timD

Good post. The question for is for me is how many of our B graders, with great coaches and first class leadership, will step up to A graders.

These are the ones I think have the potential, and then whether they will or not in the next 5 years:

Petracca - yes

Brayshaw - yes

Viney - yes

Gawn - yes

Hogan - yes

Toumpas - no

Watts - yes

Tyson - yes

Grimes - no

JKH - no

Jones - yes

Vince - no

Lumumba - no

Garland - no

Stretch - yes

Trengove - yes

Howe - no

Salem - yes

That's enough to make us a contender in the next 5 years. Whether it is enough to win a premiership is another matter.

I think that is right - although I disagree on Viney. We'll see when he is 22-23.

I'd be interested in peoples' views on our prospects, given our current list and coaching staff, compared with other teams in the competition. Not prospects for winning games or even making the finals, but prospects for winning the next flag. That is, in comparing us with each other club, ask just one question: who is closer to winning the flag? I think that sometimes the answer to this question puts us ahead of some sides who are currently better than we are (ie most clubs) but have less scope for improvement. These sides might need to go through a phase of renewing their list before they could be genuine contenders.

So going through last year's ladder from the top, I'd rather be Melbourne than:

Essendon (too many important players are too old)

Richmond (can't see the current list winning a flag. Too many deficiencies to be able to 'top up' to contend in the near future)

Carlton (mixture of Essendon and Richmond's problems)

Brisbane (only because we have Hogan. Their midfield looks better than ours)

St Kilda (among other reasons, Hogan might be here for our next flag, Riewoldt will not)

I hesitated about a few other clubs, paricularly North and the Bulldogs. In the end though I think they can each lay a claim to being closer than we are (Boyd is critical for the Dogs). This year we may be a better side than GWS, but I think they've got greater potential over the medium-long term. I have also assumed that key players will stay where they are (eg Dangerfield)

I'd rather be us than essendon, the dogs, richmond, the saints, freo, north, carlton...

All of them have massive problems with their lists. We have just one problem: no genuine elite players. Tyson might get there. Hogan might get there. But no-one is there yet and without them we will not win anything.

It all comes down to development now and I think our group is well-focused on that.

Right you are - I will also add that Crocker did touch on a bit of transition from the initial kick out of a stoppage - he showed 3 Roos 'ball watchers' wondering forward and playing 'hope footy' as Ziebell and Wells realised they couldn't affect the footy and pushed defensively. I will certainly look out for that at stoppages with my boys now.

The EI stuff is fascinating to me now that I am coaching more - I think when I downplayed its importance around the Neeld hiring I was ignorant to the dramatic downside of hiring someone with terrible grasp of the interaction between club and coach, coach and player, and club and player.

EI in an 18 year old would be an unfinished product but would be valuable to help players with any deficiencies as they integrate into the club.

The EI stuff caught me by surprise too. Because of the proliferation of psuedo-scientific, psuedo-psychological instruments (I'm looking at you, DISC, and you, MBTI), I heard about EI and thought it was another one of those. It just isn't. If you are on Linkedin, try to find Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic. He is a guy who writes well on lots of these sorts of topics and has done a heap of work about EI. You can often catch articles he puts up (that he has written or that cite him) and it is an easy way to get a high-quality, plain english precis of the EI stuff.

EI in an 18-year old IS unfinished...but the building blocks are already well laid down. EI adults is very straightforward to assess, but you have to got to steer a course between a lot of helpful looking total nonsense. I would not by surprised that the hawks are doing this well - I've met their sports psych a few times and he is a really good (and sharp) fella.

Great stuff from RPFC and TGR. I get drawn to the EI stuff (funny that).

Given its importance, my interest is in how you assess it. I know the current assessment of EI for draftees is pretty underwhelming. I wonder how EI is assessed when making coaching appointments? My bet is interview data. The flaws with this method are well-documented. I hope like hell the club is assessing this with something a little more sophisticated than interviews and reference checking.

Lucky man! I've found their English IPA a bit autumnal - and I'll try it once the seasons change. I think the advantage of boutique stuff is that you drink less and like it more -everyone wins.

Best Pilsner I've had in ages - Panhead Port road pils. NZ beer from purvisbeer in richmond. Excellent

Also the American IPA from Mash (WA beer) deserves a mention. Quite resinous.

They did have the tripod operating up at Maroochy - I suspect that Rossy might have been controlling/ monitoring it from his scissor lift position.

Who is oO Lunar Silhouette?

In terms of getting down to Gosches? One Demonlander has offered up some accommodation, but no luck on the airfare as yet.

Not sure I class myself as a fan boy, probably more of an avid Demons supporter I'd say. Like I said in a previous post, I'm more of a player critique-er than a befriend-er and talent spotting in the shadows is more my go. Having said that, I'll gladly meet up and compare notes with you when I get a chance to come down - I'll let you know.

I think that Lunar Silhouette is TDI's attempt at humor (he is referring to Moonshadow).

All I can do is hope the we succeed. I don't hope that Clark fails; that just makes me a nasty, small minded person. What I do hope for is that we rise above the selfish, duplicitous manipulative nonsense the club has been exposed to and thrash the pants off the cats when we next see them.

And I hope that Clark is unable to play ever again and retires friendless and alone.

Oh dear, I thought we sorted this out last year, better repeat it, the only thing I take seriously on this site are my training reports, which I provide for interstate and overseas supporters, as they can't get to training, the conversations I have with the players add a bit of colour, same with the photos on Twitter, that's why for a laugh I can get them to do the guns photos , the players know I post their comments and they don't have a problem, as I said if a question crosses the line, they tell me so, and don't answer it

As for the players avoiding supporters that is just laughable, they enjoy the interaction

The rest of time I am taking the [censored], because I do find some of the blowhard pompous postings risible, it is a public forum, so I take opportunity to [censored] a few balloons, if you don't like my posts don't read them, easy

You were and continue to be the exact type of "pompous blowhard" you have a go at. Righteously defending not being abusive to players, while being abusive to posters, is insightless and self-indulgent. Making only your type of comment 'legitimate' is controlling and self-important.

You disappeared when Neeld went because your righteous scrawl was exposed as the total tosh it was. Your fanboy training reports have not changed in tone or detail despite melbourne being a genuinely terrible team for years. And you certainly do care what others think - you respond with predictable regularity. It aint trolling them, that's for sure.

Get the message, champ.

Another terrorist attack in France over night. I'm not sure whether they were lone wolves or part of the pack. Hopefully they have a nice #hashtag in France today.

What a spiteful, snide effort. People are dead and you use it for a failed point-scoring exercise.

#takealonghardlookinthemirrorclown

And what is your 3km PB, DD?

Why don't you try and run at 12km/h for 15 minutes on a treadmill, before saying it is quite slow!

I think you'd change your opinion pretty quickly. Remember that such a speed would be a minimum cruise mode for the players' to get around the ground when not near the contest.

I did do 3km in about 13 mins on two months training having 0 base to start with. It is a crap time and certainly a joke.

Millions of Aussies seem to disagree with your assessment of Carlton draught.

Hi Smithy,

Millions do disagree. They lose out drinking bad beer that costs too much. There is a wealth of excellent beer now available.

Also like to mention Hawthorn Pale Ale and the pilsnser - both very good IMO and widely available.

Carlton draught is not beer.

Coopers was great during the beer dark ages. It's been left in the past and that is a good thing for everybody.

Mountain Goat risks being the Coopers equivalent of the 2000's. Respect is due to them given their innovation and main-stream success in a market dominated by shocking beer + cartels.

Best beer - Kooinda Estate american ale (the green) and the black IPA. Awesome. Just awesome.

Grimes has been shackled by so many things at this club: the club feuding, the playing group, his on-field role; his off-field role. This is the first year of his footballing life that is not this way. I have my doubts that he can make it. That said, nothing would make me more pleased than to see his cut the game apart. And if there is a single player on the list with the character to do so, it's Jack Grimes.

I take it that you are not a motivational speaker. Not sure that I would like to have you next to me in the trenches.

Yes, because talking about football is indicative of performance during war.

Just to show how professional it is now was speaking to a Demonland reader who said I should repeat these bits

Each morning the players text how they are feeling, ie sore, sick, injured, fine, etc etc, at the end of a training session they are asked to rate how they found it, on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being easy, most today rated it an 8

Clubs were doing this decades ago. It is old. Doesn't mean it is bad. But it is nothing new at all. Daniel Harford spoke about doing these things at hawthorn and carlton, and Grant Thomas was roundly rubbished for introducing it at the Saints.

What is sad is that it's new to us. Like my mum being amazed at a smart phone.

I Wasn't implying anything, just curious that he hadn't been in a "good place". For all I know he could be referencing Gastro, thus my enquiry.

He took 6 weeks to get over the appendix op. I don't think that is usual.

Don't be concerned, it is.

Could you elaborate?

And do you think McCartney = insurance policy?

I am more concerned that this is one of MFCs misjudgments......

I just hope they've done more than a series of interviews. We've tried that before.

It also concerns me that someone who demonstrated poor judgement and (for all i've heard) no positive influence on a bad situation is going to be our senior coach. Now good judgement and integrity are central elements to leadership success. I have many questions and sadly will have to wait and see with answers.

I have no doubt we would have been looking at him, perhaps as recently as a few weeks back. But Mahoney himself has publicly volunteered Petracca, Brayshaw, McCartin and Wright as the final 4 on our shortlist. He has no reason to be lying through his teeth, as St.Kilda are the only team to pick ahead of us and all the players will be gone by our next pick.

?

He has every reason to be lying through his teeth.

The real question is why he'd tell the truth.

No, it's not 'rocket science' to deliver an even draw for teams to make money.

We have had to sell games to another area of the country, otherwise we would have two games that we would make some decent coin out of.

30k isn't making money, praha - it's purely keeping heads above water.

A fixture of a well run league should be 'fairer' - a club should not have to earn 'fairness' with performance, equalisation of the AFL can't stop at beverages, but it seems to have.

This is just wrong. Listen to Jackson.

We are so bad that other team's supporters don't turn up to watch their team beat us. So the league doesn't penalise other teams for playing melbourne at the MCG and losing heaps of money. It is fair - just not to us. The thing that will turn it is getting better.

And this is where everything comes down to selection and development. The only way we get better is to (a) select the best and (b) make them better. In every area of the club. If our people strategy is not the best, then we are stuffed. Everything else stems from that. All judgements, policies, plans etc.

Now, we have demonstrated that, as a club, we cannot get the right people in the right positions without the AFL installing the two most senior leaders (Jackson and Roos). Let's hope that their strategy works. And that they replace themselves adequately.

Are you serious?

I remember the outrage when it was suggested (by me and a few others at the time) that Jimmy step aside - or be forced to - because the club was foundering under his leadership.

There is some quote about glass houses...need wikipedia...

His passion to get rid of the likes of James Mcdonald when Dean Bailey promised him a one year contract only to have Connelly and Schwab reverse the ddecision to focus on the 'kids'.

Spare me seriously.

I have it on good authority that he told Ben Holland, as he was about to run out, that it was his last game. In front of the group. No-one had any idea.

Nice work.

The notion that loyalty and good intentions are somehow related to superior decision making is disturbing.

Thanks GNF. I love a good rumor and reckon you're closer to the pin than most.

Cheers!

That window on a high rise that a few of you are jumping out of was one we all created for ourselves.

They had publicly targeted certain players and they got them all, save for Dangerfield, for him we wait with a cheque for next year.

We have improved our starting 22 and we have the opportunity to find some star midfield talent in the draft.

They have to get November right.

Just have to.

If Roos cannot trade for them, his team absolutely has to draft/develop them. All we have is hope...and a long tale of disappointment to date. We need this team to break this cycle and we need a few more years to see if they do.

I hate time.