deespicable me

Dawes as a footballer is not always a great option but what I was suggesting is that if Hogan and or Watts become better footballers with Dawes out there then that is a win for Melbourne. I don't think Frost or Pederson have as yet created a "finished" six forward line. Clearly on Saturday we were two talls down, one in the forward line and one in the backline. I don't think Pederson was any worse or better particularly than Watts or Hogan but clearly the "mix" didn't work. For some reason Kent was down as well. Dawes for all his failings might help make us a better forward line. Especially considering we missed leadership down there on Saturday, with the press carrying on about Hogan getting frustrated etc. I'm sure with clear planning Dawes can add something there.

I went to training on Wednesday for a couple of hours. Just a couple of observations. Dawes was back training with the main group and was a welcome return. There was a distinct lift in comraderie. He is a natural leader and was very happy helping Weidemann, Oscar, Hulett and King with their positioning etc. Hogan was very happy to have him part of training. You could see that Hogan is just a kid and having a big senior player there was good for him. I think Dawes may be important in the next 12 to 18 months for the development of our forward line. If we replace Frost with Dawes in the forward line doing a lot of leading up the ground it will take away a bit of pressure from Hogan and Watts can become the third tall again. Watts and Hoges were bordering on non-functional on the weekend and Dawes may help restore the balance. Hulett was marking everything. He held his own against some of the senior players in man on man wrestling and out-marked the young King everytime. He continues to develop well. Trengove was looking good. He did a drill where you had to do a series of quick steps, then push off to one of three cones placed left, right and centre. He showed no effects of his injury and was quick and strong. He is another natural leader who likes to help with positioning and general teaching in drills. He and Dawes come across as pretty intelligent people. They aren't ever involved in joking or mucking around and Trengove really appears focused and determined.The addition of Dawes and Trengove to the team will add much needed senior leadership when they get back. Tyson was impressive. He was better on the weekend and continues to improve on the track. He is another who you can see wants to improve and develop his game and hopefully now he is fully fit he will build into the year.

Tyson has a different personality to the other mid-fielders. He is a bit stand-offish. They still need time to gel as any good team does. All good teams can second guess where their mates are moving to, where they want the ball directed etc. This is Dom's biggest weakness, he is not a natural team player. Probably a star junior who did it all himself. Hopefully he matures into a team player, I don't think dropping him to the seconds will do anything positive for his development, in fact given his struggle to be team oriented it would probably be a negative and only serve to isolate him more. They need time to grow as a team.

I was down there for an hour or so. Salem is still protecting his finger and not training at 100%, someone would have to be on stand-by, it must have been a fairly serious injury for him to carry it into a second week, and he will need to pass a fitness test later this week. Also Oliver had a minor twinge in his lower calf by the end of the session. I would suggest it is very minor but given he is still a kid they may choose to rest him, not sure. They may choose to ease him off and re-hab him for a week, but if he doesn't play for the firsts I doubt if he'll play at Casey.

I saw JKH at training for the first time in a while and he looked fine. There were no major contact drills to see if he would sit out, he wasn't taped and he kicked a goal from the 50m line so I think he'll play pretty soon at Casey. I would suspect he has his work cut out to get a go back in the main game. He looks like he feels like he doesn't belong. Head down, bum up and work his arse off and he may get a chance mid season.

Gee some of you "Frost lovers" go back and have a look at your great full back hope in the first quarter when Minson (Frosts man) took a mark and kicked a goal. Frost although he was right with Minson lost body contact and was nowhere near spoiling Minson. In fact TMac who left his man got across and was the closest to spoiling him. How some of you guys put Frost in the same realm as TMac is unbelievable, he's not a chance to do anywhere near as good as TMac. You'd weaken the backline way too much. Frost is a fringe player at the moment competing with Pederson and Dawes for a spot in the team and probably third in line at that. And his disposal is probably worse than TMac.

1. Fremantle 2. West Coast (apart from the derby a record every game played at Subiaco or wherever they play now to be a victory to the home team. A double up fortress and a joy for all WA footy fans. Second Derby to be a bloodbath with a Freo player ending up with a handfull of Priddis's hair) 3. GWS. (big improvers) 4. Richmond 5. North 6. Pies 7. Hawks (maybe I'm just hopefull but I think they'll slip) 8. Swans Brownlow Fyfe Coleman Kennedy Rising Star Petracca

Some harsh words here, remember our scores against have been 75 last week and only 60 this week. He is a very important part of a defense that has been O.k. All defenses turn the ball over occasionally when pressured hard enough, especially when the opposition man up the outlet players. Tom is very aggressive and a good strong physical player. He can work over an opponent and beat them consistently by the end of the game. He is a bloke you can build a defense around. As to his deficiencies we need to work as a team to limit them because in my eyes his strengths are very, very good. Maybe Rawlings needs to be held more to account.

I hope Reimers sues McVeigh to within an inch of his existence for his slanderous comments at the start of the investigation. He deserves "##### all" does McVeigh. Just another bozo I have to switch off when he comes on the tele.

If the dogs play close to their best side I think we need to as well. I can't see that Carlton achieved too much on the weekend, except a very unhappy bunch of supporters who will think twice before going again. I think Melbourne needs to practice winning and beating the bullies will be a tough task and any message to the playing group that we're going in soft will result in a "pantsing" by the dogs and back to square one. Saints are no easy beats either and if we lose both our remaining NAB games the win over Port will be a distant memory for everyone. Some posters here are getting waaaay ahead of themselves, hopefully not the players. We need genuine momentum going into the season, not some false bravado that we can turn it on when we like.

It's easy to see who are the weak squibs of the media world are when they pick on the smaller clubs for news items. They only ever have good news stories about Collingwood and Hawthorn. If a bloke hasn't signed at Melbourne he's "far from certain" to do so. If a bloke hasn't signed at Collingwood then "he really wants to stay" and "it's just a matter of dotting a few i's and crossing a few t;s". Weak and pathetic dogs. It makes our marketing peoples job so much harder to do. Especially leading into the season when you are trying to sign members. Jackson or Barrett should be calling out and confronting the weak ***ick.

I was there for about an hour and a half from 10.30ish and the match sim was under way. Just some observations and a spoiler alert, I can get pretty excited at this time of year, so maybe the hard-boiled cynics should look away. For me, lifes too short to be pessimistic. The coaches seem to want the players to take it on and use the corridor more, I think we may see the team play some really exciting footy at times. There were some ugly turn-overs at times but there didn't seem to be any chastising for mistakes and we were much more effective near goal. Max Gawn was clearly B.O.G for mine. He completely dominated Spencer and before anyone says "so what" Spenser is a big, competitive unit but Max was just too strong and his use of the ball at tap-outs was superb. Just to emphasise the point, last year Max wasn't quite as fit and was not our first choice ruckman, definitely behind Jamar and probably equal with Spense. This year he is the man, he knows he's the man and he looks like he's capable of delivering. His taps and the way he combines with Viney especially will give us first use of the ball in over half our games, a big advantage. We can't help but have a better midfield as a result. I think he's potentially our most important player and if he stays on the park I predict All Australian. Viney was great. He looks super fit, is totally committed and should definitely improve on last year. He can still butcher it by foot and is much better by hand, I would prefer he handballs as much as he kicks, maybe even more. Frost looked good down forward. Kent took a mark on the 50 near the boundary and spotted Frost way over the far side and nailed the pass to Frost who took the ball very high. Later he roved a ball in the pocket and kicked it to a player which ended in a goal. At one stage he cordoned off Jones (chunk) who was trying to get it down the line but rather than just keep Jones honest Frost hunted in on him, caught him and won the free. He looks hard to match up on, he ran and ran and although raw and a bit dodgy by foot he is probably the second tall in the forward line, with Watts third. Our forward line looks O.k. with Hoges, Garlett, Kent, Frost, Watts probably first five in and big Max coming down at times as well. Lastly I was impressed by Wagner. He is tall and a natural defender, he got a bit of it and tackled and punched well at times. He is someone to watch at Casey for the first half of the year and will probably be a chance of a game in the back half of the season.

I would like to have a go. Haven't played for a long while so my team name can be "Olivers Twist"

I'm of the belief the Essendon players won't sue because the AFL will pay them full salaries for the year. The AFL seem so keen to protect and nurture Essendon through this whole episode, and the sycophantic press and that idjit Paul Marsh continue to cast doubt on WADA and say how unfair it is on the poor players. The "poor" players will be kicking it up on fully expenses paid year long trips overseas "ala" James Hird. It stinks.

I like this idea, rather than having two byes in a year , (they are really boring weeks when there's only 5 games on) make bigger lists and make players have rostered days off.

what happens when the player on loan does his knee in round 21? I'm looking forward to some monumental losses by Essendon, hopefully starting in round 2. I'm hoping for a non-competitive team of mercenaries jumping sideways to avoid contact and giving us all great comic relief after the crap they've dealt the comp over the last three years, led by that great clown prince Goddard. Watching Goddard walk off dejected after each loss will be great viewing for the more sadistic amongst us, of which I'm one. So no, Terlich is too good for them I say.

I think this article will give you an insight on how close you'll get to the facts. http://us5.campaign-archive2.com/?u=89086118d3095e23cee1952db&id=dd478cc745&e=f15bb52e39 Tracy should ask Sir James what he's going to do now they've put up all those protective barriers on the West Gate Bridge.

I'm not sure but White might be in the same mix as well.

The beauty of the decision is I actually believe it is a win for the little guys. How often when there is a whiff of wrong-doing do the people paid to derail these things, to sweep it under the carpet and keep it away from public consumption win the day and "bad" people get away with their acts of low moral, disgusting practices. Even now Hird is suggesting it was a miscarriage of justice, and journo's that were / are compromised by their false and slanted reporting are wringing their hands and bemoaning how this could have played out the way it did. And you're right, dieter the stink over the game is worse than a hot day down at Altona when the seaweed goes off. But me I'm happy. One of my pet "hates" is people in high positions of responsibility shi##ing all over the people they are meant to be taking care of. Thinking they are beyond reproach. I reckon it's a win for the people, even Essendon supporters, who at least now can be rid of that disgusting human being and understand what he did to the club.

I know Wattsy said we want to concentrate on the positives of 2015 and as a team and players, confidence is a wonderful thing, so I am happy for them to do that, but as a downtrodden MFC supporter I am one who often sees the glass as half empty (not alone there). Last year Cloke of Collingwood had his best game of the year against us, Daniher of Essendon had his best game of the year against us and Carlton had their best win of the year against us. We have to beat the teams near us on the ladder. It could be argued we caught a couple of sides well below their best last year and had good wins but we need to beat teams when they are bringing their best. We failed badly at that in 2015.

If Essendon are just starting on a similar re-build that we did when Roos first arrived, then they should hopefully be 2 to 3 years behind us in developing a successful team. This draft has tied us to them a bit in terms of how their two early picks go versus ours. Oliver will get compared to Parish and Francis as we had a choice of three and Weiderman will get compared to Harry McKay and Curnow as they were the three tall forwards in the mix for our pick 7 and again we had the choice. Because we are probably (hopefully) ahead of both Carlton and Essendon in developing a successful team our picks should be given every chance to flourish. I especially like how Weidermann can be introduced to the team slowly and he doesn't have to be the main man at all with Hoges commanding the entire defence of all opposition teams. So if they are a bust and some of those other guys are clearly better in a couple of years then I'd say Taylor and co. will be viewed poorly by many on here. Lets hope our recruits go well. I like the Bullies recruiting in the last few years, I think they might be viewed as the top team in the recruiting wars at the moment. It can change quickly though.

Maybe their CEO put in an injection of funds.

I went down for a short time. It was the second time this pre-season. The notable missing player for me was Aaron vandenBerg. I have seen Christian Petracca and he seems fine, just on a modified program, but I have seen neither hair nor hide of VDB and considering he has been MIA since the Collingwood game in June I hope he is OK.Actually seeing him in the picture above means he is at least around. Hoges was running laps by himself. Looked fine, all limbs in fine working order. They were doing a ball movement exercise when I got there. Split into 3 groups, attack, defence or off. The ball would be kicked down back to an attacker and the attacking team would try to move the ball the length of the ground and score. It was good to watch, lots of running, switching the ball across the ground and fast movement. Sam Frost is back in full training and was good in this drill. Ben Kennedy is possibly the smallest player on our list along with JKH and Viney but he looks very fit and strong and was doing everything he could to impress the coaches and his new team mates. All you could ask at this stage really. Jayden Hunt is very quick. He did a one two with Frost at one point off half back and burnt off his opponent then kicked truly to a leading forward. If they work out how to use his speed there is a chance he can make it. Oscar Mac is taller now than his brother. Looks to have put on height and weight quite naturally, his potential is sky high. The next drill they did was moving the ball the length of the ground via 5 small groups. As you kicked the ball to a player leading from the small group ahead of you you would then run forward to join that group and wait a go before leading, marking swinging on to your left or right and kicking to a player leading from the next group, then running forward to join that group they would eventually make their way down the ground where they would have a shot at goal and then jog back to the other end to start again. About 5 balls in play again there was constant movement. A lot of passes were going astray before I realised they had to swing at least half the time onto their wrong foot. Gus was good on both feet as was Viney. White was pretty good. The highlight was big Tom McDonald kicking on his left. You reckon he's bad on his right foot! Wow. He sort of jumped in the air and would kick the ball with both feet off the ground. Anyway before anyone bags him he was the only senior player there joining in with the newbies so all credit to him.

I was once convinced Roos was going to deliver us a premiership like he did the Swans, Jackson was going to take us permanently out of debt and transform us into a power club and that Hogan and Petracca would become top ten players of the competition and play in multiple Demon premierships. Seriously delusional.

A little bigoted to our central Gippsland friends there dee-luded. I like the look of him and if we do pick him I hope he "judges" all his opponents to be inferior to us and his "narrow mind" focuses on the success of his team.