Ho Chi Dee

So you see many delistings coming up then?

I'm guessing the game plans of the future will continue to value excellent skills, good reaction time, awareness and athleticism. There's only so much of that you can teach. And if you find the term NQR meaningless, its probably because when it comes to grasping the abstract you've shown yourself to be NQR. Nobody's looking for a team of faultless players. St Kilda have a couple of A grade players and a good spread of good ordinary players. At the moment we have none of the former and only a few of the latter. If you take those at the top out of St Kilda the players you name would seemingly revert to type. You get the the best out of players by having enough good and A grade players to pull the cart. Prepare for disappointment at years end when more drift is set loose.

No - our focus should be on the players on our list with the requisite skills and mental capacity to carry out game plan in the future. Good God there are some sophists here who love to to indulge in overstatement. Who's advocating the removal of all the 21-25 year olds? You get to where we are and where Richmond is with poor list management. Holding on too many NQR players has been a fault of the MFC for years. We can't remove all our NQRs at once as contractual issues wont allow it, but we need to keep pruning as many as possible in an attempt to allow as many potential good / great players to come on board as possible. Bell, PJ, Dunn, Buckley, Bartram and Newton for a start are all sevrely limited players. Enough of our last 2-3 drafts of players will be limited - why keep the ones that have been around long enough to show they wont be the ones to lead the revival? If there are few changes at the end of the year it will only be because the football department have serious doubts about the depth of the upcoming draft.

DD, I don't think anyone else is arguing that we must rid ourselves of all NQR players. As has been rightly pointed out, the majority of AFL footballers, by definition, are ordinary and there are numbers of NQR players on every club's list. The issue is not whether we can afford to have any, but the amount we can afford to carry. And Melbourne's "depth" of NQR players is the deepest in the league (at least there's one area we're leading the competition.). So, if we have to cull our list of such players, it should be coming from the players that have 4-7 years behind them - the middle aged players. If you don't cull these players when you have the chance two things happen. You deny yourself the chance to try to develop more able talent (and seeing this is something the MFC has a poor track record of, the more chances the better) and ultimately you end up in the situation we are in now where the club's senior "leaders" are for the most part not good enough. I want as many as possible of those who have had 4-7 years who have shown themselves not good enough to be moved on and their spaces used to try to attract talent that will take us somewhere. We will always have ordinary and NQR footballers, but if we're to be good we need a core of good ones and a smattering of elite ones. I'm hoping and expecting that plenty of people will be moved on again at year's end. Oh and general shout out: Can people please make themselves aware of the difference between "less" and "fewer"? It is grating to have to put up with primary school literacy every time a thread concerning draft picks and the number of games required crops up.

That wasn't my example - it was yours. Yes the current Hawks have a very successful two pronged KF attack, but its no longer a necessity. Football has moved on a hell of a long way since the Lions, let only the 80s. The Hawks were fortunate to have the calibre of availabke KFs they had in 2004. I can't think of many other elite KFs who have gone early in recent drafts - to nab 2 at once is being struck up the arse by a rainbow. If we draft 2 elite KFs over 2 years we'll also be falling on our feet. I'm not sure they will help with the lack of inside class we have. None of our inside midfielders consistently hurt the opposition once they have the ball. If that's not rectified, I don't hold much hope for players like Strauss and Blease to be feed enough to do damage of their own.

While the cats have class up forward, they don't have that many classy power forwards. Most of their class comes from their small forwards. And their midfield scores plenty for them as well. Drafting power forwards early simply because you lack them isn't the smartest choice. You asked how many inside midfields do we need - the answer is we need good ones. Currently we don't have them. We need to draft players who can consistently influence games, regardless of where they play. We may have a chance to address each of our main failings with 2 of the first 3 picks this year, but I don't want Butcher (or any other power forward) first unless they've shown they've the potential to be match winners.

Care to elaborate a little? It'd be much appreciated by those of us who don't have the opportunities to see him live. From the very little I've seen and read of him, he certainly seems to be skilled and a good decision maker, however he doesn't appear to be a very offensive player - more a playmaker. Would that be a fair assumption? Pace looks ok without being special, but seems to be a player who "has time".

Because apart from Cheney and Jetta, all other options have shown themselves to be fairly limited. Not much we can do about it but it sure reflects our plight.

With the exception of Cheney and Jetta, I reckon the options on the interchange are a pretty good explanation of why we are where we are. Uninspiring.

Coming from the one who detests "condescending crap"... However H's observation is a good one: the game is passing pure taggers by and given Bartram's below par skill set there's not much else he can offer. Anyone not seeing that is watching the game through the opaqueness of loyalty.

Still feeling as blinkered about this after another 10 goal display? Bearing in mind that my scenario was full of conditionals, what have we to lose by trying Garland upfront upon his return? The kid has speed and class (and as Dappa points out, a good kick) - attributes we lack up front. If it doesn't work out, so be it. We've not much to lose but something to gain. I back him as a better option better down forward than any other we currently have maybe barring Green. And counting draft picks before we have them doesn't wash.

True, A possible silver lining is that if Warnock, Martin, Frawley and Co make the most of their opportunities, it might allow us the opportunity to try Garland forward upon his return. His speed, lateral movement and ability to read the play would be great assests up forward. At the moment he's been playing too well down back to move, but if the others cement themselves as a solid unit whilst he's out... We could certainly do with more to kick to going forward.

I hope you're right and ultimately that's the greatest potenital payoff from this realignment. Though I would think it would need to be appreciably more than $900,000. It will be interesting to watch the AFL's and MCC's responding moves.

Ok. You're in the Club Has Been Saved camp. Noted. Permit me to join once I feel more confident.

Forgiven. The quote above wasn't aimed at those people simply satisfied with the progress made, but I can see how it could have been interpreted. The lessons of the throw-away line...

Coming from you H... I'm not sniggering at satisfaction gained from what are hardly 'trivial gains'. And don't try and paint me into a corner of your own making by tartly listing all the achievements the board has made of late and pretend I'm anything but impressed with them. I'm aware of them and as happy as anyone they've been made. This is the club I give significant amounts of my time, energy and money to. You're right, maybe in the original post I should have summed up with a line such as "great news, but still plenty to do..." However, I feel I've made that point sufficently in my following posts.

I think you might be chasing your tail WYL, I'm firmly behind what Stynes has done so far. Let's just hold a little longer for a grander judgement on the sizeable job in hand. So far, so good. Saved? No.

Correct, we can't stand independent - however, we might be able to stand independently. I was referring more to AFL financial assistance. And please don't bother diverting into lengthy discourse about why the club needs such assistance. I understand. The club however will never be safe (let alone saved as so many of the millenarian-inclined here love to believe has already occured) until we are able to significantly reduce the need for financial injections from the AFL. That will be a long and difficult road. To begin with, we need to be able to consistently make profits given the assistance we already receive. Whilst the current proclamations broadcasted from the AFL are 10-team-Melbourne-friendly, I'm not banking on that be a constant. And yes for the record, the MCC agreement is a great move, even if it is only symbolic (it may take a while to figure out what it translates to in a material sense).

I think you'll find if you re-read my posts that I'm not waiting for anything of the sort. I stated that Stynes has been the figurehead around which passion has united (though that sounds very Mills and Boon). All I'm saying is that we are yet to see whether we can stand independtly, away from strings-attached financial assistance. Believe me, I hope they don't fail. We can't choose that route too many more times.

Nor I the dull bleating of the easily impressed.

Was Garland's injury publicised anywhere? If so, I must have missed it. Good to see the 4 from last week retain their spots.

Well H, given how verbose my original post was and still having it misinterpreted, I thought it best to err on the side of caution As for my prvious alias, it was many, many a year ago and something like La Fonatine, but not one hundred percent sure, it was rarely used.

EDIT: And now Ho Chi Min gives us more of the 'hero worship' insinuations just as Hazy and wing did before him. Hmm. Are you thinking what I'm thinking B2 ? It seems that anyone that has a modicum of satisfaction in what Stynes and co have done to date run the risk of being labelled 'starstruck'.

"I think there is a good 'charnce' you speak in that annoying manner and have taken offense." None taken. I’m simply of the belief that if your ego feels the need to deliver a harangue, you may as well have some idea of the subject you’re griping about. Unfortunately you appear to have been found wanting in your understanding of the English language as much you have been in your previous examples of football “analysis”. And for FWIW, I tend to switch between the two pronunciations depending on the context and emphasis required.