stevethemanjordan

Tyson's year last year blew everyone's expectations away, including GWS' I'm sure and that was off the back of a limited pre-season.I know for a fact that this particular knee injury he's been carrying has made things like covering the ground, ability to two-way run etc really difficult. He's been able to manage it though and it's clear Roos and the coaches think his ability to win the ball in close is too important to play someone who provides less. I think we've seen from Tyson last year that when fit and firing, he can be a really good ball winning mid. The only concern I have with him is his selfishness as a player. He is someone who has a natural habit of wanting to kick it rather than giving off to someone who is in a better position. Time is on our side so as long as a he matures and develops in the right way and uses his hands in close much more, he'll be a really important player for us going forward. Did his form last year not give you any confidence that he has serious ability?

Ideal offseason: Yarran and Plowman for the backline. One of: Bennell, Danger, Motlop Kruezer or Leuenberger as a resting Forward/Ruckman Tomlinson or Lynch for the forwardline. One senior player with leadership qualities: Kelly/Steve Johnson 2016 Round 1 team: (Let me dream) HB Jetta Dunn Plowman B Yarran McDonald Salem C Bennell Brayshaw Vince HF Petracca Tomlinson Kent FF Garlett Hogan Kreuzer Foll Gawn Jones Viney Int Tyson Vandenberg JKH Stevie J/Kelly

He signed a contract last year until the end of 2016. We can still get him. Great replacement for Garland and providing he can have a clear run at it without injuries, he'd provide much of what Garland doesn't plus he'd be a breath of fresh air for the backline as well as the club in general. This is exactly what we need to be doing.

Agree.Supporters thinking there will be minimal list changes are genuinely deluded. Free Agents, Delisted Free Agents, trade period. Do it smartly. Continue to move on the virus-players + the deadwood.

No he's ooc at the end of 2017. Newscorp. Articles like these are for lols.

Do you rate Watts? What have your thoughts been about his lack of effort and intensity at times? It's not a matter of Yarran not doing the basics. When he plays well and is high on confidence he does everything well including the basics. Just like Watts and others at our club, this year he's let a few habits sneak in that don't look good at all. Over his entire career, is that a reflection of who he is as a player or where he is mentally at a club that are going through a rough season? I can't quite understand how you paint him one colour and say that's the way it is yet you're happy to defend others who have gone through similar form slumps, shown similarly bad habits etc. I have a feeling it's because you barrack for Melbourne, and not Carlton...

Yes. Seems to be an opinion shared by a few around here. Aside from his form slump this year, I can't quite workout why. I mean, so many are willing to give the time of day to many Melbourne players if they go through similar form slumps.Yarran finished 4th in Carlton's bnf last year. And again I'd like to remind you of where Garlett was playing his footy this time last year. In the VFL. Yarran's best is simply sublime and over his career he has shown more of his good form than bad. It's really only this year that he's hit rock bottom and given the fact that we have McCartney, Goodwin and Roos as arguably some of the best football development coaches in the league, I'm again not sure why so many choose to believe Yarran will forever be playing in the manner he is now. As for Demham. Lols. I'd rather cut off my member and sit in vinegar than to hear him speak.

I think the Myers rumour is nothing but scuttlebutt. The bloke is injury-riddled and I'm pretty sure he's one of the 34 in question. We may have had a crack in the past but I cannot see the logic in going hard for a player like him now. Not exactly a list 'need' either. Of course an A-grade/class mid would be the number one priority over the trade/FA period (like Danger or Treloar), but if that doesn't work out I'd like for us to bring in a few players who fill our list needs. Yarran - Class and leg-speed A Ruckman-Forward who we could hopefully play to give Gawn a chop out. Trent McKenzie - Elite kick and good line breaker to compliment our backline. Jed Anderson - hard at it and skilled midfielder who won't cost the world. Let's say Garland and Howe leave and Cross retires. 2016 round 1 Team: B Jetta Dunn Frost HB McKenzie McDonald Salem C Yarran Vince Lamumba HF Petracca Dawes Watts F Garlett Hogan Kent Foll Gawn Jones Viney Int Brayshaw Trengove Tyson Ruckman/forward Knocking on the door : Anderson, Vanders, JKH, Newton

Well we do have Frost for one. A 196 cm agile and aggressive giant who from most reports is going to be groomed as a backman. (And played most of his days at GWS as a backman).The fact that he's so quick and agile for his size will also mean he doesn't have to always play on the giants. Leave them for Tommy Mac and Dunn. So there's a straight swap of you're worried about 'replacement'. The other argument is that as a player, we've won and our backline hardly looks out of sorts without him. Sure if and when he plays like he did on the weekend he can be a valuable player, but in my eyes, if hypothetically he left and we picked up someone like Yarran or McKenzie from GC we'd be far better off as a backline unit. We are too one-dimensional. And the only reason I'm bringing Garland up is because he's out of contract and a FA. Not because I have some problem with the guy.

Yeh they were. That was the state of our list. They were considered best 22.

I know posters are sick of hearing me harp on about it, but if you haven't seen some of the reasoning given for supporters being 'pro-Garland leaving' then I'm not sure who's posts you've been reading. All of the reasoning is absolutely valid. I will say this however. Garland's game on the weekend was the best I've seen of his this year. He more often than not defends well in most games, but against Collingwood he also played with flair, was creative with the ball, provided run and played with much more intensity. If he played like that all the time, I think you'd find most would be keen for him to stay. But he doesn't. He is a senior player who's form is up and down like a yo-yo and he plays in a backline that is one-dimensional. We desperately need creativity, run and carry, urgency and foot-skills in our backhalf. No one is 'bashing' Garland. Supporters are looking at ways in which we can improve our list all over the ground and that takes into account many things. Things like who is coming out of contract this year? What are they offering the club presently? Are they or are they not a FA? Could our team and backline gain from losing a player like Garland given that he is a FA? There are many questions. It's not as simple to say, 'he is clearly best 22 atm therefore he's important'. Jordie McKenzie, Bail, Matt Jones and Terlich were best 22 not long ago. If you adopt that kind of a philosophy about a list, it's not going to improve or grow very much.

Please, for the love of God stop! ....

I think you'll find you're on your own or at the very least in the minority with that one. Yarran's kicking skills are elite.

He has shown that he can be lazy.Just as Watts has. They've both also shown that they have an ability to not be lazy. I'd argue that Yarran over his career has shown more of an appetite to chase and tackle than Watts. But that's not the point. Your outlandish comments are absurd. One week you say how putrid we are. The next you say we'll be a team of superstars next year. It's the same when you make ultimatums about players. Yarran is not a lazy footballer. He is simply not playing at the required level at the moment.

Haha. Honestly. Some supporters. I can only imagine what you and others would be saying about Watts if he was at Carlton and Yarran if he were at the dees. The exact opposite to what you just said I'd suggest. Yarran is a proven talent, an elite kick, elite speed and is simply playing in a side who are going through a rough patch and is clearly not responding in a way you'd like as coach. Garlett was playing in a very similar way last year under Mick. He was also playing in the VFL. Look at what he's doing for us atm? You're all blind. Saying that Watts has 'got it' and Yarran doesn't. Lols. Yarran would be an extremely valuable addition for our side. It doesn't matter what way any bias Melbourne supporter paints it. He is supremely talented and has runs on the board. But like many players, is struggling at a club who are shot.

Like it.

Yes but why do you see him as important?I asked how you think he played on the weekend? Why do you think he's more important to hold onto when compared to someone like Frawley? Regardless of the different levels of compo. What is he actually contributing as far as positive change goes for the club?

I disagree that it was a mistake because at the time it was clearly necessary. Neeld, (for everything he did wrong) rightly saw the complete lack of professional leaders at our club. Players who had a natural willingness to compete for example. I understand Dawes is way underperforming, his form has been horrible this year and his skills have always been questionable, but his addition to our club at that time was again the result of a failed previous coaching tenure and ability to address serious problems with our list. One being the lack of professional senior figures at our club. Dawes is much less of a failure than Rodan and Byrnes. But yes, what we are seeing now with him is again just intergenerational list problems.

This and also that they've clearly done very well at the draft. They've nailed some quality picks. It's a combination though. The issues at our club are so deeply-rooted it's hard to spit them all out in a paragraph or two but ever since 07, different facets of the club have failed. When those failings, (list management and many off-field problems) were addressed, it was a failure again. Enter mark Neeld era, another failure. What we see are, (for lack of a better word) intergenerational list issues. And there is not one or two or three. There are many. This is the reason we as supporters are subject to this chaotic mess on the weekends. Whether it be full games, quarters, halves or passages of play. The effects of the past are still there to see on game day. The only way I see us overcoming these problems is by continuing to recruit the right personalities to the club and to move on problematic players who are for the most part the perpetrators. The players who have been 'Melbourne-ised'. Once we have a core group of players who share a similar playing philosophy and professional attitude, only then will we start to see more sustained success. Brayshaw and Viney. Players who's instincts are to tackle, chase, block and do anything in their power to win the ball. Let's call it the 'Brayshaw instinct'. A non-negotiable quality that we need to see more of. When you don't have senior figures who display these non-negotiables every time they play, your list is already in trouble. That is one of so many problems that young players who do not possess that 'Brayshaw instinct' at our club have been subject to over the years which means it doesn't become a club standard or it doesn't become a theme. St Kilda yesterday exemplified what I am saying. The influence Lenny Hayes and Nick Riewoldt alone would have on any young player who walks through that door at that club would so far surpass any young player at our club it's not funny. Especially if that player doesn't posses the 'Brayshaw instinct'. Players who need to know what the standard is. What is required before they get a game. When I look at Garland, Jamar, Dunn, Watts, Howe, Frawley, Sylvia and so many other players who were part of that senior and more experienced group that were at our club not long ago, absolutely none of them display that 'Brayshaw instinct' consistently. None of them. And none of them had the right people to hold them accountable. So we see the effects now. It means we've had to bring in players like Cross and Dawes. Players who do display those instincts but are less-skilled and have been let go of their previous clubs because their previous clubs have had a plethora of senior figures who display those instincts and they can afford to release those players as part of list management. Whilst our younger players have without doubt benefitted from having players like Cross and Dawes over players like Sylvia and Frawley to look up to, our game has suffered because of the skill level of these players. Again, another one of many problems our club is facing. I won't continue to go on about other examples but to me it's pretty simple. There has to be an overhaul and another two seasons of list culling of current senior players, fringe players and NQR's until we begin to see a young and committed core group of players emerge who possess that 'Brayshaw instinct' in spades and who hopefully have the fundamental football skills to match. Trading for positional players and hitting FA will obviously help but it's recruiting those kids who will be the leaders of our club that we need to nail. When those players become the core group at our club and eventually the next leaders, that's when we'll see a period of sustained success on-field. (Providing everything off-field continues to hold up).

If supporters don't believe that underperforming senior players with questionable skill-level, fitness and general intent when playing isn't a significant contributing factor in performances like today, last week and many other weeks this year, you need to wake up a bit. Seriously. Club's don't continue to display these kinds of insipid and skill-less games for years upon years without there being some seriously deeply rooted problems with some senior figures at that club.

I just had a look, you're right. Out of interest, what did you think of Garland's performance today?

It's the sign of a true one-eyed Melbourne supporter. Love all senior players and back them in even to the detriment of their own club. Frawley, Sylvia, Moloney.... The same supporters throwing out the same lines.

Yes, and I'll be the first to raise my hand and say that the club clearly think he's an important player moving forward. But we're not there yet and I'm confident he'll be gone. I'm asking Ron why he believes Garland is untouchable and why he thought the same of Frawley even though he knew we'd receive such good compo.

As I've said, the attraction to me of moving Garland on is not about what draft pick we are given. It's how we use it. You are assuming we'll go to the draft and I have never said we will only go to the draft with that pick and hopefully pick up a great player, (even though I believe we could.) But we have options. I said that Roos and co have been able to use the picks we've received from losing players very wisely and I have no doubt we'd be able to do that again. Whether it be packaged with something else for a trade or going to the draft or allowing us to bring another FA in who would cover the loss of a 'senior' player etc. All bases would be covered. We have already covered the loss of 'experienced players' in Frawley and Sylvia in Vince and Cross so I can't understand the 'losing another senior player' argument. It's invalid. As for the draft. If you want to play games like the 'look at the recent pick 26's' then I'll challenge you to dig a bit deeper and perhaps look at some of the quality players selected around that pick. Both before and after. Also look at how many high draft picks we [censored] up during the BP years and compare those with the ones we've been getting right since Jason Taylor and the beefed up recruiting department walked through the door. The point is we're in much better hands to both get a pick right and develop the talent. One more rebuttal. Remind me what pick Garland was? It's a silly argument.

My 'obsession' with Garland isn't any different to Ron's except that we have differing views about his value to the side. He posts about it just as much as me and yet I don't hear you calling it an 'unhealthy obsession'... I know why that's so. It's simply the emotional attachment one holds to a player who has played many years at the club that we're in love with. My obsession is with desperately wanting us to continuously transform as a club and as list until there comes a time where we stop having periods of play and games where we play the most embarrassing bad football the AFL world is witnessed to. I want to know why Ron thinks Garland is such an important signing? I want to know because he said the same thing about Frawley and it makes me think that he and the others who 'like' those statements have no idea that changes like these are just as important as recruiting well or trading well. It's not so much about the pick we'll be receiving for Garland. You all seem to bang on about it. It's more to do with the fact that we have too many one-dimensional footballers all over our list but especially in the backline with a consistent theme being 'not skilled enough'. Just take an objective stance for a minute and look at what we need to continue to improve and you will all realise this individualised player shmoosing just doesn't make sense. Not when we are a club who is still so short of real leaders, skilled and smart footballers and smart decision makers. Don't be afraid of change. You might lose something good but you may gain something better. All of the players we have moved on or who have left since Roos has been in charge we have without a doubt benefited from. Look at what Vince, Cross and Garlett have done in the short time they've been here and compare that with what Garland has achieved? Feel the mother [censored] change ya'll. It's coming.