Adam The God

Disagree. I reckon FA will be our friend in the coming 3-5 years. It's how we'll smooth the edges of our list.

See, I reckon he'd really struggle at Brisbane (I mean who wouldn't? ).

I think you're underselling him a little bit, mate, but I think he'd struggle in a team with a lesser midfield. If he was 24 it'd be a yes, but with Weed and Hulett coming through, I'd prefer to develop from within there.

I agree with this, mate and with Jaded's post too, but it is frustrating to see him play for free kicks and at times fail to even provide a chase if the ball is spoiled or spilled. This happened a couple of times right in front of us on Sunday and it's not a good look. But it's funny. I feel like he still hasn't had that break out game yet and reckon he might this year. He has the potential to kick 10+, it's really only a matter of time. But first he has to work on his attitude, his defensive work rate and keep things simple with his kicking action.

Good post. The inexperienced players aren't the problem at our club, it's the senior players. Naturally, much of our inconsistency will be down to the inexperience on our list, but also the up and down form of players with experience who should be doing a whole lot better.

Agreed, although there has been a bit of gifting.

Get them all coming through at the same time. It's the Geelong model.

I think what Hawthorn did though was bring in the Gibson's and the Lake's once they'd built a bit of momentum in the competition. Let's see who we can attract at the end of 2016 and at the end of 2017. I think you'll find (if we continue our upward trajectory as a club) that we'll be able to entice some A graders for the first time in years. And these won't be A graders on the back of merely money. These will be A graders that want to jump on board, because they see what we're building. Make finals or go close this year and follow it up again next year with a finals campaign and this will be a reality. I keep saying it, but we are building a scary midfield. Midfields win premierships.

Hogan at CHF and Weideman at FF with Watts as a smart third tall who can kick goals too... that's a scary proposition for opposition defences. Especially, when we'll have the likes of Viney, Oliver, Petracca, Tyson etc winning the ball out of the middle more times than not. Our list balance is almost becoming a little Hawthornesque. We're building a really strong midfield with depth, a powerful forwardline, but a weaker backline. Hawthorn's structures, team work at the back and good ball users is what enabled them to be so dominant. We don't have that yet, but that's the direction we're going in. Of course, down the track we'll look to add KPDs to our list just as Hawthorn did with Gibson (despite playing undersized), Lake and now Frawley. Let's keep adding to the midfield, sign a KPD in FA or Hurley and continue developing our young KPFs in Weideman and Hulett to support Jesse. I love that we're still flying under the radar and rightfully so, we're still horribly inconsistent, but if we can sign Hogan long term this year, heads might start to turn our way.

Makes sense. Thanks mate.

I don't remember that, but thanks mate. Why was Vince's goal against Richmond never reviewed then? That was a metre and a half over the line, but was called touched and then never reviewed. The commentators didn't mention anything, so it wasn't even replayed. I was in a perfect position for that. It was well over.

I'd have Oliver ahead of him, but Oliver is the sort of player, like Sam Mitchell, that will go unnoticed for years. Can I just say that for a billion dollar organisation, they are absolute amateurs at times. How can you not send a memo out to the clubs if the umpires are going to start focusing on new procedures or interpretations? The new interpretation of the deliberate rushed behind and the goal review after every goal - since when? Clearly they've both started this week. No communication out of AFL House though. Hopeless.

How special are Petracca and Oliver going to be? 20s for Petracca and 18.9 for Clarry. At this stage, Truck makes too many little errors and Clarry rarely makes any errors. They'll both end up being different types of players, but we have two absolute gems there.

I know he's only a young kid, but if he kicks those goals early yesterday, who knows. I feel he would have last year. Given the limited opportunities we had, we simply needed to dob the easy ones and he had a couple of them yesterday and missed. It's such a psychological blow. You feel like you're working so hard to create scoring chances and when you finally do, your gun CHF misses very gettable shots multiple times. Scoreboard pressure is a wonderful thing. It's also a big momentum driver. This is where I see the improvement coming in the next few years. In 12-18 months, Hogan would be grabbing that game by the scruff of the neck (ala Stringer) and influencing the game in a big, big way. That's what stars do. I'd hope your Oliver's, Viney's and Petracca's are also capable. Not sure a Nathan Jones is. At least, against really top opposition. You could tell pretty early on yesterday that we weren't on and so often when this is the case, we'll fall over, fumble, run into each other, take the wrong option and generally the luck doesn't go our way. It was just one of those days, but it clearly defined for me where we're at. There's simply too much inexperience and as Roos said, we need about 15 or 16 players playing well for us to win. We're not there yet and we won't be this year. But that's not to say we won't win 10-12 games though and finish on the cusp of the 8.

Yeah, spot on, mate. This is the other side to the playing the PR game with building the foundations. It allowed us to stockpile some draft picks and build this midfield.

Yep, fair enough. Well, Jack only makes our midfield deeper. So that's 10 that can play in the midfield if we land Prestia (I think we will). Guys like Kennedy, Kent and Harmes will also move through there. That's a lot of blokes who can play there, currently in our best 22. It reminds me very much of Roos' 2005 Sydney team. They had a lot of guys that could move through there and they've built the list to Roos' philosophy - players must be multi-positional in modern footy. Roos' term hasn't been flawless. I do wonder, like BB, whether we he could have flicked the offensive switch a bit earlier, but the list building appears to be first class.

At the end of this year.

I just like typing this out. How's this for a midfield: Viney, Oliver, Petracca with support from Tyson, Brayshaw and even Salem. Not to mention older guys in Vince and Jones. And the addition of Prestia next year. That's a deep and talented midfield.

Yeah, Jay Clark seems to have some love for Melbourne at the moment. Very odd.

I think he's simply visiting his sick father. It really can be that simple. And I reckon it is.

I think team success will. If you look at all the kids at schools, they are all running around with Hawthorn jumpers. When Buddy was still there they all had 23 on the back, but now they simply just wear Hawthorn jumpers. Ultimately though, I've never been more confident of winning a flag with a Melbourne team than I am with this list we're assembling and Hogan is a major player in that. Whilst I think we're still a shot at it without Hogan, I want to build a dynasty. I want to do what Hawthorn and Geelong have done. Sustained success. That's the key to a thriving membership base and becoming a powerhouse club again. We're far more likely to do that with Hogan, IMO. That said, the midfield we're building is seriously scary. It still lacks depth, but it's getting stronger and stronger every year and will continue to, as our younger generation gain further experience. We'll then have the ability to hopefully attract FAs and other trades. Get the midfield right, continue to bring in talent to compliment and reinforce the guys that are in there, and this team in 3 years time could be anything.

Well, as fndee said, we wouldn't have to offer him that. $1-1.5mill a year over ten years sounds right to me. With the rising cap I'd happily pay that for Jesse.

Wow, I didn't realise Armitage was 27 and Steven 26. They really are in for some pain. They'd want to be coming into their window when Steven was 26-27. I'm not sure they've got much midfield depth once Montagna, Armitage and Steven exit. Certainly not A graders anyway.

Thought it was 2004. I was correct. I just checked. We actually won by 10 goals. Also noted that there were 54,409 attend a game at the MCG between Melbourne and St Kilda. Funny that.

Riewoldt kicked 9 that day and we won by something like 8 or 9 goals. He's always played well against us and Hogan appears to like playing St Kilda. Nice post.