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As most of you will know I attended many of Melbourne's training sessions at Gosch's before we moved to Casey as a result of Covid. My main interest was the rehab group, I always like to see who's in rehab and how they are progressing and as a result I watched Harley on many occasions. I'll confess to being hard line when it comes to a failure of individual responsibilities and whilst I welcomed Harley's presence because I thought he had exactly the skills we needed I wasn't sold on him as a person for obvious reasons. But since then a couple of things have happened. The first was reading the story in The Australian of the racism Eddie Betts has suffered over the journey in which things happened that I found hard to believe. It made me appreciate the racism indigenous people suffer in this country. The second was getting to know Harley in a very minor way. He didn't talk to "track watchers" but because I was always near the rehab group he came to recognize me after a while. I'd say hello and he'd just smile, perhaps say a few words, but that was more than many got. I'd watch him casually grab a footy and from the boundary slot a banana goal so easily it seemed surreal. One day he decided that doing this was too easy so he made the shot more difficult and slotted it again. I was open mouthed and he looked at me and had a huge smile on his face. I said to him "it's like hitting a great drive, it never gets stale" and he laughed. For all that has happened what Harley had was a type of quiet charisma. The players clearly loved him and I really liked him to the point he became my favourite player. I didn't really understand why he was but he just was. What has happened is terribly sad but Harley is a product of his upbringing and his past. I'm proud we gave him a chance, sad it failed and wish him all the best for the future. Thanks Harley and thanks for showing me repeatedly the extraordinary skills you have first hand. I'd not have believed them if I hadn't seen them. I hope you find happiness.

OK. Viney does multiple roles, and it varied depending on who is in the centre with him. Here is one against St Kilda, without Oliver. It's Viney, Brayshaw and Petracca. This is set up for Petracca to have the who far side open to him. Viney blocks out Steele, Brayshaw gets inside Jones to block and Petracca beats Ross and gets to the far side with space. This is shown below: Unfortunately the play breaks down because Brayshaw can't get inside Jones to block him out, so Jones gets the ball before it gets to Petracca. Viney, on the other hand, gets Steele out of position and is therefor a non-factor in the stoppage. This is shown below. I show this as an example of how important these roles are in stoppages. Here is another, with the play designed for Oliver. Oliver is to beat Shiel to the tap to the far side, with Viney blocking out Merrett to create space and Melksham playing purely defensively on Stringer (near side). Essentially: Merrett give Viney the slip early, which puts the play in jeopardy. But Viney is able to recover to win body position to push Merrett into the contest, which keeps the play alive. Oliver gets a little hold from Shiel, but because Viney has done his job so well on Merrett he's now clear and able to recover the ball to win the clearance. Around the ground, Viney does the same on good players. Here the tap is for Oliver, with Crouch defending him. Brayshaw blocks the inside exit and AVB the defensive exit (we're kicking left). Viney is trusted one on one with their best player, Rory Laird. Viney beats Laird for position and, when there's no effective tap from either Gawn or O'Reilly, Viney is able to win the clearance off the back of his good defensive body work. Now he's one with Petracca on Laird and Brayshaw on Crouch. It's a weird one because the play breaks down with a dodgy bounce. The tap ends up going forwards to no-man's land. But the important thing is the defence at the stoppage. Crouch edges Brayshaw off the ball and Petracca is lost with the clever Laird, but Viney recovers really quickly from the odd tap and gets himself between the ball and Keays, who isn't able to have any influence on the play. The first possession is won by Crouch and the clearance by Laird. It's a comfortable clearance in the end and Laird wanders through untouched. Keays is shut out quickly by Viney. Brayshaw and Petracca are non-entities once beaten, but Viney is able to do his role so consistently. This happens over and over again. Viney is able to kill opposition clearances and also win his own off the back of this. He doesn't have the play designed for him as often as the attacking mids, but he can do it well if there is another defensive midfielder in the stoppage. For example, this stoppage involves Vandenberg. Viney is on Shiel (left) whilst AVB is blocking Merrett and Oliver is being defended. Shiel is the opposition's best midfielder, but Viney is so good at winning the body battle in stoppages that the play can confidently predict he wins body position for the surprise attack. Oliver's man only has eyes for him, so Oliver just has to stay out of the way of Viney, whilst AVB just blocks Merrett away. The tap goes to the far side, which is easy to do when the opposition has Stewart in the ruck. It's an easy clearance in the end because of a terrible setup by Essendon. But the whole play depends on Viney winning body position, which he does. Usually he does it defensively for other players, but he can do it himself so reliably that sometimes they design plays for it. He has the quality to play both attacking and defensive. The defensive midfielder is under-appreciated. Brayshaw has been given this responsibility at times, but he just doesn't do it to the level of Viney. You can see that, since Brayshaw went down late in the year, Melksham has been sent into the middle to play defensively. Oliver can do it at times, but he's a target man more often than not whilst Viney creates the space he can use. When Petracca is in there the ball is almost always going to him. Oliver is a rounded midfield but he doesn't play as a defensively minded stoppage midfielder like Viney. Viney is so important because he's so much better than the next best player in his role (Brayshaw, AVB and Melksham), and one of the best at it in the league. Plus, on top of that, he can be used offensively when required. There's a reason why a range of coaches love him every single year, but his style means that it doesn't always get its way on to the stats sheet.

An interested party must have sold him on getting first ruck minutes.

Post of the year, Bob. What an absolute ripper.

Part of me can’t help but wonder how things would’ve gone had COVID not happened. He came to MELBOURNE, not just the team but the city for a fresh start with his family. Instead he ended up back in Queensland where everything started turning, in a hub with people he has known for less than a year, and without a second tier league for the club to properly reintroduce him back to footy with. None of these are excuses, as a footy club I really think we did everything we could to help him and regardless of what has transpired and will happen in the future I still think we have been a positive impact on him. He was a free hit, we got his body working again but the mind is a harder prospect particularly when it comes to things like depression and substance/alcohol addiction. I’m absolutely gutted that it hasn’t worked, I think the demon faithful would’ve fallen in love with watching him at the G. This is on Harley and now that footy hasn’t worked he needs to knuckle down and sort his s*** out not just for himself but for his partner and kid(s). Well done to the club, good luck to Harley.

Luke Jackson is already better than Wright. We don't need him.

I'm very proud of the efforts of the club in all of this. Well done to the Footy Dept in backing itself in, it didn't work out but so be it. From the above it looks like that was solely on Harley, not the work put in by the club. Best of luck for the future Harley, I hope you find a positive and happy future for yourself and your family.

My information is that the incident may have been salvageable from another contract point of view.. but its the way he has handled it after, refusing to take the calls or discuss anything with the club.. its not so much the incident, its the way he has handled it that has really made it straight forward decision. The club is disappointed that after all the efforts they have put into him, he has not had the respect to discuss with the club and apologise and show any remorse.. especially after what was promised at the start of the year. Just a bit of a mess sadly, and the club has done everything right, in the end, this will be because of Harley and no one else.

This is closest I could find:

Still to this day one of the most bizarre recruitments we've had...

@Axis of Bob's post is exceptional work. Contrary to what some think, it isn't just a cover for "Viney is a flawless midfielder". As other stats AoB's posted show, Viney turns it over a lot. But none of our midfielders are flawless. Some of Oliver's clanger kicks this year were just absolutely terrible. But we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater on Oliver because there are so many other things he does that are vital to our success. This is the same argument for Viney. The difference is, unlike Oliver, most of us don't notice Viney's positive impact on the side live. So you just see the turnovers or the free kicks against for holding the ball. With Oliver, you see the clearances, quick handballs, etc. and you walk away from the game having seen how the positives outweigh the negatives. AoB has given everyone the opportunity to reflect on their views on Viney and his role within the side. Some, like @A F, are genuinely taking that opportunity to reflect. Others are, clearly, not.

It's really hard to pick up in real time unless you already know what's going to happen. I certainly wasn't able to do it and I previously thought exactly the same way as you did (basically all the way up until the B&F results came out). I just figured that Viney was the weak link and we probably would finction better without him. But then, once I actually looked closely, I realised that I was just completely wrong! I think you need to go over the footage a few times before you can see what's happening because there's so much going on in real time and your eyes get drawn to the footy. I guess I needed to do something 'productive' during lockdown! ?

I wholeheartedly agree. I'm as guilty as anyone. Yeah, just a few things. I don't have the figures but I'd suggest we are a very good centre bounce team and probably an average/below average general stoppage team. I think, generally, we set up our clearances primarily to not get scored against. We will often concede an extra number in the stoppage whilst our extra number is a fair way off the back of the stoppage. I think this is primarily because we don't mind conceding the territory as long as we don't concede scores, however this does usually result in 3 midfielders fighting for a clearance against 4 or 5. Also, I think Gawn's tap value is often overstated and we actually often look better when Jackson is rucking in stoppages around the ground, because he was able to even up the midfielder numbers around the ball whilst still allowing us to play an extra number off the back of the contest. I would like to see our scores from stoppage vs scores conceded from stoppage. I'd say we're probably right near the top (although that's just an educated guess) of that. They're my thoughts but I'd be interested in others having a look themselves to see if they can dig down into it a bit more.

Both. (re the bolded part) 1. In the second half of the year Max had some really poor games with centre bounce taps. The taps regularly went to no mans land or to opp midfielders. For some reason Max's taps have become predictable to ops and they shark them. 2. Clubs will often let our midfielders get first touch/possession at centre bounces, force a turnover and beat us on the outside. Many clubs have openly talked about this as 'the way to beat Melbourne' for the last two years. They simply structure up better than us. We are not getting anywhere near enough value from our 'elite' midfield. As a result, I suspect we are low on the scores from centre bounces.

True, i know a lot of people want Jack gone, but I'm not one of them. He chose us, when he was a 16 year old boy; as we all know we were in the abyss of mess back then. Jack has stuck with us, and i know it's stupid i still hope that we can maybe win a flag soon and i would love him to be part of that?

Terribly sad for Harley, but I am incredibly proud of our club (I sound like Goody now). We did the right thing in giving him a chance - it was always a gamble, this time it didn’t pay off as we’d hoped, but at least we took the risk. Regardless of what happened at the end, our club can be secure in the knowledge that they gave him the absolute best chance at another go. I wish all the best for Harley and his family - I can’t help thinking it will be a tough old road ahead for a while - hopefully the club will check in on him from time to time. Some things are bigger than footy.

Off to GWS I reckon.

I’m far from impressed with how this bloke has conducted himself. He’s shown his true colours imv. He’s fed us a bull crap story about why he left the hub. Hasn’t the decency to face the club to explain himself. We gave him an opportunity, got him fit and back on the paddock and all we have to show for it is a $50k fine (a support salary). I don’t know whether not being offered a contract led to this behaviour but its no excuse. Well done to the medical team. We have many inadequacies in the club but it looks like we’re elite in one area at least.

Great post @Axis of Bob I think we all can be guilty of concentrating too much on a player's limitations and not their strengths. Out of interest, in doing this research did you ascertain why (or form any conclusion) we were often so poor at clearances despite having the dominant tap ruckman ? It didn't always matter, as we often won games, but lost the clearances, including centre clearances. And it was despite having the number clearance player for the year - Oliver. Either Max wasn't using it correctly, or one or two of those stoppage mids were getting beaten. Anyway, don't want to create more work for you, it's just whether you'd formed a view.

I will say that Viney's abilities inmaking the stoppages function is only something that I've recently developed an appreciation for. I had a vague idea of what Viney was doing and also though that his play may have been cannibalising the play of the other midfielders, but his high B&F placing made me do a double take and question why the coaches rated him so much more highly than me/us (comfortably ahead of Oliver). It was only then that I went back to have a good look at the stoppages to see what exactly the players were doing (which is what the coaches would do) and how well each of them performed their role in each stoppage. It became pretty obvious that Viney was the best at his role and had a greater variety of roles depending who was in the stoppage with him, plus he was able to recover the fastest once the play broke down to defend.

$2.75 - $3 million over five years for Saad (in exchange for a first round pick) and $850,000 a year for Williams, they’re all yours Carlton.

When the coach talks about the club needing to grow up and be more ruthless after the Freo loss, for mine the fans need to follow suit. I bang on about this a bit but globally we as a sport are miles behind. I was born in 77, it was footy/cricket and loyalty to the club/badge over the heart. Times have very much changed. Kawahi Leonard was traded to Toronto In the NBA with 1 year left on his contract. He and his team won the championship, he left after that one season. NHL captains are traded/leave in free agency frequently. St Louis Blues captain who lead them to a Stanley Cup last seasons is threatening to leave as a UFA this season. The great Messi wants to leave Barca. Is Jack Viney going to learn to kick on both feet? Is he going to learn how to dish off a slick handball before being caught in a tackle and often for holding the ball? Can he improve on his consistency over a season? Is his future upside higher than Brayshaw, Oli or Tracc? For me it’s no to all of the above. Just because I believe that doesn’t mean I don't have emotional ties to Jack and his dad as Dees legends. Can his value as an UFA give us a greater chance to win a flag than his value/cost to us as a player? I believe yes. We need cap space and outside skill and run, his leaving give us the option to save money/trade for/UFA some of what we need imho.

This table is the ranking of teams by Centre Clearance differential (ie, how many more centre clearances per game more than your opponents) in red, and Stoppage Clearance differential (ie, non-centre bounce stoppages) in green. What sticks out to me is that the lists are reasonably correlated (ie, Port, Geelong, Blues all good, Crows, Tigers, Hawks, Dockers, Swans all stink) but that the answer is probably lying in the teams where there is difference between the lists. Let's divide them into different categories: Good centre, lower stoppage: West Coast, North Melbourne, Collingwood. Good stoppage, lower centre: Gold Coast, Melbourne, Bulldogs. The first thing I notice about the first group (Eagle, Roos, Pies) is that they each have AA quality ruckmen. Naitanui and Goldstein are enormously responsible for the centre clearances in comparatively weak midfields. I think that this one is pretty easily analysed. However the other AA ruckman is Gawn, who is part of the second group, which is comparatively poor in centre bounces! That's really interesting! Bulldogs have a great midfield and a terrible tap ruck (at this point), while the Suns have some really strong bodies over the ball (Greenwood, Swallow, Miller, Rowell) and a bullocking ruck (Witts). What I think this information leads us towards, is that the centre bounce tends to depend on the quality of your ruckwork (in addition to the midfield) whilst around the ground stoppages rely on the quality of your midfield, with the ruck being only a minor factor. Perhaps the problem is, despite his ability to get his hand on the ball, Gawn just isn't a very good tap ruckman but, rather, just an exceptional around the ground ruck. Or perhaps we just don't design good centre bounce plays.

He's been behind Goldstein and Gawn so it's not surprisng he hasn't played many games. Maybe he'll go to Collingwood next and get his Ph.D in Ruck Craft under Grundy before he gets a real job. As someone else posted, it only takes 2 interested clubs for an auction. I think we should be able to get something valuable back.

Seems like a real complex one. Did we tell him he would be cut and this forced the decision? A series of things in such a short space of time has led to this. Glad he gave it a crack and very much hope he gets his life on track.

Didn't stop them picking up Jack Steven...

Harley's decision to leave the hub makes it pretty clear to me that he wasn't expecting to play on next year, and this seems to be supported by his actions after the event. He tried, we tried, it didn't work out as we had hoped, but it wasn't a failure either. We move on and hopefully Harley has something to fall back on as well to keep himself out of trouble.

Doesn't surprise me. Was always an iffy decision at best to come here and now Jackson's arrival has put the final nail in the coffin. Slightly off topic but Jackson would have pushed Top 5 in the B&F if you apply his votes per game across a full season. Incredible for a first year ruckman. The club has a serious hard on for him so hopefully he can be locked away well past 2021.

Fits the narrative? Rubbish. His post, regardless of your thoughts on Viney, is well thought out and researched. It's one of the reasons this site can be terrific as there are those out there who will give some really in depth though, backed up by facts, to their posts.

Proud of his efforts, and proud of the club to get him back on the park, but an absolute waste of talent. Could have been great for us going forward and he threw it away.

The story here had so much potential but ultimately it delivered a really disappointing outcome. At least it’s resolved any lingering questions as to what Harley could otherwise have achieved in his AFL career. I feed sad about this.

Sad that it's worked out this way. Looked like it could have been a really positive story to come out of 2020 and beyond. Pretty deflating. Glad that the club took a chance on him and a credit to our medic and fitness staff that they got his body right.

Still think it was worth it. He didn't cost us any time, money or resources that we wouldn't have been spending anyway. Bit of nice PR for the club never hurts, even if it doesn't amount to much. I think one of the biggest positives is that we've demonstrated that our medical team is capable of bringing back a perennially injured player to match fitness (g'day Joe Daniher if ya reading mate).

Wow - That bought back some great memories, I was working in Melbourne in 1962 - 63 as a Junior Booking Clerk at Flinders St station (Vic rail), so some of those memories were very relevant and yes the empty streets after 6:00 PM are very close to the mark with our Covid-19 times now. How clean was our city and how smart did we look. I lived in Mont Albert at a boarding house and travelled in and out by train, No Graffittee no feet on seats but you could smoke on the trains!!

Sam Edmund on SEN just mentioned we have an interest in Isaac Smith.

Came across this beauty from the National Film & Sound Archive while researching something else. First 40 seconds will give us all a glimpse of past glories. I was lucky enough as a young kid to be there and in those days took premierships for granted. How times have changed. The rest of the promotional film is well worth watching if you'd like to time-warp back to the sixties in Melbourne. https://youtu.be/TC7D5T_m_-k

John Northey must be a life Member of the Club Fix it up Glen...

Had an impressive 2018 but didn't back it up. He's practically a Demon already. What really bakes my potatoes about Ronke is that he laid ten tackles to go with those 7 goals. It would have to be one of the best single games by a small forward, ever. I can't recall but wasn't it also 7 goals, no behinds? If it was the draft and we were talking about a kid who had only shown glimpses but those glimpses were the best TAC games ever, and he was still available in the third round... For what it's worth I think his 2020 was written off by injury, take that as a positive that he hasn't had the chance to show maturity, or a negative that's he's buggered his hips or somethingand will never get back the agility he needs. I say pick the kid up cheap and feed him to Burgess and see what gets spat out.

This is the exact opposite of everything anyone has ever told me about Viney. His B&F results over a long period across different coaches also strongly indicate that he is extremely coachable. There are legitimate faults in his game that can be rightly argued. He's not perfect. But this seems extremely unlikely to be one of those faults.

He's our 3rd midfielder behind Clarry and Trac and a very good one at that he doesn't need to be a forward pocket. He is just fine the way he is. The one that has to get more creative is Brayshaw.

You can't give a contract to someone that's actively trying to avoid talking to the club, his employer. If you're asked to come in for a job interview and you don't show, it can't then be a huge surprise that you don't get the gig.

I think his style of play is often an important difference in our midfield. It's so hard to create scoring opportunities in the modern game that you need players that can beat a tackle to create space where there is none. He's not a great kick, quite one sided, and not a 'finesse' player but they would be nice add ons to his game rather than important to his role. I suppose I'd like Max Gawn to be a better crumber too, but it's not that important to his role. He's not a perfect midfielder but he's an incredibly good one, not just for the times he has the ball but especially for the times he doesn't have the ball. He's a 'glue guy' in the stoppages, that makes all the others play better. If you're only looking at what happens when he gets the ball then you'll never see his value. He is often willing to take a risk to score, which is important because scoring is so difficult. Here are some interesting stats for Viney this year (AFL wide rankings) that bear this out (footywire.com): I've marked the most interesting bits: Clearances. Turnovers. Inside 50s. Scores. Excellent at winning contested footy and clearances. Ordinary ball user. The way he plays results in us scoring goals. He's a player who will annoy those who focus on shortcomings because he makes mistakes and humans, being loss averse, notice bad stuff more than they notice good stuff. But his mistakes are outweighed by his unique abilities, including winning one on one contests in stoppages, defense in stoppages (and contests) and his ability to beat an opposition defender and therefor punch a hole the opposition's team defence. Compare that to the other players that could play that role (AVB, Melksham, Sparrow ....) and he becomes even more important.

Would that be Darren? Round 6 1991 at VFL Park v Collingwood. Midpoint in a stellar purple patch. Young fella absolutely destroyed the pies. Seven dynamic goals. The Sun was shining... a great day at the footy! ps. Gary Lyon 100 games, Todd Viney BOG.

i've heard we are open to trading an inside midfielder, for a starting best 22 outside midfielder to improve team balance, this is something the club has put out there openly. they've basically said come at us with an offer. as well as talking to outside midfielders on their own. for the Gus fans on here i'd suspect we aren't going to accept any trade that doesn't result in us getting either a strong draft pick, or a good player in return. It sounds like Jared Polec is one we think is realistic if North can re-join planet earth and be a bit more understanding of the fact if you shove a bloke out the door you don't really have the leverage to demand much in return.

This is such a good post! Cheers!

One of the things that struck me about him was that he always looked angry after losing a match - these days coaches hold back and seem to be consoling everyone. Despite his obvious care for the players it was clear they were there to win at all costs and the players followed. Players of lesser talent like Dean Chiron (who would have been lucky to get a game in any other VFL side back then) were regulars. His teams were always said to be playing above themselves, which is the greatest complement a coach can get

I was born in 1971. I only freely disclose this to Demonlanders because I know none of you. I have life experience. This talk of ruthlessness is just carp - so 1970s. It’s now all about EQ and understanding what motivates the players, as individuals and how they fit into the collective. I have real concerns for this club if we don’t manage to re-sign Viney. I thought he’s exactly what Goodwin wanted - why then did we trade the likes of Jack Watts? I loathe incompetence, and I am concerned that it may be unfolding here. Yet again.

I know for a fact that he signed a contract, then he just read it, then he signed a five year contract, then it was four years and then we low-balled him so maybe he didn’t sign.