Little Goffy

Some interesting safety ideas around here... On the bright side, Jetta has a nicely shaped head for a helmet.

Just to stir up trouble I'll suggest a straight swap Watts for Jones. We need cake, they want icing. Some of their cake for some of our icing. Everyone happy.

From the pre-draft reports and all the descriptions, absolutely a bit of both! Terrific news. For a long time the question has been asked over and over, "Does Melbourne have a future?" We are starting to get a few 'yes' replies.

So far this season not even Lance Franklin has managed to get over Tom McDonald. Just quietly - McDonald, Dunn, Jetta, Garland and of course Salem... Something is going alright in our defensive group. JADE RAWLINGS – BACKLINE COACHRawlings, the club’s backline coach, joined Melbourne in September 2011. He was the only coach from the Mark Neeld/Neil Craig era to be part of Paul Roos’ coaching panel.

We have a curious history of coming up against Hawthorn when they have been down a few players, imagining ourselves a chance, and then getting brutally whacked (in the figurative sense, at least more than the current Hodge/Lewis sense). I think in the past we fell into the mental trap of imagining the result would be determined by the condition of our opponent. I'd really love to turn that around. And we all know it - only sustained intensity will get us there. I'm unable to write off this game. Which surprises me.

I see your point and agree in a broad sense - we aren't going to be premiership contenders without at least a few players in the absolute top bracket. But right now we can't get 22 AFL-quality players to a game on a regular basis. Having a couple of stars gives passengers a place to hide, but having a full group of serious AFL players means that everyone on the list must either face your deficiencies or don't play AFL. I see recruiting 'big names' as including the danger of becoming overrated flat-track bullies. The kind of team that gets to finals and is found out embarrassingly. The kind that keeps having short runs of good form and looking like they've turned a corner, but then slumps again. Let's just say I wouldn't cry if Pendlebury joined us, but I'd rather have the double of David Swallow and Bradley Hill for about the same price. In fact, come to think of it, David Swallow and Bradley Hill would be a sensational couple of pickups for us. One relentless contested ball winner, laying lots of tackles, winning lots of clearances and sending the ball forward over and over. One fast, creative and very, very dangerous outside runner with superb disposal, in the top bracket for goal assists.

They'll be alright. Cripps, Menzel, Docherty and Jaksch are the next Gibbs, Murphy, Walker and Thomas. Which is to say, variously overrated 'stars' whose exploits mask the overall inadequacy of a list... Carlton could be facing a serious Brett Ratten curse, after the dodgy reasons and incompetent manner of his sacking. "Ratten's Revenge"? Brett's Hex"? Try to be polite to Carlton supporters for a while though - there's more than a few who are so disappointed in the club that they are earnestly debating the point of remaining loyal to the Blues.

Toumpas' game suggested he is not a lost cause. The way people have carried on about him, that's progress, I guess. I hope he gets a string of games in coming weeks with a clearly defined team first role that doesn't look spectacular to us but gives him the confidence of knowing that even if he doesn't star, he can still hold his position by doing the right thing by the team. One step at a time.

Blicavs would be great to have, but people thinking that Geelong is out of salary cap space need to remember who has recently/is about to leave their team. They currently have 9 players over 30 and they are all part of Geelong's best 22. Geelong may very well decide to do a deal with Dangerfield similar to Sydney's offer to Franklin, providing a star player to help keep the team dangerous through a rebuild. Of course, in Sydney's case, the NSW academy program is feeding them such extraordinary free talent that there's no real danger of a decline. Which in turn suggests Sydney might itself have salary cap issues in the near future. Definitely a place to go shopping for a young, top-rated midfielder. A side note on Sydney - so far they've only had 25 players take the field for them this season, and I don't think you could call any one of them a real 'fringe' player. Kids get games when they show enough to warrant it. It's just another reminder of why I think it is so important that we 'fill out' our best 22 with a complete, AFL-competent group rather than go too hard for one or two 'stars'. Another way to look at it; without Newton, Cross and Lumumba, who would we be seeing running around our midfield? Would we have played Billy Stretch from round 1 and crushed him? And finally, for the supercoaches out there - Melbourne have 8 players with a supercoach average score under 60. Swans have 2; Dean Towers (59% time on ground) and Adam Goodes (50%). FILL THE 22.

Thing is, the votes are 'best 6'. Vandenberg might have been seventh best for every game. It is not a perfect voting system but it generally will pick out the very best. Also, I really enjoy gloating to anyone who will listen about how three months ago I was telling anyone who would listen that Tom McDonald was going to be a star. But I think we were all thinking it here - just saying it quietly to avoid invoking the rage of football's cruel gods.

Wait, we have multiple players out there with poise, hardness, skill and resilience? Having young players like Salem, Hogan and Brayshaw out on the field makes me feel a little bit like Melbourne has lit a candle and can now start properly searching for the fuse box.

Damaging youngish midfielder. Especially one talented at breaking lines and moving the ball forward. (line up your favourites, but not a $1m/year player please.) Competent ruck. Doesn't have to be a world-beater but needs to be able to create something positive once in a while. (Luenberger most obviously) A little extra tall defence depth, over time. (Tayte Pears at no cost this year, for example.) A hardworking medium forward/midfielder. (I believe they're called 'Ryan O'Keefe type player', traditionally. Or on here, 'That player Rohan Bail can't be and Jack Watts is not'.)

He was sub.

This gets seriously confusing. Is Gawn some kind of Colin Sylvia gone ruckman? Awful... stupid... brilliant... genius... lumbering... agile... butterfingers... fishtrap...

Josh Kennedy. No, wait that wasn't us. The other Josh Kennedy. Swings and roundabouts. I think we're beginning to retrieve some of the losses from our past decade of mistakes. - Vince, in effect for Sylvia, was a special kind of win win deal - we won both ways! - Dom Tyson was a tremendous steal. - Port may yet regret losing Ben Newton, too. - Gaining Cross is, in football-only terms, as big a win as losing McDonald. Though I choose to remain anguished about the dumping. Dogs could seriously regret it if they find themselves just that little bit of midfield grunt and depth short of finals. - Lumumba we got when we thought we'd be getting nothing. Right there, 5 of our best 22, and all used in midfield. With the 2015 end of season trade and free agency period looking like total chaos with a lot of possibilities, an astute club could add some very handy players to their list at very little cost. I feel like the club is now led by wise enough heads to both pick out good players who would most benefit from a change of club, and make the Demons the club best suited to their refreshed career. I'm done talking about the ones that got away, I'm keen on the ones we can reel in next!

From Gold Coast I'd be keen to make the Prestia fantasy come true - the idea has lurked around for a few years already. The trouble is, Gold Coast have some how turned out to have such a shallow list that if they lose any of those top half-dozen stars, they're talking rebuild before they have even managed to be competitive. So the price would be high. I think we'll need a 'proper' ruckman in the near future, so worth keeping an eye on how the Tom Nicholls/Zac Smith situation plays out. With the caveat we should also be monitoring Luenberger.

Some people just aren't going to be happy unless Todd spends the whole session just crying and wailing "Ollie, oh Ollie, I'm so sorry", maybe some singing of Amy Winehouse, too.

Our two implosions have both occurred when a really potent attacking midfield has totally dominated our collection of workhorses. Freo's midfield probably the most potent in the game, even over Port. Was always a danger, main thing I'll be taking from it is that we held onto them for more than half the match, aside from getting jumped at the start and wilting under the pressure late. 6.14 is a worry, and part of a worrying pattern this season. Better accuracy and the reports would just be 'Freo beat the Demons as any sane person expected', rather than 'Demons thrashed'. Sydney will be interesting. Definitely a very, very good midfield but they still rely on key forwards for a lot of their goalkicking, and they came a bit unstuck that way against the Dogs in the wet.

Jesse Hogan has never lost an AFL game at the MCG. (Just thought I'd get that out before this four-week rough run). But seriously, I think my favourite feature of his game against Richmond came to attention late, when we had to stay cool and stop any momentum riding against us. Over and over he was there on the wing, making a contest and quite calmly nudging, bumping, and bullocking the ball safely over the boundary for a stoppage. The relentless Paul Roos momentum routine of old. When the game needed to be kept steady he just did it - totally calmly accepted that since a given contest was a mess then a 50/50 after a bit of time to reset was better than risking a breakout from that mess. A professional there to do a job for the team; remarkably little ego in those decisions considering the boldness and confidence it takes to do the other things he does!

Cricketers can definitely make a lot of money at the top end. But there are some 800 AFL level players, mostly earning a very good wage even at the fringes. One (invalid but vaguely representative) way to think of it is in two questions; How many AFL players can you name? How many cricketers can you name? All that 'marketing reach' and not a lot of names to share it between. With the necessary caveat of the ridonkulous money being thrown around by the IPL (Nawab) League, for the personal vanity projects of India's grotesquely bloated ruling class. "ooohh, the people they love meeeeee". Hmm.. I digress.

Tom Scully for 2 picks / Callum Ward for 1.

Currently a good footsoldier in a midfield that desperately needed extra competent players just to fill out a full squad on match day. So even at that and nothing more, a valuable gain. But definitely looks to have some more to him, we'll see how he develops with AFL game time. Funny thing is, with the injuries at Port at the moment, he'd probably be getting a game there now.

I stopped tipping because it was a relentless feed of odds and line odds, and THEN there's the ads for sportsbetting. I go to 'dry' statistics site footywire for match coverage and live scores because the AFL website is loaded with nuff-nuffs and pronouncements on high from the likes of hopeless Barrett, the nosy vicar of the AFL. How do they have money for that when they can't even have someone do more than auto-add 'goal to x' on the game's live feed? It's just like Sun Tzu explains with his parable of the four kingdoms. The land (media space) has been parceled out into too many small fiefs, each petty lord clamoring to be grand, over-taxing the peasants and becoming lazy and indulgent in the absence of greater responsibility. The fourth kingdom kept its estates large and its lords few, and promptly conquered the other three. What the AFL community needs is a new media epicenter led by the very select few, those few media people genuinely informed and genuinely interested in the game. So, that's... Emma Quayle, Titus O'Reily and... I'm running out of names here.

Its a bizarre one. If the comments were made, that's gross and stupid. If the comments were overheard by someone who cared, then they should have pulled him up about it on the spot. "Immediate and suitably proportional" response is the only way to change behavior. Honestly, taking it direct to the media sends a signal to me that the person who overheard it didn't really care about change, just wanted to have a snipe out of it. In the process doing a disservice to the issue itself. All pretty grubby, really.

Melbourne. We are better than Melbourne.