sylvinator

richmond are on the rise...they are actually a decent football side and are competitive every week. they only need 2 wins for the rest of the year and they won't qualify and they play demons twice. we're safe. Carlton will win 5 games also. they play melbourne twice, are on the rise, and CJudd will win some games off his own boot. they are not the worst team going around nowadays

there isn't anyone who's a glaring ommission...yet at the same time we are so crap that it would make sense that half the team don't deserve to be out there. our problem is that all our players are just plain ordinary. most would probably be alright decent footballer is other sides if they were the 22nd best player. bring in Bate FFS he's one of our best players and sir Bailey can't find a spot for him in this rabble? In: Bate, Buckley (i like the way he plays), Maric, Martin, Valenti Out: they're all average so much of a muchness

sylvia still has the physical attributes. he is great overhead, reasonable pace, strong/aggressive tackler, good long kick of the footy. he has so far been wasted across the flanks. why not give him a go in the midfield. what's the worst that could happen? our midfield is deplorable as it is. maybe we'll find outselves a great midfielder. surely he wasn't drafted as a flanker

i'm just as dissapointed with Bailey as anyone else. and we've had the worst start to a season probably since fitzroy in 96'. however we were never going to be good in the first half of this season for 2 reasons. 1) he inherited a crap list. we have the worst list in the afl...by far. Every player on our list is either well past their best footy (Robbo, Bruce, White, Neitz etc), or well before playing their best footy (frawley, Garland, Jones, Morton etc). Not one of our players are really 'in their prime'. 2) he introduced a completely new gamestyle. Even the highly talented saints were pathetic in the first half of last season when they were trying to get used to their new game plan (sydney style). it was expected and no coach ever comes in and works miracles. it also didn't help that we turned over 12 players last year. taking out so much experience in one shot always bodes disaster. but i admit the signs aren't looking great for Bailey. i cannot actually discern a game plan he is trying to implement. To me it just seems like our game plan is to turn it over across half back, and if we do make it to half forward just aimlessly bomb it forward with no real purpose

i'm not sure if i blame robbo or miller for our performances. i wouldn't want to be a forward in our team with our delivery. we'v got to do something about our flankers and midfielders tho

i wouldn't like to be a forward on midfielder in our team. forwards get no supply and defenders constantly under seige. the place we should be looking for answers is the midfield.

If we convinced Mitch Thorp to go into the PSD that would be absolutely genius. This kid is future superstar and would already be playing regularly at FF/CHF if it weren't for Hawthorn's rediculously amazing KPPs. he would fit in perfectly as a future replacement for Neitz

This is gonna be a bloody hard decision, and i think alot of it will come down to the national championship performances. On the one hand, we have an opportunity to pick up a star future ruckman. Jamie Charman is 198cm, with half the leap of Naitanui and is still able to be in the top few ruckman in the afl when fully fit. no reason why Naitanui can't be a dominant afl star at 198cm (considering he's still growing)! It is also perfect timing for us, because our number 1 ruck for the last 10 years is about to retire. It's almost as though the stars have aligned perfectly. If the carlton recruiter would'v picked Naitanui over Kruiser, that should tell people something in itself. On the other hand, Rich sounds like a genuine number 1 draft pick potential. He could finnally be that midfield superstar we'v craved for over the last 10 years. Imagine a midfield in 2-3 years time: Rich, Mclean, Jones, Grimes, Morton, Sylvia, Bartram and maybe even Buckley if he comes on. I'm sorry but that would truely be the most exciting up-n-coming midfield in the afl. If Rich looks like being the next chris Judd surely we should go for him, because he would be the safer bet. jeez this is hard. Maybe we should just come 15th that way we won't have to make that hard decision and then we can bag Fremantle (who'll come 16th) for making the mistake of letting the other player slip to number 2! haha

good luck finding a team willing to trade a top30 pick for those duds. teams only trade for players who are going to fit into their best 22, fill a desperate need. noone would have those 2 in the best 30 players at their club so noone would trade for them. the only players who could arguably fetch top 25 picks are Green, Bruce, Mclean, Jones and Davey. Not one of our players could get us a top 10 pick.

Macnamara is on our normal list, and was a late draft pick last year. however he is 17 yrs old only and is the youngest player in the afl, so he has time to develop

Hawks have Roughead, Buddy and Boyle as key forwards, with Jarryd Morton named on the emergency for another week so surely he's the next key forward in line for selection. Mitch Thorp and Beau Dowler are both key forwards who were top10 draft picks... hawks have a good future. maybe we could nab one of them...though it would probably cost a top draft pick and wouldn't rly be worth that

If someone would have read me this team before the season, i would'v actually said that it looks reaonably strong. it is simply amazing how downhill some of our players have gone from previous seasons. Moloney, Robbo, Green, Bruce, JMac, Carrol and co just look half the players they used to be. Bate is a must. I wouldn't mind seeing a bench of Bate, Buckley, Dunn and Garland. Moloney just isn't right, Warnock and Jamar are dump. Screw it why not just play Garland. Maybe getting some games into him could fast-track his development. it couldn't hurt after all, we couldn't do much worse...and he is clearly a cut above Sandy.

we are sooo farked, i cannot believe how bad our leadership group is... Robbo- shows zero leadership onfield Yze and Miller- aren't even in our best 22, and show little leadership onfield even when they do play. Neitz- retiring Bruce- Shows very little leadership onfield and isn't even a dominant afl player McDonald- Shows leadership onfield through hard work, but isn't inspirational, and his body is showing the wears of time. he is not the same player today that he was 12 months ago. Mclean and Sylvia don't really show very much hope in terms of leadership in the future either

firstly, Robbi Warnock is one of the most talented up-n-coming ruckman in the afl. He is young and huge and skilled. Secondly, he is looking to go home to Victoria and if he went into the PSD nothing freo can do. thirdly, he probably would want to come to melbourne. firstly because his brother plays for us, and secondly because at MFC he has the opportunity to be the number 1 ruckman for the next 10 years due to White retiring. No other club could you get such opportunity. atm he is playing some games for the ressies bc sandilands is playing really well. However there is noone stopping him at melbourne. if i was a ruckman id want to play for the demons purely bc of opportunities

We should thank our lucky stars! Jeff White has give us 10 years of great service playing the number 1 ruck role. thank you Jeff. And just as he is about to bow out.... pick 1 2008 national draft- Naitanui! Carlton recruiter openly admitted that he would prefer Naitanui over Kruiser. Another suggested that he would jump all over Sandilands! This guy is going to be the next big thing in footy. he is playing exciting football. i watched the National championships grand final and he is seriously something special. pick 1 2008 pre-season draft- Robbie Warnock! much publicised that this young gun is out of contract and wants to come back to melbourne. he is very young and very talented. he showed his class last year when he basically took the mantle as number 1 ruck (while sandilands was out of form) as a 20 yr old! is very tall and skillful also. Our ruck division for 2009-2010. Naitanui, Warnock, PJ (PJ playing key position and pinch hitting in the ruck perhaps). we should consider ourselves lucky, bc it would suck if we wasted 5-6 draft choices +5-6 rookie draft choices trying out speculative ruckman after speculative ruckman before we finally found ourselves a decent one! if this works out we will have saved ourselves a number of high draft picks, plus have a dominant ruck division in the afl

i won't feel comfortable with carlton until they get there 5 wins. i mean seirously...if they have only 4 wins by round 10 they'll probably lose the next 12 and claim Naitanui and Rich. but seriously... carlton only need 3 more wins for the year, and richmond only 2...so i think we're pretty safe. and Port and WCE will definietly win 5. they'v got interstate advantage also which helps

I would argue that there are certain circumstances where youngsters should be picked in the team EVEN IF there are old senior players who deserve a game more. Everyone knows that older guyz who have played over 100 games are going to be more competitive that a 10 game player. HOWEVER, when your season is shot, it is pointless to play these senior players, especially those who aren't even going to be at the club the following year. That's why i got annoying at seeing Brown,Ward,Bizzel,Pickett Etc playing, when we could'v been blooding the kidz. Yes, Ward performed better than Garland would have...however when you're season is gone, what's the point in seeing the same garbage from your old players. my point is, that if our season is gone by round 8-9, we shouldn't make the same mistakes we did last year. play the youngsters and push out the old players who are no longer the future. (btw, i agree the McDonald deserves a proper send off. he's been a champ. But i have personally writtten off Meesan as a player. We were conned by Adelaide into thinking he was good bc he could run, but unfortunately you need to be able to play footy, as well as be an athlete. if you guyz want to hold onto hopes of Meesan then thats cool)

it's so wrong, but i'm happy we won't have the skipper playing. our forward line was dysfunctional with neitz in it, atleast now we'll get a chance to develop a forward line that we can persist with for the future. If i were coach my fowrad line would be: Davey, Bate, Green Newton, Robbo, Wonemirri That's atleast a versatile forward line. Robbo and Newton can take a grab. Bate and Green can make strong meaningful leads. Davey and Wonemirri provide the excitment and forward pressure. I'd also be willing to try Dunn at CHF, Miller across half forward, and i'd like to blood Maric into the forward line sooner rather than later. (btw- Sylvia should play midfield!!! if he's not fit, give him a go across half back. he's played 40 games across half forward and has done nothing in all but a couple of games. atleast give him a go in the gutz!)

At the end of last year it infuriated me that guyz like Pickett, Ward, Godfrey, Bizzel and Brown were in the starting 22 even when our season was dead and buried. In the end, these guyz got an extra few games, we were no more competitive, and they were delisted anyways at the end of the year. Instead, we should'v been playing every youngster we have. Sure, i understand that Bailey has to give the experienced guyz a real go at it before he makes big changes, but if we don't start winning by round 8-9, he should cut his losses, and simply play the youngsters. Almost all knowledgable football people agree that a player ussually only starts to play dominant roles in a team after around 50 games experience. Sure there are exceptions (like Judd), but even Ablett only really started to stamp himself on games until he hit the 40 games mark. We should therefore play our young players for the rest of the season to fast track their development so they're ready to play as in 1-2 years time. Even if that means playing Frawley on Brown, or Morton of Cornes. If we aren't competitive with experienced guyz playing, atleast have youngsters who can improve through the experience of playing at senior level. My preffered team if we haven't won a game by round 8: Bell - Frawley - Martin Bartram - Rivers - Pettard Bruce - Mclean - Morton Green - Bate - Dunn Davey - Newton - Robertson PJ - Jones - Sylvia Int: Moloney, Maric, Buckley, Garland, Wonemirri White, Players i'm still willing to persist with but youngsters should take preference: Miller, Carrol, Wheatley Players who should be forced to retired gracefully)- Neitz, McDonald, Whelan, Yze, Holland Players who might have to be given up on- Weetra, Bode, Meesan, C.Johnson, Jamar, Warnock too early for senior footy- Grimes, Cheney, McNamara Do people agree that if our season continues as it is, that we should push out the old, and shove in the new- even if it means playing youngsters in tough positions and out of their depth. Imo, that's the only way we will improve.

Key defenders almost always take ATLEAST 3 seasons before showing that they are capable of taking on the best forwards in the afl. Nathan Brown of Collingwood is a freak exception, and even he did nothing in his first afl season. Frawley has just entered his 2nd afl season as a budding key defender. He is not ready to take on the best forwards just yet, however he has the skill-set and has shown promising glimpses. that's all you can really ask for in a 19yrold KPP. He is quick, dashing, effective disposal, strong overhead, and able to spoil. sure, atm he doesn't do this consistently, but again...he's 19 and skinny playing against bigger, more experienced (and better) players atm. play Frawley for the rest of the yr and fasttrack his developmment

Get Jonothan Brown....Into your dreamteam's!!! (not this week, but in a week or 2) his value has dropped massively to 315,000 and has a break even score of 82 this week (meaning he could drop even further if he gets below 82 points). If you've got any cash cows be prepared to sell them in a week or two. A clever trade imo would be Cyril Rioli for J.Brown in 2 weeks time. Rioli has increased his value to 220,000, and he is still climbing in value. in 2 weeks his value could be about to platuea at around 260,000. Brown will not increase in value much over the next 2 weeks because the values are based on 3 week rolling averages, and this week he scored only 29! for an extra 50,000 you can gain yourself JBrown, who surely will start to improve over the course of the season

Whelan won't get a week for that... KEEP FRAWLEY IN THE TEAM ALL YEAR!!! we need him to develop and the guy has the skill-set to become a great Fullback. no fullback does well in his first 2 seasons...we need to get 50 games into this kid to fast track him. Also Bate must have recovered by now. get him in. Id also like to see Maric, Martin and Buckley play atleast 10 more games- as well as Newton if he gets interested

Get Sautner out of the [censored] team. call me selfish but i couldn't care less about whether sandy wins. i just want to see our players develop. With Robbo 28 and Neitz about to retire, we are in desperate need for our young key forwards to develop. that means we need to have Bate and Newton playing the key posts, not bloody saunter and poyas

Green, robbo n davey out of FF. Dunn, Bate, Wanemira around Chf

im so jealous of hawthorn. not only are their starting 22 so young and talented, but they have guys like Mitch Thorp, Beau Dowler, Stokes, McGlynn and Jarryd Morton is the wings. they are gonna be a force for years to come