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Sigmund Freud you ain’t

Yep, Roos had this crazy idea that he was a back not a forward. He sooked up at being made to play in defence by Roos. Bucks offered him a spot in the forward line... How did that work out? Now Bucks is a genius coach for playing him back. Go figure....

He was my favourite Demon player, as evidenced by the 1313 no. in my bio, so I wish him well. I won't try and second guess what his issues are, but once again I applaud the club on making the trading decision they did. If you've doubted some of Goody's decisions I suggest you start having some faith.

I can understand Dunn, he was our vice captain at one stage. But Howe?! Good lord the guy is a full on simpleton bogan who i put in the same category as James Frawley as not much going up stairs.

Care factor = zero. pTGR.

From a supporter point of view, we as a club clearly knew what we were doing when we traded him. No doubt about it. The same goes for Watts being traded the previous season. On a personal level, I feel sorry for him. As a few above have mentioned, he has been through a bucket load of stuff that not many people go through at his age, and he's had to do it in the limelight of being an AFL footballer. I hope he is able to pull through and just be happy with being Jesse Hogan the person, not Jesse Hogan the AFL footballer.

So [censored] [censored] off Joel Smith is potentially going to miss this game due to our medical or coaching staff leaving him out there for the rest of the game only to aggravate it even more. I would be absolutely filthy if i was Joel [censored] poor management.

It's a bit rich to say his private life should be private when he posts it on social media for all to see.

Goody won me over completely the moment he shipped Watts out. Funny enough there are still people on here who still think that was a poor decision...... crazy huh... This is another decision Goody has a huge tick next to his name. Which in a way is a bit sad because i too was a huge fan of Hoges. But we are far better off and i am quite excited about what May and KK will bring to this club.

Back home with all his dropkick mates who aren’t professional footballers encouraging him to get on the p*ss.....for a guy with mental health issues probably not the best environment

I wouldn't have Smith starting even if he were fit. Our forward line would be too tall with tmac, weideman, petracca already down there. We need to be able to retain the ball in our forward line rather than see it rebound straight out.

So he's primed for the start of the season. ?

It’s interesting to note that our forward line used to consist of Hogan, Jurrah and Clarke, who we all thought were world beaters. Just goes to show it takes a lot more than natural talent to succeed.

Why are you confused, it is obvious Collingwood don't have enough players with leadership quality, they are scraping the barrel a bit with Howe but who cares anyway.

They’ve been gone for years, people mature. Good on them.

Love watching Max play, a wonderful leader at the club. well done Max, keep up the great work

Howe was offered unders by Collingwood (the club he grew up supporting) for around $300k at the time. He took it on the premise that he would play a forward role as he hated playing in the backline for Melbourne. Halfway through his first season Howe is played in the backline for the Pies and it's a revelation to the Media. Dunn was going through a lot of personal troubles at the time and that was affecting his decision making on the field and in training. He left because he didn't agree with Roos strategies in Defence and felt like he wasn't given the freedom to take the game on. Dunn pushed the limits of Roos mantra and was given the boot. Congrats to them both on their achievements. Well deserved.

I feel like this has all been discussed before to death.

Sam is a fantastic young man , had plenty of chats with him and even at the player sponsorship a week or so ago he seems very happy at melbourne and cant see him leaving once he gets this new deal done .... Very easy to talk too and very open , very much like Steven May, quite forth coming.

ANB is an integral member of the side, but I can see why people on here get frustrated by him. He fumbles too much, turns the ball over at times and can look a little bit like a deer in headlights. On the flip side, his running capacity allows him to play a good link up role, and he knows how to kick a goal, as evidenced by the 27 goals he jagged last year. When he's on, he can do some really good things. He just needs to clean up his game a little.

I'm not quite sure why a player who played every game last year, was 36th in goal kicking, equal 24th in score involvements (equal with Brayshaw) and equal 10th in goal assists for the whole competition isn't considered to be one of the "automatics"...at least until someone better comes along (which you'd say for everyone selected as an "automatic"). Alex Neal-Bullen clearly needs a new PR agent.

It did seem a poor decision, but let's not pretend Joel Smith is an irreplaceable player. He's far from that.

Well said. Also sometimes the attributes that drive success are not necessarily very nice ones. The single minded drive and selfishness that drives top sportsmen and individuals across all fields in society does not always make them nice people.

Here we go keyboards at the ready amateur psychologists, kings of hindsight, third hand news [censored] me

This is not necesssarily aimed at Hogan as we don't exactly what is going on with him but the sporting landscape is littered with supremely talented juniors who fail to transition to a professional sport. There is a drive that is needed to get to the top of sport. Some juniors coast along being better than their peers without putting on a huge amount of effort. Raw talent gets you there as a junior in a lot of sports but they don't have the drive or burning desire. I would put Watts in that category, like Sylvia. Great talent but inability to transition to a professional sport to excel. Plenty of others have less talent but a burning desire. I'd take the second guy every time and I think the Dees are getting better at choosing which players have a better chance of making it.

what a sad situation. I am not suprised at all, considering what he went through last year. The photo of him at the nightclub before Christmas told me enough I hope Jesse gets his life together. I don’t think he wanted to leave the MFC, but he had to go home Good luck Mate...

Matt Burgan's departure from the club has been noticeable in the lack of articles and the reduced quality of articles coming from the club this preseason. I think his departure has probably hurt the club's PR a bit more than they realise.

Just give us your best that you've shown some time in the last few years: Gawn, Viney, Harmes, Melksham, Jetta, Hibberd, T-Mac Don't drop off: Lewis, Jones Is there another gear?: Oliver, Brayshaw Definitely still have more: Salem, Petracca Yet to see it at MFC: May, Lever If not injured: Vanders In terms of big improvers: Prove me wrong: ANB, Oscar, Frost - all 3 have played a lot of AFL footy but can they really stand up under pressure? Can improve: Fritsch, Weideman - both set the bar high with some of their games the last couple of years, consistency will be important Hoping he's good: KK Watch and see: J Smith, C Wagner, Hore, Lockhart, T Smith, Preuss, Stretch, Hunt, Keilty Not a lot of confidence: J Wagner, JKH, Maynard, Garlett Everyone else is pretty young and might have some up and downs. Spargo should play a bit but I'd expect a standard 2nd season where he's a bit up and down. Petty and Baker both have a chance to play based on their VFL form last year. Chandler maybe the most likely of the 18 year olds this year. The watch and see group are really our depth players. Every week some in that group will probably have to play. I think the club were hoping J Smith and Hunt had great preseasons and that Hore was a ready made AFL player. I'm not so convinced of any of that. If I had to pick 2 guys to make a difference out of that group I'd probably go Lockhart and T Smith. A couple of deep on the list finds would be wonderful, although maybe the best thing might be Oliver and Brayshaw going up another level and Salem and Petracca showing their full range of talents. Throw in Fritsch and KK settling in to positions and demonstrating their skills because I'm greedy!

Vanders is an automatic selection, he just needs his body to jump out of the ruck as you put it and stay fit for a whole season. Was instrumental in our late season surge. Some were suggesting before he played "what if he makes it back, he could be our finals X factor" and beyond expectations - he did.

Fritsch is a gun, hes automatic selection for mine. Never seems to play a bad game and can play all over the ground.

Howe didn't care about the club. He put in about as much effort as Jack Watts did. The fact he puts in a lot more effort now hes at the filth says more about him than the MFC. Hes no Jones, Gawn or Viney, thats for sure. Good riddance.

Agreed. A number of years ago people would've laughed at the thought of Gawn in a leadership position. Remember the $cully China yawn?

I've always been the first to criticise our form during JLT, but you're completely wrong. We lost JLT one by a few points against a pretty much full-strength Richmond side and how many important players did we have out? We performed well given the outs we had and most of our first half was outstanding. Against Brisbane, we lowered our colours and I agree that overall we were poor in a number of areas. Individually we had some players who stank it up also. What's important to remember however is that JLT is the only time in which coaches experiment with set-plays, team structure and positional changes. How much of that unsettled us and influenced the result? We don't know. What we do know is that Port's JLT form has hardly been awe inspiring and they'll be missing a big part of their core and are traveling to the G to play against us. Why some of our supporters still have this scaredy-cat syndrome I have no idea. As a club, we need to move past this way of thinking. Players and supporters alike. We should beat Port by no less than 30 points on Saturday if we play the way that Goody and the team consistently preach. Ruthlessness should be the cringe word for us this year.

Surprised he didn't pick himself to win the Norm Smith

Already showed enough in the finals, and should only get better as he gets older. We wont have to rely on him solely as TMac is the No. 1 forward. Joel Smith kicked the most goals out of anyone in the whole competition in the JLT and could be a revelation up forward. The Hunt experiment also looks promising, and guys like Melksham and Petracca always chime on for a couple. I think our forward line has the potential to go to another level this year.

I see this as him predicting that we wont change those things he has said. He's saying that if we do, we can win the flag, but he's predicting that we wont. Given our record over the past 3+ decades, I dont blame him for thinking that way. We dont know what success is, and we often think we've done enough before the real hard work starts.

I think we may have drafted some sort of Benjamin Button. According to Knightmare (see above) on 14 June 2017 he was 183 cm tall. According to Mad As Hell on 2 October 2018 (in the Jay Lockhart thread started last year), he's 177 cm. If he keeps shrinking at this speed he'll change sports and become a jockey before the Spring Racing Carnival. Some confirmed height and weight numbers would be appreciated.

Petracca and Melksham are good contested players and good overhead. If he really wanted a third tall he could play Fritsch forward. We have enough versatlity to cover a player of Smith's standing.

Tad cynical STMJ, I understand some supporters concerns going into this game. Jones, Viney and Melksham underdone, cloud over Harmes. Underwhelming pre-season from some key players, I still have massive concerns about the way we deliver the ball inside 50, just seems as though we get it in straight to contests that easily turn into 2 on 1's and the ball quickly goes the other way. I also have reservations about the way our forward line will function generally. What i'd really like to see is if opposition teams get a run on, say 1, 2, 3 quick goals, how we react to this, by slowing the game down, playing possession football, having a feel for the game, as opposed to routinely following the same game plan. Anyway it will be an interesting test first off, Port may be missing a few key players, however they'll be debuting several talented and earnest youngsters like Drew, Butters and Duursma. Still think this a danger game if we go in expecting to do it easy.

Stop it my PTSD is flaring up

I'm not sure. But I think after every loss, particularly in the first half of the year, we'll hear "Hogan would have helped" and every time we win we'll hear "This shows why we didn't need Hogan"

If that were true I would not have supported the Dees for the last half century!

Also, losing games to teams like Port at our home is infact a big deal. I don't know why some don't think it is. Last year should have proved that to all. We travelled to West Coast and got smacked in a prelim and we were one win away from finishing top four and avoiding that disastrous day. And who knows what would have happened had we taken Hawthorn's place and played Richmond at the G first week of the finals. We should be absolutely taking care of teams like Port at our home ground. [censored].

It's remarkable how little info there has been about that session, particularly given it was supposedly a full scale low practice match and was at a known venue

The game for Jimmy was 2012, I didn’t have any expectations that season however 2013 was different. I thought we were a chance to beat Port and go on to have a decent season. We all know what happened from there. We’ll get them back this Saturday. I can smell a thumping in the air.

I disagree with the premise that Weideman is the 'new Hogan'. If anything, McDoanld will be playing a role more similar to what Hogan has played in the past, in addition to be our main-man up forward; T-Mac is the new Hogan. Weideman will be a player who anchors our forward line and straightens up our forward entries. I don't think his success this year can be measured in individual goals, but rather his role in the functioning forward half. (With that said, 2 goals per game would be a massive return from a very young KPF.)

Melbourne could be as good as anyone, but first and foremost it has to get over itself. Melbourne fails to know how to get the foot to the throat and press down hard. The Demons release the pressure too soon and play like millionaires. This needs to stop. Malthouse makes the leap that every other simple-minded shouty sports fan reaches for when a talented team performs below expectations, discounting maturity-levels, experience, etc: it must be arrogance. From every thing that I've ever read about or heard said from Goodwin, he continually imparts the need for humility. I think there is no other cliche than the bathwater one that gets my back up nowadays. That said, and moving past the 'millionaire's' swipe, Malthouse is correct that we've had an issue with putting the foot down in the past. There was the 'failure to crush' teams thread on here the year before last - and in that year, when we played Port after the bye, it was reported that their players were super-confident at the break despite us having completely smothered them in the first half. It shows that there's an issue, at least of perception. We made some in-roads last year against the weaker teams. But still, while my recollection remains that we completely destroyed Geelong and Hawthorn in each of our finals, two of the highlights from the season were us closing them out after tense moments late in both matches. They were both given a sniff despite our dominance. That will need to change, and is the important next step for the coming season. It's an issue of maturity. And we rely on intensity - rather than playing like millionaires, we get out in front and then don't know what to do when the intensity drops, playing less direct and dinking it around until the inevitable turn-over leads to easy goals out the back and the pressure comes back on. We need to learn more tricks in scoring from structured play, and how to control the tempo without losing our intent. That also comes with maturity.

Furthermore, if we had have beaten Geelong and Hawthorn like we should have during the home and away season, then we probably wouldn't have even played them in finals. Geelong wouldn't have made the top 8 and Hawthorn wouldn't have made the top 4 and probably would have been bundled out in the fist week, whilst we would have benifited from having finished top 4. Our performances last year were quite understandable for a youngish side making it's way and establishing experience in big games and establishing beleif in themselves. Looking for us to be that next step further along in our development this year, to start off where we left off towards the end of last year, but to be solid as rock, ruthless, and professionally/mechanically asert our dominance on the competition. I think this is the Goodwin way and hoping it will become know as the Melbourne way sooner rather than later.

I agree. If we don't call it the ''Malthouse Theory''. Players missing from their 2018 best 22: Wingard, Polec, Wines, Hartlett (only played 5 games) and Dixon. With a big query over Ryder. This is a game we shouldn't be dropping at the G.

I have to laugh as he hasn't played a game yet with us & you've already crucified him...... Games played & B & F's have everything to do with it.....recognised by his piers & coaches, especially at a young age & shows durability, determination & obvious talent....in my opinion. Maybe just give the kid a go first before you criticise him......