titan_uranus

1. If he's 'seen enough' of Toumpas then that says more about him (in fact, says everything about the quality of his football analysis) and less about Toumpas. 2. As has been noted, if he thinks the other players also are lesser than Wines at the moment, then we didn't do so badly with Toumpas, did we. 3. Regardless, why do we care about kids in their SECOND year? 4. Robinson is the worst football journalist in existence.

So you won't play JKH because he's young, inexperienced, and undersized, but you'll play Salem, despite him being young, inexperienced, and undersized?

You can pot Spencer, but please don't try to say Warnock was better. Warnock was not as good as Spencer. Warnock is crap. He had 15 disposals to Spencer's 10, but Spencer laid 5 tackles to Warnock's 0. Warnock also had 35 hit outs to Spencer's 30. Spencer wins.

Not from me you won't. I agree. I can't stand seeing him get the ball because I expect every kick to be a turnover; on Saturday that may well have been the case. His decision-making is also not great. And as for his defending, I don't think it's been that good. Het let Ellard get the better of him, and that's not the first time that's happened to Terlich. He has a lot of courage and strength, but he's a liability with the ball in hand and I don't think he's doing a great job defending. I'd drop him if he's not injured (and replace him with whoever is the better on VFL form out of Clisby, Jetta and Strauss).

I cannot stand the love for Naitanui. His selection in the AA team in 2012 was probably the single worst AA decision I've ever seen. He has the talent to do a lot of things. Every now and again he'll have a quarter where he gets 10 touches and does something athletically freakish. The foolish see that as sufficient. The rest of us note that the rest of the time (and we're talking 80%+ of his career) he is non-existent. Undoubtedly the AFL's most over-rated player.

It was also fantastic after the siren when, as the players congregated to walk off the ground, much of the MCC gravitated towards the player race to clap and cheer and show our support. I have always believed that 30,000 Melbourne supporters are just as passionate and equally as loud as 60,000 of most other club's. We just haven't had much chance to show it of late.

Crap news. As has been said, if this had anything to do with his lack of recent form, then taking the year to get over it and hopefully rid himself of it could do wonders for him. Regardless, look forward to seeing him back in 2015.

I think he learnt a lot from the towelling he got from Mumford about how to throw his weight around in the stoppages and be properly aggressive. Watching the replay he certainly exerted a lot of pressure and influence in the stoppages and was so immensely dominant over the enormous walking spud that is Warnock. Hopefully he can back it up and can keep rucking 80% of the game. I'm not sure how our ruck situation is going to play out long term. Originally Clark would have been the second ruck. I'm not sure if we are going to play a side with two of Spencer, Jamar and Gawn in it, so if we only go with one, we'll have to keep rucking Pedersen or something, which isn't ideal.

It's somewhat hard to care about the games this round other than ours, but there have been some unbelievable results. Our game's margin is going to be the closest, incredibly. 23 points. The GWS-WB game is the only other with a margin under 30 points. I thought Geelong-West Coast, Sydney-North, St Kilda-Adelaide and Fremantle-Essendon would all be good/close games, and I thought Gold Coast would get closer than they did. I think we've all jumped the gun on the Eagles. Their wins have been against the Dogs, us and St Kilda, nothing to write home about. Not sure they're the team the hype is making them out to be. Sydney is in trouble I think. They have Fremantle next week, who have found their form by obliterating Essendon, so they could be 1-4. Not sure whether they're good enough this year, and the rumbles about culture and the like will continue. St Kilda's finally copped what they deserve; they are as bad as we are and I couldn't stand watching us first, then GWS, lose games they should have won.

I doubt the players care at all. Personally, so long as it's not a 1.10 start I don't mind when we play (I can deal with the 4.40 games). The 1.10 games just eat up so much of the day. If we can get some form and some wins on the board and show genuine signs of improvement, then next year we'll surely see improvement in our fixture, both in terms of timeslots and home games against decent sides. Within a few years maybe we'll shed the home game at Etihad and get back onto Friday night too.

Sports are always better when the borderline fouls/frees are left alone, and AFL is no exception. It's been a lot better this year with the focus being on the real free kicks (true holding the ball, tripping, sliding) and no more stupid free kicks (incredulous push in the back calls, or holds in the making contest). Still not perfect - ruck contests and players having the ball held to them are two that come to mind - but it's a lot better. One thing that may be helping is that umpires are now doing games in teams, with trios being allocated each week. That's how the NFL does it, and it lets umpires develop working relationships with each other, so that they know what each other are like. Reduces McBurney-style off the ball frees.

It was him who cleaned up Ellard in that attempted tackle, wasn't it? He's what I wanted from Tapscott, but so much better.

Terlich appears to be injured, which is the one out, but if he's not injured I'd drop him anyway. He really needs to work on his disposal as right now he's a total liability with the ball in hand. Garland won't be ready to come straight back, surely, so hopefully Clisby had a good game. I'm a massive fan of Clisby and I'd love to see him get his form back and push into the seniors. No second ruckman since Gold Coast don't seem to have one - again let Pedersen do the relief work when they're rucking Thompson or whoever is their back up. We'll be too slow and tall if we bring in a second ruckman. Georgiou stays. No way he gets dropped. Playing his role perfectly. He may end up getting squeezed out, but until Garland is ready, keep him. Howe is not performing at 100% yet but he got better as the game went on and I thought his marking in the fourth quarter was a stand out. Can't afford to be in and out of the game though. Dawes, Frawley and Dunn the forwards (and Watts at times), McDonald, Georgiou and Pedersen the backs (with Howe). So, to conclude, Terlich out, Clisby in (or whoever played well at Casey). I don't want to see Toumpas back in until he's had an extended run at Casey and developed form and confidence. Unless we get injuries and need new midfielders, leave him at Casey.

One thing we should finally have put to bed this year is that he is a defender and nothing else. Deserves praise for rucking yesterday when we had no one else; he's not very tall and rucking is clearly not his forte, so good on him for standing up and getting the job done when Spencer needed a break. IMO he should prove to be a handy depth player, helping fill roles when needed.

We haven't won two consecutive games since Rounds 13 and 14, 2011. We beat Fremantle by 89 and followed it up by beating Richmond by 27. Gold Coast is better than us, but at the MCG with a bit of confidence (versus their lack of it following last night's horrendous showing) and the crowd, I don't think we're 0 chance. Would be great to string two together.

It's been said already, but this isn't correct - Bail was fantastic all day, ran hard both ways from start to finish. Thought his duel with Henderson was a classic FF-FB duel. And TMac won it hands down. His one-on-one work is great, he isn't easily beaten on the lead, we know he runs all day, and he's confident with ball in hand (though still can't kick very well). His intercept marking yesterday was superb, and I reckon the confidence helped lift his kicking, which wasn't as bad yesterday as it generally is. One of his best games in years. Agreed. We now have (kinda) swing men in Dunn, Frawley, Watts, Howe and Garland (I wouldn't include Pedersen as I really don't think he can play forward at all). I think a backline with McDonald, Garland, and one of Pedersen and Georgiou, with a forward line of Dawes, Hogan, Frawley and Dunn is where we'll end up, but we have flexibility in the case of injuries, depth, and some real structure now. I think the point about Salem is really important. I'm really pleased that Salem is building fitness, form and confidence in the VFL without the pressure of performing immediately (and having to cop the 'we should have taken [insert other player's name]'). Agreed, and whilst I don't mean to be rude, I wonder how it would have been different if it were Blease instead of JKH. Perfect summary. That show is putrid.

Agreed. He made such an enormous difference. We looked up and saw him and we had the confidence to put it in front of him. He had the guts and determination to make a contest even when he was double manned. His two goals were immense from outside 50. Absolutely immense.

6 - Cross 5 - N Jones 4 - Frawley 3 - Bail 2 - Grimes 1 - McDonald Apologies to Dawes, who was fantastic and gave us so much structure and confidence. Brought the ball to ground repeatedly.

Amazing feeling. Winning against anyone is great. But beating Carlton, and Malthouse, is just another level. Malthouse clearly dropped Waite and Garlett because he thought this was the week he could get away with it - EAD Mick. And as for us - we weren't great, but we were a lot better, and there is a future there to be seen. JKH has silken hands, his touch is superb. Dawes changes everything for us, thought he was grand. Cross was outstanding too. We took a big step forward today. And we took it right on Carlton's head. Perfect.

Didn't say he had. My point is that we did draft leaders. The issue is what happened to them after they got here.

Agree with Goodvibes. At a pinch I'd say Melbourne of 2008, Melbourne of 2009 and Melbourne of 2013 are all worse than Melbourne of 2014. I'd also add GWS of 2012 and GWS of 2013. Straight kicking would have won us Round 1, and the confidence from Round 1 would have helped us win Round 3 (in which we were just 1 point down at the start of the fourth). Round 2 was bad, yes, but that was the norm in the years I mentioned above. Are you kidding? Roos obviously isn't, but if Carlton loses today, Malthouse couldn't be under a bigger pump. He was brought in to have Carlton in premiership contention by 2014. If instead they find themselves 0-4 on the bottom of the ladder having just lost to Melbourne, the wooden spoon favourites, how much further off from what they expected and demanded could they be?

Not drafted, or not developed? Grimes was captain of the Northern Knights. We drafted a leader there.

Trading early picks is fine by me - that's a different proposition to drafting more high-end talent in the hope that the new kids will push the club up again.

I don't agree that it's unprovable, but if you want to say it's difficult to determine, I'll go that far. Nonetheless, it is most definitely not entirely drafting, and I don't agree that it's mainly drafting with bad development at the fringes. The evidence just doesn't support that. The players we took should all have gone on to have either A-grade careers (Morton, Watts, Trengove) or maybe B-grade (Blease, Strauss, Grimes). Maybe even C-grade. But none of them are there. None. The common thread is the fact that they all came into the MFC environment. As for the argument that some have gone elsewhere but not flourished, one of those is Gysberts who I am conceding was a clear drafting error. He wasn't good enough and it surprised no one that he didn't make it at North. As for Morton, he spent his formative years with us, and I would suggest that the 'damage', if that's the right word, that was done to his career prospects is not readily undone 5 years later. He also went to West Coast, a team with a plethora of midfielders.

I saw those odds - surely if you think Melbourne are going to win, you'd also realise that we're absolutely 0% chance of winning by more than 24 points (or 39, for which the odds are even longer). Good bet from you.