Bay Riffin

he was defintely an icing on top player, or what I would call a finisher. Stupidly most questioned his work ethic although he turned up in great condition to pre-season and gave his all. I think he was slightly hard done by becuase he would play ok then get dropped, the opposite of some. also against him though, he didn't get his own ball and was finding it too hard in a bottom 8 side. I reckon with confidence he could be a great finisher but feel we won't lose out on this one.

getting sick of the sylvia rubbish on this site. Firstly his 'talent' since he started was actually skills of an outside player, he has slowly built on his weakness which was contested footy. He has built on this to survive as we weren't getting the ball to him enough, but to me this so called 'huge talent' could not kick non preferred, did not do the one percenters and did not have great skills in close. These he has worked on, and improved better than most. get him on an even playing field and I believe he will perform well.

Speaking of Green, can someone tell him he is not even in the leadership group anymore and stop yapping to the press. He just seems to love being quoted since he started but his comments nenver do us any good. just shut up and play footy. he is barely in our first 22 as it is.

what? in case they sound dergoratory? not sure anyone will blink an eyelid who has been reading demonland. i agree with him though, Frawley is our best player at present.

hang on..having a mature body certainly helps but Scully for instance had no problem with avoiding contested footy when he started. Nor did someone like Gysberts. I stand by my examples Watts, Morton and Bennell. Morton especially. I wonder what evidence we had he was going to be good when things got tough? my point is these blokes (Couch and Magner) look light years ahead in contested footy. and remember our 'new' recruits have had a few seasons now. the old rookie excuse is wearing thin when blokes can't hold a basic tackle.

Now that's quite an encouraging appraissal by Malthouse, but I am not so convinced anymore our list is that good. We lack enough real competitors (not enough Frawleys and Pettards for mine) and I can see Neeld is trying to address our lack of big strong recruits already in the last draft, with size and strength to play finals type footy. I am begudgingly accepting Prendergasts recruiting was below everage and reckon Cameron would have done better. He just did not take into acount size and proven contested ability in junior ranks. I worry when I see Bennell, Morton, Watts and even a high draft pick like Cook who start so far back in physical development. All look good at draft camp and the first three have let us down considerably since. I was encouraged by watts last year but to me he looks lighter and smaller this year - how can this be? I look at Buddy now and he is a behemoth. Watts should be gaining in size at least. I look at two rookies in Couch and Magner and they show so much more in contested footy than these high price recruits. I know they play pure inside roles but geez, you can't be outside always. They are the real worry for me. I hear people consistently have a go at Sylvia and Moloney the 'flat track bully' but I don't get it. they are the least of our worries and go in hard. I see Sylvia protecting the ball carrier, buffeting and tackling better than just about all of his teammates. They are the least of our worries. nothing wrong with Melbourne? I am not so sure as Mick, and reckon Neeld has a massive, a massive task to change us around as the blokes suited to his game plan are the Bartrams, Couch, Sellars etc who may only take us so far.

Malthouse is right. Jack in his first two nab cup games has played timid, always appearing on the outside trying to get past someone shepharding the opposition. He needs to affect some clearances at ground level and attack a lot harder in the air. he is playing soft.

Would be a tempting idea to start getting the wins on the board. Watts speed and elite skills coming off half back would be extremely handy I think. I also think if he played on the Reiwoldts, Podys types who are mobile but big bodies, it would fast track his development especially contested one-on-one footy. I would not be against him playing on a key player in the backline as long as he is not the lose man role, where he will learn nothing.

and why isn't Jurrah able to provide the same as a Varcoe and Stokes? a better player as well. Guys, a small forward is the least of our concerns at present. We desperately need a couple of top class midfielders through the next draft. We will get Viney but i also reckon we go for the next O'Meara in the GWS mini-draft with our compo picks. Either that or just use our picks without trading and hope for a Jimmy Bartel around that pick. We also need an extra tall to come through from T McDonald, Davis, Sellar, even Cook to help out Frawley in the backline. I am more confident on the that side of things. Sure up those areas and blokes like Tapscott, Jurrah, Davey and Blease could play the small forward role.

Gees this puts too much emphassis on Jamar being fully fit. Let hope he doesn't get injured, especially first half of the season. I would be very loath to play him too much in the NAB cup. Fitzpatrick would be slaughtered in the ruck at AFL level. Yes we will have no ruck depth for a while. Upside is when Gawn and Spencer come back we will have some of the best depth in the league though. They were quite a combo at Casey.

i'd run laps for 2 hours a day if someone paid me $250,000

They played on each other last year in Adelaide and I watched it. Clark ran rings around him and was BOG (admitedly Sellar didn't play on Clark the whole game). Reckon Sellar might be better suited to smaller grounds as doesn't look that athletic on bigger grounds and could get run around. be interested to see how he goes.

Geez a lot of talk again about Morton. FWIW, I reckon Morton still has big potential. I was talking to a couple of mates recently who don't follow the Dees and from the outside their thoughts were that Morton would be a gun at say Collingwood. I was surprised as many on here would be, so pressed further for them to explain. They both for different reasons rated him, but to summarise they saw him with elite qualities you just cannot buy, i.e elite tank, relatively good speed and very good height. Not a bloke to play the Luke Ball role inside, but the perfect outside on-baller (wing, on ball) to kick to and possible run forward and kick a few. Yes and they knew he is not physical at present. When i suggested they had not see enough, they argued they had in recent times and saw a bloke playing in a side against a tidal wave at times, and nobody looks good when that happens. It did get me thinking though, would we regret it if we traded Cale? I remember watching training years ago and saw Jolly miss mark after mark, a bloke with zero confidence despite developing into a good size. He literally took years and years but came good. Too much can happen in development to discount any player I reckon. In Cales case I reckon when his tackles start to stick we will see some real improvement. Thats the biggest weakness in his game and the one I know should turn around.

I really do think that is why we did not go with both Blease and Zaharakis. We could have ended up with too many small type players in the midfield. In hindsight it does not look good, but you can't doubt the logic used. FWIW I think Blease has huge potential and looks a real footballer in the making. Strauss reminds me a lot of Frawley when he first started, just finding his feet at this level, doing a few good things but making mistakes on the way. Strauss I think just started to learn the basics of shut down opponent first, then attack, much like Frawley. He was making a reasonable fist of it too. Another year or two of progress and I think Strauss could fulfill a role off half back well. he has the attributes but needs that 50 games experience like Frawley before he show his true worth.

Let's just hope the emphasis down there is on developing Melbourne listed players in the positions we want them to be in e.g Cook CHF/FF unlike last year.

Still I hope it is a safely safely approach with him. Even more than making finals this year, we need to get a full years development from Grimes, Tapscott, Blease and Gysberts

Thanks Rudeboy, that's interesting and clarifies things for me. Interesting though was he didn't enter the draft so someone else could take him? Do you think if he was in the draft we would have still ended up with Liam? I can see the speculation in the pick and Wonaemaerri would have proven opposition recruiters right in not choosing him, but geez Jurrah is a huge talent.

Rudeboy, is that true? He was playing with Collingwood seconds and the pies put all the time and effort to getting him down through Rupert Butheras, but from memory he did not register for the draft that year. Subsequently he was given special permission to go in the pre-season draft where he was surely looking the most exciting prospect. He basically fell in our laps. Correct me if I am wrong. I hate the pies, but surely they should have had him.

Dunn and Bate will not survive as forwards. They just can't keep going forward when we now have Watts and Clark with Cook, McDonald, Fitzpatrick to develop. Bate has shown more lately and think most hold some hope for him as his attitude and performance at VFL level was still very good. I think it will be interesting to see him run on ball. He looks like a good 'generalist', good tank, decent mark and long kick, but no elite pace or skills. Dunn interestingly spent years as an on-baller/run with type and lost his way a bit. I think he looks on his very last legs and right now would be first candidate to be de-listed next year. I would actually play him half back in a Nick Maxwell role and just try and be the ultimate team man, picking up third talls and using his kicking skills to break lines. Throw him down there at Casey and see what happens.

Funny, because under Bailey their was a HUGE focus on running players. ‘Midfield is where the game is won’ was his motto, so supporters were crying out for talls. 4 top 20 picks all spent on running players 2 years ago. Now the wheel has turned. The question has to be asked, how did we NOT end up with a young star studded midfield? Where did it go wrong?

Rest assured they won't be talking about football.

Not sure about that one. he was genuinely quick. let's not distort things. just because he had endurance, it did not make him anything less than quick, and I am talking Blease type speed here.

I would have thought getting nexts year O'Meara would be top priority for us. hopefully we can jag one of GWS mini-draft picks and build with an elite player to join Trengove, Viney etc. We will need it as Gold Coast are building a top quality midfield (Ablett, Swallow, to go with their half dozen top quality key position players and the best young ruckman in the land. If a 17 year old Patton type is comes through ,then we could also go for that. No use getting two 'good' players. I say we desperately will need to develop an elite midfielder or two., and so throw them both into the mini draft and get an elite youngster.

Am convinced Petterds best position for the SIDE will be as an on baller, switching forward player. people mention Bates ability on ball at Casey but one game not so long ago this year Petterd was BOG playing on ball and pushing forward kicking a few goals. his work at stoppages was tough and has underestimated speed off the mark. Also always it appears, like Jurrah, to never be training pre-season in full swing. I reckon Petterd will be that type to slowly get better and better. just that more competitive than say Bate.

With O'Meara and Crouch already selected, what picks are left from the commonly labelled mini-draft? and when does the remaining bidding close? I am intrigued because i understand the thought of 'selling off' the top 4 underage picks due to come on next year, but if the remaining two are next year, shouldn't we know with greater certainty who will be a likely star at AFL level (e.g Trengove who stepped up in his last year playing finals in SANFL)