Nasher

I'm not normally the vindictive sort, but I would smirk if Frawley was dropped for Spangher.

I don't think beating the very unconvincing North would make Richmond good. Both clubs equally likely to get near the flag this year I reckon.

Hands up who's tired of talking about Jack Watts? *raises hand* I'd be surprised if anyone has anything to say on Watts that I haven't seen or read before, dozens of times. Not going to bother opening this thread again (possibly idle threat - I probably won't be able to help myself).

I originally posted this in the Viney thread in response to Webber, but it probably belongs here instead: When thinking of a player whose attributes include: soft featured, smallish, classy ball user, you don't expect the next item to be: hard as a cat's head, but that's the case for Salem. As someone described him last weekend after that tackle on Cameron: the baby faced assassin.

I watched the Swans game with my Swans supporting sister. I witnessed Heath Grundy take a strong contested mark on the wing, turn inboard and kick it towards a stationary teammate in the middle, and have it chopped off by a Freo players at full pace. I rarely get emotional during neutral games, but on that occasion I hit the arm of the couch and yelled "come on, Melbourne!"

Well done Bernie Vince - a thoroughly deserved win. It's been a long time since we've had a "run with" player who is an offensive weapon unto his own - in fact, I can't think of one ever. At his best he's a ball accumulating beast - the only thing that differentiates him from the top class of midfielders in the competition is the ability to do it every week of the year I think. He definitely went up a gear and rediscovered the form that allowed him to win a B&F at Adelaide. I reckon the story of the night is Jack Viney though. It wasn't until I stopped and thought about it after the last match that at no stage did he really have a form slump throughout the year. Jones and Vince are ahead of him in the pure class stage, but no player delivered at a consistent level every week more than Viney. You'd think at 21 he's still got absolutely stacks of improvement left in him, too. I can't believe he came so close to pinching it after missing such a large chunk of the season with injury. An absolutely fantastic effort and a good reward for a good season.

I don't overlook the fact that he stayed true to the club when every one of his best mates buggered off as soon as they were FAs. Didn't do much media, but always struck me as being articulate and intelligent. He would make a good coach I think. Thanks Russian. Good luck if you decide to try and kick on.

Nice work. From that I take: Jones is delivering the ball to our forwards a disproportionately large amount of time compared to the other mids. Garlett had a sensational year, and adds far more to our forward line than just kicking goals Hogan also gets stuff all free kicks He is as big a threat in play/in contest as he is in the air

To be very clear, abusing somebody by private message is every bit as frowned upon as doing it publicly on the forum.

I find it pretty hard to accept that at 21, Gysberts was beyond redemption. North Melbourne would have taken him on the assumption that he was a talented player who had been "Melbourned", so if he was good enough they'd have persevered. He was given the boot after his first contract and if I recall, didn't play a game. There's no magic development that happens between 18 and 21 that can't happen afterwards if the player is talented and driven enough. Gysberts clearly wasn't. I wholly reject the idea that it's ever too late to develop a player.

It's not really that telling when its only your opinion, and it clearly isn't reflected by the footy department based on the evidence presented. In the 7 matches Pedersen (not Pederson) played, 5 of them were when Dawes was unavailable. They only played in the same team in two matches. I realise he missed most of the second half of the side injured, but I think the pattern would have continued. Dunn played a game forward in the last round, when neither Pedersen nor Dawes were available and there was no clear matchup for him in defence. Dawes is clearly ahead of Pedersen in the minds of those in charge. Dunn is a distant third. Switching back from facts to anecdotal speculation for a minute, I've also heard that Hogan prefers working with Dawes over Pedersen as Pedersen gets in the way. Chemistry with Hogan in my mind is probably more important than which out of Dawes or Pedersen is the better player in isolation. For the record, I'm in favour of keeping Pedersen, but it's wishful thinking that he'll ever play ahead of Dawes.

He was dux of the Colin Garland school of How to Always Look Like You Just Got Out of Bed.

I thought he had already signed.

Good analysis. I'm bullish on the future too, but there is a lot of things that can go wrong. In that first group I only count 5 players I'd consider near-certain to be valuable contributors and maybe 3 out of the second group. We need nearly all of those names listed to fire if we are to have any sort of success. The range of possibilities is huge with such a young group. This reinforces the need for bringing in players in the 50-100 games range for me.

My final outs would be: Cross, Jamar, McKenzie, Fitzpatrick, Riley, Bail, Terlich. Hunt outcome pending trades - will delist and rookie if no further reduction in player numbers. Sign otherwise. Candidates for trade: Watts, Grimes, Howe. Re-sign: Garland, Toumpas, Pedersen, Michie. Promote: Harmes, vandenBerg [Edited for clarity] Retain: White, King.

I'd trust implicitly the word of a player who has recently left the club. I'm also pretty interested in the idea that you can play at a level beyond your natural capability. Sounds like something out of a bad 80s SciFi movie.

Sandy's the footy commentary equivalent of your senile grandfather - a shadow of the great man he was. But you know what he used to be, and that he can't help it, so you turn a blind eye when you catch him urinating in the bathtub because he is confused about where he is. Derwayne is your douchebag uncle, who gets shitfaced, bullies all the kids and pinches all the girls butts, then wonders why they stop coming to his BBQs. He's always been a jerk and you'll never offer him any benefit of the doubt. Your family sounds like a real hoot DA!

The reason Jones won't win is because he had a slow start to the season and a patch towards the end where he played like poo. Are you suggesting that the club engineered a Jones form slump in order to stop him from winning the B&F out of some sense of embarrassment?

Yep, this was covered in the Derwayne thread. It was Lynch and Johnson that had that dialogue. It's pretty frustrating when you just know they are speaking complete garbage. Salem was good before the injury and has been good since coming back, but we get told he has second year blues. He also barely touched the ball as a forward and was in and out of the side last year. He's taken a big step forward this year, even with the injury. I get that the commentators can't know the ins and outs of every player, but it would be nice if they didn't resort to just making shit up when they don't know what they're on about.

Exactly. We even hear this kind of speak amongst Melbourne supporters - "we've been rebuilding for 10 years!!!!!" - no, we've been rebuilding for two years. We had a rebuild under Bailey, a de-build under Neeld, and a new rebuild under Roos. To the casual observer it just looks like 8 years of train-wreck though.

The thing that impresses me about Garlett is the speed in which his brain operates. That pass to Hogan was a split second decision as Hogan appeared in his sight. It helps that he's also got the skill and foot speed to go with it. Still can't believe we got him for a packet of stale twisties. Thanks again Mick.

How'd you come up with 4 out of 10? 311/22 = 14.13 out of 10. Either way it doesn't add up. I'd have thought the highest possible score would be 220 under that system. Edit: sorry, forgot to factor in the "four members" bit. Divide it all by four and it works (sorta). The highest possible score would therefore be 880, so you're right, a score of 311 out of 880 seems low.

I love the way Garlett just steps over him as if he's some annoying obstacle in the way.

Harmes and King were from the previous rookie draft (along with Alex Georgiou - how long ago does that seem now?).