Dappa Dan

I hate undue sugar-coating... as much as undue criticism... But this is fair. Wheatley has been playing like a mature player. Leading. I always saw he and Ward as having similar effects on our games, being a bit invisible. But Wheatley has been very solid, and has been doing it week-in-week-out.

Week off came at a good time... If he's right. Should come straight in. Might be hard to find a hole though. Not to many players deserve to be dropped. Garland and Warnock earned their spots.

So this coming weekend where are they playing and what day? I'm going to the All-Star game, but hoping to make it to see Juice and co play for Sandy. SHOULD be a huge crowd.

Congratulations KJ... If it's a boy.... the name will be Aussie. If it's a girl... ... ... Oh stuff it. Call her Aussie as well.

Boom boom. Yeah, look. That's my point. Trav is, on the surface, a happier man now that he's served his dues with MFC and is in with a chance of winning a flag. Green has been a wonderful servant of the club, and deserves to be consulted about his future. The greatest ever demon said something that has stayed with me... "Loyalty is portable." In this case it could be worthwhile for Green to play with, say, the Dogs as a forward, the Toigs as a wing or flanker, or the Blues as... well... anything. Those teams are looking at making a tilt within the next 3-5 years when Brad will play his best footy. Like I said, he should be consulted. If he feels that he wants to be a one-club player then that has to come into consideration. He's always struck me as, first and foremost, a PROFESSIONAL player. In the mould of White... or perhaps Caracella is a better example. If he went to another club he wouldn't rely on team-mates or coaches to keep him in line a la Fevola/Hall... Surely he must be attractive to established teams, with suitable game-plans that call for a player with his skill set... And with a kick like that, what team WOULDN'T want him? (other than us, obviously) In the end, if the best thing for MFC is that we get a draft pick in the first round, then that's what should be done. If the best thing is keeping him there to educate the younger guys and lead on the field, then we should keep him.

No.... no blast. You'll just not be take seriously. Lack of pace? Are you serious? He's perhaps a bit one-paced at times, but he's quick mate. He's very quick actually. Awareness? Maybe he doesn't have the awareness of an Aaron Davey (but then who does?)... but he's a long LONG way from being Daniel Bell. Aggression? What does that mean exactly? Brad Miller style aggression? That's fair enough. He's not the bustling type. But as long as his aggression is turned towards his hard-work and engine then who cares? Not all players have to put a hit on the opposition to make their physical presence felt. Bate came alive when Melbourne came alive?... No. Melbourne came alive partly BECAUSE Bate came alive. His first real footy this year, and he needed a half to get some touch. I do agree that he's not a superstar. But no-one's used that word in this thread. He deserves more credit though. He's a very, very good player.

30 point loss and 60 point loss... but improvements everywhere. Bate and Miller to start owning the forward line... midfield still having problems but improving. Gameplan starting to get stuck in their minds... Start of the year we would have 5 or so good passages of play... Rounds 3-5 we would play at least 1 good quarter. Against Geelong we played 2 good quarters... And yesterday we out-played the dockers in 2 whole quarters. Our two were just better than their two... We are improving. But the crows and Hawks are VERY VERY good... One thing's for sure. We will win more games this year.

Could be a real positive for all involved... We're simply not in the right place for the Greens and Bruces to be attractive players for us. It's nothing personal. I like him, and honestly am all for him staying as you can't go into a season with EVERYONE on your list under the age of 25... But just as a hypothetical... Let's say Bruce and Green were up for being traded, and a club or clubs like Freo/WC/Carltank were up for it? They have picks between 2-10. They won't trade them of course, but could be persuaded if we were to do something sneaky like... Green and 17 for pick 4... or something like that. Let's say we get pick two because Carltank don't win 5 games... Pick 2 and Bruce for picks 1 and 18... The idea being that we end up with these picks: #1 at best (Naitanui) #3 at worst (Rich or Hurley). Then we could, with a clever bit of dealing get our priority, #17-19 AND our first rounder #18-#22... PLUS a sneaky one from one of the other teams for a good player like Green or Bruce... Hawthorn dealt away Rawlings and Hay... a couple of the most one-sided trades in the history of the AFL, and look where it gets them? Them may not keep up their form, but they are now a finals-bound side... probably for a number of years too... How did they do it? By getting 5 picks within the first 21 ALL IN ONE YEAR. We may not be able to do that, especially in a strong draft year, but if we end up last with a PP, we will get 3 before we even sit down at the table... We should push for two more, looking to trade players who won't be around to hurt us in 3-4 years when the youth of the 2008 draft come through... All this has to happen before the draft restrictions come into place for the years 2009-2012... If we stock up, we'll be coming into our prime JUST as the Gold Coast and West Sydney players are having their first shave... and even more importantly sides that are strong now will be in a heavy decline that will be nearly impossible to arrest as the draft will no longer be the spring from which their success flows... Clear as mud? Anyway. No disrespect to Brad. I happen to think he's a very very good AFL footballer. Maybe not a media star, but VERY professional and not soft as so many people seem to think. Not in the least bit soft actually... This is not meant as a slight to him, more as a hypothetical... looking to the future and all that.

That is all...

He was probably the best part of yesterday for mine... We had Wonna, who was fantastic, Miller, who was WELL overdue, but 4 out of our 5 major ballwinners were over the age of 27... So there were negatives to take out of the positives... Except for Bate. Last year we saw him fit for the majority of the season and he waxed and waned. At one point he was dropped for bad form, and as an emergency got a game, played well and kept his place. After that he earned his 4th place in the B&F... My concern always is that even when fit he can go through patches of just plain bad form. He's a touch predictable, always going to his left, not jumping too high... I always back him in because he's got class stamped all over him, but in pro footy, I worry that he'll have a lot of frustrating bad days... Yesterday was a HUGE step for the kid. I fully expected him to come back in and have a howler. He wasn't smashing teams in the VFL like you would think he should, which suggests he wasn't QUITE where he'd want to be for making his return. We had a problem with marking power up forward, so he was rushed back. I had expected the form of his first half to continue for the rest of the game, and would have been ok with that as I'd assumed he was going to need 1-3 weeks before we could start marking him harshly... But his second half was superb. When he got dragged for that disgraceful holding the ball, he looked ABSOLUTELY shot... I hardly expected him to get a touch after that. But watch the replay. He ran hard all day, with and without the ball. Smashed blokes, tackled hard, marked superbly, was as good or better than Miller on the lead... stretching out to the boundary on the wings and flanks... then bolting back inside adding length to his already 60 metre pin-point delivery... And the BIGGEST thing... his kick. It's prodigious. It's ENORMOUS to begin with, but even with a question over his fitness, he was passing SO effectively it lifted his team. The Dockers started to drift back, nervous about how damaging he is by foot... this gave Bate's mates more room to move through the middle... And add to that the fact he ran through the middle adding fifteen metres to every kick. A forward's joy... a midfelder's best mate. Makes both his midfield and forward team-mates look a million dollars with his dash and delivery. SO important... and like Rivers, we are a different team with him there. Miller playing like that, and Bate roaming far and wide... add Newton in the square, or swapping with Miller at CHF and you have three talls that will stretch opposition KP defensive power. For the first time this year.

Rivers = One of the best 4 possession games you'll ever see. You can add 10 1%ers to that too. It was almost always his fist doing the punching.

Amen.

I saw good footy for nearly 22 rounds last year from Bell. He deserves more of a go. His skills, size and pace make him n exciting prospect, while his smarts make him fall back to the pack... He's still a better player than most in the side... Like I said. If he played a year like his one last year he WOULD be trade bait. Keep in mind also that last year, when he came out of his shell as a player, we were under as much pressure in our defence as this year, and he STILL performed. How many times do we say of Carroll, Neitz, Robbo, Davey that they "didn't have any help." Bell played a lone hand in the back six last year.

This is probably the last straw with me and Silv. I was giving him this season to show some class, or at least some solidity... I was impressed with him against the Blues. Very impressed in parts, but this hammy just convinces me he's just not going to play a part in any real demons revival. Maybe as a Vardy-like presence one day... but only equally as injury prone. And he wouldn't even be worth trading at the end of the year. Maybe there's something in the Judd thing where he needs the facilities. He gets over the OP and is playing his best footy. Col isn't even close to playing his best, and if we traded him we'd get a third rounder at best, and then he'd go on to star with WC or whoever had the medical side at the cutting edge. I dunno... It's just a guess... Anyhoo. This sucks. We have to play SO many players I'd just as soon get rid of tomorrow.

Hmm. I'm going t go ahead and just give you this one, as I've not read the games the way you have, but haven't been around to do that... Though in my opinion, there are about 6 guys who need to be dropped ahead of Bell. He's ok. Just under the pump. He's either a part of our future or he's trade bait. Either way we have to play him to get his price up or get him steady in defence for when Wrecker goes... I also rate his disposal. EVERYONE'S kicking badly, Bell's bad but not as bad as some. And he has literally no targets. And as for Bartram, I've seen him improve week by week. Put in Buckley we'll see much the same stuff we have so far. Some scintillating stuff and some trash... mostly though, some terrible skill errors, which we don't need ANY more of. Bartram's the closest of a fairly skill-less set of youngsters, bereft of confidence. He also has the runs on the board as a player... But like I said, I'll defer to you. You sound like you've applied a bigger microscope...

Nope. We're going to take a while to get back to being a strength. Feva would take our money and run. He's too old. No way.

Hey dm... Could you do us all a favour here on d'land and let us know your thoughts when you go? The more we know the better... For us at least...

The best part about the Blues win. They're a step closer to not getting their hands on anymore good players.

What's weird is they are playing on Subi liked WE played on Subi last year. Less than twelve months ago actually. Crashing and burning in the AFL takes no time at all... building a side takes infinitely longer.

White has been going alright ... PJ is hurt and Meesen isn't up to it yet after returning from an injury. Robbo has lifted in recent weeks, and is one of precious few guys in the side who is old enough and mature enough in the body to withstand the big hits from the biggest players. The changes should have happened elsewhere, but your point is correct.

D'oh!!!!!!! Beaten on the thread start two weeks in a row...

He and Bruce came on to promote the game and club, and that the players were in the call centre calling members who have failed to sign up... They drilled Nathan for being nervous, but I reckon he handled himself better than Robbo, Cam and Green all put together. Laughed off the bald jokes, read Sam's mailbag well... I get up in front of people and make a fool of myself for a living, and when I was 19 I wold have struggled to look as comfortable as he did. Don't know if it was worth a new thread [it's not, I merged it ], but whenever they say a demon is coming on the show, or on the panel, I cringe... Even when it's Neita. But I was very at ease watching the mini-chief go about it... Oh. And Bruce said the form turn around is in the players' hands, and that that's a good thing... ... ... ...

I'm not so sure anymore. We need KP players...and we certainly need at least 1 more ruckman. But I worry. We've taken an athlete who looked great, and without being a born footballer has turned out being just good in Green. Will his athleticism last? Will his skills take a long while to develop? If he's another O'Hailpin I'd rather we look elsewhere. We don't need more frustration.

Bartram is a tagger. Putting Bell in the midfield would see much more disastrous mistakes than in defence. You think he looks lost now, when he has one direction to go, imagine when he has to think about even more people than his man! I laugh at people thinking there's going to be 6-8 changes every week. The team has to have some solidity. Even when coaches flag big changes, and say the kid gloves are coming off, even if they mean it they rarely drop more than 4 players...

Point 1: I have to disagree. We ARE that bad. Even with improvement across the board, we are that far away from it we will still probably be, at best, bottom 1/4 of the 8. Our leaders are to old or just plain defunct... And while we have some young guys that will come into their own, it will take time, and we have no spine... not even the embryonic stages of a spine. My only hope is that with the older guys disappearing, DB's message will get through easier on some impressionable minds. We will also have a lot of money to throw around. Point 2: This is my major concern. I like that we're pulling out the stops and rebuilding totally, but it's going to hurt. Perhaps in such a way that it will take years of sustained success to get back to where we need to be. If this IS the case, then we got lucky big time. 3 picks in the top 21 last year. 3 more this year, assuming we don't trade for another couple a la Hawthorn. Then only a 4 month restriction on having first crack at the NEXT draft... The theory being that if you can't recruit a half-decent side in 3 years of bottoming out then you only have yourself to blame... Or maybe you're just Richmond. Having said that, we're going to have to hope each pick is a corker. Can't afford any Molans or Rogers in this time.