drdrake

To see Gysberts spend most of his time working off Half forward last week highlights where the club rates his fitness. Any person that visited pre-season in Nov-Jan saw Gysberts a midfielder running in the last group. He has a huge pre-season in front of him he needs to be running in the first dozen to earn his spot in our midfield.

The same could be said about Jetta, injured all pre-season, gets injured first game back, long rehab a couple of games at Casey back in the team and again poor game against North gets 1 week then straight back. I love Jetta's attack on the footy and the man hope he gets another 2 years. The rest we have to wait and see, the club would be be considering what they would get if Moloney went as a free agent, if we could get end of first round pick for Moloney you would almost take that. Anything less we would be better off with Moloney on our list. I find it a little concerning that this information is out in the public domain, every interview or article that has quotes from a Melbourne Official they clearly state "we will not comment on player contract negotiations" you hope that this is player agent driven and the information has come from there and not from the club.

West Coast rested most of its team to get pick 2, they also got a priority pick I think Luke Shuey or Tom Swift. We should have had Watts and Nik Nat if it wasn't for one win against the bulldogs in 2007.

Two points, from 2007 we have been an extremely bad team there weren't to many games we could have won. Secondly no wonder Bailey got the sack, any coach has to the right thing to get the opportunity to make his playing list better, it is in the coaches best interest to improve his list, he shouldn't have needed people higher up to push this. Every club that has received priority draft picks would have made sure they received them, the prize of the top 2 or 2 picks with in the top 6 or addition picks inside the top 25 was to good to refuse. Does the AFL strip Hawthorn of the flag and Buddy Franklin, Collingwood a flag and Dale Thomas, Carlton laughed at the AFL's draft sanctions the made sure they received the priority picks to get Gibbs and Murphy the followed up with Kruz and Judd. It is easy to kick Melbourne at the moment we can't kick back.

Don't care who plays this week, I will be there and support but this year has smashed me to the point of not caring anymore.

Has Jack Watts thrived? To me Jack Watts has been extremely dissappointing, OK he has done well playing down back but this guy was drafted as a forward, in a year that we have been crying out for forwards Jack Watts is playing mainly as a sweeper down back. All our back 6 get a lot of footy it is down there enough. Watts had a run of games last year at CHF which to me are still the best games at the club, putting him down back hopefully will teach him something but I want him back forward next season. If we talk about thriving, you have to improve, to me only 4 players have improved Jones, McDonald, Grimes and Howe. It will be interesting how Sylvia bounces back after his first real poor performance in the last month, if we plays 3-4 more good quality games you can say he has had his most consistant year.

I find it funny that some people think our rejects are worth something on the trade table. We have been and are still close to the worst AFL team, any player with currency we need to keep, the other 30 on our list are worth nothing on the trading Market.

So what you are saying Spencer must stay, Spencer is a spud. Who knows one of the 6-7 players we add to our list may just be a ruckman. To me we have two main Ruckman in Martin and Jamar, each can hold the No1 ruck role, both in the same team will be a bonus but we have options if one goes down. To me you don't keep a player on your list that just can't play.

We will have Jamar/Martin/Sellar/Gawn/Clark and Fitzpatrick on the rookie list. I think we have enough coverage in the Ruck department.

I don't think there will be the mass delistings most are expecting we will add 6-7 players to our senior list, Nicho will be elevated, Magner, Evans, Williams to be left on Rookie list. Green will retire, two players will be elevated to Veteran status- leaving 2 spots Bate, Petterd or Dunn two of these three will be gone Spencer Gone Fitzpatrick Gone but offered a spot on Rookie list Plus I get a feeling Moloney is leaving Thats 7 spots, Nicho comes up, leaving 6 spots, 5 for the draft 1 for pre-season draft and a couple of Rookie picks. Other delistings will depend on how we trade.

What a great position our club is in come years end, we lose one outside mdfielder and we are in the position to get 3-4 highly rated young players(subject to trading). In 2009 we drafted at the time to two stand out midfielders at pick 1 and 2, great kids both a mile ahead of pick 3, move forward 3 seasons later and rank players from that draft, these two wouldn't be in the top 5. Go over the years and there are hit and misses every year, just because you are considered a top 5 pick at the time you are drafted doesn't mean you will be live up to that draft pick. The more players you can pick up with in the top 25 the more chances you have to hopefully unearth some real talent. I'm not concerned were we take Viney, if he cost pick 3 no issue we still get another 3 picks that should be prior to 25, it would be a bonus if we keep 3 and use our second round pick on him but we are fortunate to be in a position that we have been given additional first round picks that will enable to us at worst case not only get Viney but two more picks including the third live pick. I don't care who we take with our picks as long as they can kick and get the footy.

If we had a Melbourne VFL team over the past 4 years it wouldn't change a thing, we still would be sitting in the bottom quarter of the ladder in the AFL, having a VFL team doesn't make up for having an extremely poor list and little to no senior players. The best part about Casey being second on the ladder is we are playing 10-16 Melbourne listed players every week, of these 10-16 most are under 23 years old. If we turn the clock back to when we had Sandy, that relationship certainly hindered our players on two counts, most Melbourne listed players had been in the system for 5-10 years good VFL players no good at AFL, the Sandy players were good and kept our young players in the twos.

There is only one way it will return and it depends on three clubs and none are Victorian. The two West Aussie teams have tried to get there own teams in the WAFL, which have been knocked back, if Freo and West Coast along with Adelaide put the heat on the AFL for this there is a slim chance this will happen.

I don't disagree with this, but there are big issues that the AFL has to consider. Firstly, all the state based leagues, they have strong history and with out the WAFL and SANFL, the AFL as it is today would never of happened. If we had a AFL reserves comp it would distroy all state based leagues, you would have State under 18's comps but your state leagues would not survive. The West Aussie and SA teams would dominate, they will get the best of the rest from there states to top up their teams. No matter how many players you have on the AFL list you will always need top up players. The venues, will the current venues be able to cope with double the games. There would be nothing better than going to the MCG at 11.30 on a Saturday to watch your reserves and league teams play, but I think this is a very long way off.

We all can't assume anything and any thoughts of delisting him are extremely premature. Just because he is going to trial doesn't mean he is guilty, the trial may only last a couple of days, he may be found guilty or not guilty and if guilty he may do Jail time he may not. If the club makes a decision to delist Liam I will guarentee to another club would pick him up. We stick by him, we await for a result before we take any action.

We could merge this topic with several over the past 4 years. I still think we have a good base of players and this year has been about testing a number of players to see if they have a future and for most the answer is no. Our midfield will be different next year, Jones and Sylvia will be the base they have both shown that they are quality midfielders. Blease needs to get fit but best case with him is a HFF with stints in the midfield maybe rotating off a wing with Howe, Grimes will become a very good midfielder, Trengove will spend more time in the middle seems we are playing him more forward than in the midfield. That leaves the rest Gysberts, Taspcott, Morton, McKenzie, Evans, Jetta, Magner, Couch, Bail, Tynan, Taggart, thats 17 players plus 4-5 from the draft and any trading we do, that Neeld needs to build a high quality midfield. After the first 2 Jones and Sylvia, the others are a mile behind, we need continued improvement from both Sylvia and Jones and we need 2-3 others to push up to there level.

I agree, when we compare to 2010/11 we did win 8 games each year but to me that was on the back of individuals having extremely good years, 2010 we had 2 all Australians Frawley and Jamar with Green extremely close, Jamar was the best tap ruckman in the competition and we unleashed a mid sized forward in Jurrah that was amazing. We started to beat teams that were bottom 4 teams and some real highlights with Sydney and Collingwood, 2011 the same we beat up on the bottom sides but got smashed by the teams that were competing for top 8 positions. To me again it was our senior players playing well against younger midfields. 2012, Jamar injured and even the games he has played his tap work has been predictable, Moloney, Green, Frawley are no where near the levels they have been over the past 2 years Jurrah hasn't really played. Our young players haven't taken the huge step we had been hoping for but again we are seeing snippets from Blease, McKenzie, Tapscott, Watts, Grimes and McDonald, Trengove has to learn about balance in his game I think his defensive acts have been good but he is so intent to do this he forgot about getting the football. I think what we have seen with Jones and recently Sylvia gives us two high quality midfielders, I still have hopes Trengove will continue to develop along with Blease, Tapscott and Grimes that gives us 5 players that should have the quality to improve our midfield, we add in 2-3 more and hope Mckenzie gets better offensively. We need 20-25 midfielders on our list, any given week you need 10-12 players working through your midfield. 2012 has highlighted what most of us have been banging on about for 3-4 years, we have players on our list that just aren't good enough to play at this level. They have had every opportunity but they just don't improve, add to this the massive drop in form of Moloney, Jamar and Frawley, I would add Green to this list but his form last year wasn't much better, no Jurrah, Mitch Clark out for half of the year, plus other injuries these are the reason why we seem to be so far behind 2010/11.

Anyone that saw him play on Saturday had to be impressed, it was really his first game in 18 months he was good, he has something most our midfielders don't the ability to carry the football, he attacks. Evans and Jetta are two players that take the game on, run with the footy, play on and attack the game, I hope both see out 2012 and remain on our list for the next couple of years.

Couldn't agree more, we are bad, I have always tried over the past 5 years to stay positive but this year we have seen our senior players take a huge drop in form, Jamar, Green, Davey, Moloney have been nowhere near their best, Frawley has struggled, our midfield is the worse in the AFL. Jones, Howe and McDonald have improved, the rest are the same or gone backwards. How many wins who knows it could be 2-3 or it could be none, it won't be tanking we are just bad. I do feel we need to manage our players to ensure every required player is fit for the start of pre-season, we can't control what injuries occur and if players stay fit you keep playing them but there is no point bringing players back for 2-3 games, considering we play Adelaide and Fremantle at Subi in the last 2 weeks.

We have won 2 games all year, we are in a losing season, stuff 2012 we need to be planning for 2013 an the most important part of getting ready for 2013 is have a large percentage of our players complete a full pre-season.

What I'm saying is why waste our time to bring injured players back for 2-3 games at the end of the year,unless they are fighting for survival on our list it is pointless. Especially Jamar, if he is out for 4-5 make it 7, he is such an important member to our team, give him a longer time off to get his body 100%.

This is very short term attitude, our players haven't been able to execute the coaches game plan, the only way they will get better at this is through pre-season, what is killing us is the fact that prior to Christmas last year we had more players in rehab than training with the main group. If you want to see improvement in 2013 we need 90% of our list ready to go first day of pre-season. I don't want to go to training to see LJ walking laps or that unfit he has to run by himself, I don't want Jamar missing weeks due to an ongoing calf injury. I don't see any reason why you would want to bring players back for the last 2-3 weeks of the year. Be smart we need to manage our entire playing group to ensure the required players will be ready for Late Oct early Nov, no need to take risks on injured players.

Jamar will have 4-5 weeks off with a calf, I don't see any reason why we shouldn't put him out for the year and start to get his body 100% recovered for pre-season. Liam Jurrah has played 3-4 games this year and has his pending issues to face, the only reason I would play Liam this year is if he looks like he will be locked up next year, if not get him fit enough to join the main group from day on pre-season. I was lucky to attend some pre-season training last year, we had so many players in Rehab that it would have been hard to train the main group. Some days that I attended we were lucky to have 20 fit blokes training, how do you educate a team with new game plans when most of your list can't train with the main group? We all know the importance of a full pre-season and these two players are vital in our side in 2013. We have a lot of players that have a lot to play for over the next 7 weeks, the club will make 7-8 changes to our senior list at years end, of those 7-8 changes most players on the cull list will be playing on Saturday.

Jamar and Jurrah will be out for the rest of 2012 nothing to gain in playing them, get both fit and right for Pre-season.

What Mark Neeld has done is play Col Sylvia in his best position, he is a midfielder and has the tools to be an A grade midfielder. He is still young and if he can keep his body right through pre-season and through out 2013 we will see a better consistant Col Sylvia. The best thing with Sylvia and Jones is they both can kick goals and long goals that makes your dangerous when you get the footy in our forward half.