titan_uranus

I wonder how St Kilda will go managing their list after their finals appearance this year. After ours in 2018 we saw TMac and Harmes' statures rise, both asking for bigger dollars than they would have received pre-2018, and they got them. I don't know which St Kilda players are OOC this year but there'll be no doubt IMO that some will be on average/poor deals and will be arguing they deserve more.

I think this is absolute rubbish @Lucifer's Hero. He's been a captain of the club. He's still VC and a leader. Goodwin, Gawn and the club make that point about him all the time. He's 26, much of our list is younger than that. There's nothing at all wrong with what he's said here and I think it's horribly unfair to suggest he has tickets on himself. The last sentence is what the journalist wrote, all Viney said was "something really special". Maybe that's a plea to his teammates to stay, not a crack at them. His actual quote: “We have all got to sacrifice a little bit to work well together because there are only so many positions in the midfield,” “If we can rotate through and work well as a unit, there is so much talent. “It can be something really special and massive advantage for us.” Doesn't sound like he's having a crack. Sounds accurate, for one, and a sign that he understands that the midfielders (him included) need to "sacrifice" and "work well as a unit".

Only 3? Richmond and West Coast "only" won three more games than us this year. I suppose we're not that far off them, then? Look, the gloating over Essendon struggling to retain players is understandable. It's not hard to dislike them. But when we're as devoid of recent success as they are, it's a bit dangerous really. Who knows whether we'll be able to retain all our players if we don't start winning finals soon.

I'm not a fan of players who leave weaker clubs to walk into strong ones to win a flag. I just don't see that as being rewarding or deserving in anywhere near the same way as it is for players who take the long road with a club to get there. He walked into an all-time elite outfit and rode their wave into a premiership. But, in saying that, he was a good player for us and if he wanted to chase success elsewhere, that was his right. When he left it didn't look like we'd be getting anywhere near a flag for years. He played more than 100 games for us and was a shining light at times when we didn't have much else to cheer for. I'll always reflect more positively than not on his time here, but I don't really reflect positively on his premiership.

@JimmyGadson's raised some interesting issues, most of which I don't agree with. I don't think OMac or TMac are wildly inconsistent. They're very consistent IMO. OMac's consistently poor. Until his injury mid-last year TMac's consistently been athletic and a bad kick other than for goal. When we put him forward, it clicked for two years. Going after Lever post-2017 and May post-2018 were both smart and correct decisions. if we paid a lot for them, we had to. Funnily enough, Jimmy complains about spending up on May/Lever but then complains about us not getting Saad/Wilson, who will cost a fortune. We have to spend money to bring in quality players from other clubs. It's not always our fault that they choose to go somewhere else. Jimmy speaks as if a player picking another club is a necessary consequence of us stuffing something up. It most certainly is not. We've targeted our "specialist small forward" need by bringing in Pickett, a "specialist small forward". Also, Jimmy argues every year is a wasted year, but then offers Carlton as the example of a club who is attracting players and is apparently going to "waltz right past us". Despite being the club who outside of Gold Coast is on the longest streak of not playing finals. But none of this is to say our list management has been great, or even good. We still have too many half-forwards who don't offer anything of particular note on any consistent basis (I'm talking Melksham, Hannan, ANB, Hunt, vandenBerg - chuck Spargo and Bedford in too if you want). We still are forced to play Salem in the backline because most of our other options for half-backs are bad kicks or just aren't very good. We can't work out how to play all of Petracca, Oliver, Viney, Brayshaw and Harmes in the same side. And we still haven't really worked on our midfield balance: at times this year playing those five midfielders along with Jones and Sparrow.

If you think pick 7 is ridiculous, there were rumours last year that Sydney offered pick 5 in last year's draft and their first round 2020 pick, which has turned out to be pick 3 this year. They won't get pick 7 this year if Brisbane's contract is middling, which it might be salary-wise given the injury risk.

So for Carlton it's OK to cherry pick one game and say "oh they just need a few tweaks and some more development", but for us if we played one good game all year the response would be "one swallow doesn't make a summer" and "how long have we been waiting for this so-called development for"? I guarantee if it was us who had lost late-season games, whilst in finals contention, to Collingwood (remember no one gives us any credit for beating an injury-depleted Collingwood), GWS (same deal) and Adelaide, no one on here would be referring to our "exciting brand" and no one on here would be suggesting we're just "a few tweaks" away from it.

I'm not sure what attracts players to Carlton, but we've attracted our fair share of players recently. Carlton's list profile is a bit skewed. They still have a group of best 22 players on the wrong side of 30 (Betts, Murphy, E Curnow and Casboult, whilst Jones will be 30 by Round 1 next year). They then have a bunch of players in the 25-29 bracket (Newnes, Docherty, Plowman, McGovern, Martin, Cripps). That's half their 22 aged 25 and over. That's a list profile that should be screaming "premiership window right now", rather than a 7th consecutive year missing finals. So it's not surprising that they're strongly chasing Williams and Saad. They should already be playing finals with this list.

On balance great news. I'm wary about the 5th year and the role we intend to deploy him in, but the latter is completely within our control and if we do it right, we can make it work. Just such utter rubbish. GWS is a perfect example of how classy players aren't enough. Look at Richmond's recent premiership 22s: players like David Astbury, Dyan Grimes, Brandon Ellis, Toby Nankervis, Liam Baker, Kamdyn McIntosh and Jack Graham were in those sides. Not exactly "classy", but very much "heart and soul". And as to the "season stats", none of which you've cited, here are some: 11th in the comp for CPs per game; 12th in the comp for clearances per game; 8th in the comp for inside 50s per game; 13th in the comp for centre clearances per game. In all of those stats, the players above him are almost universally the competition's elite players (we're talking Oliver, Petracca, Fyfe, Neale, Cripps, Dangerfield, Bontempelli, Adams, Treloar, Liberatore, Naitanui). And whilst he did, fairly, finish equal second for turnovers per game, the players around him are also elite (Prestia, Treloar, Martin, Petracca and Brodie Smith are all equal-4th or higher on that metric).

It's not about reflecting on the fact that we were good in 2018, because obviously the fact we've gone backwards since then is more relevant. It's about challenging the ever-present argument on here about clubs "going past us". If our players want to leave the club because other clubs are playing finals and we're not, it's not unfair or unreasonable to reflect on the same situation two years ago when the shoes were on the other feet. We didn't see Brisbane or St Kilda players walk out on their clubs because we had "gone past them", for the same reason we shouldn't see that happen here this year - it's not particularly relevant. I'd absolutely back the club if that was a point they made to any Melbourne player thinking along those lines. St Kilda and Brisbane (and Port) didn't get to where they are this year through their key players bailing on them when they missed finals in recent years.

"Several wins" = 2 (Carlton and, if you want to argue it, GWS). By comparison, every single finals club had at least one win by less than 10 points against a non-finalist. Some of those clubs registered that win against Sydney, North or Gold Coast - all inferior clubs to Carlton. As to clubs "better than us at the time", define that criterion for me? Were we "better than" Carlton in Round 2, after our loss to West Coast and their loss to Richmond? Were we "better than" Gold Coast in Round 6 when we were 1-3 and they were 3-2? Or Collingwood, when they had won their two prior games before playing us, and won their two subsequent games? GWS were above us on the ladder when we beat them, too. And you can discredit the win over St Kilda by virtue of it being small (by the way, it was 3 points, not 1), but then you'd have to discredit the Dogs' season-defining win over the Eagles by 2 points, which forms the basis for many people to argue the Dogs deserved their finals spot over us. None of that is to say all is good and well at Melbourne, but I just cannot stand revisionism. Why make up these two gripes to attack our season when neither is really all that accurate?

I reckon that's carp, dazzle. Wouldn't the obvious counter argument simply be to reflect on 2018: did Brisbane and St Kilda find all their players wanted out of their respective clubs to join us, given we'd just finished 4th and had "gone past them"? They didn't, they turned their own clubs around.

On the whole "Oliver's upset he finished 5th in the B&F" thing, I think that could well be another example of a truthful comment spiralling out of control. I suspect, if there's any truth to it at all, it might be that Oliver was disappointed in his own performance this year, because he sets a high bar for himself. That could easily then blow up through miscommunication into him being disappointed with the club, as if he thinks he has an entitlement to a higher placed finish.

That might be right but your post about Brown just refers to him as an accurate kick for goal, downplaying the other reasons why he is actually a really good forward and could be a strong addition to the side. If the rumours about TMac are true and we're keeping him, it's hard to see how or why we'd go get Brown as well. We don't need all of Weideman, Brown and TMac on solid coin competing for two key forward spots. But if it is a choice between Brown and TMac, there's a lot more to Brown than you've been prepared to admit.

One of the all time dumbest arguments I've ever seen. Yes, you are. But when your opinion is ridiculous, be prepared to cop flak for it.

Forgotten the two finals Weideman played in 2018?

No. Wouldn't even think twice about it. Oliver is elite. Even if you think Kelly is elite (and IMO he has elite talent but doesn't consistently produce it), you don't just trade away your elite talent. I disagree with the notion that every player has a price. The idea that clubs are so soulless that if some sort of ridiculous offer was proposed, a club would just [censored] off their elite talent in the supposedly never-ending quest to get more elite talent. IMO, it's silly, and not just a matter of me wearing red/blue coloured glasses either.

It's May, not Lever, that we added after 2018. Which a season in which we were the league's highest scoring side but conceded goals too easily. I do love the whole debate around reviewing the West Coast game. Do you (and many others) think that a review would have changed 2019 or 2020?

You couldn't possibly downplay Brown's strengths any more unfairly, suggesting he's nothing other than an accurate kick at goal. One of our biggest problems is our inability to score goals when it goes inside 50. That's not all because we don't apply enough pressure. It's also because we don't take enough marks and miss too many shots. Brown helps us fix both. Not only that but he immediately attracts the opposition's best defender, giving Weideman the second defender. It also reduces reliance on Weideman as a target. Brown also has a big tank and repeat leads all day. Now, in saying all that, I'm not necessarily against us backing in TMac if we think we can get him back to 2018 levels. But in comparing TMac and Brown, let's at least be fair to Brown.

I'm not a fan of Oscar. If he stays to give us a depth option to plug a hole if May or Lever get injured, so be it, but IMO we can do better. I strongly disagree, other than with the scapegoat bit which is fair and true. Oscar's bad games are usually a result of his own weaknesses as a player. As @DeeSpencerhas pointed out above, he's weak in one-on-one contests, he's really poor when transitioning into offence, he regularly looks lost when the ball is moving fast, and he therefore adds nothing positive to our offensive game. These are weaknesses he's had in his game his entire career. There was a brief window early this year where I thought he might have improved. That didn't appear to eventuate though and the rest of 2020 turned out much like previous years. You're seriously arguing West Coast doesn't have elite superstars? Kelly, Kennedy, McGovern, Ryan, Shuey, Yeo, Gaff, Naitanui, Hurn and Darling isn't enough for you? (And that's without adding players like Redden, Cripps, Sheppard and Sheed). Port Adelaide have Boak, Gray, Wines, Dixon, Ebert and Byrne-Jones with support from Lycett, Powell-Pepper, Butters, Duursma, Rozee, Jonas and McKenzie. Those two clubs have far superior top end talent to us. St Kilda does not, but then watch their final compared to Port's or West Coast's and you'll see the difference.

Two things stood out to me across the four finals. The first was that the St Kilda-Bulldogs game was not close to the standard of the other three. The second was that Brisbane is the best all-round side in it this season. Can they knock off Geelong/Collingwood in a prelim? That, to me, is their biggest test. Their GF opponent will likely be Port (will back them in to beat Richmond/St Kilda at home) but I think the pressure of either Geelong or Collingwood will be significant. Yes but in the heat of the moment he's always going to pass that ball. The fault was Ah Chee for calling for it despite having Taylor Adams right in front of him. Shouldn't have called. Again, heat of moment sort of stuff, but had to let Kelly get up and go outside. It's so easy for disgruntled Melbourne supporters to feel jealous of Collingwood winning that final (or indeed, seeing St Kilda play distinctly average football but get a dud Dogs side and win anyway). But you're right, a lot went right for Collingwood. The accuracy, the freak goals, Cox doing something (had maybe 2 or 3 touches after quarter time), and no Dean Margetts umpiring. Chuck in their "relaxing" (by COVID-standards) run home too. They deserve huge credit for winning against the odds, but I can't help but feel if that had been us, the same disgruntled supporters would, as soon as we lose, discredit that win for those reasons.

It's always a possibility, but his form this year suggests it's not going to happen at Melbourne. Not every player can succeed at any given club. If he does end up somewhere else and he does get better, so be it, but that doesn't necessarily mean we should retain him. I'm not against keeping him as depth but having just re-signed Smith, I'm not sure we need to keep both of them, and I do not see OMac as a best 22 player for 2021.

I find him tolerable with certain clubs but completely intolerable with others. He's impossible to listen to when he's commentating Geelong or Richmond (and in previous years the same issue was with Sydney and Hawthorn). He's also not ideal with West Coast or Collingwood, albeit it's not as bad.

If the answer to TMac is as simple as strip extra weight off and all of a sudden he's back to 2018 TMac, I'm a massive, resounding yes. But I'm relatively sure it's not as simple as that.

I'm not a fan of Smith and would not have been upset if we had let him go. A one-year deal is not the end of the world though. We can't delist everyone and if the rumours suggest we're looking to move on from OMac, then it makes a bit more sense to retain Smith.