Melbournepotter

Oh..and it was good to see a few of the younger melbourne players watching as well...Hogan, Harmes, Kennedy-Harris and Petracca (I think) were all there...

Ok. I went down to the ground today with two young sons in tow so couldn't be totally focused on the footy unfortunately. We got there after quarter time and Casey already had a handy lead. . I was most interested in King and Hunt, as most of the others on show I had seen previously. I was generally impressed with their endeavour mostly. Hunt still appears slight but was very mobile when in the play. There was one occasion when he was confronted by two defenders, he wrong footed one and then just sped away from the other. He worked very hard from what I saw. Possibly still a bit too light to play In the seniors yet...but later in the season who knows. King competed all day for mine. He appears heavier than earlier in the season and really put himself about. Both of these players look like they deserve more time on the list. King looks like he could be very valuable as a tall forward in the future. He moves well and is quite athletic for his size imho. I was a little disappointed in Toumpas. I can't fault his effort but he was still doing those dinky little kicks to teammates which put them under pressure. He was running very sorely in the third...he has an unusual looking run at times and without knowing the real cause etc his hips still seem to affect his movement. Most of the other senior players did the usual. Jamar played well and the others flashed in and out of play. It was good team effort overall.

Garland had just gifted the Hawks a goal and slumped over. Lumumba came over and tried to lift him up. We need to just keep trying to do the right thing and I think lamumba was trying to get that across. Definitely a positive.

We have problems with just kicking the ball...

Did you go to the game or watch it on TV ? (I'm not having a go at you either way). I know some people saw it on TV that thought we competed ok, but I was at the game and watched numerous times where multiple Swans streamed downfield with no Demon near them. Interesting how different people watch the same game and have totally different opinions on the match. I thought the game was disappointing from a Melbourne point of view, but that's just the way I saw it.

Well....watching wins sure beats the hell out of watching losses.

I think we have improved, however, there were times on the weekend that players had the ball on the half back flank and looked up for a lead and no one was making a move. We had players in the vicinity, but none were willing to make a lead. Whether this was self-preservation or whatever, we need to be mentally stronger as you say, to compete all day as hard as possible. It may not be defeatist but it didn't seem we were willing to fight until the end. There were a lot of people leaving early (third quarter) around me...they had seen enough of an apparent acceptance of defeat.

I noticed that against Freo as well. Freo got many handpasses away while being tackled, to supporting players who regularly gave away another quick handpass to a player in the clear and away they went. We seem to just get buried under bodies and any movement stifled. I also thought most of the first half was a throwback to the efforts of the Neeld years....I didn't think we were competing at all, not effectively anyway. The personnel changes, the coaches change, the board changes and we still seem to get the same gameday attitude on the field which is almost defeatist.

I just don't understand the umpiring at times....at one end we get Hogan having arms wrapped around him and no free in a marking contest....while down the other end Sandilands (or one of their other talls) gets touched in a one on one marking contest and gets a free kick ?

Dom had trouble moving at the end of Friday's game. He had one leg strapped and was unable to chase effectively. This was late in the game. Hopefully it wasn't anything too serious. We are starting to eat into our depth.

The media is saturated with Footy shows. The personalities continue to pump themselves up at the expense of footy time. You just have to listen to some of the introductions and how long they go on. I switched off 3AW on the weekend because it was taking too long to go through all the awards etc that Caro has or how many GFs Dermie has played in etc. Then on SEN last week, it was all about how drunk some of the commentators had been on a recent trip to the U.S and what a great time they had then what they got up to.... I couldn't care less about what they get up to in their private lives, how about some sports comments ? I don't think there is enough news to go round all the media shows so any little thing is now blown out of proportion.

I was only there for the second half and sat on the main stand side which was a fair way others wereaway from a lot of the action. I didn't see much of a standout performance from anyone, however I could have missed some earlier great play. I thought Grimes did some good things so wouldn't be surprised if he came in. Fitzy did well down back. Took some good marks (outmanoeuvred minson in one contest) and would have won every one on one I saw except for one fickle bounce. Toumpas isn't quite there yet for me. He tries hard, gets the ball, had his head over it on a number of occasions but then tried to get too cute with his disposal and turned it over. The other melbourne players were fairly typical in their performances.

I assume that if you are not getting an IQ, you would be getting an older form of a Foxtel box that just has has the channels on it. We were able to tune our old recorder to foxtel and tape the shows as long as we had the desired channel selected on the box. We couldn't watch another foxtel channel though, if we were already taping something on Foxtel. We now have IQ and there are very limited connections options at the back of our newer Panasonic recorder and Foxtel box, so much so that we canot record Foxtel on it. I would say you need to check very carefully the 'out' connections of your box once installed and ensure any recording device you may get is compatible with the connection for a start, but unless things have changed since we were recording via external recorder, (couple of years ago) your options are limited.

When the club has been as unsuccessful as Melbourne, the little things become so much more important to maintain some attachment, emotional or otherwise to the club, especially with young supporters. I recently went to a training session with my two boys and after the session we approached some of the players for autographs on their shirts. All the players that were asked, signed the shirts with a smile and really engaged with the boys, asking them what they got for Christmas etc. The boys were a bit overawed but were really thrilled to be able to speak to their heroes. It really strengthened their attachment, hopefully it evolves into lifetime support (for the club anyway...). A lack of success may eventually see them drift, but at least in the meantime, they have engaged in the club. It makes it easier for me to convince them to go to the footy ! As for Forest, hopefully you were old enough to enjoy the European Cup success.....the potter in my name refers to Stoke...you think you had it tough ?

Max King looks fine in the skills area (from my limited views of him at training) but to me, his deficiency is with his tank. He is consistantly at the back of the group in running. I hope he gets there as a player as he seems worth persevering with.

Ventured down today with two boys in tow (got there late, around 10.00 am). From what I could see, the session was quite demanding. Running sprint drills followed by full field running drills incorporating ball movement from one end of the field to the other and back again. Players were rotating around the field as part of the drill, some players providing defensive pressure. This was followed by more running drills (300 metre runs) followed by timed 70 metre run throughs. Some observations (at the risk of duplicating views already logged): * Max Gawn looks great. He moved well although at times slightly favoured his bandaged knee leg. To be expected I guess. I have high hopes for Max, I think he will be very important for us as long as he keeps reasonably free of injury. He appears bigger and more defined around the shoulders. * Newton moved well and seems to do things with a minimum of fuss. * Brayshaw moves very well, at one stage during the game drill he instinctively blocked a defender to allow the attacking player a clear path through. To me, it showed a good awareness of what was around him. He's still a bit slight but moved very well. * Jack Watts ran laps and also looks to have put on a few pounds generally (just looks more solid. * Max King looks ok when he has the ball, but is last in pretty well all the running drills. He puts in but doesn't seem to have the same tank as other players, There were plenty of other players giving him encouragement during the drills. * Generally, the entire group looked fit and moved well (those that were with the main group). A big thanks to the players after training as well. My boys asked a number of them for autographs as they were leaving the area and they all signed happily and engaged the boys in conversation, even after a strong session. It made my boys day and hopefully keeps them engaged until we start winning games on a consistent basis (makes my job of keeping them interested much easier).

....Giving his all ? He might need to revisit the dictionary on that one....

I thought Neitz was still involved at Melbourne in some kind of 'behind the scenes' type roll. Wasn't he involved in Mates of Melbourne or some other Melbourne business coterie ?

Sounds like the Tapscott description re appetite for contest, big bodied.........

This is a bit like the countdown to Y2K...

I was in the Dining Room and didn't see Carl. it was wall-to-wall footballers both past and present. Flash, Greg Wells, Tingay, James McDonald, Sheedy plus a shedload of others....

It's the Bizarro world AFL Trading period.

I agree. I'm not sure Spencer will be the player we would like him to be, Jamar is getting on and Gawn has had some knee issues. Lowden and Grimley could be very useful backup or even move past some of our current ruck stocks.

Maybe we could give pick 3 to Collingwood, beams goes to Brisbane and we get Merrett and a young up and coming midfielder from Brisbane. Not sure who is available there though...perhaps it would be better to get beams to GC..they have more younger talent to send to us..

I originally thought he would be ideal...and he still might be, however after watching him on the recruit (I know it's TV etc etc) I found him to be lacking a certain warmth or empathy towards his players. While you need to be a hard taskmaster at times, I also believe you need to be able to relate to players on a more personal level. This may just be the way the show is edited, it may be the way he has to be for the cameras, I don't know, but based on the show, he comes across as being a little cold. No-one can doubt his knowledge/experience but you also need to be able to relate and communicate with players. His later years at Brisbane seem to indicate that he may have had issues doing that, given the players that left.