RalphiusMaximus

I think Garland is a little stiff here. Proably not a good enough season for the final 22, but he should have been in the extended squad.

This is why I'm so angry that they didn't let him play this weekend. At least give the guy one chance to show he can play. It's not like he hadn't earned it with his performance for Casey. He should have been in the side after kicking five, but for some reason they simply refuse to give him a shot. Now he's going to have that stigma hanging over him with a new coach moving in looking to make changes. It really has to hurt his chances of still being here next year.

Hope not. Maybe move him into admin if they must keep him around.

The problem with Watts is that too often when he's in a position to contest for the ball he gives half an effort and the opposition get a clean possession. We saw it on Sunday a few times where the ball was loose in the forward line. Despite his clear advantage in speed and size he was unwilling to throw himself in there and his opponent won the ball through a superior show of desperation. This is something we see week in week out from Jack and it needs to stop. He suffers from the same issue as Jamie Bennell in that he always tries to avoid body contact and instead wants to ghost past the contest and pinch the ball on his way through. It works maybe once in ten or twenty tries, and the rest of the time the player who goes in with their whole body makes him look hopeless. I don't know if it's possible to cure him of this, but it needs to be attempted if he's ever going to be any real use.

We have a few retirements at the senior end, but I think the younger players will have to wait on the new coach, whoever it may be. I doubt the club will start culling before then, and given we don't know what sort of priorities the new coach has, it is fairly pointless to speculate at this stage. I can say that there are a few I'd like to be rid of who are contracted still, and there are some I'd love to keep who are OOC and may be moved on simply to make room on the list.

I'd kill for those players, but I highly doubt Brisbane is giving up on their future captain.

It's sad but I am slowly being won over to this school of thought. I love the guy, I love his talent, but he seems to be a culture killing player. As good as he can be, too often he lacks the effort and intensity necessary to win the ball. As for Adams, I agree we need to have a massive tilt at him. A good coaching selection is a must to give us some bargaining power with the kid. Pay overs for him, but not too much over as we will need to negotiate a new contract in a couple of years and if he expects big money again it could hurt us.

Why is it that Watts can kick 4 and still seem like he's not doing anything?

Howe needs to model himself on Burton from Adelaide. He started off the same, but worked himself into a quality mid who was very dangerous when he pushed forward. That's exactly what we need Howe to be.

Sounds a lot likt the umps are playing for the dogs right now. Even Wallace says it should have gone the other way.

Not much better. I can see us ahead of the doggies, saints and GWS, but that's about it.

Not too much in it. He'll go, but probably only for a week.

I wonder if this is behind the Eade announcement?

Have we had any luck with that so far? I'd be thrilled if we could pull a few like that into the club, but if it comes to a choice I'll take a legitimate hardnut over another "skillful player who shows great leadership."

Did I hear correctly that Taggert isn't playing tonight? Might still be a shot at a game on Sunday?

It would be a hell of a trade option though. We could make a real play for a great midfielder with that up our sleeve. Maybe get a couple of up-and-comers from one of the expansion teams.

I think it depends on who they delist and what positions they play. They would struggle to get a tall forward or defender into our side, back or forward pocket they would walk in automatically and midfielders of course we need more of.

Great to see Taggert getting a run. I'm thrilled for the guy. Oddly enough, I'm half hoping we get thrashed here, just so we have a shot at pick 1. We get done and GWS wins and we're in with a sniff of the spoon.

Brilliant initiative by these two. This is the sort of thing we would love to be seeing from a raft of our younger players (not mentioning the W word) when it comes to taking responsibility for your own performance. Even better would be if the leadership group were to organise for the whole team to head out there, even if it meant paying their own way. Again, it would be a statement on their commitment to becoming a truly competitive AFL standard team instead of the amateurs they currently appear to be.

I think you need to look at the following part of the AFL statement in relation to our club as well. As far as we are aware, Melbourne FC did not have a systematic program of supplement use in action. There is no indication that player welfare has ever been risked. We have records of exactly what the players were given. The only question is on point 2. Were any of the items given to the players illegal? The club issued a statement some time ago saying that they have reviewed the medical practices and determined that nothing has been given to the players that they are not allowed to have and that the injections mentioned were vitamin cocktails. Given that they weren't stupid enough to misplace the records of these treatments we should be perfectly safe assuming they are being truthful.

It wasn't an injection. The text refers to a cream.

100% against this rule. Why on earth do they feel the need to constantly tinker with the rules? Because the laws of the game committee are a pack or reactionary old fools who are fighting to convince the world that they are in some way relevant. 90% of their changes backfire, and rather than admitting a mistake and reversing the change they simply make more changes in a vain attempt to repair the damage. I think the AFL need to look at the most successful sport in the world and take a leaf from their book. No rules get changed without exhaustive studies over a number of years and a great deal of political movement to push them through. We need to be far less willing to make changes.

What they have regarding Melbourne is a single text saying that Trenners should stop by the Pharmacy and pick up the AOD cream. No mention of the number 9640 or whatever it is. Given that a pharmacy isn't going to stock a substance now approved for human use, I think we're safe on that front. They also have something about players reporting good results from injections and other players wanting to try. Fortunately, Melbourne have never tried the "We lost the paperwork" angle that the bombers have used, and so have comprehensive records of exactly what the players were taking. The AFL have seen those records and know that they have not had anything dodgy. This whole thing is a non-event and will go away quietly. The only reason there is any talk at all is the Dank was involved.

All in all this looks like a pretty soft penalty, especially given the relative wealth of the club. I wonder whether ASAD and WADA will let it stand? They do have the power to overrule the AFL and take it to a supreme court to get the penalty increased.

I agree, and I would love us to grab him if he drops to late second or third round. I'm not sure I'd be using a high pick on him. Why does this matter? The insistence on drafting squeaky-clean choirboys is a large part of the problem with our drafting from the last few years. We have players who are great at chatting with little kids and kicking at practice, but who can't stand up for themselves in a real game and have no fight to them at all. I couldn't care less if he goes out and gets drunk after a win as long as he plays like a demon on the field.