G-max

12 point win in the end for Sydney. They came back from down 41 and kicked 7 goals in the final term. With Melksham matching up against them, Hannebery had 26 touches and Lewis had 34.

I've just re-watched Melksham's efforts in round 1 and 2 this year and was impressed with his efforts. Against Sydney he went head-to-head with Hannebery at stoppages and had 20 disposals (10 contested) at 60% effectiveness and laid 9 tackles. Against Hawthorn he went head-to-head with Jordan Lewis at stoppages and had 26 disposals (4 contested) at 57% effectiveness. He also had 12 inside 50s including the key centre clearance that led to the match winning goal. I chose to watch these games because they were against quality opposition and came before WADA re-opened the investigation. In both matches he was playing more of an outside midfield role and generally only got involved if the ball spilled out or a teammate found him by hand. His accuracy is one of the biggest knocks against him but when he had space he managed to find a target effectively most of the time. When under pressure he blazed away by foot though not necessarily in a bad way - as his inside 50 count against Hawthorn suggests. By hands he was good at finding a teammate and it was encouraging to see him provide a shepherd after he'd offloaded it. He showed a lot of toughness and went very hard at the contest. A couple of times he was roughed and he didn't back down (even from bigger players like Tippett). He tackled hard and was quick to get back to his feet in order to stay in the play. I got the feeling he wasn't applying a hard tag to either Hannebery or Lewis and it was more of a head to head match up. As it was, particularly with Hannebery, Melksham often trailed behind him and probably lacked the pace to stick with him (as do most players). I think he'll fit in nicely in our midfleld and having watched these games I'm more confident that he'll be in our best 22. I recommend checking these games out. I used my AFL live pass. I'd love to track down some footage of this 3 vote, 29 disposal effort from 2011 in a win against Geelong but I can only watch games back to 2012 with my pass.

Sounds like a great pick up. Can't have too many players who are passionate about the club. Wonder how long before he moves from VFL dev league to VFL proper? A decent chance to do so next year. If things go well he could leapfrog Max King.

This has probably been posted already but here's Melksham putting Lindsay Thomas in his place:

Not really a fair comparison, since as a general rule defenders have a much better disposal efficiency than midfielders. If you don't believe me check this out: http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/ft_player_rankings?year=2015&rt=LT&st=EP Top ranking mids that I could find: 80.4% - Ryan Griffen (and he's 78th overall on footywire, 108th on AFL.com.au). 78.1% - Gary Ablett Jnr 76.7% - David Zaharakis 76.6% - Brendan Goddard 76.4% - Pendlebury 76.0% - Lachie Neale 75.4% - Callan Ward Some notable low efficiency mids: 69.3% - Fyfe 69.2% - Selwood 68.1% - Luke Parker 66.3% - Marc Murphy 63.1% - Trent Cotchin 62.1% - Dion Prestia 58.6% - Jack Ziebell It makes sense that a defender who is usually calmly picking out a target with relatively low defensive pressure would be more effective than an inside midfielder who is digging the ball out at stoppage and throwing it on his boot roughly in the direction of goal. I haven't watched the Bummers enough to know where Melksham plays (inside mid? outside mid? forward?) but his disposal is average. Of his 16.4 disposals, 10.4 are uncontested and 5.9 are contested.

The info about Melksham's contract was probably leaked to the media by Melksham's agent. It doesn't even mean it's been verbally agreed upon, it could just have been the asking price at the start of the conversation. "We discussed a 4 year $400k contract." Probably doesn't mention the part where Melbourne responded with "f**k that!"

Landsberger inferred that Melksham is a "classy midfielder": http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/afl-trades-2015-brisbane-says-stefan-martin-not-up-for-trade/story-fnp04d70-1227530666544?utm_content=SocialFlow

I liked what I saw of Dwyer so my ears pricked up when I read he had been delisted. Then I read that he's 29 and was recruited as a 26 year-old.

Looks like we're being used as leverage again. I hope we're building up credit with agents with all of these stories about us being linked to players. Anytime an agent needs one of their players re-signed they come to Melbourne, we publicly express interest and soon afterwards they re-sign with their club. I'm probably giving our list management more credit than they're due, but this is how things work in the NBA. Rather than being a [censored] bag to agents we build a positive relationship which comes in handy when we negotiate with any of their players who we actually want. A quick survey of Essendon supporters at work: "Go ahead, take him..."

That Hogan one-hander got me out of my chair. Sensational grab. He also did some great work with hands, very fast to pick up at ground level and move it to a target. There weren't many highlights but this young man gives us hope.