Sydney_Demon

Deedubs, I assume you have lots of friends outside this site because I suspect you have very few on it. You have a go at ManDee about an unrealistically expensive forward line when salary cap has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion (the point made was that height is not the only driver of effectiveness in a forward line). Then you put in an unrealistic forward line with a mixture of talls & smalls to make the point I assume that a balance of talls, smalls, different types of players would be more effective. I agree with you on this point. I also concede that me mentioning this particular combination of players would not work within the confines of a team's salary cap is irrelevant, but I assumed it would be OK with you since you did exactly the same thing earlier. Clearly you hold other people to different standards than you hold yourself. You don't like other people having a go at you. However, you seem to think picking fights with other posters is absolutely fine. Please don't resort to namecalling. I find it offensive (which no doubt will encourage you further).

Well, I'm assuming Hardwick hasn't just come out and made his statement because there's nothing to the rumours. And I guess it's hard to play for a team based somewhere else and live in Sydney. Maybe Dusty could just retire from the AFL and move to Sydney (he probably doesn't need the money).

You would've spent your salary cap on this forward line so your example is unrealistic.

Well, the VFA was formed in 1877, the VFL in 1897, even assuming the potential best players have come from those comps plus the AFL, that's 145 years, so I don't know how anyone can say Dusty is the GOAT. Very difficult to comparre players from different eras and I'm not 150 years old. I'm happy to agree that Finals performances are important but surely not the only thing! I assume because you're on this site you're a Melbourne fan. Very impressed you wastched 120 Richmond games over 5 years so you can say with authority that be barely played a bad game. I agree. The Swans I assume are going to have one first round draft pick this year (around 13 or 14) so don't know how they're going to do a trade. Richmond would want players as well. Sydney have some great young players but IMO would be mad to give up too much for Dusty given he turns 32 June next year. Having said that, Sydney are at least in the Premiership window whereas GWS are a couple of years further away at best. The other thing of course is that Martin will be a marquee player at Sydney or GWS. He's not going to be able to get away with doing no media in Sydney as he does in Melbourne. Hardwick has been gracious in his comments but there's no might about them being self-serving. Dusty has made it clear he wants to move to Sydney and if he's on $1.4m a year as reported (or close to that), then his departure would be a boon for Richmond (assuming a Premiership in 2023 or 2024 is unlikely should he stay). That's a lot of money freed up for future top-liners plus expected trades for players/draft. The best way of maximising your return is by being upfront you're prepared to trade. The alternative is he stays at Richmond where he would prefer not to be. Rest assured, Richmond aren't going to be a pushover when in comes to actual trade negotiations.

Thanks for your analysis BAMF. I can totally see the logic of having a taller key forward to pair with JVW medium-to-long term. Regarding recruiting a 200cm+ developing ruck, there is already one playing for Casey, Jack Bell ex-St Kilda 202cm and still only 21, and we should look to get him on the Melbourne list. Not sure about the analysis though of Coleman medallists, especially when you're applying 5 year averages to only 22 years and less if you look at duplicates. Clearly when 4 of the 22 entries are Buddy Franklin, 199cm but with a unique set of skills which no other player has, it distorts the numbers. Coleman winners are not just winners because of their height. It depends on the team they play for, injuries, other forwards, game style ... If you looked at average goals per game preferably for the top 10 key forward goal kickers for each year it would be more meaningful. Bailey Fritsch kicked the most goals in the AFL lat year (with the aid of finals) and he's only 188cm 😄.

I can see where you're coming from re Bedford. With every player of course it's just not a case of Melbourne offering them a short term contract and them accepting it. Bedford will want to play senior footy and the security of a long term contract/better money. Joel Smith? The other contract extension I think Narrm should be prioritizing is Jacob van Rooyen. He's definitely shown enough to extend beyond 2023. For all the other 2021 draftees it's too early (except Moniz-wakefield perhaps?). I'm still uncertain about Rosman. He's shown some talent but is not really showing consistency. To be fair to him, Laurie, (Declan) Smith & Turner the curtailed 2021 Season for Casey hasn't helped, but they have another 10 games plus finals in 2022 to make their cases.

Sorry Lucifers. I was referring specifically to your comment 'Only 3 premiership players OOC this year to sign up: Brayshaw, Hunt, Jackson.' I read that as as past premiership players OOC this year to sign up and it mentioned Hunt but not Hibberd. I accept your 2nd comment (which you have quoted above) makes total sense re Hunt but you don't mention in your commentary (yiu do in thechart) that Hibberd is a premiership player that is OOC this year. Thanks for clarifying and a note of thanks for all your ongoing hard work in maintaining this chart. Much appreciated! BTW do you agree with my thoughts that Bedford is a certainty to get offered another contract, as well as as Smith? This is the important point plus of course cap space created from retirements and trades mentioned by Lucifers. The potential 110% after 2 years of 95% could help but is more marginal. Clearly Buddy's contract has created issues at the Swans, as has Grundy's at Collingwood (athough in the case of Buddy it has been money well spent). Supposedly Dusty is on $1.4m a year so clearly him leaving would free up a lot of salary cap space for Richmond in 2023-24, so I don't think it's just a case of Hardwick's altruism that Richmond is entertaining the idea. I agree that being a list manager must be an incredibly clallenging but rewarding job (if you get it right). Gold Coast's stance in 2021 was to contract every player so they couldn't leave, but of course that creates it's own problems, like having to trade most of your draft picks to Collingwood at a discount.

Hunt wasn't a Premiership player, Hibberd was. I would imagine at this stage Hibberd is unlikely to get a new 1-year contract unless he can get over his injuries, play some Casey Football and get back into the senior side (and I can't really see him replacing Hunt at this stage). As it is we have to find a spot for Salem. Surely Bedford is a certainty to get offered another contract, and Smith.

At least we have Clarrie definitely until the end of 2023.

Thanks for the post, but I'm struggling to see what it has to do with this topic. I did the ladder predictor today and had them finishing 7th with a 13-9 record which is 8-5 for the rest of the Season but what would I know? You don't finish 4th unless you're at least 15-7 so they'd need to go at an impressive 10-3 to achieve that. They are yet to play 5 of the 7 sides above them in the 8 (and lost to the other 2- Melbourne & St Kilda) so that will be a challenge. I'm not saying Richmond can't win away finals (2-1 record 2017-20) but I'm not sure what winning finals at the Gabba actually tells us. 2019-20 2-1 at the Gabba plus 1-0 at Carrara but 2 of those 4 were against Victorian teams. I do take your point about the MCG. Richmond & Melbourne are going to be the only Finals teams that play home there. I'm not saying Richmond can't win from outside the Top 4. I'm just saying they haven't actually done it yet so why is everyone so convinced they can? Sorry Wheelo. That was just my poor attempt at being humourous. I understand how you arrived at something other than a whole number. Maybe we should use the median or mode rather than the mean. They're all averages 😄. We long-suffering (up until last year) Melbourne fans are totally across different finals systems. I timed my run brilliantly (not). Born in 1960 so too young for the 1954-64 period but managed to catch about 20 years of no finals appearances (including 4 wooden spoons) pre-1987. Page-McIntyre Final 4 System introduced 1931, McIntyre Final Five System introduced 1972, McIntyre 1st Final Six System introduced 1991, McIntyre 2nd Final Six System introduced 1992, McIntyre Final 8 System introduced 1994, AFL Final 8 System introduced 2000. I'm still not sure whether I'm totally over beating Adelaide in the 1st Round of the 1998 Finals and seeing them win the Premiership 3 weeks later.

Thanks titan for your clarification of how the system 'works'. What it came down to was Ryan's bump being assessed as Careless Conduct, Medium Impact, High Contact, whereas Chandler's tackle was graded as Careless Conduct, High Impact, High Contact. So the outcome drove the penalty. I'd be surprised if West Coast or Melbourne will appeal these decisions because under the MRO guidelines the decisions were correct. Further, West Coast should be thinking that in the court of public opinion Ryan would have got 3 weeks, so better to let this die quietly. What is particularly damning is players like Lynch (especially) and Hawkins throw their elbows around indiscriminately and dangerously and yet the AFL refuses to take action, whereas under the MRO rules accidental in-play incidents and deliberate dangerous acts both get graded as careless.

There's this common belief that Richmond can win from anywhere in the Top 8. I don't know where this comes from. They won from 3rd in 2017, won all 3 finals which were all were played at the MCG. Adelaide finished top that year but of course had to play away in the Grand Final. In 2018 Richmond finished 1st, won their Qualifying Final, but lost the Prelim to Collingwood (both matches at the MCG). In 2019 Richmond beat Brisbane at the Gabba in a Qualifying Final (Brisbane a young team that went out in straight sets), and won both a Prelim and the Grand Final at the MCG (against GWS who had come from 6th). 2020 in Queensland, Richmond lost a QF to Brisbane, then won 3 matches, including a close PF in the wet against Port Adelaide in Adelaide and the GF against Geelong. So they have won a couple of Interstate Finals, but finished 3rd in each of their Premiership years and have never come from outside the Top 3. Most losing QF team wins their SF the following week so why does everyone think Richmond can win multiple away finals from outside the Top 4 and potentially win the GF? And their 2022 team isn't a patch on their 2019-20 teams IMO. It doesn't look that tough to me. They play Geelong, GWS & Hawthorn twice (you'd expect them to win 5 of those 6 games on form). The other 7 are against Brisbane (away), Fremantle (home), Gold Coast (home), Melbourne (home), St. Kilda (home), Sydney (away), West Coast (away). Maybe 4 of 7, which would bring them to 13 wins, 9 losses, definitely Top 8. I'll confidently predict we have more chance of winning 22 games than 18.4.

How can they possibly have graded the Ryan bump as accidental? Clearly it was intentional. 90% of football people believe it should be the action, not the outcome. You can't control the outcome so why should you be punished for that component? In what way did Ryan bump in a way that meant Bowey wasn't going to get concussed or worse? Unfortunately the AFL aren't in a habit of changing their stance just because a reasonable view is different from theirs.

I'm amazed to hear you say that. I assumed since the Bulldogs aren't Top 5 it wouldn't count. I was at that game and when the Bulldogs kicked 8 unanswered goals in 15 minutes (2 at the end of the 1st, 6 in the first half of the 2nd) I was disappointed. I thought we should go all the way through the Season without allowing any opponent to score 2 consecutive goals 😄. Seriously though, I just shared a rueful smile with my brother and remembered 2021. One loss is not the end of the world (and it was neither in the end). I don't think anyone thinks Melbourne is playing perfect football or there isn't room for improvement. Steven May has high expectations which is fantastic. Important in a player, not so crucial in a fan. We would all love perfection. It's just that it's also OK to enjoy what we have now, which you seem incapable of. For God's sake, we have not 'scraped over the line' in any games this season. We have never been in danger of losing a single game. Yes, we have beaten some average teams, and also some pretty good ones (St Kilda, Richmond, and don't write off Western Bulldogs or Port yet). And some of those average teams have beaten teams we are yet to play. But I think you should definitely mark us down because we haven't beaten the teams we haven't played yet.

Deedubs, WTF are you talking about? Firstly, Casey would not be beating WCE by 10 goals. Casey beat North Reserves by 110 points on the weekend but North had 3 AFL-listed players playing for them, not the 11 or so of WCE's best 22 that actually played against Melbourne. There were certaintly a couple of WAFL-level players playing for WCE but not the 20 or so that played for North Reserves yesterday. I note by your 2nd paragraph you were talking about Connor West looking like a 3-time Brownlow Medallist and by the 3rd paragraph WCE had become a VFL Reserves team. Seriously? Or are we just supposed to guess at the bits of your analysis you want to be taken seriously? I agree with you that talk of us playing in 2nd Gear is pretty superficial and of course not the way it works. I also think that in the 2nd & 3rd Quarters there was far too much bombing the ball into the forward line, but I don't agree that it's a case of just being able to extend the way we play in the dominant periods to whole matches. AFL Football just doesn't work that way. You have periods when you get run-ons, periods where your opponent does likewise, periods when you dominate but can't score, the same for your opponent, and It's not possible to play at 100% of your capabilities for 100% of the time. You do what you need to do to win matches and anything on top of that is a bonus. Look at the Port Adelaide game. Half way through the 2nd Quarter and it was 1 goal to none and we don't look like scoring, but we knew we play the game plan eventually we will break through as we did (and as we have in every game this year). I fully appreciate Melbourne have some tough games to come, but if you're so into game analysis why aren't you analysing our future opponents, all of whom have flaws and have mixed form at times. Instead you throw out a misleading statement like we haven't played a team in the Top 5 yet. St Kilda were 4th when we played them last week and that was after a 1-point loss to Port the week before. They're not in the Top 5 because they played us and lost! No-one seems to take account of the fact there are 9 teams (including 2 teams in the Top 8) whose positions on the ladder are worse because they've played us and 8 whose position is better because they haven't. If you don't like superficial statements on winning margins why do you throw out a Top 5 statement like it actually means something? We haven't played these teams but on revealed form the only one of them that looks up to our current standard (let alone your idea of perfection) is Brisbane. We have beaten Western Bulldogs and Port (away) who finished 2nd & 3rd in 2021. But suddenly because they're not in the Top 8 they can't play anymore and the Melbourne wins are worthless. Now that's superficial analysis if ever I've seen it.

Don't get me wrong. I quite like Mitch Brown but he's definitely not in our Best 22, unless we have injuries. I think you're being a bit generous about his past AFL form. He played one game last year from memory, in Round 5 against Hawthorn and kicked 2 goals in a 50 point win. Hawthorn were very poor in the early part of last Season. Mitch Brown had 10 possessions which was OK but I wouldn't describe it as 'very servicable' (TMac had 22 possesions and also kicked 2 goals).

Hello Deedubs, and thanks for returning to your old form. In case you hadn't noticed last night, West Coast's sole aim was to stop us scoring, as largely was St Klada's the week before and Port's earlier in the year. In turned out brilliantly for all those sides, didn't it. I've got better things to do with my time than go back and look at all your old posts (I don't need that much negativity in my life), but I'm just assuming after we beat Western Bulldogs in Round 1 you were disappointed because we didn't beat them by a larger margin than we did in last year's Grand Final. I'm not quite sure what your expectations are but we've won 9 from 9, have a percentage of 159% (which would be 179% if we'd kicked half-straight), are a game and 8% clear of the next best team (and 2 games & 20% ahead of the 3rd team), are playing North next week (who have already played Brisbane & Fremantle). Our game is based on all-team defence. We have the best defensive record, yet have the 4th best record in attack. Fremantle have a similarly miserly defence, yet have scored 100 points less than Melbourne. After North we have 4 games at the MCG including games against Brisbane, Fremantle & Sydney (also Collingwood). We will be deserved favourites in all those games, Yes, we have some tough games to come but, rest assured, all those teams will be more afraid of Melbourne than we are of them.

Disagree entirely. It's entirely worthy of the Herald Sun's front or back pages given the Herald Sun's quality is barely up to wiping your backside standard. Remember they were the paper that posted the pre-season story about Goody only 12 months after it supposedly happened. Only 6 months late in this case so they're progressing

Importantly CTP covers all injured people- you, your passengers and the other driver, their passengers and even pedestrians, cyclists.... I understand people not prioritising motor insurance and it's a totally rational decision not to buy comprehensive motor insurance but I think everyone shoould be buying CTP (which you legally have to in NSW) and Third Party Property Damage.

It's laughable how easy it is for Majak today. I reckon he'd be No. 1 Ruck at about 6 AFL sides.

Van Rooyen kick's h This boy's going to be a player. Don't want to talk him up too much but he reminds me of a young David Schwarz.

Interesting that they didn't take him to Perth. It would indicate that Lever is definitely playing. I guess it there's a late key defender out that they could move TMac back at a pinch and bring Mitch Brown in.

I think that's a bit of an overstatement. I have sympathy for De Goey but exactly when were the Bulldogs in danger of losing the game? The 2 earlier decisions against the Western Bulldogs were potentially much more significant regarding game outcome. I agree with you about the AFL. They adopt the Donald Trump (ScoMo?) approach. The only time the AFL will admit a mistake is when it's too late to have any effect (as with Adam Goodes). The problem with this rule is that it needs to be interpreted consistently. I don't like the rule but if the rule is waving your hands in the air by you or one of your teammates is 50m after a free kick against you then It needs to be applied in every circumstance. It seems to me it would be much easier for the AFL to say that pure hands in the air is not 50m ever!

I think you're being a little premature. Brisbane & Fremantle have both already played WCE & North and had their percentages boosted by big wins. Melbourne's percentage is just below those teams and I'd be susprised if any of the 3 teams have a percentage near those they have now by season's end. Also there's 14 rounds to go!

Surely the Club knows and can tell us who made the flight to Perth. I'm assuming at this stage all 4 emergencies (Chandler, Mitch Brown, Melksham, Tomlinson) travelled because it they didn't we'd be in trouble if a player (or players) got injured during the Captains Run or pre-game warm-up.