Ron Burgundy

Not a wasted pick. Melksham will turn out to be a great pick up for this club.

Melksham was the traded in player I was most excited about this year. And Kennedy and Bugg have been awesome.

It's the moustache actually. And the hair. Well, I suppose the jacket does look pretty damn good too.

Absolutely.

Josh Mahoney, Todd Viney and Jason Taylor have been super important in this rebuild too.

His official title will be Club Yoda.

Can't see him leaving. Too many mates, we have the dough and the future looks very bright.

4 years time? Might be earlier than that. Even though the physical and AFL experience development is still ahead of them (i.e. Viney excluded, they're still kids), I wouldn't be surprised to see all 4 of them in the team at some point this year. If so, that's surely going to accelerate things.

This kid's gunna be a gun. Shows that we need to back the judgement of Jason Taylor every day of the week over the blokes who pick the under 18s rep teams. Jason Taylor has been another stellar recruit for this club.

The comments here about Goodwin and Essendrug are tedious. I'm bloody glad we have him. Reckon he could be the next Clarkson.

I've seen enough to know that I'll love him.

He's the next Paul Roos. Literally. A football player's coach. With a stack of acumen for the game. We'll win a flag with Goodwin at the helm.

I'm very relaxed about the situation with Jesse. We are in the box seat to re-sign him. We just need to perform on the field now - that is, and should be, the focus now. Won't be so relaxed if we put in tres ordinaire performances week in, week out, and continually get belted. Perhaps it's seriously misguided optimism, but I just can't see that happening anymore.

Absolutely agree. My immediate thought upon reading the article is that this is probably being driven by Jesse's manager who's giving his client sensible advice in the circumstances. I harbour no fear about the pull of the West. My concern is more that a club like Hawthorn will have a red hot crack at luring him. Against that, we are a club on the way up, he is mates with all of the future talent on the list, we have the financial resources and coaching acumen to keep him, and we have a narrative to success that no one other club possesses - i.e. the old, irrelevant foundation club which has been the laughing stock of the comp for decades, recruits a band of brothers who transform the club into a professional, hard edged, competitive force that dominates the competition for years to come - it's the stuff of movies. And Jesse can lead that charge. It's gotta be a far more compelling proposition than simply taking over the baton at a club which has won 6 flags in 10 years. I would've thought the odds are heavily stacked in our favour to keep him. For a very long time. Go bless us all, heh.

Geez we dodged a bullet in not being able to retain Scully on a massive contract. Think we offered him $700k or so for a long time, yet he still walked. And we got Jesse as a result.

They would've formed a great core had the MFC entered a choir in the Sandringham Eisteddfod ...

It's stunning how we managed to stuff up so many first round draft picks from that period - whether it be the player selected, development or otherwise. The club seems to have landed on the right formula now: hard body and ultra competitive character. Roos' non negotiables.

All top 3 draft picks in that photo. It shows how much talent we now have. Wish they would stop crackin gags though.

Is that Jack Watts' crackin gags at training? Fair dinkum ...

I love Jeff Garlett.

I agree. I think he's firmly within the talented younger core of this club all of whom I reckon have made an informal pact to stick together and seek to achieve ultimate success together. They know it's in their hands: the club finally has the coaching, recruiting and development staff, the infrastructure, the back office, the financial resources etc to enable this to happen. In short, the MFC is as good a vehicle as any other club right now. Much is in their hands, as a group and individually. And I don't really fear losing Hogan to Freo. He seems to like living in Melbourne. The threat of Hawthorn or Collingwood concerns me more, but this threat will be minimised if the team starts to perform as we hope it will. It's a great story for this group if they can take this former basket case of a club to a flag. Hogan would be spearheading that charge - not a situation/narrative easily replicated elsewhere.

Roos and Jackson could very well go down as the two most important figures that this club has had in the last 50 years.

Dawes should start to really focus on his legal career after football now. It seems the sand in the hourglass is disappearing for him quite quickly.

Just watched the interview on the club's website. If he's not the most articulate 18 year old in the country, I don't who is. Strikes me as an absolutely quality young man. Hogan + Weideman = something to look forward to.

Roos will love this kid.