Little Goffy

Nah, can't be bothered booing him. There's a strange feeling like he doesn't really matter. He may get all the round 1 wins he'll ever want, with Carlton now seemingly fixtured against Richmond to open the season every year. He and Carlton are welcome to win the first game of the AFL season. We'll be looking to win the last one.

Someone mentioned a need for a decent creative forward pocket. Cue - Scully's three goals and as many assists on debut

It seems like just yesterday he was turning 18 within days of the final cut-off of the start of the season, making him almost the youngest possible age for a draftee. Born a week later, he would've played TAC Cup last year, with Scully and Gysberts kicking it to him instead of Blease and Strauss. Wait, Scully made the team the year before anyway.

Yeah, it's pretty simple and quite effective. Consider this - Aaron Davey is on a four year contract, which will earn him a given amount over those four years. Davey will never be a salary cap problem again, since by the time those four years are up, he'll be eligible for the veteran's list and his salary will be calculated at a half rate. Pay the bulk of it in the first year, more is opened up for next. The room opened up for next year can be used to front load other contracts, say, multi-year deals for Morton or Frawley. Players on them love it (money received now is money invested, and lasting security) Players looking at their future contracts love it (more cap space available) And hopefully, we can ride the premiership cylce with it. What we are doing is essentially paying advances on the 2012-2016 cap, out of the 'underpayment' from 2010 and presumably 2011 as well. Ideally we would have been paying 100% all along, with frontended contracts just building a wave of future cap space. It will let us peak higher for longer. Any objections?

Heheh. Tom Scully. The demeanor and attitude of James McDonald and the talent level of Travis Johnstone.

I'm just hoping that both Jurrah and Wonaeamirri, are back and firing in time for them to enjoy the trip up together. And of course that Davey stays unhurt to join them. Would be a special moment for all of them and their families/communities. Surely the psychological goal for their rehab programs, too.

The Whiteboard Wednesdays idea is good because it helps everyone get onto the same page, but I appreciate it best because it is a little gesture from the club saying 'we value the die-hards who would actually seek this out'. As for expectations for the season to come maybe it should be expressed in percentage... 2008 62% 2009 75% Should we ask for 88% in 2010? And for players... maybe we need some benchmarks? Will Jack Watts be around Kurt Tippet's level after 40ish games? Or Josh Kennedy? Will Jack Trengove reach Bryce Gibbs current level, by 60+ games? Does anyone doubt Grimes will surpass Marc Murphy's benchmark at 80 games? I don't. Can Gysberts match Bernie Vince, at 50+ games and 24 years old? That's six years to go. Four seasons from now, will Petterd be as handy as Knights or Van Berlo at Adelaide now? This time next season, won't Rhys Palmer look like a poor mans Tom Scully? Strauss v Andrew Swallow at 60 games? I can't even find a current 'somewhat experienced' player to compare Frawley to. Zac Clarke? Will Tapscott long term end up being our Josh Hunt? On the one hand, there's no reason to think that a lot of these comparisons and more are going to come out in our favour or at a fair balance. On the other hand, I'm putting them up to highlight just how great a difference there is between a 'first ten games' type and a 50-80 games player, and that we really just need to all grit our teeth and carry on.

LOL. That's a bit like timing the ambulance response to a car crash, starting from when the driver started drinking. 2007-2008 we were still in the downward slide. We've had one year of coming back up, so far. ONE.

LEGEND is the level of Norm Smith, Ron Barassi, that type. The people who turn up as key characters in the whole history of the sport. You'd be hard pressed to even say Robbie Flower was/is a LEGEND of the game. One of the greats of an era, for sure.

One player? Nah, I reckon he's heard of Jack Grimes, at least.

Wow... Sylvia and Jurrah and Wonaeamirri and Morton out... Bate coming back from injury... Watts being eased back too... Notwishstanding Petterd and Green playing leadup and useful medium forward roles, Miller and Dunn are our key forwards. Of course we are all apprehensive, but on the plus side, these next eight weeks or so ought to tell us, once and for all, what Miller and Dunn can each offer. It's a pretty weak silver lining, but by the split round we'll know for sure the fate of both of these two, come the end of year. What I can't help noticing is that, is Green goes forward too, it is practically our forward line for three or four years ago, minus Neitz and Robbo. Let's face it, if you subtracted those two from any team in our last decade, we'd be in serious trouble. I'm finding this a cathartic thought process.

Another handy site, I like it because the presentation is reasonably good and you can mix and match and sort the lists by whatever interests you, and they have a pretty comprehensive draft record too (Even if Matthew 'Wheeelan' never played a game). This is where I go anytime I want to remind myself just how inexperienced so much of our team is, too. http://www.footywire.com/

Well, frankly I just don't know how the Melbourne Football Club can recover from such a disasterous loss. Hell, at this rate we wont even PLAY a game next week.

Yeeeeah. What the people above said about missing Gehrig from your list, and comparing chalk with cheese. Give Watts 50 games (as Riewoldt), Trengove and Scully 18 (as Ball and Goddard)... it's a difference. If we added Harvey, Gehrig, A. Jones and Hamill (all circa 2004) to our list next year, replacing McDonald, Bruce, Miller and Bell, yeah, I reckon we'd have a shot at top 4. What you have to consider is that many of our players over 50 games are considered depth or even fringe - The 'stars' in our team are mostly under 50 games or under 10 games at the moment. Jurrah, Watts, Scully, Trengove, Morton, Grimes, Frawley, Petterd, Wonaeamirri, Garland, and of course all the other draftees from 2008-09 who are yet to play a game.

I'd have a hunch they'd love to mix up the kids with some of the 'veteran' supporters too. Recognition of loyalty, aspiration for the noobs.

Our financial position is a worry. A worry? 18 months ago we were dead. D. E. D. Dead. We've improved our operations dramatically, wiped off huge amounts of debt, and broken membership records, all while coming last on field. Looking at it in terms of trajectory and change, we're rolling along brilliantly. It's a matter of keeping the effort up and properly riding the coming excitement. And there will be excitement, oh yes. 2010 anticipation, 2011 the excitement begins. And it never, ever, ends.

I'll get in early with 'Dunny looks huge'. 'Morton looks harder but still needs to eat some steak' 'How ripped is Moloney!' and 'Jurrah looks taller, don't you think Jurrah looks taller in these photo's than he did last year. Look, he's standing next to Gawn in this photo and only looks about 17cm shorter, not 19cm. I reckon we should play him as a classic key forward.' Did I just ruin the surprises?

Geesus, lay off his mate, it was an accident. You can't expect the entire freakin' world to be wearing kid gloves whenever they are around.

Mclean would have asked well above what the club was prepared to pay if he had gone in the PSD. And whatever the 'I'm so ruthless' types say, it's really not a good idea to hang on to people who don't want to play for the club. You'd think that would be self-evident. I wonder how he went at the Blues Cruise? Meanwhile, just to stir up a hornets nest and see if I can help keep this astonishingly long thread going on such a small start topic - I would reckon that Gysberts will be a direct replacement for Cameron Bruce. Similar height and build, similar role, similar style, similar skills.

My point regarding Miller earning us a first round is that compensation for players lost to the Gold Coast is based on a formula of experience, age, presence in leadership groups, and so on. It is believed to be quite generous. Our picks were tradable over the years to - Pickett, Holland and Bizzell, as mentioned, plus Vardy. Compare Josh Toy and the other 17 year olds to our selections from Rookie lists and late in the draft - our last three B&F winners Bruce, Davey and McDonald, and then some. My apologies about Maric, misplaced his pick. But my simple point is that the Gold Coast draft concessions do not necessarily place them far ahead of the rest of the competition. If it's a '2003' quality draft, they'll be the new Fremantle. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I actually think the AFL has done this fairly.

There's been a lot of talk about ow th Gold Coast's draft concessions will make them a super team, and while I rankle at the disruption to the draft in general, and I wish the AFL wouldn't mess around with salary caps, consider this - 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 11, 12, 12, 13, 14, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 19, 20 24, 25, 30, 34, 35, 36 Those are the first and second round picks that Melbourne are currently sitting on. Discounting Mclean of course (treated as the pick 11 we got for him) and Travis Johnstone (calling it 14) but counting Scott Thompson's pick given that he 'became' Brent Moloney. To be fair we ought to include a few more such as Armstrong (25), Molan (9 ), Rogers (26) and Smith (15). Just because they didn't really make it (except for one premiership player!) doesn't mean they don't count as draft picks. Also, throw in a couple of traded away picks that I couldn't be bothered finding the details of (those picks used on Pickett, Holland and Bizzell would have to count) And I think it's also fair to balance their '17-year-olds' collection with our late picks and rookies, like Davey, Jamar, Wonaeamirri, McDonald, Warnock, Bruce, Miller, Bartram. They'd be thrilled to get a set like that from their dozen 17-year-olds. Absolutely over the moon. finally, rememeber that those selected uncontracted players the Gold Coast can 'Steal' will actually earn compensation picks for their old clubs. Quite good ones - we would reasonable expect a first round pick for either of Miller or Petterd (our Queenslanders) if taken from us by the Gold Coast. The final call? I actually think the Gold Coast might struggle a little! Our 'accumulated' draft position kicks their ones butt, and we've had all the late and rookie pick misses to redo over the last five-seven years. Other clubs wont have quite as strong a draft pick history as us (except perhaps Carlton and Hawthorn), but it's not a dramatic change. I mean, every club has at least had seven first and seven second round picks in the last seven years, whether it's been traded or used.

Jones and Moloney are required players. 2nd and equal 5th in the Best & Fairest. Both are tough as nails and put their body in and will be needed in finals, especially in a young team. These are the guys we particularly need with Mclean gone. Jones has shown exceptional endurance and Moloney has managed to stay out there considerably well given this season was his first to have a solid preseason in some years. Both also have good leadership/team ethic characters and Moloney in particular is a crazy man obsessed with the Red & Blue. Jamar is our best ruck right now and almost certainly for some years. He developed quite well in 2009 despite injuries hobbling him. I'd consider him to be one of our most required players right now, and I am of the opinion we're about to see a very fine return on the club's investment in him.

It's a stuff up. Website maintenance with information like that is one of those things that keeps getting overlooked by so many organisations, but it's a shame it's happend to us here. With the barbeque coming up on friday, maybe the club could make a point of directly contacting all those who got dudded the last two mondays and inviting them personally, confirming that it'll be on and by making a little effort offering a little respect to the guys who have been let down. I mean, that's the point here - the time isn't a dramatic loss but being stood up always feels like disrespect. I worry that in the burst of emails and calls that would have come through that morning, not everyone will get a relpy too. Hopefully the club reads this and you'll all get a couple of sausages and a beer for the trouble.

Oddly enough, Martin has one of the best 'kicking efficiency' stats in the team. Maybe he is a terrible kick... but somehow the ball keeps ending up in a teammates hands after he kicks it.

There it is, the missing nickname. Nice work Demon Tragic.