Accepting Mediocrity

First time in my life we've had a dee genuinely in the conversation as the best player in the league (albeit only one season so far). He has a level of confidence in his ability that only the very best players possess. When he launches a bomb from 55, you know it's going through for a goal before the ball leaves his foot. He knows it too, and so does his opponent. It's beautiful. You just know that he's going to tear apart a few finals before the end of his career. Christ I hope it's in the red and blue.

May was unlucky that there were so many key position defenders have career best seasons this year. We can't really claim he was robbed - he would have been a deserving selection, but Moore was every bit as good for Collingwood, and Weitering was stiff to miss as well. Andrews is an absolute weapon and is the best KPD in the league by a fair margin. On the other hand, Max benefited from a pretty down year for rucks across the league. The selectors usually pick 2, and although NicNat clearly had the better season, there was still daylight between Gawn and everyone else. Deserved his spot. These teams are always a matter of splitting hairs, but I can't remember the last time we had 4 players genuinely in the conversation for All Australian. If our mid-tier and 'role' players ever sort their sh*t out, we have the makings of a damn good side.

Am I missing something? If there was any possibility that we could pick up a proven, 27 year old, injury-free, 60 goal a year full forward on the cheap then we would be absolutely mad not to go hard. If he was asking to leave MFC, we'd all be hoping for multiple first round picks. If we could get him for a second rounder, we would take the deal and run away laughing. Because he'll kick 2-3 goals a game, allow the Weid to take the second best defender and make it incredibly difficult for opposition defenders to take marks in our forward 50. He is about as close to an instant forwardline fix as you can get. I haven't completely given up on TMac, but his body and confidence are clearly shot. It's now been 2 years since he played a decent game and he moves like an old man. Brown has played 9 poor games, in a bizarre season in which he endured personal tragedy, which from all reports was poorly managed by a basket case of a club. His body is fine. It would hardly take a miracle to see him return to form - quite the opposite. He has serious runs on the board.

Max didn't have his best year. But he was clearly the second best ruckman behind NicNat - Grundy never really got going, and Goldstein faded badly in the second half of the season. Gawn was always going to make the squad. If the selectors go with a second ruckman in the 22 (as they have the last few years), he's in. May was robbed. Objectively, it's probably splitting hairs between May, Moore and Weitering, with Andrews clearly ahead - fair enough (but unlucky) if he didn't make the 22. But left out of the squad for Zac Butters? Spare me.

Re-assembling one of the worst playing lists ever fielded seems a counter-intuitive recruiting strategy, but the hawks seem to be pursuing it with vigor. Scully, Frawley, Frost, Fitzpatrick, Cheney off the top of my head. Anyone else we can offload to them? Neeld as head of player development maybe?

It's painfully obvious that the TMac 'I only play with my brother' myth is utter bull. It's staggering how often it's repeated on here. Imagine how that would go down with the coaches/ playing group? It probably stems from a quote where he said something along the lines of: "Yeah it's great having my brother at the club, I'm really looking forward to running out alongside him" or similar.

Wouldn't go anywhere near Merrett. But only because we already have 3 ex-bombers on the list, and it takes way too much emotional energy to overcome my hatred of Essendon players (I've learned to love Hibberd and Brown, but can't quite warm to Melksham). Seriously though, he would definitely add a point of difference to our midfield mix.

Hunt is always going to be a limited player, but geez he's a weapon when he gets it streaming towards goals. 4 goals from a fringe player is a great effort.

Good: Brown. He's Pederson mk 2 - not particularly talented, but always gives it everything, and played a blinder today. 13 Marks. Wow. Bad: Melksham. How he made it through the year without getting dropped is staggering.

Trouble is, we've got Viney, Oliver, Petracca, Harmes and Brayshaw that play their best footy in the middle. All are best clearly 22 players. Lots of people taking pot shots at Goodwin for playing guys out of position, but what the hell is the alternative? Start with 6 blokes in the square and hope the umpires don't notice? Obviously, we need to find a better way to manage this going forward, but laying the boots into the coach without offering up a solution does my head in.

I reckon the importance of midfield delivery for a forward's success is massively overblown. In his second season, Cameron kicked 62 goals in a side that won 1 game all year (against us, because of course it was). To name a few, Tom Lynch, Fevola, Pavlich, Richardson and Jack Riewoldt all spent a fair portion of their careers in rubbish teams and kicked plenty of goals. Not saying that we shouldn't be looking at skilled mids, but the best forwards kick goals no matter who is delivering it to them.

Always hard to compare players from different eras, but statistically speaking Cameron has him covered. Neitz was a club champion and one of my all time faves, but if we're being honest he was always a rung or two below the best forwards in the league (Carey, Lloyd, Riewoldt etc). Cameron is having a down year, but he's just about the best forward in the comp when he's in form. His record is phenomenal. He would do more to improve our side than just about any other player in the league IMO. Doubt we can afford him, but definitely worth a crack.

Such a weird career trajectory. Looked like he'd be one of the all time greats in his first few years. Only 27, but I don't think he will ever return to the 50 goal per season player he was. Massive alarm bells if Hawthorn are willing to shop him around. Recruiting Wingard would actually make our forwardline less consistent, which is quite the achievement.

What's the bet that either: 1) We [censored] the Bombers, but finish 0.1% behind St Kilda; or 2) All the other results go our way, but Joe Daniher slots one from the boundary to beat us after the siren.

Funny, I was thinking the same thing watching Caleb Daniel today (who is an absolute gun btw). It's not the craziest idea. I actually think Spargo will be a decent player, although I realize he's something of a whipping boy around here. He has a tendency to go missing, but he rarely turns it over when he gets it.

Public holidays are locked in well in advance. I'm not sure if it would be possible to change it, even if there was a political will to do so. Doesn't seem to be how bureaucracy works! Also, it's not as though it will be costing many businesses extra $ because most aren't open anyway. Taking a guilt-free day to read a book, go for a walk, do a project in the shed/etc can't be a bad thing!

My opinion only, but for all the talk of recruiting competitive beasts, I still think we lack fundamentally competitive players. If a game is on the line in the last quarter, Viney, Petracca, Oliver and May are about the only players that I'm confident will step up and do something special to drag the team over the line. Last night he got caught holding the ball at a crucial time, but at least he was trying to make something happen. We have too many players that go into their shells when the other side gets a run on IMO. Also, I'm still scarred by the 2007-2013 years and what a Viney-less MFC midfield can look like.

Wait, this is the same Jack Viney we're all talking about? The same one who's 26 years old and has the same number of top 3 finishes in the Bluey as Nathan Jones? He's one-dimensional, sure, but he's undeniably been one of our best players for the best part of a decade, and should have at least another 5 top quality seasons ahead of him. He's had a couple of uncharacteristically quiet games, but overall he's one of our most consistent players (a rare trait at MFC). That's not to say that we shouldn't be open to letting him explore free agency if it can benefit the team in the big picture, but some of the comments on here are borderline disrespectful to a club great I reckon. Letting him walk has the potential to come back to bite us in a big way.

Not to derail the thread, but you can't really compare our lockdown with Europe because the virus was widely circulating over there beforehand and so the horse had already bolted. Lockdown sucks, but you can't really argue that it's not doing what it was designed to do. How? Tigers, Cats, West Coast and Lions literally made up 4 of the top 5 last year.

How? Having a down year, but his record speaks for itself. The guy averages 2.5 goals a game and has at least another 100 games in his prime barring serious injury. Seriously, with all due to respect to Neitz and Lyon, he'd be our best full forward since Fred Fanning. Don't think we'd be in the race, but it would be downright negligent not to throw our hat in the ring.

Look on the bright side. For just the 4th time in the last 14 seasons, we are still a mathematical chance of making finals with 2 weeks left to play. Progress!

The guy irritates the hell out of me, and is rivaled only by his twin brother in terms of most punchable heads in footy. But to be fair he had a winning record of over 50% and took a decidedly average list to 2 prelims. AFL seems to be the only sport where 'failed' head coaches don't generally get a second chance. Prefer others, but I'd take him if the alternative was an untried rookie. Not the worst option out there IMO.

He's an RFA, we'd most likely get band 2 compensation (end of 1st round pick) - in a highly compromised draft. I know he's got his limitations, but the simple fact is that he's among our top half-dozen players, no point pretending otherwise. He rarely plays a bad game and is one of the few players on our list who lifts when the going gets tough. I can't see how Viney leaving improves our side.

I get what you're saying, but our top 50 picks in that time are as follows: 2015: Oliver (4) and the Weid (9). 2016: Hannan (46) 2017: Spargo (29); Fritsch (31); Petty (37); Baker (48) 2018: Sparrow (27); Jordon (33) 2019: Jackson (3); Pickett (12); Rivers (32) On balance, I don't think it looks too bad. Some hits, some misses and some too early to tell - but it's not as though we've been passing up Naughton or Rowell with our available selections. For mine, our biggest issue is that our senior mid-tier players (ANB, Hunt, Melksham, Melksham, Tomlinson, AVB, Salem et al) aren't producing the consistent footy we need from them (for various reasons).

If supporting the Dees has taught me anything, it's that promising young players do not translate to success. Following on from that logic, the key to success must be having no promising young players. Seriously though, it's not really an under 22 side - it's a side of 20 and 21 year-olds (18-19 year-olds mostly don't have enough runs on the board to get selected). We obviously traded out of those drafts, so hardly surprising that we don't have any players listed. Not even remotely a cause for concern.