mauriesy

71.5 for, 92.9 against = misery 96.4 for, 92.9 against = happiness! (Apologies to Mr Micawber)

Yes, we've had lots of false starts since 2007, in both the football department and the administration. Yes it's disappointing. But that doesn't mean this is another one. If the pessimists can't seen the difference between the 2012 team (that had players like Sylvia, Blease, Gysberts, Howe, Bate, Bennell, Strauss, Morton, McKenzie, Petterd, Cook, Moloney, Tapscott, Sellar, Davis, Taggert, Bail, Tynan, Fitzpatrick, Nicholson, Evans and Magner) and the current lot, then they will remain pessimists forever. Do you seriously think the 2016 list is not a quantum improvement? The current team is the youngest in the AFL. They have a huge amount of talent, But they will not be world beaters instantly, or even within three years. To think otherwise is just total delusion.

That doesn't make it wrong.

After three years you still can't analyse a game.

There is still nothing that says you can't make any contact whatsoever. It's not total Coventry.

Coming from the Central Highlands of Victoria, any trip to Melbourne is a trip to the tropics. I wasn't cold at any stage during the match. Perhaps I wore enough.

The words I reported were paraphrased in an Age article. I don't think checking up on their general welfare or making contact just to say hello is 'sports-related'.

Worsfold can make contact with Hurley as long as it's not about his "preparation or training". Under AFL laws, Melbourne can make contact with Hurley or Hibberd whenever they want, and even offer terms should they indicate they want to leave their current club. But a player cannot sign legally binding "contracts, agreements, arrangements or understandings".

It was a really nice Melbourne winter's day with a temperature of 14C.

Never trust anything a journo like McClure says.

Great initiative. Looking forward to watching them play. And to yelling out 'WOMAN UP!"

My three-word whole game analysis: Beard beats buns.

Fair bit of jumper holding by the Suns player.

Some of you people should try living in the country, less than 100km from Melbourne, where you get 1-2Mbps ADSL1, no mobile coverage and no future likelihood of NBN fixed wireless. Netflix, Stan and streaming AFL is just a dream, but the people who do have it are creating massive network congestion for us poor sods whose broadband performance just continues to get worse. The national hardware is just not keeping up with the exploding demand. It's funny how we're spending all this money on broadband networks just to watch media online, while a perfectly good transmitter (or satellite) that's already there will service millions of people, who only need an antenna and a length of co-ax to the TV. Maybe the problem is also the lack of AFL games on free-to-air. We now have dozens of new free-to-air channels but they're all filled with the same junk.

The thing with these prognisticators is that they work on the theory that if they're right they get lots of kudos, and if they're wrong it gets forgotten.

I'm wondering what you expect to get 'late in the draft'? The Jacob Weiterings of this world will be well and truly gone by them.

Yes, we did that in 2010 with pick 53, then again in 2014 with pick 53. Their names were MacDonald.

Not so sure we took development 'for granted', given that we were bad at it. Are those who are complaining now about young players spending some time in the AFL, learning the pace of the game and the desperation required, the same ones who complained about lack of development in the past? Seems a bit contradictory. I have no doubt Oscar will go back to Casey at some stage to consolidate some learnings. At the moment there's not much choice though, with Garland and Dunn both injured. We could feasibly replace him with a player like Grimes (or Garland if he comes up quicker) if there wasn't a need for a third tall in defence, depending on the opposition.

I think it depends on whether what the coaching staff want him to learn is best done at the highest level or at Casey. There may be arguments for both over time. That, and the existence of another player of the same height who can replace him. Oscar's advantage is that he's 196cm.

While confidence is a factor, I don't actually see it as the main learning issue for players like Oscar (and Weideman and Hulett). I see the benefits for young players as experiencing and understanding the pace of the game, the skill required, the speed and instantaneous nature of the decision making and the constancy of physical input. Something you don't get in the seconds.

It wasn't a cheap shot. I come on here regularly to try to digest the team performance each week, and the negatives still appear, regardless of winning or losing, with monotonous regularity. Instead of seeing progress and obvious development in a young team (something lots of people have criticised the club for lacking in the past), the pessimists just see errors, lack of effort, 'laziness' and so-called 'poor coaching'. When we beat the Suns by 63 points, there were still as many negative as positive posts. Go back through the post-game discussion for that match and see how many were critical that we didn't win by 20 goals. The fact that we were in Saturday's game until half way through the last quarter, and particularly until Bannister paid his self-admitted wrong free kick to Kade Stewart at a critical time for a goal, plus the turnaround of 90 points from the last time Hawthorn and Melbourne met, indicates to me that we are getting a lot, lot better. But I guess that's not good enough for those who see negativism as a way of life. As for attracting players in the future like Hurley, they'd have to be blind not to see Melbourne's potential ... 8 wins or 11 wins this year is not going to be the critical diference. And as for Weidemann and Hulett, if the football department thinks they are deserving of a game, I'll support them and still tolerate some mistakes on their part in the name of 'improvement' and 'development', just like I do for Oscar MacDonald.

So our big problem is defence, but you want to give experience to two more forwards?

You've heard it plenty of times before, but it doesn't make it any less true. When you see figures like Melbourne's total list experience being 2268* games as opposed to Hawthorn's 3377* or North Melbourne's 3993*, or Melbourne's average age being 22.3 years and games played 30, do really think we can just get up there and match it with other teams? It's a process that will still take time. Impatience leads to rash decisions and reliance on old structures and habits, not building a solid foundation, which is what the coaching staff are trying to do. The difference in the past has been the quality of the list. I bleieve the quality now exists and is a quantum leap over a few years ago, but the experience doesn't. I want to follow the Bulldogs and the Giants into the finals for sustained results, not have another false dawn, take shortcuts and end up like the Tigers. We will pass teams like Hawthorn on the way up soon enough, but continual negativity about not winning and the mistakes made by young players, rather than positivity about making progress, doesn't help. Maybe the 'veil of negativity' is yet to be really lifted. * Total list experience at the start of 2016

There is another group here that believes getting some games into quality but inexperienced kids is better in the long term than playing experienced but average players in the short term. It's got nothing to do with 'not wanting to win', or 'reverting to Mark Neeld or Dean Bailey', or 'mediocrity', or 'accepting losing'. It's got everything to do with building a solid playing group in the next few years, when our real chance for a premiership occurs (which let's face it won't be in 2016 or probably 2017). Like everyone, I'd like to play finals this year, but I still have my sights set on future ambitions. I don't want to be Richmond and become a shooting star, only to have it all crash down to earth because of delusions about progress and the state of the list. Short-term pain for long-term gain.

I'll take three premierships worth of dull, thanks.