Jarka

I'm not convinced by the potential of our list, we have some very good young midfielders but we have huge holes down the spine and in the ruck. For example, who is a CHF? Once Neitz retires who will take the FF spot? We don't have any obvious players to fill the role and to win a premiership you need at least one key forward not to just kick a bag but to provide a target up forward. Carroll is doing an admirable job but we still have problems with tall defenders. After 10 years using the inheritance of a crap list is no longer a valid factor, neither is the board upheaval nor the salart cap suspensions. We as a club need to stop looking for reasons of failure if we wish to dare to be the best. I do agree though that he is a much better coach now than when he first started but how long do you give someone to prove themselves? Our club has consistently shown a complete inability to win the hard contest once the real stuff begins ie finals and that is something that only the coach can take responsibility for. Who is available? We've seen Worsfold and Roos start their careers while we've continued with Daniher, I'm not saying that we could've got either of those guys but that's a pretty weak excuse for keeping Daniher, there will always be new blood coming through. My biggest issue with us at the moment is that there is a sameness about the club, the footy world's view of us is that we're a flashy side who play an attractive style but crumble when the heat is raised during finals. But in saying all this don't think that I want him to be sacked right now, that's just being silly. He should have the complete backing of the club, however if we finish outside of the top 4 then I think we should be looking elsewhere.

I used to be very pro Daniher however recently I think that both parties need a fresh start. The only reason for this is lack of success, 10 years at the one club without a premiership is a record if i remember correctly.

I'm surprised that someone said that Bartram wouldn't be in their starting 22. What he brings to the team is a good run with player who also has decent skills, and apart from junior it's something we've lacked in recent years. With Bartram playing it frees up a playmaker like Green or Bruce to be more attacking. I just think for team balance he is a must.

No point kicking it to the forward line? Regardless of who is our forwards the aim of the game is to score goals and we obviously failed in that department. My issue with this style of play is that when the opposition turns up the heat it breaks down, very quickly. In finals footy it will never work with the players we have - never. If Daniher is going to stick with this style of play then it will be a very long season, the better teams will just maul us into easy turnovers and score at will.

This is just from memory from an interview with him on SEN a couple of weeks back - I took it as it's still his business but he doesn't have a hands on role anymore. I have no idea if he has access to the sensitive information, that was just a guess.

Hards is correct that he isn't handling the day to day managing of the players but he would still have access to 'sensitive information' which could give his club an advantage when it comes to trading time. Very ordinary decision by him imho.

I hope the club stands by Ward through this difficult time, after everything he has been through it would be sad to see him be 'dumped' by the club. In saying that however, it was an incredibly stupid thing to do, all the players are aware that they shouldn't gamble on games, but to do so in such an obvious manner is unforgiveable. How easy would it be to get a mate to place the bet instead?! The other issue with the drugs is completely irrelevent, the players assoc and the AFL have an agreement to do out of season testing, which is much more testing than most other sporting leagues in the world do. The agreement depended on the players be protected and given a chance to rehabilitate, it's such a positive outcome between the AFL and the players it has to continue.

Yeah, we shouldn't be pinning our hopes on this bloke. If he comes good then it's a bonus.

I'm not upset that we didn't win this game, we don't need to play any further in the pre-season comp, but we have some problems with a couple of players we've had on our list for awhile.

I must be on my own planet as I have yet to see anything in PJ that suggests that he will make it as a ruckman, to me he is purely a tall forward. I think Neaves has already taken the 3rd ruck position away from him.

The clock is a bad comparison imho. It's more of a pendulum. The reason is pretty straighforward, in a footy club you usually have about 3 or 4 'generations' of players coming through, ie White, Neitz, Brown and Green, Bruce and TJ etc. Clubs that have these generations all firing at once have a pretty good shot at winning a GF, but if a club is relying on one generation to pull them through once they retire it will take them a bit to get back up, these clubs generally need a couple of generations to come through to have another shot. I probably haven't ecplained myself properly, I've had a long day sorry.

Very, very silly thing to do, considering how easy it would be to get around it. I'm just amazed that an AFL player could be this dumb to get caught.

I presume Buckley will play mostly up forward this year so he's trying to bulk up, however with his dodgey hammies it seems like it could be a bit of a risk, hopefully this will mean it will be alot easier for his opponent to run off him.

Now that's funny.

Sometimes being a Melbourne supporter is depressing, you have to cling onto thoughts like this to feel good about the team. Hell, our last two GF appearances have been nothing short of embarrasing.

Miller was carrying an injury in 06 which I guess is an excuse, my biggest problem with him is that he doesn't seem to ever play 'smart footy'. Hopefully he'll prove me wrong this year.

Everyone. Seriously. Premierships aren't won when the 15-25 ranked players don't perform.

Good move by everyone, especially Troy's family.

I'm interested to hear why you think the hawks will be in trouble. From what I can gather their finances seem to be in front of ours, Kangaroos, Bulldogs, Carlton and possibly Richmond and Geelong, I know they're doing the Tassie thing but I didn't think they were/are in trouble.

Hasn't Daniher got the record for most number of years coaching the same club without tasting premiership success? Don't be too quick to judge Bomber T poorly, our record is not great either.

I tend to favour the Victory stance with this issue, 20k is too small.

Well, I'm not that old, just in my mid thirties (I guess that would be old for some of you guys). I based my all-time best 5 on discussions with 'older' supporters and history books I've read, for example Percy Beames got BOG in three seperate premiership wins, not bad hey. Anyway, the best that I'ver personally seen was/is: Robert Flower David Schwartz Jimmy Stynes Allen Jakovich Jeff Farmer Some of the above didn't have long careers with us, ie Jako and Farmer but in my opinion they were the best. Special mention to Rod Owen, that guy could do anything with a footy, pity about the injuries and the off field issues.

Yeah /sigh

Topic posted on bigfooty, who are our best 5 players of all time? Interested to hear everyone's thoughts on this, without much thinking (seems to be my life story) here are my guesses: Ron Barassi Percy Beames Ivor Warne-Smith Rober Flower Bob Johnson. I thought the first four were obvious choices but i had problems with the last spot, it was basically a toss up between Johnson, Mueller and Don Cordner. Who have I forgotten?

Pagan should kiss Wayne Carey's feet as he is the reason why he won the premierships.