Leaderboard

Extending the ‘where are they now’ series to those players who finished up at the end of 2019:- Sam Frost (traded) – Hawthorn Jeff Garlett (delisted) – Southern Districts (NTFL) and has also been linked to the Ovens and Murray League Declan Keilty (delisted) – Bentleigh (Southern FL) Jay Kennedy-Harris (delisted) – Uni Blues (VAFA) Jordan Lewis (retired) – Development and skills coach at Melbourne (AFL), plus set to feature prominently in the footy media Corey Maynard (retired) – Assistant coach with Melbourne (AFLW) Tim Smith (retired) – South Belgrave (Eastern FL) Billy Stretch (delisted) – Glenelg (SANFL) Guy Walker (retired) – Has retired from all sports due to injury, but has been offered a part-time role with AFL Coaches’ Association and Players’ Association for the ‘Tackle Your Feelings’ mental health program. ALSO Tom Bugg (retired from Carlton) – Retired last year to focus full-time on business as the co-founder and CEO of ZOOZ Group. Lynden Dunn (delisted by Collingwood) – TBC, but expected to be on Collingwood’s list in 2020 as an SPP signing. Will return to full training next month, with that final list spot his for the taking. Jack Trengove (delisted) – Prince Alfred Old Collegians (Adelaide Footy League)

That's what the AFL have been saying behind closed doors for years

We have smoky conditions today, however, the health consequences of changing weather patterns and natural disasters are long-term. We face a new paradigm that will force all of us to think and behave differently. Similar to terrorism and 9/11, our behaviour and actions will need to change. Some people and organisations get it (perhaps the AFL), others don't (TA).. Good decision by MFC.

I think the point he was making flew over your head

An easy mistake to make binman. Not sure how the passport office managed it but my new passport has a photo of my father in it!!!!!!!!

Really great training reports and exciting times because we've got almost the full core having a complete pre season. I think Gawn, Oliver, May and TMac are key to our fortunes in 2020, no surprises there and only May hopefully temporarily interrupted. Then my next core 11: Salem, Harmes, Petracca, Viney, Lever, Brayshaw, Langdon, Melksham, AVB, Fritsch and Jetta all in full training. Only Jones, Hannan, Tomlinson and Smith are in rehab and I have all 4 in the 3rd echelon and Hannan sounds like the only one restricted medium term. I think if we can get that 15 on the ground for the majority of the season and with some solid support from Hibberd, Weed, OMac, Hunt, ANB, Hore, Petty and Brown, all who are in full training, we can give the flag a real shake this year. I think it's quite reasonable to expect 2 or 3 of the 1st and 2nd year players to make a decent contribution too. For example Lockhart, Jordon, Dunkley, Sparrow and any of the 3 draftees could step up. Preuss is there as Max insurance. That's about 30 goers in total. I don't agree with other posters who say we're "6 - 8 good players off challenging". IMO the challenge starts this year.

Since our last Premiership in 64 the Melbourne Football Club has brought in a long list of players from other clubs to bolster its team and in some cases hoping to lead us to that elusive cup. So with the help of some Melbourne tragics over a bottle or two of red we have put together a best of the lot list and called it the MFC Foreign Legion. (Why you may ask – well we have not got a selection of premierships on DVD to watch is one and after a bottle or two it seem a good idea) By no means a team of the century, but perhaps a best of list that you can reminisce about and a list that made an impact in their time with us. We had a limited knowledge of player movements in the sixties and early seventies and I am sure we have missed some from this era and possibly players in recent times that should make the team. The team was put together on the following basis: Players had to have played at least 1 senior game with another VFL/AFL club before coming to Melbourne and could not be on MFC’s current list. Each player is listed with the previous club they played for with the number of games played and goals in brackets along with MFC games and goals. MFC's Foreign Legion

I have managed to beat my addiction to exercise.

Most of the list are reported to be in ripping nick.... it would be absolutely stupid to have them all outside today spewing their guts up from smoke inhalation. An outside session today could set us back a week or 3 in our prep. Eminently sensible decision by the club.

Down tools and off to the pub.

The players knew in advance there would be no training today. Peter Bruckner was on SEN this morning saying this smoke is unprecedented. Smart management, I would say.

This is a cracking training thread - thanks for the reports. Fingers crossed on May and Smith, but I’m no longer as worried about our forward line and our ability to score goals than I was about 3 months ago. T Mac seems to have rediscovered his mojo, Melksham is back to his best, Fritsch is in superb form, Brown will be an effective tall forward, we have plenty of other decent options (tall and small) to rotate through, and we now have good wingers and attacking mids who are fit and who will be able to effectively deliver the ball. This represents such a big change from last season. As an aside, I’m glad I’m not an Essendon supporter - apparently one third of their list is not able to train at the moment. If I were Worsfold, I’d be handing over the baton right now.

Was at my first session in a while, and did my best to watch while having my young daughter with me. I won’t add too much more, as most has been said. Firstly, I do love how so many jump at shadows or are so pessimistic about injuries (or apparent injuries) to players. Take a deep breath, it is January, and we are way ahead of where we were last year. I had a chat to a few people I know at the club and they are all upbeat and extremely positive with how things are going, and from what I gathered, it wasn’t just your usual talk you read in the media to drum up publicity, they were genuinely excited by the new fitness people, by the players mentality and efforts and by the different training they are doing now. on a personal note (so I am unsure if this matters too much to some ), I was impressed by: Jackson - he moves well and flies for his marks, second efforts are great. Kicking skills on both feet pretty good too. Kossie - silky, quick, just what we need. Just needs some fitness as he won’t play much u til he can use his speed and pressure for more than 10 minutes. Trac - moves so well, clean and vocal. Trained with the mids all the time. Will have a huge year! And we need him too and we need to make him happy and re sign him! T Mac - looked super fit and moved well. Back to 2018 movement, I hope! O Mac - his kicking skills are great and he used his body well today. Just needs to work one quicker decisions! Brown - he will play a lot of games this season, and I would be happy to have him in the team, whichever end he is at. Good body size, moves well, takes a strong mark. Astute pick up imo. Melksham - his kicking is elite, his left foot is better than most others preferred foot. And he uses his body so well. And he is vocal and guiding people. We need him if we are to be any good this season. Tomlinson- didn’t realise how big he is, muscular more than height. He was getting annoyed with Burgess as he was itching to join in the real training. Think he will be in there ASAP. I could go on, but I was relatively impressed overall, as much as you can be for an early Jan session. Of course we need to wait a long while to see anything put into action. Overall it was just great to see the majority of the players all training, the entire session, at full pace and training g at a pretty high standard and looking like they were enjoying it.

Belting the Cats down there in R19, in turn we seal a top 4 spot and kill off their finals chances.

Indoor play today. ‪Taking it to the courts. ‬ ‪It was shirts ? no shirts, as we headed indoors for today’s training session. ‪?: Training Gallery: Dees go indoors

Looks like a beautiful Hong Kong morning to me...

Oh, come on. Training in that kind of smoke would be like poor mans altitude training wouldn't it? An opportunity missed by the MFC.

Queue discussions on how soft mfc is and why this kind of softness explains our performance

Right now OMac is at least pencilled in for R1 considering WC tall forward line and Petty training with the forwards. Quite a few posters here and a particular questioner at the Info night need to come to terms with this reality.

Training has been postponed.

Anyone traveling to the big smoke to watch training?

Petracca really needs to go to the next level IMO but your analysis is on the money.

Well, the AFL have a relationship with Fox Sports/News Corp who deny climate change is real so don't expect too much action. Wish Gill would grow au pair.

One thing you'd like to see in 2020 aside from a Demon flag and Brownlow. I'll go with Kossie to kick 3 when we beat Norf in R23 in Tassie and finsh well above them. There's something about Norf that's hard to like. Maybe now Scott is gone it will ease.

Would love to see AVB go through a season uninjured and finding his most damaging, bone-crunching form.

We weren’t even the slops on a butcher’s floor when Roos came in. It’s remarkable how he turned us around within such a short period of time. It wasn’t a rebuild designed to win us a flag in the next 3 years though - it was a rebuild to help us move from the VFL to a consistently competitive standard in the AFL, from which we would then have a base to launch for finals and hopefully a flag. I suspect we slightly over-performed in 2018, prior to the Greek tragedy that was last year. We’re now in the zone though. Flag aspirations prior to this season was just dreamin’.

Training will resume shortly ~

Probably like playing at Victoria park in the 70s

Big Carl was captain/coach of the Dee’s in ‘79. I particularly remember his last game against Collingwood where he went about clobbering every opposition player in sight, very entertaining and something one doesn’t see these days.

Big Carl not in the side? Sorry but that is not on

Look at the positives, no new injuries to report and no one in rehab

As Jack Dyer said, "you retaliate first".

Is this what we class as an interrupted pre-season ?

Hunt is still our best bet as a forward pocket IMO. He kicked 21 goals in 18 games last year, which is respectable. Bedford, Pickett Lockhart, Spargo or Corey Wagner would need to step up to take his spot.

I hope that also applies to the crew.

quite so, uncle. i understand you do a sterling job as patron of the romsey serf club.

I doubt anyone will object if we remove Alistair Clarkson from the team...and make him non-playing coach instead.

No. We mortgaged our future for Lever, May and Pickett, need to be pushing for a flag.

I agree Tony. The overall outlook for the players in each of my categories above is upside. Petracca and Brayshaw have the talent to move into the A Grade and if Viney can stay fit he's definitely in there. Weed and Petty have every chance to elevate to the B grade this year. And I've already said I expect 2-3 from the youth group to establish themselves. The only players potentially on the slide are Jones, Hibberd and Jetta, and maybe AVB and May if they can't stay injury free.

Yep, it was until the 2019 season. We had made progress each year but the fall off was a bit dramatic. That drop off create a great opportunity to top up our young talent & may be seen as pivotal to success when we look back. Agree that our list is in better shape than 2018 & we should expect a strong 2020 season. I don't understand those who think just making the 8 is good enough. We should put 2019 aside & judge on the improvement up to & including 2018. We made the Prelim in 2018 but weren't competitive. We need to at leat make it and put up a good show, maybe even win it for 2020 to be seen as successful.

That period of work he did is what gives me confidence he can perform if/when required.

Umm they are doctors charged with looking after their clubs players health and they have to told to make sure the air is ok to train in! My daughter's GP told her yesterday not to exercise outside. Seems fairly strange to me that a specialist sports doctor would not know.

Fair point. But nonetheless I still think there is some real potential in players like sparrow, dunkley, jordon, Lockhart and Bedford. ALao petty, spargo, fritter and baker are all coming into their 3rd season and I included that group in my comments. Add jackson, kozzie and rivers to that group and there is a pretty good core of young players coming through.

When truck reaches his peek he will leave Jordon in his dust.

I really don’t like these self serving and self congratulating gestures by big organisations. It’s likes sharks promising to eat more people to help combat global warming. Everyone and their dog are jumping on the bandwagon. People can feel good by pretending they are doing something worthwhile when actually they are only getting entertained. Whilst the state is burning we go to cheer at the footy. Plenty of money has been raised and the AFL would be better off just donating their share. Victims will be well compensated already. What is needed is real action against climate change and preserving the environment. I would only approve of the game if the intent is foster awareness and action on climate change. That’s not going to happen.

People forget that in 2018 we went an impressive 8-2 between rounds 16 - semi final (our best 2 months of footy in 12 years) and O Mac played in all those games without the services of Lever and May. He must have done something right in 2018.

He has his own injury issues. Shouldn't be sharing them 'round.

Prince Phillip and I share a love a multicultural festivals. I am informed he caused quite an uproar when he requested the American perform a twerk for his entertainment.Despite the offer of a tenner.

The Blocks have been building for the last five years and a hand accidentally slipped and knocked some off in 2019. They are now back on with with the help of steady hands and will continue to build in 2020. We are almost there no doubt. I have faith. We are not that far away.