Jarka

Nugget, this is an internet footy forum, there is no place for the truth or reality here.

iva, if you've read my posts over the last 3 years you'll realise that I completely agree with you about our lack of key forwards, or more accurately how we've failed dismally to have some sort of replacement plan in place. Watts is the only person on our list who stands out as a KPF, but he still shouldn't play before he's ready. I hope two things happen this year... 1. We receive a pp pick before the 1st round 2. Butcher develops into the star he looks like he could be. A forwardline with Watts and Butcher looks bloody fantastic, but there's alot of ifs to fall our way for that to happen.

Sylvia should have dominated at VFL level,but he didn't. Whether he gets a game or not will depend on how he trains this week, let's hope he finally pulls his finger out. Sounds like a bloody broken record

Good point RR. Grimes, Wona & Strauss are injured. Watts and Blease are still at school. Maric has only just come back from injury. McNamara isn't ready yet. Bailey really can't play any more kids than he did today.

As a key forward Miller isn't very good, but we've known this for several years. But the fact remains until Watts matures (and however we pick up this year) he is our only option. We literally don't have anyone else capable of playing as a key forward on our list. As soon as we all accept this we can sit down, drink some green tea and relax.

We really don't have a choice this year, especially with injuries

CAC had two different roles at Melbourne, main recruiter for a decade and list management for half of that period. His role as list manager could be a little tricky to judge because Daniher would have had a fair say on who went and stayed, however when your title is head recruiter and list manager and you get paid big bucks then you'll be judged accordingly, right or wrong. CAC had his strengths, which were some of his late picks, and a couple of his first rounders were pretty decent. In particular Thompson and I rate McLean very good as well, my reasoning is that it was an ordinary year and McLean definitely wasn't considered a strong top 10 pick going into the draft. All the other stand out from that year have been pretty ordinary, Bradley, Fay, Tenace etc. Jones was a pretty good pick as well. His poor first round picks have hurt us badly though. Someone mentioned that we were good in 2004-06, I strongly disagree. Successful clubs rate their seasons by how well they played in finals, and we were terrible. Daniher and CAC were running the football department, they were the two main men in charge, and their results speak for themselves. But, that was the past, the future is far more exciting.

It's a fair assessment of his junior days, however how he develops as an AFL player, who knows?

Bailey said that if Sylvia trained hard enough he'd play, so if Bails is true to his word Sylvia is either injured or he didn't train hard enough. If it's the latter then his future must be in serious doubt, if he can't get himself together after his type of incentive from his coach then I doubt he ever will. It's a shame because I believed he'd be able to finally prove himself

Carlton won because they had more players around the ground who were prepared to put their bodies on the line, they forced Richmond into errors and they reaped the benefits. I thought for a bloke who was clearly not 100% fit Fev's game was awesome, he set their win up with their opening goal. I loved his attack on the defenders, if Watts could add that type of desperation to his game I'll be very pleased.

Absolutely, we could really use a goal kicking machine like Sylvia in our forward line, I mean a bloke who has an average of 0.7 goals a game over his career will definitely make all the difference.

How friggen good is this? Three new sponsors, a new deal with the AFL and the MCC and we're also going to benefit out of the new agreement that the AFL are negotiating with the MCC. It really does make the negative comments about Stynes and co that we've seen on this site recently look pretty silly. If Stynes just took the first inferior offer available then we wouldn't be in this position now.

I'd be very surprised if Jurrah played this week, I'd prefer him to really settle into life in Melbourne and play some good, consistent footy for Casey. There is absolutely no need to rush this kid at all, in fact the more I think about it the more I think it would be a bad idea. I'm sure Bailey meant that he was 'in the mix' by unlikely.

hah! I'm obviously very slow on the current internet 'speech' Rflowering - 1 Jarka - 0

Except that North's small forwards are very quick and agile, I don't think someone like Frawley would be able to cope with that combination.

There is a delicious irony to this post, anybody else spot it? Mental note: If you're going to have a go at someone over spelling you better proof read your own posts...

Spot on hoopla

It's definitely not about being negative, rather realistic as others have already mentioned. We just need to keep reminding ourselves that this is another year of transition where we give guys like Frawley, Dunn, Newton etc a chance to prove themselves. We will still have our bad losses, and that's when our resolve will be tested.

Regardless of what's happened over the last month it doesn't change the facts about our playing list, the main issues being a lack of tough mature leaders, depth and stars in the midfield, and a poor forward. Green has taken leaps and bounds over the last two seasons, he definitely stands out game in and game out, putting his body on the line. But sadly he's a minority with our older guys. Our midfield has potential, sure, but it's brittle. McLean, Moloney, Grimes, Davey and Sylvia have great potential but I'm more and more concerned that we'll never see them all firing together due to injuries. Our problems with our forward should be well known, our best chance is on the wrong side of 30 and is recovering from a serious injury. This will most likely be his last year, if we get 40 goals out of Robbo I'll be pleasantly surprised. Our next best forward is Brad Miller who has kicked 60 goals, in his entire career, his season high being 26. At the age of 26 I just can't see him completely turning his career around and producing a miracle. Bate and Newton may have the occasional day out but they both have chinks in their armour to have doubts over their ability to consistently kick big bags. It will pretty much be left to the smaller guys to do the damage, ie Wona, Davey, Maric etc. I don't think we should set our expectations too high this year, we need another year of pain before climbing the ladder again.

Hey deeangel, try 755888, we have one spot available and it's all people from demonland.

So what? A very similiar thing happened with Emirates and Collingwood, it wasn't the CFC who contacted Emirates and talked them into a sponsorship, someone who had a contact within their organisation found out their expansion plans in Aus and introduced them. At high level business deals it almost always happens like this, it's not what you know, it's who you know.

The whole basis of your argument is underpined by an assumption that is incorrect, which is the structure of the payments and what the 'sponsorship' buys. Sponsorship contracts are based on a season, the starting date of the contracts are largley irrelevant. It's all about a season of football, ie exposing the market to a brand via several avenues such as matchday crowds, exposure on TV and other media outlets. This means that even if we had of signed this new contract several months earlier it would have been for exactly the same amount. If, by some freakish miracle, what Hazy is saying was correct then the new contract would have been for a considerably less amount because we have already lost so much time. All this meaning that the above wall of text full of calculations that I replied to are completely useless and irrelevant. Hazy's monotonous postings on this topic are now repetitive and boring (and have been for some time). His/her arguments are obviously becoming more and more desperate with each day the club gets stronger and stronger, you can actually see the dissapointment in the posts because his agenda is further exposed. Every true Melbourne supporter should be proud of what this club has achieved since the supporters pitched in and wiped out millions of dollars of debt last year, and there is no more room for personal political agenda's, those days belong to the old MFC, the pathetic irrelevant MFC that landed us in the position we're currently in. Previous administrations failed our club dismally, but now is not the time to reflect, we just need to focus on the present and the future. I feel nothing but pity and disgust for anyone who tries to continue in Hazy's way.

queenc & enforcer, you're absolutely right. On a day when the club took a giant step towards a stable future I shouldn't be playing around with a peanut, there's so many positives going on with our great club it's just not worth it.

lol, keep it up kid.

You won nothing, but what I do find amusing is the fact that you're compeltely unaware when someone is taking the mickey out of you. That is something I do expect to come across when arguing with pie fans, but looking at some of your other crap you come up with I completely expected it from you as well.