Bring-Back-Powell

Slight change of topic, but what the hell is going on with Daniel Bell? Every training report I read, Bell has been sub-par. I'm also under the impression that he was a non-entity in the intra-club game last weekend. Seeing as Bell comes out of contract at the end of the year, you'd think he'd be a star performer on the track and banging down the door for a game this weekend. Strange.

I don't see it as much as an issue. Imagine if it were the other way around- we were scheduled a NAB Cup game in Melbourne but had to play in Perth, round 1 of the home and away season on a Sunday night. Thank your lucky stars we get to play Hawthorn in round 1 at the G and get to keep the gate receipts! Plus we're guaranteed a game in Melbourne on Feb 27/28 - either at Etihad or Visy!

Could we put P Johnson on the LTI and elevate Jordie McKenzie for round 1?

Considering Warnock has finished top 5 in our B & F 2 years in a row, you'd think he's be one of the first picked. Warnock will play round 1 V's Hawthorn.

Be careful! I remember in round 1 2008, they were missing Crawford, Hodge, Lewis, Brown and couple of others...and still beat us by 104 points.

Not good enough from a player that is playing for his footy life.

The Age reckons he'll be out for 3 weeks. So by my calculations he'll be touch and go for Hawthorn - round 1

Thanks for all the reports fellas! Doesn't really change my mind that we'll be battling Richmond for the spoon. I was hoping everyone would say our skill level had seriously improved from 08-09 but alas not to be. Same forward line issues... Fantastic news about Trengove!! I'm now pencilling him in for Hawthorn round 1.

I voted Scully only because he's been hyped as #1 since 2008. I just hope both of them turn out better than Dustin Martin - apparantly this kid can seriously play and Richmond may have a gem on their hands!!!

Why would he not mention Watts? IS Watts less important to the team than Scully and Trengove?

Now it feels like footy season!

Still have vivid memories of that goal he kicked against WC at Subi last year. Late in the last quarter with the game in the balance he marked the ball in the centre, took a couple of bounces and kicked a sausage roll from outside 50! Sounds like he's had a good pre-season and would be aiming for a round 1 spot given that it's his 3rd year.

Round 1-11: Bennell > Jetta Round 12-22 Jetta > Bennell Interesting that Jetta polled a whole heap more votes (demonland voting) than Bennell even though he was less hyped and played less games.

Surely no chance! I'd say he'll be resuming in the VFL in April/May.

Giving it another crack after the news of our injury list and training reports: B Cheney Warnock Rivers HB Strauss Frawley MacDonald C Morton Moloney Dunn HF Green Miller Sylvia F Watts Jurrah Maric FOLL Martin Grimes Jones INT Bartram McNamara Bennell Jetta Bail Petterd Trengove Bell I feel sorry for Martin...the only man fit enough to take on Sandilands. Good luck son!

Arr a sizeable injury list...it wouldn't be a day in the life of the MFC without it. In other news it we lose to Freo in week 1 of the NAB, we'll playing WCE or Ess at Visy the following Saturday arvo. Hopefully we can sell heaps of memberships that day.

Hey Dan, Yeah been in Seattle since June 2008 (wife's career move) so it's been a good time to miss the Dees..lol! We'll be back for the 2011 season, just in time to see the great resurgence. What were you doing in Seattle recently? What are you up to now? cheers. PS - I watch 3 live games a week on espn360.com and have the int. package where I can watch all games on 24hrs delay. I'm covered!

All this talk about Brad Miller and our lack of forward options makes think we'll struggle to win many (if any) more games than we did in 2009.

Why would Collingwood be wary of Melbourne? They made us look second rate on both occassions last year. The Queens birthday game was one of our most insipid perfomances so far during the Bailey era. I'm sure internally that Collingwood expect to beat us with ease in round 2. Hopefully that may work in our favour. Out of our first 3 assignments, I believe the Collingwood game will be our toughest.

I reckon Petterd (out of contract at the end of the year) will be lining up for the Gold Coast next year. They can take 1 out of contract player from us and Petterd is a QLD boy. However I hope they take Miller off us.

We'd probably have a bunch of players about to be delisted that will play in this game.

^^^^^ Top contribution mate, thanks! Did you see Strauss in action?

6 wins: @ Richmond (rd 4) @ North Melb (rd 6) V West Coast (rd 8) V Essendon (rd 15) V Sydney (rd 17) V North Melb (rd 22) For some reason I don't share a lot of people's optimisim of 8+ wins. Maybe I've been scarred by our 2007-2009 performances. Maybe the majority of our potential has played less than 40 games and that we have still have too many NQR's on the senior list (Bartram, Johnson, Bell, Dunn, Miller, Cheney) that will play most weeks. Maybe our fwd line doesn't have enough bite to kick winning scores every second week. 2010 is still a project year IMO by virtue of having a list that is stockpiled with recent draft picks, and as long as we don't win another spoon (6 wins should be enough) I'll be cool with the above results.

AFTER ROUND 22: W Bulldogs Geelong Adelaide St Kilda Hawthorn Collingwood West Coast Brisbane -------------- Fremantle Sydney Essendon Port Adelaide Carlton ** North Melbourne Melbourne Richmond **Since the inception of the final 8, at least 1 top 8 team has finished bottom 4 the next year.

And the irony was that Grgic played his only 2 good games for the Cats against Melbourne. I think he took about 14 marks in one of those games against us down at Skilled. Powell was a bitter pill considering we got nothing in exchange for him.