titan_uranus

What's your solution then? Put crap clubs in the prime time slots more often? That destroys the AFL's product, with awful, low quality football, and/or beltings, being broadcast nationally/internationally. That's simply not a viable long term option for the AFL. Give us more home games against big sides? We drew 28,000-odd to our home game against Hawthorn this year. How much does that net us? Not a lot. Yes, it might nominally be better than a 15,000 game against Gold Coast, but drawing those kinds of numbers to home games isn't going to make us financially stable either. What will make us long-term financially stable? Getting people interested in us. That way, we'll draw bigger sponsorship, we'll pull bigger crowds consistently, and we'll then become a more attractive option to the AFL. How do you get people interested in us? You don't shove us onto the big stage when we're not good enough for it. You get us winning games. Winning starts to bring people back. It shrugs off the pall of doom that presently surrounds us. It makes us less of a joke. If we win 7 or so games this year, then next year we'll maybe get a prime time game and/or one or two more home games against Victorian sides. Then we build from there. Your solutions are short-term fixes that aren't really fixes at all. They're just complaints.

You need to get over the fact that Byrnes is on our list, and is contracted. If all goes well in 2014 he'll be playing for Casey anyway. But if not, then he is a part of this club, just like Pedersen is, and we can't afford to be throwing money out the window just because you don't like Byrnes.

Pathetic article. Targets the standard basic AFL reader who doesn't know a thing about Melbourne, and less about Magner. They pull some stats from his first few games to try to paint a picture of a promising player ruined by the club, and whack a quote in about how upset he is at us to try make us sound 'dysfunctional'. Of course, if you know either Melbourne or Magner, you know that he's a slow, limited footballer with poor disposal. You'd know that his good games aren't defined by the number of disposals he gets, meaning that referring to high-disposal games of his means nothing in context. You'd also know that he had the wrong attitude all year, irrespective of the awful coaching that was going on (I don't dispute that he was screwed over by Neeld, but who wasn't? Melbourne owes you nothing, James). Just pure trash from the HUN, as per usual.

I don't mind it. It's the kind of discussion that we usually don't get to do during the season because we're all to busy arguing over which player to drop and when we're going to sack our coach.

It really isn't that difficult to understand what is going on. We are a basket case. No one wants to see us play. Not at the ground, not on TV. No one wants the game against Melbourne, they want to skip it and move on to real football. Until we lift ourselves up from the doldrums and begin acting like an actual AFL club, we are going to be put into the lesser timeslots. Why? Someone's got to play them, and it's both irrational and unfair to the successful clubs to be putting them in repeated low-drawing timeslots. It's also unfair to Channel 7, who pays the AFL a lot of money; money which ends up in our hands because we needed a handout. If you don't like it, unfortunately you have to learn to accept it. No MFC supporter enjoys us being removed from prime time, but that is the reality of the MFC right now. In a few years, if we start winning games and becoming a viable opponent to sides again, then this will change. I'd argue what you seem to want from the AFL would be short sighted. Long term, the best thing for the AFL is for all 18 clubs to be financially strong with big supporter bases. Giving us a Friday night game in 2014 doesn't do a lot for us in terms of reaching that goal. Giving us a platform from which we can win some games, get some supporters back, get our brand improved, stop being smashed, and generally lose the 'impediment' tag, is a much surer bet to making us a better long term side.

Impressive. 6/68 in the end. Doesn't help Lyon when he hasn't taken a wicket for NSW today, either. I'd still give Lyon the start though, he's done enough by now to earn his spot, Ahmed needs more than one innings. Other performances today: Bollinger took a 6-for (sneaky chance for the third seamer's spot behind Harris and Siddle?), Cowan made just 24, Doolan 56, Khawaja made just 8, Shaun Marsh 42, Agar just the 1, Siddle just 1 wicket. Meanwhile at tea in the WA Chairman's XI v England XI, WA is 1/221. England's bowling attack includes Jimmy Anderson, Chris Tremlett, Steve Finn and Boyd Rankin, the latter three of whom are competing for their third paceman's spot.

So you want an easy draw, like we have now, with all the home games against the big clubs as well? That's the ultimate draw; no one gets that. We can't have our cake and eat it too. We earned nothing in 2013. By giving us a draw that offers the chance to win games in 2014, the AFL is giving us the best long-term financial assistance it can - the ability to draw crowds ourselves. You know that saying, give a man a fish and he eats for a day, that one? Same deal here. We're better off in the long run winning, improving our brand, not being an impediment to the AFL, and building a supporter base. Then, when we're pulling 30,000+ to MCG home games against interstate crowds, we can start getting better home games. I also note we drew merely 28,546 people to the Hawthorn home game this year. Not exactly coffer-filling, that.

http://www.melbournefc.com.au/melbourne/news/2013-10-31/toumpas-wants-to-be-a-longterm-dee A few honest words from Toumpas in this clip, plus some more in the text. What he says here was quite visible during the year, I think. Wasn't near it at the start of the year, went back to Casey and used his time in the seniors to learn where he needed to get to. Improved during the year and now has a sense of where he's at and what he can achieve.

I think the issue here is that Fifty-5, the person you quoted, looks to have been sarcastic when he said that. Just a guess.

They may have us covered in the midfield, but we've got them beat at both ends. As will be the case with us and opponents around us on the ladder, it's going to come down to midfield competitiveness. If we can compete there, we'll be in with a pretty decent shot of a win. If not, then we're cooked.

That's true to an extent, though I think it's fair to argue that if we start winning more often, including in Darwin or at Etihad, that will spark renewed interest in us as a brand and that translates to better attendances at the MCG too. I think in general we just need to become less of an impediment. That includes winning, it also just includes not being smashed every week. If we can become a more competitive club, that will go a long way to getting us back in better timeslots and having more games against Victorian clubs. North is a great example in that regard; didn't make the finals, but were mighty competitive and played attacking and exciting football. That makes them more enticing as a brand, which got them 5 Friday night games.

What puts Fremantle in the 'lose money' bracket? Doesn't that game make us money? As I said above, if we can win the St Kilda game we should be able to break even against West Coast (25,000-30,000 for that game if we win Round 1, is my prediction). I'd also say we break even against North Melbourne - should manage 25,000 to that, and that's break even IIRC. Point is clear though - financial disaster. Good call re: GWS and Brisbane. You'd like to think that option was canvassed and rejected due to other constraints, but that would make a lot more sense.

The second one is a split round in Round 18; we have the second week off.

I'm not complaining, it's what we get for being a disaster commercially. PJ is 100% right to call us an impediment. No one wants to play us because no one will come and no one will watch.

MFC website's take on things: http://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/2013-10-31/2014-melbourne-home-and-away-fixture First time we haven't gone to Geelong since 2007. Only the third time we've been spared hell since 1998.

Cheers, thought I might have made a mistake somewhere.

I reckon if we can beat St Kilda in Round 1 we might get closer to 30,000 for the West Coast game. First home game, a win on the board, it's not impossible I don't think. That GWS game in Round 21 will be lucky to get 15,000 though.

Of the 7 8 MCG home games, we have 3 x Sunday 3.20pm, 2 x Saturday night, 1 x Saturday 1.45pm, 1 x Sunday 4.40pm and 1 x Monday 3.20pm.

If (big if) we can get a win against the Saints in Round 1, you'd hope that our opening home game in Round 2 could pull a decent figure (more decent than what we're going to get in Round 21 v GWS, anyway). But yes, the draw is financially abysmal.

No, neither. Both of them are once-only games, home games (Brisbane at Etihad).

Two Sunday twilight games (away v Essendon in Round 13, home v North Melbourne in Round 14). Two Saturday twilight games (away v Adelaide in Round 7, away v Hawthorn in Round 20).

Five Saturday night games. First bye comes is Round 10 (after Richmond, before Alice Springs). Second bye is Round 18 (second week of the split round).

The Geelong game is the week after the Fremantle Darwin game. Might as well be in Geelong.

Available here http://www.afl.com.au/fixture Keys for us: Home games are: West Coast (MCG), Gold Coast (MCG), Sydney (MCG), Bulldogs (MCG), Port Adelaide (Alice Springs), Collingwood (MCG), NM (MCG), Fremantle (TIO), Geelong (MCG), Brisbane (Etihad), GWS (MCG). Away games: St Kilda (Etihad), GWS (GWS), Carlton (MCG), Adelaide (Adelaide Oval), Richmond (MCG), Essendon (MCG), Bulldogs (Etihad), Port Adelaide (Adelaide Oval), Hawthorn (MCG), West Coast (Patersons), NM (Etihad). Edit: Home game at Etihad (v Brisbane). Four Victorian home games at MCG (Dogs, NM, Collingwood, Geelong). 6 six-day breaks. No Friday nights. Return games against GWS, Bulldogs, North Melbourne, West Coast, Port Adelaide. Edit: On Free-to-air 9 times this year (Round 23 TBD).

Pre-season games against Richmond (Etihad) and Geelong (Alice Springs).