Sydney_Demon

I hope Daniel Turner's listed age of 1 yr 10 months didn't go into the average. Otherwise, our average age is under-reported by about 5 months

Fair call. I guess I was just saying the way it should be in my view, rather than looking at the difficulties stopping it happening. I know we play in NT for financial reasons, the same reason why Hawthorn and North play in Tasmania. I naively thought the AFL controlled the game. I didn't realize clubs can boycott fixtures they don't like.

Yes, I agree that we ended up having a tough draw in 2021. The draw of course is based on the positions for the previous year and those were: Dogs (7th), Geelong (2nd), GWS (10th), Hawthorn (15th), Adelaide (18th). On average those sides finished just over 2 positions higher in 2021 than in 2020. Interesting that 3.5 out of our 4.5 losses for the year were to those 5 sides (6.5 : 3.5 record, 11 : 1 for the other 12 sides!). As a collective I reckon the 5 teams we play twice in 2022 will again finish higher than they did in 2021. I think it's totally reasonable for us to have a tough draw. That's the way the system works. It's a pity that we didn't benefit in 2020 because there were no double-ups, and we had a horrible 2019 so had a favourable draw before COVID changed everything. Basically, if there'd been 22 games in 2020 we would have made the finals. I probably was a bit negative in my original post. The real issue is the interstate fixtures. 12 of our 22 games are against Geelong/Interstate Teams but 8 of them are away from home (including our 'home' game in Alice Springs). Only 4 out of our MCG games are against Interstate teams. Why are we hosting Port in Alice Springs while they host us in Adelaide? IMO that game should be in Melbourne and we should be playing a Victorian team in NT. Further, we should be playing West Coast and/or Geelong in Melbourne and to balance that playing one of Sydney or GWS in Sydney. Re Richmond's flag defence in 2021, they played the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 10th & 15th teams from 2020 twice, 12 games against Geelong/Interstate teams, with 7 of those scheduled to be away, 6 out of the first 8 games at the MCG (2 of those away), 8 out of their first 9 games in Melbourne, so definitely a better draw. We start with 2 out of 4 interstate and play Port (in Adelaide) and Essendon off 6-day breaks (and including travel whilst our opponents stay home). I'm still optimistic and agree with an earlier post that at this stage we are probably favourites in 18 out of 22 games, and should definitely be Top 4 in 2022.

Unless you live in Sydney.

Why? We should be playing them in Melbourne since they are hosting us in Adelaide. It's a big advantage to play Port In Melbourne. We should be playing a Victorian team in Alice Springs, preferably one that also plays home games at the MCG, so we don't lose our home ground advantage.

Unfortunately we don't get to make demands. We do what the AFL tells us to do. Gary Pert's responsibility of course is to talk up the game, but clearly to say the AFL had reasons to put St Kilda vs Collingwood ahead of Melbourne vs Western Bulldogs for the Friday night game and that we accepted that argument is pretty poor.

Hello Demon17. Whether Melbourne has won 17 Premierships or 17 Wooden Spoons in a row I think is totally irrelevant to expressed views on next year's Draw for Melbourne. Whether opposition teams think playing Melbourne is a good or bad thing is likewise irrelevant. I totally respect your view that as a collective playing one game only against each of the Swans, Giants, Cats and Tigers is better than as a collective playing one game only against each of the Bulldogs, Port, Lions and Dockers, but I think most people would disagree. We don't get to play Port on our home turf. We play them in Alice Springs as our home game. They play their home game against us in Adelaide. Obviously, that's totally fair (not). If you're saying that playing the top teams is potentially a good thing because they are 8 point games, fair enough. I guess it works both ways. It certainly helped us 2021. Again, I think that's irrelevant as regards whether we have a good draw or not. The point I was trying to make, however clumsily, in my original post was that it would be harder for Melbourne supporters, particularly those that live in the Country or Interstate, to get to Wednesday night's opener, as opposed to if it had been on the Friday. Are you disagreeing with that assertion? Do you think Wednesday is better than Friday because it's the first game of the season? Do you think St Kilda and Collingwood are more deserving that Melbourne and Western Bulldogs of the Friday night fixture? I welcome your and 58's views.

Sorry dworship. Apparently all 'real' supporters are going to be there regardless. You are being disloyal by pointing out that it could be difficult.

Sorry 58er. I wasn't making a decision for all country/interstate members. I'm happy for those who can get there, wherever they live. I'm looking at trying to get there too. I hope it's a sell-out for the sake of the Club. What I was trying to say was that it will be a lot harder to get there on a Wednesday (inarguable I would have thought). Yes, it get's back to people's desire/ability to attend but it shouldn't have come to that. The game should be on Friday night at the MCG. Why should Melbourne supporters have to make extra sacrifices? We won the Premiership, the Doggies finished second. The Friday night game is St Kilda (10th) vs Collingwood (17th). Let those two losers play at Marvel on Wednesday night. Why do they get to play on Friday? A special reward for being mediocre? Wednesday would possibly be forgivable if we had a marquee spot in Week 2. Oh, sorry we do. We get to play Gold Coast at Metricon. I'm glad we get a 10 day break too to properly prepare, because it means we get the luxury of playing the next 2 weeks against Essendon and Port off 6 day-breaks including travel where our opponents get to stay home. The AFL is really looking after us, aren't they? And Melbourne don't play in Sydney at all this year but I shouldn't complain about that. If I was a properly-committed supporter I shouldn't care. I should be prepared to travel anywhere at any time to see Melbourne play, no matter how inconvenient.

I don't mind playing the top teams twice either. You could in fact argue the Bulldogs have it worse. They play 4 Top 8 teams and the 5th team they play is Hawthorn. I agree with you what sucks is we are playing two many away games. There would be a potential 9 games away from Melbourne if Melbourne played every team twice (34 games in total). We are playing 7 of 22 which is 1 too many. Either the WC or Geelong game should be at the MCG. Further, the Alice Springs game should feature another Melbourne team, not Port Adelaide. Port get to play us in Adelaide so the return game should be at the MCG.

After our Premiership this year, I don't want to be negative (clearly Gary Pert wants to be positive, but I hope he's giving some genuine feedback to Gil behind the scenes). This is a ridiculously hard draw. If we win the premiership next year it will be an incredible result. Sides we play twice: Bulldogs (2nd), Port Adelaide (3rd), Brisbane (5th), Dockers (11th), Collingwood (17th), Does anyone seriously think Collingwood are the 2nd worst team in the AFL, and Fremantle are potential Top 8. We play in Perth twice, Adelaide twice, Queensland twice, and Geelong. Our home game in Alice Springs is against Port Adelaide rather than a Victorian team. West Coast don't play us in Melbourne, neither do Port. The only interstate teams we play at the MCG that we don't also play interstate are Sydney and GWS (why isn't there at least one game in Sydney in 2022?). The club requested playing the Bulldogs in Round 1 on a Friday night. Instead it's a Wednesday night so no country/interstate members can be there. The Friday night game is St Kilda (10th) vs Collingwood (17th). Why do either team deserve that night? We play on Wednesday, then at Metricon 2nd Round after a 10-day break (!!), then come back to the MCG to play Essendon off a 6 day break, then play Port Adelaide in Adelaide off a second 6 day break. Why wasn't this something like 8, 7, 7? Even 9, 7, 6 would have been fairer. I understand that 6-day breaks happen but why should these be in conjunction with interstate travel and why are they consecutive and involving interstate travel in Melbourne's case? Both Essendon & Port are also playing off 6 day breaks but neither have to travel. I'm totally fine with the idea of the top teams getting a harder draw, but the AFL couldn't possibly have made it any harder for Melbourne in 2022. The AFL did their best to sabotage Melbourne in 2021 by putting an unnecessary 2 week break between the Preliminary Finals and the Grand Final which clearly potentially aided the Bulldogs. Just because we were able to overcome that obstacle doesn't mean we should put up with any crap that is thrown our way. Would anyone from Melbourne Football Club care to make a genuine comment on the draw? Show less

Thanks for clarifying the salaries position. Can anyone advise that the various salaries are? Taj looks a reasonable size. He's listed at 77kg which is 5kg more than Judd McVee at the same height and only 2kg less than Blake Howes who's 8cm taller. Jacob van Rooyen is listed at 194cm & 88kg and looks huge compared to other Under-19s but if that's right he's very light compared to say Tom McDonald who is also 194cm but 100kg. These heights/weights I got from the Rookie Me website so might be a little out of date.

I agree. Under the old rules, would Melbourne have matched a bid at 5? It would have taken 19, 39 & pushed our 43 back to 50. That's not entirely accurate as no doubt we would have traded picks for 19 pre-draft to improve our points situation, but the point remains would Melbourne have rated Andrew Pick 5 less 20% (the equivalent of a combined Pick 8/9). I am glad though that he didn't go at Pick 18. I think we all would have been totally [censored]-off! My understanding is that under COVID the AFL is now picking up the NGA costs formerly borne by the clubs which is an argument for pushing the eligibility back to 21+, but it seems to me that to allow the Bulldogs to benefit from it one year for Ugle-Hagen and then push it back so far is extremely unfair. What about the multiple years of work put in by Melbourne and other clubs over many years pre-2020 developing these players.

Melbourne could easily have taken Woewodin as a Rookie which was widely-reported pre-draft as a possibility (not sure at that stage whether Melbourne had that pick set aside for Judd McVee). Instead they drafted him at 65 so he gets better pay and a 2-year contract which surely says something. 99% of draftees get the standard contract, whether they go at 1 or 101. Melbourne traded away picks 43 & 51 for future picks. If Woewodin wasn't father-son, who knows? We might have taken him at 43. Melbourne knew they would get him at 65 (if some other club picked him ahead of that we would still have used 65 plus change). I guess what I'm trying to say is that the fact he was the last pick on Draft Night 2 shouldn't be seen as a negative. He starts equal with all other non-rookie drafts.

Absolute crap imo. In 2013 Melbourne won 2 games and finished with a percentage of 54.1%. Under Roos over the next 3 years we improved to 4 wins (68.4%), 7 wins (77.0%) and 10 wins (97.6%). Petracca & Brayshaw were drafted at the end of 2014, Oliver at the end of 2015, so Roos was working with a considerably inferior undeveloped team to that inherited by Goodie. The reality is we were an outside chance of making the 8 after Round 21 of 2016 and had a record of 10-10 with a percentage of 104.8%, having just beaten Port Adelaide in Adelaide by 40 points. We then had a disappointing loss to Carlton and that horrible loss to Geelong in the last round. No real excuse for such a poor performance but we had a young team, were playing in Geelong and Geelong were 3rd going into that game and had everything to play for whilst we had nothing. I agree that Roos was given more time than a young coach would have been, but he accepted the role on that basis and there was no quick fix. Frankly, any coach, old or young, who developed the team from where Melbourne was at the end of 2013 to where it was at the end of 2016 would have been regarded as incredibly successful. One bad loss doesn't mean you're a failure. Should Goodie have been sacked after the Prelim loss in 2018? Of course not. I'm not sure why this comes down to a Roos vs Goodwin vs Goodwin's assistant coaches argument. No coach is perfect. Roos and his coaching/development team did a great job in changing the losing culture and turning the club around (and Goodwin was probably an important part of that in 2015-16). I think it's reasonable to say a number of people contributed to the 2021 Premiership over the period 2014-2021. Goodwin is a Premiership Coach, so let's leave it at that, without glorifying or diminishing the contributions by him or any other individual. Similarly, everyone seems to now be jumping on the bandwagon regarding Jason Taylor's genius. Notwithstanding Tim Lamb's role and the contribution of any number of others in that process over the years, there's an element of luck there. Petracca would be at St Kilda if they picked him ahead of Paddy McCartin and we picked Mills ahead of Oliver but the Swans matched our bid. Was that all part of the genius of our recruiting team? Again, not criticising Taylor or ignoring our draft success since 2015 but let's get a bit of balance on these things.

I agree entirely. He was never going to be a high draft pick, late second round at best, and another club would be fairly courageous (especially a Victorian club, given he lives in WA) to pick him knowing that he wanted to go to Melbourne and Melbourne would likely match the bid. It's not just that. Clubs, especially for lower draft picks, don't research every available player and will only pick the players they have researched. Probably a bit different for higher draft picks but even Daicos slipped to 4 because clubs knew he was going to Collingwood regardless.

There's no way known Andrew is going to last til our pick at 19. He's going to go 8 or 9 at worst. I'm glad we're now late in the first round because someone is going to slip through who should have been taken earlier that we can grab. I assume the Club has their eye on someone they expect to be available. Can't see Josh Sinn lasting til 19, but maybe Sonsie and probably Chesser. Van Rooyen would be a great choice also if available. If all our choices at this level are gone the club could always trade lower.

Thank God St Kilda took Paddy McCartin an No. 1 ahead of Christian Petracca in 2014. Thank God also that the Swans matched Melbourne's bid on Callum Mills at No. 3 in 2015. Mills is a good player but we got Clayton Oliver instead!

Personally I think teams should only bid according to how they rate the player and how he fits their needs. If North think Horne-Francis is the best player for their purposes they should take him at No. 1 (assuming of course he wants to be taken at No. 1 rather than 2 or 3).

A Queensland-based team will not be playing in Melbourne for obvious reasons. The only sensible place to play a game against a non-Victorian team is NSW because we don't have COVID exposure currently and only close our borders under extreme circumstances.

We're 10-1 currently and should not be in the business of making unnecessary changes and gifting players games. I understand people's concerns about Weideman but BB had 4 possessions, no goals against the Swans Reserves and obviously didn't play this weekend so how can anyone justify bringing him in? Weideman was part of a team that beat the former top team by 5 goals. We need to make one change this week and that's all we should be doing.

No. I think Rosman will be a player and he's obviously an athlete but he should be given time. As far as untried players go Bowie's next in line.

You're not serious! If he was concussed according to club doctors you don't try and game the system. There's a reason for the 12-day rule. Player health comes first.

Madness. BB did nothing for Casey last week (4 disposals, no goals) and the VFL was called off in Melbourne this weekend. Weideman kicked 2 goals and missed a number of marks through double-grabbing, so he's not far off. Brown was left in the 1s for a few weeks to build confidence, but this is a 2-way process. You do actually need to do something to deserve a promotion. You think BB is suddenly going to star against Brisbane when he couldn't get a kick against Sydney's reserves? Mitch Brown deserves a promotion before Ben Brown (and I'm not recommending that either!)

This won't happen. Why would you move a guy who's starring up forward to the wing? I suspect they're more likely to make a straight swap which means Baker but I do like the suggestion of Salem to the wing and Bowey to HBF. It's time we saw what Bowey is capable of. Also Ben Brown did nothing last week and of course isn't playing this weekend so they won't be making any changes up forward.