Whispering_Jack

It's a dangerous strategy but at the same time, it's bold and it's brave. Franchise clubs aside, we're the worst performed club despite our early draft picks in recent years. Something has to be done and you have to admire the football club for taking what has to be regarded as a courageous step. I like this part because it demonstrates that the club is going all out to address the crux of our problems -

Good news for Michael Evans who missed the first 15 weeks of the season with a back injury but has now been elevated to the senior list and is an emergency for this week's game - Evans promoted to senior list.

Back playing local footy in the Kimberley. He came to Perth in June for the Landmark Country Footy Championships, but apparently went straight back home after showing a bit. The view is that it's unlikely that he would leave home to have another crack at making it onto an AFL list.

Why is that? I would have thought it was the epitome of tanking and if the AFL is serious about the practice it would investigate this along with every other accusation of tanking we read or hear about in the media.

The Oracle was clearly bedazzled by the fact that a St. Kilda home game was being played at the home of football and not that dump of a place out near the docks. It's been fixed but how funny would it have been if a few thousand fans had turned up to a vacant Etihad. Groucho would have been pleased.

Western Bulldogs coach Brendan McCartney made what was virtually the identical point on AFL Insider about his team. However, if that's the basis on which one is comparing 2012 with 2011 then one needs to have the stats for both years. My guess is that this only answers part of the question with training and conditioning, injuries and the need to adjust to a completely different style of play also being factors with some of them being interrelated.

So the MFC injured list reads:- Tom Couch (hamstring) - test Jordie McKenzie (knee) - test Stef Martin (foot) - test Daniel Nicholson (jaw) - test Ricky Petterd (hamstring) - test Jack Watts (ankle) - test Liam Jurrah (ankle) - 1 week Mark Jamar (calf) - 2-3 weeks Clint Bartram (knee) - season Jamie Bennell (knee) - season Mitch Clark (foot) - season Aaron Davey (foot) - season Max Gawn (knee) - season Cale Morton (shoulder) - season Rory Taggert (back) - indefinite * 15 players on the official injured list * 6 players are out for the season and 1 is indefinite * Mark Jamar is out for 2 - 3 with that calf injury which means that if it continues to heal slowly, he might as well pull up stumps and start preparing for 2013 * according to the Misson report on the club's website, Liam Jurrah's last two weeks of training have been good and he will be right to play this week at Casey (and really, if he isn't right for this week, one wonders if it's worth persevering and perhaps it would be better to go into pre season training mode) * with Nev Jetta back from suspension and assuming Liam's back as well, we will have up to 38 players available this weekend (but probably about 35) which is a far sight better than last weekend when we had only 30 players available * the result is that team selection should be interesting even though the temptation would be to make few changes to a winning combination. Obviously, Cale Morton is one out. Jack Watts is the likely replacement if fit.

For those of us who follow the cricket and the Demons, relief is on the way with an early start to the domestic cricket season - September start for cricket season

I've just been watching last night's OTC and I must say that Roos is a malicious toss bag when it comes to Melbourne. He never misses an opportunity to sink in the boots. He seems incapable of discussing our club in a rational manner and I'd be interested to know who or what it is that winds him up when it comes to the MFC. I also found it interesting that the panel had to justify itself about the McLean interview and even more that Don McLardy's comments were totally misrepresented immediately afterwards. By only playing McLardy's comments denying that our players don't give their all when they run onto the field and ignoring what he said about the issues surrounding list management being a fundamental of our game (as clearly reported in the media) was a low effort and misleading to viewers. The sniggering of Sheahan and Roos that followed was pathetic. It left me in no doubt that these blokes do have an agenda and it's left their credibility on this subject in tatters.

I wish him well, hope he has a fantastic recovery and a great pre season on his way to a reviving his career in 2013.

Casey player review round 19

Nothing sinister here at all. Mitch tweeted recently that he was back in light training.

Does that necessarily mean he'll be playing this week?

An interesting take on the issue and on yesterday's game from Supermercado - You take it where you can get it

Very little has been said of Don McLardy's comments reported in the press today in defence of the Melbourne Football Club at the time when it was supposedly tanking/list managing/experimenting etc. Some of his comments are at the foot of this article which covers a few other things as well - Demons re-sign key players, Schwab On reflection, I realised that there was one thing happening at the time which wasn't really considered by the experts who tried to analyse all of the moves during the Jordan McMahon game and that was that Melbourne had an horrendous injury list at the time. Indeed, Brock McLean was one of many senior list players unavailable through injury. Below is our list from a thread on Demonland posted on the Monday after the game (Injury List - Round 19):- Brent Moloney (groin) – test Brock McLean (knee) – test Jordie McKenzie (calf) – test Liam Jurrah (ankle) – test Jack Grimes (hip) – test Stefan Martin (calf) – test Jack Watts (hand) – 1 week Paul Wheatley (quad) – 1-2 weeks Mark Jamar (quad) – 1-2 weeks Matthew Whelan (plantar fascia) – 2 weeks Jamie Bennell (knee) – 2-3 weeks Rhys Healey (quad) – indefinite Austin Wonaeamirri (knee) – season Brad Green (wrist) – season Daniel Bell (shoulder) – season John Meesen (foot) – season Colin Garland (foot) – season Sam Blease (leg) – season James Strauss (shoulder) – season Addam Maric (shoulder) – season Based on this information, I would suggest that most "experimentation" carried out by the coach during the game on the previous Saturday would be acceptable and it's poor fact checking on the part of those who commented on the coach's moves to miss out on this aspect and to fail to comment on that aspect and how it impacted on team selection and placement. I am not commenting here on the justification for making particular moves, rather that injuries played their part and were relevant when considering what happened at around that time. We all know that supporters were conflicted between wanting to win and the club getting the best draft position but that is why what Don McLardy is saying is so important. We're in much the same situation today and I personally hate it as a supporter. The lottery system would certainly change things for the better for all of us.

We're at Gattica Restaurant and the first item on the entree menu is: Demon Slayer pizza Aaaargh!!'

$cully finished with 20 disposals so he must have had some last quarter. I think it's out of the question that we'll be tanking tomorrow although it won't be an easy game to win come what may. The Suns did beat Richmond a few weeks ago and the Tigers have comfortably beaten us twice this year. What we need tomorrow is a good start because, as GCS showed against the Tiges and GWS showed against Port Adelaide, you simply can't give away a big start to anyone, not even the new franchise teams.

Could people please refrain from any criticism or animosity towards members of the media. It might lead them to saying nasty things about our club in return. Thank you.

When the old VFA was morphed into the new VFL competition at the turn of this century, Melbourne embraced Sandringham and the alignment was certainly a successful one from the Zebra point of view (regular finals appearances and four premierships in less than a decade). From an MFC perspective, it helped cut costs but there was some criticism and debate as to whether it enhanced our playing group and, in the end, I think the result in that area would probably be neutral. The move to Casey is a worthwhile experiment because it has the capacity to put the club in touch with a young and growing community but, at the same time, I don't think the local connection is going to help much if our AFL team is achieving such miserable results as it is this year. To hell with "culture" (whatever that means), we need to be associated with on field success if we're ever going to appeal to young fans in these growth areas. On the playing side, I think things are going well this year under Brett Lovett. Since the Melbourne-Casey alignment started, the Scorpions have finished mainly top four but have not won a single finals match. That is substantially due to the annual injury curse among the Demons' list that sees a minimal number of AFL listed players available come finals time to the point where Casey falls into an embarrassing heap every year right when it's on centre stage. You can see this happening already with Casey likely to field about half as many MFC players today as the Northern Blues will have Carlton players. Despite the respective ladder positions of the two teams and the home ground advantage, I can see Casey struggling today without four of five Demons who were in their best players last week in the game against Frankston. To his great credit, Lovett has done a great job this year bringing in a number of local youngsters who are thriving at this level. You have to remember that the Scorpions lost a number of their mainstay VFL listed players (and Fev) at the end of last year and have been without their three best players (Matthews, Nicholls and Lees) for most of the season through injury. He has rotated some of his better players through the reserves (development league) and brought in the young kids. It seems to me that he is almost preparing the team for a situation in which he knows he will have very few AFL listed players at his disposal when the crunch comes and in that respect, the Casey Scorpions may well be a virtual stand alone club come finals time.

Whatever the situation, if we perform poorly (which is a good chance given the make up of the side), you can bet that Paul Roos will be On the Couch pontificating that our plight is solely as a result of the fact that we blatantly tanked in 2009. There will be no mention of the fact that our top goalkicker of this year and last are both out injured, that our AA ruckman and our next best ruckman are out injured, that Jack Watts whose form this year has been excellent is out injured, that about a dozen others are out injured, that more still have had their seasons interrupted, that the MFC has had numerous disruptions in a year when the coach was introducing a new style of play. Of course, Roos has no evidence that the club tanked in 2009 (his guest even denied it and called it "experimenting") and there is no empirical evidence supporting his claim. My definition of tanking is when a club is doing nothing else but trying to lose a game. The only time I can recall an AFL coach coming close to that is during a pre season game involving the Sydney Swans. Perhaps the coach of the Swans of the time would be prepared to answer some questions a particualr viewer would like put to him about instructions given by that coach during the game in question. It would make riveting viewing.

And the mystery injury of the week is Tom Couch who would have been handy in this side. If Brett Lovett can get his boys up with all of these omissions then he's a sheer genius.

Glad you understand the point I'm making about this and many other articles.

According to this article, any AFL club that finds itself out of the finals race two thirds of the way through a season and happens to be called "Melbourne" now has limited options in going about the final rounds of the year: Melbourne defeats in 2009: two case studies These clubs cannot: ■ send injured players off for surgery early in order to get them right for the next pre season; ■ experiment by trying players in different positions during games to establish some versatility for the future; ■ test young players out by giving them a taste of the game at its highest level; ■ rest players to prevent fatigue or the possibility of a breakdown through over work; ■ discipline players who break team rules by making them play in the VFL; and ■ give players the opportunity to have a final game (particularly if it's a milestone game) prior to retirement. Sadly, teams can no longer afford to develop their players because every move they make must come under close scrutiny to determine if such moves might co-incidentally affect a team's prospects of winning or achieving the best possible result. There have been several instances of the above in the past and it is expected that the AFL will soon launch investigations into a number of clubs which received priority picks in the past decade including the Blues, Bulldogs, Magpies and Eagles. They might also want to take a look at new franchise GWS which recently made ten changes to its team for the game against Fremantle including dropping NAB Rising Star favourite Jeremy Cameron. After that, one has to ask the question whether the Giants were really trying to win the four points against the Dockers and if they weren't were they bringing the game into disrepute?

Good points. These people are so lazy they didn't even bother to find a passage of play that proved the point they were making. In addition to that, the step from attributing the losing of games in 2009 to the creation of a culture that allegedly persists in 2012 without examining other factors that might have had an impact on the club's current situation is terribly sloppy journalism in my book. These blokes have been all over the place when it's come to their coverage of Melbourne this season. I'm not suggesting that things haven't gone wrong with the club this year but I think their analysis is poor and smacks of pushing an agenda.

They were premiership favourites at the time. Incidentally, I watched the programme tonight in replay and the whole thing was clearly a set up. It was even promoted beforehand that they were going to whack Melbourne. McLean was used big time. The scandalous part of the whole thing is the failure of the people on the show who pass for journalists to ask McLean why, if he was so principled on the issue, did he go to a club that had tanking down pat the year before Melbourne was supposed to have tanked.