DeeSpencer

Some people need to watch the VFL or training or even the Melbourne game. McKenzie is everything we need right now. Take the good with the bad. Nicholson is worse but what option do we have. Please name a Wing man on our list we could replace him with. Barry and Kent are miles from afl. Rodan doesn't cover the ground. Taggert the same and is still getting eased in at AFL. Don't even start me on Blease. Sylvia, Grimes, Viney, Toumpas after a preseason, a fit Clisby, a fit Byrnes or Watts. Plenty of options but right now Nicholson is all we have.

oh god.

I like the dogs. Everyone talks about their lack of forward line but I think it's a bit misleading. Young Jones is a nice prospect and compares pretty equally with Chris Dawes and has a lot of improvement left. They'll need to find another but you can win a lot of games with less. Also Roughead down back is doing a very nice job. Again they'll need another key back but I wouldn't despair. Where they are miles in front of us is in the midfield: Cooney and Griffen should stick around for a while as Boyd and Cross go and they are bringing through Stevens (nice depth midfielder), Libba (Very good clearance player), Wallis (again reasonable depth mid), Clay Smith, McRae, Stringer (forward/mid type), Dahlhaus (forward/mid) and Hrovath. If there is one place they are equal with us though its how much tripe is on their list. They've got their own Tom Gillies and co in spades. Find me an AFL player out of: Grant, Veszpremi, Williams (What happened to him), Addison, Markovic, Campbell, will Ayce Cordy even make it?, Tutt (3 goals on debut then never seen), Christian Howard is their Sam Blease - all talent, no output. That's 9 guys or a quarter of your list. If you divide a list into best 22, 9 for depth and 9 development kids then their depth has very little potential. Their rookie list - Mark Austin (Carlton reject), Jack Redpath (country footballer), Lin Jong (the Asian Majak?), Greenwood who I don't know and the best of the lot in Goodes who is 28 or whatever. I mean it screams the kind of desperation that we keep going for. Another problem for the dogs is that 2 players who should be at their peaks and adding class to the backline and forward line in Easton Wood and Shaun Higgins are perpetually injured.

I think the extent of Gold Coast senior and experienced leaders in Ablett and that's about it. Brown can be a head case. Brennan;s and Rischitelli's form wax and wane and Harbrow has been just a player but thats me. And don't even get me started on Bock. Although Warnock has been a good foot soldier for them and has let them develop Rory Thompson from 4th string ruckman to very nice CHB prospect. Here's the thing about Melbourne though - we've been rebuilding since 2008 (or even mid 2007) back when Gold Coast were just a glimmer in Demetriou's eye. We've had Morton, Grimes, Maric, Watts, Blease, Strauss, Scully, Trengove, Gysberts, Tapscott, Cook all taken in the top 22 picks. Now if you forget 2008-2011 and say when Neeld took over in 2011 we were right back at ground zero again and rebuilding the rebuild well since then we've only added the 2 big forwards and Viney and Toumpas as top selections so yes we will be miles behind the riches given to GWS and GC. But I just don't think Neeld is at all right. Some of the names above as well as lesser types were going ok under Bailey and Neeld aim should've been to refocus the rebuild not make us worse. Yes he needed to go get a key forward in Clark to straighten us up. But after that he shouldl've said ok I've got Frawley, McDonald, Sellar, Garland, Rivers, Grimes, Strauss etc down back I can teach these guys into a strong unit. I've got Moloney, Jones, Trengove, McKenzie in the middle ok I've got some blokes to win contested ball and tackle, thats a good start. Up forward he could've said I've brought in Mitch Clark how can I get the best out of Watts, Howe, Sylvia and Brad Green for however long he has left and find some small types. At the end of the day whatever Bailey was doing wasn't working, I get that. But I don't understand how that translates into taking a team capable of up and down performances and still with the ability to beat sides on its day and turn it into a complete mess that has been beaten in almost every quarter of the year. The only reason we beat GWS is that they got so tired running so hard winning a game they fell in a mess. I'd love to see us work so hard taking it up to a better team and then crumble in the last quarter, it would show that we have some talent in their after all.

Yep got him for Gilham. Lets just hope we asked for Anderson and they said no thanks. We were already getting Hogan and 20 for 3 and 13. You wouldn't think they'd add Anderson who was highly regarded as top 20 worthy compared to Barry who was more 30-50. I'm not having a go at Dom. I'm just saying if he's going to end up a star or capable AFL wingman/running defender etc he'd want to show that he can mix it with the VFL boys. I don't expect him to get 25 each week but if he can hold his spot that's a good start.

Was a poor trade but I don't think Gysberts will ever make it as more than a depth player. He lacks the speed and skills for mine to play outside. He can accumulate through clever positioning and is a smart clearance player but will he ever get the quick first step and strong body required to be a pure inside player? For mine the best he'll be isn't much better than a Matt Jones. I think in Neeld's mind he was thinking well we can get a Matt Jones in the midfield mix and a Pedersen as a back up ruck forward and we've got 2 starters right now. Or we can stuff around waiting for Gysberts to get the body required to get near AFL midfield strength or fitness (regardless if that was his attitude or not) and have Stef Martin never taking an overhead mark in his life. That's where I see that trade being at.

Yeah that was a nice goal and the ruck work was great. But under Bailey Moloney did all those things and almost every time we played a half decent midfield he went completely to water. 15 disposals just isn't enough, most teams, Essendon included have 5 or so midfielders who offer more than Moloney. Essendon alone have Goddard, Watson, Stanton, Hocking, Heppell and Zaharakis. The fact is that Neeld challenged Moloney to add hard defensive running and other things to his game. The things that take your game to the level needed to be in a consistently good side. As i said before Neeld should've motivated him in ways that got him to stay at Melbourne and still play some effective footy. For that reason it will be one of Neeld's failures. But what should we expect from a coach coming in? That he says to Moloney oh ok you've done a nice job of being spoonfed by Jamar and shoving the ball forward generally to no one and not being a great defensive worker. That's good, we will keep that up and expect the rest of the team to improve around you. I'm glad Neeld didn't do that. Instead he said lets try Jones in that position and guess what he's even better than you at it. Unfortunately playing him forward and dropping him to Casey was a step too far from Neeld. Also unfortunately now Jones gets a bloke jumping on him and there is no one to replace Jones in the rest of the midfield positions.

He's never displayed any ounce of decision making ability. Yes he's balanced and can kick but he just can't think and run at the same time. Maybe we might trick another team in to wanting him and trade him at the end of the year.

Yeah he was ok, but how many good players in the AFL even had to play reserves. When I think of guys who started out in the VFL reserves I think of Spencer, Juice Newton, Kyle Cheney - guys who end up being good VFL players but never make the step into AFL. I feel like if Barry is going to make it he'd want to at least cement himself a spot in the VFL by the end of the year.

The case for: - We suck The case against: Watson takes a mark on Moloney in the forward line late in the 4th quarter, plus Moloney does very little for most of the game = Continued poor performances and little defense against better teams. The case for still probably wins

Blease might be remodeled into something and it's too early to give up on Barry but.... At the moment it's only Taggert and Hogan who I think are really AFL players in waiting.

A 210 match finishes at 4:45 so really I think it's all about tv. TV is the reason all games are at random times these days

Why? Surely Majak Daw should be celebrated for his culture and not because of his culture. I do believe you can be over emphatic about someones race and have it draw against their feats. Not many people talking about how good Tom Lynch is for a slow white bloke or a red head are there! They are talking up his ability and 10 goal haul.

Does Kelly O'Donnell's director of pro scouting role expand to the VFL? I thought it was purely other AFL players? Obviously that would mean watching VFL and some other state leagues I understand. But he'd be largely responsible for Rodan, Byrnes and Gillies who have been underwhelming as well. Only Byrnes has got a pass and maybe Rodan a pass off the field. Surely Terlich would've been recruited mainly by the scouts in South Australia?

Yep and if flash lets him again he may as well run to the bench, grab the sub vest and never play again. People wonder why we keep letting our leaders go but its because they have as much heart as Davey has showed recently.

Meh. We've had our Clint Bartrams over the time. Morris is good and would mean we wouldn't have to play the likes of Nicholson but I'd rather a Cotchin or Martin. Hell I'd take an Shane Tuck to play hard clearance footy and keep playing wtih a broken scapula.

Kelly O'Donnell and Tim Harrington are surely 2 of the first out the door if Peter Jackson is wanting to rejuvinate the football department.

Yeah I don't like the move especially after getting Dawes and Hogan I really don't think Pedersen is any better than Sellar as a defender. Really we will need to delist guys like Davis or Fitzpatrick who will get to the same level as Pedersen and might have more scope for development. Still it's one player and it is what it is. I'm really not worried about our talls situation. We might end up delisting Davis and Spencer and keeping the rest for the next two years anyway. It's the midfielders where we need aggressive turnover and improvement.

If I was Neeld I'd say that as well. Otherwise he really is screwed

How nice it would be to have pick 1 in this draft and the rights to Tom Boyd who apparently is a bigger badder John Patton and due to our overzealous recruitment of Hogan, Dawes and Clark end up conducting an auction with the dogs and co to trade him for say pick 3 and a ready made midfielder. Nothing surer than us picking the next Tambling at 3 and them getting the next Franklin. But we just couldn't afford to keep Dawes and Clark and develop a top draft pick with Hogan.

Probably. I just don't know where we are at. Nothing the players do seems to be constructive. Maybe after the Carlton game he was happy because we did some defensive work but we practically played without a forward line. The closest to playing his style of game plan was in his first NAB cup against Collingwood at Etihad. Since then we've just been all over the place and so has his message. He's completely lost me and I think he's lost the players as well. They just can't get it right. Dawes in the paper this week said that their GPS numbers were above average in the league. Which confirms something our players are running around like headless chooks. Whilst Geelong are starting to re invent the game again by instead of all diving in after the footy they are letting teams unbalance themselves with over attack at the contests and keeping their space. Simple really when every one says oh look AFL is become a game like rugby where everyone just keeps pilling in like a big scrum. And here comes Chris Scott and he's committed only a few men to the breakdown and has everyone else lining up in defense ready to win the ball back and run off with it. You'd think Neeld would realise that even if you can't win games because players haven't grasped his silly structures that you'd strip it back and at least nail some fundamentals and get tackling, chasing, manning the mark, basic handballing to space and kicking right.

Find me a woman who can play soccer as well as say the A-League or the English championship and you might be started. Soccer is a game that involves a lot of skill, plenty of pace and some fitness and strength. I'm not sure the best female soccer player could get close. Now AFL is a game that requires tremendous speed, strength, fitness and top it off with skill. I'm not convinced any woman will ever have that. For one the lean body mass required to play AFL is amazing. Just to get a woman strong and fast enough would likely mean she's carrying some extra weight. Look at female tennis players, to get strong and fast enough they often look much more bulky on average than the men. Federer and Djokovic are lean athletetes where as Serena Williams, Sharapova and Wozniacki whilst not at all fat are much more bulky. We will never have a proper natural woman good enough to play AFL unless evolution takes a chance and men and women become more equal physically.

Time to play Davey again Id say and Kent or even Bail maybe from the bench? No point having Davey sub each and every week when we are getting smashed

In some ways I feel we are mainly judging him off one game. The ankle injury obvious set him back for the start of the year, he wasn't ready and we rightly didn't stick by him. But the Brisbane game was a huge concern. Offered nothing defensively and then was just a rushed mess with the ball. It's a shame it has to happen but a run at Casey is in his best interest. After that if we can just find enough form for him to play deep it will be great

I can't believe we are stuffing around getting involved in women's football. Some sports are made for different sexes, football is great for blokes and netball for women. Does that mean I hate women's footy of course not. And it's great that women can play. But you don't see Melbourne donating effort to men's netball or men's local footy. So I don't see why we'd support women's football, just a waste of time and effort. That's my 2 cents