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hi all, Deakin Pereira is my son. He stands around the 201 cm mark. He has just turned 17 in september. He takes a size 18 shoe. He has not touched a footy for nearly one and a half years. We were blessed to come to Train with Melbourne for 3 days and Deakin really enjoyed it. He is a basketballer and there have been numerous offers to play bball in the US. At present we are waiting on offers to go to a prep school in the USA. Deakin really enjoyed the challenge at Melbourne and time will tell if he sways back to AFL. the above photo is not him.

Thanks, some of the best inside of the club video ( both parts ) I have had the pleasure to view.

Well bugger me. I always read the 'St' as Saint, like in St Kilda.

I still expect him to be named in the AA side.

On our recruits " Luke Jackson, a handy ruckman who can kick goals, Kossie Pickett, a nippy player who can also kick goals and Trent Rivers." Look out for Kossie Trent!

How’s the cheese platter at the end lol

I'd ban him again for assuming we are all old and suffering from memory loss. In fact i'd ban him again for assuming we are all old and suffering from memory loss!

I must be one of the ones who is 'truly stupid'. Last I checked Weid is a 22 yr old developing key forward who has had a fairly injury interrupted career so far. Talls always take longer to develop as we all know. Assuming the club has little to know faith in young Weid does seem a little rash don't you think? We lost Hogan who left a fairly sizable hole in our key forward stocks. We struggled for depth at the position last year (predominately due to injury) hence why Petty was swung forward. I think its more about adding to forward depth. We no longer have guys like Tim Smith and Keilty so adding the likes of Mitch Brown, Jackson and the potential of others makes sense for insurance sake doesn't it? I apologise if in fact you have inside knowledge that the club does indeed have little to no faith that Weid will work out.

Don’t come knocking on my door

Which other club has a social club? They don't make money and fans don't live in 1 suburb any more like the 1960's. WE need a training base. Gosch's was unusable for 6 weeks last year. But you are right about a financial plan of being successful outcomes on the field. Half the sides in the competition fail every year! You need off-field income for those times.....

He has a shock coming his way.

Because it wouldn't be anything to do with the departure of Pedersen, Hogan and T.Smith over the last couple of years and the injury worries for TMac... But yeah, they probs re-contracted Weid due to that lack of faith.

I don't know that there would be too many on here that wouldn't have loved the option of being able to "retire" when they were 30 - so all credit and best wishes to him. Interesting to read where it took many years before it all clicked and he became a good player - 7 years it took before his first AA selection. The description of his early years sounds almost like they could be describing OMAC. We can only hope OMAC turns out half as good.

It is called having multiple choices and depth.

Why.? Tom McDonald #25 Age: 27yr 3mth Games: 161 Born Sept 18, 1992. , and possible with foot/ankle issues. Its lets say 3 Yrs out from T MCd's fading last years. Now would be the perfect time to grab another key forward, with the view to hopefully replace one of our key tall forwards, after the new boys have grown into the bodies and games. Peak years has to be between 24 and 29Yrs of age, surely . Tommy is well into his years as a footballer now. As is Maxy Gaawn. And this years draft was light on for Key tall players. I don't think its a reflection on Weide, at all. But his time as a newbie, has ended & imo, 2020 he has to start to provide the team with opportunities.

and does the interest in robertson indicate we have no faith in oliver, brayshaw, or viney as inside mids? yr pulling at straws to pot a player you don't like

Im just holding my breath waiting for the rule change that says "All alleged acts will be treated equally by the MRO and AFL Tribunal; regardless of player profile and/or impact on finals matches"

Actually disgusting listening to the commentators defend him " it so uncharacteristic" "that just a man who's tried he's hardest and its boiled over" what a cop out. If Bugg had done it they'd be calling for criminal charges. Rance. Good player but [censored] of a bloke.

Thanks for that. One of my favourite pastimes is reading about midportion Achilles tendinopathy and this has just made my day.

Go behind closed doors ...

Deakin is a better name than RMIT, Skuit. You've been out of the country too long! ?

Agree. And it is exactly the sort of interesting, diverse content the club should be producing. Not expensive either.

People can wax lyrical all they like about him, he's broken his contract and sold his club up the river. If there was even an inkling this was going to happen, why didn't he take a shorter contract ?

Georgiadis is a very strong boy with an interupted year, but a competitor. What I take from Taylor's interest in Robertson, Rivers and Georgiadis along with the two first Rounders in LJ and Kossie is a leaning towards competitors who offer some physicality. Long term and when September is something we hopefully see regularly that's very important I agree with Taylor that Robertson is a born leader and will prove recruiters wrong

Massive unit Mark. Had a beer with him once, many moon ago. It was like drinking with a wheat silo. Huge human

well said.... time to break the model... How I'm not sure.... but it's the real discussion

Absolutely loving the journey this thread is going on. I've never ever resorted to Dr Google so many times in a 2 page thread.

Hope there is a part 2.

Burgess and a couple of the guys who have arrived with him have experience with other sports, particularly soccer, where the issue Bennell has occurs more often I think one of the reasons Bennell chose us is because of this, he had at least 4 other offers on the table I wander around to rehab every time he appears, after any drill, there is also a lot of discussion, before moving onto the next bit, assume he wouldn't be allowed to progress if there was any discomfort They do know what they are doing

This could be his new career. After all he was the master flopper on the field.

I hate him even more after seeing this picture.

What an amazing raw insight into how it's all done. The big thing I took out of that was our interest in Mitch Geogiages. Well done to the Melbourne media team.

The diagnosis in the article posted by Webber doesn't indicate calf tearing soleus muscle injury and associated scar tissue. It's suggesting friction induced inflammatory tendinopathy which sounds quite different. I'm not sure you can draw a line between Bennell's prognosis and "standard" repeated calf tears.

The lord giveth, and the lord taketh away... Religion really is a waste of brain power and logic. *Ducks for cover*

From what I have seen at training, if we have a small forward or 2 for Rd 1, we have Chandler, C Wagner, Bedford and Pickett competing for the same spot, it is hard to judge Pickett as he has been pulled out of the full match sim, more often than he has been in it, Xfactor at junior level is not easily replicated at AFL level, but he shows flashes To have 4 when we have struggled in that position lately, can only be a good thing Same as the medium size, Melksham and Fritsch look a lock but Hunt is making every post a winner as well upto now and we have to fit ,Trac, ANB and Jones (according to Goody) up there as well Think it will come down to the pre season games Jordon and Sparrow are developing nicely but with Viney, Brayshaw, Oliver etc all looking like they will be fit, it wil take something exceptional to force their way in Lockhart is being developed as a small defender, obviously as cover for Nev, but to give hime some competition as well Dunkley is being groomed as a winger, obviously with the cloud over Tomlinson at the moment, there is a spot, he is one of the natural footballers we have on the list Petty is going to be a star, knocking a fully fit May off the line of the ball to take an uncontested mark, in your first match sim after rehab, is a good start Forgot AVB as well, if they all stay fit, Casey is going to have quite a team

Maybe he'll go into writing full time. His two books to date have been big hits with 5 - 8 year old's and adult Richmond fans.

Nope, mining is increasing every single day. China and a rising India will see to it that mining of all sorts will survive LONG into the future. Synthetic technology will still requires all sorts of exotic things to be dug up as nothing can be made without involvement of things that came from the ground.. Unless you want the world living like cave-dwelling hunter-gatherers, mining stays well into the future.

Apologies for not contributing earlier, I've been having Optus internet issues and have had to revert to emergency Telstra dongle ( don't understand why, but I always feel a little dirty when I say that). I got down there today before any of the players appeared and spied a relatively young looking fella taking the shade under a tree at the City end. Turned out to be George on the Outer. Pretty much stayed in the same posi. till around 11 when most of the action dried up. During that time most of the brains trust turned up in Whispering, Urban Legend BB and D'land himself. Good banter and opinion ensued during this time and I'm happy to report we are all a bit bullish for the year ahead. I think we all agreed that while we temper our expectations, as it is preseason, observing training at the moment has way more positives than negatives. I don't intend to revisit what other posters have said other than to agree with their comments. The one thing I can add is that I stayed until the last player and coach departed. The last player was Petty and the last coach - Stafford. At the end of the session JJ, Chandler, Viney, Clarey and Petty spent 15 to 20 mins on goal kicking. In the end Stafford was working one on one with Petty on his run up. It appeared Stafford had identified a flaw where Petty was making contact with the ball either to early or to late. For any of the other training watchers; I would be interested in future obs regarding A/ this as on ongoing coaching with other players and B/ any observable improvements in individual performance in this area. I should have also mentioned I watched Langdon a fair amount and thought his disposal was much better today than on Monday. I also saw him celebrate this a few times to the amusement of his teammates. This shows he is very aware of his deficiencies and is working on them

I think he's training solidly. He's clunking a few marks and he's being spoiled a few times. He's being covered by Lever, May and OMac so it's reasonable competition. If you're glass half empty you'd criticize him and if you're glass half full you'd be happy with him. He's getting his first real run at preseason this year. He'll have some pretty solid help in the forward line with TMac, Fritta and Trac all very capable overhead. The focus of the oppositon will be elsewhere initially I'd have thought. He'll also have some quality smalls at his feet with luck and his job on a lot of occasions will just be to get the ball to ground. His kicking for goal today was fantastic as he slotted one from tight on the boundary and another from a fair way out. He's getting the ball in match sim regularly without dominating but like all forwards he relies on the delivery at least giving him some chance. Given your view there's nothing there to change it, I'm of the opposite view and happy with what I've seen.

His name is Deakyn Smith. He is 179cm tall and weighs about 76kg. He's definitely one to watch next year. Played sorta around half back wing and is quite clean with his skills and ball use but also shows a bit of dash. Played 8 games for Dandenong Stingrays and averaged 10.8 disposals per game. Hope he can improve on that.

Under a lot of pressure to get this report in from the top...... Well, you would have already seen the reports of who wasn't there today, but make what you may of that. Perhaps an early Christmas, perhaps players on individual programmes, but the stalwarts of the track-watching crew were out there again....rain, hail, shine or in the case of today extreme heat. Even BB is now out of rehab! and we recruited dworship to the team before he disappears back to Ballarat. Naturally, those players who braved the conditions were out on the track a good 45 minutes before the advertised time, but who would blame them? Compared to previous sessions, this was a "light one". Still not unexpected given the temperature, and not every session needs to be as physically gruelling, so that the bodies can recover, and also to avoid injury. BB has given a good run-down on the goings on on the field, so I will only add a couple of observations: Once again Pickett really caught my eye. That's because you have to keep an eye on him before he disappears from view. Dworship made the comment that he has a "turbo button" to go with his normal quick coverage of the ground, which is very reminiscent of a previous owner of the number 36 jumper. Just when opposition players think they can or have avoided him, suddenly he is back for more. The other beautiful sight is his ability to get into space, with his opponent trailing by 10m having been burnt off. In one passage of play he contested for a mark, but it hit the ground and his opponent gathered the ball....until KP tackled him straight away, then sprung up to receive the handball from his team-mate who had gathered the ball. Not just one effort but 3 in succession! Keep and eye out for him, because surely he will be playing very soon. Everyone is watching Jackson, not unexpectedly, but again there was one passage that just makes the watchers ooh and aah!. Flying for a pack mark in the forward line, he decided not to grab it, because he was slightly off line. Instead he leapt up, leaned in and tapped the ball back over his head, but before it had hit the ground, he had recovered it and waltzed into the open goal. The others in the pack were still sprawled on the ground. ......oooh .......aaah! One for DazzleDavey, or one of the juniors observers to have some input.......there was a 17 year old kid, built like the proverbial who participated in a lot of the drills. Apparently one of the Next Generation academy, name of Deakin? Any info on him, because he certainly has the body already for the game, and in his brief outing also has all the basics. So while there is a closed session tomorrow, sometime, somewhere, that is it until the New Year. The overriding message is the numbers which we have on the track at this time of the year, and the obviously higher levels of fitness that come about from having those bodies on the ground. Very few in the rehab group and even then , they cannot be far away. Jones and Tomlinson already have the core strength and miles in their legs from their careers already, so it is just a case of getting them out there to participate with the group.

The Paddo, good old pub was 1070m from my front door until I moved house

I'd be offended if I was Richo listening to that! "Really enjoying working with the coaching group - very young and dynamic, with the exception of Richo" Is he a fossil or not dynamic, or both? But gees, he speaks well, doesn't he. I reckon we're in good hands.

And even if not at his best (which was evident) he is going to learn a lot more about playing AFL football by actually playing it. As opposed to being put on ice. Fitness wise playing is probably a better option for him then sitting out. And potentially better for his mental health. And if he was injured (which I have little doubt about) and playing was not going to exacerbate that injury gus at 70 - 80% fitness is a much better option than any alternative we could have mustered up.

Hes put in a solid couple of weeks training. He should head back to WA for the holidays and let his hair down. Hit the bars and clubs and show them your still king of Perth, Harley!

They say penicillin cures Sisyphus these days. Anyway, the stories of Syphilis flying too close to the sun are apocryphal.

Chatted to Deakin's dad, 6ft 8in in the old money, Dad didn't do decimal and 98kg, turned 17 in Sep, club snapped him up as Academy Elite basketballer as well, has American college offers coming at him daily Another note Harley Bennell came out did a bit of running and then kick to kick with Crossy, both left and right, moving progressively backwards until about 40 metres away, Croosy hardly moved to mark the ball

If fit Tomlinson is best 22 without a doubt, he was brought in fir a specific purpose (like Langdon). If we get a blessed run of injuries like what the Lions got last year and the Tigers in their 2017 premiership year, we will be seriously competitive. Luck is an intangible quality that can't be underestimated.

The second poster in the off season to suggest Melksham isn't good enough to make the best 22. Unless you guys are predicting a sudden downturn in form next year, Melksham would be one of the first picked. Infact, I'd go as far to say Melksham is the best kick at the club. Seen those inside 50 bullets he's capable of and the classy goals he kicks. We sorely missed him last year as we slumped to a 2-8 record without him.