titan_uranus

I reckon the reasoning behind it is good, and it does help the rest of the backline in terms of his experience, but I'd prefer Whelan down back to Macca. McDonald is a midfielder, not a defender.

Jared Rivers:

Best Case Scenario: Comes back soon. No more injuries between now and the end of the year.

Worst Case Scenario: Continues to struggle with injuries. Becomes such a worry that the club looks at trading him.

Most Likely Scenario: Ive given up predicting what will happen to Rivers. I hope he can get his body right, but its getting to the stage where I cant even physically envision Rivers playing an uninterrupted 12 games, let alone an uninterrupted season.

At the moment I can't envision Rivers playing an uninterrupted 5 games, let alone half a season.

A good read though. Nice work.

Not only is he injury prone, but his form over the last 2 years or so where he's been able to string together many games is not exactly super. In fact it's not that good at all. Don't want him.

Tigers Team has been published. Jake King is a big out for them. A second family-matchup of the year also awaits Cale Morton as his brother Mitch is recalled....

RICHMOND v MELBOURNE

Richmond

B: Chris Newman, Luke McGuane, Graham Polak

HB: Jordan McMahon, Kelvin Moore, Daniel Jackson

C: Matthew Richardson, Shane Tuck, Matt White

HF: Mitch Morton, Jack Riewoldt, Richard Tambling

F: Adam Pattison, Nathan Brown, Trent Cotchin

Foll: Troy Simmonds, Brett Deledio, Nathan Foley

I/C (from): Dean Polo, Jarrad Oakley-Nicholls, Chris Hyde, Joel Bowden, Alex Rance, Jay Schulz,Shane Edwards

In: Riewoldt, Rance, Oakley-Nicholls, Hyde, Jackson, Polo, Morton

Out: Will Thursfield (hamstring), Jake King (hamstring), Greg Tivendale, Kayne Pettifer

Good outs for us, they lose their full-back and some of their run. Rance was a first rounder last year, wasn't he? Is it his first game?

Where did you hear that from?

As far as I know any one of the 25 can be dropped

Nah, I also think that the 3 emergencies come from the bench.

Bate on the bench, Frawley in the forward line...what is the world coming to?

* The season fixture should start and finish with local derby's in QLD, NSW, WA & SA. This would both maximise member interest at the start of the season and guarantee no travel for any side the week prior to the finals.

* By default each Victorian club is guaranteed to be playing in Victoria in round 1 - the best time to sign up members.

I like these two points, they seem fair to me. Would probably mean the end of 'rivalry round', unless it was round 1. Not that anyone actually cares.

I think now being a tagger is Dunn's last chance, but I am not holding my breath.

Quite amazing that 6 weeks ago everyone (including me) wanted Garland and Warnock delisted at years end.

Now, I would prefer to see them get 5 year contracts.

It is bloody incredible that we have plucked two legit young key backmen from thin air.

Also says a lot about Dean Bailey - he was hailed as a great developer of young talent while at Port, and he is showing that its all true.

It's about time we had some decent prospects in defence for the future, but each week I get increasingly worried about the future of our forward line. Hopefully DB can develop Zomer or someone else just like he has developed these two.

I thought the umpiring was better than some other weeks, but not flawless (never is, probably never could be anyway). I can't stand the free kicks against the guy with the ball for a fend-off, we seemed to give a few of those away yesterday.

Sorry TU, you are mistaken...thats not lipstick...they are coldsores that have joined together!

Hehe, good one.

over the top and you havnt thought that out.

which of those players would play the same role as bell?

bode? too small.

frawley? too tall.

buckley? not a backman. not strong enough.

CJ? at the moment, perhaps. the only reason is that his role has changed. last year CJ couldnt have filled bellys role (even the way CJ is playing now), which is similar to wheatlys role.

i think this is one of the main problems with bells game this year. he is out of sorts, out of form and struggling. but he is not allowed to play the role he excelled at last year, which was the mid sized defender.

last year he got didak. who did he get this year? he is now being asked to provide run and be an attacking player, whereas last year he was a mid sized defender spoiling the the strong marking of players like williams and didak, who are too quick for the talls.

he plays his best when he can use his speed and height to spoil the ball, and restrict these types of players in the D50. playing this role he can also provide some run and rebound. but atm he is being asked to be the main instigator of that run and rebound, especially with green playing up forward a lot this week.

his kicking is ok. his handballing is subpar. the biggest problem is that he doesnt clear the area with handballs he just knocks it out, normally to an opposition. getting run down from behind often indicates teammates arent talking to him.

but seriously, he has cost goals by getting caught, but who have his direct opponents been and how many goals have they been kicking. i think he is getting lost.

You make some valid points deanox. However, I think the best way to fix some of these would be to give him a run with Sandy where the pressure isn't as intense and making a mistake isn't so costly. He'll be able to regain some long-lost confidence and hopefully work on his handballing and decision making.

I'll be happy with NikNat or Rich but PSD 1 could prove a big carrot this year.

Richmond can have this weekend and i'll take the Rd 22 game where we go for our 4th win of the year.

Good idea jacey, that should satisfy most. However where are the other 2 wins going to come from?

Why? I reckon every single thing he said was valid. It's a question most of us have been asking all year. Why can we get up for the big games and hold our own against quality sides / big stage (Geelong, Hawthorn #2 and now Collingwood) but get comprehensively smashed by middle of the road sides like Adelaide and St. Kilda? It's extremely frustrating.

I reckon the people having a dip at Malthouse for his comments need to take their green glasses off and read them again. He's a coach trying to look after his side. Nothing he said was invalid or unfair.

You're right Nasher, Malthouse was just stating the obvious in regards to our inability to play well each week. However, it's not his job to say this. But that's kinda beside the point. I guess the more pressing issue is that Malthouse is complaining about having 'too many blockbusters'. I wonder what he would have said if they'd lost again, whether he'd blame the loss on the fact that Collingwood didn't get up for the game like we did. He should think for a moment as to whether he'd prefer to play to large crowds week in week out in the high-drawing timeslots or play to much smaller crowds at smaller venues in less fancy timeslots.

I think on the one hand he makes a point that the MFC is too volatile, in that it will fire up for the QB clash and not provide the same passion the week after or from week to week. And that is perhaps the biggest indictment on our club. On the other hand, he should mind his own bloody business and let the MFC speak for the MFC. He is almost suggesting that he is bitter because we didn't play like a 16th placed team - and in that sense, he can get stuffed. Would he be happier if we didn't fire up on the weekend we celebrate our history?

Yeah, he's right about our inability to fire up week in week out. Last night on Footy Classified he spoke for a while about motivation, and was basically hinting that he thinks Melbourne players need some source of external motivation in order to play well. He mentioned that Davey was talking about QB 2 weeks ago, whilst we still had yet to play St. Kilda. On the one hand, he's right because we need to focus each week on the team we're playing and concentrate on being motivated enough to win. On the other hand, he coaches Collingwood, where each week's a blockbuster. Melbourne players are entitled to look forward to QB because it's the biggest crowd we're gonna get this year and with the 150th celebrations this year it is a big match.

I think Richmond going winless for the rest of the year is a real possibility, but I still want to beat them this week.

IN: Davey, Johnson, Whelan, Valenti

OUT: Rivers (inj), Moloney (inj), Bell, Bode

Garland or Warnock will go to Richo. As far as I know Richmond has no real tall key forwards (maybe Polak but he might be dropped) so I don't think we need to replace Rivers with another tall.

Bell has to go now, and if there's a late withdrawal he shouldn't get back in. Bartram I thought was OK yesterday, he puts his head over the ball and attacks contests hard.

Crikey, it's the first one they've won in five years, you'd think he'd be happy. Victim of their own success, pfft, you don't like it Mick, try playing interstate sometime.

Exactly! He's coached the two most powerful clubs in the leage (the filth and WCE) over the past 15 years or so, which means he has become accustomed to coaching in front of large crowds. He should try coaching a struggling team in front of 20,000 or less. I'm pretty sure Dean Laidley, Dean Bailey and Rodney Eade would happily take a season involving only 4 matches interstate and 18 matches in Melbourne in front of 40,000 or more.

Bate - worst agility ever

This is a real problem IMO: he was never once able to break away from O'Brien.

10 minutes into the match David King on 3AW described Cale Morton with the following:

"I tell you, Morton is going to be just like Adam Goodes..."

Ah, that's good. That means he'll never get suspended...

There was an article in the HUN today about Rivers and he said he was fit and ready to go, so I don't know if it was a recurrance of an old injury or a new one.

Can someone tell me where Garry Lyon was? He didn't call the game on MMM (or so I heard), but that shouldn't have prevented him from being there anyway.

We need to play to win. We need to field the best team possible. At the same time we need to develop younger players and look forward.

Whether we achieve all those goals or not, we will still finish bottom 2 at best.

Edited

1. The filth - missing Pendlebury and Rocca; last minute. Pendlebury particularly big out - bet they rested him thinking they could manage without him

2. We were spirited, and played with some passion (and plenty of angst)

3. Bode is way out of his depth; way, way out

4. White and Johno both won the tap outs, but frequently to the filth; they didn't shark it, it just went to them, even in front of them to run onto???? Go figure (Better get Warnock from the eagles)

5. Jones HAD SPACE. This time he seemed to have poise and space.

6. Morton is very similar to Bruce, including his kicking style, unfortunately.

7. To many passes were poor - need to be out in front of a leading player; too often on their head or behind them. Miller was great considering this.

8. I thought we were generally flatfooted. Not sure if it was the slippery conditions

9. Rivers needs to go onto the long term injured list. Reminds me of Hanson at the eagles - good player, but always injured or about to be injured. His (Rivers) career may be at an end, sadly; great player.

10. Our backline played with plenty of angry pills. They need to repeat it week-in week-out if that's the way they want to go.

11. Yze had great hands today, probably our best marking forward. Squandered it with poor kicking, or wanting to kick the fluke/wonder goals.

12. We need a new (club) runner who doesn't give away goals.

My overall feeling was that we were about to get over run at any time. We didn't, which is great. The filth had the luck overall. And we were a chance in the last 5 minutes.

You observe well Mono.

Davey > Pendlebury in terms of influence, and Rocca's horrible, so we did just as bad there.

Our ruckwork was not good today. I'd like to know the number of hitouts we had (especially PJ) that were to advantage. Not many I suspect.

Morton really saddened me today. I love him, but he put in a shocker.

He has got to go. Bring Whelan back. If not Whelan then CJ. Anyone really. He was awful today, and hasn't played a good game this year. He didn't show too much good form last year. He isn't improving, which is a real worry. Frawley should be ahead of him.

I agree grazman, that deserved 2 weeks. He wasn't looking at the ball, this is the exact situation the AFL wants to get rid of.