a lot responsibility on Brendan McCartney's shoulders to get this part right and for Goodwin to hit the ground running 2017, but I'm feeling optimistic. I think above all else, we need a change in luck. We sure as hell haven't had much of that over the past 10 years. Go the mighty Demons!!!

I wanted Hird gone. The club reinstated him. Not my choice, but I'm not into the whole 'give up on the club and walk away until Hird is gone' type stuff. I support the Essendon Football Club. Administrators, players, coaches, they all come and go. I will stick fat no matter what comes. If the sh*t hits the fan in the coming months with a WADA appeal and guilty verdict, the EFC will need my support more than ever.

or in the care of an undertaker?

They will be under a caretaker.

Nope. Big lump of a lad, jesus freak, serial idiot, average tap ruckman, can't get a touch around the ground. We already have one Jake Spencer.

He plead guilty but was granted a spent conviction.Essentially, still penalised but won't show on his national police certificate.

Morton at pick 4 is just diabolical. I remember watching his junior highlights at the time, and remembering he looks lie a nice kick of the footy but not much else... I think we all hoped he would be a Robbie FLower type wingman/utility. But he wasnt a competitor and hated contact. And to make the same mistake 12 months later and take a similar player in Watts at pick 1.. it defies belief. Thank christ those days are over, but it set us back so far. We will get there and are in a much better position now, but bloody hell we came from a long way back.

If Toumpas becomes a shut down player, it rare that those types are great users of the ball. I think with more confidence and exposure to AFL level he will only get better. I'm not as worried about Toumpas as I am about someone like Howe.

Spencer had 7 tackles, and 10 disposals. Not to bad I thought. Toumpas suffers from Wattsism, where fans expect Ablett like game or he was poor. fwiw I thought Toump was decent. And thought Watts was too in his limited game time. Stretch needs to learn to keep his kicks down and not so floaty but otherwise a great start to his career. Showed he knows how to find the footy and space. Has a crack too.

OK everyone grab a deck chair, now run around in circles, when the music stops sit in the chair and ask the Captain how quickly the ship is sinking. You may now adopt the foetal position and cry. Ah to be a Melbourne supporter. My cat now leaves the room when I watch the footy.

I agree - I watched the game yesterday and I thought we actually competed well with them all game. The problems were the ball was locked in their forward half, our players didn't run to create options when we got the ball (and didn't play on/too stagnant) and then we turned the ball over far too often. Out kicking into the forward line was horrible as well, too often kicking to our disadvantage. Credit to Sydney they forced us to play that way but as far as contesting the ball went I thought we matched it with them. We just couldn't use it properly and couldn't score when we did compared to them who were able to score through sheer weight of numbers getting the ball forward. Tippett killed us and so did our stagnant play but other than that I thought we matched them well. The scoreboard was clearly overwhelmingly in their favour but the difference between the sides wasn't as great as it would seem. There were little pieces of play here and there (and some questionable umpire decisions early which cost us) which were the difference. Early on, Brayshaw wins a free in the centre, gives it off to someone (Lumumba?) who kicks it forward to a leading Hogan. The ball is a metre too high and goes over his head directly to Richards. A better kick and that's a goal. Down the other end Dunn gets an iffy free against him to Tippett who converts (even though Dunn was adamant it was touched). There were multiple examples of these little things which added up. The biggest issue for us is figuring our how to break through the press coming out of defence and through the middle and how to maintain a flow on game without getting into trouble and turning it over. Freo and Sydney have both strangled us in this regard and we go into our shells. GWS did too in the second half which was a complete turnaround from the first half of that game. We started off well taking the game on against Sydney but once they locked us down we had no response. Get this rectified and it'll go a long way to sorting out the team.

So the back to back premiers are now being labelled 'flat track bullies' based on a few narrow losses? Now I've heard it all.

I said on here I'd be taking a concerned interest in Christian after Taberner's hit on him last week. Christian took a similar mark last night; overhead, eyes up, pack bearing down. So I'm deleting "concerned" now!

Watch the replay because I remember thinking Toump is getting to the contests and helping out as a junior player should. After the replay I have no idea what game people have been watching. It is the Sydney game right? He ran to contests, held tackles, ran back and manned up when others have up running. You can criticise some of his disposal (like any player) but he runs. He gets into posission and he is trying to learn his craft. Let the kid learn like we are letting our other boys learn.

time to throw out all of our plans for the year?! we're sitting 2-4 have beaten Gold coast lost to GWS ( currently sitting second and beat the Hawks yesterday ) lost to Adelaide ( seriously challenged but fell short over there, against a team currently sitting 4th) beaten Richmond ( played finals last year ) lost to Fremantle ( competed fairly well for half the game, but had lapses against the flag favourites ) lost to Sydney ( probably the most talented list in the comp, 2 of the last three grand finals ) we aren't getting beaten by dud teams, we all knew where our team sat going into the year 6-8 win team showing signs we could be a 10-12 win team in 2016 i think we've shown signs we're on the way up, probably lacked some polish and composure against good teams and it's cost us, and we've had lapses as young teams do. certainly don't feel like we're playing anywhere near our best, but i also don't think things are so bad we should just start playing kids and planning for the future, and that goes against the culture we're trying to build

This has already been discussed elsewhere. I'm closing this thread and trust that you will all now respect the fact that Clark is in fact suffering a serious illness.

Sadly, I think he is finished. If he could transfer his work ethic and endeavor to a few of his teammates it would be great. We could even be a top 8 team right now. He has got everything out of himself, through hard work, but I am afraid that time has passed him by.

you know WYL i'd love to see the guys just told to back themselves in, turn and look to play on at every opportunity, the ratonale being that if we get it in there quick, odds on Hogan, Dawes and Garlett are going to give us a chance to score, and we know our defenders can defend very well if we turn it over i'd rather see us making mistakes trying to take the game on than the stop start hesitation too scared to make an error stuff

Call me crazy but would it be worth giving T-MAC a run on the ball? He's playing like Fyfe atm.

That's not hard to do when you get years worth of high draft picks and extra salary cap room to throw money around. Even we would be half decent with all the concessions they've had over the last few years.

Now might be the time to get in Kelly's ear then.

Looks like "future dual Brownlow medallist" Josh Kelly was dropped for this week's game also.

Jeff Garlett is doing a fine job…averaging 2 goals per game. On track to kick 40-50 for the season which will be up there with his very best at Carlton. He will have delivered on what we all hoped he would when recruited. BTW, at his current rate Hogan will also kick 40-50 for the season. It would be a pretty good effort by both players given the last 3 Coleman medals have been won with 60-70 goals.

I'm happy to see him stay in the back half with stints in the middle. We desperately need his classy disposal in the back line so I think he should stay there. What we do need though is more big bodied ball winners. We are getting belted around the stoppages at the moment. I imagine once Brayshaw and Petracca are fit enough to play full midfield minutes we will see this improve a lot!

I need to put up my hand and cop a slice of humble pie. I voiced my concern about picking Salem over Nathan Freeman and Luke Dunstan. But he has been nothing but super for us this year. His pin point delivery and poise is such a delight to watch. While Dunstan will be a good player, Freeman is currently struggling in the VFL.. could you imagine the wrist slashing lol I love how he took Franklin on last night and surprisingly managed to get away from him. I would love to see him push up into the midfield but i don't think we will see that till next year. Leave him where he is now he is developing just fine. He add grunt and hardness his decision making is top notch. A midfield combo of Salem Petracca Brayshaw Tyson Viney Stretch ANB and Toumpas looks quite formidable in years time.

Agree with all of that but Spencer. Thought he competed really well. We may have been watching two different games. I'd also say (and you do touch on this, GOAG) our biggest problem last night was that we didn't work hard enough to present options for our team mates. This resulted in either turn overs or slow ball movement. If you don't move the ball quickly against a slow Swans side you'll get smashed. Thought it was probably his best game in MFC colours. People get so blindsided by their opinion of some players that their default position is to simply opine that the player delivered an ordinary performance. It's the reverse rose-coloured glasses.

Wow Carlton are shite! Why do we have to wait until the end of the year to play them?

Can we have Stefan Martin back?

enough to be eligible and snag a future father/son maybe?

I didn't want him to experience a lot of success at the cats, but this incident has brought me no joy whatsoever, nor should it. I sincerely hope he is ok, and is able to continue a thoroughly mediocre career as a cat.

Going through this ATM,havent cried since a fat greek shiela chased me in grade 3. But suffering depression for some reason makes me break out in unexplicable tears. Just lets leave him alone. please.