Little Goffy

I have to make a comment on the AFL article about best all-time draft choices.

Firstly - Alistair Nicholson at 22! Go big Al, it's no accolade but it is a nice thing to know about yourself I spose.

Second - pick 6, only one player made it past 100 games after being taken at six?! That is truly scary.

And finally, once again a reminder of how good Melbourne's 99 draft was, with multiple players fromthat year being touted as best of their pick, and almost all of them getting honorable mentions.

I want another one. I really want another one. Now that we've loaded up on development staff and we're committed to actively supporting growth in the kids, and with a series of excellent drafts behind us in the last few years (03, 04, 05, 06 must all be counted as pretty successful) another draft like that could blast us into a golden era.

And then we've got four rookie slots to fill, which I think is the most 'morally' pleasing part of the draft, because it gives underdogs a shot and there's a huge thrill when someone from the rookie list makes it.

WCE culture might have had something to do with the lack of application shown by Sampi. The eagles have talent ooozing form every corner, but the old school hard work and strict player management are no part of the WCE culture. Maybe if he gets in with Bailey's system, he will find the motivation and desire he lacked at the eagles.

I think too much pressure is applied to Aaron Davey to be the big brother. ANy influence Aaron has on Ashley will be postivie, Aaron is just that special person who can leave him amrk on anyone. But will Aaron have enough time and energy to work on his one game and Sampi's?

I see this as a Motlop Mach2. It is low risk, and if it could help us, why not. I am just hoping Sampi can bring to our team what motlop couldn't.

Whoa, because Worsfold is known as a soft trainer?

But ditto on Motlop 2.

After the Roos it'll be us targetted next - anyone who doesn't believe that has their head firmly buried in the sand. This thread disappoints me as I believe that messageboards like these represent the most passionate Melbourne fans - I think I even heard the idea of a merger of our club floated.

Any Melbourne supporter that's worth their grain of salt will buy a North Melbourne membership to try and keep them in Victoria. Clubs like us made the AFL - not the other way round, welfare during tough patches is deserved. The arrogant bastards can get stuffed if they think they can take more of our teams away for a bunch of theatre goers up North.

If the AFL had a viable plan for a GC based side rather than attempting fulfil an arrogant prophecy of by 2010 there will be AFL games every week in SE Qld - this wouldn't be such an issue for me. It just reeks of cynical opportunism from the AFL while the Roos board is leaderless. Perhaps the Roos administrators have botched things up for the club but I think it sucks that 20,000+ members will be punished for it.

I am intending to write to the MFC, North Melbourne and Bulldogs to suggested discounted membership deals if they are already a card carrying member of one or both of the other two clubs. If there is an increased level of support for these clubs the AFL wont find it so easy to shove us around.

North aren't going through a tough patch - they are a dead club walking. They are bleeding millions of dollars a year from the AFL and have no plan or prospect of turning that around.

Realistically, they can choose to become a power VFL team and compete with Sandringham, or they can make a radical move, which the AFL has indicated would have to be to the Gold Coast.

It's a miserable situation, I don't like it and it is obviously driven by the commercialisation of the game and the ridiculous resources going into football clubs. But buy a membership of another club which can't motivate it's own members, and can't enact a business plan of any sort, when it's heritage is on the line? Buy a membership of another club when my own club needs backing and is actually doing the responsible thing? If I was going to spend another $100 on football, it's all going straight to the Demons, because the sooner we're not in need of help from the AFL, the more resources the AFL will have to help struggling clubs turn around.

As for the Bulldogs, if they can't get it together when they've had $30m worth of facilities thrown at them by working with blatant electoral pork-barrelling, stuff em. They made a pact with the devil, if they still can't get by then they get what they've earnt and can fill the gap in Sydney's west. Maybe if they'd spent some of the last twenty years trying to actually welcome the West Melbourne migrant communities into the culture, instead of using the club culture to assert their 'Aussie-ness', they might be alright now.

Just a little explosion of frustration there. I'll hate myslef in about an hour, don't worry about that.

Reading about Eade's excuses for the Bulldogs and the fact that he's confident they will make the eight in 08 just makes me a little more confident that we will make a very quick recovery next season.

Careful there, the Bulldogs might be in serious strife by next season.

So might we, for many of the same reasons. So i'm not keen to make the connection too often.

But you're right, we do look like being in a better position to step up than the Bulldogs. Lots of returns from injury (surely, surely, it can't be that bad again), our retired/traded/delisted players are much more replacable than, say Grant and Darcy, and we have a better balance of player types in our young squad.

Add to that, we all seem to rate the new coaching staff and structure pretty highly. Bailey has a lot more back-up than Daniher did, or Eade does.

And Eade just seems like a bit of a tool, so we have the advantage there.

There's a part of me that wishes we had picks 7 and 8 instead of 14 and 4.

That way, we would be better placed to fill needs at the same time as taking best available, with a good chance of ending up with Rance and McEvoy. Obviously I'd hardly complain about a Cotchin or Palmer, but I'd rather have two top(ish) picks in this draft than one super-top and one just off the top. Just a quirk of the options and my desire for everything to work out smoothly without anxiety.

It's kind of hard to believe that WC would have delisted Cousins due to salary cap issues.

Just how much to they plan on paying Josh Kennedy?

Political correctness is what you get when people have to deal with constant bull**** all the time on account of other people picking out something to have a go at.

Remember the Akermanis 'those monkeys upstairs' comments? He knew he was talking about executives, not aboriginals. But think about the guy who keeps having to put up with drunk idiots asking him where he keeps his banana.

Brock Mclean just got back from a trip where, apparently, he was jinxed enough to have repeat times when some idiot decided he was a free target.

If he's headed out one night and someone drunk comes up and starts just giving him a bit of a ribbing, there's a bigger chance Brock would give the guy a spray and tell him to [censored] off, even if there wasn't really a problem. That's the whole deal with political correctness right there.

So deal with it. And if you want to have a whinge about how you have to watch your mouth all the time, find some of the pricks who dish out the rubbish that starts the whole problem.

Yeah, the post is a storm in a teacup, as others have said, but I'm really sick of people whipping out 'aww, no need to be so politically correct' everytime they realise too late that they've stepped on someones toes.

Next time, try 'yeah, sorry bout that one, didn't mean anything by it' and cop it on the chin.

Anyway, I'd take a punt on Sampi, for no cash and effectively a 70+ pick, why not?

This is about the best thing I have heard from Melbourne lately (and applies to any of the 15 teams that did not win the flag!)

Why is it ever acceptable to go into a season accepting that you will not succeed?

What top level athlete enters an event thinking, "Well I can't win, so I'll just try"

In my opinion, the terms and thought processes, that go with "Development year" or "Rebuilding phase" justify and embed a culture of failure in a team.

Next years success "starts today" I hope so.

Dean Bailey

The only Melbourne coach never to lose a game. It's a record that speaks for itself, and I'm sure he'll be keen to maintain it.

But seriously, the whole restructure of the Footy department looks pretty sweet. I'm stoked to have the two development coaches in particular.

Nomed you are absolutely right about the 'rebuilding phase' rubbish. Richmond and Carlton have been the big talkers about long-term rebuilding programs. Whoopee for them. Seems they decided they were so good at it they'd just keep on going.

Maybe their plan is to keep losing until they can start picking up not only top picks, but grad Gibbs II and Murphy Jnr with Father-Son selections. Then they couldn't possibly lose.

Mind you, talk of 'we're just about to turn the corner and become a powerhouse' can knock the legs out too. Think Hawthorn before Schwab's last year, Doggies this year, Demons this year, Freo and Richmond most of the time...

Again, Dean Bailey seems to get it right. He hasn't promised anyone anything, and good on him for it.

Damn, that Meesen really does look big. I mean, this is a guy you have to scroll down to see all of!

Interesting about Holland - you'd think that assistant coach marking the ball for him could have been replaced by an all-too-eager volunteer. Bring a couple of Sandy Dragons in to help out, they'll love it. Hell, we could get a whole program going, where local under-19's kids come along to help out with a training session and get some tips along the way.

Final thought, Greeny looks pretty firm in the pictures (and, admittedly, also a little constipated - that tightening of the sphincter is proving to be a problem) considering they're just back from the break, how did he go in the 1500s?

I noted with interest that Pettard appears much bigger in his picture in China. Did anyone else notice this?

I thought so, he looked much older or something, too. Broader? Not so much the skinny kid, he looked like he'd put on shoulders since the last time I saw him!

Don't forget, when you compare us to Geelong, that many of those players marked as Geelong pluses were just about written off at the end of 2006. Bad attitudes, inconsistency, front-runners, selfish, and it goes on. Many Geelong supporters HATED Ottens as little as six months ago.

We have a lot of players who can take big steps up - starting from Sylvia and Miller, throw in Carroll returning to 2006 form, Robertson freshening up, Davey returning to high-impact frightener rather than being under pressure to do the 'correct' thing.

And don't get me started on the potential of half a dozen kids.

Then of course, injuries. Blah blah blah. (Refers to difference from 1999 to 2000 seasons) You get the picture. It's a whole new season, we've made some big changes, dropped a lot of fringe players and have a lot of young talent which we haven't seen much of yet.

The moral of the story? The competition is very even and any team can challenge for the flag...

What a boring cliche, huh.

How can we not recruit someone named Paddy M'Gee?

If tagging were easy, everyone would do it. Might be better to say that tagging roles are easier for a coach to find fill-ins for, reducing the value of a player who is a specialist tagger only.

But is there really such a thing as a pure tagger? Even Godfrey kicked the odd goal... off the wrong foot from 50m having dummied perfectly to get round a defender

Its all just little things in a sense ( Not that new coach is little...lol ) but a little thing here.. a different word there.. attitudes are changing and forging.

You're right about the little things you notice - like in Petterd's article from China where he says "Brock, being Brock, began to run... so we all ended up running a kilometer along the great wall."

There's nothing like having an good impression of someone confirmed by another person you have a good impression of!

Leoncelli was probably the first Demon I learnt to really appreciate (My first serious Demon supporting year was 2000, from the start, mind you!). That timing also meant that I just had to love Bruce and Green.

500 possessions, 15 goals and 60 tackles (plus 9 Brownlow votes) is a good way to make an impression, especially when you get them doing the hard work.

Another claim to fame - the only player Bruce McAveny could name without annoying me - LeonCELLIIIII

If Chad is going to step down then I think Chris Lamb is a pretty good bet for the captaincy.

Laaaaammbb.

I'd be stoked - he always seemed to come from the Guy Rigoni school of being more interested in giving to footy than taking.

And I have fond memories of watching him back when he looked so shy that you felt like going 'awwww' every time he punched the ball away.

Hmmm....

This Collard guy, he'd still be eligible for the Rookie list, wouldn't he?

Minimum amount of risk for the club, up to two years for him to find his feet and maturity, still trains at full rate and lives amongst football without too much hype.

Might work. Based on what I've heard here, I'd pick him up with a rookie selection.

Rivers needs to be given more free reign - so someone else will have to step up soon to be a true CHB.

Carroll needs to either tie it down or be moved to a more flexible position than FB. He may be mentally playing out of position.

Whelan is a back pocket and is good at the position, but I'm not against the idea of trying him out as a trouble-maker up forward.

Davey should be instructed to make opponents so nervous when they are trying to get the ball back out of their defensive 50 that they need to have a little sit and cry at half time. Because that is priceless.

Green, Bate, Sylvia, Newton should become a rotating HF / Midfield that would make opposition coaches reconsider their career shoice. They can all be effective HFs and mids, but each in different ways. Match-up nightmare.

Dunn might end up as another in that HF rotation, but I see Dunn, Petterd and Bruce being a really useful utilty group.

Chris Johnson and Simon Buckley will make it on a wing if they make it.

Bartram is HBF and tagger, with the long-term prospect of being our replacement Junior.

Right now, I see Frawley and Wheatley as our tall but rebounding defenders, one stays to cover, one goes to do some damage. Frawley is also a longer-term prospect for Key Defender, we'll see.

Bell is a match-saving defender, and I think he likes it. Don't move him.

Paul Johnson is the most likely of our rucks to actually turn out to be a rucking/backup KPP. The next Ben Holland.

And that is my rant, all jammed into one post. Enjoy.

There's a limit to how much of a player's career can be attributed to the recruiter.

I've said before that it's probably fairest to look mostly at Rising star award nominations to get a picture of how players are doing when they are still primarily shaped by what they were at draft time, rather than as reconstructed by the club.

Have we had less than two nominations a year since 2002?

Mclean, Sylvia, Petterd, Jones (3rd) Rivers (Winner) Davey (runner up), Bate, Bartram (3rd?).

It's a good run, these last few years. Newton and Frawley both remain eligible don't they?

Who have I missed from the last few years?

No one will deny that 2000/2001 were relatively weak for us, despite picking up a possible captain now at Adelaide (Thompson), but since 2003 the form has been superb. Another couple of years of this level of quality recruitment and we'll be laughing our way into a golden era, particularly now that we actually HAVE a dedicated development coach.

It's blowing my mind how few resources we committed to player development, and the contrast with the new coaching set-up. I guess it's one of the advantages of having a relatively low-profile (low-cash) senior coach, is that we have more money available for the wider coaching staff.

Now, bring me a good young Key Defender, Mr. CAC.

It's a possibility.

Certainly I think we can make some HUGE improvements on this season now past.

Some thoughts -

1) Not a single one of the delisted players were critical to team structure or performance - none had more than a tenuous claim to best 22 in 2007. Travis Johnstone we all have an opinion on, and I guess we have to modify our optimism based on how important we each think he really was or wasn't to team performance.

2) To replace these fringe players, plus Johnstone, we have picks 3, 14 & 21 plus a collection of late picks for CAC to play with. With the addition of Meesen, and presumably the elevation of Bode, we have six draft selections and two rookie slots, the most for the Demons in some years. Given CAC's performance in recent years, where more than 2/3rds of our picks since 2003 have played and shown promise at AFL level, I'd expect a few good selections from the '07 round.

3) Several high-quality players have been mauled by injury and made minimal contributions in 2007 - Rivers, Whelan, Bartram and Moloney come to mind. Nobody will be assuming all will be straight back and in top form, but it's a start. Several more players were impaired or sidelined by injury, from Mclean and yet again Sylvia to both Neitz and Robertson up forward, plus utilities such as Bruce and Petterd. And so on.

4) Going back to those good draft choices in the last few years... We can show quite a list of young guns at the moment. The following are all AFL quality players, while the jury is still out on CJ, PJ, Buckley, Bode and Garland (and Meesen).

Petterd, Frawley, Jones, Bartram, Bate, Dunn, Newton, Sylvia, Mclean, Davey, Bell, Rivers, Moloney.

Let's party (and hopefully draft, too) like it's 1999.

This is a travesty!

It'll need to be at least... eight times the size!

Still, it's better than the "Lexus Centre for kids who can't kick good and can't do other stuff good either".

he was always a depth player - unable to establish himself as a senior footballer.

he played the final six games of the year and beat westhoff and kennedy - both players with years and pre-seasons ahead of them.

was a good servant of the footy club and also of the alliance with sandringham..

from the hills of Belgrave where he played with the brothers, he achieved something a hell of a lot of other people would like to say they did - play AFL footy!!

It is sad to see him go - the poor guy seemed to get injured as soon as he began to get hopes up. I dunno, I would've given him one more year.

But it's not a decision I'm going to agonise about - he was right on the line of keep-or-delist for a very long time.

Best wishes to him, and not only does he get to say he played AFL, but he can also say that he would've had a much better career except he was cruelled by injury.

And he earnt people's respect.

Agree play in TJ's role. Kick into F50.

Yep. Done and done.

If the radar is back in (it did seem to be improving again) then I'd also like to see him out there for maximum minutes, by using him for the occassional stint as a marking target inside 50m.

Whitnall could be a long-term replacement for Sauntner.

That's all I can find for him on our list, sadly.

Carlton should have renegotiated his contract, there was still life in him, but it'd be hard to justify making a new start with a guy who is chronically limited by injury. The poor bugger could've been great; he's Carlton's Ox.

This is the most exciting part of the interview that I like, shows we are going to get into areas that have never been explored before at that club.

we'll be putting a lot more resources into our development and coaching structure than we have in the past. This is not really my area to talk about but we’ll have probably a couple of development coaches, an innovations coach so we’ll be putting a lot more into our playing group to help them improve.

Yeah, there's a little 'tightening of the green sphincter' at that. Let's go nuts with the development resources and see if about eight quality kids can all step up to A-grade players.

Drool.

I seem to remember Colin Sylvia getting 1 handball in his first match.

Yep, I remember that game.

He jogged on across open space to join the game on the wing, where the ball came within twenty seconds of him arriving.

He was caught flat-footed and was second to the contest.

Then made up for it by laying a crunching tackle and reclaiming the ball.

which, under pressure, he handpassed to nowhere in particular, for it to be scooped up by on opponent.

Not long after he was benched and I'm honestly not sure he got more than 20 mins game time.

So he didn't have a great first game, but it's also another one of those stories we can think back on how Daniher kept giving young guys only half a chance, and reassure ourselves that the club maed the right decision.

Getting back to the original thread here, can we not pretend the club was placing any more importance on this deal than they did? An interesting ruck prospect with great endurance and not at bottom age, for pick 37. A good trade, a useful piece of list-balancing, and cheap as chips.

Any thoughts on the long term contract for Judd.........

It's a risk, definately. Even more so when you think about how much of a talisman they've already made him - suddenly there are Blues talking about finals and top fours and how Whitnall is going to be inspired to keep fit (they may have jumped the gun there, no?) and Fevola will take responsibility for, stuff.

When Judd isn't playing, it'll hurt them badly, particularly if they get belted a couple of times the first time he misses. Worse than that would be getting beaten routinely even with Judd.

We could all be toasting marshmallows on the flaming ruins of Princes Park if Carlton land bottom four again after everthing they've promised for 2008. And they wouldn't have any salary cap room to hold together the over-hyped and thus over-paid 'guns'.