Its Time for Another

Last year Paul Roos said On the Couch that if you missed part of the pre-season nowadays, you were lucky to recover in the season. Cale's last 3 pre seasons including this one, have all been interrupted by injury and he has come in very under done for fitness which I am sure has affected his confidence. Hopefully this season is the least affected and given a few weeks to run into match fitness and build up a bit of confidence and the Cale Morton we are all hoping for may appear. If in say 4-6 weeks he doesn't get over it then I fear his papers might be stamped but I hope Neeld perseveres for that long to see what he's got. There's not much downside at the moment and the upside might be significant.

I think the father/son election has to be made before trade week, so any trade would occur after it has already had to happen.

Its out of MFC's control. Other teams know we are committed to him so would be negligent not to make us pay for him as they are under no risk by bidding for him. I would be very surprised if we don't use one of two first round picks on an existing player. Eg Dangerfield, that would help set off the time lost in losing the development put into Scully.

I don't know if this has been covered before but did MFC jump the gun by committing to him so early. Are we going to pay a higher price than he is worth. ie pick 3 when he is only a pick 9 or lower. Seems to be some debate about what pick he's worth. Are we going to now sacrifice a much better player because we committed to him too early.

I'd hate to think what's going on in his head at the moment. What a time to have the burden of being Captain thrust on your shoulders. He knows that as Captain it is up to him to provide the leadership that is so desperately missing especially as the team is performing so badly at the moment. But like everyone else he is still learning how to be a player and the new gameplan etc. The pressure he must be feeling must be massive. I still think it was too early to give him this burden. A lot of experienced players have had bad seasons when first appointed as Captain and that can be in teams performing well. This one is in a deplorable state at the moment and there is a distinct lack of onfield leadership from anyone to lift the team when it starts to fall behind. Not that that alone would be enough at the moment but it would help. I thought Beamer's return gave us a lift in the middle when it mattered. But too little too late.

You can, especially foot stress fractures if you overload young bodies.

And of that group, 3 were dumped out of the leadership group this year and one is in and shouldn't be. One, after taking years to develop looks to be going backwards this year, 3 shouldn't be getting a game, 1 is probably on their last chance this year when they come back after disappointing thus far. Look at the Swans, Nth, even Adelaide who are rebuilding at the moment, yet have solid cores of players from those draft years to guide the new players. Our rebuild is far greater than any of us realised. You really should extend this thread to the recruiting post Daniher as well. It doesn't look much better at this point.

Last year he was just as important with his goal assists (can't remember how many but it was high) as the actual goals kicked which was 29 from memory. I would have been happy with that sort of performance this year but he is already on the way to kicking a lot more than that while the team is rock bottom. His scoring opportunities have to get better as the season goes on so his no. of goals by the end of the year are going to more than justify getting him. Plus he is such a great team player and his goal assists will continue to be high.

I'm trying to remember who we got with the draft pick we got for him. It was Gysberts wasn't it at 11. Wouldn't swap that deal for anything. Let's hope he picks up once he's back from injury.

Neeld has inherited a problem which has been created over decades. Sydney has turned over 33 players out of 44 in the past 3 years. Probably as many as us but still have great onfield leaders in Goodes and Bolton who were drafted around the time of Travis Johnstone, remember him. Plus they have another 8 or so senior players providing leadership for the rest of the young list. You can't blame Neeld for the appalling list management over the past 15 yrs. It's not his fault the whole list has to be turned over and there is no spread of experience. Where are the 26+ yr old elite players to guide and lead our young list. That's not his fault. Moloney has only given 1-2 good years mainly through Osteo which appears to be striking again and could be the end of his career. Over trained in the pre season perhaps. But at his best last year, he seemed incapable of being the type of player that can hall a team back from a losing position to a winning position. None of our senior players are that type of player and our junior players are too junior for this. That's not Neeld's fault. That is him inheriting shocking list mismanagement over many years. When you learn something new you have to think about it a lot until you have repeated it enough that you can do it without having to think about it. I would say that's where the team is at with the game plan. It is only when they have done it long enough that they can do it without thinking that they will move on to start to get their instinct and flair back. You can get an idea of how long it takes from St Kilda when Lyon arrived. They were a very senior list and it virtually took them a season. Again not Neeld's fault. Should he through in the towel because it is going to take a while. Worsfold said it took the Weagles 3 years to learn to execute their game plan. Neeld has had 3 weeks, without the senior players that Worsfold had through the rebuild. I suspect the dropping away in performance by so many players is caused by them thinking all the time and double guessing rather than just using their instinct. But they have to go through that to learn how to execute a thorough game plan. They can't go forward without getting on top of this. The poor recruiting over the past 15 years, starting with Travis as a no. 1 pick in '97 just breaks my heart. Continues through Scully at no.1, Sylvia 3, Morton 4, McLean 5, Bate 9 (?), Dunn, Lucas Cook 12, (looks to have been recruited for a style of play that doesn't exist anymore). Did we expect more of Blease and Strauss by now, will they ever step up. Bennell, Jetta. Who would have thought Davey would have flamed out so early. Pending legal proceedings Jurrah's career could be over. And on and on. Not Neeld's fault all these picks that should have been significant players by now, have never lived up to their potential but does give some idea of the scale of the job ahead of him. The way we are going picks 2 & 3, or 3 & 4, & 11 & Viney at around 26 beckon at the end of the year. Lets hope the recruiting sets us up from that group, but again it's going to be 3 yrs of development. You can be guaranteed they will be looking to recruit some developed players out of those picks. Dangerfield perhaps. Just reward from that team for losing Thompson.

Ha! Something has finally made me smile for the first time since Saturday.

I always thought Daniel Ward's running style was reminiscent. Even a touch of the Keith Greiggs in running style, beatutifully balanced, very sure footed, very reliable skills. Definitely an outside player, not great at the contested ball which probably stopped him being rated with the very best.

He didn't say closer to 2 weeks, he said closer to 4wks.

Good post. Cringe worthy comes to mind. I'm glad the idiot fringe on this site aren't in a position of power to actually carry out some of the madness they advocate here. No one has commented on the fact that Vlad seems to know who the person who started this is and evidently knows what they are thinking about it at the moment. So if that's the case, why isn't he coming clean, or the person coming clean. He even seems to know what is happening to them as a consequence of them doing this. He says we shouldnt' assume they have got off scott free. So what is the story. If they don't come out with the person it could cause a signficant amount of damage. Mainly to the reputations of innocent indigenous officials and players if some of the statements on this site are a gauge of the wider public response to this. Misfud has just created a very damaging situation for the very people he is supposed to be supporting.

Interesting to look at that 25 March 2011 tally and the final tally for the year which was only about 2,000 more for the rest of the year which would have included sign up's in the first game. I thought more would have joined after the start of the season. We have a very tough draw first half of season so in season sign ups might be low. On the other hand maybe all the coverage of Jimmy and the memorial game will help spike the total, although we are still behind at this stage.

Thanks for info on where to find the tally. There was no explanation of where it had gone. The tally on 31 March probably won't include new memberships at the game whereas last year a few days passed after the first game, so might be worth delaying a few days.

How does that compare to same time last year. Looks like we may have caught up. I wonder why the club doesn't have the membership tally on the website anymore.

No one has mentioned the Collingwood game. There was plenty to get excited about in the way the team played in that game. That is probably as good as we could hope to get this year and if we play like that I for one will be very excited. It was a perfect blend of kicking out from defence along the boundary but then switching and attacking quickly once we were clear and then direct passes into leads in the forward line. I expect having seen that once that we will see it again. I was worried about the combination of Neeld and Craig coming from such defensive dower gameplans and everything I heard about the preseason sounded like they were training to kick it around the boundaries, contest stoppages and kick it long into the forward line but that Collingwood game gives me hope.

As I said at the beginning, I will be renewing. Have been since 1973 but still doesn't mean a bit of logic should be applied by the Club.

I am an MCC/MFC member. I haven't renewed MFC but will soon. I rang them to see if I could swap the 6th scarf in a row for a cap which would be of some value to me. Many other clubs do caps instead of scarfs. I mean how many scarfs do you need. I live in Sydney and a cap can be used all year round. They said no but if I "donated" the scarf and the rest of the membership pack to the club I would get a $25 gift voucher which I can use if I spend over $50 at the demons shop. It really annoyed me and put me off renewing at the time. I still will before the season but the attitude sucks. I live in Sydney and the MFC full membership is a donation I make every year to support the club without getting any benefit. What does it cost them to swap the scarf for a cap.

You could be on to something there.

Not yet.

Well you were right about Essendon last year. Here's hoping you are right about both this year. I wouldn't discount Goodsey, he's lost nothing and Bolton had his best year ever last year. But how sweet it would be to see a win up here. They won the last time they played at the SCG in 2007.

I live in Sydney and go to a few Swans games. It always amazes me how low people's opinion is of the Swans. They have recruited very well over the past couple of years and have several out and out champions such as Goodes and O'Keefe, yet people still think they are a walk over. Don't know why you think we're going to beat them especially in Sydney where we haven't played for so many years. Don't know why so many posters think we should already be better than Essendon who are several years ahead of us in development. Not to say on any given day we couldn't give it a shake but I wouldn't pencil it in.

I won't be judging progress in the first 11 rounds on wins and losses. I'll be judging it on the execution of a game plan and an incremental improvement in the individual players performances. If that means no more than 2 wins in the first 11 games I won't be freaking out. They already showed promising signs of structures and game plans on the weekend and it is all they are talking about in interviews now. It's the new mantra . St Kilda under new coach Ross Lyon is a bit of a benchmark for me on what to expect. He inherited a team that was cherry ripe and having just played in a couple of Prelim's but it took it 3/4's of a season to adapt to his new game plan. They were aweful early in his first season. The D's are still at the very early stages of developing a young squad. More so than any other team other than the two new teams and possibly the Lions. The Tigers are clearly further along on an actual timeline of development, for instance Riewoldt and the midfielders. I'm confident we will be better but we are at a different stage of development to nearly all other teams. Patience is required. It's possible St Kilda will go backwards this year with all the coaching upheavel etc but its hard to see any other teams going backwards. So I don't see why people are so confident about beating so many teams above us on last year's ladder. It will happen but I will be surprised if it happens in the first 11 rounds while they are getting used to the new regime.