the fork

Brad Moran Age: 21 Recruited from Southport Sharks (QLD) Height/Weight 200cm / 88kg Debut Round 21, August 26, 2006, Kangaroos vs. Hawthorn, at Aurora Stadium 3 games, 0 goals Following from worldfootynews.com Brad Moran stars on debut for North Melbourne Monday, August 28 2006 @ 07:46 PM EST Contributed by: Peter P Views: 1,138 Soccer-playing Brad Moran emigrated from England to Australia's northern state of Queensland just 4 years ago at the age of 15 - now making his first appearance for the AFL's North Melbourne Kangaroos. His remarkable adaptation to the indigenous code is profiled in a recent WFN story and then last Friday on afl.com.au. While the write up on the official AFL website was very promising, it seems he exceeded all expectations with a commanding performance for the Kangaroos the next day in their match against Hawthorn in Launceston. The 200cm Moran took 10 marks in blustery conditions that were unconducive to easy marks. He also had 13 kicks, gave out 8 handpasses, laid 3 tackles and palmed 10 hit-outs to smaller team-mates to well and truly earn his place in the losing team's official best player list. His performance may have AFL talent scouts pondering the fact there are more than a few tall 15 year old soccer players in the world.

As reported in The Age this morning: Kangaroos ruckman Brad Moran may have played his last game for the club. Adelaide and Melbourne are the two clubs still in the race with Essendon losing interest yesterday. Note: Sorry if this has already been mentioned elsewhere but I can't seem to find any mention.

If you're not a Melbourne Football Club member, take that fire in your belly and buy a membership today. A line has been drawn in the sand and it's time for the barrackers to become supporters. Spread the word.... sign up. [email protected] or phone: (03) 9643 1760 during business hours

RIVERS, BARTRAM obvious inclusions destroy, cheers. The fire in my belly has me giddy. My sentiments apply to the whole list. Bailey isn't going to put up with TJ like ND has in the past. Miller may just find the focus he's been missing. Yze reborn. Whelan our linch pin. Carroll our full-stop. Davey with drive and consistancy. Mc Donald to realise his full leadership potential. Frawley, Bode, develop, develop, develop. Bell has a hard nut mentor to grow from. Green and Bruce to wake from the slumber and take their place as leaders.

Good to hear from you YM. Today is about switching back onto the very positive path most of us shared pre-Judd. Great teams don't emanate from one player, they rise from a group with belief. Dean Bailey has already proved to the club and it's supporters that he is a good communicator. Judd, I think, was obviously moved in a way he didn't expect upon meeting the man and found it a bit harder to cross us of the list than he thought it was going to. So lets see our list under Bailey, lets see them develop in time. We're out there, stirring players like Judd and Messen into approaching us. It's time to switch on to our potential. Consider for a moment amongst the sideshow that has been our last fortnight: JONES, SYLVIA, BATE, NEWTON, DUNN, PETTARD, FRAWLEY and Mc LEAN under Bailey. C'mon Dee's, switch on.

No worries fatty, I'll run with "developmental", I opted for the term 'experimental' to give Dean plenty of room to make inevitable mistakes. Mistakes we have to make along the way. We made plenty of mistakes in 2007, all of them with a backward thrust. I would much prefer our mistakes to me made in developing (there's that word again) our players and our style of play. We as a group of supporters have to do just that, support. Hence my optimism for Bailey. I am a youngish Demons supporter, but old enough to have felt "the pain". What I think so many older Melbourne supporters, particularly on forums like this, often loose sight of is that those who really love the club must remain positive. No matter what. It's hard and I'm not particularly great at it myself, but great clubs don't come from the depths of cynicism.

Amongst all this banter about, lists, delistings, goners and the like. Just thought I’d share my opinion. We need to commit to the idea of an experimental 2008. It seems we just want Dean Bailey to make right what Neale Daniher got wrong. To me this desire relies on the assumption that we have seen the absolute best from our list. Are we willing to judge our players and their potential based on what Neale Daniher got out of them? Under Dean Bailey our players will approach the game very differently next year. It seems that he is willing to play every player, not purely on what has been, but on their ‘true’ merit as he (a immense football brain by all accounts) sees it. While I believe there are players on our list that have to go, we as a club must be willing to allow Bailey to get to know the true worth of our players, to experiment and most importantly, discover their potential under him.