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More photos taken by my son Liam at yesterday’s (Wednesday) training session - and considering Liam’s just 15, I’m extremely proud of his efforts so far. Here’s a link for those able to view in Facebook (https://m.facebook.com/tim.fleming.75/albums/1579333815435229). Otherwise, here is a subset, albeit quite a substantial subset, for those who can’t...

Fake news he was running at top speed on Monday

For the benefit of those who can’t access the Facebook album, here are a few shots taken by my son Liam at yesterday’s AFLW training (posted here because it seems the AFLW forum gets very little traffic).

Thanks for all the photos Saty, Hardtack & Lil Tacker - great for those who can’t get there.

Great shots! Your son has done a great job! Cheers and highly appreciated.

Blink twice if you are having a stroke

Kents looking the leanest he’s ever been. Saty’s t-shirt is on another level.

Yes, he'll make us pay ... part of his salary

Son of Tacky, your photos are great. Along with 666, you guys rock.

Drafting matters. Without elite talent you don't win and without a depth of A, B and C graders you lose leadership, skill and confidence and everything goes down hill. We've been there. Now we are at the stage where development to turn talent in to results is really vital but it has to be combined with continually adding talent through the draft. I think every year you lose a couple of good players through age, injury or trades so you have to keep bringing in some good ones as well. This thread has turned to Richmond though so I'd say there success was drafting absolute A graders from 2006-2009, developing them over time and then some good (But not great) trading and drafting particularly in the last few years. At the time of the grand final: Jack Riewoldt - 28 Alex Rance - 27 Trent Cotchin - 27 Dustin Martin - 26 Other Tigers players: No one over 30 - not that over 30 is a problem but if you are over 30 you need to be in a position where experience outweighs physical capabilities. 2 kids under 21 - Rioli, Graham - both with strong and fit bodies and defined defensive roles. Every other Tiger was at peak fitness The challenge for our fitness and coaching staff is to find and develop the right guys who can play week in week out so when it gets to crunch time we aren't carrying underdeveloped players. That's where injuries and luck come in. Sustained drafting lets your list develop that over time. It took Rance until about 24 to grow in to his game and become dominant, Lever has to adjust to a new team and show he can do that. It took Dustin until 25 to hit his peak. That's a big challenge for Petracca to get their sooner. And Clarry. Hopefully both. It took Riewoldt until 28 to really buy in to defensive pressure. Hogan has to do it ASAP. It took Cotchin until 27 to realise his job as Captain was to lead with actions not words and to return to Brownlow form that he hadn't seen in 3+ years. Viney has to adapt to the captaincy as well. Finally it took Hardwick 3 years of finals failure and a 4th down year to realise his team needed pace, aggressive ball movement and a simple game plan to succeed. Then it took injuries to talls to go all in on that game plan and use Caddy and Grigg as talls. The old saying "you're only an injury away from having a good team" took hold.

While Richmond's flag will see team's look to go smaller in the forward line, a forward line including Hogan, TMac and Pederson could be very dangerous if they are all fit and in form.

Jesus pedo looks in unbelievable Nick! Have a good feeling Harmed could break out next season.. Font know why? but he looks got and ready to go.

If the players give a stuff about what is said on field then they don't deserve to be out there. Who cares about the boot camp? Worry about the scoreboard.

Petty has that look about him, and a very good vertical leap. Note the hand proximity at a full stretch. If he had a back and shoulders to ride - could be awesome. Nice photo.

I love the t-shirt! For some reason it makes me think of the artist René Magritte.

Couple of notes from this morning Balic just has a minor niggle Weed hopefully with main group after Maroochydoore To the knockers, great one on one drills today with Omac and Frost, probably a draw, Omac not outmuscled, coaches encouraging ferocity in the contest Pics later on Insta and a lot later on here

My son Liam and I popped along to the AFLW training this evening and he took command of the camera again. Shots can be found here (Faulty, I’ll upload some for you tomorrow some time): https://m.facebook.com/tim.fleming.75/albums/1577655595603051

The players were back at training today and, clearly, everyone involved has moved on. You guys should do the same. Blaming anything that occurs this year on that camp is something a 5 year old might do. It's a reflection on much of our supporter base these days, though - they can't let go of the past and look forward. We expect the playing group to do it, so maybe we should do the same.

mmmmmmmmm..... what can I say save that "I think therefore I am."

They mix it up all the time so assume we will see the rolling defence we saw last year, Goodwin wants the defenders to be able to play on anybody

Maxy sure loves wearing the Bro.

Trac is rehabbing at the moment, Salem is ticking of the sessions, looks super fit and strong, working exclusively with the mids

In Goodwin’s words: Harley Balic Harley arrived at the club in the off-season from Fremantle. After settling in, he’s been outstanding at training. He won one of our training ‘player of the week’ awards, which is a credit to him and his development in the time that he’s been involved in our program. We’re really looking forward to seeing him play in 2018.

Did you photoshop Daisy’s forehead?

With the MFC I tend to go with Occam's razor - someone in the PR / IT dept accidentally deleted his profile while downloading porn on a lunch break and is now pretending they know nothing about it. Still it's nice to know that we are a united group. We all panic over nothing together.

They're nothing alike 'Deemania'... Mann was a brilliant player, elusive and could kick well off both feet. Kent is a one dimensional, purely one sided unreliable left footer.

And a few more...

A few of the newer players (please don’t ask me to identify all of them... I’m hopeless). Note that these were all taken by my son Liam...

We improved in 2017 and all expect bigger improvement in 2018. Dwelling on what has happened is nothing but unproductive. The 'hype' is the negative media believers who have no inner knowledge of the club and don't go to training but accept whatever rubbish the media whip up as being a true reflection of where the club is at. If you seriously think that any Melbourne supporter doesn't want the club to be successful, or that the players aren't aware of what's required by the FD, god help you.

We could win the GF and there’d still be the usual suspects on here complaining because we didn’t win by 10 goals.

I sense a theme, and it’s already getting tired after just two posts.

Bugg looked very good all session... he won the time trial yes, but on the final lap he was huffing and puffing while both TMac and ANB appeared to have a lot left in the tank. Bugg’s kicking is looking very sharp as well... I get the feeling he’s working hard to make up for last year’s transgression. Others who looked very sharp were Salem, Hogan, ANB, TMac, Oliver. OMac is looking very fit and seems to have built up his body. JKH is also looking very fit and is moving well. Petracca, Jones and Kent were all in rehab, but looking like they could be ready to participate with the main group... although Kent really doesn’t appear to have his heart in it... to my mind at least. Can’t recall all of those in the rehab group, but Weeds, Tim and Joel Smith, Maynard, Viney and Balic were all there. Saw VDB, who did not participate and did appear to be in some discomfort walking across the ground. My son took lots of photos today and I will provide a link to the album in my Facebook account once I’ve had a chance to get them off the camera and edited.

According to MFC twitter Tom Bugg just won the 2km time trial, followed by Tmac then ANB.

Fixed

Don't forget how effective and unexpectedly creative/lethal young Melksham (again from the Dons) has become - and fairly consistently across a season, too.

Hmmm foot injuries (load bearing)..... concerned.... yes

petty ˈpɛti/ adjective of little importance; trivial. "the petty divisions of party politics" synonyms: trivial, trifling, minor, small, slight, unimportant, insignificant, inessential, inconsequential, inconsiderable, negligible, paltry, footling, fiddling, niggling, pettifogging, nugatory, of little account; More of secondary or lesser importance, rank, or scale; minor. "a petty official" 3. this thread.

As Planning Minister, Madden oversaw development deals done by Paul Salmon as well

Ok, as promised in my first post, here’s a link to my photos on Facebook... https://www.facebook.com/tim.fleming.75/media_set?set=a.1576469562388321.1073741959.100000758763064&type=3

BrisbaneDemonFan....... the following article gives the times: http://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/2017-12-14/club-cancels-prechristmas-camp " Melbourne will travel to Maroochydore for its usual pre-season camp between January 29 and February 5."

Depends if the players want to do it on this day

Most people are happy to put the boots into the ABC (Television and Wireless), but if it ever goes completely, then I guarantee within hours it will be missed. Try to imagine a Journalism standard akin to “Today Tonight” or “FOX News” as the ONLY News Source.... Kill me now