DeeSpencer

In 2011 in his 3rd year as a 20 year old he played every game averaged 16 disposals, 5.5 marks and a goal a game. He played as the floating taller flanker with good skills and was looking promising. We all know what happened next and it took 5 years for his mind, body and talent to get it together in 2016

Sylvia and Watts both had pretty good seasons as young players. They became Sylvia and Watts because the club had no standards and didn't develop them to reach their potential. If Petracca is giving his all at training and off field to be the best he can be then he will get better. And his first quarter on the weekend was indicative of a guy who knew he had more to give. If he's not quite getting it done at training and/or the coaches think an easy kill at Casey would get him some more touch then he should be dropped. In the stats that matter for a guy playing half forward this year compared to (last year) Disposals: 20.3 (18.8) Goals: 0.8 (1.2) Tackles: 2.7 (2.5) Score Involvements: 6.2 (5.7) Clangers: 3.8 (2.9) Disposal efficiency: 66.5 (66.8) Those numbers - and the eye test especially when he goes in to the midfield - tell me that he hasn't improved his work rate and he hasn't improved his skill execution.

Dropping Hogan was a hypothetical in how to get better balance in the forward line. Not a serious consideration even if he's been in the bottom 5 players two weeks in a row. Dropping Petracca has to be a serious consideration. The Saints took forever to drop Billings and after an easy kill in the VFL he played far better the next week. How many weeks of Petracca having very little influence on games have to go by until something changes?

Two step plan for Mrs Tracc then: 1. Stop feeding the kid so much 2. Shoot his stupid dog The clubs handling of his finger injury was almost certainly a classic Melbourne medical mistake, but I care little for any players parents especially once the player has been in the system for a few years.

I don't believe playing midfield time has any bearing on it. When he goes in to the midfield he plays midfield. But I do think the emergence of Tom McDonald as a pack marker and Gawn in the side drifting forward has impacted Hogan. Our forwards crash in to each other all the time and they have to get better and working for each other. Hogan also has to get much better in his defensive pressure and part of that is knowing when to keep your feet and be first on to the contest. More than anything though I think Hogan just needs to toughen up and be uncompromising in his attack on the ball. He gets sooky and bruise free when it goes against him. I don't care if he's baking team mates or the umpire, but I want to see him fired up.

More athletic? Nope. He's slower, less agile and not as fit. Better handballer sure, I like Sam's hands on both sides of the body. Better contested mark - well he averages 1 a game compared to Smith's 0.8. Smarter, that's hard to qualify - smarter handballer but that's about it. I've just given you stats to show Smith is good at negating a ruck. Either Smith or Weideman will play minutes in the ruck and their ability to win, lose or negate the hit outs and then follow up is an important part of that role. How many talls do we need? We have Hogan, Tommy Mc as well as Melksham and Petracca who should all be good strong in the air one on one. None of those guys are good pressure players. Tracc is when he's on but he often isn't. Surely you agree forward pressure is a vital part of the modern game? Surely! So if it's not coming from Hogan, Tommy, Weeds, Melksham or Petracca who is doing it?? Hannan and ANB chasing their tails off trying to lay tackles and getting little help. Weideman probably will replace Smith, his VFL form over the last fortnight has been very impressive, but in a couple of weeks he'll get dropped because the 3 talls aren't getting in the game and the forward pressure is lacking.

Have you watched Richmond play any time in the last 18 months. Nankervis gets destroyed in the hit outs by opposition rucks every week, but uses his lower centre of gravity/bulk to direct where the opponent can hit the ball and then follows it up. Grigg the same. Westhoff who rucked against Smith had 1 hit out to advantage from his 9 hit outs. Weideman would be better at getting hit outs but not at following up the taps. Considering opposition back ups aren't getting clean hit outs on Smith I'd say there's no evidence that Weideman in the ruck would provide any advantage. So it comes down to which player is better up forward and I think for the sake of balance that's Smith. Hogan and Tom McDonald are already struggling to find any separation and both be involved in the game. How does adding another 195cm+ tall who doesn't offer much at ground level help that? Again, it gets back to the way Richmond win with forwards who tackle and pressure to lock the ball inside 50. Jacob Townsend is a premiership player producing similar stats to Smith. Whilst Smith's basic stats weren't impressive the advanced stats rated his game as one of our better performers. They aren't always right but it's an indication that Smith's pressure adds more than meets the eye.

Set the tone for forward pressure in the first quarter. Competed well in the ruck and we lost nothing with Gawn off as we often do. Kicked a goal. Forward pressure is vital to our backline being able to compete. I wouldn't drop any player than does the job with pressure given how badly we've lost in games where our pressure is missing.

Have you been to training and watched the repeat runs /time trials. Frost is a super powerful guy but he is towards the back of any kind of endurance work. Fast twitch athlete as they say. He played up the ground against Hawthorn and was repeatedly caught out of position and didn't have the speed to catch it up when he was run around.

Clearly a choice from the coaches to give Pedda a chance at CHB knowing that as it stands Hogan, T Mc, T Smith and Weids should all play ahead of him for 3 forward spots, whilst down back we are short of options. Hutchins therefore playing a role up forward working around the positions they need to try AFL guys in.

Frost wouldn't have done any better on Cox than Oscar did. Oscar had a bad one. His first shocker for a year. Responded well by beating Dixon in nearly every one on one. Port coaches were smart though and made him keep track of Westhoff late in quarters who ran him around and he made a few dumb errors. The issue is Frost doesn't have the fitness to play CHB. And Oscar at CHB isn't a great option either. So they are competing for 1 spot. Hibberd, Vince and Joel Smith are rotating through the 2nd/3rd tall spots and mostly that's working, or at least it hasn't been terrible. I'd play Petty at chuck him in at CHB and let the other guys work around him, but that's still different to throwing Frost in and hoping he or Oscar can play up the ground.

Good on Weideman for playing well but I think people are missing the value that Tim Smith has given to the team with his forward pressure. He's our best tackling forward and I think he has to stay for that role. Do we drop Hogan? That would be bold but I'd support it if the coaches wanted to fire him up. Or do we drop Petracca and play the 4 tall guys and get Hogan out in space and Smith playing as the small pressuring? Or is Tommy Mc injured. Great to have Weideman back in form (against absolute battlers in Coburg) but I'm still yet to be convinced 3 talls works for us. Pedersen was in consistently great form but when he came in to the side the balance of the forward line was a mess. Weideman played against Ess, Saints and GC so it's not easy to work out how well the 3 worked with him but when Smith came in we destroyed Carl and Adelaide.

Your 1 example of me being wrong was when I said I was done with Tom McDonald, who is now playing a completely different role. I wasn't going to delist the guy on the spot, I would've sat down with him, worked out what's wrong in his game and quite possible played him ruck or forward years ago. Instead he played back with diminishing returns week after week until Gawn got injured and they bit the bullet to put him forward/ruck. Like most people on here I have varying opinion on a number of players and have been wrong on lots of them over the years. But I don't believe I've started a thread or maintained a constant position against any players besides Tom McDonald (as a defender) and Lewis. The only players worse than Lewis last night: Hogan (rough couple of weeks), Petracca (but a big first term), maybe Vince and Joel Smith who both spent a lot of time chasing after Lewis' opponent for him. As well as Oscar's poorly timed lapses that undid a lot of good work on Dixon.

Did a good job on Dixon. Although looking at Dixon's stats for the year I wonder how that actually is. Unfortunately let his guard down against Westhoff a couple of times. Didn't adjust to the more mobile opponent. He also has to watch the ball and not let it go over his head like the Thomas ( I think) goal. The first 50 was a joke. The player marks after Oscar has left the ground to spoil and it was a reasonable spoil. The 2nd 50 was there. Oscar too fascinated by the ball and his ungainly attempt to spoil and was there way too late. Of course the number of missed 50's our way and the face it was a 70m penalty are for another discussion.

I thought his clean hands around the packs early made a big difference, but he lost confidence after the run down tackle and he was chasing Motlop or Polec (poorly) for a fair bit of the game. He's not the answer to make us better but I thought he wasn't the problem either. Did enough good and bad.

I don't see them as a pairing. Vince does anywhere between 3 to 30 ridiculous things a game but otherwise he's just Bernie but a little slower with less penetration on the kicking. The guy will still go most of the time when it's his turn to go and he often takes a taller opponent given we aren't playing a designated 3rd tall (or even a designated 2nd to be more correct). With Lever and Hunt injured the replacement for Bernie is either Wagner - who doesn't inspire confidence or a first year kid in Petty. I understand why the coaches are reluctant to chuck a kid in, even if I think it's time. Lewis is completely different to me. He's playing as the loosest defender - a prime position to get a lot of the ball and impact games. And yeah he's solid enough with the ball in the uncontested kicking game, and that's important, but I'd love to see Salem or Fritsch in that role, both guys with more kicking penetration and the speed to take it on. When it gets close in tight Lewis won't turn left. He can't even handball on his right hand, so he's always looking to go in one direction. Can't break a tackle so we throw it away before it comes to that. His kicks often end up wild up an unders. And the defending. The awful awful defending. If he's not in the perfect position he just can't offer anything.

FB: Hibberd Oscar Jetta HB: Salem Petty Fritsch C; Tyson Oliver Jones HF: Spargo Hogan Melksham FF: Petracca Tommy Mc Hannan Foll: Gawn Brayshaw Viney Int: J. Smith, Harmes, T. Smith, ANB Bye bye: Vince, Lewis In: Petty, Spargo Very open to dropping Harmes and Petracca but the forward/mid stocks are light on as it is and we have to redeploy Fritsch to half back to replace Lewis and bring in Spargo as is.

Another awful performance from Plugga Lewis. To all the people who said mean things about me in this thread, don't worry, I'm not angry. Will gladly accept any and all apologies.

I'd have: Petty for Vince - get a genuine CHB in to build the structure around, Vince the defender with the worst form Garlett for Hannan - Hannan hasn't nailed the spot so back to flaky Jeff in the hope he can produce Tim Smith for Pedersen - the 3 big talls plus Melksham/Petracca makes a top heavy forward line that doesn't tackle enough, the extra mobility/pressure of Smith helps Tyson for Spargo - I didn't want to drop Spargs but the extra mid lets us keep Tommy forward and we get versatility with who goes inside/outside/forward. Probably should be Harmes or Petracca dropped but they have greater upside/flexibility. Strengthen our strength which has to be around the ball FB: Hibberd Oscar Jetta HB: J. Smith Petty Salem C; Tyson Oliver Fritsch HF: ANB Hogan Petracca FF: Melksham T Mc Garlett Foll: Gawn Jones Viney Int: Lewis, Brayshaw, Harmes, T. Smith

I can't imagine a max exodus from the MCC bars to pack in to a modern version of a social clubs, those days are long gone, but I can see the club offering post game drink invites to certain select members, most of whom have reserved seats in Northern Stand or are MCC members and it's the perfect location for that. I've often thought extending over the Richmond rail corridor near the tennis centre when the Southern Stand was redeveloped was our best chance to build an MCG adjacent facility. Jolimont is just as good and surely a simple proposition building over 2 rail lines instead of the 12 or so that run to Richmond!

Bit silly to have Fritsch ahead of Cerra, Rayner, Naughton and Brayshaw. They should be 4-7 on this list. Fritsch a good candidate to be number 8 though.

16 VFL and 1 AFL game last year isn't a bad return for his first season, I think he only had some assorted niggles last year. Then a hip injury this year. As long as they get it right I don't think it will impact his career long term. The main downside is he needs games to develop ASAP, but the trade off here is he can probably do a heap of lighter skill work as he rehabs. I still like his potential as a tagger/stoppage specialist, he has the size and athleticism to go with the big name mids.

With a minimal amount of landscaping those pathways should all be protected, certainly the long stretch from Richmond Station to the G won't be even close to impacted and the walk down from Jolimont should also be untouched. The area is already used as the AFL Live site/ Grand Final parade finishing spot. It's not nearly as steep as people thing.

The Pullman and other buildings opposite the station are 10+ stories, and the RACGP building directly opposite the proposed site is 6 stories. If the Government gives the approval to build above the train tracks I don't see a reasonable argument against a 6 story building. Covering over the train lines should mean increased pedestrian access. I don't think this piece of land slopes nearly as much as some of Yarra Park but it would be a challenge. It's a matter of selling the oval as a part of the park and as a community facility. I know East Melbourne residents are a certain type but there's Fitzroy Gardens, Treasury Gardens and the rest of Yarra Park to be enjoyed as purely park spaces. With apartments going up all over the city of Yarra and population booming the strong argument should be made that they need ovals. Council's can create parks from acquiring properties or re purposing car parks. Unless they have a huge vacant area they can't do that for an oval.

A professional quality oval for community use would be a huge win for the council. Especially with the rise of Women's footy. They'd have no problems finding clubs to allocate it to. The development over the train tracks comes down to whether it will be approved for apartments next to our site. You put a few apartment buildings and you've got a council rates bonanza. That's the income councils love. Shutting down the trains for a select period of time to build over the eye saw that is exposed tracks and create useful community space and housing. That's a win win. Then Melbourne build next door with a community oval, medical facilities, maybe even make the gym public use outside of certain hours, some form of Indigenous cultural centre - pretty much you are doing the council a favour!