Axis of Bob

Is someone feeling like a bit of a cranky pants just because those meanies started mocking your awful thread?

No. But since everyone around here seems to rate 'passion' over rationality, maybe I should give him some bonus points for that.

Jurrah simply doesn't put enough pressure on the opposition to move further up the ground. He can't even do it in the confines of the forward line, so how will he cope in the expanses of the wing - running back and forward between defence and attack? How about this for an idea. Lynden Dunn is out. Brad Green is struggling up the ground and gets too much attention up forward. He's not producing what we need. So how about he plays Dunn's role? Play him as a defensive shutdown forward on their most attacking defender. So, this week, he plays against Brendon Goddard. He has the body, and commands opposition respect which will not allow his opponent to run off him as much. His over head ability means that he needs to be watched. It's a good way to get the captain into the game, helping the team and providing a really good example to his team mates of what needs to be done and how every player must play his role. Thoughts?

Awful, awful thread. But since I award marks purely based on the number of punctuation marks, I award you two points (plus one for your second post).

Not defending Davey, but I love it when people use other people's opinions as 'evidence' for their own opinions. Hannabal does it all the time, but seems to have gone quiet of late. Anyway, Davey's work rate seems to be down, but it is also likely that it is due to his role and the ineffectiveness of our contested ball winning midfielders. Davey is a finisher, but he has had limited opportunities due to our inept inside midfield. But the pressure aspect of Davey's play is disappointing. As a leader, and someone who held himself up as a captaincy candidate, he should really be setting a better example than that.

Stef was solid enough in the ruck. Did bits and pieces and was, for periods of time, competitive. However the problem he had was playing defensively. To let Goldstein get free as much as he did, especially forward of the play, is really poor. It's something he really needs to work on. As far as playing Gawn, he looks to be a really exciting prospect. However ..... having not played a lot of senior footy yet, it would be highly likely that he will get exposed quite badly in terms of the speed of the game. If he is to come on then it should be as a support player because it is likely that he could be uncompetitive at this age.

There's a thread already up for this. You may have missed it since it only has 10 pages.

Agree with Nasher.

What Maric did well today was create time and space for himself. He was really clever with his ball use. But, most of all, he showed that he was able to do damage in the midfield. It's important that players of his type can move past simply being dangerous sheepdog forwards, but provide spells in the midfield and add to the rotations to ease the load. Provide a good midfield link between the midfielders and the forwards, which is very important. But, obviously, it's only one game. But at least he has shown everybody, including himself, that he can do it.

This thread needs more lol.

While Bate wasn't flash (although I thought he worked very hard and din't look far away), I thought that his big body made our structure look much better. I'd be happy to keep him in the team, although, in time, I'd like Howe to develop to the point where he could be that player.

You can't completely change a gameplan in a week. Given our dominance, we can clearly see the style of game we have been trying to play.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/plan-a-with-help/story-e6frf9nx-1111114960780 "He will be a gift at four for Melbourne if it happens as expected," (Scott) Clayton says. "He's as big a gift at four as Grant is at five."

Actually Bailey, early in the 2008 season, said that he was not replicating Geelong, but they needed a game plan that could beat, not only them, but the next evolution of game. He said it was probably Hawthorn. SEN have got that conveniently wrong.

The Ebert bit was the comparison with Sylvia. Sylvia and Ebert is a reasonable comparison, although they were used differently. Darling is more powerfully built that Watts, but this isn't really the point. The point is that we bombed to Jamar, who was double teamed and shepherded out of the contest. To the contrary, WC kicked to a double team on a member of our zone. They did it better, but I also think they had the cattle to do it better. I asked if we needed to change things to counter this.

He's saying that it's 2 tackles per player ... across both teams. Assuming that the opposition lays zero tackles, then it averages out as two per player.

How about: "Maybe Bailey isn't as good a teacher as reputed ..... He's been trying to teach for 4 years and it is not working. The same issues keep rearing their ugly heads. Something is wrong." And I am enjoying today. I love a good torch burning, but not necessarily for the same reasons as most.

It's almost like we're a young developing team whose senior players aren't standing up. It's interesting to note who the people are who care so much about what other supporters think of the MFC.

Bailey has always been a good teaching coach. When he was an assistant it was always what he was noted for. Do you feel better now that everyone knows how good you are?

The Ebert part isn't the difference. The difference is in the Kennedy, Darling part. Martin is not great overhead, Watts doesn't have the body size, nor does Jurrah. Martin didn't play that role, either (and if you add him the you add Naitanui). I also don't think the comparison is fair between those groups because we only had one genuine mature bodied tall. They had 3. I don't think we used that tactic well yesterday, but rather we gave it to Jamar one out. It could well be a tactical thing that we didn't do very well or perhaps we were trying to do something else. It's very hard to tell when you are watching it on TV.

The players that are being drafted will live that long. That's what matters.

Oh, please. I usually try to leave poor grammar and spelling be, but reading this made a small part of me die deep inside.

I am conflicted. I want to see players brought in that show the sort of intensity that could rub off on the rest of the team. To do this I'd drop players based on their work rate (or lack thereof). For this I'd bring in Macdonald, Jetta, Maric and Petterd (the latterd two based workrate at Casey this week). Out would go Davey, Morton, Jones and Dunn. On the other hand, I want to see the our future side play games together. This would mean keeping some of these players but with very specific instructions and targets to reach re: tackling, chases etc. I think we have a lot of players that think they are a lot better than what they are. Players that don't play their role because they think that they're Brendon Goddard rather than Jason Blake. It can be a tough pill to swallow for some players. How do we fix that?

Well one thing he couldn't be accused of doing too much of was tackling. Jone had zero tackles in last night's game. ZERO! As an alleged inside midfielder that is an indictment on his defensive work rate. Trengove, who generally played on the other wing, had 6.

Theo: Actually, it's easy to pick the mature bodied hard nuts because you can already see what they are/will become. The risk is taking a more lightly framed player because they still require physical development, which takes time. Time that supporters don't particularly like giving. How did Tom Lonergan go against Buddy on Tuesday? Want to know how skinny he was when he was drafted? We actually took the big bodied Daniel Bell and Nick Smith before him. What about the big bodied Nathan Jones, Colin Sylvia, Brock McLean, Luke Molan, Lynden Dunn, Matthew Bate. Actually, the only lighter bodied tall player we drafted in the first round between 2001 and 2007 was James Frawley. In amongst a flood of players, Sylvia aside, ranging from duds to 'good ordinary players', it seems that we only really had success with the smaller bodied types that needed further development. And how long were people slagging off the light bodied Frawley and Garland? I don't know if you were around at the time, but there was a lot of crap sent their way for a long time until they finally developed. Since then, our smaller bodied first round picks were: Morton, Grimes, Watts, Scully, Gysberts and Cook. Trengove was a bigger bodied player. But the lighter player will get bigger and stronger. And, at some point, you'll forget that they used to be skinny kids. Like Tom Lonergan.