drdrake

What are we trading for? Draft picks, if your trading from draft picks you want first and second round picks, do we have any players on our list that we are wiling to give up for those picks. I think a club might give up a second round pick for Jamar, Richmond/Carlton and a few others need a ruck we might get lucky. Players on our list that might get you a top 10 pick- Mclean, Sylvia, Johnstone, Bate, Bruce, Rivers Davey Robbo. Of them are we wiling to give any up? Next 10-30 range players like Green, Bell, Jamar, Dunn, PJ, Jones and from there on I don't think we have much else to offer maybe Miller if we can get lucky. For a play depends on the player, Judd I'd give up TJ and second round pick, I would go after Warnock at the Dockers or Murphy that will cost a player like CJ Wheatley, Jamar and mabe a 2nd or third pick. One thing is for sure we will not win a flag with Holland, Ward, Brown, Ferguson, Biz and Godfrey(he has been great this year but his skills are not AFL standard) on our list.

Newton would have caught a cold out there tonight, the ball never went forward in the first half. We got smashed in the middle and down back.

You know what we are a financially poor club, the coach won't be sacked,the board don't want to pay him out. Also none of our assist coaches are capable of even being care taker coach. We will have ND until the end of 2007. My biggest problem with ND is in the 10 years as coach at the MFC every season we have looked the goods at some stage, but also every sesaon we have been the worst team in the comp. There is a huge gap from our best to our worst performances and we dont seem to be able to remain good for long enough. This is every season he has coached us, we are either loooking like serious Premiership contenders for a period of time to then quickly change to look like we belong on the bottom. We are unable to play even average it is good or bad. At least with a team like the Kangas or Bulldogs you know they will always try, not the Dees we give up when it is not our day.

Bate has been great at CHF the past 3-4 weeks, he look smore comfortable with the role he is currently playing, as I call it the Ryan O'Keefe CHF type player. WE have 4 tall forwards Dunn, Miller, Garland and Newton on our list, Miller should be pushed back to defense to play the current Dutchy role on the monster tall forwards, that deepends on Frawleys physical development, if he gets like his Uncle Frawley will play this role. Will Whelans body allow him to be playing in 2009, Bartram would be in that back pocket. White will not be first ruck either, hopefully PJ can continue to improve and take this role. With White second ruck or even FP with Robbo at FF

We need to persist with Frawley, his development at AFL should take top priority, we need another good tall defender ready for 2008. We can't keep going to Holland, Biz, Ferguson as stop gap measures in 2008, more than likely 2 of those three will not be on our list at the end of the year. Petterd is another that should not be dropped. You would love to say bring in Buckley for Ward working on the same theory as Frawley, but Ward is doing enough to justify his inclusion.

On Newton we never read that it may have been Nick Smith that kept him out of the team last season, MFC got great value from him what 2 or 3 games over 6 seasons, drop him and play Newton that would make more sense to me last year.

This type of post comes up every couple of weeks, Sandy is a good thing for MFC. If people believe that our young players are being held back in their development by the Sandy arrangement you are kidding yourself. If a young player can't play well enough to get a game at Sandy's first consistantly then how is he going to make it at AFL level. Maybe we should stop looking at the Sandy players but the MFC players that have been playing consistantly for Sandy for the past 4-5 years that have had little or no impact at AFL level. These are the guys holding the development of our younger guys back.

Nathan Carroll would get a game for WA ahead of Luke Macpharlan.

How is Davey's Knee? Buckley will only play if Davey doesn't although I'd like to see him in for Brown. No reason to play Holland, Frawley to Cloke and Carroll to Rocca, Bell get Didak, Petterd to Davies, Biz gets the next tall and Ward goes back. I would like to see our forwad line Yze Neitz Robbo Sylvia Bate Bruce Davey to the wing

The tag shows the level of respect the opposition has for you, it shows that they believe if the can stop that certain player it will best help them to win. Bruce is a hardworker, but lacks the polish of the top midfielders in the comp.

What facts that he has had one good quarter out of 40, jez he must be a superstar then. Taggers are taggers because they have limited skill but high aerobic capacity, look at ours Godfrey, most teams have one and most of the time they go to Trav or Davey. Don't get me wrong as I said Bruce is a good player he just isn't a star or great player.

Tell my the last time the opposition placed a heavy tag on Bruce. Thats one quarter out of 40 this season, he needs to do that every week or at least every couple.

Went and watched Collingwood and the Dockers last week, the Pies work hard no superstars in the team but they play well as a team and work hard for each other and have good skills. We need to play better than we did against Adelaide to beat these guys but I think we are getting better each week. I'd like tosee another tall forward come into the team to test their defense out and if Clement plays we need to push Robbo up the ground because Clement has a very good record against him, let Robbo run him around a bit. I'd line up as below Bell Carroll Bizzell Petterd Frawley Wheatley Green Mclean Johnstone Bruce Bate Robbo Sylvia Neitz Davey White McDonald Jones Johnson Newton Godfrey Ward Out Brown In Newton

Bruce is just a good honest player nothing more. Trav gets the heavy tag each week because when Trav gets the ball he hurts the oppostion, Bruce's disposal is poor and IMO other teams let him run free because with most of his possesions he doesn't hurt you and will turn the ball over regularly. Bruce runs hard and reads the footy well, just wish he had relaible disposal and he would jump into the level above just being a good player.

I would rather have Wheatley to Ward and Brown, hopefully in the near future these two wil be dropped.

Trade those players and what replace them with draft picks for kids that we have no idea if they can play at AFL level. Its good for Walls to right articles that are opininionated, but he needs too paint the complete picture, it is no point trading players if their is no benefit to the club. If a trade can be done that wil make us a better team, then yes lets look at what we can trade, but IMO the only way any of those players are being traded is to broker a deal for Judd, and that is highly unlikely.

We have 2 players that should retire at the end of 2007, Brown and Bizz and then I think we need to delist or trade another 3, I would offer Jamar to the meat market, some team like Richmond or Carlton will pick with up, hopefully for a second round pick and then we have a lot of players on our list that are good VFL players but not AFL, Ward, Wheatley, CJ(he needs more opportunities)Holland, Ferguson. One of Ferguson, Holland or Warnock will go, I think it will be Ferguson and it depends on how Frawley goes over the next few months will determine if Holland stays or goes. If it was my call Brown, Bizz retire, delist Ferguson and Ward, trade Jamar, promote Neaves gives us 4 picks. Hopefully pick 2, 18, 19,20 which is our first pick, priority pick after round one Richmonds second round pick for Jamar and our second round pick

PJ looks like he wants to play and I think once he gets more ground time and confidence he will be good for us. PJ has a disire for the contest, that was evedent when he did his shoulder last year, he wants to be in the play. Jamar just runs to positions and usually away from the contest unless it is deep in defense. Whether he has been instructed to play that way I don't know but he never seems to be where the ball is, expect at ruck contests.

Most people mention Money doesn't equal success by bringing up Collingwood, we forget that they are the last Vic club to play in a grand final two in a row and almost won 2002.

Backline looks OK, I hope Frawley goes to Perrie, Bell to Welsh though. Is this Pickett's fourth week of the club ban?

Thats because the game has been over by half time for 50% of our games and the others we stopped running for a quarter or two, the other teams go into shut down mode. Every AFL is fit and unless you are the Kangaroos last year there is not much difference between the fitness levels of clubs. It gets down to having your best players avaliable and the management of players through four quarters by the coaching staff.

Lets start to build a strong back 6 develop them together so they can learn to work for each other. Injuries permitting I would like to see our back 6 for the rest of the year as follows Whelan Carroll Frawley Bell Rivers Petterd This should be our best defense for the next 3-4 years. No Holland, Biz, Ward, Brown, Green, Bruce, Ferguson these six are the ones weneed to learn to play down back together for the rest of this year and for the next few years. Hopefully all are over their injuries and don't get injured again this season. In modern day Football I don't see the need to have two or more tall strong forwards, we have key forwards in Neitz and Robbo who can kick goals, Neitz is getting older but he still has next year and hopefully the one after so we need to focus on our Half forward line. Lets go for a more mobile line Bate, Sylvia, Pickett or change that around to include any of the following Yze, Bruce, Green, Newton, Davey, push Robbo back out htere for short spurts and even Dunn have a hard running Half forward line that can go into the midfield and also push forward to kick goals. Contested marks don't happy accross half forward every team wants to hit a player free or on a strong lead. It will also inject some stronger defensive pressure. The midfield, wouldn't we love to see Jones, Mclean and Mcdonald in the centre bounce with TJ and Davey of the wings. Thats a pretty good and balanced starting midfield.

If injuries are bad luck it must follow this guy around, Hawthorne also had a lot of bad luck injuries whilst he was in charge of there fitness. However, when you change your fitness training as extremely as we have it will take a year to adjust.

You need to look at where we look our weak areas to see what type of players we need to keep. We have to many slow tall players, two out of Bizz, Ferguson, Holland and Warnock will go I'd say the first two. Two maybe three of the following running players Ward, Brown, Wheatley, CJ, Neville, Yze and we should trade Jamar and promote Neaves. I can't see us delisting any more than 4-5 players.

With Neitz and Robbo back, Miller should never be allowed to enter the forward 50 again. I don't know we ND kept pushing him deep into the forward line when we needed a target leading up the ground. He made to forward 50 congested and got in the way of our best two forwards. Godfrey has grat running capacity but is one paced, he should never be used on explosive footballers like Harvey, Judd and Kerr. His best match ups are hard running midfielders one paced like West, Goodes, Crawford and next week Goodwin. ND get your match up right Bell should of played on Grant, I would of given Frawley first crack at Jones and Petterd would of matched up well on Harvey