leucopogon

I don't want him. Let Carlton take the gamble and I hope it blows up in their face. I'd prefer to concentrate on clearing out the deadwood, rebuilding the list from the ground up and moulding the team into a hard-nut, disciplined, committed and ruthless outfit. Some of the trade talk being bandied about on this forum is laughable. I've heard that Judd's injury is the same as the one that's crippled Harry Kewel's soccer career. Not worth the risk for the price its likely to cost in my opinion.

My hope: Alex Rance

Yeah, I noticed just about all of my preferred draft picks were interstaters. Seems like WA has really produced a solid crop of young-uns this draft. Hope CAC has run the rule over the attitudes and mentality of potential interstate picks, I'm sure he's a lot more wary of this after the scott thompson affair. Tall, pacy and skillful players are exactly what we need, like rodney g said, they'd complement our tough in and under brigade beautifully. I still think we need to consider drafting a good run-with player like McGinnity or Stephen Browne (again both from WA ) especially now that Godders has got the chop. Can someone tell me when the draft actually takes place, I'd like to start counting down the days.

That volunteer wasn't Joeboy by any chance? my 3 words: Frustrating, Inconsistent, Infuriating (at times) what kind of car: a 1964 EH Holden (that hasn't been serviced in a long, long, long time) biggest challenge- rebuilding the list into a disciplined, competitive, never-say-die, powerhouse during the next five years.

Good effort with the transcription KJ. What you said here is exciting for sure, but further to that, not only has he been involved at a coaching level with two premiership teams he's also been involved with the resurgence of Port as a, mind the pun, power this season. That kind of experience will be invaluable for the rebuilding of MFC during the next few seasons. Can't wait for draft day.

Okay, based only on the writeups because I've seen nothing of any of them in the flesh or on the tube here's who I'm looking at: First round - Alex Rance, Rhys Palmer, Brad Ebert or Cale Morton 2nd round - Paddy McGinnity, Stephen Browne, David Myers (or any of the above that manage to slip through) 3rd round - Jack Grimes, Thomas Bellchambers, Patrick Dangerfield (or any of the above that slip through) Later rounds - Andrew Renton, Andrew Hogan (or any of the above that slip through) These picks have an underlying theme of pace, skill and size. I particularly like write-up of Patrick Dangerfield and Jack Grimes as a smoky pick. Really like what I read about Alex Rance (just what we need a proper KP backman). I think David Myers sounds an excellent prospect and Paddy McGinnity/Stephen Browne sound like excellent run-with prospects which we are sorely lacking. I'd be happy with any from this list. Bring on the Draft!

The roos can bugger off, they won flags in 96 & 99, I've never even lived to see my team win a flag. Don't care who wins the flag to be honest.

Voted Sheedy, but would be happy if it was in an advisory role to a younger assistant like Voss, McKenna, Hardwicke (a la Parkin / Brittain) with a plan of succession in place. I too think we should steer clear of ex-Dees.

I know this comment is in jest, but the point made by Toad about premiership winning coaches being former premiership winning players is a very poignant one. I completely agree we need a coach that's tasted premiership glory at coaching (not sure if that equates to assistant coaching) or playing level. So for me -- possibles: Voss, Ratten, McKenna, Sumich, O'Donnell, Longmire, Harvey, Pagan (yuck!), Sheeds, Laidley (will get another contract at the Roos I'm sure) no-way Jose's: Connolly, Grant Thomas, Bond, Viney, G. Lyon, Probably forgetting heaps of contenders here. I think the worst thing we could do personally, is to get an ex-Dee in as coach. We haven't tasted a flag for over 40 years so the only ex-Dee candidates out there will have been ingrained with that recent Melbourne culture of mediocrity. We need someone from outside our tribe to come in and show us the way to win (Danners almost achieved it but not quite and then he learned to epitomise the mediocrity of our club...poor guy). My personal preference out of the possibles listed would have an emphasis on recent premiership success as player/coach/assistant so my shortlist is probably: Voss, Sumich, Longmire (hardly an inspiring list of candidates when I look at it). As for the idea of bringing in Sheedy, t'would be a gamble for sure and one that I'd be almost willing to take a punt on for the extra-curricular benefits and noteriety he'd bring to the club. As for my worst possible nightmare...here's a hint, first name starts with a C and last name starts with a C p.s you'll notice no Riley mentioned, career coaches rarely work out (was/is Pagan a career coach? if so, he's an exception because of the awesome list he had at his disposal at North in the 90's).

Pagan, now, reminds me of Alan Joyce at the end of his coaching career with the Bullies. He was successful earlier in his career, won premierships but then the game just passed him by and he was absolutely hopeless at the death. That's where I see Pagan now, if he came to Melbourne, it would be a disgrace. Sheedy is a more enticing prospect to me, but I hope we go for someone younger and pray to God its not somone like Brian Royal or Chris Bond, have either of them been within cooo-eee of an AFL premiership as either player or assistant coach? Then again Paul Roos never got a sniff of a flag either until he took over as senior coach so i guess the knife cuts both ways. Whichever way we go with the coach its going to be a case of damned if we do and damned if we don't (in the short term at least as all and sundry supporters seem to have their favourites and their despised candidates) only time will tell if we make the right choice. Isn't it just typical though of our club that when we find ourselves in a unique situation (ie. the only club in the AFL to be without a senior coach and actively looking for a new one) within 3 weeks we're back behind the eightball and all the advantage of Daniher leaving when he did has now vanished. Like others have said, I think we might end up with 3rd best choice and I've got a horrible feeling its going to be Connolly.

our spine is a comedy. Like others have said, unless we can get an elite power player in their prime holding down either of FF, CHF, or CHB and dominating games we'll never challenge seriously. Miller after promising much has let the club down oh so badly.

Please lets get someone who at least has first hand experience of winning a premiership either in the capacity of player or coach (or assistant), preferably in a coaching capacity. Who does that leave? Sumich, Longmire? I'm pretty sure that might have been one of the main reasons Ross Lyon got the gig at the Saints. So perhaps its all just garbage that theory. I'll just sit back and enjoy the ride over the coming months. No sense in getting all worked up about it.

With the suspension of Davey, what about debuting Weetra to see if he's a potential goalsneak? I notice he's off the injury list now.

I don't know why others like Alistair Clarkson are coming out in the media and criticising Gardner for doing what he did. Reading the spate of articles in the HUN website about the whole Daniher review affair annoyed me greatly and prompted me to pen those words. I think the comments made earlier being willing to embrace change in order to change our fortunes around was spot on. That's exactly what we need to do. Why dwell in the past when its clear to all and sundry that things are stale, dare I say it almost rotten, at this club in the coaching department? Just because Neale's a nice guy doesn't mean we should jeopardise our opportunity to begin an exhaustive search for the best coach possible to lead us forward with plenty of time up our sleeve before the crunch time of trade week and the national draft are upon us. By waiting until the end of Rd 22 to begin the search for the coach would be crazy on two fronts: 1) gives us very little time to get someone in before trade week, and 2) we might well be competing with a number of other clubs for the leading candidates whereas at the moment we're the only ones with a senior coaching vacancy and the ball is completely in our court to go out there and head hunt the best man available. I believe this is a fantastic position to be in and I commend the board, Gardner, our CEO, and of course Neale himself for bringing this about. While indeed this is a sentimental time to be a MFC fan (yes I liked Daniher a lot) its really one of the most exciting times that I can remember. Can't wait to see who we end up with. The only problem is that gnawing doubt that sits in the back of my mind that we'll end up with a hack like Chris Connolly. Surely the board couldn't be that blind though....surely.

Carrol is a 3rd tall option, nothing more. He's only a FB because we haven't had a proper full back probably since Jamie Shanahan. We are bereft of Key defenders of quality and I can't remember us ever having a really good one. The passing of Broadbridge really set this club back along way, Rivers injury this year is probably one of the major reasons we've only won 2 games. Carrol is undersized and/or underpaced for many of the opposition full forwards and has been shown up plenty of times this year. You can't fault his courage though and he's definitely got good hands in a contested marking situation, just couldn't get in the contest tonight. Our midfield, which is very much in rebuilding phase, has a lot to answer for though in terms of the ease at which the ball comes into the opposition forward 50. It's made it awful tough on the defense and has made Carrol look a lot worse than he actually is. In terms of the future of Key spots down back, I think Rivers needs to become our franchise CHB. Carrol/Frawley can take the third tall but we need a genuine FB with a bit of pace, a lot of strength and most of all discipline. Maybe Brad Miller can be developed into this player. With the development of Newton and Dunn as tall options up forward I can't see much of a future for Brad up there. Hopefully the new coach can pull Miller's head in and get him contributing week in week out.

Dear Paul, You have come under fire from fans of the club, coaches at other clubs and the media about the way you and the board members have handled the whole Neale Daniher affair. I'd just like to throw my support behind you for making a tough and decisive decision on a crucial issue. You could see the writing on the wall that things needed to change in the footy department and went about instigating those changes by calling for the official review. It showed to the fans and sponsors of the club that you were being proactive in pursuing a course of due diligence to turn the fortunes of the club around. The fact that Neale Daniher decided to walk away this week was probably to be expected, he knew his time was up and he's a proud man that wouldn't have been content to sit around for the last 10 weeks as a "lame duck" figurehead. I'm sure that you and the board members were astute enough to have predicted this and once again, my hat's off to you and the board for doing something about our failing fortunes as a football team. It would have been a lot easier to do nothing and let season 2007 take its course. In my opinion leaving the critical task of finding the best possible replacement for senior coach until the conclusion of the season would have been pure folly and left the Club vulnerable to being ill-prepared for the all important trade/draft period. It's fantastic to be in the box seat to get the plum pick of the best available senior coaching candidates and even more heartening to know that whoever is lined up as Neale's permanent successor will have a good couple of months to run the rule over our playing list and get an idea of the drafting/trading priorities to take our team forward and become a genuine top four contender in time. Once again, my heartfelt thanks go out to you and the board for the way you've handled this delicate situation. I have a feeling that this moment in time could well be looked at as a turning point in the recent history of the Melbourne Football Club. Congratulations for having the guts to make the tough calls that were required. Oh just one last thing before I sign off: Please make sure you don't bloody hire Chris Connelly

As much as the loss hurt, it was just this thought that gave me much comfort. I could see the loss coming, starting with the missed tripping free kick against Bruce, the tempo footy tactics with 90 seconds still left to play, the failure of Doggy to have one functioning football brain cell, every time they bombed long into the forward line we couldn't cope. Long gone are the days when Jeff White played a kick behind play and mopped up that kind of attack. Go Tiges! I want Kreuzer.

Some random observations from tonights game (**** key observations): ***** No legspeed - Backline a rabble.....no Rivers, no backline - Doggy Brown "Goodbye, thanks for the memories" - Brock - chinks in the armour appearing, becomes a thug when he plays badly - Wheatley "superboot", sink your slipper son, always - Robbo, keep your feet! - Captain courageous - our only true leader (a worrying sign considering he doesn't have much time left in the game) - Junior definitely in our top 3 - 5 most important players right now - Hate to kick him when he's down but Nathan Carrol is having a very ordinary year. - Loved Sylvia's work but we need his strength and awareness in the middle to take some of the heat off Jones and Brock - Bell poor guy, crocked again **** We need a first rate tagger that can handle players like Hird and/or hurt the opposition the other way (hopefully Bartram becomes this player, with Godfrey as backup) **** We're a soft tackling team, even my wife noticed this, opposition break our tackles with monotonous regularity and we get sold far too many dummies - Newton welcome to the forward line son (EDIT: now that Juice has got his first game, can Mark Riley please now start teaching Miller to become a key defender or trade him off for someone that can play that position. We are so short on key possie backmen, Gerard Healey was spot on, this has always been a big problem for our team as long as I can remember) - Petterd looking very promising, love his courage and his skill level, more muscle and confidence could see him really blossom into something special - Our talls don't fill the hole in the opp. attacking 50, why? This used to be Whitey's bread and butter, I guess this was Rivers role as well. **** we're the up and under kings, disposal and footskills really need work **** Prospective coaches must be looking at our team with an air of perplexity. On the one hand they'll look at our fighting spirit and skills that we showed in quarters 2,3 and most of 4 as a big positive but the first quarter was utter tripe. The way our players turn it on and off like a tap is baffling in the extreme. This is the single biggest issue that needs addressing by the new coach, inconsistency and mental frailty. Unfortunately this is the legacy that ND has left (as much as it hurts me to say it as he's a top character and was good for the image of the footy club). My top 5 for the night 1) Junior 2) Col 3) TJ 4) Petterd 5) Ward/Godfrey (couldn't split em)

If Newton does kick a bag there'll be a lot of posters on these forums out of pocket. I just hope the kid beats his opponent, that's all you can ask of any Melbourne player, a couple of goals would be a bonus for him.

Just to add something else to this thread: reading the comments from Gardner about "the best person to come out of the review and selection process will get the job" makes me think that unless Riley does something miraculous like win 75% of the remaining games he's not really a chance, surely we'll be interviewing better candidates than him?

i agree with that, someone new with fresh ideas and tough, disciplined mentality. Michael Voss seems a good option. Someone with assistant coaching experience at Fremantle and Melbourne (i.e Riley) hardly fills me with confidence going forward.

Hope not (getting in Lyon that is) just because it would be bound to fail I reckon which would be a tragedy because of the high esteem in which the former skipper is held in. The media and coaching are two entirely different animals. Lyon's so entrenched in the former he's not really a chance I wouldn't think. Luckily for Vossy, I reckon he hasn't been out of the game for long enough to become too tainted by the media. I'm all for getting him or Brett Ratten, but am also keen to see what Riley can do although the fact he's already been working with the team is a bit of a concern given our lack of form.

To tell you the truth I can't remember exactly how I came to know about the site. I think it was through an internet search. Because I live in the west we don't get a lot of Demon coverage in the local media so I was forced to find a forum like this to satisfy my cravings for Demon related news/opinions. I'm not one to haunt other teams forums, but it seems like there is some passionate divides between us Demon fans on issues such as the coach and the players (ie. Bruce, Green, Miller, Danners). Are all clubs supporters like us, passionate but divided (in opinion I mean?)

Yeah there certainly are some good candidates out there. I don't think Harvey would suit, just a gut feeling, plus I reckon he'll take over the reigns at Freo next year if they miss the finals. O'Donnell, doesn't strike me as the kind of coach that's going to instill toughness into the side, plus I reckon hes been too long as an assistant and maybe is a bit stale now. I dunno (how many years was R.Lyon an assistant, 10 or something), I'm not convinced about him either though, I reckon Worsfold and Roos are the shining lights of the modern day coach, do 1-3 years as an assistant and then hop right in the deep end. So that leaves Bluey McKenna and Peter Sumich as a couple of other possibilities being touted around. Don't like the idea of either of them just because i hated West Coast and they both were very soft spoken "leaders" which is not what we need. I, like many on this forum, am thinking that we need a coach that demands respect because of the success they've achieved as a coach (ie. winning premierships) or as a recent player in the AFL (ie. Voss, Ratten and to a lesser extent Buckley) if any of that success is going to rub off onto our up and coming talented core of youngsters. I reckon our senior core of players has let the team down big time (with the exception of Neita who is just an out and out shining light) over the past few years with their propensity to allow the team to get on massive losing streaks and form slumps and when they were required turn things around and lead by example when it mattered they couldn't do it. I reckon the general attitude amongst the senior players would preclude the possibility of them responding well to a coach like Voss or Ratten (ie. a recently retired player that many of them would have played against). They just strike me as that kind of group. The youngsters wouldn't have a drama with it, as many on here have said, these are the kind of guys that would have been their heroes growing up and I think they'd respond very well to their message. So, I guess I'm saying if we want to challenge in the next 2 years for a flag we might have to go for a seasoned pro (someone like Sheedy, Malthouse, Pagan) to get a response from the older crew but that's just my gut feeling and is no guarentee that it will work. But if we look more long term then I reckon getting somebody in like Voss, Buckley, Hird, Ratten might be the ticket, to start moulding a young up and coming team that could really go places in perhaps 3-5 season's time. My personal preference is that we avoid both an established successful senior coach (they come at a much dearer price that we probably cant afford) and a long time assistant (like O'Donnel, Longmire, Harvey, etc) and go for a bright up and comer like Voss Buckley or Ratten. I think our senior core is a flaky mess and its too late for any of those guys to change their habits and attitudes in regards to putting in consistent four quarter efforts. I say we cut our losses and invest in the future. I reckon we should get Voss or Ratten as my first or second choice to come in and rebuild us in their image. Like others have said, we can't get much worse than present. As an aside, I reckon it would be fantastic to get Vossy this year when we are likely to have pick 1 or 2 in the draft plus a priority first rounder (more than likely). Not only do we have a big chance at getting Kruezer who is supposed to be the best tall bloke going around for a while (a likely successor to White or Neita) but I'm sure we could do some astute trading of some of those aforementioned flaky seniors to get a swag of low draft picks and/or players that the new coach can assess with an objective eye as being a better fit for our club under his guidance. Players like Yze (well, maybe not due to injury), Bruce, Green, TJ, Ward, Godfrey, Holland are literally playing for their careers for the rest of this year. All our players should shut their gobs to the media about lifting for Daniher and just go about concentrating on this fact that if they don't perform up to scratch and keep playing like they have been under ND, they'll be traded as soon as a new coach comes in. Its certainly an exciting time to be a Dees fan. A good distraction from our woeful on-field antics. P.S. Oh and for god's sake please lets not get Chris Connelly. I live in Perth and we get plenty of him on the tellie and I can tell you he is a woos with a capital W and is very much in the same mould as Daniher. Their characters are remarkably similar, but where Danners is a much more laconical, laid back and likable, Connelly is up tight, cagey and full of cliches. He wouldn't be the right choice for us, if we want to put an end to the kind of yo-yo form we've suffered from during ND's reign.

Thanks for the info Jarka, he sounds like just the ticket as a long term replacement for either one of White or more importantly Neitz. I'd be absolutely stoked to pick him up in the draft.