titan_uranus

Also, Fawad Ahmed comes home, Steve Smith is added to the squad (what joy!), and Ashton Agar is going to stick around the squad like he did in India.

Brilliant: http://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/australia-sacks-cricket-coach-mickey-arthur-on-eve-of-ashes-20130624-2orlv.html Mickey Arthur has just been sacked.

Locked to the top of the first page (like the Code of Conduct thread).

Absolutely - it's hard to compare our players to players like Franklin, that's for sure. But I think Hawthorn represents a starting point anyway. Bailey does get subbed out a lot, but if we have Clark, Hogan and Dawes all in one side, with Watts and Howe, maybe we could work with subbing Gawn out at times. At any rate - Hogan and Dawes as mainstay forwards is a start, I think. Then work out how Clark fits in best, and then Watts/Howe we work around that (e.g. HFF for 50%, wing for 50%, or variations on that). Clearly we also need to find at least one small forward too (Breust, Stokes, Christensen, McGlynn, Ballantyne, all the good sides have at least one).

I know. What I was saying is that Dawes' pointing becomes seen as leadership because of other factors. Moloney's was viewed as indicative of nothing by some because of other factors. Etc. Pun not pardoned. You can do better.

Dunn also points. Pointing means nothing. The difference is elsewhere. Dawes leads by example on the field, which Dunn doesn't do. He also leads by example off the field, with maturity, sensibility, and measuredness, which Moloney didn't do. When you factor that in, you see Dawes' 'pointing' as being indicative of a true leader. Moloney 'led' when he felt like it (i.e. when Bailey was letting him do what he wanted, as opposed to when Neeld was trying to implement new ideas/structures for our stoppage work). Dunn is just an annoying [censored].

For mine, Clark's best football is at FF, but with Hogan and Dawes, I think we can afford to try Clark as the back-up ruckman, splitting his time between ruck and forward. I'd say Clark the FF when he's not rucking, Dawes higher up as the CHF, with Hogan mixing between both. When Clark rucks, the options are either to drop Hogan closer to the square, or have Gawn rest in the square and keep Hogan higher. Watts should be the third/fourth tall. Howe should play higher up the ground. We'll then need smaller players rotating through: Davey, Byrnes (if he's still here), Blease at times, maybe Jetta at times, maybe Barry will fill this role. I'd look to how Hawthorn do it. They have Franklin, Roughead, Hale and Gunston, with Bailey rucking, which is a similar distribution to Hogan, Dawes, Clark and Watts, with Gawn rucking. I'd look to how they split Hale and Bailey in the ruck, how they spread their talls across the ground, as a rough guide to how we should be spreading our players.

You've obviously forgotten Paul Johnson.

Fair. Pedersen > Gillies, I'll pay that. Look, the point is, right now three years seems two years too many. But stranger things have happened in football; if Zac Dawson can be a regular FB for any team ever, then there is hope for Pedersen. I've seen some talent in him, I just don't know if he can consistently produce it. He'll need to toughen up, muscle up, shed the fat, and work his behind off, but it's doable. We'll delist Sellar at season's end and Pedersen will become our depth. Our starting FB/CHB combo is surely Frawley/McDonald, with Garland the third tall when needed, but you need depth, and Pedersen > Sellar.

Just watched it. Comparisons to Neeld aside, thought Craig did well. Was very forthright, no spin, but friendly. Gee, I tell you what, we are very hell-bent on pushing the 'we're awful' line. PJ's 'impediment' stuff, now Craig's 'we're non-competitive' stuff. Don't know if it's something PJ wants us to focus on (i.e. 'remember guys, when we get AFL funding and a PP, it's because we're hurting the league'), or whether it's just PJ allowing us to say the truth, unlike Schwab/Neeld ('didn't see it coming', 'we're going to be better soon' etc.). It's interesting nonetheless. Thought Watts' performance was also good. Looked sincere in his answers - can't find anything in that to suggest he didn't mean it when he said he wants to stay.

http://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/2013-05-17/future-not-all-hell-for-the-demons 'The club also signed Lynden Dunn for two years after he finished the season well in 2012 and, in a surprise to many, gave recruit Cameron Pedersen a three-year contract in the off-season.' Neeld's two worst list management decisions were to re-sign Dunn and to give Pedersen three years.

Agree with all that. Those four really stood out to me. All four were appalling. Having said that, there was a holding the ball decision paid against Riewoldt that was shocking, so it wasn't all St Kilda's way. But these four all led directly to goals, and none of them were there, and they often robbed us of momentum. Shocking stuff (and interestingly, we had some decent umpires; number 14, Heath Ryan, did the Grand Final last year and often umpires big-ticket games).

Ah, that's unfortunate. Will definitely have an impact on the crowd at our game, I'm sure.

I agree with you. I think that contact was initiated by McEvoy bending over to pick it up. Spencer's only alternative appears to me to have been to do the same, causing a headclash. The thing that is going to go against Spencer is that he turns his body, which makes it look a bit like he bumped McEvoy.

Simpkin or Spencer?

We won the inside 50 count last night.

Couldn't disagree more, really. The noise from 20,000 MFC supporters exceeds the noise from 40,000 of many other clubs. It's just hard to get up and about when you're three goals down five minutes in to a game being played in single-digit temperatures under an interim coach with one win on the board and at least four of your stars missing. I think we should be proud of the fans who continue going to games.

I'd also vote for Frawley over Dawes.

Oooh new faces. I'm going with Dawes on the left, Garland on the right.

I'm confident Watts will stay. I think we'll improve enough in 2014 for Frawley to stay. Sylvia, I'm less sure about. If he gets a good offer from a finals-bound team and we don't show improvement in the next 10 weeks, who knows? I want him to say, but I wouldn't be surprised if he found a better deal. The only other player who worries me contract-wise is Gawn. Once we sign up Gawn and Watts, I'll be happy.

We've tried predominantly red jumpers before. It didn't work. The AFL believes we clash with Adelaide, Brisbane and Essendon (and I suppose St Kilda too), due in part to the red, not the blue. Swapping blue to red doesn't help that. Change is not going to happen. We're going to have our normal jumper and the white one. The only areas we can meaningfully impact will be the games in which we are required to wear white. I don't understand why we needed to wear white against St Kilda, for example. But the clash strip is going to remain white, the AFL dictates that.

Especially when playing the Dogs.

The disposal efficiency statistic is a waste of space - Nicholson rating at 64% is proof. Nonetheless, I think the point on Blease is valid - he's missing field kicks, often simple ones. I think it comes down to decision making for him; often he's running too far and stuffing his kick up, or playing on without a plan first. But his pace and his liveliness are attributes we need to keep in the side, IMO. He's not playing badly enough to be dropped. Also, comparing his pace to Jetta is ridiculous.

Has Taggert as a 'big slider'. Not entirely consistent with what's been said about Rory on here, but each to their own I guess.

I'm the same. Has to be one of these four, for me. Not interested in Matthews or Knights or Worsfold or Ratten.