drdrake

I tend to agree, the first round is Micky Mouse but I believe the resent years pre-season comps have given indications on how a team will perform through out the season. I'm sure someone will know the answer but I can't remember the last pre-season game we won not including last years first round.

It was good to go and watch on Saturday Night, for most of the night I thought I was at the wrong event, all I heard was whistles all the time some one in lime was blowing a whistle. It was over umpired the holding the ball was out of control and watching with both eyes we seemed to get to worse of it. That aside it was quite an entertaining match, it turned the clock back to the 90's kicking to contests strong around the footy. We seemed to kick to a position when under pressure, and on most occasions we had someone there to contest. Most have covered the good players, the one I was impressed with was Davis, to me he just wants to compete, works hard. We will see him through the season proper. The other player that surprised was Fitzpatrick he rucked well. I left happy knowing we had so much quality that either didn't play or played limited time, you inject Trengove and Moloney into the midfield, add Clark forward and Grimes/Rivers down back, plus Jurrah for huge x factor. The only player to me that looked concerning was Gysberts, he only played 1 quarter and looked like he was running up a steep hill. There was one passage off play in the last he looked like he had found quick sand the legs were going but he wasn't moving that fast.

I went to the game on Saturday and saw first hand the game plans that we are looking to play. It is all about contested footy for now, kicking long to contests, working for your team mates. Unfortunately for Jack there wasn't to much clean footy coming to him most kicks to him were a long kick for him to contest, no pin point passing to Jack. Not once did Watts not contest and either bring the ball to ground or create space for someone else to take the make. On most occasions Jack didn't even attempt to mark he was bodying his opponent or spoiling to the front. This is an improvement on last year Jack was out marked a lot or was out of the contest due to his strength. The big difference I have noticed in all our players is the work together, to me the last couple of years we didn't work hard off the ball to create space and opportunity for our team mates. This year at every opportunity this was happening and Jack played a role for the team. This week Jack just found himself doing a lot of off the ball work next week that may be Clark or Martin and Jack may have a day out. When we get our best team on the park the ball movement will become cleaner, we will run the ball more of half back rather than a long bomb and this will bring Jack more into the game. I can't believe after 2 games of the NAB cup one in monsoon rain conditions that people are on Jack's back.

Who cares it is week 2 of the pre-season, if the have the same in week 4 then there is a concern. Who knows some of these players may force there way into our best 22. As long as we can see the structure and effort we should be happy. If we don't have a crack like against Essendon last year then it is not a good look.

Our improvement in 2012 needs to come from the younger players on our list, the potential that we have put together over the past 4 years. As these players get better you will also find the senior players will play better. For us to move up the ladder we need to see Trengove, Watts, Blease, Grimes, Gysberts, Strauss, Morton, Howe, Bail, Jurrah, Mckenzie and Tapscott, playing good consistant footy. This then takes some pressure of Green, Moloney, Davey and Sylvia. We have seen over the past 4 years that the senior players on our list have struggled with the young list around them. The addition of Clark and by the look of things Martin to our forward line it means Green, Sylvia can play as mid sized forwards with midfield runs rather than playing that key forward roll. With the midfielders Jones for some reason was left out on a wing when we needed big bodys in the middle. Moloney was our only regular big bodied player in the middle he attracted a lot of attention. you can see already Jones, Bate, Magner, Couch, Sylvia spending time in the middle so again Moloney isn't the only strong player in there. Rivers had a good year last year, once again we need to put smart decision makers around him. Davey had no idea what position he was playing from game to game for the past 4 years I think you will see a different attitude from our senior players, I don't think they are that bad they have just lack the support.

You need to take this game for what it is a pre season match, Watts, Jones and Frawley played both games last week and Jamar 3 qtrs, give them a half this week and then 2 full games leading into the season. The other alternative is play them for full games and rest them next week, I would rather see us at full strength against Hawthorn and in week 4 fine tuning these players for round 1 and I have fixed the game 2 to second half

With the players out I would like us to line up Martin Watts Green Howe McDonald Petterd Blease Sylvia Bate Tynan Sellar Davis Garland Frawley Bennell Jamar Jones Magner Bail Gysberts Sub Fitzpatrick Couch For 2nd half rest Jamar, Watts, Jones, Frawley In Cook, Nicholson, Sheehan, Dunn

I don't mind this, 4 weeks of pre season games is two long. You would want to get 2-3 games into most players and you want to have at least 1 hit out in the last week with your likely best 22.

With that in mind we should see Watts deeper forward with Martin and Tom McDonald. Selection is becoming easy an fit player gets a game.

Good grab by Blease

It will be interesting to see how our midfield plays this year. Our midfield has been poorly coached over the past three years, our structure and set ups have been extremely poor. To me we are 90% there we just need to add some line breakers, we look very one paced, Blease, Sylvia, Bail and Nicholson are players on our list now that can run with the footy, I would like to see the first two Blease and Sylvia with it more especially Sylvia as they have the footskills to kick the ball to our forwards advantage. It's funny how Trengove is hardly mentioned as becoming elite, to me he reminds me of Dane Swan, he is starting to get the same shoulders and as his body gets stronger he will be break tackles. His pace is the only concern but he is one player that will have a high cruising speed. Outside quality is what we need.

I would have thought this week would have been ideal timing. We are playing Collingwood on Saturday night with TV coverage only 4 or 5 games are covered this week, followed by Hawthorn. If a sponser wanted to get exposure this would be the week to kick it off.

On the week end we had three blokes up forward 196cm+ and all three for their size are agile, quick and different type of players. If we have Martin, Clark and Watts up forward playing well there wouldn't be to many teams that could cover them. Saturday didn't suit them both the weather and our delivery but the three give us tall options. Add in Jurrah, Howe and Davey or Green, Sylvia and Blease or a mix of these and we have a very good forward structure that Martin we a key part off, he has a huge upside and potential

On another note good to see our jumper is the desired colour this year and it looked good.

Green 331 Sylvia 105 Davey 152 Jurrah 81 Howe 18(from 11 games) Our Small/mid size forwards are as good as any club in the AFL, the problem we had is David Neitz retired and we haven't had a good tall forward since.

It is a hard balancing act to get the players right for round one. I've heard the coaches speak about having each available player on the board with the ideal number of minutes each are to play in the pre season. You then need to balance that with getting the players that are more like playing in your best 25 playing together. Each player will be different, some players will need more game time to find form so who will play this week is anyones guess.

I don't think that will be the case, you will see us attack through the corridor like we did last year when this is the best option but also have the ability to go around the boundary, slow the play down be defensive when we need to be.

Had a chance to sit down and watch both games again yesterday we did Ok, our ball handling was bad, we didn't have to many clean pick ups. If you have been to training there has been a big focus on contested handballing to create space, we shelved this on Saturday and revert to what is the bail out option long done the line, our ability to handle the ball in the conditions dictated this. We dominated the Gold Coast should have put them away in the first 15min and again in the last 10min we just rushed and it seemed pre planned to kick long at all cost. Brisbane should have smashed us in the first 10min, it was like we went into defend mode take the sting out of them, wear them down. We have to remember our players have been coached over the last 10 years to take risks and hit the corridor, it is not about taking this out of our game but teaching our players another option and for them to pick the right one, rather then one option you use all the time. To teach this the coach may have said to the boys this week stick to the boundary.

What we lack in a small forward we make up with mid size forwards Howe, Jurrah, Sylvia, Green, Petterd, Dunn are very good at ground level and in the air. The problem in the past is we needed these players to play tall and key forwards, from the training I have seen an dthe set up from Saturday night we will have three talls up forward in Clark, Watts and Martin/Jamar. Davey, Blease will play the quick small forward roll this year. Our trading/drafting focus needs to be on midfielders and small/mid defenders these are the biggest holes in our list at the moment.

Thomo, you are a great fisherman, every comment you throw out lands a number of bites. A new sponser will be announce soon, who it will be only a few know but it will be the best deal the club can get. It may be another great result or in some peoples opinion it may not be enough, just relax it will happen. As a supporter I'm more eager to see how our team performs tomorrow night, the off field stuff will take care of itself, I want to see onfield improvement, I'm sick of going to the footy and not knowing what we will deliver and being out of the game at quarter/half time. You can point the finger at Schwab and the off the field all you like, in 2011 we were the most underperforming team in the AFL and no matter what spin you try to put on it this severely effects the off field team ability to acheive their targets.

Wait until we attack Pendelbury in October.

Brent is a good player and has been good for the club, but if the right deal is offered you would look at it. The problem is Brent is more valuable to the MFC then what I would think most clubs would put up for trade. I would want a top 10 pick to consider a trade but I can't see any club offering that.

With Free Agency, is it a free trade or are clubs compensated in some way?

You might find we don't have 34 ready to play. When the coach stated this he had a fit Trengove, Morton and Sam Blease ready. After the first hit out a few other like Cook and Davis may pull up a bit sore and the other players missing are coming off rehab programs.

With all respect there is a big difference in the education and understanding of the Asda drug policy between a semi-professional VFL player compare to an Australian Cricketer. Poor bloke fancy getting this story all over the Herald Sun, he wouldn't know this was banned and I dare to say of all the chemicals in the drug it would have contained 1 that was banned. Also this isn't something you just buy off the internet this is something that someone would have recommended. We have AFL players on 1-2 strikes that do know better that we can't release there names and this bloke trys to get a fat burner and he is all over the papers. Bring on the season so the Journos can actually report on what they should.