deanox

That's still more key forwards than we had last year @Demonland!

Yeah bringing him back through the VFL this week, if he plays ok I'd expect to see him in for Geelong or Carlton at the latest if he has the fitness levels required. I am expecting McAdam to play the defensive forward role on interceptors like Harris Andrews, which frees Petty and Fritsch to attack. So even though McAdam will probably replace a Tholstrup or Billings, it's a different role.

I assumed one of the draw cards of staying at Melbourne was playing with his brother

I don't want to put the mozz on us, but I feel like this kind of advanced discussion around a specific site are usually reserved for "this is going ahead, it's now just about the fine details" rather than "we are floating the idea to decide if possible or not".

Genuine nuffy level comment. It's a lack of nuance in the English language that it has only them and us (as opposed to other languages that have multiple words to describe groups that may or may not include the speaker, the reader, etc). But if you really want to get technical and claim supporters aren't "part" of the club: as a company limited by guarantee, any paid up member is legitimately a member of the club, with voting rights and other rights under the constitution and therefore can quite correctly refer to themselves as part of the Melbourne Football Club. So "we" is entirely appropriate in most instances around here.

At this point we are 2-1 against current top 8 teams and 2-1 against the current bottom 8 teams. Given the loss against a current bottom 8 team was against one of last year's grand finalists and we were coming off a short break, and we've played interstate 3/6 matches, I think it's a reasonable start for the year. A long way to go, but difficult to infer too much given the length of the season. We certainly didn't want to be peaking in the first 6 rounds.

@bing181 that's basically what we put on the table out looks like. I'm not sure we could have offered much more. I reckon it needed to be 2 and 3 to get it done. "Meanwhile the Demons, who have aggressively traded up in the order, put forward picks 6, 11, 42 and their future first-rounder in exchange for Pick 1." https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-draft-2023-west-coast-eagles-trading-away-pick-1-offers-rejected-north-melbourne-three-firstround-picks-melbourne-four-pick-offer-latest-news-harley-reid/news-story/67c96c9c712cb44dc87b3db0c1e06e28

I take your point that a can't do attitude is probably the biggest barrier! What would be the benefit to clubs though? If Melbourne could use the MCG to train, I reckon they'd prefer it to be a closed session, away from other eyes. The opportunity to test some things in secret and also time to work on full ground zones and positioning that is difficult on grounds with different dimensions. Interaction with fans would be difficult, there is a large fence and supporters are back in the stands, in one pocket only. Whereas at Casey and Gosh's we can much more easily interact with the fans who attend, run parallel social activities and "fan activations" etc. Im just not sure what the benefits are apart from "but it's the MCG".

Scott Thompson? I read an analysis last year that actually highlighted how rare any "return from Victoria to interstate" trades were, especially for first round picks. Jackson is a genuine outlyer. Most are lower draft picks who don't make it at their original club and get shuffled home for a second chance (like Jimmy Toumpas).

For any club rolling high there is always an opportunity or two for a big turn out. For each club there may be two opportunities to have a large crowd. Preseason on a weekend. Finals during school holidays. I just think it's fanciful to suggest that a training in May or June will get more than a few hundred just because it's at the G. The cost of opening the G and staffing and security and clean up would be excessive, not something that could be handled by a gold coin donation and sales from a coffee cart.

Ok so you agree that that number is only feasible in the weeks leading up to a GF?

5k or 10k at training sounds nice but is a dream, unless it is Collingwood in grand final week. You'd be lucky to get a few hundred at any given session.

Top tier.

The best part about having a tactic thrown at you in round 5 is that you have all year to review and make plans to counter. I think it's fair to say there can be multiple factors involved. The players definitely looked flat. Was it fatigue or something else? Fatigue makes sense, and it was legitimately all of them. But that doesn't mean it was the only factor and I do think Fagan coached well tactically. Their forward line movement did a fantastic job of dragging Lever out of position all day, and we just didn't or couldn't find a way to adjust our defensive structure on the day. As a result our overall zone really struggled to hold together. Some of this could have been caused by: - Oliver being down on form meaning they were getting easier ball than usual - Lever out of position meaning we were less threatening on the intercept - Salem injury meaning we were down on rotations, and also packing a senior leader to Marshall defence (with Lever dragged out of the D50 and Brayshaw retired we are very young back there. And add Bowey out, McDonald in, and the current group of defenders actually haven't played together a lot outside of the Lever/May combo) - General fatigue meaning we didn't quite cover the ground we usually cover, combined with sub activated early. We have historically held up well even under stress, so they did a good job to exploit the situation. From early stages the game looked like it was played on their terms.

Those 100 guys are gonna go do something else though, not take the 20k and need to train 3 nights per week, plus do their own gym program plus play weekends. VFL has a salary cap of about $220k (standalone, with 28 main players and 12 development players) and $110k (for AFL club aligned). They get paid bugger all, to have any chance of developing them they need to be full time.

GWS and GCS make sense as money pits though. They serve a purpose to grow the game in regions where they need extra media exposure. Being a two team town creates a local rivalry which makes the competition feel legitimate too (ie not a Vic comp with a single local presence). Pumping money into North doesn't serve that purpose at the moment, and North must realise it isnt a viable long term solution. Banking on the AFL being too weak to make a real decision is a short term solution based on current management,they must know things could change in an instant.

Saints 2-3 Adelaide 1-4 Hawthorn 0-5 Bulldogs 2-3 North 0-5 For comparison we're 4-2 and our opponents are 13-17. Swans 4-1 Bulldogs 2-3 Hawks 0-5 Port 4-1 Adelaide 1-4 Brisbane 2-3

It's tough and if it was us I would have been screaming and now I'd be broken. But you're right. 1 or 2 too many teams in Victoria for long term. And bringing in a Tassie team kills their Tassie connection, and their sponsorship including the AFLW opportunity. I would like to know what their strategy is to stay viable.

I don't disagree he isn't performing. But there are only a few thousand people in Australia with that height. So if you can somehow turn him into a below average footballer instead of a terrible footballer, then he gets a regular AFL game. The AFL is definitely not the best footballers in the country. It is the best footballers of the population that is tall and strong enough to play.

None of them are 206 cm though. Given his height and youth, he actually has more of a chance of making it in AFL football than gun Casey players who career journeymen and haven't made the AFL grade so far (statistically of course).

He is a category B rookie, meaning he had not played Australian Rules football for at least 3 years before being signed. I think he only played until he was about 12 before following the bball pathway due to his height. This is now his second year on an AFL list, similar to Jefferson he's had one true preseason. So what are we trying to achieve? We are rolling the dice on a 206 cm athletic prospect to see if he can pick up AFL football as he develops his body. We know tall players take longer. At 206 cm it's fair to expect him to take a while if at all. Basically,given the rarity of height, it's a free hit to see if something comes of it. And if it doesn't we let him go. On current situation, it doesn't seem like he is coming on or that the footy department have much faith in him. If that's correct then he'll be gone year end.

Absolutely. Strength development for some people takes until mid/late 20s. I'm sure we've all known some pretty weedy 20 something's who go to the gym regularly but just don't seem to put on mass. I don't think he is going to be a bullocking strength based KPF in the early part of his career at least. I personally think the aerobic capacity allowing him to run up the wing and then double back deep etc. it means His numbers haven't been that bad either. He's kicked 25.20 in 20 games (including a couple down back I think). In 8 of those games he has registered 3 or more scoring shots.

This seems to be the development stage he is in currently: gaining enough fitness to be able to put those KMs in as a key forward. Until now he has played deep forward because he doesn't have the aerobic capacity to get all the way up the ground etc. I'm not sure it's a lack of effort/desire issue. From what I've seen Jefferson seems to have good attributes for a key forward: marking, kicking, and a knack for finding himself in goal scoring positions. I don't think anyone would be arguing he doesn't have a very high ceilings if he can realise his potential. We knew that he was a development project when we drafted him. Which is why I think a bit of patience around physical development, both strength and aerobic capacity, is probably required before any true assessment can be made regarding his likelihood of making it. He is in his second year (realistically has completed one full preseason), and is contracted until the end of 2026, meaning he has another 2 preseasons of development before his contract runs out.

Haha this may be the first documented instance of the whatever the opposite of MFCSS is!

I think a real factor in the decision to trade or not was "Petty's importance to our premiership tilt in 2024 and a lesser extent 2035". Even if the deal was a good one on an assets basis, we didn't have a replacement tall forward lined up for this year and had (have) questions over BBB and TMac. Draft picks last year were nice but that trade would need to have been serious overs to take that hit to our 2024 list. Edit: especially with question marks over Brayshaw and Oliver at that time as well.