Hards

Jimmy was very clear in saying he'd wait until looking at the books until he came out with what he was going to do. It sounds like the figures that have been put around in the media aren't showing the full extent of the financial difficulties we face. In terms of the "as long as I am here" comment you may be reading a bit too much into it, at the same time, no one should downplay just how real the possibility is that the MFC won't survive in Melbourne. While we may or may not have been in a worse financial position in 2003, our competitors are going from strengths to strength - West Coast have 50,000 members, North have 35,000 are are redeveloping their home, the Dogs have a 12 million dollar redevelopment of Whitten Oval, Hawthorn have 40,000 members, Richmond and St.Kilda have set homes and more than 30,000 members, while we are languishing well behind.

Good. I'm not sure who passed the MelbourneFC concept but taking the most image most easy to identify with the Melbourne Footy Club away and replacing it with a bland no soul MelbourneFC was kidding themselves.

I only just did this survey, but I thought it was a joke. There were $700 memberships that only got you into two games. It was all over the place. It's the same way they come up with stuff saying "Our survey showed that the members didn't want a scarf in 2008" when the members did. One of the questions you rank how important five things are to being a member - getting a card with how many years you've been a member, having a guided tour of the mcg with players, post match functions, discounts at the demon shop (I'm sorry MelbourneFC Shop, no Demon) and something else. Ranking them 1-5 I wanted to give them 5-5-5-5-5. I want access to games, priority access to finals tickets, and my scarf. That'll do! Where's the box to say that?

I have a fundamental disagreement with the style of footy he wants us to play. I think its a style that has been routinely beaten in finals and is years behind the direction footy is moving. That said, at achieving what he is trying to achieve I think he's going ok. For guys who arent built for playing that style of footy our guys are adapting to it, and to give Bails his credit, he has made changes to what he initially tried to implement, and that has helped. Is he a good coach? Too soon to say.

Absolutely ridiculous decision. He is the most protected player I can remember - he gets away with cheap ones during games and dirty ones at the tribunal. Crazy.

10 minutes into the match David King on 3AW described Cale Morton with the following: "I tell you, Morton is going to be just like Adam Goodes..."

I reckon since 2003 the crowd has got more and more even on Queens Birthday. In 03 it was shocking, there may have been less than 10k MFC supporters there, but last year I reckon it was 40-60, and while I only made it to the ground at 3/4 time after work, it felt pretty 50-50, maybe a touch our way. I'm not sure if Demetriou's comments helped or hindered us. The intention was to bring our people out, but it may have done that and also kept some Collingwood people away. Maybe the drizzley rain kept the soft [censored] Pies fans away, who knows. Demetriou's comments were stupid, but the intent was to provoke a response from our fans.

The Shinboner Spirit is their culture, that's the whole point. It's why they wins games when they aren't expected to, and make finals series when everyone writes them off. Those who ignore it fall victim to it repeatedly.

I was thinking along the lines of what Casey Scorp said, that St.Kilda may not push through as much with Frankston and try to redevelop TBO a bit more, despite the current issues with land size. I think St.Kilda has got the much better end of the deal in this four way exchange, and that's nothing against the Scorpians. We're moving out of an area where we have a genuine historical link, being our old Zone, and where we get a pretty decent percentage of our supporters from, to a "growth corridor" with no links past or present to the footy club. If we can make inroads into the community then it may work, but I'm not convinced this is a step in the right direction for us.

They are chronically underrated by the media, but despite a lack of top draft picks and a draw that sends them interstate more than any other Victorian side they find a way to get the job done. If you could bottle the culture of their footy club and sell it you'd be a millionaire. They have something that most other clubs do not.

No, it's not.

I'm not sure training once every now and then in a region is going to net us many more supporters let alone members. Sounds like we got beaten to the punch by St.Kilda, but I'll reserve judgement till we hear a bit more about it.

Great work mfc4life, Doggo and mfcrox, those two designs are great. Hopefully someone from the club sees it and puts them forward. They are great Melbourne designs, they fit the clash jumper criteria and boldly say Melbourne Football Club. Not "MelbourneFC", not some white or grey garbage lacking any soul, but genuinely Melbourne. Great job.

Demon4Life, could you do one with the stuff on the back in white instead of blue? So the front is red with the blue MFC logo and the back has white numbers, white 1858 and a white Primus? If you could mock one up and post it that'd be great to see. I just reckon the numbers will stand out a bit more. It's a great design, and puts the crap we're putting up with to great shame. Well done mate.

Haha, come on FC! It's scary that someone ok'd the decision to remove the Demon and use this white jumper. Probably just as scary that more than one person thought it was a good idea and that the supporters would accept it. Shows a shocking misjudgement. Just like the removal of the scarf as a gift with the membership. White jumper, no scarf, no Demon, no promotion in the public, 1 win, injuries, what a shocking 150th year.

Even if he's 100% fit but doesn't have much match fitness up I'd like to see him get two or three games at the end of the year, just to get a feel for the pace and intesity of AFL footy. Give him something to aim at and build around for 2009.

Push Miller deep and play Dunn and Bate in the dual CHF role, with Sylvia rotating through and have one of Davey and Wona play high and one play deep. We should make a decision with guys like Garland who have played both forward and back - we've seen what's happened to Miller by switching him between two roles. Let him settle and grow as a back. Bit of a different role for Miller (could even switch him and Bate and Dunn for some variation) but it'd be better than moving a defender forward. We've got nothing to lose, it'd be worth seeing how some of these guys go deep forward.

I know some people bagged it but I always liked Red provides a different distinction from our clash rivals, and if not that then I'm not adverse to wearing the light blue 70s/80s heritage jumper as a clash strip. At least those jumpers scream Melbourne, not like the current garbage.

Brisbane Big impact retirements/trades (Aker), an ageing list, managed to blood new players (26 in the last two/three years I believe), and while missing the finals for the last three seasons, they'll be back again this year. And its not just the old firm carrying them, their return to the top of the league has coincided with the continued development of guys like Drummond, McDonald, Merrett, Harding, Patfull, Rischitelli, Roe, Corrie, Sherman etc etc There are going to be down times when you rebuild, everyone goes through it. Teams that do it the right way aren't down for long and stay up for longer. Brisbane introduced about as much youth as humanly possible in the last few years, but they never moved away from their structure. If blokes retired or were out with long term injuries they put youngsters in their place, but they didn't completely change their setup. Bradshaw goes down so Brennan plays key forward. Brown get hurt so Mitch Clark steps in. My issue with what we did today was that we had found a structure that worked the last two games, and when Holland went out we didn't replace him. Holland was injured, he couldn't have played, but someone genuinely needed to replace him. Not to kick 15 goals themself, but to provide a target or a foil to our other forwards and stop the Saints defenders zoning off to cut down our only 6"0 option.

We wear red and blue and St.Kilda wear red white and black. At game speed today it looked liked red white and blue against red white and black. We've added a white-ish colour to our clash jumper, when most of our clash jumper games are against clubs with white already in their jumper - St.Kilda, Carlton, Fremantle... The red was fine, it looked alright, it was still identifable as a Melbourne jumper, and it was a genuine difference against most clubs.

If they're getting smashed with the right structure in place then that's fine, but if we're playing kids with no structure then its useless. Today our structure was horrible - it wasn't as if we had a kid in the position and he was struggling while he developed, we had simply no one in that position. That's crazy. Some clubs maintain winning culture even when they are down. They do the fundamental non-negotiables right all the time, even if the players aren't yet developed or ready to execute properly. And as for Yze, anyone who has watched more than 10 minutes of him play in the last 5 years knows he has to play as a permanant forward. Its his natural way to play and teams are too good now at exploiting running backs that don't defend. Look at Joel Bowden, exactly the same thing. With most of our deep forward line gone with injury playing Holland and Yze deep is about the best we can do for now. I wouldn't rush Newton in when he's fit until he shows at Sandy that he's willing to do the chasing, tackling and 1%ers that are required from a forward.

I agree, its a disgrace. It looks horrible and doesn't serve the purpose of actually being a clash jumper. Ridiculous

Just heard on 3AW that Holland was withdrawn from our squad yesterday due to a knee injury. They were reading from an MFC press release

Tony Jones - Collingwood Craig Hutchinson - St.Kilda Mark Robinson - Essendon

I reckon Holland will play. There's a fine line between playing not enough youth and too much youth. Last week we had 6 guys with 10 games or less, and 16 with less than 50. If all those kids are out there in a side getting smashed each week they won't learn anything. We have to be competitive, even if the final results are wins, and we have to have the structure in place that is going to take us forward If Holland doesn't play and he is fit then we've dropped him with no one to replace his role in the side. So we kick to Robbo one out and three guys jump on him and we get smashed by 10 goals, what's the point?