DeeSpencer

He's a saints man. So he's also coming at us with a perspective that he's own struggling side beat us twice last year. Jetta is a beauty. But injury derailed him a bit last year so it's patchy form last year and 2014 and that's all we have to go off. His impact on games is also limited somewhat as he doesn't have huge involvement away from the ball coming to him and his opponent. I'm with you on Tyson, but I also think he's been building through the preseason after missing a lot last year. I'm hoping he and Viney can stand up and with Jones control games and let Vince go to half back. I rate Tyson and Viney about equally at this stage. Both very good but needing to keep improving their weaknesses and bringing their best. It's not easy to make the step up from promising young player to consistent performer with a well rounded game.

Sample size is too small. A nick in a hammy in a debut season is not uncommon. An unlucky ankle injury and then maybe a second ankle roll that could be a 1 or 2 weeker. Injury prone I'd save for players who have repeated long term injuries or repeated similar injuries. You label Vanders injury prone and we start running out of players who wouldn't qualify under that label. It's the nature of AFL footy.

That I certainly agree with. The issue being we had 7 wins and some of those sides last year or the year before for Port went well over 12 wins. If we close the gap it's much easier to jump over those teams.

It's not a crew. It's one man with a decent well founded opinion....who also spends a lot of his time as a cricket writer and researcher. He justified it easily with the statement that there are a lot of good teams, and it's a perfectly fair point. The top 12 were well clear of us last year and so many of them (Coll, GWS, Geel) had strong off seasons. Simply there are good teams with more experienced talent than we have. We need the 1st to 3rd year young players to come on, and they are good and I think they will. But even more we need Jones, Vince, Dunn, Garland, Garlett, Jetta, Lumumba, Dawes/Pedo, Matt Jones/Grimes to give us their best, which they likely will. We know what we'll get from that lot, both the good and the bad. But our season might rest upon the 22-25 year old types in Gawn, McDonald, Watts, Ben Ken, Vanders, Tyson and Viney. If the experienced guys do a job and those guys make the step up to regular performers then we have a backbone of the side. Fools gold to think kids without 50 games or fully grown bodies, no matter how talented, will be able to suddenly lift us much higher than last years ladder position and more than 1 or 2 more wins.

Need 3 more panellists so they can vote for Salem, Oliver and Brayshaw. Only fair.

Terlich, Spencer (replaced by another mature ruck), one of Pedo/Dawes is 3. Agree with the 4 above. Trengove might not make it back or could be downgraded for one last shot. That's 8. Could be anywhere between 0-3 rookie upgrades, but I'd set the line at 1.5. Watts and the club lose patience with each other. Unexpected trade requests. I really hope it's competitive as well, but there's a long way to go and no first round pick. JKH is another who lacks physicality at this stage but he's meant to be a good runner and he has good skills as well. It's not easy to build fitness and competitiveness, certainly much easier if you have it and there's not much you can do with pure athleticism or height, you're a bit stuck with what you've got. But it's probably even harder to turn back kicks in to good kicks. So I'm willing to have some patience with those who can kick the thing.

Suckling's an amazing kick but so high risk he turns over a few. But I agree it's not a perfect comparison, I was just thinking a similar role without the same brilliance of Suckling. I'm trying to think of a similar player in a good side. Either way I don't think our focus on hardness and effort should preclude him.

He'd be a big upgrade, but I always worry about players who are obviously talented but rough around the edges and maybe not a perfect fit for a premiership team. Can he ruck? Can he kick accurately? Is he smart enough when the ball hits the ground and reliable enough in the air? He'll be 28 next Feb and probably cost a 2nd round pick still given I presume he's not a free agent. Hopefully Max King comes on and we don't have to find out.

Nath Jones, Bernie Vince and Salem are probably the only 3 mids on our list who kick as well as Newton. He's still worth his value for that alone. Port let him leave for a 2 year deal because they didn't think he could run and wanted to give him just 1 shot at it. He's got injured again but apparently had built his tank. He's without a position at the moment as he doesn't get win the ball or apply defensive pressure enough for any one spot. But a weakness can be a strength, he can become solid at any position if he builds his fitness. He's not quite to the same level but he can play the same role Suckling has played at the Hawks and now Dogs. Float around from half forward, wing and half back, use the ball well and kick some goals. If we only pick hard at it defensive players we might put a limit on the teams growth. We have to set the standard with attack on the ball and work rate but we can't pick a team of scrubbers either.

Whinge, beg or supplement the costs if we have to. Convince a player to do it for half the rate the others are charging. Do whatever we can to make sure we aren't left behind.

Plus Stringer and Bontempelli are incredibly marketable and you'd mainly stock them in Western Suburbs supermarkets. Saves on the distribution costs. Same with the Melbourne ones. I'm not saying they mass produce thousands of them, but at least sign a player up and have them available in a few Coles stores in the heartland area.

I kind of feel it's solving a problem that isn't a problem. Trees, bins and all the other things shown have done the trick for years. But for the Northern states without footy ovals it's a good idea. Hopefully he can make a few bucks and get more kids involved in the game. Very keen for his son to keep kicking a footy round with Gazza though. White's height with a bit of Ablett skill training. Get him ready for father son.

Because I don't know. Well I thought I did but I was starting to reassess with his form. Now the coaches have a smaller sample size to decide if he's improved or not. If Vanders isn't right and they have doubts over Frost, plus maybe they don't want to play Harmes or Brayshaw on a wing then there's a spot for him. I wouldn't play him at this weekend at all. But he's still in contention for round 1 and I really would've liked to have seen 4 quarters of him against the Saints.

15 talking figurines http://aflfootymate.com/ 2 by hawks, pies and tigers. Bogans will love these, so no shame there. No dogs, no team North of the Murray and no demons. Jones? Vince? Max Gawn? Hogan? No. Oh but there's a Heppell one. Good to see he can make some profit whilst out of the game. Is that legal? Very poor from the AFL and Coles and poor from Melbourne as well. Takes a lot to win a kid back when he goes to the supermarket and can't find his colours anywhere.

I'm looking at the positives. A lot of time in the ruck at Casey for Max King. If (and it's a decent sized if) his own body can hold up to senior VFL footy then his match fitness and development should get a good kick along. It is a shame the Spencil is out but he's a pretty tough character, if we need him hopefully he's rested up enough that he can front up and play. I think that would be a situation where we'd play both Pedo and Frost as well and use a lot of 3rd man ups. Get creative with Frost playing as an extra on baller in a lot of ways.

Had a look for an hour between 10:30-11:30. No: Dawes, Mitch King, Spencer, Viney from what I saw. Vanders walked off just as I got there. Newton came out to do boxing with Jetta. Giving the pads a serious work out. Rehab: Kent doing sprints. Salem on light duties. Weideman as well. Matt Jones and Garland on light duties. Almost everyone else was doing everything including Dunn, Lumumba and Brayshaw. Clarry came off after one drill and had a tight right hip. Physios got in to him pretty strongly. Then he did some boxing. Hopefully just some tightness that is all fine and a week off will have him feeling better before round 1. Usual drills all about quick ball movement. McCartney barking out orders when mids were going 5 v 3 from a stoppage and kicking to a 4 v 2 forward line. Dunn and Hunt managed to intercept a few and Macca was cracking that the forwards would trip over their pulled down pants. The attacking players then started to work it out. A definite focus on the player forward of the stoppage to run forward away from the stoppage as soon as the ball is won and then make his defender choose whether to run with him or attack the ball carrier. Similarly the focus for the outnumbered defenders was to go hard at the ball carrier to force a mistake. Hogan, Dunn, Frost, Gawn and Pedersen all did contested marking practice. Harmes, JKH, Garlett and Max King all were practising snapping goals. Hogan had plenty of shots at goal during various drills. Throws in one or two shuffle steps but otherwise very fluent run up and kicking wasn't an issue.

2 rucks: Hawthorn (McEvoy, Ceglar), Freo (Sandi, Griffen/Clarke) Maybe: WC ( NicNat, Lycett/McGovern), Geel (Smith/Stanley, Vardy), Saints (Longer/Hickey/Holmes, Bruce), Carlton (Kreuzer, Phillips/Casboult), GWS (Mumford, Lobb), Ess (Leuenberger, Jamar/Grimley/Michael), Coll (Grundy, Witts/Moore/Gault) No: Rich (Maric, Vickery/Griffiths), Gold Coast (Nicholls, Wright/Day), Sydney (Tippett, Sinclair), Dogs (Minson/Campbell, Boyd/Redpath/Roughead), Brisbane (Martin, Walker), Port (Lobbe, Dixon/Westhoff/Trengove), Adel (Jacobs, Jenkins), North (Goldstein, Brown) Seems a big mix, hard to predict where a lot of the maybe's will go. The main difference between years past is that the 2nd ruck/forward types are getting bigger and are ofter around the 200cm mark. Not all are necessarily better in the ruck than Pedersen but most are and some can play against number 1 rucks. It's still very early days for him but it's not ludicrously early for Max King to start showing more consistent form at VFL level and to push his case.

It's hard to argue with a beautiful safe clearing handball. Just a matter of how risky we want to be. You're probably right, in that area of the ground the clearing handball is a wise decision. But in general Melbourne need to handball forward more and break out of packs, not go back behind them. Again, so many positives with him, I just think if he develops a bit of smoothness around the rough edges he'll get better and better. That's my main point.

He's not tall for his position but the bulk of Lynden Dunn will come in handy to counter his opponent coming third man up. McDonald is tall and strong enough as well. We are in a bit more trouble if teams have a 195cm + midfielder, we'll have to keep Watts/Vince/Tyson/Lumumba etc whoever is available at the stoppage on the lookout. Or we start to rove the 3rd man ups, which when done well can really stuff with another side as they are sending an extra jumper and still losing.

A very sweet handball, but the Salem kick is just as good if not better. Although next step for Clarry is probably to hold the ball in a bit more and get the exit out the front of the stoppage where Vince and Viney are or even sneak a tight handball to Jetta and run it out the open side. But that's nit picking. A bit more work on his left hand handball should be part of his development as well. I'm sure he's seeing both sides of the stoppage and has the vision. A good left will see him able to really open up the field. Even his right hand I think he holds the ball up and punches it a bit much. I think he can smooth it out a bit and make sure he's hitting team mates spot on. I find it exciting knowing that Oliver has a lot of traits that are really hard to teach - hardness, vision, agility, presence and still lots to work on with his body and skills (which are at a solid baseline as well, it's not like he's a mile off).

Just strange they haven't done likewise with Buddy Franklin, even though he lined up someone last year and has done it for years. I think it's on the harsh side and I think they take the injury in to account too much. Add 1 extra week for the injury but if not injured I think this would've been 1 or 2 with the guilty plea. He's a good player and mainly a ball player. Players across the comp need to get the message that deliberate acts highly likely to cause concussion must be outlawed, but this seems just a bit too much. Sustained strong penalties for everyone will do that better than random targeted decisions that the tribunal/MRP often produce.

Impact is hard to judge. But Brayshaw's tackling, hardness and direct style of footy was instrumental is us scoring against better teams I think. His impact was greater than his stats or talent. He lit us up at Geel, QB'day, North game, Tigers game. Even round 1 he made a big difference. Clarry has shown me some special abilities but Gus set the bar pretty high. I'd drop a footy in front of Clarry in a pack situation and he'd do some great things. Playing on him I wouldn't lay a finger on him. I'd roll a footy out in front of Brayshaw in space and I expect similar. He's such a natural tackler I wouldn't want to pick up the ball, and if he gets the ball he's so determined to get it on to a team mate in a good spot.

When Grimes first started he was a handy half back flank who would play on a half forward flank, use his height (he was tall for a flanker then) and work rate to intercept mark away from that opponent. Then he'd run off and guys like Rivers or Cam Bruce would get him the ball and he'd kick it out to the next player and away we went. He was a decent back flanker. He missed some time with injuries and the forward pressure started to make life harder for back flankers without accurate kicks. Then Mark Neeld came in and preseason was about getting super fit to run hard and defend. His reward for that was the captaincy. Lacking fit midfielders Jack was thrown in to the middle without any training in clearance play. He ran hard, tackled pretty well and had some decent games. But again more injuries and no real improvement. He returned to the back flank under Roos and eventually shed the captaincy. He still worked hard and took some marks, but his skills just weren't picking up fast enough to keep up with the modern game. His only option was safe sideways footy. So now he's send to the wing where he can use his best remaining AFL attribute which is his ability to run. Plus his ability to read the play will help him position well to be the outlet for the backline. A decent mark as well so he can retain possession. Hopefully he can then get the ball out in space and move it on to the right target without being under such presssure. Plus he'll defend well, although a lack of pace off the mark might be exposed. I think it's the right move and he'll be good wing depth. But the bad flaws in his game are still there. Besides the average kicking skills (which aren't the worst for a wingman) it's his lack of awareness that really lets him down. He was outmarked 3 times on Sunday waiting for the ball instead of going hard at it and we know about his infamous hospital handballs. The reality is his prime development years were wasted running laps, injured or burdened by leadership. His kicking has improved since 2014 but I just don't think he'll get the awareness back (if he ever had it). If they pick him I'll live with some mistakes knowing at least he works on them and the coaches have devised a role to hopefully suit his game. That's the best we can hope for.

That's true. But then again he was back off the mark by a step or two and handball sideways, yet it was smothered. Would like to know how that happens. Then he picked up and drilled a pass what I thought was a good 15m easily. But the ump didn't like that one either. So multiple efforts it was!

I always saw talent with Gawn but he was a mile off. Tommy showed his endurance and energy early that was about it. Dunn was a first round pick medium forward, you'd hope he'd offer something. I'm not overly convinced by Oscar but the longer the game went the better he got on Sunday and he was much better than the Port game. I think his disposal and vision have been a step up from ordinary, certainly something to work with for a tall defender. Certainly he lacks strength and aggression but he does have endurance. I'm not going to hold it against him for not being strong or aggressive when he's 10kg lighter than his opponents. I'd like to see more speed and skills from him but I think he has adequate amounts of both. Tom Lonergan and Ted Richards have been two of the better key defenders for the last 5+ years. Both started as nothing forward types and were thrown back and developed by good clubs. Neither have been aggressive, both started with very average skills and Lonergan developed a lot of strength over time. Due to Dunn's injury Oscar got a run against a capable forward in Bruce and spent time on Riewoldt. The saints didn't find room for their young key defender in Goddard even though he was pick 20 or whatever he was.