Sydney_Demon

And the wonderful experiences Collingwood players had of fans spitting in their faces affter a loss at Victoria Park. How I miss being abused by fans from opposition clubs catching the train home from Richmond Station. The good old days.

Fair enough. Some of us have moved on from the 60s, but to those who haven't.... I was born in 1960 but doesn't mean that you can't progress in your thinking post-1975. I suppose there are plenty on this site who think racial abuse is still OK because it was common place historically. I'm happy to say I don't.

Thanks for clarifying. I had no idea you were only talking about Round 1 and the early games of the season. You didn't mention that in your earlier post. Not that it's that relevant because as far as I can see your comments aree basically largely unsupported criticisms of players based on one practice match (or maybe not. Perhaps, as seems more likely, it's just an excuse for a rant based on pre-existing prejudices). You seem to have absolutely no idea how a list is compiled. You'd pay out Melksham's contract just to get him off the list. That's just stupidity. He's definitely depth at worst and I would argue he's better than that. I agree that Baker hasn't set the world on fire but you have absolutely no foundation to say at this stage he'll never be an AFL player. The same about Weideman. He signed a new contract last year so clearly the Club still thinks he has some potential. As you know Mitch Brown is a rookie-listed player, as is Majak Daw). They cost us basically nothing, are on the list for one year sat a time, and both have performed at senior AFL level in the past. Brown played one game last year and kicked 2 goals in the Round 5 Win against Hawthorn. Majak is basically back-up for Gawn & Jackson and on form probably is the best ruckman running around in the VFL. He didn't get a game last year because we had no ruck injuries. List Management isn't about paying over-the-odds for players in their declining years at the expense of younger players with potential. It's about having a balanced list and fitting that within the salary cap. Melksham and Mitch Brown are depth players who cost us nothing but I guess you'd remove them off the list because you've decided you don't like them. So much for worrying about our depth. Finally, in your earlier post you mentioned all these mythical readily-made star players available fron state leagues that we should have accessed through SSP. We accessed 4 players through that process in 2021, pre- and mid-season: Daw, Deakyn Smith, Kye Declase & Daniel Turner. I feel for Declase as he wasn't given much of a chance due to the early cancellation of the 2021 Season because of COVID and we delisted him. The others are still on our list. Hopefully you won't write them off quite yet. We have no long term injuries this year and have only space for 1 category B Rookie so no SSP as yet. Maybe you should offer your services to the Club since you apparently can identify these potential players,. Watch out Tim Lamb, you're about to lose your job!

As far as I'm concerned anyone who refers to umpires as maggots should be removed from this site. I think you all should take a good hard look at yourselves (but realistically I guess that's unlikely to happen). As a bare minimum could the moderators of this site add it to the list of words that should automatically be censored. Frankly, I'm a lot more comfortable with seeing the odd swear word than abuse through umpire namecalling...

With due respect, I disagree with nearly everything you've said. Referring to 3+ list cloggers is totally disrespectful and unfair. Some of the players on our list aren't going to make it no doubt but that's the same in any club. It's not an exact science. ANB went from a fringe unwanted player to essential in 12 months. I guess you would have classified him as a 'list clogger' at the end of 2020. 8 players were either delisted or retired (pretty much the same thing) at the end of 2021. We picked up 5 players in last year's draft plus traded Luke Dunstan in. You think we should have chased midfield, half back and half forward depth. Did you look at last year's trade period? You don't just get the opportunity to trade talent in at bargain basement prices. Clearly Dunstan was brought in as depth and most of those in the know reckon because of our depth he'll be lucky to get into the side barring significant injuries. We tried to get Cerra in but clearly didn't have the salary cap space for that to happen. In Gawn, Oliver & Petracca we have the top following division in the AFL. There's a drop-off in quality after that but we have depth. We were missing 5 players from our backline in last night's game but 3 will be back for Round 1, and all 5 will be back by Round 3. I agree that if we have 5 players missing from our backline during the season we will have significant issues (that's not going to happen) but no club can have that sort of depth. Haif forward depth? We have Kossie, ANB, Spargo, Harmes, Sparrow. Melksham is there as depth with Laurie coming through. Kossie and Sparrow, possibly Spargo, all have significant upside. All clubs would like to have quality depth players in all positions so injury doesn't have a significant effect on performance, but that just isn't reality with salary caps, quality players wanting to play for the senior side, etc. etc. You've written JJ and Sparrow off after one meaningless practice game. Likewise Harmes. For me Harmes is looking stronger this year and didn't look out of place up forward against North in Fritch's absence. BB is useless after one week, Jackson hasn't progressed apparently, TMac is rubbish. Last night was tough conditions, it was slippery, hot & humid. It didn't suit tall forwards and the delivery into the forward line (especially in the first half) was poor. I do agree with you that TMac has his limitations, especially when the ball hits the deck, but if he competes in the air, clunks a couple of marks and kicks a couple of goals a match he's doing his job. The same with BBB. Jackson is still a work in progress. Any forward line is going to struggle if there's slippery conditions and the ball is bombed in. One thing I don't understand is why Wiedeman isn't being given more opportunity pre-season. They played him in the ruck for less than a quarter against North and again for less that a quarter against Carlton. Might as well have let him play the whole game for Casey earlier in the day to get his confidence up. This was just a practice game. We lost by 5 points despite only turning up after half-time. 6 goals were scored by Carlton from 50-metre penalties (we won't see that level of over-officiating or poor discipline again). I'm personally happy with the result. Better that than an easy win against poor opposition. Carlton are much-improved this year and with a new coaching team were clearly out to prove something (unlike Melbourne). Carlton will probably make the 8 this year but I doubt they'll play much better than they did in the first half last night.

I don't blame the umpires. Clearly what happened is Gil comes out and makes an announcement mid-week and following on from that the umpires are told to go hard on this issue on the first game following that announcement. As Goody said post-game it wasn't an issue last week bur suddenly now it is. I think that says it all. I'm grateful that it didn't cost us in a real game. We lost one game last year because of poor umpiring. I don't want it to happen again in 2022. I'm sure Melbourne will be querying some of the decisions behind the scenes during the week. You should get 50m for genuine dissent, but querying an umpires decision isn't dissent. I thought Carlton were very good in the first half, so credit where credit's due. I think after last week's easy win we didn't show enough respect for our opponents and just thought it would happen. We were missing 5 players from our GF defence so understandably things were far from perfect down back. I don't understand though the decision to play Gus on the HBF. I assume it was because they wanted to try Baker on the Wing. Why didn't we try these experiments last week against easy opposition and put the best team in this week? There's 13 days til Round 1 so why rest players now? It will be 3 weeks since their last practice game. I agree with others that the only real issue was the midfield. I think what it shows is that when we are being beaten in the contest Trac's tendency to play ahead of the ball and get the easy handball receive doesn't work. We need flexibility in this regard. Having said all that, with Viney and Lever now having a game under their belts, we'll be much better for the run. Bring on Round 1!

Just read Majak's autobiography. He's been through a lot. Not wishing any injuries to our key rucks but if Majak gets any game time for Melbourne this year it's well-deserved.

I disagree. Totally different. All BB did was hold his position and put his hands out to stop his opponent moving back on him. You're allowed to do that (you're not allowed to push your opponent out of the position they're already in like Hawkins did against May in the Prelim which led to the hamstring injury). JJ put his hands on Bowey's shoulders and pushed him out of the contest before marking the ball. I do agree that the umpires are unlikely to pay such a free because in real time it's hard to see and the 'mark' was spectacular.

With due respect, I (belatedly) disagree. Firstly Max pointed out to the umpire that Bowey had been pushed out before Bowey did. Bowey justifiably appealed to the umpure but not in an overly demonstrative way. At the time he was appealing Max was already on the mark and in the process of handing that responsibility over to Ben Brown. Bowey was not letting JJ play on. What's this kid will learn BS? He did nothing wrong and should have received a free kick IMO. I agree entirely about showing respect to umpires but also think decisions or non-decisions should be queried in an appropriate way if they're confusing or possibly incorrect, as long as the player doesn't their eye off the play. Maybe, just maybe, these things have nothing to do with age and we should stop making demeaning comments about kids learning one day. Never confuse age with maturity. They're very different things.

Disagree entirely. You can't actually see on this clip in real time at distance but,if you look at the replay on Kayo, JJ puts his hands on the shoulders of Bowey before the ball arrives, pushes off, pushes Bowey out, then takes the mark. Bowey was basically removed from the action and had no opportunity to compete. The 2 Robbo marks are quite different. In the first he barely brushes the back of his opponent. In the 2nd there is definitely more contact but in neither case was the oponent prevented from attempting the mark. In the 2nd mark the opponent even remained on his feet. Robbo definitely used his opponents back to provide stability but that's all.

It's not a case of being the social conscience of sport. The AFL has neglected women for far too long. I agree the VFL salary caps are ridiculously low, but at least you could argue that the players in the VFL are not considered to be in the top 750 players in Australia (AFL Clubs 42 on each list x 18). This is the current position forthe AFLW: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-21/aflw-vision-aflpa-player-pay/100701404 Basically 90% of AFLW players are getting $20, 000 and for that are expected to travel, in some cases stay in hubs (West Coast, Fremantle), play off 4-day breaks to catch up on games cancelled due to COVID.... It is ridulous expecting these athletes to go through this while holding down full-time jobs. So for all you old (and not-so-old) blokes out there who have decided what members want without of course having any idea what members want, maybe you should consider what's actually happening right now. AFLW is hardly getting a leg up at the expense of any other part of the AFL system.

Agree with you Clintosaurus. We won the free kick count 19-13. I don't know what the count was at 3/4 time but my feeling was that that margin was achieved in the last quarter when the game was basically over. BBB in particulat got a few chopping the arms frees which were definitely there but not sure whether they would have been paid in goal-scoring positions earlier in the game. The only blatant free the Bulldogs missed out on was the free Schache should have received when Brayshaw took him out. It seems to me that the umpires have their views on certain players. For instance, Kossie doesn't get the frees he should probably get because he throws himself around, and JV gets soft frees paid against him because he plays the game hard. In the GF it seemed to me the Bulldogs got a number of marginal around-the-neck decisions, especially if Viney was involved. I'm not sure what Petty did to upset the umpires. Just because you duck to try not to get decapitated doesn't mean you're staging (still it was the Bont making the tackle which might have something to do with the non-decision)...

Agree with you entirely Redleg. It should have been a free to Bowey. Bowey was taken out of the contest entirely, JJ put his hands on his shoulders, pushed them down and used that resistance to push himself upwards. If JJ had just got into Bowey's back with his body as part of the marking contest that's entirely different (as long as it's a realistic attempt). I disagree that paying a free kick for such situations would ruin the high mark as a part of our game. As long as you don't use your hands to take someone else out of the contest then there's no problem. As to the ridiculous (IMV) comparisons with Bayley Fritsch's attempted mark later in the 3rd Quarter, it's an entirely different situation. Fritsch didn't use his hands and it was just his momentum that carried him forward, not pushing his opponent out with his hands, and using that resistance to get elevation. The fact that Robbo and Jeff White used their hands on occasion 20 years ago is neither here nor there. They played under the rules as they existed back then. Chopping of the arms by defenders was also allowed. Does anyone want to see that make a comeback?

Might be time to move on. I apologise for bringing up Jeremy Howes' name again. It's funny how most people post about how disgusting it is that players are driven by the dollar and that that overrides Club loyalty. Of course this is BS. Players move for a combination of reasons (most of which never get into the public sphere) and the fact they care about their income somehow is a crime, even though 99.99% of supporters decisions re employment are significantly driven by pay. In Howes' case, somehow the fact he went for less money (allegedly) shows no sincerity. If the fact Howes was a Collingwood Supporter influenced his decision, then somehow that's a crime. Its OK for fans to have irrational allegiances driving their decisions but players are supposed to be loyal under all circumstances!

It wasn't hidden and came out maybe a month after the trade, not years later: https://www.perthnow.com.au/sport/tom-scullys-dad-joins-greater-western-sydney-in-a-recruiting-role-ng-7f789a010070735e17161ff12794f215 I really can't see the difference whether it's split between the player and his father or it all goes to the player. Let's just agree to disagree about football and business. Yes, I'm passionate about Melbourne Football Club and we'd all love to think that there's this wonderful alignment between players and supporters. I'm sure 99% of players do care about supporters as do the Clubs. Also, I totally accept that Premierships mean a lot to players, not just how much money they earn. So, yes, It is different to business but I'd also like to think in business I always genuinely cared about customers, not just my salary. I guess I'm just a realist. Players have a lot more in common with each other than with the supporters and primary loyalty to family and friends is more important than loyalty to the Club and it's supporters. Obviously the financial imperrative was totally different when players were amateurs or semi-professional but that's not the reality now. I'm always slightly bemused about how supporters turn on players once they've left the Club and similarly of course any player who joins the Club suddenly becomes a hero. I'm guilty of this as much as the next man but I do occasionally try to correct my prejudices. The players haven't changed as human beings in either case.

Re the Tom Scully transfer saga, I have no problem with him leaving Melbourne, or the fact the move may have involved his father getting a job at GWS (as long as it was declared under the salary cap). Footballers are professional, and have an undertain playing career, and an even more uncertain post-playing career, so they're entitled to maximise their return while they can. If you or I were offered a job with better-pay, a longer-term contract and with a more professional organisation we would be irresponsible to reject it. What's the difference for a professional footballer? Let's forget the character assassination. How was Melbourne travelling at the end of 2011? We sacked Dean Bailey after the 186-point loss to Geelong in Round 19 and the future was hardly looking rosy. The comparison with Max Gawn is misguided. Gawn was drafted at 34 in the same draft as Scully with an existing ACL. He did his ACL again in the 2012 pre-season and didn't play that year. He played 4 games in fis first 3 years. Max did his knee again the last game of the 2014 season and didn't become a regular in the Melbourne side until half-way through 2015. At that stage he was lucky to be on the list, and I'm sure other clubs weren't queueing up for his services. Melbourne showed outstanding loyalty to Max Gawn. By the end of that year, Melbourne were on the way up (Paul Roos' 2nd year) so why would Max be going anywhere else? So let's not pretend Scully was this mercenary who sold his soul, and Gawn is this superhero who has shown tremendous loyalty, unlike others. I love Max but let's just focus on the facts. OK, Max is now a Premiership Captain but Scully wouldn't have even played in the Premiership if he had stayed since he has now retired through injury. Which Club was more successful in the years Tom Scully was at GWS, Melbourne or GWS? There's been a similar discussion on this site in the past about Jeremy Howe. Howe supposedly is this disloyal traitor that went to a despised club. In fact he improved substantially as a player after his transfer to Collingwood and like Scully moved to a more successful club so good luck to him. It's really easy to re-write history in hindsight after a successful year. Tell me anyone who predicted a Melbourne Premiership at the start of the 2021 Season. Most pundits weren't even predicting that we'd make the 8. Re Luke Jackson, obviously we want him to stay, but if he leaves let's not all pile on and denigrate him, his family and the Club that gets him. As usual, we'll find out about 10% of the total reason for any move. Going forward, let's all treat past, current and future players with respect...

Not having a go at you Dees2014 but you did make a comment earlier that the meritocracy didn't apply in selections for the 2021 Grand Final. I'm not sure which player(s) you were referring to but I think they did pick the team on its merits even if I didn't entirely agree with every selection. Anyway, for 2022 I'm condident it will be a meritocracy. I'm sure we will put a great team out for Round 1. Interesting you've been following the team for more than 60 years and yet have stated you feel as positive about the future of this current team as any previous team. You must have enjoyed following the teams of the late '50s and due to the lack of drafts favouring unsuccessful clubs, recruiting zones, advantages of the top clubs in being able to offer incentives to attract players etc. I would have thought there was much more chance of ongoing Melbourne success back then. It's great you're so enamoured of the current team. And I'm envious of those who enjoyed our previous success like your good self. The first games I remember watching were in the late '60s so I had to wait a long time for any success whatsoever.

Firstly thanks Dees2014 for srarting this thread. Yes, it's speculative and a long way ahead of the season, and we all know that there's a whole lot of factors yet to influence the make-up of the team, but why do people need to point out the obvious? If they're not interested in this type of post, just ignore it rather than use it as an excuse to denigrate the post/poster. I must admit I don't understand the argument that it's somehow romantic to have the same 23 being picked for the First Round as the GF just because it's never happened before. I'm amazed anyone really cares whether the GF 23 ever play in the same team again. The next time we win a GF, assuming it's not too far away, I hope the team picked on merit is quite changed as it means more players will have experienced at least one Premiership and we have some player depth. The team picked for Round 1 should of course be picked on form and fitness but I can't see how picking the same 23 sends a positive message. If they deserve to be there that's fine, but picking a changed team on balance I think sends a more positive message as it's harder to argue in such a situation that the team wasn't picked on merit. Also, what's this argument that the team should be unchanged because no-one deserves to be dropped? For a start, players don't hold their spot from one season to the next. Otherwise James Jordon wouldn't have been selected in R1 2021 (or maybe antil we lost to Adelaide) since Melbourne won their last 2 games of 2020 and he wasn't in the starting team pre-2021. Pre-season/practice matches will help decide who should be in the team. In any case, I'd argue pretty strongly that Tom McDonald shouldn't be in the team on form. He wasn't quite right after his back injury and kicked 3 goals in 4 matches after he came back, including 2 in the GF when the match was over. He benefitted from the fact his form earlier in the season was undeniable, the selectors didn't want to change a winning team and the players out of the team had no chance to show their form and keep match fitness because the VFL Season had been abandoned. And what is the possible argument against James Harmes being in the team? I'd say the players in the starting 22 most under pressure are Hibberd, Spargo and McDonald.

Initially I was disappointed that the AFL didn't modify the standing the mark rule. I think it gives the forwards an unfair advantage within the Forward 50. But given the AFL haven’t made any actual rule changes (just interpretations) and they have stated they are trying to consolidate the rules this year, it’s probably fair enough. The other change I would have liked to see is getting rid of the requirement to name ruckman in around the ground ruck contests. Just throw in up and, if there’s a third man up, penalise the infringing team. In general, let’s get rid of situations where the umpire is slowing the game down for no real gain. Don't warn players about infrinngements, just apply theappropriate penalty. Other than that, I’m basically OK with the current rules.

As 58er posted, deliberate OOB if introduced should just be between the 50m arcs which would largely avoid the deep defender situation, but agree with you in general that the last touch OOB rule is unnecessary and would actually be a negative as it would discourage players trying to gather the ball near the boundary line. Re the deliberate OOB rule, like you I like it as it currently exists but agree it needs to be applied consistently and with common sense. Let's put that R23 decision down to umpire error. The late non-decision in the loss to Adelaide was in my view a result of the umpire lacking the courage to make a game-deciding decision in front of an Adelaide crowd. Particularly frustrating as a decision not to pay prior opportunity holding the ball against Adelaide slightly earlier equally contributed to that loss. I guess umpires are human but the AFL should be saying to umpires that they support them making (correct and consistent) decisions regardless of the time and closeness of the particular game.

I missed this last night. Is there anywhere I can now watch the whole thing? I know highlights are on the website but I'd prefer to just watch the whole thing. Thanks in advance.

Our injuries and 'hangover' will certainly be extremely important factors in where we finish on the ladder, as is the fixture.

Hello old55. As others have posted, averages tell a fairly limited story, but, rather than look at rankings as an indication of correlation I think we need to look at the actual numbers. I'm surprised at how close the average ages are compared to the average games played. Only 2.4 years difference in ages from top to bottom but a huge difference in average games played of 50. Given the list size of say 46, then each player should play an average of 11 games a year which equates to a difference of 26 games over 2.4 years. You mention Collingwood. The reality is if their average age was 0.3 higher it would perfectly correlate with their average games played, if Hawthorn's average age was 0.4 higher it would be perfectly correlated, if GWS's average age was 0.3 lower it would be perfectly correlated. I think the differences are so small in ages that the fact they don't correlate perfectly doesn't really indicate anything. I think a much more important factor is the quality of the list, especially the younger players coming through, having a number of players playing at their peak (25-26yo/100+ games), and a fairly even age distribution with not too many old players past their prime.

Sorry DemonDave. In my earlier response, I misread your post and assumed that the averages supplied at the start of this topic came from the same source you included as a link. My apologies, you weren't saying that at all. The link you've provided though is far more useful as it gives a distribution of ages/games rather than averages. Thanks for your great analysis. I agree our list is well-balanced.

Having a look at Geelong's players, they also have one player listed with an age of 1 yr 9 months and 2 players listed with no age whatsoever so maybe their average age is even more understated! More importantly, we have the same number of players roughly as Geelong with 100+ games experience but their players in that category are nearly all over 30 whereas ours are more typically 25+. Geelong have 11 players over 30 and they're all in their best 23 (maybe with the exception of Shaun Higgins), we have 4 players over 30 but only Michael Hibberd is in our best 23, the others are all back-ups in case of injury.