GonetoCA

Watching the Giants last night, I couldn't help but wonder what happened with Toby Bedford. Melbourne treated him as a specialist medical sub player, the #1 unused sub in the competition. He heads north, and immediately becomes an elite small forward, applying pressure that we could have sorely used on Friday.

Read the second post in this thread.

Ever since 2017, the glaring risk for Melbourne has been the lack of an option if Gawn goes down injured. We cobbled together a response that year, but it arguably cost us a finals spot. In four seasons since, we still have not got a ruckman who can step up and do the job if Gawn gets a long-term injury. Jackson is too young to take this role on long-term, and who else is there? We would end up robbing the forward line Peter to pay the midfield Paul, again.

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This was a deficiency, not an improvement. The club nursed Jones to his 300th game in the full knowledge that he wasn't contributing enough and denying younger players with more potential a spot in the side. They dropped him the second he got there for a reason: his numbers simply have not been good enough for a midfielder, all year. Jones should have gone at the end of 2019 but, if they had to re-sign him to get him to 300, he should have been made to earn it.

You're happy to find their antagonist guilty without hearing their side of the story though.

You cannot deal with breaches of the criminal law "in-club". That is the kind of exceptionalism that allows young footballers to think that they can get away with it. If the club makes it clear to players that they are on their own when it comes to the courts, a lot of acts would get cleaned up real quick.