Viney12

Yeah that's fair - I would still prefer Caddy he seems to have a bigger build and seems more of a goalkicker but if Boak is available for our mid first round comp pick after having ruled out Caddy then I wouldn't be unhappy to get him. Wouldn't really want to pay pick 4 though (unless we can get Viney in 2nd round) and would want to rule out Caddy first. No reason we can't make a play for both though and see what happens.

I wouldn't be unhappy getting Boak either.....at the right price

Not worth Pick 4 IMO

Every week a "why we'll win this week" pops up

Every week we end up getting smashed

To put it into perspective though Moloney's never kicked 10 or more in a season for us and Boak is about on par with Jones for how many he has kicked. I can't think of any other midfielders on our list who can kick regular goals (Trengove last year but not this year).

And I wouldn't call those guys Goal Kicking Mids either

My point that for a goal kicking mid, he hasn't kicked many goals thus far

he got 3 weeks too. but i disgree that it was worse! wellinghams was a disgraceful act

The outome was worse

But the position Chip was in, he could've ended up in a wheel chair

If you watch White, he actually deviates from his line to make sure he cops Chip in the head

Cheers.

Well that looked pretty grim. 3 weeks hey? Trengove would have got 5 plus. I dare anyone to challenge me.

Wellingham did get 5, down to 3 with an early plea

Matt White's hit on Frawley was far, far worse - the outcome could've been very ugly

Get him!

Proven goal kicking midfielder who would thrive from the hard work of Magner and McKenzie.

Did I mention he was proven? Whilst the kids this year in the draft may look good, remind me how our history of using high draft picks has turned out again..

We need mature age, plug and play. Boak is that. If we can get it done with our mid first round and a player, do it. If not pick 4 wouldn't bother me.

Not disagreeing with the thought of getting Boak, but this is a bit of a myth

His season tallies of goals:

2007 4

2008 9

2009 7

2010 13

2011 12

2012 5 so far

thats hardly what I would call a goal kicking mid

that kid second from the back looks happy to be there

Are you 100% sure that's how it works?

I agree that's a likely process, but it's equally possible that each team only gets one swing at a F/S nomination and if they're trumped then it moves on to the next club.

Recently changed

Read here

Our kids would learn a heap from playing and training with a gun like Judd. Same goes with Ablett at Gold Coast. I think teh pro's of them teaching the youngsters outweights any percevied lack of opertunity arguement

Can't disagree with that, however, the kids we'd have at our disposal would probably be vastly different if we'd had Judd

The emotional side of football made me despise Judd when he passed over the club he supported as a kid

But when the dust settled, I thought it was perhaps the best long term thing that could've happened

Would've bought us up to middle table perhaps, but would've left very little for the players around him (plus we would've missed on some of the kids we picked up who will take us through in the future)

Wacko it's quite simple mate, we are just a very average football team. Look at the success 4 yrs of tanking has brought us! No need to go down that path again. We will finish bottom 3 even if we play at our very best for the rest of the year!

4 years of tanking?

No.

4 years of being terrible with perhaps 1 - 2 games MAX that are "questionable" is more accurate

You even contradict yourself by saying we've tanked for 4 years yet even if we play to our absolute best we'll still be bottom 3 (implying we're not much chop)

Newsflash, we've been not much chop for 4 / 5 years now

I'm not overly concerned about any of the snaps, the ones I am concerned about are the set shots that are not converted. Howie is the major culprit here, I would rather see him on an acute angle with little chance than directly in front 30 out. Trengove not being able to make the distance from 40 is also a big worry; if he hasn't got some form of OP, I'll be very surprised.

Did you miss his goal from about 45m out yesterday?

This post is exactly what I'm saying. For our midfield, we are relying on Gysberts making it, Taggert (a pick 36), Viney and to unknown players (assumingly you want midfielders) to be part of the core of our premiership midfield.

Cook, too, is an unknown quality, however, as a 2nd tall forward, and the fact that he is being developed "the right way", I think is less risk, especially given that Martin can play that role.

That could mean I'm happy to trade pick 12 for Boak - at least we know what we are getting.

Our midfield needs a number of classy players, our 2nd tall forward doesn't need to be that classy.

Gysberts has shown tremendous ability in his brief career, Taggert is an unknown and pick 36, however reports are he's a good ball user and hard at the contest, Viney we've all seen / heard / read about etc

Additionally, we have classy players in the midfield as it is right now, re just need a run at them being injury free

Blease has pace and skill, needs game time before he can adequately rotate through midfield, Trengove is better than he's currently playing, Jones is shouldering a big load, and will be better for more support, Grimes has shown in glimpses how damaging he could be in the midfield, Tappy could have a run through there, Sylvia (whilst a better forward IMO) can have a run through there, add 2 pacy ball users with pick 4 and 12 from the "super draft" and suddenly the midfield doesn't look too bad

If Port said they'd take pick 12 for Boak, sign me up, but there is no way they would bite at that

Free agency may be able to bring us a couple of solid mids struggling to get a run in good teams (a la Koby Stevens WCE)

A genuine, proven monster forward in Cloke is as rare as hens teeth, and he's about to enter his prime

Can we get Scott Thompson back too? Ratten's 1 year stint as midfield coach resulting in demigod status around here never ceases to crack me up. Along with Brian Royal is the antichrist. Maybe we should invent a time machine, go back to 2000 & get that guy who turned our midfield from 14th to 2nd in a year with the loss of Todd Viney! Yeah let's get that guy - What was his name? Brian something?

I don't think Royal is the anti-christ, but the benefit when Ratten was our midfield coach, and the clear drop off after he left was evident

Loved what Ratten did with out midfield, and was dirty when he left

I advocated him as a potential senior coach for us, but it's looking potentially though as he isn't quite up to grade as the man

Would love him back as a mid coach, don't see it happening

Cloke

A midfield can be built, and quickly (especially with a raft of high picks in the upcoming apparent "super draft")

We also have some valuable mids who will mature into that role (Grimes, Trengove, Blease on rotation, Gysberts)

Viney will be coming in, we need to snare a couple of classy mids in the draft, fast track their development (we'll have a grunt midfield to offer them protection) and then have them ramming it down Clark / Clokes' throat

I'd say GWS have enough youth, they wouldn't want to trade # 1 for 2 early picks

(this is not accounting for the fact that we will use our 1st pick on JV and I don't believe any secret deals will be done)

I was Pi55ed off at the time,but who cares now,move on.

Had we kept Tom,we wouldn't have Mitch and 2 early picks.

WE WON!!!!!!!!

Don't understand this

We may've "won", but we still had a # 1 pick turn his back on the club after giving us little / nothing on field

Sorry, I'm filthy and will be until he retires (and then will still be filthy and tell my future grandkids about what a miserable little mercenary he is)

I realise we won't win all 11, that's fanciful, but I absolutely want to win as many as we can from here on in

Don't care about the picks, I want wins, respect, credibilty and a winning culture

Id rather put a line through this season, cut the dead wood eg dunn bate and blood kids like taggert cook etc. Then next year our list will look a lot healthier and with another pre season of absolute quality under our belt we should improve ten fold. Probably asking a bit much but we got our recruiting wrong and we have to pay the price.

Taggert is on the LTI list, Cook doesn't look ready for AFL level (will he ever), we're playing plenty of kids.....I want the club to have some respect. I want to see wins

yep, and because there are two picks involved, every ladder position is a one-spot upgrade tmes two.. 3+4 is so much better than 7+8

still, I personally am way past the tanking thing, we really really really need to start winning a few or the club is going nowhere IMO. I also get the feeling Neeld would probably smack anyone that said the T word to him, even in an MFC board room

from my thread the other day:

GWS x 2

GC

North

Brissy (Gabba)

Freo (Etihad)

Port (Darwin)

harder ones:

Freo (WA)

Saints

Richmond

Crows (MCG)

amazingly, out of the bottom 8 (not inc us) we play 7 of those sides, GWS and Freo twice. So only 2 games against top 8 sides out of the 11!

Absolutely agree. Screw tanking, screw getting good picks, I want wins

However, reality:

We may beat GC and GWS (x2), when was the last time we beat North? Brissy pantsed us earlier in the year. Port are playing OK football

At the moment, we are the easy beats and these teams will be relishing having a game against us

Lets get 2 wins before we start talking about 7 more

[censored] joke. Can't afford to have the Buddy's or Swan's out of the game, but if you wear a Melbourne jumper you're deemed expendable. Blatant hit. Leigh Matthews-y.

I disagree, Buddy just has to breathe on someone the wrong way and he gets done.

I was surprised he actually escaped penalty for the sling tackle

Buddy's been suspeneded before for regulation bumps

Wonder if Caro will rethink Jamar being [censored] at being left out of leadership group (despite the fact he was actually included this year)

Mass exodus of players.......3 years and STILL waiting

The talk from Neeld and Misson as early as January was that our fitness levels were diabolical, we're apparently being smashed during the week at training still, we're playing a style that requires more hard running forever, then a match day symptom pops up that could obviously be attributed to poor fitness? Nah, bugger that, their fitness is fine; it's just because they lack the ever elusive "killer instinct". Sure thing.

And the talk of Misson only a few weeks ago...here

"Right now Melbourne is using the midweek session to train hard. This is different to what Misson faced at his two previous clubs, where mid-season sessions were more often a process of ticking the body and mind over."

"A session like we had today where we are doing accountability drills, really strong, hard game running - next pre-season we are going to be able to do that all January instead of teaching structural stuff," Misson said.

"We are going to be able to have those hard running, hard spreading sessions [so] by the time games come along we are used to game running."

Important quotes as relating to our current lack of ability to run games out at the moment

The gameplan Bailey implemented would not take us to ultimate glory

The training was clearly light under Bailey, therefore the players were "fresher" for games

However the fitness levels also would not take us to ultimate glory

The style under Bailey was very much an outside game

Neeld's game is a much harder more contested style - this is more physically taxing than simply running

The players need bodies that can withstand physical battering - right now they do not have that

Hence the reason (as Misson himself said) they are still being flogged on the training track during the week. He also said that come next year, the real hard stuff / running at training should be done and dusted by the time the season proper starts

They are clearly not running out games at the moment

Despite people think that they're elite sportsmen and should be able to stand up to this, this is simply not the case

It is clear the players are physically tired during the game, this will change in coming years