Bay Riffin

'pretty reliable' hmmmm....

told by who ?

good to see Gysberts and Tapscott in again. both seem to be on the same conservative program but good to see they can hit the ground running for round 1 whether it be at Casey or the Dees. No sign of Blease, yet hear he played a praccie match last week for Casey ? no Lucas Cook either ?

Garry is the biggest fence sitter in the game alongside Jason Dunstall. special note to Andrew Gaze who can't comment on anything in sport without sitting on the fence.

i think you will find that is the reaction of some at the Dees. Melbourne chief executive Cameron Schwab said last night: “We made our position clear to the Scorpians that we didn't support it but in the end it was their call.” Melbourne football manager Chris Connolly warned last week: "We would expect when it comes to decisions made on playing personnel, the opinions of Melbourne Football Club would be taken into regard.’’ Casey have done the wrong thing by us. no doubt.

how the hell is this in anyway good for the Dees? We have invested in Howe, Cook, McDonald etc and now our affiliate recruit a bloke we will never recruit who only plays full forward, the one position we desperately lack !! How is this anything but bad for us? We have Juice, Cook and Howe hopefully playing key position for Casey seniors this year and we will have basically one spot for them to learn their trade ? ridiculous decision, whilst the Collingwoods develop the Dawes etc under their own guidance. I see this as a stuff up by us. We should have insisted he never plays as we want to play Howe etc at full forward.

Robbo came out after his retirement and accused the Dees of tanking and now he makes this comment. Answer to an innocent question or not, he must know this could have been a potential headline. In my opinion he is not a true Melbourne F C person for doing this sort of rubbish that does not help our cause. Many of us have paid part of his wage and all he is showing now is some last self serving piece of fame. He means as much now to the demons as Cameron Bruce. Both have shown their limited loyalty whilst sitting on substantial pay packets throughout their careers, even when their performance was not up to scratch. At least we don’t have Bruce and Robbo to talk us up as premiership material after we win 2 games in a row.

interesting when you look at our new players like Tapscott and it's frustrating as well. How many new recruits in recent years have basically played shortened seasons or no season at all at the Dees in their first year to two? Gysberts last year, Blease, Tapscott, Grimes missing huge chunks. Jurrah, Bail, even Watts to a lesser degree. Maric, Strauss missing big chunks with shoulders. Compare that to chip Frawley who despite his recent injury has had continuity in his development over 4 years. Would be nice this year if Cook, Howe and co can play senior Casey football all year at the very least. Already Davis has a thyroid condition seemingly taking months of development away. hopefully that's the worse of it for this years crop as year long injuries to new recruits are getting tiresome. I know new kids are more susceptible with the massive increase in training loads but geez, we have had a frustrating run in development. Other side of the coin of course is we have a queue of top recruits barely seen at AFL level yet.

Just some notes on an interview by Connolly today ... He mentioned with Frawley out we need some others to step up. Warnock can play the bigger forwards but we are still looking for some others to step up down back. We are looking to have 7 or 8 defenders who can rotate through. He named 4 players in Tapscott, Strauss, Blease and Bennell who they are looking to step up this year. On Watts - some think he is 21 but he is 19, currently the quickest in the team, great vision and skills but his best years are 3-4 years away. We look to him to progress his development this year. Speaking to Sean Wellman, Patty Ryder looks ready to take it up a notch after 7 years, so tall blokes can take that long in reality. Asked by Schwarz if you could wave a magic wand for a type of player, which would it be? He basically said the midfield is key. We feel we have all bases covered for the future (kidding isn't he - big bodied key forward ??) but a gun midfielder or two would be a good start. On Tom Scully - (straight bat) we have to make sure all players are happy, not just Tom. we have the best training facilities in the AFL and hope all our players buy into our vision for a premiership. smokey to look out for this year for our dream team players? First person he thought of on the new players was Lucas Cook. Will add to our forward line although probably won't play a lot of senior footy this year. Fantastic kick. Jordie McKenzie if healthy, always gets to the right spots. On his injury he said his body hasn't quite held up under the volume of work over the last 2 years. He slid in the draft with injury queries but we are confident he would be ok going forward. Hmmmm...noticeable he didn't give any time frames ??? asked about Robbie Campbell - he said they are confident he will be up and about by round 4. Asked on Tapscott - he is tough but keeps hurting himself, but if he continues as he is going he could be one of the recruits of the year.

Bartram in my opinion is one of the smarter footballers on our list, reads the play well and knows how to move the ball but his foot skills let him down too often. he is also the best tackler along with Nev Jetta

To Beat Carlton. The team that started all this tanking rot by cheating us out of the priorty pick round 22 2007 and it has plagued us ever since. We are rising so knocking them off would be ever so sweet.

I used to work with Hurleys dad and he had a lot of time for Jack Grimes. He took Michael under his wing at Northern Knights and really helped progress his development. he definitely saw him as a future captain, a very reliable player, and the type of sacrificial bloke coaches just love. his prediction he will be Melbourne captain one day looks a real possibility in future. Like Jurrah he just needs a full season. We know the kid can play.

This takes the cake. I have heard Eddie say his source of Scully gone is impeccable. A demon fan on bigfooty saying a close friend knows scully and states he want contract negotiations brought forward and another on the Carlton Board saying a very reliable source said Scully signed last Wednesday night. I have never heard so many 'reliable sources' contradict each other. It makes little sense to me that he would leave, but I have never seen such sure people completely divided with 'inside' information. Schwab using this to create membership sales makes Sheedy sound sane. Best scenario though is a huge build up and re-signing prior to round 1. worst is anything involving him leaving.

if they are telling the truth than that statement is not a worry, as his manager said he has not spoken to GWS. I do find that incredibly hard to believe though.

No, he has 2 years left on his contract.

Would you have said the same thing if it was Trengove? they had comparable first years.

Best post I have read in 15 pages !! Members here saying they would go to another job for a mill a year is not relevant. this could be the difference between 2-3 mill and 3-4 mill in a contract (and that is just equating money to the supposed $800,000 per year offered to Martin before he re-signed with Richmond). Would I move for that if I was playing for good football at my club? NO. Would I think about it ? yes. In the end his lifestyle will NOT change. it won't make any difference. I know if I stayed at the Dees with my family in Victoria I can make a lot of money and like Judd, the off-field dough sky rockets when you are back in the heartland of the AFL.

Brayshaw is not that naive. who beleives this rubbish. of course he is talking with GWS and has been for a while. Why do managers lie like that? they don't actually have to.

I think it will unless his management can convince us it is a genuine delay and has not signed. We waited years to get this current crop of youngsters and if a gun youngster like Scully can just walk out, then some confidence in the club will have to be lost. Especialy when we would be in a position to throw serious money at him.

ok can you be specific here, did he say that was the offer for Scully, or a general statement ?

What did Sheedy say to make you think that?

He moved from Travis Johnstone land the day I saw him back into a pack last year and do his knee in mid air. Now he like Watts needs to learn to use speed and agility to lay some tackles. At present he doesn't lay nearly enough. Would love Bailey to give him more roles like the Goodes one. Why not blokes like Pendlebury and dangerous tall running types to shut down. His attacking game is good, sometime very good, but defensively he is one of our worst. and that's a key area Bailey highlighted for this year.

I agree with your thoughts. I expect that given the task of jumper design, over the best part of a year, to get the colours right !! Especially when the jumper is everything in this game. It looks as though we were obviously happy when we tested the colours to the naked eye, but did not test it using cameras to see how it looks. I hope we don't have to pay for that stuff up through our memberships, as I would be disappointed.

Interesting. I am sure Prendergast would have gone Naitanui with his comments at the time, saying it was very line ball and he had Natanui ahead right up to almost draft day. It seemed like others made the final choice. Even afterwards he couldn't say watts was the clear number one when it all came down to it. There can be many close decisions that effect a team. We were heavily into Alwyn Davey and Robbie Warnock a couple of years ago as well. Those 3 players have yet to really fire, but thank god Davey wasn't poached. Also to heavily invest in a 2nd ruck in Warnock like Carlton did might have cruelled us with the new interchange restrictions possibly spelling the end of 2nd rucks.

thanks for the 2 cents dandeeman. the most intriguing ones for me are the talls like Howe and big Gawn who i keep hearing the same words of skillful and a good touch player. In your opinion, how far are these blokes from being AFL level?. You could include McDonald and Cook who looks too skinny in the photos at least. I believe our real improvement will come if we can add a decent tall or two who can hold down a key position. We still have high profile recruits like Tapscott, Gysberts, Strauss, Blease, Maric to develop as runners in various parts of the ground, but it is the development of the talls I will find the most intriguing, so interested in your thoughts.