deespicable me

Danger men are Boak, Grey, Rosee and Butters. Oh and Charlie. Sh*t this is getting out of hand.

From reading some suggestions I really like the idea of giving Jackson a go on the wing. He is developing so well and Kossie, Jacko and Rivers are a great credit to our trading team. Jackson has taken the centre square tap work on occasions to give Max a rest and has been handier as an extra mid moreso than the ruck work where he is still a bit light and can be pushed around. I would like to see TMac come back in and go straight back to the role in the forward line supporting Weid and Jacko go to the wing for half the game and rotate to the forward line when TMac or Weid need a break. Jackson has speed, skill and height and can get loose and play with a bit of freedom on a wing, maybe not this week but in a game where we are well up and we can experiment a bit.

For me I would rest anyone who doesn't come up. A wet ground, will mean quite a few of the guys will have heavy legs on Thursday night. We really needed that win and even though we are now probably out of contention for a top four spot and consequently winning the whole thing, we can possibly handle a loss on Thursday night and still make the 8. But a loss plus injuries would really hurt us, so even though some players were poor tonight it probably comes down to fitness and ability to back up. So Nev, Jones and Bennell will probably struggle to get up and we're praying no-one does a hammy Thursday.

I would have thought that while they were assessing the injury and determining if he needed weeks off or could somehow get up to play, they are better telling nobody nothin'. Then they control the story and who knows what. I would think they were somewhat disappointed there was a leak through to this website Just read chookrats reply and I basically agree

Nice argument. Well argued. I am from the "take your pick to the draft" belief and absolutely love new untried talent, but you are correct, especially with Melbourne (consider Jack Watts), we heap unrealistic pressure on them and they rarely deliver. You've got me almost agreeing with you but I love Oliver and I still am more than happy to go to the draft. As you say its my "belief system"

If a good coach got hold of him ( hopefully ) in our system and set us up with Frost, Lever and May as the three talls I think it would work well. He has really developed his punch and has good closing speed. He has also become much more reliable. He has learnt this year to leave his opponent and help be the third man up as well. He had very good results against some very good footballers. He has had one and a half years in the senior team where he has gone way past Oscar and can be rightfully proud of this years output. Apart from his on-field dust up with May I think he understands better how we want him to play and for us there is an upside as he can develop further with confidence as a regular team member. If he goes elsewhere it will take him a while to settle in as he is unpredictable and will spook his new teammates at times. Much better for Frost if he stays, much better for us if he stays.

Well I accept my comments were against the common flow of the thread and were over emotional but I get sick of most threads where a player looks like he might move and posters go "yes, yes, yes" without really thinking through the consequenses. I also accept that he is a better player than Ben Ken was but is he that much of an upgrade on Kent who had good potential but couldn't and still can't get on the park? We have spent the last three years "importing" talent and now as a result when Frost says "I've been the best defender this year, show me the money" we can't. Yet were throwing money at another "import". I certainly want success for the club but the last two years of getting in May and Lever for NO success I think may have caused rumblings within the group. Personally I think it might be time to pull our heads in and go to the draft and develop our own talent. Lastly the first two comments were just attacking me for having an opinion. pretty poor posts but Moonshadow I liked the humor, yeah I'm pretty .. no very boring when I talk footy, after all I barrack for Melbourne

If we think getting Elliot is in any small way going to improve our side or be the answer to any of our woes then we really are in trouble. $600,000 for a bloke that will add about as much as Kennedy from the Pies did a few years ago, just stinks of desperation. Elliot isn't worth a pinch of s##t. The fact we've even attached our name to him means we are f##cked. We have no idea how to play money ball and we are gone, game over, forget it, walk away.

Beautifully put. I couldn't believe during that whole time how we were the only club being hung out to dry. I actually liked the priority pick and the way the clubs managed to never win more than 4 games, or they would go on and win at least 7 or so. Not one team landed on 5 wins throughout the period of time there was a priority pick on offer. I hate how the priority pick is now at the discretion of the commission. Just corrupt. Why should those gooses get to choose. Play little tin pot gods. ###ck them. Either there is a formula that gives the club a priority pick or scrap it. This competition is getting less equal by the day.

This is all very excellent from Gil. I'm sure just as he came out for those thousa..... hundreds of GWS supporters to make sure they kept their man he'll be feeling for all us MFC supporters and will go out of his way ( AFL approved extra cash for game development ambassador style role ) for our Petracca and now he's going to stay at Melbourne. Thanks Gil. A real peoples person. One for the supporters.

Don't tell me we're going to lose Petracca. It'll probably end up being Langdon in and Petracca out. And no better off in the draft. Yeah great MFC. Just so long as we sign up ANB and JKH and Oscar and Stretch. Yeah well done. Hoorah. Can we sell some more home games as well so I don't have to turn up anymore.

I'm not sure Petty will make it. but he us our back up tall. Definite no to Carlisle.

No, no, please no. There are better options out there. He is not a good footballer, looks okay in a well drilled team. Knows when to lead etc. He would be an abject failure with our game plan. If we fix up our game plan you will know it because Weidemann will become a good player and all of a sudden worth what he was asking early this year. Put Weidemann in the Collingwood forward line and teach him the system, the leads etc, and he would become a star. Look what Stephenson did to us on Queens B'day. He would have kicked 10 if he kicked straight. Just a well drilled team who pantsed Goodwin with a game plan that isolated the quick Stephenson against one of our slow back-men. When considering a player you have to weigh up if they will fit into our system and Elliot would just get lost, then injured, like all the others who don't get given clear instructions. We are a rabble and it will take men with leadership qualities to right the ship. Elliot doesn;t have them.

Yes, think Mitch Robinson now at Brisbane. I'm not sure he suits us as we have quite a few slowish brutish types but he would be a good pick-up for sure

I feel sad that Jones has such a minor impact on games these days. He's been taken away from his normal 'in and under' role and has probably (with over a years evidence in front of us) gone backwards. I know Jonesey is a limited footballer but the coaches seem to want to highlight his weaknesses rather than his strengths. Gee it's a hard gig for a bloke like Jones to play wing, he's not super quick and his disposal although improved is nowhere near elite. He still wants to get the ball around the fifty and kick the inspirational goal, it's become his thing like Dunne kicking torps to no-one in particular from full-back. And yet I think he's only kicked a handful of goals all year. I mean what are the coaches doing. As a further contrast look at a bloke like Stephens who has obviously struggled but when given the right role showed emphatically he can still play. As for the captaincy, for mine, it should be one player only, dual Captaincy "out".

"Success comes from within" surely you should know that with your name and avatar. Your not a fraud are you?

Yes trade for sure. We need KPP intercepting backmen that cost a ***king bomb. Corner the market.

Turn Tom Mac out for three weeks, send him North to dabble his toes in the Gold Coast surf and bring in Pruess. For gods sakes Goodwin we need to see what he can offer. Try to turn Stretch into a tagger. He is fit and can run well and his body, although not super strong, is just about fully mature. Otherwise he is lost to us. We need to make better players with the players we have got. Send Jack Viney with Tom Mac North for some rest and toe time in the gold coast waters, he's giving us nothing and the whole team balance is out with Jack and Jones in the same team. Send Spargo back to the VFL for the rest of the year and play him in the guts to try and toughen him up otherwise he is just going to become the whipping boy of Demonland which is really unfair for a young kid in his second year (some of you ought to be ashamed). Bring in JKH for a good 3 weeks and then lets see what we've got. I think he could be okay. Lockhart as well. Stop playing Fritsch back. He is a half forward flanker. Play him there Goodwin and be done with it, your ruining him.

Disappointment is the first half of the season. Surprise will be the second half of the season. Will still go close to making the 8, winning 6 plus in a row.

I went along to Willy Oval by the sea today as I live down that way. Just a few notes on the game. Willy are a team full of "pit bulls" as Rawlings called them and they are at you all game. In broad terms they closed down the contest, got the game on their terms, then kicked about 6 goals in a row from the end of the second to the first goal of the last qtr. It was a good test for us and as of the seniors, we came up short. Lever was playing pretty well, his disposal was excellent, he was taking the kick-ins and our back line was on top when he went for a contested ball up on the far wing and looked to twist his ankle. He immediately started hobbling, came off, got his ankle strapped, did a couple of run-throughs, went to half time then came out and sat out the game with his ankle iced. I watched him a lot even when he came off before his injury and at the quarter time break and he is definitely not comfortable yet on his knee. He was very aware of it, stretching and itching it a lot. He is so skinny it will take us all a season to get used to his gangly running action but I am pretty sure he didn't re-injure the knee in any way. He will however be a good 3 to 4 weeks away from seniors footy and probably at least a couple from the Casey games. We also lost Maynard in the second qtr to a dangerous tackle (no free) and he was concussed and out for the day. So we were down two players and all of a sudden we had to shuffle the deck and they got on top. One player I really wanted to see against a strong midfield was Sparrow but he was also out (rested I hope and presume). He was part of a good winning midfield against Essendon a couple of weeks ago where he had a run with role with their best mid (number 4) and did a good job. So with Sparrow out we pushed James Jordan into the middle and he was changing with Lewis off half back and it was working well, both Lewis and Jordan getting lots of the ball and driving us forward, but they tightened up, especially on Lewis and then Maynard went off and they got control of the midfield. Preuss was okay but their ruck was six inches shorter than Preuss so they just wrestled and did all sorts of illegal things to stop his influence and the umps didn't pay one free to Preuss. If they had stopped all the illegal stuff he would have been better but they completely dulled any influence he might have on the game for the period they dominated. He got loose a bit in the last and gave some nice taps to advantage but the game was already gone. JKH was our best player. They tried to tag him but he was too clever and was the classiest player out there. He has developed his defensive game a lot in the last year and laid a lot of tackles as well. He did drift out of the game a bit at times but was pretty good for 4 qtrs and is the most likely for a step up to seniors. He played wing very well and would take Stretch's or Jones's position. If given a good run at it, I'm sure he can become top 22. And why not given we won't play finals this year. Weid was Okay. He cannot take body position well in a pack yet and may never be capable of that role. He also doesn't always run to the right spots and he got hands to, but dropped a lot of marks. But he did take a couple of lovely grabs when given a clear run at the ball. For the most part he was our number one forward today and as such was hassled out of a lot of contests but he isn't ready to come into the seniors and add much more than Smith does. A bit of a negative review I know but for those thinking theres depth down below, think again. In an ideal world we would leave Weid in the seconds for another year, get him to put on another 5-10 kilo of pure muscle, increase his strength and get him to concentrate on getting his percentages at marking contests up closer to 20% rather than the 5% he's operating at now. Hannan was okay, looked fit and well, a little rusty and maybe one more before a call-up but given such a long lay-off a very good return. Bedford had more impact than Chandler today, he played the small forward role quite well and hopefully can develop further this year. Both okay but definately not ready for any senior footy. Lewis and James Jordan. Lewis was good and did well not to get reported as they gave him plenty of stick. He was very good in the first qtr delivering off the half back-line but when we lost Maynard he had to go to the contest more and wasn't as effective. He may still get a recall as he looked fit and well and had a good attitude. James Jordan, I think this was one of the first times they used him on ball and he was good, lots of tackles and little dish outs, he should be proud of his game and he shows plenty of promise. Overall, Willy probably had the best three or four players out there today and are a pretty good side who play their home ground well and played well for each other. Their commitment was what won it and something that once again seems to have gone missing from Melbournes whole footy department.

It's not chaos. There are rules and the players have to play by them. Chaos is something very different. It is however chaotic.

This is your better post for mine. I tend to agree there is no particular bias against Melbourne other than what comes from being lowly rated in relevance. The last public outcry that the umpiring needs to be changed and was faulty was of course the Anzac game where Essendon were convinced the umpiring cost them the game. Then of course Essendon officials wanted an explanation over the Rampe decision last week "for the good of the game". The point in your post I don't accept at all is the bit where you suggest we should just "accept" the umpiring of the game is stuffed and move on. It is definitely a hard game to officiate but the AFL's and their media channels being virtually banned from commentating on umpiring when it so so so influentual on every games outcome, because it is hard to attract umpires to the sport, means there is very few avenues open to actually improve umpiring. There is no doubt in my mind the "rub of the green" was against us on Friday night. I'm all for a thread that discusses the umpires poor form. It gives solace to a loss.

The three of Frawley, Dunne and Howe were good mates and in private conversations amongst themselves I'm sure they worked out the best way to advance their careers was at another club. Good, solid, loyal players stay and work out how to improve their team or suffer for the cause. I include May in that bracket along with Lynch at Richmond and over half the Hawthorn team. Scully is the ultimate mercenary and well hated by most of the football public.

Gee, he's only been out of the side one week.

I liked the Wagner boys, Hoare and Hunt in their new roles. I would like all four to be given some time to develop synergy within the team. The Wagner boys are tough, fearless and quick. They tackle well which suits our game plan. I know they are blue collar which means they aren't always AFL standard but given time I think they can hold down positions. Hunt spent last year in the VFL developing his defensive side and is our best small forward at the moment, when you need two or even three in your team. Where that puts some of the others I'm not sure but stick with those four against smaller forward lines for me.