titan_uranus

I guess they chose to roll the dice on improving from last year and selling success to Daniher and Fantasia as the way to keep them. Maybe that and also an element of trying to tell the industry, and/or their own list, that if you're under contract you don't just walk. That latter bit doesn't appear to have helped them much. I didn't rate them last year despite their top 8 finish and given what was reportedly on the table for Daniher (two first rounders), I'd have 100% done that deal.

I don't really understand what the bolded bit means. It remains the case that there's no report, rumour or any other evidence to suggest we ended up offering Viney more than what Geelong offered him, which is what you've claimed. I've already said I wasn't sure about a 5-year deal but I'm not at all fussed about the way the negotiations played out.

Did you read the article? “I love working with ‘Goody’" “I feel like if I was to head somewhere else and end my time at the club, then I would be hanging him out to dry a bit." “I thoroughly thought through both scenarios and came to my conclusion there is unfinished business with Melbourne Football Club." “It is something I have put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into and I do want to see it out." “Everything is about making the Melbourne Football Club great again and successful again and that is where my ultimate fulfilment is going to come from.”

I suspect it's entirely possible the contract ended up being less than Geelong's offer. There's more to Viney's decision than just money/years.

Rams, Cardinals, Bills

Where's it been reported that the contract he ultimately signed was worth more than whatever Geelong offered? I believe it's been reported that our opening offer and Geelong's opening offer were a gap apart. That doesn't mean we immediately offered more than Geelong did in response. Or is that just your opinion? In which case you've got nothing at all, other than your own pessimism, to base that on.

Rubbish re: Richmond. Riewoldt clearly plays a second tall forward. Never mind St Kilda (King/Membrey) or West Coast (Kennedy/Darling). But at any rate, the only side that doesn't play two tall forwards is Geelong. Every other finals side played two key forwards. So who cares if players like Riewoldt or Marshall don't get huge touches. If they take marks and kick goals, then isn't that an upgrade on what we currently have? Now, in saying that, TMac could give us what we're seeking in Brown. I don't see the need for us to take Brown if we're going to keep TMac. It's one or the other for me, and I'll be happy either way. Agree with the whole post but the bolded bit in particular resonates.

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?