praha

No.

Haha you have your head in the sand! Who the hell wants to watch Melbourne? Why should Melbourne be given a good draw and prime time slots? This all has an influence on how the draw is created. Why are we selling games interstate? Because we've been a poorly managed club. Not because of the league's poor fixturing. We were given an absolute dream draw in 2007 commercially and in terms of ease, earned after a decade of good performances. We blew it and haven't come out of the funk since. 30k is better than losing money. What I am saying is that we have those matches as a product of a few things, including having to sell games, but also because the successful sides often play each other twice and so therefore need to make up the home games elsewhere against clubs like Melbourne. If we start winning, then maybe we'll get a home game against Richmond as other clubs around us become less commercially attractive for the audience and league. The league has an obligation to fans more than it does to Melbourne. The fixture is fair in that we hardly travel for away games and we play 13 games at the MCG. Arguing that the league has an obligation to create a *commercially* "fair" league is just ignorant to how the league is run. No one gives a [censored] about Melbourne atm. The only way to change that is to win games and you'll be amazed at how much the fixture will shift in our favour. Neo-liberal economic crap? What's the alternative? This is a competitive league. History has shown that the league's socialistic attempt to "equalise" the comp is futile when natural evolutions like free agency and growing audiences and interest shape how the league is marketed and promoted to fans. I bet you'll be applauding like an autistic seal if we sign Dangerfield next year. DAT NEO-LIBERAL CRAP! As Jackson said, the fixture is a product of where the club is at atm. If the club and I can see and acknowledge that, why can't you? I mean, I have Peter Jackson on my side. Thank God we don't have whatever the hell the opposite of a "neo-liberal" is running the joint!

All it takes is a 2-3 win streak for fans to come out. If you go into a match against Freo at the MCG with 2+ loses, yeah, you're going to get 16,000 there. Play good football and you can bump that up to 23-25k and the club breaks even. It is imperative now more than ever that the club starts winning games. We can't have another season of, "Oh yes but they're improving."

The thing is, if the team actually *wins* games, the matches against WB, Saints, North and probably Brisbane can potentially attract 30k+, which is what you need for a profit. What all of this comes down to is if you want a commercially viable fixture, you need to be commercially attractive. Melbourne is not. The only way to fix this is to win games. From that standpoint, the fixture doesn't actually make it *harder* for Melbourne to win games. We have no fate but what we make for ourselves. We can either blame the AFL, or we can suck it up, win some damn games of footy, and entice people to come to games. It's not rocket science.

The good news is we have 13 MCG games. Collingwood has 14 as does Richmond. Our MCG games are mostly away games against Melbourne clubs. This is because we have sold home games to play interstate and we must play interstate teams there, so they take up our "home games".

Probably one of the worst fixtures in recent memory. The club absolutely cannot afford another season with <6 wins.

The whole family is diehard Melbourne.

Nathan Jones.

It's not the same anymore. Flower definitely was a once-in-a-generation player but these days you need a good balance between core strength and pace. Cale had neither.

Let's not kid ourselves, guy: he was awful. An average player in a bad side. Let this no longer be a club of run-withs and deadbeats. We need good players. Depth is made up of good role players. He was not a role player.

It makes sense to have the Melbourne teams play in Melbourne, though. Even Melbourne v GC at the MCG Round 1 is going to get 10-15k more than what the crowd would be on the GC. I predict 28k-35k.

No way any of the draftees walk into round 1. I don't know, but something about that team gives me shivers. I hope there's improvement. But I sense a few 12+ goal thrashing.

Really? Is he better than: Jones Toumpas Viney Trengove Tyson Kent Mitchie Vince JKH Because those are the guys he'd be competing for a place in the side with.

DAT SPIN AT 1:37. When Jako went down towards the end of the season, The Ox really stepped up his game. Those 9 against Sydney in Round 24 to put us into the finals was absolutely God-like. Why has this club had such badluck with forwards? Jakovich was flying before he screwed his back. Lyon was always injured. Schwartz did his damn knee 3 times. Then we saw Jurrah, Clark, Wonna, Hogan all have their own fair share of problems. There was probably only one period of time where we didn't have any major on-field injury issues in my time supporting this club, and it was from probably 98 until 2006. Everything around that has been frustrating.

Good.

I really have no idea. It would be absolutely disastrous if they went another season with less than 6 wins. From an off-field perspective, it would make it very hard for the club. I was hopeful of 6 wins this year. We didn't get that, but were close. It could have easily been 8 wins. Is 10 wins out of the question? I don't think it's ambitious to expect that. High Distinction: 8-12 wins Pass: 6-7 wins Fail: <6 wins

4 years, 3 mil will get it done I'd imagine. If he goes to another level next year, bump it to 3.4.

We have a low support base but a high rate of support-to-attendance, meaning more of our support group attends matches than most other teams. Sydney for example has 1.5 million fans (all of Sydney) but only a small % would go to games. This means a few things. 1. We probably have the fewest bandwagon fans in the AFL, which is understandable because the bandwagon is still parked at Junction Oval. 2. We have a very concentrated support base in Melbourne. 3. Our fans are true fans. The End. (?)

My heart says 8-10 wins. My brain says 5-7.

Is anyone really surprised by GWS' urgency? You simply can't build a squad with high draft picks anymore. Once upon a time, maybe, but you need a good balanced across the ENTIRE list. It's just too much of a competitive, high quality league to bank on inexperience turning into superstars. Hawthorn did it at the right time and were probably the last team to do it so well, Port to a lesser extent, and they could very well play in a GF next year. GWS know that they need players to attract fans, and to attract fans you need to win games. Melbourne is in no different a situation. GWS' biggest ever mistake was offering so much to Scully. It should have offered the same amount to a superstar of the Ablett variety. Sheedy's obvious vendetta against Melbourne set that club back 3-5 years.

If he agreed to the trade and contract Melbourne offered as GNF said, then we must be in the box seat to get him next year.

Pfft, what does Roos know? Unless he has at least 100 posts on Demonland, his list management credentials mean SQUAT!

Would the player we would have picked at 23 be of equal or lesser value than Frost? Most likely. I don't really see the big deal.

Won't it just be replaced by King's Birthday?

We probably do. I think we're only a Dangerfield away from making the finals in 2015, but obviously that won't happen, so seeing Viney, Toumpas, Tyson, Watts, Hogan, McDonald, Kent, JKH, Jetta all improve will have to do. Do we have a better list than we did in 2010? I'd argue that that potentially we do. I don't think we've had so many young players impress in one year as Tyson, JKH, Jetta, Kent did in 2014 for a very long time.