Adam The God

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.

5. And from my memory they were all in the first half. He also had 5 to half time yesterday. That 5 from last year was his PB until yesterday. Likes to play St Kilda and yeah, I reckon the quick deck suits him. It means we can get it down to him quickly and defenders don't have time to get back in numbers.

Well it is in a way, IMO, because our better players are younger. I'm sorry but even Gawn and Tyson have only 100 games between them. No excuse for Dunn or Vince though.

Sounds reasonably ridiculous to me...

And by the end of this season there could be an exodus at Freo. I've never been worried about Freo. It's another Melbourne club that I've always thought is more likely to woo Jesse. But if we keep up-trending, we can still offer him more than pretty much anyone else and hopefully the promise of sustained success. I think ultimately he'll re-sign with us.

This will work alright for us though. It allows Salem to continue working on his defensive and one-on-one game, which will help his contested ball winning ability and forward play in the years to come. He's got this year to play off half back and next year he'll probably be moved up the ground, if not sooner.

I think it's more a case of not winning a flag with the guys they've built a side around. Okay, Fyfe will probably come back and still be a star, but Pavlich, Sandilands etc. They had to win a flag when these guys were around, because there's just not that next batch of talent coming through. It doesn't really matter if they're tired or not. They've missed their chance with the majority of this list. Where does Lyon go next? I think he has to reinvent himself and build from the ground up, a new list. I'm not sure he's capable. It'll be interesting to see. One thing that seems almost certain is they're in for some pain.

Depends if Lyon has another game plan. His only game plan is irrelevant now. I think they might be in for a full rebuild.