DeeSpencer

I've seen a couple of sessions of him but not extensive periods. He has a bit of a shuffling run, doesn't strike me as a speedy type. Looks like his body needs work as well but so do most of the 80 or so picked ahead of him. Kicking seems legit though. Low, hard and accurate left foot. I'd say speed, fitness and injury concerns would be one knock on him. Probably the rest needs more vision and games to work out. Does he read the play? Does he run to link up well? Does he consistently make good decisions. It's hard to tell that from training (where most of that is scripted) and 2 minutes of highlights.

Well I guess now I know why we've been struggling for so long. No wonder the boys are on the high fat diet after a few hits of ganja before training.

I hope we are targeting every good young (and some old) player who are out of contract and even some whom aren't. I had some mail that Zac struggled with the move to Sydney. Had a girlfriend he didn't want to leave who he hadn't gotten much time with before he was drafted. The mail was that once he played the couple of senior games and as things went on he acclimatised. To be honest if we got him I'm not sure it would be a huge poaching exercise. I think if he plays games and settles well then he'll sign on at Sydney. It's a great club, we can only hope after this year we'll have closed the gap somewhat. But if he still wants to be in Melbourne (the city) as well as struggles for a game then I really hope he picks Melbourne as his destination.

It's only 80cents an hour so all the more spending money for you on the sausages! A bit of a hassle that it's not free but no time limit and it's a nice to see the people on the tan track or go the gardens and walk across the river (which is nice) and freeway (not as nice but still somewhat interesting and it's a safe bridge/overpass so don't be worried.). As much as I'd love us to have a permanent base that is our own an asset I think the club, players and us as fans are pretty spoilt to train where we do. Especially when you know the Saints are in Seaford and Essendon at the airport.

Which forum am I on? Why are there 2 of the same things? Can someone summarise the differences?

Well that's the good part about adding one more player after each win. Say we've won 2 games, maybe it's round 5 or 6 and so we've added Nath Jones and Dom Tyson to Flower. We then win a game where Watts has 25 touches and 3 goals including the match winner, but so far in the season Watts' has been his usual self. Do we then give it to Watts or the ever consistent Cross or Viney? Bit fiddly to keep adding one by one but I love the idea that the best on ground votes in a winning game can also include a poll option for who is due to be added to the banner. And people can choose like the rising star nomination to go for the body of work or for the best individual game or whichever balance they like.

I guess he kind of didn't get a good run last year. Concussed in game 1. Post concussive in game 2. Soaking wet day in game 3 then only back at the end of the year. But I think he needed that spell at Casey. He can't be in and out of the team whilst doing some good things but not nailing the basics. Like a cricketer with a shaky technique he needs to sort out his marking so he can be reliable at senior level.

I have an idea: We leave it how it is until the season stars. Then with every win we add a person to the banner. It can be based on how overall deserving they were or it can be if they are best on ground and a key part of winning that game. Then as the season goes on hopefully we have lots of faces on the banner.

Spot on. After a win this place turns senior players are all time greats and youngsters are future hall of famers. If players want to read something positive then we don't ask for much, just a few wins would do it!

Health and age aren't excuses for lacking the skills required to play AFL. Despite years on the list he hasn't improved his marking or kicking techniques to anywhere close to AFL level. They still stand out at training as being below par. With increased fitness and strength from a good preseason he should improve, but he's just too flaky to pick as a key forward I believe. If a preseason improves his ability to compete in the ruck I'd like to see him challenge Pedersen for that second ruck spot

Good old Fitzy. Expert on checksides. Incapable of kicking a fluent drop punt and unable to mark. A 6'6 crumbing forward/ruckman.

So in his 7th preseason Jack Watts finally gets an overuse injury. How nice. That will teach him for trying.

I'd get the signature as soon as I could! But I also feel like it would be counter productive to announce it now when the AFL year is really in off season mode. May as well pick a time that's going to sell some memberships! I'll be surprised if it's not signed by the preseason games and if not then by round 1.

I'm hoping that with another year of development for Viney and Tyson, plus greater depth in the midfield from both younger and older players that we close the gap on clearances and possessions pretty quickly. That will tell me we truly are competing and are matching sides physically which is something we haven't done for a long time. I'd be wrapped if some of those key stats, particularly inside 50's and score differential halved again and if our wins doubled again. We have to show that our midseason run of form that saw us get 4 wins against Adelaide, Ess, Carl and Rich and close losses to Port and the Dogs twice as well as 3 quarters against the Pies is reproducible rather than the first few weeks and the last month or so.

Or just making sure the game against Detroit decides the division and has that extra edge before the playoffs! The NFC play off seedings are right up in the air with two weeks to go. Crazy. Green Bay, Philly etc will be wanting the number 1 seed, but at the same time I think they'll be cheering on Arizona next week and just a happy to have Seattle down in the 5 seed.

Green Bay Pittsburgh New Orleans Who else is excited for some Johnny Football!!! A couple of fine battles for the Mariota Cup in Jets v Tennessee and surely not even Tampa and Lovie would be so silly as to actually beat Carolina now they are on their backup QB.

Besides the expansion teams I try to think of just how many 18 year olds can ever mix it at AFL level in the midfield in year 1. Just from Melbourne and recent history: Scully and Trengove had variable levels of success in year 1. Brock McLean played very well on a wing as the season wore on. Jack Viney was very ready to go and had a good crack at it. From other clubs I tend to disregard the expansion clubs. Joel Selwood is a great example. But then I think of number 1 picks like Goddard and Cooney coming on slowly and Bryce Gibbs used at half back. Jack Macrae is a great example of a more outside type of player in his first year doing well. Toumpy not so much. Whilst Wines is pretty similar in terms of solid body shape but probably lacking endurance when he entered the system. He had a great preseason then worked his way from a predominantly forward role in to bigger and bigger midfield exposure. Petracca has size, speed and class to play well as a forward from day 1. In terms of the midfield though I expect his fitness to hold him back unless he can be like Wines and just be so good that he gets a lot of midfield minutes despite limited overall game time. Angus Brayshaw is hard to tell. He doesn't have the same power in his game or his body as Petracca to say he would be good forward. But he's a great talent and is a competitor, so much so that he's probably the type to just find a way to get in the team. I also think youngsters together are probably a bad combination. So I doubt we will see more than probably 3 players in their first 2 years in the team at once. Maybe 4 with the sub. GWS are the perfect example of so many good young footballers all developing well yet the team not winning. It shows young players look great in terms of skills and highlights, yet somehow get shown up by older, wiser types.

Reasons why JKH was not at training: 1. Had to watch his cousin Ryan play against the Indians 2. Had to stay home to watch the space shuttle launch at the Kennedy centre 3. Is no longer training out of protest until his cousin Neil Patrick can legally get married in Australia 4. Quit the MFC when Roosy named Josh as the best Kennedy 5. Decided if Jack Watts gets 22 games despite never putting in that he may as well take a few weeks off pre Christmas 6. Is using demonland and the club to troll us all 7. Has a low grade infectious illness that could spread through the players and has been told to stay away from the club 8. Has a personal issue 9. Has quit footy to rediscover his cultural heritage by playing cricket with his private school mates in Kew 10. His biceps are now so large he's unable to run from the sheer weight of them

So an 18 year old is meant to go against all his senior team mates and 'change the culture'. You can't blame the 18 year old for the clubs poor leadership. The AFL is a sport where performance enhancing drug testing is probably pretty rare. So players aren't on edge at all. Before Ahmed Saad you go back decades to find the player caught before. It's so much different to cycling or an Olympic sport where drug testing is front and centre. The club brings in a biochemist who starts a program that likely builds up from vitamins to simple peptides to then the experimental stuff that we still don't know if it was against the ASADA/WADA code or not. Every step of the way you can see how the players were lead in to this. It wasn't like Dank turned up one day and went straight for the big gun substances. Instead he won the coaches over with dodgy products, had Danny Corcoran on side, had the Weapon involved. The waiver is a great example of a trick used to get players in to the program. "Here, sign something for your own protection that says this is legal", why would a player not sign that? Personally I haven't worked out why the AFL hasn't just quit ASADA by now and employed their own PED code and testing.

Better he has the scooter and can actually get out there than being stuck inside sitting in the gym staring at the same 4 walls. As clumsy as it may look it gives him more freedom than hobbling round on crutches. Making the best of a bad situation.

He is still one of the incumbent half back flankers. So if Lumumba is used on the wing then Grimes is still part of the best 7 defenders. Presuming he's fit I think he'd have to put in absolute shockers to not get picked in the preseason games and first month of the season. Particularly when his best competition might be Terlich who's off to a delayed start to the year. Can't see Jayden Hunt or Mitch White threatening his spot any time soon. I wonder as preseason goes on and training becomes more positioned focussed if we see a midfielder (Vince, Michie, Toumpas or even a younger one like Neal-Bullen or Brayshaw) training with the backline group.

You know things are quiet when the herald sun are doing training reports! Good job by them, but they don't have anything on Saty!

Pick 20 for pick 9 plus pick 2 for Tyson. It was a lot to give up. I've always thought it was a reasonable deal but we needed Tyson to be a very very good player. Turns out so far he is. I think with time he'll keep building his outside game and makes it more damaging, he already accumulates well and marks the ball beautifully for a midfielder. Then once he gets a mature body as a midfielder I hope he gets to that elite stage at contested ball. He's fearless, reads the taps beautifully and gets out on to his left foot pretty well. He seems to have a lot of confidence in his ability to be a star at Melbourne and under Roos. That might almost be my favourite thing. He got traded, came in, worked hard and performed with no fuss.

Garlett's best seasons came at Carlton when second string behind Betts. So I think he'll struggle to reproduce 40 goal seasons in our side. He's also got to get back to some kind of form. He looks fast and skillful at training, but isn't the fittest and has never been the hardest. So I'm not setting the bar high on him until he proves he's still an AFL player. Not that I think Dawes or Hogan will kick more than him. Kent's the other who should kick a few. 12 goals in 13 games including time as the sub last year. He should be on track for 20 games, 20 goals this year. If one of them can kick 30 goals and all of them at least 20 plus from the group of Hogan, Dawes, Garlett and Kent then at least we have some consistency and something to build a forward line around. Ideally one more of Salem, Petracca, JKH, Fitzpatrick or Pedersen could do the same. 5 forwards kicking 30-35+ is what a modern forward line needs. It doesn't matter if the top guy kicks 80, 50 or even 40. So I set the bar at 4 guys kicking 20 goals each.

JKH played round 1 last year (just as many draftees did and have done previously) and he would've only been on light duties after coming to the club a couple of weeks prior if this was last year. So it's a bit early to rule anyone in or out besides Trengove. Terlich and Spencer are probably the 2 furthest back but if they were good enough they could still make it with a good run from here. Vince hasn't done much with the main group either but because he's a shoulder not a leg injury he should be progressing towards round 1 as well.