darkhorse72

In another era Robbie could have been as decorated as Barassi. Love'm both but only saw Robbie play live so does that make the difference in our voting? Barassi would not have left if he could run the MFC how he wanted and not been overseen by Norm and the old crowd. The problem Norm has when he first starting coaching us. You need a third option

While Neeld tried to crack the soft culture and that was his initial pitch I imagine, simple he did not have the skills to do it. Though there was massive problems with the culture. You can only pus the players as far as they trust you, he had no trust, he hadn't earned it yet.

Unfortunately neither could stop our yoyo season's....

This may be a close one! Lyon is above Neita in his class and ability.

Simple and straight forward example of why culture is the key to success. We do not have a culture and that is one of the reasons Roo's choose Goodwin, as he spoke about culture before his appointment and not strategy and tactics as the soil focus.

Change of coach and time given to White as the future, he competed to the end IMHO.

An optimist would sat that at the same time these breaks will reduce the general wear and tear on the body and extend his career

Definitely a tough one, but there can be only 1 winner! Brownlow puts Stynes ahead for me.

Matera would have been perfect at the time and the nest few years. As it turned out the following season was a shocker for Matera at the eagles, well down on form. Which I think was because had mentally left despite being convinced to stay, though after that year he rise back to his usual standard. Him on the wing after the loss of Tingay would have made a difference, better than Craig Turley.

This was TV in WA, the AFL has squashed it until all teams in different states have the same ability to train to the same standard. Even playing field.

Just realised you missed his continuous games record from his stats

The re-draft would be more interesting with a short writeup on why the original player drafted was no longer in that position in terms of value. It was a really shallow draft that year, it seems so. Trengove would have been a great player without his foot injury, till then he was tracking very nicely in terms of quality. Scully, could run and it comes back to athlete vs footballer. With the rate of rotations today, I think the footballer wins again. During our dark period we focussed on athletes who couldn't play the game and count learn in a poor team for someone to cover them as they did. As it turned out 2009 was a wasted draft.

Looking ahead I'm guessing the final will be Lyon/Gawn v Stynes simply based on the voting so far. Gawn is ahead for me but not by much. If Tingay didn't fall through a bloody window i reckon it could have been the other way around.

Hmm I have to really think about this one.

Wight was so versatile and fought like there was no tomorrow every time I saw him play. Wrecker did his job and was great but the it is Wight for me. R.I.P.

True, but it is really a popularity contest is most match ups at the moment.

Junior definitely was he was a smarter footballer, coming through the rookie system and constantly improved to end up as captain. Jones in many aspects has not improved aspects of his game since he has been drafted. True he joined us at a crap time and has been a great clubman but being one of the best in a poor team doesn't compare to be a good player in a far stronger side and getting AA. I have been wondering if the age of those voting and their direct experiences is skewing the results to more recent players?

Just watch the replay of the 1988 prelim and watch his skills in the wet compared to other players.

Most clubs know who they want a few years in advance and just trim down he list and raft day depending on their position and other picks. Not that much of a lottery for the perceived top 20.

I guess we are bored to bring the merger back up. I wa and in WA during those events so I didn't get the emotional feelings running around between supporters. I love the Melbourne Footy Club dearly and what I remember and what has been stated here. After the merger we were still going to be called the "Melbourne Football Club" but we'd change out nickname to the hawks. modify the jumper, but we have done that anyway a few times with plus the clash jumpers. To be honest that was not much different to before our nickname was called before we changed to the demons under Checker. It was a take over of Hawthorn, at the time we had all the money. Ironic isn't it The issue was the management of the time could see what was going to happen 10 yrs in the fire to the budget of the club and they could not sustain the increasing costs of running the club. They had hindsight to see that and we can see the debt we accumulating till Jimmy took over. The problem is they has no vision of how to fix it. Post merger Hawthorn got people in who fixed their problems first off field and then infield, they had leaders who got all the supporters on board, we didn't, we went with the millionaire saviour approach. Also the club could not have foreseen he saviour of the tv right that were to come. Unfortunately we are still waiting still for our "Don Scott" person to drive the club forward in the way Hawthorn and you could say people like Eddie have done for their clubs. Be stable and innovative off field and relentless to win onfield is not part of our culture yet, hopefully it will be soon.

Not really fair for Leoncelli to compete against Stynes.

Yep that is the game.

I remember that game as we didn’t win for years afterwards and he was brilliant in the wet and it was bloody wet. If you get a copy let me know.

Those gifted wa players were given to them at the end of the 80’s when the club almost collapse after what was considered a failed start. The wa public had expected to win the flag in their first year when they saw their starting squad. They special draft set them up for a decade, plus a decent AFL coach in Malthouse, who modernised their footy thinking from the original coach in terms of preparation and structures. Interesting what might have happened if the pies didn’t lose the game when they had it under control in the first week.

I agree, he was a super talent and would have made a difference over the following decade. Degenerative back injury on memory. A few year Slater we had Newton I think with a very similar injury. Then Jako/Lyon, it was the decade of bad backs unfortunately