Axis of Bob

I'm a massive fan. What would you give up for pick 1 in the 17 year old draft? (ie, O'Meara)

Has not really stepped up to be a true midfielder, but is anything but vanilla. I'd grab him if we could (although unlikely) because he really has the potential to be a game breaking midfielder. Just has raw power, which is priceless as the game becomes more congested.

Happy with this. Vastly experienced football person who has come from a professional organisation that would have some synergy with the 'role oriented' vision Neeld appears to have for Melbourne. He is massively respected across the industry, as shown by the number of clubs reputedly chasing him. The other good thing is that he has the gravitas to command respect from the moment he walks in the door, and offers a buffer between the the board/administration and the football department. He knows how a professional football department is run and he can use his influence to make sure that things are done the right way. We certainly seem to have a vision for the footy department and we've been pretty swift in setting it up so far. A good start, which can hopefully continue. Really looking forward to trade week and the draft,

The good thing about a thread like this is that a topic is raised about him, we all discuss it, with the overwhelming majority expressing our support for Burgan and the work he has done. I think that the response here is a feather in his cap. It also shows that almost any topic can be discussed, no matter how stupid (or otherwise) we think the OP was.

Yep. Those ones especially. It must have been bad for them, but their experiences of that bygone era still cloud their vision.

The only real problem I have with Melbourne employing Burgan is that now he doesn't do the AFL phantom draft. Other than that I think the official site has improved 100x since he has joined.

I think there's a difference between a one off 'administrative error' and 'prolonged systematic cheating'.

I don't get where this myth about him being poor overhead has started.

Did they make Steve Guttenberg a star? Do they keep the martians under wraps? Do they keep the metric system down?

You know .... 'them'. Those people that don't agree with him. Those people that will argue against him when he says something that they don't agree with. You know .... 'the clique'.

Looks like we've found your level.

I have watched Fitzpatrick play at Casey over the last two years and at the under 18 championships the year before. He has several attributes that make him a very attractive prospect. As you say, his speed, which is really good for anyone llet along a 200cm forward. Secondly he is a genuinely tall forward. Jack Darling is as close in height to Tom Scully as he is to Fitzpatrick. The reason why most ruckmen make poor key forwards is because they lack the mobility to play forward. Fitzpatrick has the ruck height but top quality forward mobility. It's a very rare combination. Only a minimal amount of weight? You clearly did not see him at all prior to him being drafted. He was ridiculously skinny. He ran like the wind but also could be blown over by a small zephyr. He came to the club at 85kg (same as Watts, but 2 inches taller) and is now listed (probably at the start of the year) at 93kg. He'll eventually get himself up to about 100 or so kg. He's much bigger than what he was when he was drafted. It appears that he's over his chronic fatigue now, which is good news. If you think his kicking is currently bad then you should have seen it when he was drafted. The only person I've seen who was a worse kick was Stefan Martin. That includes Jake Spencer and various Irish recruits. His kicking has improved a heap and continues to improve. He had a horrid technique which is looking a lot better now. Not strong enough in the air? He's a skinny developing key forward who takes plenty of strong contested marks at VFL level. He is very strong in the air and, with time and size, he will be a genuine AFL marking threat. He's 200+cm tall, developing (and has already developed a lot) and played AFL footy a year before I thought he would have a chance of doing so. I've been super impressed with his development so far - far more so than a lot of other player of ours. We were going to take Fitzpatrick in the second round of the draft in 2008, but we were lucky to get Gawn and then him in the third round. Why did he slide? A few reasons. Firstly his kicking. He was a very poor kick. Secondly, he was really, really skinny and you needed to be able to put time into developing him into the player he will be. It was a risk. Thirdly was his chronic fatigue. While it was not a long term problem, it was still a risk. Fourthly was his form. In his last year of under 18s his form was a bit scratchy, which may have had him drop down the rankings a bit. Overall, there was just so much projection of development needed that there was a lot of risk that he wouldn't become the player he could be. Luckily he has been putting on weight, his kicking is getting better and he's improving ahead of where he would have been projected to be. They re-signed him on a two year deal in the middle of the year while he was injured. I think that says a bit about where the coaches think he is. Making a hard call to delist a project tall, drafted as a stick figure in a position we really need, who has unique gifts among the league as a 200+cm player with genuine speed, that is developing extremely well and played AFL a year ahead of schedule. You're an idiot.

Watched any Casey games he's played in? Or just the one interstate game from your living room?

It wouldn't surprise me, based on the appointments so far, if we have 2 coaches per line. A head line coach, like Royal, who is more tactical, providing most of the current roles of an assistant coach like week to week tactics, setups and so forth, and then an assistant line coach, like Greaves, who is more of a development coach for the younger players, teaching them about how to play the game etc. Even if that's not how Neeld is looking to set it up, I quite like the idea. With so many players and so much to do for each line from week to week, having coaches to purely focus on the minute detail of improving each player seems like a smart move.

Not even for Lynden Dunn and a 3rd rounder?

What it says is that Rivers plays a role for our team that is directly under the instruction of the coaches. Because he plays the role that he's asked, the way that he's asked and gets the results that are asked of him, the coaches reward his good team role with votes in the club best and fairest. The coaches know what role he was asked to play and thought he performed that role exactly the way he was asked. In the Brownlow the umpires have no idea what role a player is asked to play. So they give the votes to the player who they notice the most. Generally it isn't the contest killing tall defender. Guess how many votes 2011 All Australian defender Darren Glass got? Between the three key defenders in the 2011 All Australian team (Glass, Reid, Scarlett) they got 4 votes. Glass had zero, Reid had one (for a 31 disposal effort against Hawthorn) and Scarlett three (one three vote game after 29 disposals against Hawthorn).

But does Jamar work hard enough as a forward on the lead to push up to the wing and back? That is the greatest strength of Cloke and Dawes, as they can get themselves one out with a defender because the push so hard into the space. Stef Martin could do it if he competed harder for the ball in the air. He does it better now, but he still needs to improve to get to that point. Watts looked like he could do it at times this year, but there is no way in hell I want Watts to be smashed around and jumped into all year. I'm happy for him to spend time running around around the ground causing havoc until we are about to launch our premiership tilt.

But old, we sure could do with the extra 0.3 1%ers a game that White contributes. And, of course, the extra 0.2 behinds a game.

When you get to a certain age it is reasonable that players move to one year contracts. Brent Harvey has been on them for ages. Why? Because in a high intensity sport like AFL your performance can drop off really quickly if you lose a bit of pace. Green showed signs this that he was starting to lose a bit of pace and, if it worsens, then he'll struggle top play AFL at all. A one year deal is reasonable and certainly not an insult to Green. If he continues to contribute next year then he'll get another deal.

Cheers. Spongebob is one mean mofo!!

Problem with White is that he's a small man trapped in a big man's body. He doesn't really contest for the ball and is much better receiving it. He's quite quick, but he isn't a marking threat. Wow, it feels like I just wrote a bio for Paul Johnson. He amassed 5 (yes, 5) contested marks for the year this year. He averaged 7.8 disposals, 2 marks and thumped through 9 goals for the year. And if you are wondering whether it was because he spent so much time in the ruck, then you'll be happy to know that he averaged 5.1 hit outs a game too. As a comparison, the following Melbourne players took more contested marks per game than him this year: Howe, Macdonald, Fitzpatrick, Jamar, Bate, Green, Warnock, Trengove, Petterd, Watts, Garland, Jurrah, Rivers, Sylvia, Martin, Grimes, McDonald and Gawn. That's 18 players in front of him (ie, 19th). He fares better at Sydney, where he soars to 14th. I'm not sure he's quite the contested marking threat that you think he is.

Yep, I like it. The full site can be pretty inconvenient on a mobile. Good stuff.

Kosi would depend on why you were getting him. There are two reasons we would get a big tall power forward. 1) Because we think that they will be part of our next premiership tilt and we don't currently have those players on our list, or 2) Because we want to play a style of game that requires a tall forward and the players that can play that role are not yet ready to play it. Getting Kosi (or a state league forward) on the cheap means that we can teach the players to play the style of footy that Neeld wants us to play. They can fill a spot until the likes of Cook, Fitzpatrick, McDonald etc are ready to take over that full time for when we are going for a premiership. Draft/trade time will be very interesting to see what sort of players we go after.

Well that makes the decision pretty easy. We just need to make a choice between Pavlich and Goodes. Personally, I think we should get Goodes, but I suppose I'd be happy enough to pick up Pavlich. I'm worried about their age though.

Frawley, at the end of 2009, was holding the best players in the competition as a lock down key defender. He was one of the players we had to move forward against Richmond when we were tanking. He had to moved off Riewoldt against St Kilda because he was smashing him and we looked like we might win. Same with Fevola. 2009 was Frawley's step up to a true AFL player and then the following year he was All Australian when he started to add more rebound to his game. Garland was playing good footy in 2008, especially towards the end, and was then one of our best in the first round of 2009. He was recognised as a considerable loss when he went down at the time. The same could not currently be said of Shoenmakers. But that is besides the point, because people jump on these guys too quickly. Especially tall guys. Schoenmakers is not going too badly. He just needs to clean up his brain fades and work on his one on one skills. He's being underrated based on a few bad moments against Collingwood. But Warnock may be attractive, because Hawthorn's window is now.