lucifer

Bailey Fritsch's work ethic is non-existent. First quarter ball looks like it's going out of bounds so he stops chasing the player, Fremantle player follows it at top speed to the line and gathers the ball, keeps it and handballs to a teammate and Freo move it out of defence. The lack of heat that is put on him every year for his lack of intensity and efforts without the ball is staggering to me.

Yep 100% - let's just hope we keep winning right? If we do you'd expect this to take care of itself

Yep, thought he had a real chance to put it to bed and kept repeating a rehearsed response "I'm contracted for two years and the club is 3-0 and playing good footy", which is funny when I type it it reads positively. He then gave a relatively weak response to "do you want to be a one club player?". Which he replied with something along the lines of "yes, of course I do". I certainly feel worse from seeing that, than I did reading Shaw's comments on the weekend. Trac had a real chance to put it to bed eg "don't be ridiculous, I love the club, i'm not leaving" kind of statement and he didn't go there. It's a new era...who knows?

MFC predictions Ladder position at the end of the H&A season: 6th Position at the end of the season (e.g. stage of finals):4th B&F top 5 (1 point for correct inclusion, 1 point for correct place): 1.Petracca 2.May 3.Oliver 4.Gawn 5.Brayshaw Leading goalkicker: B Brown Most marks: Gawn Best first year player: F Rosman Most improved player: Trent Rivers All Australian 40-man squad selections (1 point each): Oliver May Petracca Gawn All Australian final 22 selections (1 point each): Gawn Petracca May Big Ben Brown will kick his biggest goal tally against: Adelaide Biggest winning margin (exact guess is 5 points, within 1 point margin is 4 points etc): 73 Biggest MFC story of the year (5 points): Oliver knocks back multi-million dollar offer from Carlton to re-sign with Dees Other MFC predictions (1 point each): Tom McDonald unexpectedly plays over half the games and reestablishes himself as best 22. Brayshaw cements his place in the starting midfield. Hunt plays all 22 games (plus finals). Calls for Viney to be dropped throughout the year. AFL predictions Premier: Geelong Runner-up: Brisbane Wooden spoon :North Melbourne Biggest improver: Carlton Biggest slider: West Coast Brownlow medal: Trac Coleman medal: Jeremy Cameron Rising star: Rowell

Surely we need to bring in a tall forward, and Melksham has got to be moved to a HFF instead of deep forward, he can actually deliver the ball in an 2018 was ranked towards the top for goal assists. Lockhart, Smith & Hunt have to go. AVB needs run in his legs, but we have enough of his type, we need some skill. The issue for me is Lever. Whatever money he is on, he isn't earning it. He's been as badly beaten as Lockhart /Smith and I couldn't tell you the last time he took an intercept mark. Time to turn up the heat on him. Can't believe I'm saying bring back OMac...god help us al. In - Jetta, OMac, Weideman, Bennell, Out - Lockhart, Smith, Hunt, AVB B: Jetta May. Lever HB: Salem OMac Hibberd C. Langdon Oliver. Tomlinson HF. Melksham. Weideman. Bennell F. Pickett T Mac. Fritsch Foll: Gawn. Petracca. Brayshaw I. Harmes, Viney, Hannan, Rivers I'd like to see Jones back in if his body's right.

I would imagine that Weid would have been training all summer with the forwards up until Max went down, maybe with longer stints with the mid group afters Preuss went down. He's being played out of position and not where he has presumably been training for the majority of the pre-season. Give him a break.

I'm not thrilled about this like many other posters. I think he is good one on one, takes a good mark. Granted, he has massive brains fades and at times makes poor decisions. The two when weighed against each other make him an average player - but he's an average player I would rather keep. I think the club is banking on May being fit all year (when was the last time this happened), Lever regaining pre ACL form and Marty Hore filling a gap too. Lots of what ifs there and I think that is the main reason why a lot of posters are anxious about letting a know quantity - despite his limitations - go. Particularly if the outcome leads to O McDonald getting games.

Agree with all this except Oscar. Surely Josh Wagner comes in before him.

I reckon that's a fair point too. I think though, when fit AVB, Hannah, J Smith in particular give our forward line a different look. And you would imagine would be in front of C Wagner, Spargo, Lockhart, Garlett

I'm not sure if this or something similar has already been posted, apologies if I have missed it. The reality is, I challenge any team to have almost half or just over of their best 22 out and to be competitive. Yes, we had half a team of players who aren't AFL standard and it showed. It has also given us an opportunity to see what some players are made of when we are missing all these players. I, like everyone, entered this season hopeful and optimistic. I was furious when I left today, angry that the team had AGAIN dished up complete rubbish. After having time to calm down, I had a think and have come to the conclusion that yes, we are lacking leadership, but we are also lacking a hell of a lot of mature AFL bodies. But I would say the following are best 22 players (or are at least on the cusp) and they were all missing or have just come back into VFL footy: Salem, ANB, Lewis, Lever, May, KK, Jetta, Hibberd, Melksham, Hannah, AVB, Weideman, J Smith, JKH - that's 14 players. I reckon of that 14, you would say all of them with maybe the exception of JKH, Lewis (age catching up) and maybe ANB are not best 22. So that leaves 11. Literally half our team. Not to mention, the majority of our backline. Some of the above we only have ourselves to blame for their absence - eg J Smith being sent back on with a groin injury in a JLT match. The rest is a result of bad luck. When you swap out the following players: C Wagner, Spargo, Petty, Stretch, Garlett, O McDonald, Fritsch and potentially J Wagner, Lockhart, O Baker (who I think will keep his spot) our team looks a hell of a lot better. Every team gets injuries, sure. But if I hear about how badly hit Richmond have been without a word in the media really about ours injury list and the level of player we're missing i'll spew. I acknowledge the lack of form of Brayshaw, Viney, Jones, TMac etc hasn't helped. Things that I think are interesting out of our injury plight are - Hunt as a forward, Frost potentially keeping his spot when the defenders are back, seeing Lockhart and Baker with more mature and more highly skilled players around them, seeing if these players have any impact at all. If they don't then we can presume that last year was the anomaly, not this year. I'm also not usually the one for positivity. I don't think the above is being an optimist, I think it's just a reason.