Little Goffy

I stand ready to shake Paul Gardners hand and wish him well, when he does go. A responsible and hard-working president when the club desperately needed exactly that. We'd be toast by now if we'd landed another Szondy or Gutnick. While I agree I'd like to know more about what the new leadership will be up to, I'm quietly confident it won't be the half-arsed leadership which came to be expected at the board in years past. Gardner has played a big part in changing that expectation, and whatever Stynes and his team can accomplish will be that much more achievable because of Gardner's steady hand.

Seriously, someone needs to at least let the players know about this. You rode a bike from Perth to Melbourne to get to the Queens Birthday game? Was it for a charity promotional thing? If it was, add an extra round of publicity by attaching it to the game, and give the players their weekly inspiriation. These little things change the way people look at things.

I can only assume Chuck Norris was involved.

I'm convinced that even if you're a member it still earns the club some money to turn up to games. Here comes some thinking out loud, bear with me - My understanding is that the club gets a kind of a 'bounty' based on how many people turn up to eat the stadium's "food", drink it's beer and throw chips at it's seagulls. Gate takings are only one aspect; three beers, a hot dog and a bucket of chips works out to aboout... $127 at the MCG... or... Lets say a typical patron buys between $10 and $20 worth of 'stuff', on top of gate. 10,000 people means $100,000 to $200,000 worth of crap sold, with a pretty small margin of the total price going to actual expenses (plastic cups, a paper bag, payment to the pigeon/rat catcher, plus a courtesy stomach pump for every tenth visitor). The bigger the crowd, the smaller the relative costs get because an unused bar has the same expenses as a full one. So, just on food and drinks you could easily see a half million gross profit from a 50,000 crowd. Sponsors and those annoying ads bring in some more. Then of course you've got corporate boxes, and finally the gate takings from non-members (plus those who have upgraded their seat beyond their normal member entitlement). If I was making a wild guess, I'd say it's worth about $10 a head for the Melbourne Football Club, with a 20,000 attendance breaking even and a 50,000 attendance bringing us $300,000, a good cut of the afternoon's take, which would likely be approaching a cool million overall. A boutique stadium has, obviously, much lower initial capital costs (MCG is well into the hundreds of millions to build, 800 sounds right but I'm not sure) as well as much smaller overheads to keep all of it's facilities open on gameday. Lets presume the club's cut at a small stadium is much better. 25,000 people might make the stadium three hundred thousand, of which we could reasonably hope to get a hundred an fifty? So still $10 a head, but with a break-even at 10,000 instead of twenty. Ok, I'm done thinking out loud, anyone else want a go?

5 years to be a shot at top four (thus flag)? Of the following players, only Green is over 25. This is totally speculative, but most have at least demonstrated competitiveness and are showing real signs of improvement recently. There's a lot of question marks, definately, but it's quite conceivable that these will all be quality players given time under the Dean Bailey 'teaching' regime, backed by two dedicated development coaches compared to zero for the last ten years. The glaring hole at the moment is first ruck - I think PJ will always be a second ruck/heavy utility (and valuable in that role). So the question is, will that be Naitanui or Robbie Warnock or what? B: Bell Garland Frawley HB: Bartram Rivers Grimes C: Davey Sylvia Petterd HF: Morton Bate Green F: Maric Miller Wonaeamirri ONB: Mclean Jones Interchange: PJ, Moloney, Dunn, Buckley Don't like some? Replace them Warnock, Newton, Valenti, or some of Cheney, McNamara, Martin, or this coming year's five draft picks, 1 Pre-season pick, and two new rookies. Many of our young players still have question marks, of course, but to those who say "but Grimes and Maric haven't even played" they were picks 14 and 21 last year. So, Grimes and Maric are what you'd trade Green and Rivers to get, then? Five years is far too pessimistic for me. Get some good development from these kids, add a couple of the more solid and uninjured veterans from our list (almost down to Wheatley and Green now, hopes for Whelan to shake the bad luck and McDonald to rediscover form) and throw in one or two ready-to-go players from the next draft or two. If things go well, three years to top four is a reasonable aim. And before you say anything - is there any way into the top four other than for things to go well?

=Luke Molan, Nick Smith. We tried. We failed. Bugger. As for most important player, Rivers is a yes - he's been off the field, and it's hurt massively. His courage and reading of the play saves the day over and over. He'll also be even more valuable once we have a more dependable backline in general - his loose style of play driven by his ability to anticipate will have less downside. So Rivers now, and Rivers in future. But it's precarious to try to rate them in particular order, given the diversity of roles. Davey - does something special, when he's good, he's sensational. Mclean - yeah, last year was fairly poor, and he's only 'building up' to something truly special again now. But there's no denying that he can turn a game in a quarter of berserk football. Green - His contribution all over the place is priceless. Leading our inside 50s is a big deal given how few we get from others, as is being one of our few goalkickers. Bate - actually ahead of Green on inside50s per game, and that is his main job and he does it very well. Also gets those long goals which mean defenders have to think twice. Also pretty versatile. Solid Gold. Miller - Controversy! Important, not neccessarily best. When he has a great day, it makes a big difference. I'm excitied to see the beginnings of a new stage of improvement from him, too. It'll be interesting to see what becomes of Garland and Warnock, if they both keep improving like they have been the last month, we could be looking at our best defense since... well...

I'm curious about this one too. I'd love to know what our real stadium deal is at the moment, how it works out; my hot chips and my brother's two hot dogs with far too much sauce - how much is that earning for the club? Or is it a matter of us getting paid for the gate, and the stadium taking it's cut of that plus sharing catering profits (which must be massive, bastards). Then there's the issue of how it breaks down for members v non-members attending. Is it better for the club to have random stragglers wander in and pay at the gate, or to have pre-paid members attending? And just at the most simplistic level, how much is one more attendance at a game typically worth? $10? $20? I think having a number in our heads would make it that more tangible that we're doing the club some good when we bring people along or persuade others to go.

Recapping - It's absurd to assume it'll take more than three years just to get into finals again - that's Carlton thinking, that is. Or Terry Wallet's spin at work. Green is one of our finest players, and will shortly be just about our only experienced player as our current crop are much older than he is, and he's just about the only one not prone to injury. His versaitility means he will be able to use that experience to 'help out' all over the ground. But what REALLY bugs me is this over-emphasis on draft picks. The bizarre equation that 'early picks = flags' is just a little crazy. Again, it's a spin thing. Even with top ten picks, Hawthorn could just as easily ended up with John Meesen and Tom Williams (who?) as with Lance Franklin and Jordan Lewis. In 2003 their first pick was number 25, Harry Miller (Who?), who coincidentally has played the most games (18) of any Hawk drafted that year. Or maybe it was pick 6 (Beau Dowler), pick 18 (Max Bailey) and pick 22 (Beau Muston) from 2005 who made all the difference for Hawthorn? For sure I'll credit Xavier Ellis and Grant Birchall as players, but frankly we did just as well with Jones, Buckley and Bartram, even though trading so much for Pickett was a mistake. Mitch Thorpe, Brent Renouf and Jarryd Morton from 1st or 2nd round 2006. Not a player over five games from that draft for Hawthorn yet. Can I make my point absoultely and explicitly clear - Hawthorn's resurgence has been built on a group of mid-age and mid-quality players learning to work together as an effective team. Jordan Lewis is the only top-quality player they have acquired from a traded-in pick (number 7, 2004) and except for the inspired selections of Roughead and Franklin, also in 2004, their recent drafts have been poor. Should the Hawks have traded Crawford? They could have got Beau Dowler AND Harry Miller for him. Again - DRAFT PICKS DO NOT EQUAL PREMIERSHIPS.

And as for the pass-fail line for draft picks 10-20. Two or three each draft are basically fizzers. Maybe one per draft is truly excellent. Most are average ok players. Jones and especially Bate are among the best, possibly are THE best picks from the 10-20 range since 2002. Smith was our fizzer. Bell, Dunn and Frawley are our other three, and are pretty much the norm of what to expect from this part of the draft. Cameron Wood, Nathan Brown (Coll.), Jack Riewolt, Grant Birchall, Danny Meyer and Byron Schammer are examples of the other better performed/more promising selections from this range. And that's drawing on five years, fifty picks all up. It'd be interesting to rate them in order, but I haven't got that much time.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH. Shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up. I don't like 'trade bait' talk at the best of times, but half a dozen people have been putting Green's name forward, which just bewilders me. Brad Green is a mile ahead in our best and fairest, the only player to have put something in every week. He's shown particular courage over the last few weeks backing into packs in defense, pretending he's Jared Rivers. 3rd place for goals, despite playing right around the ground and heavily in defence in the last few games. 1st for inside 50's, and see above. Equal 2nd disposals. (and among our best efficiency rates as well) 4th for tackles. Brad Green is one of our top tacklers, do you understand this? He's also going to be eligible for veterans listing from next year (Neitz and Yze are our current veterans, so the spots will open up), this HALVES his salary cap portion. Talk of trading Green is bizarre, idiotic and offensive.

What we need on there is some racing stripes. Extra bands of deep red following the same line as the red yoke, with the reverse angle curved across the back. Compeltely different to any other club in shapes and colours, but still retains the same structure and impression as the original. Also, very slimming... DAHLINKS.

Yeah, I think this is practically an inviational, it's so bloodless. Gardner has indicated a few times in the past that he would be happy to step down if a quality alternative put his name forward - I remember some people were truly outraged when he said that there was 'more to life than football'. To those people I'd just like to ask how many hours a week do they work for free to help Melbourne stay competitive? Gardner will be credited with 'stopping the rot' at the club and changing an unporfessional culture in club administration, as well as being the individual who finally gave full and necessary attention to sorting out a proper home facility. I think the fresh face, charisma and energy of Stynes is a good next step as we drive back into the daylight at last.

Ben Holland should be damn excited that he got a game. If he was at Essendon for instance, he would simply have a line through his name regardless of his form. As for this week, my understanding is that he's hurt/sore and is being rested, and not really dropped at all. Gotta freshen him up for Rocca in another weeks time Actually, it might be more a case of two old heavy cruisers having a shootout at each end of the ground. I'd be stoked if, say, Warnock took Rocca and kept him to one or two while Holland notched up five at the other end of the ground. The ultimate way to rub it in - "I kill you one on one and I'm better at your job than you are, too"

Let's not get carried away with how young we were then - we had been fighting against the closing of the 'premiership window' at the time as well. It's important to note the huge number of veteran players who were on our list at the time, not all of them played in that final but they are a part of what you have on offer, none the less. Our list of departures since then include - Pickett, Neitz, as you mentioned, plus Ward, Godfrey, Brown, Bizzell, Ferguson, Nicholson, Read, Smith and Neville. And after all that, we still have a heavy turnover to go - White, McDonald, Holland, Yze and Robertson. Bruce, Whelan and Carroll are just a half-step younger than them, too. Don't go thinking Carroll is young because of his relatively low games tally - he was a VERY late bloomer. Demons are looking at 6+ list changes for three consecutive years, by my guess, at an average of almost a thousand games experience delisted each year. On the bright side, our young players are just plain better than St. Kildas young players. And we're gonna beat them on Sunday and send them into a crisis. Again.

The original incident iteself was bizarre and it really was very offensive to a lot of people, not least Wilson's family. It should've been added to the apparently 'idiotic' and 'patronising' AFL guide to appropriate behaviour that was released a while back. Question: You have a low opinion of a colleague who routinely criticises you, should you a) get a mannequin in lingerie, staple a picture of the colleagues face to it, then make vulgar comments and casually grope it. or B) not. As for the bru-ha-ha afterwards, it was a bit over the top, and there were a lot of people involved who had no business doing so in a public way. It should have ended in a basic 'yeah, that was stupid, but honestly it was only stupid, I didn't set out to offend'. Ironically, Caroline Wilson is the only person who has come out of this with reputation intact - she pulled her head in from the start, didn't ask for any campaign, and sought to deal with things at a private and personal level.

I like the idea of Robbie Warnock coming over. Seems quality. But I worry that we might not have pick 1 in the PSD. It might be nice to offer Freo pick 40-something, just to be sure he's ours. Given that they aren't even playing the guy, it's all they should expect, and he's quite entitled to walk if they aren't giving him opportunities in that team when he's shown he can do alright. And then we'd still have the PSD pick for other uncontracteds... we'll see how it pans out.

Yeah, make sure you get in early and cling to your seats like a hyena with half a zebra. The general seats are fine, but there are some pretty unpleasant corners which are obstructed, cold, and dominated by concrete monoliths. But the chicken strips are alright, I mean, whadda'ya expect for a lousy $39.95 and sauce extra?

Hmm.. is there any way to break this thread into it's two distinct parts? Part one - I don't think Melbourne will get the spoon. I think Essendon are in the poo and frankly they can wallow there for a decade for all I care. They are this year's team most likely to tank, given that they are already playing kids ahead of better-performed and completely deserving seniors. Their % is also going backwards badly. Fremantle... anything can happen there, but probably wont. Another spoon contender. West Coast... beats me. They seem to mostly suck but will probably assemble half a dozen wins. I think we're in with a real shot at climing the double - the extra pick for having just the four wins, AND not getting the spoon on percentage, withh Essendon also on 4 wins but by the end of round 22, lower % than us. Because, y'see, we're improving. Essendon are not. Part two - Cale Morton If Travis Johnstone had been ten centremetres taller, a lot fitter, had a good attitude and played like it was a privilege to be allowed on the 'G, he might've been as good as Cale Morton will be. Morton definately has his brain switched on, too, which means career-long improvement. And don't get me wrong, TJ is a good footballer despite everything. As to comparisons with other new players like Palmer, well, I think Morton brings us something we need more than Palmer, given the presence of Jones, Mclean, Moloney and Sylvia in and under. Other than that I'm not gonna split hairs.

I was particularly impressed when the radio commentators on sunday pointed out that he has a disposal efficency of 90% in the first half, which happened to cover more than 20 posessions! It's been great to watch the surge - early in the year he was turning up everywhere, doing important small things constantly, like getting to contests and helping work the ball free. Now that's gone up a level and he's doing some important big things as well. He will have a few BOGs this year, no doubt. The tagging isn't troubling him as much as it was, that's for sure.

Heh heh. You haven't even said what exactly it is that Anderson did to [censored] you off. And you don't need to either. We understand.

As i undertand it, the 'weighting' system of votes is based on our % for the game? So that doing well in a good game ounts for more. Now... I'm not going to take seriously anyone who calls Mclean a frontrunner, so the figures we've got would suggest that when Brock Mclean has a good day out, the Melbourne football club has a good day out. Poor Greeny is a bit stiff in the numbers - he's been consistent even when the team has been shocking so he has been 'weighted' out a bit.

From a personal perspective, I enjoy the atmosphere at night games, but for some reason saturday day games just feel right. My preference goes saturday day, , friday night, saturday night, then anything sunday. Sunday games also get a lot less coverage in media beforehand, and are lower-volume time solts on television. From a club perspective, it would be great to have even our away games get the occassional prime-time exposure, no? From a superstition perspective, our two good games this year (freo and the Hawks) were both broadcast free-to-air in Melbourne, on seven. So we should probably try to get seven to show as amny of our games as possible. Hey, how 'bout that, next week's game agains the saints is on seven...

It's a pretty satisfying prospect - to have a number of defenders come through the system at the same time, working together, knowing eachother's games and how to help eachother. Good defenders are always premium value. They also tend to gain a lot from experience, prolonging their peak period and making a contribution for many years. Good defenders are also, in my opinion, the foundation for great teams that can win the tight, intense games - they don't give away the cheap goals that shatter momentum and morale. So it's a very satisfying thought that me might finally be getting some strong young defenders through, but I'll keep my fingers crossed and touching wood for now.

I don't like this talk of 'we need to come last or second last'. The rewards are only incremental, unless you're looking at a numer one priority pick, which we're not and which we're unlikely to see next year. I'd tip us about 50/50 to finish with more than four wins, so me might not get the bonus pick at the end of round 1 either. I'm starting to really like Hurley, emotionally I feel like he could be our next David Neitz, which is comforting I s'pose. Pick 3, an honourable enough distance from the spoon and good signs of improvement in the second half of the year, pick 17 for having just three more wins, and finishing ahead of Essendon on %

Yep, I headed to the local club in sunday just to be told that the Demons game couldn't be shown up here. Just the one game showing, the other was cricket of some kind, with one guy snoring gently in front of it. It would seem pretty basic maths - two simultaneous channels (seven/ten plus foxtel), two games live. The previous day I'd headed down on a whim to catch Carlton v Freo and Port v Sydney. Couldn't catch either for 45 minutes - replay of the Friday night Collingwood game was the only thing on offer. The live football had to wait for the filth to finish up.