Jarka

Sadly he was pretty ordinary, but honestly, how many good games has he had? I mean really good and not just the occasional odd touch. We really lack a couple of quality tall players

Our impotent forward line has finally caught up to us.

Bate has been atrocious this quarter, pity, he's been ok up to now

Like what I've seen from Watts so far. He was always going to be nervous and he's had some nice touches. I'm expecting us to continue to get on top of them and win by about 4 goals

Last 10 minutes we're starting to play some footy, god I love McDonald, playing a Captain's game

OMG we are playing dumb football

Our disposal has been shocking and we've given stupid free away which have resulted in Eagles goals. If we were playing a good team we'd be 5 goals down.

It's just so damn exciting watching this team develop

Sometimes we forget that alot of the people who post here are just kids and in a matter of weeks the same people will be gushing with praise. Football is also a very emotive subject for alot of people, it's no exaggeration that it is their religion. Often opinions and conclusions are made and based on a weekly basis, it's the few and not the many who can generally see the overall picture and appreciate what's taking place. The current Melbourne team is a great example of this. When Bailey, Stynes, Schwab, Connolly and co took over they clearly devised a long term plan to rebuild the club from the ground up. A side effect of this plan was the on field performance weakening for a short time, some supporters saw this and panicked, while others understood what was taking place and realised patience was needed. It's the same with Watts, the FD are building a champion to play for a decade, not a gimmicky marketing tool that gives instant cheap thrills. Watts may or may not have a great game today, but it's really irrelevant to the overall journey. The kid is going to be a great player, we all just need a little bit more patience. PS, Nash, this post wasn't aimed at you, I know I'm preaching to the converted. IT's just trying to put everything into perspective. Everyone is excited by Watts, and sometimes it's difficult for us to remember that he's just a young man who has only very recently just left school.

The real problem with this topic and Watts goes back to prior to him being drafted. There was a suggestion floating around questioning his attitude and belief that he may have had things a bit too easy and didn't have to work hard enough, the whole relying on his ability to get him through. At the time I'd heard these rumours (nothing more, nothing less, only rumours) and was concerned that we might overlook a kid who had the right attitude in spades (aka NicNat) and take a very talented kid who had never been tested. For a number one pick that's a huge perceived risk. At the time (pre draft) I was probably the most anti-Watts person on this website, however since then there's nothing that I've seen to prove that opinion. I'm fully converted to Watts and I'm now firmly of the belief that not only did we do the right thing, but Watts will be far superior to NikNat that it will be an embarrassing comparison to make. I've seen this kid do things that only the recent greats like Hird can do. His awareness and lateral movements are sublime. Once he grows into his body, builds his fitness up and plays the way that the FD want he's going to be an absolute gun. All we need is just a little bit more patience.

I reckon this forum needs more Jack Watts threads

Woohoo!!! Nothing will stop me from watching the game this weekend!!! Go you good thing!!!

Thanks Keyser, that's great news for the rest of the competition

Slightly off topic but doesn't GWS have two years of draft concessions? I seem to remember reading that, if so, Viney will fall into the 2nd year for GWS, and that would be a great result for Melbourne. H is confident that he's accepted us btw. On Grinter, don't be too excited. I've heard that he's not quite there yet. If he comes on then great but probably best not to expect it.

Nice, thanks for that TT. Did he make any mention of Stretch's boy? Not as highly rated as Viney but still good prospect.

That's not entirely true though, there was never any proven evidence that an assault occured and all parties deny it apart from one person who thought he saw something from afar in a dark alley at night.

This, I think, is one of the main reason's why Bailey is riding him so hard this year. Melbourne's game plan demands fit and dedicated players. We know Watts is all class and when his game fitness gets to the right level he'll play, but by doing this Bailey is making sure he won't be a complete flop and fits into our style. I'm loving Bailey more and more, and with each week that goes by I'm getting more and more excited about young Jack.

What a terrible decision a whole new generation of young Melbourne fans now face. Do they go with the number 31 or the number 9 on their back? What will make this even worse will be the numbers 4 or 24, but to do that they'll have to give up their 16 or their 10... /sigh We're beginning to see how hard it's going to be for the thousands of young kids who'll adopt our team as their religion, I guess the only option is to get their parents to buy at least 6 jumpers

Ccan definitely confirm that he is a big demon fan, welcome aboard Burgatron!!

If that's true then obviously it's not great that he's dropping those marks, however, what it does tell us is that he's getting into position to take them. For a CHF that means he's working bloody hard to get into the right position to receive it, we know he's a talented young kid and if his efforts match then we have a great player on our hands. If true then I see this post as being incredibly positive. Edit, to answer a previous query, JW's overhead contested marking is extremely good. At U18 level it was considered elite

Just to add to Pringle's good post, don't expect alot from Blease this whole season. This year is about getting him back to fitness, getting his footy nous back and most importantly getting his head right after a pretty serious injury. He needs to get his confidence back in his leg, it's going to be a slow process but I'm happy for him to improve gradually, we definitely don't want to push him too hard.

I'm thinking that if it wasn't for Scully, Trengove, McKenzie and Bail playing so games this year then Gysberts would be pushing hard. He's been an emergency a couple of times so the FD obviously rate him and going by reports from Casey he's been performing well. Just a matter of time

At the start of the season I thought that 6-8 wins would be acceptable, but now anything seems possible. The club has already overtaken my expectations so I'm loathe to set a new target. We're still a young developing team and at some stage we have to get games into Watts, Blease, Gysberts, Strauss, Fitzpatrick, Jurrah, Wona etc. We've got some tough games coming up, starting today, so I think the next two weeks will give us a good indication of where we're at.

Have to agree with Rhino on this one

That would have looked very similar to our group of talls for Melbourne last year, shows you just how far we've come in a short amount of time.