stevethemanjordan

Dissociative identity disorder or just bat-[censored] crazy? Whichever way, you're truly one of a kind.

Get the tissues out boys and girls. Welcome to the club, Jake. Let's hope you can recapture that 2013 form.

Jobe Watson Nat Fyfe Sam Mitchell Luke Hodge Dan Hannebery Josh Kennedy Adam Treloar Travis Boak Isacc Smith Bradley Hill Brent Stanton Mark Blicavs Dan Nicholson Jarryn Geary Rohan Bail The first group are footballers first and foremost. They're players who have developed a 'tank' through sheer work ethic and none of them were elite runners before being drafted. The second group are runners first and foremost. Some of whom have greater footballing ability than others on their list. Of course running is important. But it's fair to say the differences once you get to AFL level rest in your ability to 'play' the game and not so much whether or not you can beat a bloke in a 3km time trial by 20 seconds.

Interesting and thanks for the info. Much can change over the course of a year and judging by comments made this year after certain losses and similar periods of non-competitive and skill-less football as last year, Roos and co have surely come to the understanding that the list still needs a lot of work. In all areas. Looking closely at the six players that have already been moved on, it would be fair to say that Jamar, Bail, McKenzie, Riley and Fitzpatrick offered us very little in the way of 'depth'. One of many problems with our list is that not only do we not have quality depth, we don't even have decent depth. Clearly this was evidenced by Roos' desire to play underdeveloped first year players off the back of very limited pre-seasons in ANB, Stretch and Vandenberg, and a refusal to play those aforementioned, much older and more experienced names. In knowing that, is it not obvious as to why we'd be trying to target out-of-form but talented players like Melksham? Or do posters still struggle to recognise this? Again, I'll remind you that Melksham's 2013 season shits all over anything that Bail, McKenzie and Riley have produced throughout their careers and he possess a skill-set that is greater than theirs. List management and changes at a club like ours is clearly a more difficult and complex process than at most other clubs. We don't have the luxury of only targeting A-grade talent through trade period and then drafting well. We have to target depth, talent, senior leadership, role-playing and we have to nail our drafting. Targeting depth players like Melksham with the scope for improvement is nothing short of a necessity for the MFC at this point in time. After this time next year and if all goes to plan, list changes won't be anywhere near as drastic as what we've witnessed over the past few years. Get our depth right, develop our kids right and keep nailing the draft, bring in a couple more older and more experienced heads to continue to help nurture and bring in at least on A grader into the midfield, (hopefully two) and we'll continue to rise.

He certainly will be.

Glenrowan. Three-peat next year.

Ones big fella. Cmon.

I may have been playing..

Didn't happen to see the O&K grand final at the rovers ground last weekend did you?

Calm your farm. Do you really think Melksham is the only player we'll be bringing in? The reason we're not a destination club is our own fault. You do realise that?

Just as embarrassing as when we picked up Bernie Vince? What'd you say again? 'Excitement level equal to that of getting David Rodan', or something similar? Haha. Club being embarrassing you say? Mate, have a look at some of those posts RPFC highlighted from when we got Bernie. Yours topped the list for embarrassing! You should just hold your tongue on this one and it's the same with everyone else who jumps the gun thinking the sky is falling. You're all being stupidly short-sighted. We won't pay overs and he'll turn out to be better depth replacement than the blokes we've just delisted with the potential to be even better than that. Sadly, not many can see that.

Love it so much. No idea.

Fitzy stiff?! Haha! Have heard it all.

As I've said, we'll be laughing at their faces with demands like that. Of course they're going to begin negotiations with outlandish requests. They eventually accepted picks 17 and 37 for the Ryder trade, because he wanted out. If Melksham wants out, they'll deal appropriately. I'm also not sure why anyone would think we'd pay overs for him anyway. As for Greg Denham, is this the same Greg Denham that said Mitch Clarke to St Kilda was a done deal last year? Cool.

Yeh and we'll say no...Essendon ended up getting picks 17 and 37 in exchange for Ryder. A fair trade off in the end in my eyes. WGAF what they ask for? We'll either work out a deal that works for us, or he stays at Essendon? Big whoop.

Fair enough on the argument count then. As for the bolded bit of what you've written, I tend to disagree. If we had the sort of depth that Roos and co' had genuine trust and belief in this year, I don't think we would have seen nearly the amount of games given to Stretch and ANB. I see the fact that they were given games consistently ahead of players like Bail, Jones, McKenzie etc is because Roos doesn't see them at the club going forward. Stretch is clearly an under-developed kid who wasn't exactly tearing up the VFL. He competed admirably when he was played in or firsts but it's fair to say that he drifted in and out of games as did ANB. Players like Melksham (who is a direct upgrade on those others I mentioned), is the kind of player who is the perfect target for this kind of role. If you look outside of his 'ability' or 'inability' as a player alone you see that a club like us needs to have depth players in Melksham's age bracket and who clearly possess some talent to allow players like Stretch and ANB to develop their games, bodies and minds at VFL level. When this happens, the gap in performances from VFL level to AFL level won't be as much. We've got to remember that it takes time with kids. Melksham wouldn't be getting games 'ahead of' or 'in place of' ANB and Stretch. They're still kids and we need to get to a stage where they're banging the door down in the VFL before getting games. It's not happening yet because of our problems with list depth. Here's a scenario: Let's say we have a couple of injuries in our starting midfield brigade and we've got a choice of bringing in Melksham or ANB both of whom have been playing VFL. Of course it's form permitting but if they've been playing their role but not dominating, I'd still bring Melksham in as ANB is a second year player and the more time he has developing and feeling comfortable and confident at VFL level, the better off we'll be in the future. Stretch and ANB have just played their first year. Go and have a look at a club like Sydney or Freo's depth and tell me how often they bring in first or second year kids who were picked in the second and third rounds of their drafts and tell me how many games they're 'given' in their first years. Unless those clubs have a terribly injured best 22 players, you'll find that most of the kids will spend their first and second year playing in the twos. We need to get to that stage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1k5DFakV9E Tell me McKenzie, Matt Jones or Bail could kick a left-footed goal from 50...?! This was the year in which his talent was on display and without doubt it's something to work with. Happy to give him a chance and a change of scenery might be exactly what he needs. Like his anger and competitive streak too.

It's a non-argument. We've got completely different lists and Essendon's has been much much stronger than ours over the course of both Watts and Howe's careers to date. We see players just like Melksham being given chances every single year on many different clubs lists. Blease to Geelong, O'Rourke to Hawthorn, Schulz to Port, Martin to Brisbane. Some turn their careers around, others don't. Given the fact that we will not be landing five A-grade midfielders this trade period, if we're not paying overs, and the club know the risks involved, (re WADA) and think he's in the clear, why would anyone be against picking up a player who will clearly help the midfield depth at the club given the amount of delistings to we're going to see. A handful of whom will be midfielders. Goodwin has seen far more of him than any of the posters who won't shut-up about how upset they'll be if we get him. I would much rather throw a lifeline to a player like Melksham than have McKenzie, Bail, Matt Jones etc on the list. He's better than all of them and you're kidding yourselves if you think otherwise. Zero risk as he's depth at best atm and plenty of reward if he can get his act together. Look at what Taylor Hunt has done at Richmond after being in and out at Geelong for years. He's no world beater and I'm sure Richmond supporters weren't thrilled in the trade most likely for the same short-sighted views that are being thrown around here. No-one has to be overly excited about the idea of getting him. Lists like the MFC's need more than one or two years to build a strong foundation of depth, the right personality traits and characters, A-grade talent, role-playing ability etc. We're trying to change the club. But jesus it's like the world is ending up in here.

I'm assuming that they'll be monetary fines rather than bans. I also should have prefaced my argument with that. Obviously if there's a chance of him being banned then we won't be picking him up but no doubt the club know more about that. Will edit, thanks.

This can be in reply to both of your posts: Whether or not I could see Martin reach the level of football he produced last year isn't really relevant. It's the fact that he made such a significant step forward as a player. I think it's fair to say he hadn't shown much at all throughout his time with us which is backed by us letting him go for not much in return. It's also irrelevant that you weren't happy that he left. The fact is, he is now playing really consistent and competitive football at a DIFFERENT club and it's clear to me that a change of clubs contributed to this change in his playing form. How much or little I'm not sure. Are you refuting that? He became the player he is now after a change of clubs. As for the drafting comment and comparisons between Melksham, Morton and Sylvia, I really should have prefaced my first comment by saying the following: During the BP recruiting years, it has now become fairly obvious that many of the players we picked including most if not all of our top 20 picks completely lacked certain key attributes/personality traits. For example: Self-determined and driven characters, extremely competitive, naturally hard working players. I'm not sure if you've realised that under the new recruiting department, those types of attributes/personality traits are now the ones at the top of the list for players who are being brought to our club. Melksham, (unlike Watts, Morton, Gysberts, Cook, Blease, Strauss etc) actually possesses those traits which is one reason of many that we'd be interested. You're right, I shouldn't have just said 'he's a former top 10 draft pick so clearly there's some sort of talent or good mix of attributes there'. I should have gone into more detail about the differences in those attributes and general personality traits. Obviously I'm aware that certain picks are just bad picks. But a pattern has emerged from our previous recruiting compared to the recruiting we are now doing in terms of the 'type' of players we are going for. Does all of this mean that I'm dying to get Melksham at our club?! No! 'Little Goffy', when you say things like, 'in a midfield crying out for speed, Melksham is not the answer' it just confirms that you don't actually understand why the club would be potentially interested in his services. No [censored] he's not the answer to any of our list problems! Fark. Those comments are infuriating. If it were possible for the club to attract Bennell, Dangerfield, Treloar, O'Meara and Prestia in one trade period, do you think we'd be talking about this?! Here are the facts: *We are not a destination club for top players and we'd be extremely fortunate to land any of the above names in one trade period let alone over the next few years. *We have the worst list depth and more than likely have the most amount of dead-wood still on our list with a large portion to be moved on over the coming months. *Because of this reason, it's an unfortunate reality that we need to take our chances on players like Melksham in the hope that a new club will be the catalyst they need for a breakout in form/change in mindset. Ala Stef Martin, Jay Schulz,Ted Richards etc. *Bringing in new depth players and pushing out old depth players is part of every clubs list management process and for us trying to build a strong brand and playing culture is absolutely necessary. Every post against the idea of bringing Melksham to the club is for some reason idiotically assuming one or two of the following: Assuming that the club will pick him up irrespective of the risk that he may be banned from playing. He'll be brought to the club as a best 22 starting player and contribute to poor performance. We'll be paying way overs for him. We'd be better off with McKenzie, Matt Jones, Bail instead of him as depth. Completely writing off the idea that a change of clubs could actually be what he needs as a player. Scratch the [censored] surface and you'll see a whole lot of reasons as to why we'd be potentially interested in bringing him to our club.

Or..... it just makes sense? Considering he'll be on our list for more than... this year? It's logic big dawg. I agree his year wasn't great. Underwhelming. Does it mean I think he was a bad pickup? Far too early to make that call. The argument for Melksham is there. Which is why the club are interested bro.

Which isn't often, let's be honest.

Right. Well I'll give Lamumba more than 'one' average year before I judge whether or not he's a good pickup. In fact I might wait until his time is up at the MFC and then reflect on his contribution and whether or not he was a good pickup for us or not. But good on you for saying that.

Yes, regretfully so. I honestly thought he'd have trouble putting on weight from early photos and clearly I'm wrong. Is this the same BenHur trying to create a cool and new online identity? You'll also look silly if Melksham ends up at our club.

You're going to look awfully silly if we sign him, aren't you...