Lord Travis

Josh Kelly will probably net them 2 first round picks.

What does Gaff not being a contested ball winner have to do with him being of value to the team? He covers more ground than any of our players, finds more ball than any of our players except Oliver, and has more score involvements than any of our mids. He lead the league for kicks, effective kicks and has high metres gained. He's a top 5 draft pick who developed well and met expectations placed on him. He's been an All Australian wingman and was 4th in the Brownlow last year. I get he's not a contested beast, but realistically he sh*ts on most players on our list and is exactly what we need to bring balance to our slow overly inside midfield. Anyone saying he's no good or no value to our team has little understanding of football. Would swap a first round pick for him and run if we got he chance. Proven quality in an area of need. Chase him hard Dees.

With us signing Frost and also rumored to be interested in Jackson Trengove from Port, does that indicate we are out of the race for Lever? If not, then it should just be pick 10 for Lever and move on.

Reckon he is going to Collingwood and we're chasing a mid like Gaff now.

Gaff is an All Australian wingman who runs hard both ways. He should be our number 1 target this off season if he is available. Get it done Dees.

The standard was better than last season. The skill level is a notch better, especially the kicking. Daisy was brilliant. Won a ton of ball, burst away from packs, hit up leading targets, chimed in with a nice running goal and was clearly the best player out there. If only we could have a male version of her in our mens team our midfield would be set! She's a gun and a great role model.

If we don't trade pick 10, Higgins looks like the perfect option for us if he's still there. He just won the Morrish Medal and might go before pick 10 unfortunately. He's the best outside midfielder in the draft. He's also been able to ply his trade up forward and booted 29 goals in 13 games this year. Averaged 24 touches and 6 tackles a game this season. He's not afraid to go when it's his turn, 6 tackles a game shows he runs both ways and cracks in. He's the perfect target for us at pick 10; A running machine with pace, agility, skill and goal sense. Not sure he'll make it to that pick now he's won the Morrish Medal though...

Clayton Oliver from the boundary line vs Adelaide was the best Melbourne goal for the year IMO

More chance of hell freezing over than Stefan Martin returning to the Dees. He had a falling out with a bunch of players and was then shafted by the club for a pittance. May as well just close this thread.

Can we open the Trade and Draft board yet? Here's my thoughts on realistic options that IMO would improve us. - Trade pick 10 for Lever. - We try to get Zaharakis as a free agent. He costs us nothing pick-wise. He's had a great year and might win the Essendon BnF for the second time. He provides run, skill and another goal scoring option. He still has 3-4 years left in him so would be useful. - Shop both Tyson and Salem around for first round picks. If we can get a late first round pick for either of them I would take it. Tyson can accumulate but is wasteful. Salem has skill but just can't string it together and got himself suspended twice this year for being stupid and reckless. - If Frost wants to leave as rumoured, he either goes as part of the trade with Adelaide for Lever OR we package him with the 1st round pick we get for either Tyson or Salem and try to upgrade that first round pick (with maybe some late picks being shuffled in our favour). He would have value to some clubs who need key defenders in a hurry such as Collingwood, Freo, Saints, Hawks, Brisbane etc. - We then take a decent first round pick to the draft to try and find a good classy quick hard running midfielder in the Kelly/Shiel mould OR trade it for a good midfielder who becomes available. So end result is to lose Frost and either Tyson or Salem We gain Lever. We either gain a good established mid or draft one of the best young mids we can get our hands on. We gain Zaharakis. Those changes make us better IMO.

Unless the players grow up and put in effort the fixture is irrelevant. We had a really good draw this year. With the exception of a few 6 day our arounds mid year, we had a dream run. We didn't have to leave Melbourne for nearly two months and we were handed multiple games against bottom teams to kick off and end our year. We had the easiest run home of any potential finalist and still managed to stuff it up. We have wasted a year, blown a great fixture and a chance to get finals experience into some young core players. Next year our fixture will be harder due to finishing higher, so the players had better improve drastically or we will linger around the middle of the table and fail yet again.

Pretty ridiculous that Oliver didn't even make the squad of 40. Statistically he's been the best second year player ever, and rates in the top 10 of the AFL for lots of important midfielder stats. Very stiff to miss out. Jeffy is lucky as he was good early, but then missed a few games and was rubbish in the later stages of the year. Hibberd and Jetta both had great years and are worthy selections.

Can't believe that. That shows a clear lack of desire and hunger if true. Newsflash Max, probably half the posters here, myself included, played finals in junior football. It was junior football! You played finals by just showing up and not getting distracted by oranges at half time and other kids having a laugh! You are a 26 year professional AFL player and you have the same level of finals experience as half the bloody people sitting in offices across the country. You should be f*cking embarrassed by your efforts and your failure, not joking about it! You got paid handsomly for 5-6 years to smoke ciggies and stuff around until you finally grew up. You've had 1 good season, and 7 shite-average ones. The comedy act in the media was tolerable last year when you were playing well, but now you've become an embarrassing clown. Time to take responsibility, work your ass off and give something back.

2017 is a failure. Yes we improved, but not enough. Other clubs also improved and were able to win when it mattered. We failed again. Despite having one of the easiest draws of any team, we failed. Shameful from the players to repeatedly lack effort and lose easy games that other clubs around the same mark as us can absolutely [censored] in by 80 points. Shameful that the coaching staff can fail to motivate these [censored] losers. How can they come out with a finals spot in the balance and barely lay a tackle for the whole first quarter and allow 11 scoring shots against us...how?! The coaches should be reprimanded for that alone! If I failed to rock up at my job for 25% of the day I'd get fired.

I want the club to make an apology for their failure. They publicly stated finals was the aim for 2016. They failed. They publicly stated finals was the aim for 2017. They failed. The club owes the supporters an apology. It's us who pay for the club to keep going. They [censored] owe us.

Our lack of killer instinct has just cost us finals. How predictable and disgustingly pathetic. We got 30-40 points up against multiple teams during the year and just took the foot off the gas. We let teams lowly teams dominate us for patches (Pies 1st quarter, Freo last quarter, Brisbane last quarter, North last quarter etc) and just expected we could show up and play for 10 minutes and get the win. I'm [censored] sick of it. The club needs to get serious in a hurry. The club publicly stated it was aiming for finals in 2016. It failed. The club publicly stated finals for 2017. It failed. Next season we obviously MUST make finals. Top 4 should be the pass mark. If we lose a game where we are heavy favorites, the players and coaches should have to forfeit their match day payments. We cannot keep failing and drastic measures need to be taken if we do not meet the minimum requirements of finals football. Get serious you [censored] soft [censored]!

Don't blame them. They've got top spot win or lose and are just trying to get through unscathed to prepare for their finals series. We did this to ourselves by repeatedly losing games against bottom placed teams. It's pathetic.

Not looking good for us. Eagles are smashing the Crows. Crows just jogging round with nothing to play for. Absolutely pathetic end to the season. Even if we miraculously make finals from here, unless we fluke a premiership then this season can only be deamed a failure. What a disappointment this club is.

Just had one of the worst days of my life (unrelated to the footy) and now see Melbourne folded under pressure yet again. [censored] me what a shithouse day this turned in to. How could you not be giving it 110% when finals were on the line?! Absolutely disgusting! I'm so dejected right now my god Melbourne

With Tex Walker and Talia out it's a definite possibility. [censored] hell Melbourne you weak pricks!

Jumping the gun a bit here. Roos took a club to a premiership, two grand finals, and constant finals series. Goodwin is about to (hopefully) take a team to his first finals series. While he's very promising so far, he's got a long way to go to prove himself.

Nothing perfect about it. Very worrying that Eagles could beat the Crows now with those players missing. We just have to get the job done and beat the Pies.

Kelly fills a greater need and is an a grade midfielder we have lacked for decades. He would however cost us too much if the $1.5 million being touted in the media is correct. If we paid him that, we would likely lose Petracca or Oliver or Hogan or one of our other young stars in the future as Kelly would be sucking up too much cap space. Lever is going to be half the cost and also fills a need. He will sure up our backline and become the general down there for the next decade. He will be a multiple time All Australian backman. He'll be great for us. We need a classy outside midfielder to compliment the plethora of inside mids we have, but we can't afford Kelly unfortunately. We should chase another one either this year or next depending on who is available and what currency we have to give.

The bye week before the finals is a god send. It'll hopefully give Viney enough time to get fit enough to play finals. We need his intensity and ball winning ability out there. It'll also give others a chance to get over any niggles. Hope he is right for finals!

Perfect changes. Finals here we come!