SaberFang

Have a sickening feeling it'll either be a frustrating close loss or a definitive victory. Ah the joys of being a Melbourne supporter.

I hope this is finally the beginning of a new chapter of the MFC. On paper, we should annihilate them, but how often has that been true over the years in round 1? We should've won against Brisbane in Jimmy's honour, too. It means nothing until you're on the grass. I'm cautiously optimistic but it's hard to see the light at the end of what has been a very long, very dark tunnel. I just hope it isn't the train. The club has suffered enough and for too long. It's time to begin a new era.

JKH would make a great sub because he could come in totally fresh in the second half/final quarter with a lot of speed and X-Factor that the starting 22 won't have. Remember he kicked all 3 goals in the final quarter of the Tiges match.

I like this kid a lot. Didn't he really stand up in that GWS win last year? I thought he kicked 3 goals which says something about confidence and accuracy.

Thought it was interesting yesterday that Roosy now mentions both Jade AND Brad as the two standout young coaches at the club, the two who have impressed him most over preseason. Miller's got a lot more coaching experience under his belt than Simon Black, and as the team's runner he has to understand Roos' game plan intricately. I wouldn't be surprised if Jade becomes senior coach and Brad his assistant.

I really feel for the guy. Must be absolutely gut wrenching and the pressure would weigh on him heavily. I'm almost of the mindset that as long as he loves the club and wants to stay in Melbourne after the 8 week break, to rest him for the whole year in the hope he can ease himself properly into season 2015 and play every game. But who knows.

He was having a great time at training today. All the boys were actually. Roosy was a no show though so they mainly just focused on kicking and had a bit of fun kicking at Fitzpatrick in the goal square. I think Westrupp kicked the ball smack bang into his head.

We don't need to score a volume of goals to win a match, we need only stop the other team from scoring. That's Roosy's entire game plan folks. Hold possession and starve the opposition.

This will solidify Georgiou until June or July in the list. Riley isn't far off the senior list now.

I suppose the one consolation is despite all Neeld's cockups, we did secure Hogan on his watch.

The reason Port won't be top 4 is last night, third quarter. They dropped off the face of the planet and let a very average Carlton dominate them. Hawks and Freo will tear them to shreds. Based on the first four matches though, I'd say the gulf between top 2 and everyone else is simply enormous. Sydney, Carlton and Collingwood all looked very, very average. And that makes me incredibly happy!

Strange things always happen round 1 though. Last year I only got 1 tip correct in round one.

Well he's going to be out of training for a few weeks so that pushes his chances of being match ready back a few extra weeks. Would they take a punt on Jetta, Harmes or King?

It's fairly well known in AFL circles that Viney pushed hard for Wines and Neeld overruled him. They had a falling out. Wines wanted to put on the red and blue and made his feelings very known to the club. He wanted to spend his career playing alongside his best mate. But Neeld flocked in to ensure that wouldn't eventuate.

I'm confident this will only happen if we aren't comfortably winning at half time.

Let's worry about fixing our forward line next season. We've cultivated a great relationship with GWS's list managers and we can probably work out something with them (who knows, maybe Patton will want to come home -- they might have an abundance of upcoming talent at GWS, but they'll struggle to resign them all for unders when cashed up Victorian clubs start luring players). The most important thing this year is letting Roosy's gameplan settle into players' heads without switching around player's roles. They need consistency and they need to know their job. Half the reason we've been so abysmal for years is because we had no clear direction from a poor coaching division, and the gameplan (if you can call it that) was a haphazard mess. Obviously the forward line will need to be fixed in the next off-season if we can't get the injuries sorted, so let's just bed in the new midfield and gameplan for now and get consistency into the playing group. Then next year it's more about refining each player's skills and their role in the team, rather than still trying to teach them what their role is.

Not often you get players WANTING to put on the red and blue before being drafted. What a kick in the guts that must have been to him. Good on him for showing us up, I'd be [censored] off too. Still a chance when Viney runs out as our captain in 4 or 5 years that Wines might have trekked back to Melbourne, but it sounds like he and Wingard have become very close mates in the last year.

BigFooty poster says a well informed man on SEN claims Frawley's management are in discussions with MFC about salary options. Sounding positive?

Yet another reason to hate that flapwit Neeld. Not like we needed any. By god he made some mindnumbingly awful decisions.

Well if Jesse kept it a secret he's paying the price now. Lesson learned.

Interesting timing. Why not midday tomorrow? Can see some great photo opportunities for this one though, brilliant news. Things finally going well both on and off field!

Probably a scare tactic to get the Saints nerves into gear. For what it's worth I watched Roos talk to Watts one on one for about five minutes today. Was making a lot of hand gestures so I'm assuming he was teaching him a new evasive technique or something. We also had scouts watching Collingwood training today. Should add fuel to the fire that Roosy already has his team working on poaching players later this year.

Make no mistake we will get compensated nicely if Frawley leaves. There's not much else we can do. We might lose him but we can trade off the compensation pick for another senior player and beef up our forwards or mids quite handsomely.

Let this be the only hundred point loss we embarrass ourselves with this year and Roosy will hammer that point home at 3QT.

Gives us more to prove going into round 1. But yes, this will definitely be a reality check.