RalphiusMaximus

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From the reports thus far we seem to be going for a more attacking style than the classic Sydney stoppage machine. Lots of drills have focused on fast movement through or near the corridor. We seem to have an emphasis on getting the ball to CHF to open up our options going into the F50 rather than the Neeld plan of attacking along the flank which limited the options for our forwards. There has also been a suggestion that it will be short accurate passing out of defence followed by the running/attacking movement from HB to the forward line. I suspect that a lot will still depend on our back six, with the midfield basically trying to break even to stop the onslaught rather than dominating. Historically Roos has also liked his talls, so I wouldn't be all that surprised to see extra talls appearing in the side in odd places some of the time. We could actually see Fitz on a wing.

Missed one option. If he is adamant that he wants to go we can match the offer and then trade him. This would work if the club he wants to go to has a really high pick (say top 5) to trade for him and we think it will be better than the compo the AFL would offer. My opinion on this is that we don't ever let a RFA go without a fight. It sends a bad message both to our players and the AFL community to roll over and let people take our players at will. We should be forcing any player who wants out to either be traded for real value or walk into the draft and take their chances. I am well aware of the fact that this is not the best policy solely from a list management perspective, but as it stands the bigger clubs see us as easy pickings and are circling our few really talented players like sharks. We need to make it abundantly clear to the entire competition that if you want one of our stars you'll need to pay top price.

If we have a great year it will help, but once again, we can match any offer that's put to him. If he wants to go he'll have to deal, as will the club he's heading to.

I have a couple of mates who are rabid Bulldog supporters. They tell me he had two big issues counting against him. One was that they have too many of his kind of player in the club and the other is that he isn't quick enough defensively and he was getting burned on the turnover. Oddly enough they never mentioned his kicking which some on here have cited as a possible issue. I suspect that with us he will play a far more inside role than he did with them, so we shouldn't be too concerned with the perceived deficiencies in his game. He looks to me to be great value for us.

Nice report, but I do differ on a key point. I think it is actually really important for the club that we show well in the first round. We're not talking about a top contender's season where you want them to be peaking for finals. We need to stand up round one to give the players, supporters and sponsors a shot of confidence. Year after year we have looked forward to that first game, thinking we were a good chance at getting off to a flying start and had our hopes dashed. This year we have a very beatable opponent (again), a new coach and a rejuvenated midfield. We need to get that win on the board just to cement the fact that things are changing at the club and it's not going to be another year of bitter disappointment.

I'm not worried about the lack of Garland for a short time as long as we have Frawley and Tommy in there. Dunn can go third tall if he has to and is a very good one-on-one competitor. Grimes is also pretty hard to beat, so that takes care of most teams' marking options. Terlich and Strauss go in as small rebounders and it looks fine. Rotate a few other mids through, add in Clisby if necessary. They'll be fine.

Re Viney, didn't he concuss himself last week? That would get him a couple of weeks on light duties.

Come to think of it, you could probably make a decent clip of Melbourne players set to this if you had video editing skills.

Dunn looks huge standing next to Chip there. Good to see.

I loved that incident. It was just such an absurd thing to happen (possibly not to the gentleman being immolated) when the AFL is trying so hard to clean up it's image, and in particular to the Saints. I totally understand Demetriou cracking up when they told him about it (whether he thought they were joking or not).

This is actually a really interesting notion. We've all complained at various times about the media bias and their love of bagging the red and blue. This is a clear and unbiased analysis assessment of the reports being produced for each club. Personally I would like to see them ranked in order of who gets the most coverage as well as the current good/bad press. I find it interesting htat WC, Freo and GC are leading in that respect with 18 articles each for the year. It's also not at all surprising that the Doggies have only had four mentions. Edit: Bookmarked it

I have a feeling that he's going to be playing basically the role Hird played. He'll sit off the packs and be the designated outlet man for guys like Viney and Cross. If they go in and get the ball out to him he has the pace, poise and skill to really hurt the opposition with it. I can't see him suddenly becoming an inside hard man with a change of coaches, but he can certainly get more of the ball and be more damaging to the opposition playing in the middle.

The thing with Nicho and Bail is that while they are not great kicks and tend to have lapses in judgement and decision making on the field, they both put in a massive effort at training. That is an area that the club has failed at in recent times, so they have really stood out on the track. I think it is to their credit that as we get more players who will match their effort they are still heading the pack in this area. It may not save them if they can't get their kicking sorted, but it has certainly bought them time on the list.

Improvers: Trengove - A full pre-season without the foot injury will do wonders for him. He was one of our best tacklers even with the stuffed foot, if he can get his run back he will be gold. Toumpas - Similar to Trengove, he had a limited 2013 due to his prolonged recovery. He's really built up over the pre-season and looks like he now has a build that will stand up to AFL. Jamar - Roos knows his rucks and knows how to get the best from them. This is Jamar's big chance to reaffirm his no. 1 ruck status at Melbourne. I'll note that Dom Barry came pretty close to getting in the top three here. I think he's looking great on the track and has built up nicely. Could be a bit of a dark horse. Sliders: Bail - His lack of skill and game sense has caught up with him. Barring injuries will not play a senior game. Clisby - As impressive as he was in his debut season he will struggle to get time. Fighting with Grimes, Terlich and Dunn for the mid-sized/small defender role, plus there could be temptation to play one of the new senior mids there to rotate through the middle. Matt Jones - He is solid and limited. Will be passed by the more talented players this time. Can be brought in as depth if we have injuries, but not a preferred starter.

Why are you still watching the footy channel during the summer? The only reason to get it is to have access to live Melbourne games.

Massive Like.

I look forward to seeing the result of this one in six years.

I still rate him pretty highly. He has exceptional skills and game-sense and pretty decent pace. Whether he has physicality we will have to wait to discover since he was being treated pretty carefully this year. He has certainly built his body up and now looks like he can hold his own. Based on what we have seen of him so far we have at the very least a highly skilled outside mid who will be very damaging sending the ball into our forward 50. Our forwards will love him for that. If he does turn out to have a good inside game as well then we have the complete package and we can all sit back and enjoy the ride. It's basically a matter of a win or a really big win.

A 2014 premiership.

Does this mean he's been hanging with the St Kilda boys?

There are two major factors influencing how much we make off the pokies. One, as has been mentioned, is the location in terms of how many people in that area are going to play them and for how long. The fact that we make so little is in this respect a positive as it would indicate somewhat smarter supporters. This is likely the source of Collingwood's huge revenue. The second is the licensing cost of the machines, and this is quite interesting. A few years ago there was a controversy when the company owning a number of these machines refused to renew the license for them to several clubs and instead sold them at a bargain rate to Carlton. The CEO of that company happened to be a Carlton Board member. The result was of course that Carlton gained access to many more machines at a significantly lower cost than most clubs are paying, hence their strong continuing profits. This is also the factor that almost killed the Casey Scorpions when they licensed a batch of machines but didn't have a venue to house them and wound up taking a 100% loss on the venture. Personally, I would prefer to see us abandon the concept entirely, but given how low our profits are I doubt if we could actually stay afloat without that cash.

The Laws of the game committee sacked and replaced with people who have a little more sense and feel for the game, preferably with immediate removal of the most idiotic rule changes from the past 20 years or so.

I can't agree with the bolded statement. Bailey recruited for two things, kicking and speed. If he'd been after pure footballers we'd have had Rockliff in our team. His entire gameplan was built around fast attacking play and it fell apart under physical pressure, a fact that most opponents discovered very quickly. The legacy he left us was a group who were great when things were going their way but couldn't stand up to real pressure and didn't have the work ethic to run defensively as well as offensively. Too many players who looked a million dollars when they were in space but can't execute at all in under pressure. That is nothing like a footy player.

Like their "Family Day" that starts while most of the parents are still at work?