drdrake

I agree with this, we looking at our top 25 picks from the since 2007 we just haven't seen them reach their potential that they showed as juniors. The big issue over the past 3 years is keeping them fit, Morton, Grimes, Blease, Strauss, Gysberts, Tapscott and Cook have all had extended periods of injury. Tapscott, Grimes, Strauss and Gysberts in particluar just can't stay fit and it seems for the last 3 pre-season Morton gets injured in Feb/March. All we have heard for the past 5 years is getting games into players giving them the experience, we just haven't been able to keep them fit. It would be interesting to know how many games these guys have played all in the same team over the past 2 years Morton, Grimes, Watts, Strauss, Blease, Trengove, Gysbert and Tapscott, I reckon the answer will be none, not 1 game where our top picks have all played in the same team, this is the issue these guys have been on our list 3-5 years.

I like Dangerfield but I don't know if this is due to potential or his current performances. He reminds me of Col Sylvia more a half forward with runs in the middle and no real consistancy. Our midfield has no problems getting there hands on the footy but we don't seem to have any players that can break away with good acceleration. Look at Jones the amount of times he gets his hands on the footy at a stoppage is good but he is tackled and usaully a second stoppage or free kick. I have posted this for years our midfielders just don't work for each other we are like under 9 footballers they are all trying to win the footy. I still look at our midfield and think OK it is good missing some outside quality but I feel we need to smash out the selfish attitude and apply structure and get these guys working together with blocks, sheppards to creat space for the ball carrier. We then add Viney and two ball carrying mids through the draft and we are not that far off

This is and has been the problem with our structure for the past 5 years we are looking to have our attacking players down back and creating our attacks from our defensive 50m arc. It just doesn't work we need to start to control the midfield, if we can't get more supply into our forward 50m arc we will not win games. Our attack like most other AFL clubs need to be started in our forward half winning the footy across the centre.

When looking at our line up you need to consider balance, if we take Grimes and Bartram out of the back line you need to add small defenders with a bit of speed, if you replace them with Morton and Davis you have an extremely tall back 6 and small forwards will tear us apart. Strauss is no saviour but when fit he is a viable option to fill the small defender role.

It is more to allow Grimes and Bartram to go into our midfield, Strauss didn't play on the weekend, Nicho is injured, he servives as the only fit small defender. My position is why waste Grimes and Bartram down back when our backline for the past 5 years has been handicapped by our midfield. It doesn't matter who plays down back whilst our midfield keeps getting smashed. Richmonds defense is bad their forward line has a couple of decent goal kickers but there midfield is good, if we can draw level in the middle we will win by 5 goals if we get beaten in the midfield we will lose by 5 goals. To me it is simple move these two into the midfield, they are wasted down back.

I think JB is needed down back, if we move Bartram and Grimes into the midfield we need a bit of spedd to match up on the small forwards.

Here is my team for this week Bennell Frawley Rivers Bail Garland McDonald Grimes Bartram Trengove Petterd Watts Howe Dunn Clark Tapscott Jamar Jones Magner Bate Couch Martin Morton In Couch Morton Tynan Tapscott Out Green MacDonald Mckenzie Sellar To me Grimes is a midfielder I still think the best I have seen him play was against Essendon at Visy park a few years back in the midfield. Bartram is our best defensive midfielder and Watts is a forward. We need to start winning more football in the midfield, we need someone that can stop a player, this week Cotchin. I'm happy to take these two out of our defense we are getting smashed in the middle if we can't stop this it won't matter who is our back 6 we will get beaten, this has been proven opver the past 5 years, to me we had a real solid back 6 but we continue to lose due to our midfield being poor.

Why we shouldn't tank because losing sucks and I'm tired of losing

There is a very good chance our players have been in a plane this morning, I wonder if they even know what has transpired over the past couple of hours. Selection is going to be interesting.

Agree, I have been extremely proud this week of Mark Neeld, the way he has spoken and presented from the final siren on Saturday to his media conference Yesterday he is professional hard nosed and I sincerely hope he can coach our team to success. The club was backed into a corner, it made a good strong call. No matter what the club says walking away from 2mil per year takes guts.

Correct 3 weeks, I would have rather not had anything happen over the past 3 weeks and we smashed Brisbane and this was our media highlights on how good we looked on field.

I disagree with this, we have stood up to the AFL this week and walked away from 2mil per year sponser, that takes guts and strength. The club and coach should be congratulated on the way they have performed this week

And they are gone, the clubs website has already removed advertising and both companies from the site. To state the bleeding obvious we have finally completed our bottoming out process.

Statement made, good on the club, hats off to the board and the club our integrity has been severely question all this week and we have responded like a good strong club

The club legal eagles will earn their money this week. Bit concerned this week that the Board and CEO are missing in action. I appreciate we would need to seek legal advise plus meet with this twit, but the club needs to put a statement out or hold a press conference today.

Don't forget this guy is not only Energy Watch he is also Freedom SEO, if we go down the path of voiding our contract we lose two sponsers.

I think against Brisbane 2010, night match at the MCG Brisbane at full strength coming off 4 straight wins, we pants them, Frawley smashed John Brown and we saw why Sculldog and Trengove were 1 and 2 picks.

If that is the case can someone offer us a pick 4 for Morton, a pick 12 for Cook and pick 13 and 14 for Dunn and Bate, that would really help us to even up.

What is it with clubs wanting our players. Richmond has 2 rejects, Hawthorn have two playing at Box hill, Carlton has 1 playing VFL, Collingwood have 1 at VFL, GWS now has 2 going for 3, Gold Coast has 1 and we offloaded another to Brisbane that is now finished, don't these clubs know we have sucked for the past 5 years.

Don't blame the media they haven't had to dig to hard to unearth story's about the MFC. 2012 has been an absolute disaster, this just adds to the list. The board and club management have some hard work to do to turn this around. If we don't put out a good hard performance this weekend get ready for the continuing negative press. One thing I'm really concerned about is the accusation of people being a Racist. Please don't take this the wrong way if you make a comment that attacks a section of the community you deserve your rightful whack, but does that make you a racist or an idiot. To be branded a racist that person needs to have a real hatred or Ostracise someone based on their race. This bloke has stereotyped people by there race with a number of stupid inappropriate comments, these comments are race based therfore racist remarks, but is he a racist, does he hate aborginals, Asians and other nationallities or is he just an idiot. I like to believe Australians don't have the Hatred in them that to me make them a racist, but what we do is make comments based stereotypes, that are stupid and inappropiate but I don't believe there is an underlying hatred. This guy is an Idiot and one the club needs to make a tough call on whether we want a goose like this linked to our club.

1. If you aren't switch one 100% mentally you get smashed 2. If you don't work for 100% off game time you get smashed 3. If you play dumb footy for 50% of game time you get smashed 4. Mark Neeld isn't here to make friends with the players he is here to get the best out of them 5. We have 21 games to go

Yes, but they have a lot of work to do to learn to work away from each other. It is almost nominating a decoy that leads to a spot just to take his defender with him well away from the contest. Saturday we all went to the same spot and unless we take mark of thge year we had no chance to mark the footy. Be playing 3 talls it means our mid size forwards become more dangerous, we have Howe, Petterd, Jurrah, Sylvia, Dunn that you need a taller defender as they have the ability to play tall, I still think our forward line once they start getting better supply and work together is very stong and dangerous.

We need to move forward, we need to deal with any un-resolved issues internally, we need to take away the distraction from our playing group. They have dealt with the Death of Jimmy, being thumped and now this, it is the clubs job to get our players focused on performing on the field, the competition is that tight that if we are not 100% mentally right we will get thumped.

I have changed my stance on this, it is time for the Melbourne Bubble, we deal with issues is our way under strict confidence and any one that breaks that confidence is shown the door. It is time to close ranks and get the players focused on what they are employed to do.

The club needs to make a strong statement today, joint press conference with Neeld, Davey and Grimes time for complete honesty if it wasn't Davey tell the world who it was it will come out regardless, it will be better coming from the club. If it was Davey he should disclose what he said. On the AFL, I can't believe the AFL is advising the MFC to go after Grant Thomas, private conversation or not this was started by an an employee of the AFL discussing this with a friend that works in the Media. We do need to make a stand against Grant and 9msn the media can not continue to report fiction that causes harm to individuals and clubs.