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Here you go, mate.

PUMPING FOR PARISH by Whispering Jack Darcy Parish was always going to be highly sought after in light of his All Australian selection as a bottom ager in 2014, an achievement matched that year by his Geelong Falcons teammate Rhys Mathieson. The two are midfielders but they're different types and I have watched them from afar this year knowing at the back of my mind that it remained an imperative for Melbourne to continue to improve its stocks of onballers. Parish is the outside silky smooth ball winner with quick hands who also goes well on the inside; the other gets the hard ball inside the stoppages. Would one of them be claimed by the Demons? Parish's 2015 campaign stalled early when he broke a thumb. However, before that he was in fine form in two AIS Academy games against Northern Bullants and Werribee:- https://vimeo.com/127122213 https://vimeo.com/125095504 The injury caused him to miss the first two rounds of this year's Under 18's carnival but he came back from a seven week break to play for the Geelong Falcons in late May and gathered 25 disposals in his team's 10 goal win over the Western Jets. A week later he was repeating the dose for Victoria Country against Vic Metro in a game which was streamed live on the AFL site. Watch the replays of each quarter. http://www.afl.com.au/video/2015-06-07/under-18s-vicc-v-vicm-q1 http://www.afl.com.au/video/2015-06-07/under-18s-vicc-v-vicm-q2 http://www.afl.com.au/video/2015-06-07/under-18s-vicc-v-vicm-q3 http://www.afl.com.au/video/2015-06-07/under-18s-vicc-v-vicm-q4 Parish again recorded 25 possessions and with partner in crime Mathieson, dominated proceedings. Parish followed up this performance a week or so later against South Australia when he starred again with 24 disposals including seven inside-50 entries. He once again demonstrated quick hands and sure and precise execution. By foot, he regularly hit his targets. However, he was a bit of a disappointment in his next game, the televised return game v SA at Simonds Stadium where he was reduced to a mere nine touches. However, in that match, he was played off a half back flank and despite taking a few hits, he still showed the assuredness and poise that is part and parcel of his game even if he was subdued and played out of position. To prove that he's something special, he came back with a vengeance in the last game against Western Australia in a game where he was the dominant midfielder on the ground picking up 29 disposals. That display ensured his repeat selection in the All Australian team, a feat shared with Mathieson. The two midfielders continued to dominate their part of the ground at the Geelong Falcons and when Charlie Curnow rejoined them after his stint out with injury, there were high hopes that their team would feature in a classic TAC Cup finale against the well performed North Ballarat Rebels team with Jacob Hopper and Darcy Tucker. That was not to be however, with the Falcons going out in straight sets and the Rebels losing their preliminary final. If we are to develop a top line midfield, we could do a lot worse than draft this pair with picks 3 and 7 respectively. There are some however, who believe the club is interested in Curnow and that he could end up as one of the modern prototype tall midfielders. To me however, Parish is the stand out for pick three and I would not be unhappy if the club's recruiters took Mathieson with their second pick at seven (or whatever number it turns out to be after taking into account the bidding selections). There are too many imponderables to come out with a definitive second pick for Melbourne in this draft but I would be most surprised if Parish's name wasn't called out in three weeks time. His selection would give the club the best three midfielders available to the club from the last two drafts and set it up better in this area than at any time since the introduction of the draft system. The only other contender would be Curnow but on my viewing, the latter isn't even in the same parish. But Inside Football's Brett Anderson believes otherwise so in the interests of providing a semblance of balance, this is worth viewing. https://vimeo.com/136785936/description Here are the SEN Inside Football profiles of Parish, Mathieson and Curnow which are essentially quotes from their TAC Cup coach:- Unlike club recruiters, I'm not paid to follow up on a myriad of players from junior footy to Under 16s and 18s. I haven't spoken to their families, junior coaches, schoolteachers or seen them dozens of times live in games and on the training track or had the opportunity to interview the players themselves. And I must confess that not long ago I was over the moon that Melbourne had just drafted Jimmy Toumpas who was in my view "stolen" at pick four. Before him it was Tom Scully and a year earlier, Jack Watts was the next big thing. You can go back to Colin Sylvia and Brock McLean and even Travis Johnstone. They were all talented and all were going to be champions but one way or another, in that respect, they turned out to be failed early draft picks who were either wrong choices or not properly developed as footballers by the club. Those currently charged with the job of list management and recruiting seem to be doing something better in recent times so perhaps this time the club will get it right and develop an emerging midfield good enough to keep our forwards well fed and thereby to usher in a new era for the club.

I don't think Jordie ever stopped giving anything less than his best when he was with the MFC. I think that by no fault of his own, he just simply wasn't good enough.

I was Caulfield Scopus boy - I won every fight I had by at least 100 metres.

Every thread Satyricon posted in became about him. It was annoying as [censored].

Saty doesn't post during the off-season (until training starts) so he is not on DL to defend himself. So I feel a need to come to his defence (even tho I have him on 'Ignore'...too much unfriendly banter with other posters, for mine) Here goes: Saty is passionate about MFC He volunteers his time to the club He is very defensive of players and officers of the club...sometimes he goes overboard on this. Sometimes he is quick to attack DL's who have a different view to his... ...he is not the only one on DL that has this affliction I might add! He is quirky in his training reports and sometimes tells us stuff we don't care about. He also gets under peoples skin and likes to antagonise. But we can't doubt where his heart is and I think this years training reports will be the worse for his absence...Saty has a job so won't get to training often so he won't be making many training reports. For some this is a blessing in disguise. For others, especially non Melbourne residents it will be a great loss. So maybe we should cull the anti Saty stuff; it is irrelevant and disrespectful and stick to training talk.

Lazy buggers. We started preseason tonight. 45 minutes of 9's followed by 4 stubbies. Misson has no idea.

Viney, Brayshaw, Tyson, Salem, Petracca, Parish. Just wanted to see what that looked like in black and white.

I think this negative hair talk should cease. We should embrace the locks if picked. Who knows.... we may even land a new $500,000 - $1million sponsor in Decore or Sunsilk.....positive thoughts people. Become a destination club and entice the likes of Sloane, Mundy, Maric. Embrace the locks people. #embracethelocks shall trend!

Agree he'll be huge for us once he gets a couple of full AFL pre-seasons under his belt because currently he is well behind which is scary to think about considering the impact he had for us this year. He is the kind of player you can't help but fall in love with. The thing I love about players like him is how they manically chase when an opponent has the ball even up to 20 metres away.. Brayshaw, Viney and Vanders all have the instinct to chase and pressure without question. I won't name names but there are still a handful who do not possess that sort of urgency and they need to take a leaf. Aside from that, he's actually a really smart footballer with a great overhead mark and an ability to hit the scoreboard. A full pre-season of running without interruption and he could well become one of our most important starting mids with his size, aggression and versatility.

He is a ball winning mid that needs to play in the midfield - you put him on the flank predominantly and you will watch him become less and less effective. Put. Him. In. The. Guts.

Would rather see it in red and blue.

Well it looks like Cal Twomey has now covered every possible scenario, and I'm sure he'll gloat when one of them comes up.

Agree with Nutbean. With Saty's reports, you do what you do with any report: take from them what's useful to you, ignore the rest. I just don't see the point of castigating someone for not doing what each of us would do, and as someone who can't ever get to training, I appreciate reports from anyone, no matter the shape or form.

Then just put him on ignore. FFS ...

Can I just say that - in light of the Differing Opinions thread - that the high ground is lost when someone who is aggressively 'posted at' the way you were just then replies with a retort worse than the initial aggressive post. So while I would not be as obnoxious as Mach5 was above - it is hardly helpful to respond the way you did. Just sayin...

Vanders is rarely mentioned with the core group of mids who are expected to take the Dees to the next level (Jones, Viney, Brayshaw, Salem, Tyson and Petracca) but I think his name sits very comfortably with that lot. Our team is on the rise, and Vanders will be an important part of the journey!

Is that Saty in the background?

Can we have another 5 like him. A footballer with a footballer's brain who lo and behold can play football. Rocket Science

I'd forgotten about that. What a b*stard!

FFS, seeing threads like this bumped scare the [censored] out of me.

Those who are writing off the likelihood of us picking up Collins and to a similar extent Harry McKay should note that they are both almost 12 months younger than Curnow. In fact, Harry McKay (DOB 24/12/97) only just qualifies for this draft. Had he been only 8 days younger he'd be playing U18's again next year and not eligible for this draft. Collins (DOB 14/12/97) isn't much older. If you consider that our extra top 10 pick is in effect next years 1st round pick, the club may be thinking about picking what they see as the best bottom age talent to offset the fact that we don't have next years 1st round pick. In effect, give them 12 months in the system developing similar to what has happened with Hogan and now Petracca. My guess is that Curnow, Francis and Weideman will be gone before pick 7. I reckon that either of Collins and/or McKay are well and truly in the mix for pick 7. I can't see us passing on Parish at 3.

Dawes gets paid more than most at MFC and some of his performances are so bad its unbelievable that it gets zero airtime. Yet Watts drops a mark and its all over the media.

Don't talk to the players and get any interesting goss cos you'll be accused of being an apologist. Don't give any opinions cos you'll be accused of knowing nothing about footy. And don't favour anyone or you'll be accused of having favourites. And don't tell us that we've improved because you'll be told "it's only training". Really looking forward to your reports!

Rubbish. He nails most of his shots.

If it was a prerequisite to post here that you weren't allowed to be a bit of a fl0g occasionally there'd be nothing to read. Who cares about Saty's personality? Who cares that everything he posted wasn't to your liking? How many posters could we all say that about?! But he went to training more than any of us, and he took the time to post about it. Doesn't matter if you liked it or not. It's those kind of efforts, and posters like KC, WJ, Andy etc that make this place slightly more than just frustrated footy fans cracking the sads at each other. If you're going to point the gun, have a look at the top 3 members for amount of posts one day...

I am getting emotionally invested again!!! But that Mathieson is very Bartel-like IMO...

Just wanted to see what this looked like bolded in a quote tag. Liking the Parish and McKay combination for picks 3 & 7. Mid/Fwd combo.

The problem with his training reports was that you weren't allowed to have an opinion of a player if you weren't at training, even if that player had played over 100 games.

And he tackles like a Demon worthy of an exorcism from the Pope.

The thing about Vanders is that, yes he can butcher a footy, but sometimes its a possie not many other players would have been able to get. And when near the forward line - it doesn't have to perfect - it has to be advantage side of Hogan and he will do the rest.

I don't know where V'burg will end up. High HHF rotating through the midfeild maybe... but it's harsh... really harsh to accuse Jordie of skating. I never saw him take a backward step. Jordie only ever lacked the abiltiy to hurt when he had the ball, never the abilty to give 100% when he didn't have it.

Cream on top of what? Rancid milk?

And he's done SFA to solve the Syria situation

FMD song !! That is deep!!

Jack should stick to fixing up all the other things he's failed at, like stopping world hunger and finding a cure for cancer. He's done neither of these things since he was drafted and, frankly, I'm angry about it.

Jetta and Salem were his two main pin ups weren't they? They're still kicking around. I hope he's enjoying his new job and doesn't have to tolerate too many lemon sucking hair shirt wearers.

Another clone of Brayshaw would be nice. Glad we've got that lad.

I have to say '94 was better because Schwarter was in full flight and had yet to do a knee.

Both were flawed by back injuries In '94 Allen Jakovich didn't make September In '98 Garry Lyon's back was completely shot by the Prelim Final. He could hardly move out of the goal square. 2 potential flags down the S Bend (Oh yeah & the Ox was concussed in the '94 Semi against Footscray and hardly saw the ball the week later in Perth)

Adcock is the only DFA I would consider kicked 4 goals in his last game might provide 2 years like Cross

Well that's just wrong. He's arguably the only Melbourne player they do give a [censored] about, along with Hogan. His touches get booed or cheered pending on which side of the Watts fence they sit on. He's easily Melbourne's most high profile player and that applies across the spectirum - media and supporters. If other people want to discuss Jack Watts, they're entitled to. If their criticism is OTT, call them on it. But this incessant need to want to cut off every Watts discussion before it starts is crazy. He's always been, potentially, a valuable piece of the puzzle. That hasn't yet come to fruition. If Watts threads bore you, don't contibute to them. If they frustrate you, don't even open them. It's really very simple, isn't it? Telling everyone to stop talking about him doesn't look to have been a successful strategy to date. Personally, I'm interested in what posters see as his best role in 2016.

Yep - if we can avoid having our shiny new prized recruit doing his ACL at training this year, that'd be swell.

I wouldn't be shocked if we went our preferred forward with 3 (if he wasn going to be there at 6/7), and then used 7 to get a Milera or Gresham type. Definitely a possibility if we're keen on a particular forward. Guess it comes down to how highly we rate Parish. I'd back the club either way

That being said i have no knowledge of whether this year's top 10 is stronger or weaker than last year's or next year's. It may be hard to to compare because this year's best 10 players are playing in a weaker competition (i.e. shallower).

Nah they went more than 15m and didn't go backwards

Again, only relying on highlight reels, Parish does not miss a single target in the footage shown whereas Scully's footskills ( or lack thereof) were evident even in the "best of" footage.

I don't think they are similar. Scully only had/has one pace, has doesn't tread water and he doesn't see the bigger picture, he is a selfish football play, not the greatest kick (because he doesn't slow down, has no poise), whereas Parish is an intuitive footballer, sees the bigger picture and will often lay a tackle, bounce up and receive the hands off, if you watch Parish play, you will see he has a great understanding of the game.

I hope someone manages to do some reports like Saty used to.

From Snoop Dog, who's a solid observer... He hasn't yet done his phantom Draft, but this is his view on Parish in another type of communal draft: # 3 Melbourne - Darcy Parish (Geelong Falcons / 181cm / 74kg) Terrific player who have seen plenty of. Probably not as big as you want your midfielders these days but he ticks nearly every box. Very clever player around the stoppages who can win it and create space through the congestion to get away and clear the ball. Actually has real bounce about him and would think he would be a hard player to track and stay on top of as he is always on the move. As a bottom ager I thought he was a bit outside but he was a terrific ball winner this year and has really rounded him out. His ball skills are very good (averages circa 70% DE) and he is particularly good at using lateral kicks to create the play and set team mates up. His vision is elite and his spacial awareness very good to. Just doesn't really get flustered. From a defensive aspect notwithstanding the frame he loves to tackle and whilst an average 2-3 at champs / TAC he isn't averse to it but it is an area he could do some more work on to try and get that up around 5+ per game. Always love to watch how these kids go vs men and really rated his performance for the Academy side vs Blues and Werribee. He was hard at it and really competitive and I think the game vs the Blues was particularly good. Only knock is he didn't test that well at the combine which i was surprised by because when you watch him that is not the sense you get. Not sure where he will start at AFL level. He has shown he is very good off a HB flank, demonstrated this year he is a very good all round midfielder and has pushed forward as well to kick goals. He has a very light frame though and he won't be pushed to the middle to quickly I would have thought and with mids like Jones, Petracca, Brayshaw, Tyson and Viney they can afford to protect him a bit. With Salem & Bugg off HB wouldn't mind betting he starts as a HF flanker. Building a very talented group of juniors these Demons ...