Lord Nev

Yeah, 2 games is a bit of a small sample size to be using averages for half a season, but I totally get where you're coming from. He struggles to run out more than a half, so I can understand the reasoning for him not being picked often given our weaknesses at ground level, but you would think we would have tried him again by now given how dire things have been. Will be interesting now that Rawlings has gone from coaching him every week to being in charge of the seniors forward line if the outlook changes.

Jeff is number 1 for goal average. Oliver leads us for disposals, Gawn for frees, Clarry for contested, Jetta for effective disposals and on and on. It's not just one player. Not sure what relevance the other stats have as far as our forwards go though? Edit - this is for players who have played a minimum of 3 games. Less than that is too small a sample size to use averages.

Where did you hear this? And why would Cross stay at the club if this was the case?

I guess I see it differently. We are desperate for outside players and finishers, so I'm not one to bag a player who is actually doing those things for us. Everyone talks up the 'hardness' of Oliver, Viney and Brayshaw, but they are our 3 worst users going inside 50, and Viney is rated as worst in the league, for some reason though 'hardness' is rated higher than skill by the average footy fan. I get that it's something about the game that we all love, but clearly our balance is tipped far too much to one side. It does require an ability to read the game to be that last 'link in the chain', and for a team with a weakness for ground balls inside 50 his ability to crumb and create scoring opportunities is vital, and I think the message it sends to Bedford, Spargo etc is they need to provide more than just 'hardness'. Incidentally, Garlett leads our team for average tackles inside 50, so I'm not sure I buy this narrative some supporters have about him being 'soft' and not chasing or working hard enough. We can't complain about a lack of scoring, forward pressure and marks inside 50 and then drop the player who leads us in every one of those categories.

Yep, great point, us and the Blues are the two teams who play on the most in the competition, and it's clear how the seasons of both are playing out. These moves, while positive in my view, will be meaningless if there's not changes in actual instruction, game plan/style and structures. The catch could be though, are we skillful enough to play a slower, more precise game style? I guess things can't get more worse anyway.

It seemed more like a leadership shift rather than a whole staff revamp. Cross is part of a team of around 40 in the medical/rehab department so would guess he's staying in the same role. Just a guess though.

Yep, that's an understandable comment. To clarify, I'm not saying we should trade him, I'm just questioning whether it's a possibility, particularly in the scenario the article raised, and also wondering what's up with him this year form wise and even intent wise.

Second job possibly to get someone in as a goal kicking coach? (Part time you'd think)

We're a team crying out for goals, skill and outside players and you want to immediately drop a player who gives us all those things? Seems a strange decision to me, and your "he's a laughing stock" comment is completely over the top. Viney is a gutsy player, yet he is doing more damage than good currently and our balance of 'gutsy' players has seen us in deficit for skill.

'See you later' to the highest average goal kicker from a team struggling to score? Not sure that's the first move I would make myself.

Perhaps read the article linked the post mate. It explains a lot of your questions.

Some more clarity from the club here, including that the players were consulted on what changes they thought would work and that it was all due to a review: Melbourne seeks opportunities to improve “We looked at the whole department and said, ‘How can we set up a better structure, how can we set up better programs and processes?’, and that probably took three or four weeks of internal interviews with staff, players and coaches."

Great news. Find it strange that over the last few weeks people were complaining about our assistants, the President, the CEO, the fitness staff, the lack of a 'review', yet here we are with some proactive changes made clearly after Bartlett has conducted internal reviews and people are complaining? Interesting that Misson has seemingly also been demoted (reading between the lines a bit). Congratulations also to Sam Radford who has been promoted to senior coach of Casey.

All fairly made points. That's the gamble with Petracca I suppose. I don't think we'd be looking to trade any of our core players for draft picks though. We've actively avoided the early parts of the draft the last few years as we obviously thought our window was open, I personally think it still is so I wouldn't be trading for picks at this stage. Absolutely agree on Gus' resilience, I love him as a personality, and he's clearly exceptionally talented, I'm more weighing it up on an emotionless needs basis.

Do we need him when Jones retires though? We already have Oliver, Harmes, Viney, Petracca, Sparrow, Dunkley and more to play that inside grunt role. Who do we have as quality outside players? Spargo? Neal-Bullen? Not exactly A grade, and not exactly quick and skillful. I do agree the trade scenario of Gus plus our first pick is overs however. On the free agent scenario, I tend to agree with Paul Roos in that we are going to see free agents traded before their last contract year more and more often as clubs look ahead to weigh up value. I would think GWS would already know if Whitfield plans to stay end of next year and are planning accordingly, so there's no guarantee he will be available as a free agent.

Can see where you're coming from, but I agree with the article in the initial post when it says: "Trading Petracca now would be a classic case of 'selling low'." We just wouldn't get value for him at the moment, so to me his potential is worth more to us than what we would get in return for trading him.

Fair enough mate. Personally I'm not too concerned about votes allocated by umpires, I'm more into having a team that will win a flag. I would have Gawn, Oliver, Jetta and Melksham as my untouchables, even though none were top 3 in the Brownlow.

Yep, and that's why he has good trade value despite an extremely poor 2019. The suggestion isn't we trade him because he's not good enough, the suggestion is we trade him because he has high value and we could use that value to better balance our team and address the needs that see us currently sitting at 16th on the ladder. So, I counter that 'alternate scoreboard', with this one:

Yep, spot on and summed up really well. It's part of what made me waver about the trade scenario, having Oliver, Viney and Harmes still there, possibly along with Petracca after a full preseason, a gun outside mid of the likes of Whitfield could dramatically change us.

I agree to be honest. I'm equal parts fan and critic of Viney, and have been a bit of a broken record about him being rated the worst user inside 50 in the entire comp, but I couldn't see the club trading him.

Appreciate that mate, but the context of Kennett's comments revolved around the staff at Marvel Stadium. Either way, I still maintain your assumption the security industry is 'dominated' by 'young Indians' is at best off the mark. But I'll leave it at that as we're going back and forth over the same ground now. Cheers.

I think the majority of Dees fans recognize we have weaknesses in midfield skill, outside run/pace and delivery forward, as well as us being in our 'window' as of now. I get that there's other areas we may debate with each other about, but I feel those things are pretty clear. So how do we improve those areas quickly enough that we can make the most of our chances now? This article raises a hypothetical that I scoffed at at first but have wavered a bit since thinking about it more. Why trading Angus Brayshaw could fix Melbourne's midfield "But Brayshaw personifies Melbourne's midfield issues - fantastic in the contest, tough as old boots and able to find the pill, but unreliable by foot. He has committed the 11th most turnovers in the league this year, with his disposal efficiency under implied pressure and physical pressure the second-worst and fourth-worst of the league's top 50 ball-winners." It goes on to suggest trade scenarios which would see us losing Gus, and possibly a pick, to return Lachie Whitfield. My questions are these: - Is Gus 'untouchable' given we have Oliver, Harmes & Viney in the same role? Plus, with Sparrow and Dunkley potentially coming through in the same vein, others as depth etc. - What do we make of Gus' massive form slump this year? You could argue it coincides with him attending less centre bounces, but there's other aspects to that as well such as his concussion history, his lack of accountability this year and of course, our lack of outside run which sees him being used there. Is he injured this year? Unhappy? Something seems up with him. - Do we need to make such a big move or do we rely purely on tweaks to game plans, roles and structures in the offseason? I guess that boils down to trust in the footy department to fix things, which I imagine is at a low point given our performance this year. Thoughts?

No, you're the one who brought up the ethnic background and Visa conditions of the security at Marvel Stadium and then stated 'young Indians' are 'dominating' the security industry. Now you're moving the goal posts to the MCG, 7/11 stores and crowd behaviour. So once again I ask, what are you basing your assumption on?

You're still missing the point. What is your basis for assuming the security industry is 'dominated' by 'young Indians'? I've worked closely with that industry for 24 years and that's not been my experience at all.

One swallow doesn't make a summer.