drdrake

By best side would line up Bennell Frawley Rivers Grimes Martin Garland Gysberts Sylvia Trengove Howe Watts Petterd Green Jurrah Clark Jamar Moloney Jones Blease McKenzie Tapscott Davey

With the draft and trading over and only the rookie draft remaining we will always take an optimistic view to what we have added to our list. What I see our our biggest positive is we are starting to have options for a number of roles. This has been a result over the past 4 drafts and with to Scumdog picks we have it should see us top our list up nicely next year with three first round picks(Viney is one) Our forward line has been a major concern over the past few years but with a couple of years we now have Watts, Clark, Howe, Jurrah, McDonald, Sellar, Cook, Fitzpatrick add to this Sylvia, Petterd, Green, Dunn plus the resting ruckman in Jamar, Gawn or Martin you start to see a very good forward set up with a nuber of players that can kick goals. We are a little light on the small forwards this time last year we all wondered how we will fit them all in, none of the stepped up with 2 being delisted, we are left with Bennell, Davey and Lawrence Our Rucks this time last year we had Jamar then a huge cap now we have Jamar, Martin, Clark, Gawn and Spencer In defense we have a number of tall options Frawley, Garland, Rivers, Martin, Davis, McDonald We added a midsize defender Tynan to hopefully fill this role with Strauss, Bartram, Bennell, Grimes, Blease, Bail, Nicholson Then we get to the most important area, I'm confident we can kick enough goals to win matches if we can get the ball inside 50m and our back 6 are good enough to stop goals being kicked against us as long as the midfield can start to perform, these group of players are the options Moloney, Sylvia, Jones, Trengove, Grimes, Evans, Morton, Blease, Bail, Nicholson, Gysberts, Tapscott, McKenzie, Taggert, Bate, Jetta add in Viney next year, we are missing a star midfielder but we have enough there to compete and hopefully soem can turn into stars or we unearth one with the compenation picks we have in the bank. Well done to our recruiting team we are starting to see the a list with that looks balanced, that will create competition for spots and depth.

I have a t-box and I found last night you can go into big pond movies and get all the clubs TV sites. It's great all the games from last year, all the interviews and this morning I woke up to watch the interviews from last night and player highlights. On the players we drafted, another tall was a supprise but understad the reasoning, we add another midfielder and a mid size defender. Our list is really starting to get a very good balance and with one eye on next years draft we get another midfielder in Viney and the possibility of having 2 first round picks could be 3 if no club below us bids for Viney.

Love to say he did but the he didn't poll 1 vote in any games we lost, but we lost so badly not many players did. 16 of his votes came from games against Brisbane, Gold Coast, Richmond, Adelaide and Port, with the other 2 against Sydney. As i've mentioned he plaed well when the side played well.

How many of these 15 were from games against Adelaide, Fremantle, Gold Coast and Port. How many votes did he get when the team needed him to step up and lead our young midfield against the mature midfields of the competition. He played great against the weaker clubs but as mentioned like most of our team went missing when the pressure was on.

Wouldn't it be great one day to have our premium members fill level 2 from the MCC to the AFL members and our general reserve seats fill the same on level one.

No not at all Moloney is a good footballer, but like the other members of the leadership group in 2011 went missing when when needed someone to stand up, in the games we lost. Our leadership group last year set the tone for the year, when we played well they usually played well, when we didn't no one put their hand up to and showed they wanted to lead.

I think the team was that bad that you almost give Green another year as captian and hopefully someone really puts their hand up in 2012. None of our leadership group stood up when it mattered in 2011 as soon as the preesure was on the all went missing, Grimes has an excuse but he needs to get his body right. Our leaders were flat track bullies in 2011, I want to see someone stand up when things aren't going our way and say follow me boys I will get us out of this. No point making a change unless we are sure the person we will change to is up for the job.

It is all a guess but to me the players they have for the MFC are the type of players we will be drafting whether it is them or someone else we will me looking for smalls be it midfielders, HB Flankers or a small forward. I would be very supprised if we drafted a player over 192cms. My preference is outside speed and a solid mid sized defender.

If they live in Victoria they will be there Friday and if you are any chance of getting drafted the last place you would be is at schoolies and the first place you want to be after you are drafted is at training the next day.

Drop past today for a little while, I'm not a big training watcher but I was driving past and had some spare time. The big thing that stood out to me was how small the main group was, there would have been 20 players tops in the main group. I missed the running and got there just as the balls came out. Not much to report except how impressive the coaching staff are. The teaching going on was great and the coaches just what to be involved. The other thing is the players are always on the move not much standing around. The last 10-15 minutes was good in that they split into group to what I think to work on player weakness. A group working on kicking(had the most) Fitzpatick and Gawn working on ruck work and tapping to a spot with Jones and Couch running to that spot. Then Watts and Howe working on body work and postioning with Rawlings. And a tackling group Bate, Dunn, Bennell, Green and a couple of others. It would be nice to see more players on the track and hopefully that will come over the next few weeks

You don't need to be the coach to know what our team needed to improve on just read the game day posts for the past season. Every game we lost we talked about structure and fitness. I have post this before funnyhow James Hird and Bomber Thompson made the same statements about Essendon last year, most of our conditioning staff over the past 2 seasons were ex Essendon.

Heard a rumour that the club gave him 17 because that is how many times he spewed up at training last week

This is a key for most of our list, our players have to learn to work both ways. Sam included we have a great attacking team on our terms, but when it is not going our way we don't work hard enough. Sam can be a regular starting 18 player in 2012 but he needs to get a bigger tank and continue to learn to work hard. I always laugh at players that have the ability to run away from players when they have the footy but can't run players down when the don't. It doesn't make sense, I hope Sam doesn't become one of these players.

We have a draw that if we are good enough we can win enough games to play finals. I think we are good enough it is up to the new coaching coaching staff to turn potential into actual.

Footynut, what is the link with Subaru? Is this a possible new sponser? Just find it interesting the coach thanks Subaru for a great dinner, why would he be having dinner with Subaru?

Message to Hawthorn soon to be ex President, stop complaining, we also play 5 intersate teams in Melbourne, if you choose to sell 4 home games in Tasmania you get what you are given. If you played 11 home games at the MCG you would have 5-6 home games against Victorian clubs.

Interesting topic and timing considering Mark Neeld's tweet thanking Subaru for dinner last night.

Live footy, Seven wants 3.15 starts to lead into their news

It is a similar draw to last year, we need to improve beat the sides around or below us, that include Essendon and St Klida and the crowds will come. Like last year we have every chance to play finals if we improve and start winning games that we should and start winning the 50/50 matches.

The fixutre comes out in under two hours, we already know we have home games against Brisbane, Port and GWS, I hope for the clubs sake we don't end up like last year with 7 home games against interstate clubs. Lets hope we can get home games against Collingwood, Essendon, Geelong, Hawthorn, Carlton, Richmond then add in 4 interstate clubs and either Bulldogs or North to finish of our 11 games. This is a dream more likely we will get Collingwood, Saints, Bulldogs, North plus one other from the big clubs and 6 matches against interstate clubs.

The big issue with Nev is his endurance, he is not a small forward he is a midfielder, the better games we have seen him play he has spent most of his time through the middle. Not to pin to much hope on a pre-season game but Nev's clearance work against Brisbane was outstanding but we never got to see him spend much time in the middle through the regular season. Like most of our young players he needs to get fit and stay fit.

I like how the club in their small release has put a full stop, stating "the club will not be making any further comment." This says, we will deal with this in house and it is no ones business how we deal with this.

Has anyone thought Col did the right thing and not drive under the influence. No one will know how much Colin had to drink, maybe he had his last beer at 1 or 2 am, had a bit of a sleep and to be safe he got a mate to drive home who unfortunately had an accident. OK he should of hung around but no one was hurt, he wasn't driving and like what most people do is pannick, he wouldn't of thought he just wanted to hide and hopefully no one finds out. That was stupid but as mentioned it would have been a lot worse if he was driving and blew over 0.05 or worse still someone got hurt. It is the last weekend before Pre-season starts I'm sure most of his team mates had a big night. IR who cares I would rather Col be ready to start Pre-season with us next Monday.

We talk about this every year but our pre-season form will determain if we hit 40,000 members. If we can get into the semi finals of pre-season comp we will hit 40,000 members, if we perform like 2011 we will need a strong start to the seson to push above 40,000. If neither of these happen our membership will drop. Our Off field team has pushed the membership to as high as they can, we start to deliver on field there is no reason why 45-50K can't be achieved is 2-3 seasons.