praha

To answer your question: No, we're not tanking. We're just not good enough.

Jamar has been great in his two games. He gets hit-outs and presents. I thought he played better than Fraiser yesterday. Only two games, but on those games he is 2 of 2, both of which were great by an average ruckman standard and I think he is deserving of a HD.

He's a Pies supporter, granted, but told me Collingwood had a younger team today than Melbourne on the field. Even if it's not true, I thought to myself: Players like Robbo, Whelan, McDonald, even Bruce. Are they totally, 100% necessary to be in the team? I'd suggest that McDonald is there for leadership reasons and I don't expect them to dump the captain, although I anticipate an "injury" soon for him to miss a couple of weeks. Robbo is at the end of his career. He isn't part of our plans for the future and as great as he has been for our club, his selfish play isn't good for a learning and developing team. Whelan is a solider. No doubt. But I think he might just be done. A fantastic player over the past 9 years and I guess he could be spared a position, but if a young gun is knocking down the door, I'd rather see Whelan go to Casey than someone like Martin, who is said to be part of our future. Now Bruce. Our highest paid player and best and fairest winner. I'm not a fan of Bruce. I watch him more than other players because I like picking on him (guilty as charged). He backs out of contests, which is my biggest gripe. And unlike McDonald or Davey or Whelan, he just isn't reliable and genuine enough in his game play. Maybe it's just me though? So I guess the question I put forth to all of you is whether you think it is totally, 100% necessary to have these older players in our team. If they're not leading and not helping us win games (like Richo at Richmond, for example), then I can't see any reason for them being in the team.

Beamer was respectable today. On a type of day when the handball should be outlawed, his style of play actually helped us get on the scoreboard. He didn't put in 4 quarters though. Green was OK and made a target early on.

Everyone except Watts.

I think we can all agree Watts is better than all of those players and anything less than 12 goals today would have been a massive under achievement. I call bust.

From another thread: *sigh* We don't have any silky smooth players besides Davey and Sylvia. We have a non-existent forward line. We have 2 players under 50 games holding up our back line. Our "leaders" back out of contests and spray at goal. Our one true leader in McDonald just isn't AFL standard anymore. What do you expect? Rebuilding. That is the word. This is the first year of that rebuilding. Last year didn't count because the list was still infected with Daniher's duds. Slowly cleaning them out and slowly pulling them in. Hence a 3-4 year plan. It's one game, against a team that is flying, on the big stage, of which hardly any of our players have played on.

You clearly never watched Grgic play lol

On the big screen before the game, Schwartz was talking about the great names that had worn number 4, in reference to Watts' guernsey presentation. He mentioned Norm Smith, Ron Barrassi and then....Brent Grgic. He must have been joking, right?

Brock is a scrumber. Like Jones. Too slow and not a good enough football brain.

*sigh* We don't have any silky smooth players besides Davey and Sylvia. We have a non-existent forward line. We have 2 players under 50 games holding up our back line. Our "leaders" back out of contests and spray at goal. Our one true leader in McDonald just isn't AFL standard anymore. What do you expect? Rebuilding. That is the word. This is the first year of that rebuilding. Last year didn't count because the list was still infected with Daniher's duds. Slowly cleaning them out and slowly pulling them in. Hence a 3-4 year plan. It's one game, against a team that is flying, on the big stage, of which hardly any of our players have played on.

Wrong. Jack Watts is the best player at the club. You don't hype up a player like that, before he debuts, without claiming him to be the best at the club. /sarcasm.

inb4yzemagic

Wow. did you people really expect anything other than that?

I've heard that everytime he blinks, the Melbourne Football Club signs a new member.

It was a joke people. As if to say we MIGHT be hyping him up over nothing, or that he might not even have an opportunity on the day to make the hype worth it. Some people take things too personally me thinks.

Talk about over hyping. I'm looking forward to Harry O'Brian knocking him out 2 minutes in.

Yr 12 is important, but not the be all and end all. If you're intelligent enough to continue studying, you should focus on that. Giving up an education just so you could take up the chance to be a successful athlete, which is never assured, is ridiculous. He's smart and dedicated enough when it comes to school, so he should be able to study what he wants to study and as dedicated as he wants to. He realises that he might not be earning 300k in 4 years and if he doesn't have an education in a particular field, he'll have to be a labourer (NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT!!). Believe it or not, but not every male on the planet wants to be a brick layer or an electrician. Some men just aren't interested in that. He wants an education so that at least when he finishes football, if he doesn't have investments or if he hasn't made it, he can go into a profession he always wanted to go into.

Absolutely ridiculous thing to say. VCE is important, whether you want to go to Uni or not. If you have that mentality, it says a lot about your character imo. Nothing is better than a good education. I don't care what anyone here says. To assume you're going to be earning 200k within 4 years is the biggest mistake an athlete could make. He has no idea what could happen between now and then. The good thing about Uni is that you can essentially do it for as long as you want. Plenty of players juggle full-time AFL with part-time studies and eventually get their degrees after 4 or 5 years. I have no doubt that each club encourages players to have a university degree or TAFE diploma as a back up.

Jackovich was a God. Still is. He is part of some of my earliest memories as a Melbourne supporter.

He resigned with one game left and said he didn't want to coach them next season, even though the club had every intention of him staying. The Bulldogs pretty much said that if he didn't want to be there anymore, they didn't want him to coach again, and so had a caretaker coach for the last round.

Tasmania Inbreeds (Sorry to any Tasmanian's)

I'm sorry, but there is a distinctive difference between a good VFL player and a good AFL player. If a player plays well in the VFL, it doesn't automatically mean he should be playing AFL, in reference to Newton. Some players thrive on the bigger stage, whereas some thrive in the VFL. Him playing better than players who would normally be in out top 22 is hardly a good indication.

http://forums.demonland.com/index.php?show...15041&st=40

Great news. I hate Etihad/Telstra/Docklands and want to play as few a games there as possible.