Salems Lot

In 1983 under huge fanfare, MFC recruited Kelvin Templeton (Brownlow Medallist and enough said the better) and Peter Moore, Brownlow Medallist and out and out champion. At the time we were sitting at no 8 on a ladder made up of 12 teams and it was felt that these 2 champion players would make the difference at a struggling club. As I have said, Templeton was a downright ill advised move as his best years (and knees) were well and truly behind him but Peter Moore gave everything for his new club and even managed to win another Brownlow with the Dees. By 1986, his last effective year with Melbourne, we had slipped to 11th on the ladder and were heavily in debt for our troubles. The new breed of young kids who followed were the ones who formed the real future of our great teams of the late 80's. A young fellow called Stynes helped out quite a bit. What I am saying is that one marquee player in a young rebuilding team will not make a massive difference to the clubs fortunes, except maybe to provide some time for the youngsters to develop. And what he can most definitely do is unbalance the clubs focus and finances. To get Pavlich we would be looking at giving up at least our first couple of picks and maybe a youngster as well. With the club alreadyshowing such discipline by not rushing our future marquee player, JW into the Ones and generally managing the kids tells me that they have a strict plan that they are following for success and I can't believe that they would derail this plan at this stage with a one off signing. As another example, look at what Judd has done for Carlton, there is no doubting his supreme skills but he as one man has not been able , so far, to turn the Bl@£$es into anymore than a mediocre team. No Pavlich for me.

Hmm I tipped the Pies :angry: But wasn't it sweet :lol: The Filth were pathetic all day I thought, the Bumbers were playing with no bench for a lot of the game deserved to be totally overrun. Made the toiges look well drilled in comparison

Dees by 24 with Juice kicking 5 goals 2 and Robbo a late inclusion kicking 6!!!!! :rolleyes:

My 4 year old came rushing up to me at the end of the game and said "Dad! the dees just one their first game!!" after the last couple of years, I think he thought of all time!! May he see many more

Agree, but it was obviously a very tricky wind, those 3 posters in a row could have been costly as well. Having said that, Frosty really seems to have sorted out his aggression on the field by channelling it into his game rather than trying to make clumsy statements and getting reported like in the past

The sad thing is that compared to some of the extraordinarily brave thing s that he does every game, it was a fairly innocuous clash. Great player, he will be missed. FWIW, Peter Bruchner said it will be a minimum of 6 weeks probably much more

I need new tyres for my car but can't replace them with Hankook, not available for my car :angry:

Colin Sylvia with Nathan Carroll for regional development manager

I was onto the club today about my son's junior membership (he has received 3 membership packs now!!) and asked the staff member how memberships were getting on. She replied that they are still going well with 500 joining on the North Melbourne match day and a steady stream each day. Come on all of you who haven't joined yet, let's keep the pressure on!!

By my estimation, in a weekor 2 we will be left with only 3 players on the injury list. The down side is that one of thoseplayers is Garland but at least the squad is starting to develop a little bit of depth. Add in the sight of Watts and maybe Blease playing for Casey and things are looking a little more positive.

Forgive me if there is somewhere on the site where this shows up, I am fairly new to Demonland, but is it possible to keep a thread going that regularly updates injuries and likely return times. Players like Aussie and Jack G must be getting close to a return at some level and reading the various reports from the weekend several players have returned to the available list recently. The players that seem to be injured at the moment are: Junior, Russian, Grimes, Wheatley, Bail?? Aussie Players that seem to be back playing at different levels are: Robbo, Strauss, Wrecker, MacNamara, Maric, Can anyone update this list? it would be great to see these guys placing a bit of selection pressure on the current senior 22

According to the MFC Website JW will play with Casey next week - WATTS UP FOR CASEY DEBUT. That seems a whole lot sooner than originally discussed. I'm tipping a spike in the Scorpions gate takings for next week!

Over the past 3 years we have seen a large number of young kids joining the club who all in one way or another appear to have certain strengths to bring to the game. Who do you think of these guys that we have seen or haven't seen much of can bring a touch of the X factor. For mine, Grimes seems to have leadership skills but more in a steady style a' la Junior, Maric looks like he will need a solid structure around him to really make an impact and Watts has been spoken of in enough length to fill several libraries. From what I have seen of him on youtube and indeed from what I have read about him, Sam Blease looks like the sort of mid-fielder that we are crying out for; skillful, fast and seemingly with a huge heart. It has been widely reported what he had to deal with through the loss of his Dad and it seems to have spurred him on with enormous determination. With some solid bodies around him, I hope that he will become a major part of our engine room.

Just getting back to the thread for a second, I can't see Bail named in any team this week. Have I missed him or is he injured as well? Regarding the next month, the following players can all hope to make an appearance adding a touch of class and or experience to a fairly classless team: Grimes, Aussie, Maric, Strauss, Whelan, Wheatley, Bail and maybe: Jurrah, And even at a push: Watts??? Certainly it will be interesting to see how the lineup has changed by the end of May. B)

Great to hear that McNamara played in the twos, poor guy must be champing at the bit, any sign of Grimes or is he still a couple of weeks off ? Surely he would come straight back into the ones after a relatively short lay off.

Today's performance shows how important players like Maric, Wonna, Blease , Jurrah and of course Watts are going to be. I don't even take into account Robbo with those guys but they are clearly the future attack for the Dees and none of them are playing yet. It would be great to look forward a couple of seasons to see how the forward line structures up with those cattle available.

Did anyone see the feature on Jack Mega Watts in the Melbourne Magazine with the Age on Friday. All about the selection process and basically what a terrific guy he is..

Just out of interest, this time last year my nephew told me that he had been personally called by Robbo asking if he was going to renew his membership. They had a bit of a chat (my nephew thought initially that it was a wind up) and naturally he re-signed there and then. Apparently this was an initiative that the club was undertaking to prompt previous members to join up again. Sounded like a great idea at the time. Has anyone been called by members of the playing list this year?

I can hear the sound of tiger membership cards being torn up in disgust already, nothing funnier than an outraged Richmond fan

Looks like a battle of the backlines to me

It occurs to me that with all of this extra sponsorship cash coming in, wouldn't it be great for the club to have another crack at the Debt Demolition. With The Governments cash injection coming out to us all over the next month, what a good way to spend it! Any thoughts??

Where does Jolly fit into all of this, surely he was the heir apparent to Jeff White, not a bad one at that. Losing him put the Russian up a notch in the pecking order and the team has not adjusted since that time. If Jolly was still in the Red and Blue we would be well set. It just goes to show how hard it is to find a quality ruckman.