JP_

Our record under Dean Bailey: W L % vs Interstate Teams at MCG: 5 1 111.2 vs Every Other Team / Venue: 1 30 59.3

His confidence is destroyed. There's no incentive to play on if you know there isn't likely to be anyone up ahead likely to compete well enough to make it worth your while. And that's the thing about losses like these: screw putting game-time into kids, this kind of [censored] is going to make them worse in the long-run, not better. Morton was drafted as a gun kick, and showed that in his first few games, but he's almost gone backwards since then. Put anyone of these kids into a good team and they would have the ability to become guns overnight, but put them in a team that can hardly be comptitive for a quarter a week and watch them stall on the ball and develop bad habits. All we're doing is destroying their confidence to play at this level. Put Watts back in the 2nds before it gets him too! And that's why all this talk of getting picks one and two bewilders me: what difference is it going to make? No 17 year old can be placed in a culture like this and expect to develop as a player. Selwood and Rich prosper because they have the guys to learn the right habits from: who are Scully and Butcher going to learn from? How are they going to develop in a team that can only kick 2 goals in three quarters? Sod it. I can only summon the emotion to make a post like this because I'm 2.5 sheets into the wind. Hopefully by tomorrow I'll have slumped back into the kind of numb indifference that following a team like this for two decades quickly forces you to master.

As I understand the rule, I think that GC have the right to take any uncontracted player they like from our list without any compensation, but that's contingent on the player agreeing to go there. Hopefully none of our players leave under such circumstances, but if the player and the GC agree on a contract, then we don't have any say in it at all unfortunately.

I think Carlton is a pretty good argument against the Tank -> Draft -> Profit model of list management that many see as the most efficient path to a premiership. Knowing how to win a game is as important a skill as knowing how to kick, and I'm not sure there's any evidence that long-term failure has ever resulted in success in this league. Success isn't something that just "happens", it's something that has to be trained for and I think it's to the benefit of everyone if this training starts to take place as soon as someone sets foot into a football club. Throwing a bunch of kids to the wolves week after week without any concern for the result may have its benefits, but all the talent in the world counts for nought if they don't know what to do with it. The expectation that Murphy / Gibbs et al. would just sort of pick up that match-winning instinct in the absense of any on-field or off-field guidence was always going to be hopelessly optimistic and I think we're seeing that with Carlton now, and with Fremantle, St. Kilda (until this year at least - let's see how long it lasts) and Richmond previously. The most recent premiers (Hawthorn, Geelong, West Coast, Sydney, Brisbane) never spent extended periods in obscurity, at least not to the same degree that St. Kilda, Fremantle, Carlton and Richmond have (could probably include Melbourne in that too, though I think under Bailey there are indications that a losing culture - not even one of "honorable losses" - will be tolerated). High draft-picks for these successful clubs (to the extent they were necessary to begin with) were always put in their proper place as a means to an end rather than an end in itself. To use Geelong as an example, they missed the finals in 2005 and were 2-3 after 5 rounds in 2006. Beyond that point, the playing group were sufficiently disciplined (no accident - such discipline must be drilled into players over a long period and does not just arise from nowhere) to confront players like Johnson and Scarlett of their own volition and demand a universal commitment to the team cause. The rest, as they say, is history. They had some luck with father-son picks along the way, but other than that won a premiership with a team full of mid-range draft picks. It didn't take an influx of high picks or a new coach to turn that team's fortunes around, it took the players themselves to commit to a winning culture. Such commitment, as I have said, doesn't just turn up serendipitously at the doorstep: it has to be trained from the time the players arrive at the club with the expectation that - as with all other skills - it may take some time to learn. That's why I'm concerned that some people see it as being in our best interests to collapse in a screaming heap this season. I'd rather see us win 7 games - with an unmistakable upward trajectory - than to sacrifice competitiveness and team morale for the sake of a priority draft pick. Butcher and Scully won't the difference between winning a premiership and not, the other 20 blokes they'll be taking the field with will be. I'd rather have Butcher or Scully and a team full of players who have been instilled with the desire and knowledge of how to win than both of them in a team full of players that have been taught that losing is the quickest way to success. I know it sounds easy enough in the abstract, but I think that the continuing uselessness of Carlton (and other teams that have found themselves in similar positions) would tend to bear me out: even in the long term, there is little benefit to losing. For that reason, I'll be hoping that we win 5+ games this year, and I hope the rest of you will too.

For god's sake it sounds like we're doing everything we can to lose this game, I can hardly bear to listen. Good thing Richo can't kick.

Why hasn't he been tried in defence more? Surely he has the strength / athleticism to play there? If he doesn't have the smarts or commitment to find the ball in the midfield or up forward, why not put him where the ball will find him?

"John Meesen's last couple of weeks haven't been too bad..." "He's been competitive in the ruck..." "John had an average up to Christmas [pre-season]..." "His last two weeks have been okay..." "His ruckwork was adequate..." I don't think I've ever seen Meesen play, but based on Dean's effusive praise, you can colour me excited for rnd 1!

On demonology they're saying he's gonna sign for sandy as a player-coach. From the sounds of it, he's got more suitors than Judd did...

My favourite moment? Probably the first game I ever went to, Melbourne vs Carlton in what wikipedia assures me was round 7 1989. First a bit of background: My parents are English (moved out here in 1981) and never really got into VFL, so I was essentially born into a blank-slate with regards to supporting a team. When I first went to school in Australia (I was born here, but first went to school in England - long story) I quickly learned that following a VFL team was basically mandatory if you wanted to socialise with any of the other kids. For reasons that remain obscure to me even to this day, I picked Carlton. Like I said, my parents didn't follow the VFL at all, so I'd have to turn up to school on Monday to find out the weekend's results, which my friend Alex was only too keen to share with me. In 1989 Carlton were pretty hopeless (losing their first 5 games) and I soon grew tired of having the [censored] taken out of me for supporting the worst team in the league, so I decided to switch allegiance to a more successful club. Hawthorn were at the top of the ladder at that time, but I couldn't choose them because that was the team that Alex supported. Instead I went for the second team on the ladder, which just happened to be Melbourne. So the first game that I ever went to was Melbourne vs Carlton in 1989. My dad - who took me - had ever only been to one game before (Footscray vs someone at the Western Oval) and he absolutely hated it. Why he opted to take me on this occasion, I'm not really sure. But anyway - and this will probably stay with me for as long as I live - I can remember walking into the MCG telling him that Carlton and Melbourne were the two teams that I supported, so whichever team won didn't really matter to me. Neither of us had any idea how the the game worked. My dad soon figured that a kick through the big posts was worth six points and that a kick through the little ones was worth one, but beyond that the rules of the game were a mystery to us (I still feel that way sometimes, actually). All I know is that Melbourne were winning for most of the game and that Carlton came back hard in the last quarter. I still have visions of Tommy Alvin (more to the point, that pony-tail of his) running the ball down the wing in surge after surge towards the northern-end goals. The margin went from 25 points at three-quarter time (again, I'm relying on wikipedia here) to level with not very long to go. I complained to my dad that Carlton had more players on the field than Melbourne did, with my dad reassuring me that it just seemed that way. I wasn't convinced, though, and can remember feeling quite panicked at how the game was panning out. I can't remember exactly what happened next, but rest assured that it was all for the best. Darren Bennett took a mark (at what would now be the southern stand end), went back, converted truly and Melbourne won by a goal. Everything else surrounding that moment is a blur, but all I know is that any ambiguity about my footballing allegience was put well and truly to death right then. Since then, the rest of my family has become members of the club (if you ever see any crazy old English people in Melbourne scarves, there's a pretty good chance they're my parents) and I've never looked back. So while that game probably isn't particularly memorable in itself, it's probably the sole reason I became a Melbourne supporter (I'm not sure how it would have turned out if we'd lost) and it's definitely one I'll never forget. Down by 34 points 15 minutes into the last quarter, ended up winning by 8 if it's the game I'm thinking of. Bennett and Jackson were in everything. If you've still got that tape and have the means of recording it and putting it on youtube, please do.

If he isn't picked up in the ND or the PSD and he wants to be on an AFL list next season then he probably won't have much of a choice. If he's still available late in the ND / at all in the PSD (presuming no other viable options come up) then I'm struggling to think of any convincing reasons why Hislop shouldn't be seriously looked at. Admittedly I don't know too much about the kid, but based on the above write-ups, the fact that he was taken at #20 in the draft two years ago and the amount of consternation on the Essendon boards about his delisting, I'm going to presume that he must have some identifiable ability. Of course the (rumoured) off-field concerns should be taken into consideration, but - ultimately - off-field issues can be fixed, an absense of on-field talent cannot. So if it comes down to it, I'd probably prefer to see us take Hislop over any of the other speculative options that are likely to be available at that end of the draft. If it doesn't come off, then it doesn't come off, but then the odds would suggest that the next best option (a 5th round smokey) probably won't come off either.

Looks to me like the bulldogs messed up worse than we did.

I know that I certainly haven't. Even Carlton at their worst over the past few years looked capable of kicking a score, even when they were leaking goals at the other end. I can't even remember one competent passage of play from this game so far. I'm just glad Brisbane aren't playing at their best either, otherwise we'd be about 15 goals down by now.

He's injured isn't he? Don't think he's played the last couple of weeks at Sandy either (Martin and Newton were rucking for them last week!).

Looking at the Docker's forum, it seems like Rob Haddrill's the only one they're disappointed about losing: http://www.dockerland.com/cgi-bin/teemz/te...ker_Discussions 26 year old fullback coming off two knee reconstructions. Risky, but probably worth more of a look than the other dregs we've talked about for the PSD on this site.

Apparently we are sniffing around Bolton: http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/com...5E19742,00.html

http://realfooty.com.au/news/news/dee-back...1695909397.html

And Jamar's from SA isn't he? Might be able to wrangle a second round pick out of that....

Just posted the final stats for the year up on bigfooty:

Just browsing through the player stats for this year and it's hard not to notice just how many games so many of our players have missed this year through injury. I know it shouldn't be used as an excuse, but it should at least put things in perspective. We have played 18 games this year, of which (in guernsey order): McLean has missed 7. Neitz has missed 6. Sylvia has missed 5. Yze has missed 10.* Johnstone has missed 7. Green has missed 4. Bartram has missed 17. Bell has missed 3. Moloney has missed 9. Robertson has missed 7. Rivers has missed 15. Wheatley has missed 6. Bruce has missed 4. Picket has missed 13.* Whelan has missed 13. (*Denotes games missed not solely due to injury.) All of these players I would consider walk-up starters when fit. This doesn't include young or fringe players (like Frawley, P.Johnson, Dunn, Petterd, Weetra) that have also missed several weeks with injury as well (I'm not sure how many they've missed through injury and how many they've missed through omission, so I haven't included them on that list). But wait, it gets better. We have had only 2 players to have played all 18 games (White and McDonald) and only six more players that have played more than 15 out of the 18 games. Of these 6 players, two are younger than 20 (Jones and Bate), two are fringe players (Ward and Godfrey) and it is only the other two (Carroll and Davey) that I would consider part of the experienced core. Given all this, is it any wonder that we are where we are now?

Better version of it here:

25,000 then - cos I'll be working. :angry: Seriously, if we nudge 20,000 it'll be a good crowd under the circumstances.

Some thoughts. We were bad for most of the game, no excuses. There is no single reason why we lost today: it was a cumulation of many smaller reasons. We missed Neitz for most of the game - as well as the other guys who were missing from before the bounce - but again that doesn't excuse the ordinary performance of the guys who bore the privilege of wearing the jumper today. I can just about stand losing when I feel that we were beaten by a club that fielded a better team than us (as has so often been the case when watching Melbourne over the past 20 odd years) but not when we get rolled by a team barely competant enough to string two quarters of decent footy together and unlikely to make the top 8 (see last week's game as well). We were quite bad for the most part and the team cannot collectively absolve itself of responsibility for that. I hope the "on paper" competition for spots we saw at the beginning of the season comes to fruition after this: if Holland, Bizzell and Yze aren't back next week, I would love to know has earned a spot in front of them. Still, some of the nonesense on here goes a bit too far. Anyone who would name Bruce or Miller outside of our top half-dozen best today needs their heads checked. I shudder to think how much we would have lost by without these two on the ground. A lot of things didn't go out way today (Williams got at least 3 goals from dogdy frees for starters) and so while the team can't really excuse what they produced today, I think some of the wrist-slashing here has been a bit unnecessary. If the team can produce the sort of football they have for four of the eight quarters we've seen so far this season then we still have the chance to acheive something meaningful this season. If we produce the sort of football we've seen for the other 4 quarters this season then we might as well start praying for a low finish, some high draft-picks and Chris Judd in the pre-season if we want to see some meaningful late-season action iover the next few seasons.

Sometimes players have to grow into the role of captain - the exact same thing happened with Neitz when he was appointed captain. Many questioned his appointment after we had two terrific captains in Lyon and Viney, but few would question his appointment now. Personally, I don't think Bruce is exactly ready to be captain right now but that shouldn't necessarily count against him. Most of the (valid) criticisms levelled against him here - his lack of presense on the football field, his silent demeanor, his questionable team ethic - are all things that he can be forced into correcting once he assumes the captaincy: Neitz had to go through a similar process. Bruce may not be an "ideal" or "complete" captaincy candidate, but that's not to say he never will be. Besides, in my opinion, at the moment he's clearly the best option we have.