Gator

The Suns have a new coach with a new game-plan and many players coming off an interrupted preseason. I certainly don't fear them, especially at the MCG and will be disappointed if we lose this game. The Suns will evolve throughout the year into a solid team, but they'll be underdone in round 1.

Goodwin spent all day with McCartney and unsurprisingly his little boy had his former teammates number on his back.

Casey seemed flat-footed in the last quarter and reactionary, while Williamstown started to take the game on. In the first 3/4's I thought Casey looked the slightly superior team, but the Seagull's delivered the ball into their forward 50 far better and had more scoring shots even when behind. Kent got a lot of the footy, but made a couple of blues. He dropped a sitter under no pressure, which directly lead to a goal to the opposition less than 60 seconds before half-time. But overall played well, including the wing for the entire third quarter. JKH was good. Played wing for most of the match and kicked a couple, including a nice banana on the run close to goal. Riley is unfashionable, but has a crack and was OK. He's easy to miss. I thought Vince showed enough in his first hit out. He was probably better than I expected, although he faded in and out. Was good in bursts with some classy kicking. Fitzpatrick competed hard, but his timing and marking was off. He was serviceable. Van Demon is huge for a midfielder. He played as a high half-forward and got a fair bit of it. He looks a little heavy and will be much better after another preseason. I'd love to see him get games this year, as his size is such a weapon, but he's a work in progress. Mitchie was arguably the best Demon today. Busy all afternoon and completed a great chase and pull down tackle in the third. King is a long way off. Very good kick for such a tall. I've already read some of the commentary on Brayshaw, but it's a bit over the top. I thought he had a solid game without dominating. I'd put it down as a typical Brayshaw game. His second goal was a ripper in congestion with a tonne of heat on him and I also liked when he had a stint in the forward pocket in the third. He competed really hard in the air twice and one of those split packs led to a JKH goal. He also spent a bit of time down back late in the third and looked comfortable. He's just a pro that does everything well, although he does miss the odd handball target under pressure. In one passage of play when he was forward he ran with the flight of the ball and crashed hard into the oncoming marking player. Both went down and got up gingerly. He was fine and has plenty of courage. He's a very good overhead mark for a midfielder. I thought Mitchie, Kent, Brayshaw and JKH were the best of the top up players.

"Expectation" is the key. I reckon outside of the top 3 or 4 teams most are crud, just varying degrees. Even North are are good ordinary side imo, albeit better than most. A comparison to other sides needs to be made to accurately evaluate what are reasonable "expectations".

Sure. But it really needs to be compared with other teams. I'd be interested to see it compared to say Port, Collingwood or Brisbane from a "games played" perspective. Games Played as at 1 April MELBOURNE: FULL BACKS: Jetta (57) Dunn (139) Garland (115) HALF BACKS: Grimes (86) T. McDonald (60) Salem (12) MIDFIELDERS: Lamumba (199) N. Jones (179) Vince (151) FOLLOWERS: Jamar (31) Tyson (21) Viney (20) HALF FORWARDS: Howe (78) Hogan (0) Kent (28) FULL FORWARDS: Garlett (107) Dawes (101) Watts (95) INTERCHANGE: Frost (21) Newton (4) Vandenberg (0) SUB: Cross (227) EMERGENCY: Gawn (26) JKH (14) M. Jones (42) 13 players with 50+ games and only 4 under 20. There's enough age and experience to start delivering decent results.

He was drafted in November 2010. The thread I'm talking about was a year earlier in 2009.

Noble sentiments, but I disagree. The following is a predicted Paul Roos 'best team' for the early rounds of 2015. It’s not necessarily MY best team, but roughly what I expect. Although it’s also going to mirror 90% of what the average supporter would want. There’s the odd player, such as Grimes and Garland, who are no longer universal fan favourites, but they’ll get the nod in the early going. I’ve also included Howe in the forwards for team balance. Mahoney hinted on radio this week he'll spend time there notwithstanding where he’s trained and played of late. Ages as at April 1 MELBOURNE: FULL BACKS: Jetta (25) Dunn (27) Garland (26) HALF BACKS: Grimes (25) T. McDonald (22) Salem (19) MIDFIELDERS: Lamumba (28) N. Jones (27) Vince (29) FOLLOWERS: Jamar (31) Tyson (21) Viney (20) HALF FORWARDS: Howe (24) Hogan (20) Kent (21) FULL FORWARDS: Garlett (25) Dawes (26) Watts (24) INTERCHANGE: Frost (21) Newton (22) Vandenberg (23) SUB: Cross (32) EMERGENCY: Gawn (23) JKH (20) M. Jones (27) 22 And Under There's a good spread of youth and maturity with 8 x 22 and under, and 11 x 25 and older. There's only one teenager and just two aged 20. Nineteen of the team are aged 21 or over. Rather than "burdening our kids", this team will have a far better age spread and maturity than plenty of sides running around this year. Moreover, it's about time the club and players stopped making excuses and realised the time is here and now. They're well and truly equipped to achieve their fair share of successes. They need to aspire, not ferment further reasons why they won't succeed. I’d wholeheartedly agree with your sentiments if our team reflected your assertions, but the facts are they don’t. The side is experienced enough to start delivering on its talent. There’s no reason they can’t win at least 8 games in 2015. Eight wins is arbitrary, so some supporters will disagree, nonetheless, the point remains, the team is far more experienced than many believe. Roos and company have spent considerable time and effort balancing out the list; and in just 18 months they've done an admirable job. They've put parameters in place that gives them every opportunity to reach modest goals. 2015 will be the year the club starts turning things around; and with Petracca, Braysgaw, Stretch, Neal-Bullen and Oscar McDonald waiting in the wings it's the best we've looked in a long time.

Correct. Collingwood also had interest. He was a good get, but he was always going to be drafted even if he flew under the radar of media outlets at the time. There were threads about him in other football forums in late 2009, a year before he was drafted

One can only hope, but some of the cringe-worthy questions that have been directed to him make you wonder. I'll be at Casey tomorrow for a bird's eye view. That said, it's the worst spectator ground I've come across.

Seriously ?

We led in 9 last quarters in 2014 coming off an horrendous base. We learnt to defend, but became stagnant and didn't master two-way running, so it's unsurprising to me the wheels fell off in the second half of the year. Some supporters want to focus on the second half of last year, as though it's the true litmus test, whereas the first half is far more revealing. Far too much is being read into the Essendon game, which is a timely reminder to the players as to what happens when you stop working hard and lose the collective team focus. To highlight how much of a 24 hour society we've become, the Dogs are presently the flavour of the week after a 10 goal win over Collingwood. The previous week they were comprehensively outclassed by Melbourne for almost 3 quarters. The same Melbourne that is now derided after the Essendon game. Melbourne got out to a 52 point lead in the second quarter, such was their dominance. The only players of note that played for Footscray against Collingwood, but missed against Melbourne were Macrae, Murphy and Dalhaus. They were also missing Wallis, who was dropped more than once in 2014 and Picken, who's a solid foot soldier. Boyd didn't play, but right now a cardboard cutout offers as much. The Dees lost focus in the last 45 minutes and paid the price, but once again, the footy they showed in that first half was a revelation that shouldn't be summarily dismissed. The total ratings points for that match are 1,700 to 1,000 which highlights Melbourne's overall dominance. Preseason is about practising, learning, fine tuning and confirming your best 22. NAB's 2 and 3 couldn't have come at a better time for this group and they'll learn lots about what works and what doesn't. Melbourne will occupy the lower reaches of the ladder in 2015, but when one analyses the mix of experience and youth, together with some of the talent within the ranks, an 8 game winning season is well within reach and should be considered the pass mark.

Yes, Ralph is a lightweight who had no clue we also received picks with Frost that netted Oscar McDonald and Neal-Bullen, who were both considered potential top 30 draft picks. He was lamenting the continuation of giving up picks for a player without realising we gave up one good pick for 3 players.

If you're 200 cm with awkward skill sets you need intensity and aggression to excel at AFL level, otherwise you're an occasional gap-filler. Fitzpatrick is handy depth at best. They've given him a chance down back, because they've stamped his papers elsewhere.

Many, including me, will naturally gravitate to a training thread, but in reality, other than who's training, who's not and who's in rehab there's absolutely nothing to be gleaned.

Goodwin was there on Saturday and was seen having the odd chat to players, including Brayshaw, from beyond the fence near the "dugout" when they came off on rotation.

Sheehan doesn't compose this as a Melbourne supporter. Whether you agree or not it has nothing to do with who he supports.

I'm not sure if you're serious or cracking a gag. Your original question was "How many first year players are regulars in their club's 22?". There weren't any follow up qualifications to this question and I gave approximations accordingly (without realising you'd count), and now you're listing 480 new players in to the system over 4 years and stating I only came up with 14 ? Do you remember the question you asked ? How many new players from the 480 over 4 years did you expect to be in their club's "best 22" ? It's a trick question, right ?

That's Frawley's key attribute over McDonald. Frawley worked hard to improve this aspect of his game and succeeded. Tex Walker made him look silly, but most haven't. McDonald has quite a way to go in this department, among others.

Recent years... Aish, Dunstan, L. Taylor, Wines, Mayes, Vlastuin, Couch, Heppell, Macrae, L.McDonald, Brandon Ellis, O'Meara, Wingard, Liberatore, ... And if we go back beyond the past 4 years we get to Martin, Joel Selwood, Thomas, Judd, Sidebottom, and the list goes on and on and on. And I avoided GWS for obvious reasons.

Salem has the ability to switch play and create off half-back with penetrating kicks, which is a far more valuable commodity than the bit of speed Jones brings. Jones will average 19 possessions and 70 ranking points,provide the odd stirring run, give away more free kicks than he receives, average 2.7 tackles, which is well below what's required, and turn it over at the most inopportune time. One guy is 27 years old with virtually no improvement left, the other is 19 and drips with talent. One player epitomises why we're occupying the lower reaches of the ladder and the other is a spark of hope why we won't stay there. As far as our fortunes go, players like Matt Jones matters not a jot of difference whether they play or sit in the stand.

Perspicacity at its finest. There's a strong correlation between a team's number of goal-kickers and their position on the ladder. Hawthorn have had the most or second most spread in the last 2 years and won flags, while Melbourne have had the least or second least in the last 2 years and been bottom 2. Three years ago Sydney and Hawthorn were tied for first and both played off in the Grand Final. In 2011 Geelong had the most and in 2010 Collingwood had the most - both won flags. Sydney bucked the trend in 2005, which is testament to Roos’ defensive strategies. His side came 15th from 16 teams, which in many ways made the flag an extraordinary feat. Interestingly, the team they beat in 2005, West Coast, and who went on to beat Sydney the following year, had the most spread of goal-kickers in both years; which reverts to form and supports the theory. It's obviously not surprising that if you have a wide spread of goal-kickers you're often kicking a winning score. The Swans’ efforts from 2005 won’t be repeated. In summary, it's not just the number of goals you kick, but how many players you have kicking goals. Getting goals from your midfield becomes crucial. So yes, you’re right, Bob. Roos hasn’t ever demonstrated that he can coach a team to regularly kick goals, or a game-plan that reflects the quality at his disposal, certainly from a goal-kicking sense. But he’d know this and I have faith he’s doing his utmost to correct the balance. The input of Goodwin and others will be crucial.

Excellent summation above re Brayshaw, although I dare say his "tank" is not dissimilar to many first year players that have been regulars in their club's 22. His loads will be well managed, but I don't see it as a reason to hold him back.

I wouldn't say this about every player, but 2 AFL games are the equivalent of 10 VFL games worth of experience for Brayshaw. He'll develop far quicker at AFL level and he won't be out of place. Stretch is different. He needs virtually a full season at Casey.

Trengove played very well in his first year as an 18 year old, Brayshaw is already 19. There's no need for a cotton wool approach. Lewis Taylor, Aish and countless others haven't been disadvantaged by playing. Brayshaw's first 2 passes today were turnovers, but he worked into it after that. He moves and looks a bit like Cotchin. He's definitely got class and plays with grunt around the stoppages.

Agreed, Red. There's a soft underbelly at this club that still radiates through the playing group. In stark contrast, Lumumba, who has pleasantly surprised me, noticeably digs in when needed. There's a vacuum within the leadership that starts in the midfield. If we'd won by 20 points I wouldn't feel any different, so it's not the loss, more-so the effort. They under-performed against a less talented outfit, and that's an unacceptable benchmark. Melbourne have quarantined their brand, which may render some supporters customised to their efforts, but I refused to be institutionalised, notwithstanding the near decade of disaster. I won't alter my expectations and have no doubt the collective talent is far greater than what we're presently seeing.