Axis of Bob

The thing I like about this is the flexibility it gives us. It also shows what sort of defensive unit we might be playing, because he is a small defender but very good overhead and takes marks peeling off his man. One of the interesting things Barry said was about his great discipline. It also means that Grimes and Tapscott can push onto the ball where their big bodies will count. Neeld appears to be very strong on big bodies in the midfield.

And I did think of H when we selected him. All his dreams have come true .... just 5 years late!

There are a few things to note about Sellar: 1. He will be one of the most infuriating players on the list. He is only a 50/50 proposition when he has the ball in his hands, so will make a few mistakes that some supporters will hate. 2. For a key forward, he is a massive unit. Tall KPP like Clark, makes him very hard to outmark in a contest. 3. He's very quick. He can present up to the ball well because he has good speed. 4. He's a strong mark. He can often monster his opponent, but also good when he presents up at the ball. Certainly when he pushes towards the ball carrier, with his size and athleticism, he is very rarely outmarked by his man. With him and Clark, we now have two players up forward that can provide contests and bring the ball to ground against multiple defenders. His selection certainly makes the style of game we are playing clearer. And Watts, Jurrah and Howe are going to love it!

I don't know much about him, but from the description I am happy. He's a great size at 188cm as a midfielder. They appear to have backed themselves to turn Taggert's talent into production. Sounds like a big bodied, contested ball winning player that uses the ball well, that they are going to try to move into the midfield. I was looking through the potential draftees before the draft and was disappointed that there didn't seem to be many decent big midfielders in our pick range, so it's great to see that they found one. At 36 in a shallow draft I'm happy that they are taking the talented player with a good attitude and backing themselves to turn him into a top line footballer in an AFL program. But time will tell.

I actually liked his draft as far as the MFC selections go. Although I don't know much of the specific players, I thought that the types of player he had for is were spot on. Small defender who is skilful and strong overhead is important for team defence, a small forward who tackles and can finish (with score to develop) and a big bodied mid. I think we'll add some body size around the ball, but that may also mean drafting a defender so that Tappy can shift into the midfield rotations. Big chance tonight to see in which direction Neeld is trying to take the list. I love draft day!

Rubbish, titan. Don't let your blind hatred of Haddin stop you from acknowledging the quality of his inning at that time. I am not Haddin's number 1 fan, but he played a fabulous innings to help us win the match. He was facing some really top quality bowling and the ball was decking around. He was solid and patient when we needed it and Hussey was still in, and he counterattacked at exactly the right time after tea to give our inning momentum when we needed it. It was a fantastic chase, not just because it was a 300+ run chase on the last day with the ball moving around, but because of the quality of the bowling. Steyn, Morkel, Philander and Tahir bowled very well, yet we were still able to chase the target down on a difficult pitch. Ponting was excellent, but Khawaja's effort on day 4 was superb at that time. I'm not sure he's the best against spin, but he's a top talent with an excellent temperament. Johnson returned to the sensible batting that made him a dangerous lower order batsman in the first place, and was exceptional in providing support and also guiding us home after Haddin went. Fantastic game - all 5 days. Great pitch that game everyone a chance: Philander decking it around, Tahir and Lyon getting wickets, Cummins exploiting the pace and bounce, yet also Amla scoring 100 and many half centuries through the game on each day of the test.

That's exactly what I was about the write. It's such a unique game, Test cricket, and brings elements that are very hard to find in other sports.

Yes, I think you're crazy.

Wade seems to be a quality player who could play for Australia. He's probably still behind Paine, though. His keeping seems to have improved a lot from the bits I've seen this year and he's certainly making runs. I think Paine has him covered, but he's certainly not doing his prospects any harm. It's a good problem to have, especially with Haddin being towards the end of his career.

They need to be good enough. Cummins is.

The players that will probably do best under Neeld will be those that win a lot of contested footy. Last season our best contested possession winners were Moloney, Trengove, McKenzie, Jones, Sylvia and Bail. Bartram wins contested ball, so will probably do quite well. I think ball winning will be at a premium, even at the expense of silky kicking skills.

Nuggets, you are arguing against your own points. The Ashes team was a young team, and it was thrashed. The team is still young, yet you want to throw more young players into the mix? Hussey had a bad game, but is still batting very well. The only 'old' batsman that you could be looking to replace is Ponting, but I don't think he's yet ready to be dumped. He's still got a few more credits in the bank. You said that Khawaja should never have been dropped .... but the player he was replaced with was Shaun Marsh, who has since averaged nearly 60 in tests. So list your team, as you would want it now, Nuggets. What is your Australian XI. Also, it's Alex Keath. He's not playing because he can't make runs at district level at the moment. He will, but these things take time. You can't just throw kids in and expect them to perform. He needs development and he'll do that through the Futures league until he starts putting it together.

I rarely agreed with him, but he had a very nice way of saying it.

Australia are in a position of rebuilding but, like the Dees, you can't just cast off every experienced player and play kids. If you do then they will get smashed and that may be worse for their development than not playing at all. Cummins looks are real talent but the next top line young fast bowler, in my opinion, is Josh Hazelwood. Very tall, quick enough (mid 130s), consistent and has a great seam that can move the ball in the air or off the deck. Quality prospect. Australia is lucky that we actually have a very strong group of young quicks coming through. Hazelwood, Cummins, Pattinson, Starc (although others rate him higher than I do at the moment). The bowlers we have at the moment, Harris aside, are pretty average. Siddle is honest, Copeland has faults, Johnson has even more (but lots of talent), Lyon and Beer are inexperienced. Our future batsmen don't look quite as strong at the moment, with the leading players probably being Khawaja, Maddinson, Marsh x 2 (Mitch is super talented, but doesn't seem to know how to build an innings yet - but should be very good), Paine/Wade, Smith, Warner (probably better than is given credit for), Hughes ..... but the quality doesn't seem to be as high. Nor the output yet. I think we'll need some older heads to stay around, especially in the batting, to help shelter the youngsters from the heat a bit.

They have a whole new selection committee. What exactly did you want to do to fix up CA? Also, just to annoy you, are you aware that the probably next 3 test debutantes are going to be from NSW? Nothing to do with state bias, but rather because they are the best players in the pipeline

Well Clarke's innings in the first dig was a thing of beauty. When the pitch flattened out a bit batting became quite easy. Unfortunately it was the 4th innings by then! We had a lot of players that didn't adjust to the seaming pitch. Haddin was the most susceptible. I dare say he is close to the end than the beginning. Especially with Paine as the heir apparent. But he's luck Paine isn't fit yet. Ponting hare earned chances. He certainly hasn't used them up yet. As for Hughes, I think he'll be a good player. But not yet. It depends if we stick with him because he's the future, or whether we flick him because he is struggling. Inverarity said something about investing games in those that we should be investing games into. Hughes is probably one we should be investing games into. Khawaja is a great looking batsman though. Watson opening is a bit of a worry on a seaming deck, though. Interesting decision if Marsh doesn't play. Play Watson at 6 and open with Ussie? 6 probably suits the counterattacking style of Watson more in the longer format.

This has been some innings by Clarke.

Video on www.melbournefc.com.au

Well, from watching one game on a poor resolution tv, it seems that his style of game suits the NTFL.

Yarran was a top 10 pick. So was Mackie. What would you pay for Heath Shaw? Corey Enright? Shannon Hurn was a first rounder. You actually usually find that you need to spend first round picks on HBF because that's where you can find someone with the skills and decision making to play that role. That's where you find the 'talent', which is what a HBF needs. Just switching the footy isn't enough. As you said, anyone can switch the footy. But in order for an attacking HBF to succeed inhis role he needs to do more than that. He needs to damage the opposition side, be it through damaging kicking (Hurn), damaging run (Gram) or both (McLeod).

I think that it's a great sign that Watts is even in the group of death. Most of those guys are nuts, and he did a reasonable job. Considering his aerobic ability was a real question mark when he was drafted, it's an additional bonus that it has improved so quickly that he is now one of the better aerobic runners at the club. I agree that Gysberts wasn't covering the ground with great comfort. He was just lucky that he was in Blease's group!

I think the article makes a reasonable point. It's actually a good, interesting article (which is unusual these days). Gleeson simply says that it's very difficult to prove that the deals are linked, since a similar thing has happened with Scully as happened with Viney. He's not saying that the AFL or Melbourne have done the wrong thing, only that it will be interesting to see where they draw the line if such a situation arises again. You need to read the article, b59, without having the preconception that the article is a smear article. It's actually a good, well balanced article. You've been reading the Hun for too long.

Was it the club that told him he was delisted, or was it Aussie saying that he'll be staying in the Tiwis?

It's a good observation. I think that if we play a really structured game then midfield kicking may not be as important as it was last season. If Neeld wants us to kick to areas rather than hitting up specific leading targets then the kicking becomes less of an issue. But Bail's kicking has improved too, so I'm not as worried about him with the ball as I am with Nicholson.

There were 3 running groups doing 400metre runs. They did about a dozen or so. From what I remember (and I may be missing names if someone wants to help fill in gaps) they were: Jones, Bail, Watts, Bartram, Martin, Moloney, Bate (otherwise known as the 'Group of Death') Of this group, it was usually a battle between Jones and Bail, with Jones usually getting the choccies. Bate was strong also. Watts kept up until the last 3 or 4 laps, but looked like he hit the wall late. No disgrace in that, considering this group contained our best midfield runners. Morton, Nicholson, McDonald, Bennell, Davis, Dunn, Fitzpatrick, This group tended to split into two groups. Morton, Nicholson and Tommy McDonald led the way every lap. Morton appeared to be doing it with (relatively) little difficulty. Of the others, I was impressed that Bennell was able to get through it all reasonably comfortably. Blease, Gysberts, Garland, Howe, Jamar, Rivers, Viney, Gawn Howe was the best of these runners, along with Viney. Howe and Viney really started to string out this group and are obviously far better runners than the rest. Viney had a break in the middle for a few laps, as they are obviously managing his workload. But he was doing the running very comfortably. This also had the big boys, in Jamar, Rivers and Gawn so there was a big difference between the top runners and the worse. Sam Blease, who has never done a proper preseason due to injury, is not going to enjoy this summer but it will be very good for him. He blew up about half way through and was almost at a standstill by the end of the session. He'll need a fair bit of time to be able to build his engine up to the point where we start seeing his best footy. I was pretty happy to be watching it happen from the sidelines, although I'm feeling very guilty and am dreading doing my own preseason!!