DeeSpencer

2018 caps the Roos plan as far as I'm concerned. We went from worst team since Fitzroy bad to a prelim final appearance. Our young players looked good. We had useful role players and we had experience in the side. Between 2013 and 2020 we've had important players in Vince, Lewis, Cross, Tyson, Bugg, Garlett and many others come and go. Howe emerge and leave. Watts finally fulfil his talent then regress and be traded. Hogan sent away. The utter failure of Toumpas. Plus the decline of Jones and possibly Hibberd. To build a full contending side whilst also replacing those guys would've been a monumental task. Most teams going for the full rebuild strip back to nothing very early so they can spend years building without losing older guys out the other side. It was the 3rd go around of rebuilding since 2007 and needed immediate action to remedy the list. Dreams of a Clarkson 2005-2008, Geelong under Bomber or a GWS style leap were long odds to happen, the baseline talent on the list and number of high and mid round drafts picks just weren't enough. And yes the coaching change was part of the rebuild but that alone shows it was a highly unusual situation. Just my opinion but as long as the culture and overall smarts of the club has changed and as long as our high draft picks like Oliver, Petracca, Salem, Lever kick on then combined with 2018 that's enough from the rebuild. I see your point of view that 2013-2020 should be one rebuild that ends in contention and therefore success. Just isn't how I see it.

Not sure attributing a time frame to post Roos is all that meaningful. The guy doesn't believe in rebuilds. He came in to build us up and that was achieved. I actually think last year was a lot about adapting to losing a lot of players that Roos bought in to help achieve improvement from basket case to legitimate side. In conjunction with injuries we really struggled to cover the decline or loss of guys who steadied us - Vince, Tyson, Jones, Lewis (post Roos but similar philosophy), Garlett, Hibberd even Jetta and someone like Bugg. Obviously there was a rebuild aspect as well around the time Roos was here (pre/post/during). The core group of top draft picks in Viney, Salem, Petracca, Brayshaw, Oliver, Weid and the Lever trade are meant to be the backbone of our side for a decade and that was looking likely in 2018. Gawn, McDonald, Jetta and maybe Harmes the other guys who were even part of the Roos era and still important today. Things will be looking bad if the majority of those guys aren't doing what we expect this upcoming season so I guess that's the legacy of the Roos rebuild. Along with hopefully more professionalism, grit and unity etc. But a lot of the teams success this year will be based on players we've added post Roos. Some trade ins to continue the build but also draft picks in the years since.

I think there’s times you have to move on from both coaching game plans and players who might help short term but aren’t going to get it done. In terms of players, older players are the simplest targets but also guys who don’t have the skills, or the two way efforts or the physicality. And it might be moving guys back to Casey to develop a skill or moving positions to use other parts of their games. Similarly conserving and developing your best players in other roles has to be a factor. Oliver forward. Petracca half back. Gawn CHB. All things I’d like to see if we’re just a middle of the road side, rather than playing them all max minutes to get to 12 wins. I look at what Bevo has done at the Dogs post flag whilst they’ve had a mini rebuild and he’s moved a lot of magnets and tried a lot of different plans. It’s probably caused short term pain whilst they’ve restocked with talent but they’re well placed to contend now.

Win the flag or get in the best possible position to win the flag in 2021-onwards. Finals is a realistic aim and winning now isn’t a handicap on winning later, in fact it’s the oppsite. But I am weary of the trap of the later Daniher years, selling out to make finals and never contending.

The 3 most common deep forward targets that I noticed were T Mc, Melksham and Fritsch. They are also our 3 most dangerous one on one forwards. If Jackson gets a game at this stage I can't imagine he'd be any kind of target. He looks best when allowed to move around in space. Whilst the main group was doing match sim he did ruck training with Preuss, Gawn and Bradtke and held his own.

3/4 ground match sim now. Mids deliberately mixing handballs and throwing the ball at each other’s feet under pressure to similate a stoppage. Then break in to match sim. Vanders, Fritsch, Nibbler involved

Next one: Weid on the flank, handballs up to Chandler who’s surveying options and RUN DOWN by Bedford.

Max gets the short kick in the corridor and goes long to Melk who nicely bodies Oscar out of the way on this one. Next one up. Chandler crumbs back to Vanders in the wing spot, in to Dunkley, out to Weid who hits Jackson on a nice lead.

Hitting the fat side flanker - has been Melksham and Fritsch - seems to be the aim of the kicking half ground match sim

No

At the other end it’s 4 on 3 running the ball from the backline

Rivers laces 40m pass to Sparrow who kicks long to set up the drill. Wagner centers, Kossie plays on, shakes the man on the mark, puts the handball in front of Viney who sets it up to T Mc. (Who spills the contested mark over Rivers). Match sim. 10 on 8. Bibs moving it out. Blues moving it back in.

Small group drills designed to kick to forwards one on one now. The kicking is gross. LJ on a lead is nicer.

No KK, no Bennell, no Neita and as far as I can see so far no Joel Smith. May walked back to AAMI as training started. A rather rusty kick to kick to start with in blustery conditions. Kossie P struggling to hit a target so far.

Given they were all in their bralettes and not jumpers I have a suspicion the main group have come from the tan

Jones, Hannan, Baker, Tomlinson, Spargo in to some kick to kick. Viney, May, Jetta, Vanders floating around waiting. Not sure what they are up to. Main group looks to be arriving now

So we play 6 days prior (Crows at Casey) and 1 week after (Hawks in Launceston). Our players picked to play in this - which is probably only going to be 2 in Gawn and Oliver - might skip or play a half in first preseason game and then be fine to play in our final hit out. Gawn gets some work in against Grundy at a lesser intensity. Oliver and any other mids gets a look at the best. Preuss, Jackson, key forwards get to push their case for round 1 and more game time for the young mids too. Don’t mind it from a football perspective. Whether it will be a game worth watching and good for charity is another discussion.

Dusty Martin wasn't anywhere near fit and Tom Lynch looked like he just picked up a footy for the first time when they played early in the season and then ended up dominating finals. Guys can and do start the year underdone and improve if they are well managed and surrounded by fit and capable players. Petracca and Oliver were examples of that. I'm not saying they were 100% ready but they'd done enough to play and if surrounded by a fit side and well managed they'd improve through the year. Who knows the absolute minimum percentage but someone like Oliver is probably good enough to get a game on 50% assuming he's safely ticked the boxes in returning to training and playing practice games which he had. Limit game time, move him forward, have a fit side around him and he'd be fine. Roos loves hard and fast rules that suit his agenda, it's never that easy. Every great side is going to have preseason and midseason injuries and these days even mid season draft picks. There's going to be guys coming in with no AFL preseason at all. The performances of a few underdone guys was just one of so many problems that included guys who shouldn't even have been playing (Viney, Jones, Oscar), losing more players on the eve of the season and as it went on, lack of depth in the outside runners, insufficient training numbers for high intensity drills etc.

Mainly trying to give myself cover unless I was overly optimistic in my reports and someone drags them up! But there were positives. May looked great before injury. KK and Fritsch looked good on the wings. Some rehab group guys were coming back in to the main group. Some of what they were doing looked good. It’s hard to see what they weren’t doing - which was not nearly enough high intensity two way drills with good players.

For what it’s worth Saty I think Oliver, Harmes, Petracca and Brayshaw were ready to play, if a touch underdone. They’d done enough training and match sim. You are correct there. Viney, Jones and to an extent Melksham were not and the first two probably shouldn’t have played. Thats the preseason component of fitness to play. There was also so many other issues impacting the type of team the players were coming back in to. Frost and Oscar weren’t ready to cover May and were unsure of their roles or place in the side. Sparrow wasn’t ready at all and was chucked in because Lewis was a late out and we needed a healthy body. KK and Vanders (and JKH) going down late suddenly meant we were short wing options and C Wagner was there. But the biggest failings of last summer wasn’t that individuals weren’t ready it was that the team was underprepared due to missing so many players. The team wasn’t training with the right intensity and whilst that’s easy to say in hindsight and hard to say at the time I think it’s clear now.

Really wanted to tip the Titans but NE at home. Belichick and Brady v Vrabel and Tannehill. Until proven otherwise I have to go with the champs.

Buffalo 16 @ Houston 27 Tennessee 20 @ New England 23 Minnesota 20 @ New Orleans 31 Seattle 27 @ Philadelphia 24

I agree, and whilst he's a good all round athlete he doesn't have the standout speed, size, strength or endurance to make up for it. If he really drilled the fundamental skills so he could move cleanly through traffic he could be a player but North clearly didn't think that was going to happen and I didn't see a lot of it last year. Nath Jones is still the only Melbourne player I've seen go from a sloppy mover - in Jones' case he was slow to react and cumbersome - to a smooth mover. Corey loves a fend off and scrambling kicks when caught in traffic. It works for him at VFL level but ends poorly against better opposition.

We also won two finals with him making a valuable contribution as a first year player so if he gets fit and healthy he could do that again. I hope he does. Before he became institutionalised with Melbourne stupidity he was a smart footballer.