TeamPlayedFine39

I feel that in 1998 and 2006 we were a genuine chance to pinch a premiership. In '94 no one could get close to west Coast and same goes for Essendon in 2000- they were both a cut above the nearest competition.

I think he's borderline, but Goodwin sometimes seems to go out of his way to praise him- I suspect he's a bit of a favorite. By many reports he was quite good in the intra-club, but I suspect we'll get a much better idea of where things sit after next Saturday's match.

He was great for us in 2000- aggressive, big bodied, goal-kicking mid who stood up in finals. Was devo when he crossed to stkilda, where he carried on doing the same there.

I don't disagree, and Bruce and Green went a long way towards winning us the final against Carlton. However putting either of them in that forwards line probably makes it a little slow and top heavy- they'd be in competition with Watts and Robertson. Green and Bruce of 2002-06 may have those two covered, but they weren't at that level in 2000. And of course, it's all in fun and purely hypothetical... kinda like the stuff you find on an online supporters' forum.

Whelan. Ingerson. Jetta. Febey. McDonald. Yze. Woewodin. Viney. Powell. Watts. Hogan. Robertson. Farmer. Neitz. Petracca. Gawn. Jones. Leoncelli. White. Tyson. Lewis. Vince. Based on their form/level in 2000, so apologies to Johnstone, Green, Ox and Bruce. Petracca is lucky to be there, but it would be amazing to see him and Farmer standing either side of Neitz.

Father / Son Captains, while not unheard of, must be pretty rare...

I would have liked to have seen Jones as the sole captain with Viney as his deputy; same matchday roles, but keeps the romance of the captain leading the team. Has has pulled us through the tough years and I knda feel he should be the man standing the front when we take the field. With that said, Viney is being groomed to take the reins in two or three years so this certainly a Roos/Goodwin preparation.

As obvious as it seems, wouldn't this be the fairest way to carry out the fixture, whilst also satisfying the league and club's desire for a 22 round season?? Rounds 1-17: every team plays each other once. Rounds 18-22: literally draw them from a hat. (leave it entirely to chance; some years you'll do well, some years not so well)

Thought Balme was great for the team - All Australian coach 1994 and, as others have stated, lost virtually every star we had to injury 1995-96.

Seems like we would be making the dead-rubbers an even bigger issue - especially for the bottom six matches.

So you could have teams with less wins than others playing finals??

So it would be great if you could be seventh on the ladder after seventeen rounds... then only play the teams below you for the last six rounds, storm into the top four or even top two. Doesn't seem right... or am I missing something??

I'm of the belief that the game was not as good as people claim it was 20, 30 years ago. Every time this discussion comes up there seems to be a lot of the 'In my day... this' and 'when I was growing up... that'. There are some bog-ordinary, congested games of footy nowadays, but there have always been terrible games of footy to watch, but they are not the ones that stick in our minds two decades later. I'm not so convinced that things need to be changed to address congestion, there is and will continue to be plenty of great matches (mingled in with all the garbage.)

I understand the sentiment, but 'playing the kids' is one of the reasons we got ourselves into this ten year hole. I too would like to see both Gus and Clarrie play every game, but only if they earn it over their senior team mates. Both these young players have had their issues with weight and fitness so hard work needs to drilled into them rather than being gifted matches due to their (undeniable) talent.

From his book it seems like his knee would have gone regardless of what he did- it was that messed up inside. I believe he changed surgeons for the third reco and it's held up ever since.

vomit.

Personally, I thought he had a huge amount of talent and could have been an outstanding AFL footballer... if he wanted to be. Four coaches and two clubs couldn't bring that desire out from within him.

At least those two make it onto the field - I was very keen on Freeman while most were praying Scharenberg would slide to us. A lot of talent in this draft, but also a bit of a minefield.

Hoping not to derail the thread, but my understanding was that Roos said that Melbourne would not have taken Kelly with pick 2 if we had of retained it... weren't we looking at Billings??

I believe a similar thing happened round 1 2015- Sydney vs GWS...

It is usually regarded as a win/win trade and I tend to agree with it. It satisfied a need for both clubs at the time in that Melbourne was trying to introduce as much quality to the list as possible, while GWS was reducing their list and concentrating on moving picks down the draft order to maximise their efficiency. Both teams could have blitzed this deal however with GWS passing on Bontempelli (pick 4) while Melbourne could have collected Cripps (pick 13). It is what it is, and if Salem can reach his potential, we've done very, very well.

There's a lot of 'what could have been' when watching those early 90s games. While they're fantastic to watch, there's an element of sadness that it never all came together at the same time.

'Brayshaw plays it safe' He'd wanna play it safe with those guns!

Can't help but notice that amongst all those accolades, he's not a premiership coach...

I would agree that Melbourne wanted Frawley and Howe out, however for different reasons. The compensation for Frawley was too good to pass up and I'm certainly glad we didn't. Frawley would still be in our starting 18, however Brayshaw's potential is massive. Howe wanted to leave, and it really ends there. It's not as though we saw the compensation we were being offered via trade, licked our lips, then traded a required player. Howe had checked out and wanted to play as a forward for Collingwood. If for some reason the trade didn't happen and he begrudgingly stayed on at the Dees, he wouldn't be playing good football for us. He wanted out, so we moved him out.