mauriesy

Rubbish. Have you put your house on it or anything? All you'd lose is a little face.

"Structure up"

I thought he said that "GWS believe they are done deals". That could be true, or it could just be Gubby Allen's bravado.

What gives Demonland the best return? I'll go with whatever it is.

Melbourne's young midfield against sides with a developed, mature midfield is like Tomic against Djokovic or Nadal. All the talent, shots and skill, but not the experience to handle the pressure or patience to play the right shots at the right time. One day in the near future Melbourne's time will come, just like Tomic's.

Our 8 most-experienced players (those who have played 100 games plus) are among the worst in the league for A-Grade quality. Our next 7 (50-100 games) includes Dunn, Bate and Warnock who can't even get a regular game. We've got quite a wait before our real talent gets to the 80-100 games required to have enough experience, not to mention strong bodies. Most of them haven't even played 30 games each.

Warnock will be redundant, especially if Tom Macdonald and/or Troy Davis keep improving. Help him find a new home or delist. Bate and/or Dunn will be interested in somewhere else if Casey is their likely long-term home. Maric is vulnerable ... I'd prefer to offer him one year, otherwise trade or delist. Wonaeamirri's decision might make it easier for us. You'd get three from that lot. Funny how our entire 2004 draft is very flaky. Anyone who suggests trading Martin has got rocks.

So if GWS sends an e-mail, fax, letter, phone call or bumps into Lynch with an aside that "we might be interested in Scully" (aren't "enquiries" made all the time?), what is Lynch supposed to say? He seems to have replied, correctly, with "thanks, but no thanks ... we're not speaking contractual details with anyone, not even Melbourne, until the season is over". That is not "speaking to GWS" even in the vaguest contractual sense ... a sense that many seem to think has taken place and which Scully rightly denies having occurred.

He's fixed it.

Encouraging your players for doing well. Cardinal sin, is it?

I was simply saying, given the evenness between Melbourne and Richmond, that many tipsters would use our previous record as a point of difference between the sides i.e. that's why there's a "lack of support" among tipsters for Melbourne (the title of this thread).

Every good win we've had, we've lost badly the following match. Beat Gold Coast by 90, lost the next match to WC by 54. Beat Adelaide by 96, lost the next match to the Kangaroos by 41. Beat Essendon by 33, lost the next match to Collingwood by 88. Beat Fremantle by 89 ... why wouldn't you go for Richmond? Not a surprise or lack of "support". We need to break the pattern.

Cross out the "still". We've always loved him.

I think the "!" key on his phone's broken.

Ralph's been reading Demonland posts talking about singing the club song and orange powerade.

Melbourne supporters' ability to put their own club down knows no bounds.

"About 5th/6th"? You're wrong and greatly exaggerating your claim. Green did turn straight back away from goal towards the middle, but after high-fiving the first player he met (Watts) then made sure he hugged Sylvia next. Watch the replay.

Actually he didn't. Negligent conduct (one point), low impact (one point) and high contact (two points) got him 125 points and a one-match sanction, reduced to 93.75 points and a reprimand for an early plea.

The theory of a friend of a friend. That settles it then. No further evidence needed.

Rubbish. It went up from 2006 to 2009 when we were really going backwards on-field and finished near-bottom. Plus you didn't originally say debt, you said membership and sponsorship. They have not dropped significantly for a long time and are not likely to. Gosh, Scully isn't that critical. Talk about the sky falling in.

"Again"? Even after five bad playing seasons (2007-2011), membership has gone up by 50% (24,000 to 36,000). You say "again" as if it's a common occurrence.

No it doesn't.

You forgot the steak knives.

Of course a pre-season or two would make a difference (but obviously not for our own first-year players). FWIW, here's the comparison graph between Melbourne (blue) and the Suns team (red) of last weekend. Total games played: Melbourne 1247, GCS 1310 Average games played: Melbourne 57, Suns 59 Median: Melbourne 38, GCS 14 100 games plus: Melbourne 6, GCS 7 Only difference is in the mid-range (players 10-17), where we have an advantage of about 20-25 games (e.g. Watts, Scully and Trengove v Swallow, Smith and Day). Our top six is Green, Moloney, Rivers, Sylvia, Jones, MacDonald. Their top six is Fraser, Ablett, Brown, Harris, Brennan, Bock. Quality difference if any? We are also trying to drive a 'hard' clearance midfield with B-Graders (Moloney, Jones), and talented but lightweight young players with under 30 games (Scully, Trengove, Mackenzie, Gysberts). Compare that to Collingwood's normal midfield of 100-200 gamers in Swan, Thomas, Pendlebury and Ball. Not much of a comparison really.

Here's the 'games experience' graph from Monday. Despite claims about Collingwood's 'youth', the median number of games played was Collingwood 111, Melbourne 38. The total games played was 1247 Melbourne, 2245 Collingwood. In addition, over one-sixth of Melbourne's games played was from one player, Brad Green. We are not much different to the Gold Coast Suns. They had eleven players over 100 games, we had six (most of whom were only just over 100). Even then our six most experienced players were Green, Moloney, Rivers, Sylvia, Jones and MacDonald. Theirs were Tarrant, Davis, Leigh Brown, Didak, Ball and Maxwell. There's a huge talent and size difference right there. The other Collingwood players that have played over 100 games were A-grade to elite ... Cloke, Pendlebury, O'Brien, Krakouer and Heath Shaw. It will take at least 3 seasons for our comparable draft talent, currently sitting on 0-70 games each, to reach the 'games played' experience that Collingwood have put into their list. I expect a comparison with Geelong would be similar. These are not necessarily an excuse for poor performances, but an important observation about what to expect from the team in terms of consistency, experience and strength.