mo64

Are you eligible for Best First Year player if you've played senior AFL games at another club?

I think you might be right BB. If the leadership group was solely based on youth, the older palyers at the club may feel a sense of rejection by the new coach, which could be a short term disaster. Bailey might be trying to stimulate the motivation levels of the older players, which may help him in his first season. If this doesn't work, he'll go with youth next year.

In fairness MikeyJ, Garland was in competition down at Sandy with the likes of Bizzell, Warnock, Ferguson. It's hard for a youngster to assert himself when he's surrounded by senior players who are trying to make an impression themselves. The poise and skill he showed in patches was enough for me to think that he could make it as a Centre Half Back. This may be wishful thinking, but in 2 years time I'd like to see Frawley at FB, Garland at CHB, and Rivers playing the 3rd tall. We can only dream!

Firstly Josh Mahoney comes across as an extremely intelligent and well spoken person. Here's a summary of responses to the player related questions: I've been impressed by a few players that I didn't know much about, being Colin Garland, James Frawley and Buckley. Brock McLean, Nathan Jones and Brad Miller have the best work ethic. Ricky Petterd is currently at 75%, and will join in full training shortly. Aaron Davey will have short bursts in the midfield. Fairly typical SEN Morning Glory interview. You don't get much!

I think this sums it up in a nutshell: http://sportal.com.au/afl-news-display/grand-old-hat-41766

From the recent training report, Miller was training with the forwards. Unless Yze plays in the midfield or half back, we'll have 4 permanent forwards in the leadership group.

I'd be interested to know whether it's similar to the Hawthorn model, where players are rated by their peers in a number of areas, or it's a straight out player vote. Either way, I'm baffled by the end result. Like Vandenburg, Yze and Miller are borderline to being in our best 22.

Carroll is incapable of shutting down the better forwards in the AFL. Is that disparaging enough for you?

Fan, whilst we had experienced depth last year, we had an over abundance of tall defenders (Bizzell, Ferguson, Holland, Warnock, Wheatley and Frawley), yet none of these could cover for an injured Rivers, or an out of form Carroll. When our midfielders were injured, we only had low-profile kids in Bode, CJ and Buckley as depth, and Godfrey who was not up to it. What i'm saying is that our list last year was imbalanced. We've gone some way to addressing that with our draftees, but why Warnock has been retained is beyond me.

I'd usually vote for 'blood the youngsters' but given that we have a new coach with a new game plan, I don't believe that we have the luxury of resting our senior players, because quite frankly, they should all be put on notice that nobody is guaranteed a spot for round 1. From our draftees and rookies, i'd imagine that Maric and Valenti are the most likely to see game time in the NAB cup.

From your 22 MFC4Life, i had the following changes: In: Frawley, Dunn, Jamar Out: Bartram, Yze, Meesen Full back is a huge problem for mine. Miller has been training as a forward, so I think you're right in nominating Carroll as our fullback. Opposed to what other's have said, i've liked what i've seen of Garland. Most of the better key backmen played juniors as key forwards. I'm praying that Garland could be our answer to fullback. Not expecting much from Bartram this year given his limited pre-season. Meesen is an unknown prospect, so the NAB cup and practice matches will determine the 2nd ruckman. I like Yze, but I can no longer have him, Robertson and Neitz in the same forward line. Our forwards need to apply greater pressure on the opposition backmen. Depending on the match-ups, there'll be games were either Robertson or Newton will be out of the 22.

This statement defies comprehension. If a player has no redeeming features in your opinion, how could a new coach change anything? FWIW, CJ has the skill set to be an AFL player, but not the mindset. This could be due to lack of consecutive games or faith shown by our previous coach. The likes of Ward and Godfrey were both given extended runs in the seniors, despite their mediocre performances. Its taken Daniel Bell 3 years before he had that inner belief that he belonged at AFL level. I'm willing to give CJ one more year to prove himself.

In a recent article on Daniel Bell on the Melbourne website, he suggests that "we'll end up playing a bit like Port". How do Port play? And is our current list capable of implementing Port's game plan?

I'd say it's more a reflection of the kid's mindset rather than playing ability. He's suggesting that Weetra hasn't dropped his bundle despite playing for Sandy 2nds last year. I'd love to see Colin Garland step up this year.

On what basis is this statement factual?

maximum bob, try supporting your arguments with facts rather than 'ifs'. Subsequent to losing their TAC sponsorship, the Tigers this year recorded a record profit of over $1m. Not saying that there is any correlation between the two.

So if the TAC approaches MFC with a sponsorship of $300k a year for a series of ads, we tell them to p*ss off! We don't have to take them on as our 'major' sponsor. Sponors can be serviced in many ways.

Thanx CTD. Did McLean, Davey and Sylvia complete the session?

I'm with you JJC. AFL players, whether they be young or old, must accept that their job is conditional on upholding certain community standards. If they are incapable of this, they're in the wrong business. To suggest that Wellingham was lynched is ludicrous. He's lucky that under the AFL Players Association rules, the club doesn't have the power to sack him.

Great post Fan. I don't believe that our list is nearly as bad as most pundits are saying. Injuries were certainly a factor last year, but I also believe that lack of quality midfield depth was a major factor. When I looked at the Sandy side that won the 2006 GF, with the exception of Jones, there were no Melbourne players in that side that were potential AFL midfielders. Hopefully we've addressed that with our current draft crop. But for mine, the great unknown between this year and last, is our game plan. It seemed that either the players didn't embrace ND's new 2007 game plan, or we didn't have the type of players to adopt it. I'm actually looking forward to the NAB Cup just to see what style of game DB has brought in.

Yes you do. I'd never been to an NSL game, and was staggered at that amount of kids and females who attended the the Victory games when I went to their games at Olympic Park. These even more now that they play at TD. Obviously your assessments are based on TV or newspaper shots which focus on the male dominated Victory Supporter groups. Just out of interest, how many Football (Soccer) games have you attended?

You're really drawing a long bow associating a chant with unruly behaviour, meaningless violence and flares. And could you elaborate on your last statement. I for one don't get this!

You want feedback? Well I don't know where to start, because you jump from one issue to another, and they're not related. Firstly, you've obviously got a myopic view on sport. Aussie Rules, and no other sport matters. AFL clubs can always do things better. If adopting a chant from another sporting code drags a different supporter demographic to our games, let's do it. On the issue of attendances, we have the smallest supporter base in the country. In order to build on our supporter base and potential sponsorship deals, the club is trying to embrace the large Chinese population in Melbourne. If you got your head out of the sand, you'd realise that Melbourne is a multi-cultural city built around migrants, and if the Melbourne FC needs to change it's perceived image of being a team for the toffs in order to build it's supporter base, then so be it. Look what Collingwood have done with Emirates. Finally, I don't see what relevance the failed Melbourne/Hawthorn merger or the club providing to supporters our training schedule, has to do with adopting a new chant!

I'm pretty sure we had a crack at trying to get this bloke back to the club. No offence to Steve Harris, but this guy's CV is pretty impressive, and we could do with him at the minute.

A quick summation of some key players from Brisbane's 3 premiership teams: Voss, Akermanis - QLD zone, exclusive to the Lions Brown - Father/son C. Johnson - Part of merge(takeover) with Fitzroy M. Michael - Exchange with J. Molloy (Fitzroy) In addition to salary cap concessions, a pretty handy gift to any recruiting manager.