rpfc

Would that message be: people like winners? Everyone already knows that. As I said - there is nothing wrong with the 10k (hopefully) bandwagon members out there, but trumpeting it and implying others are chumps for signing up before success is not going to go down well on Land of all places. We are pathetic Demon tragics, if it wasn't for the 30-35k members who sign up regardless - the club would find it impossible to function - there is no escaping that fact.

Best of some ordinary options, OD, I think the kids look great but not ready for a solid midfield contribution, and Michie, Riley, McKenzie, M.Jones, and Bail are the only ones beside Newton who are in a position to help more straight away. Roos likes Bail so that's where that is.

Really? Teams that kick the ball into their forward line more than their opposition win more games?! You've got to be kitten me!

I don't see him contributing much more than he currently has over his first two years - I love the way he plays, and he can get better and neater with his disposal and I think he can push Jones and Tyson in the next few years, but I am talking about team improvement to push us up the ladder and those three and Vince and Cross need help. Viney is already at that 'regular, consistent, hard working midfielder with solid skills and footy brain' plateau with the other four - I don't see anyone else reaching that plateau in 2015.

Is it? And you don't have to buy a membership until you desire to (if ever), I know there would be a lot of people waiting to buy memberships but you are baiting and flaming those on here who have already paid up by inferring we are a bunch of losers for paying up to watch a bunch of losers. The fact is that thousands of us, deep down, would never not buy a membership - call it an idiot tax, I don't know. I believe that success is the reward for my support, not the other way around.

Well they better do some damage with their 5 kicks then...

Yes, if we are talking about the Most Important Players then those players are already ones that are playing solid footy, if we are talking about the Most Important Players to Help Us Improve then I would be looking at; 1. a prospective midfield regular who can help Jones, Tyson, Cross, Viney, and Vince and play consistently near their level, 2. a HBF who can be damaging with his skills and run, 3. a small forward who can keep the ball down there and snag a few, 4. a tall forward to help Dawes straighten us up, and 5. another mid to help the aforementioned overworked players if not at their level... 1. [No Player looks ready for this] 2. Lumumba 3. Garlett 4. Hogan 5. Newton Due to their being no midfielder ready to step up to the level of the Jones and co., I will add another mid to help out with Newton, and I think that player could be Bail on a wing through HF in the rotation. 6. Bail.

Hopefully we have established that... And that isn't a bad effort with 2 months work... The NEAFL boys up here are all expected to get under 11 minutes, but if you are bigger and an important player you get an extra minute or two...

He seems fairly neat - he would in the team for his 6 tackles than his 5 kicks...

Wow. That is something... My personal life is fine thankyou very much, I am constantly let down by my football club but I doubt that I am alone with that punishment. I was referring to the post above about the correlation between clearances and Inside 50s - you decided to do an analysis of the ladder and inside 50s - not me. I am hardly going to dispute the fact that better teams that kick more goals than other teams have a higher number of Inside 50s compared to their opposition... The only reason I mentioned Adelaide's Inside 50 count was because it is an outlier - a little lie - amongst an inherently true correlation between winning and I50s. But, please, overreact. You already hate me, so perhaps a curse on my family/friends/football club.

I think the correlation you mentioned was clearances to Inside 50s.

If he has trimmed 5 kgs like a poster mentioned above - that is huge, he will feel light as a feather. I am his height and weight and 5 kgs is a huge weight lifted - you can do more, get to more contests, have more confidence. He looked very good in the flesh a fortnight ago.

Far too trusting of stats... You posted about the correlation of two stats earlier - show me the proof of that correlation if you going to mention that they are related. I love stats but I don't trust them, they will leave you looking like a fool if you let them. Geelong were the lowest clearance team in the league, Adelaide averaged only 1 less Inside 50 than Hawthorn, and Melbourne had the 4th highest disposal efficiency...

I am only going off what my eyes saw two weeks ago...

I don't really see how my earlier responses were improper... Players usually get to where they want to go - but not in the drafts, the strikerate of players getting to where they want to go takes a dive in the drafts because they can veto any trade that they don't like the destination of. That is why clubs take 'under' deals to jettison players to where they prefer to go - because the player could simply say "Nah, staying on my contract" or "nah, I am going to the draft." Some former rookie pick, ND40 and ND53 does not sound like much for ND23, and many on here said as much at the time of the trade. It may not end up being much. A 'better deal' might not have landed as many promising additions to the list, or meant the removal of a contracted player who didn't want to keep playing football as much as one would like (Evans refused a Rookie List spot)... Debating the actual deal is tough enough without believing we left a better deal on the hypothetical table...

It's ironic that we are debating the effect of a uninterrupted preseason while discussing Dawes - because he has had a massive pre-season that has completely altered his body shape, I am really looking forward to seeing what he can do with that rig.

Good post. Not much to add other than his issue of having 'brick hands' on occasion is a form question and the bigger concern would be if he never got in position to drop those marks. He is as fit as he ever has been from seeing him at training and some renewed confidence will see him clunking marks in 2015.

Reality may not be so neat when we 'standardise' in this coming season. And you keep coming back to simply winning a contest that normally goes into the opposition 50 and simply kicking it into our forward line - but how does that compute with the fact that there are around 3 'contests' for every Inside 50 and not all of those can have such a 'turnaround' effect? Do you mean 'centre clearances?' Because they are also finite and hard to improve by your necessary 6.5 a game. I don't think the way you are smashing these stats together stands up.

Roos has already said that the focus will be on the offensive side of the game in 2015, as opposed to the defensive focus of 2014. Roos said Melbourne would focus on a better balance between defence and attack in 2015, having reduced its average points against by about six goals per game last season. "We probably started to do that over the last eight weeks of the season, and in our last game we kicked 14 goals, but North Melbourne kicked 19, so it's just a balance," he said. "We need to get better at moving the ball quicker and scoring. They'll have a better understanding of the defensive stuff now, but teams need to score as well to put pressure on the opposition." http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/demons-steer-away-from-debutants-under-roos-20141105-11hbuy.html

Here are my real answers: Me: why couldn't we get him to declare that he would come to us and only us? As for history - Nick Stevens did go to a club that didn't let him decide where he played so trying to erase that from history is a bit rich... Jack Hannath was training with us and picked by Fremantle, he didn't have the gall to limit his future by playing games with other clubs and demanding he only go to one club. Jade Rawlings will tell you clubs hold the cards when it comes to these decisions.

Well, no, that is the point I was making - for us to have a more open, offensive game to get 46 Inside 50s, the other team would also benefit from having the more open game. So in a normal, offensively balanced game it would be around 100 Inside 50s: 2014 Melbourne: 40 vs Opposition: 52 2015 Melbourne: 46 vs Opposition: 54

You are assuming the 'janitor found it' part is true... Can't we be adults?

I laughed. If there are around 100 Inside 50s a game and we average 40 and our opponent 52, then that would lead one to believe that our style of play is more reserved and defensive than most other teams. If we are to be more offensively minded and start to let the game flow more, perhaps we open the game up for ourselves but also our opposition... So we might get 45 Inside 50s, but instead of keeping them out of their forward line 5 times - they get the other 55 Inside 50s and enter their forward 50 more than in 2014?

History will decide that, the rest is hypothetical hyperbole.

How does that guarantee we would get him? Do you think he is not going to play for St Kilda? Do you really think they care what a promising 21 CHB says about a club he has nothing but a prospective contract with? Ask yourself what you would want Melbourne to do if some good kid said 'don't pick me' in the PSD - did your answer involve not listening to the little half-wit? So your hypothetical is nothing but that, but what else would you have wanted from ND23? ND40 and ND53 meant less to GWS as THEY WERE NOT GOING TO USE THEM IN THE DRAFT - so the value from that trade may be full value from ND23. You just don't know. And we won't know the value of the trade until history judges it for us.